Attention Span

I am very often baffled by some youth's behavior in the YPG meetings.

They get sooooooo easily distracted. Why?

Before going any further, let's analyze their behavior at school first for comparison's sake.

From what I heard, 'cause I never went to school here in America, a student can spend 6 to 8 hours in school, DAILY.

Some of them have told me that after 2 hours of class your head begins spinning around. You feel like asking the teacher for a break, before the real break time.

Well, they can't do that. So, they re-gain concentration and force their brains to focus on the particular subject. There isn't much choice. They have to be there no matter what. Otherwise they bomb out, flop at the end of the year.

To think of the possibility of having to be an employee for the rest of their lives, never becoming financially independent or seeing their peers becoming successful when they are just one more among the crowd is very painful. 

Specially if you have someone in your family like an uncle or cousin, maybe even one of your parents who never achieved anything great in life. You say to yourself, 'No way I will end up like one of them!'

Okay. Now, let's talk about the YPG now. The time spent in the youth meetings, which varies between an hour to an hour and half, twice a week only, is no where near to the seven hours spent inside classrooms daily. 

Please, don't get me wrong, but some teachers are way more boring them we pastors!

In some of the meetings the youths are even allowed to share their opinion and thoughts. They hear testimonies of other youths whose lives have been changed dramatically, we take sometime to talk to God, express our feelings, etc. All this in 1 hour!

It goes without saying that on Sundays we have a lot of fun, which in a classroom it'd be impossible to happen.

Why is it then that they cannot remember what was preached last Sunday in the YPG meeting?

Why is it that they show less interest in absorbing as much of the message as possible, knowing their lives depend on that very Word? 

Why is it that they come one week or two and miss four or five? 

Aren't we dealing with something much more important than career here? 

Something called LIFE?

Can we be TRULY be successful in life without God's companionship? Can we? 

Hence, as I said right at the beginning of this blog, this whole attitude baffles me.

I wonder if they are expecting to show God their report card, where it shows that they were A+ students, in order to be accepted into His Kingdom.

Pr Luke Castro

YPG National Coordinator