While I was growing up, my church youth group shaped me incredibly. I looked forward to being with my friends every chance that I had. There are a ton of memories from summer camps, events, and weekly youth group. However, as I look back, I can't remember hardly any of the messages that my youth pastors gave on Sunday nights. But there is one message that has stuck with me over the years and influenced my life.
Friendship and Dating
As a teenager, I wanted to know what the opposite sex was doing, what they were thinking, and what they were thinking about me! Of course, that is typical. As a former youth pastor, it was obvious which girls were interested in which boys, and vice versa. That regularly led to conversations with both students and parents about when to start dating and a biblical perspective on it. I always leaned on that one message I heard in my youth group.
While the Bible doesn't speak directly to dating because it was not a part of the culture in those times, it does have a lot to say about relationships and how we treat people. In fact, we have the greatest example of all in Jesus as we see how he loved, sacrificed, and cared for people. We should be looking at people through the same lens that Jesus did. When we do, it answers a lot of questions for us about dating and gives us great instruction.
Practicing Friendship Comes First
When I am asked if middle or high school students should date and at what age is appropriate, I always steer the conversation toward practicing friendship. Our relationships with the opposite sex shouldn't begin romantically at the dating stage but should begin with a normal friendship.
Too often a guy or a girl sees each other, there is a level of attraction, and that emotion and feeling lead directly to some sort of exclusive dating relationship. My question is always, "Why would you want to do that?" The reality is that this approach skips integral steps in the progression of any relationship and greatly lessens the chance of it succeeding or ending amicably.
Six Steps of a Healthy Relationship
The idea of practicing friendship is to take every relationship in our life and progress through natural, healthy steps.
-
Greeting
-
Interaction
-
Social interaction
-
Caring
-
Sharing
-
Intimacy
These steps are fairly self-explanatory. You can see a natural progression that builds a deeper level of trust and vulnerability as it goes. If you skip the caring step and move on to sharing, there is a greater risk that you will share some deep secrets or truths about yourself with someone that can't be trusted. And sadly it might end up coming back to bite you later. No one meets someone for the first time and then becomes their best friend five minutes later. These steps take time and investment, and getting them out of order can lead to hurt and pain.
The same is true in dating relationships. For some reason, we want to skip most of these steps and get to the intimacy stage. Oftentimes we see teenagers (and even adults) jump ahead to physical intimacy. Without trust and commitment, this is a recipe for disaster!
I always recommend following these steps in all relationships, and not all relationships will lead to the deepest level. Sometimes we learn we can't trust someone or we aren't comfortable being open and vulnerable with them. That is always good to learn before we act with trust or speak with vulnerability.
We Benefit from Practicing Friendship First
So, when asked about dating age and guidelines, I always recommend they "practice friendship" with everyone. The better you get at being in relationships, the better chance of having healthy dating relationships. One day you will meet someone that you are attracted to and find that over time you want to continue progressing in the relationship with them. Then you can do it in a healthy way that cares for both yourself and the other person.
And even better, if you find that the person you were initially attracted to is not a good match and you don't want to enter into that level of a relationship with them, you found that out as a friend rather than with all kinds of emotions, labels, and expectations attached. You can save yourself from a lot of hurt and heartache.
Practicing Friendship Honors God
Handling relationships with people of the opposite gender this way, and with all people, is God-honoring. It loves as he loves. It cares as he cares. It protects as he protects. And it is an incredible witness to others of the gospel because it is counter to what we regularly see in our culture.
Thank you, Pastor Leon, for teaching me this lesson. I have taught it to hundreds of teenagers since I heard it from you. I hope it has the same effect on them as it has had on me.