Middle School gets a bad rap. 

To be clear, it’s every bit as challenging, frustrating, and developmentally-demanding as you remember. There’s first crushes, growth spurts, acne, body odor, locker combinations, class schedules, band practice, basketball tryouts, and a rapidly developing prefrontal cortex. There’s leadership skills coming out as arguments with parents and creativity coming out as resistance to rule-following. And no matter what else changes, adolescence stays hard.

It’s also, in my experience, the time when humans are most open to trying new things and exploring new ideas. Middle schoolers are developed enough to think deeply about their lives and the world around them, but open enough to consider that they don’t have it all figured out yet. Middle schoolers will have a serious conversation in one breath and race paper airplanes across the room in the next. Their sense of humor is just as sharp as their ability to detect when somebody is trying to talk down to them. They’re delighted to be role models for younger kids and excited to goof around when it’s just them. Middle schoolers are edging out into maturity and independence, a process that continues through high school and even beyond.

For all these reasons and more, we’ve been hosting “After VBS” this year– an hour of Bible study, conversation, and activities aimed right at the youth of our congregation, three evenings after the little kids go home from Vacation Bible School. Our focus is the life of Jacob in Genesis, and it’s given us plenty to wrestle with.

The first night, we read about Jacob’s birth: second born, always second to his older twin brother in their father’s eyes, but willing to scheme his way into what he wanted. We talked about the pressure to live up to somebody else’s expectations and the feeling of not being perfectly aligned with society’s standards. We reflected on the difference it makes to be welcomed and affirmed as you are, just because you’re God’s child. Then I handed them window markers and told them to go write messages on the bathroom mirrors to reflect that message to everyone who reads it.

Middle schoolers get it. I was all set to give them ideas of things to write, to coach them through ideas of messages to leave. They didn’t need that. They knew what Jacob or anybody else who’s ever felt inadequate needs to read: “You matter.” “God loves you.” One who had already memorized the VBS theme verse wrote, “Whenever I’m afraid, I put my trust in you.”

If you’re looking for a role model in faith, consider a fourteen-year-old. I know they’re teaching me.