How Do We Treat Those Student Drivers? (Nov. 15 Lesson Application)

This “Application” column goes with the Bible Lesson for Nov. 15, 2020: Teach What Is Appropriate (Titus 2:1-15)

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By David Faust

My 16-year-old granddaughter is learning how to drive. On a recent Sunday afternoon, I tossed Kayla the car keys and sat next to her in the passenger seat while she drove around our church’s empty parking lot. She practiced parallel parking, inching the car between the painted lines. At one point she accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the brake pedal and we sped toward the curb. As we jerked to a stop she exclaimed, “I’m sorry, Papa!” My immediate impulse was to shout, “What in the world did you think you were doing?” Instead, by God’s grace and because I love my granddaughter so much, I heard myself saying calmly, “That’s why you need to keep practicing.”

Soon we left the empty parking lot and drove back to my house. Kayla steered the car onto a busy four-lane street, carefully staying in her lane and observing the 40 mph speed limit. Other drivers, though, weren’t so patient. Cars whizzed past us, and one driver, frustrated by our slow speed, pulled close to our back bumper and leaned on his horn. I wondered, Would he have been more patient if my car bore a sign that said, “Student Driver”?

Keychain Leadership

In a relay race, runners pass the baton to their teammates who follow after them. They’ll lose the race if they fumble the handoff.

Are we preparing the next generation for leadership? Ready or not, they will take on positions of responsibility in business, government, education, and public safety—and they will lead God’s church. Kara Powell, Jake Mulder, and Brad Griffin, authors of Growing Young: Six Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church (Baker Books, 2016), use the illustration of “keychain leadership.” Keys symbolize access, influence, and responsibility. When you are old enough, you get a house key and eventually a key to your own office. The authors explain, “Keys provide access to physical rooms and spaces as well as strategic meetings, significant decisions and central roles or places of authority. The more power you have, the more keys you tend to possess. . . . If you are willing to entrust your keys to young people, they will trust you with their hearts, their energy, their creativity and even their friends.”

Older adults have a choice to make about the leadership transfer. Will we clutch the keys as long as we can, refusing to let go? Will we sit on the sidelines and pout? Will we allow our frustrations to fester and become impatient tailgaters, honking our horns to express our displeasure while younger leaders find their way? Or will we sit in the passenger seat alongside them, letting them drive but offering our support? Reggie Joiner puts it bluntly: “You have only one of two choices: (1) You can desperately hold on to your job until someone inevitably replaces you. (2) You can prepare someone to do what you do and strategically replace yourself.”

Paul came alongside a younger leader and told Titus, “Teach what is appropriate. . . . Encourage the young men to be self-controlled. . . . Set them an example by doing what is good. . . . In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech” (Titus 2:1-8). That’s good advice, because someday all of us will hand over the keys.

PERSONAL CHALLENGE: Take a couple of younger leaders out to lunch. Don’t just talk and teach; listen and learn. Ask how you can help them, encourage them, and pray for them.