I’m not a huge fan of Frank Martin—the former South Carolina and current UMass basketball coach. If you’re unfamiliar, he’s the massive, infamously intense-looking coach known for an eyebrow-raised scowl that makes grown men melt into a puddle of their own tears.

However, during his team’s Final Four run in 2017, Martin produced one of the most life-altering quotes about kids I’ve ever heard. During a media session, a nervous interviewer from the gallery asked a question that started something like this: “How do you get kids these days…”

The phrase immediately set Martin off.

I don’t know the quote of his response verbatim but the effect of it was something like this, “I hate it when people say ‘kids these days’—as if everything in the world is a young person’s fault.

A baby comes into this world knowing absolutely nothing. Everything they learn is taught to them by someone. Now tell me, if the world isn’t so great today, who’s fault is it really?”

It’s my fault. It’s your fault. It’s an adult problem.

I’ll never hear someone say, “Kids these days” the same way again. We’ve got to do something. The onus is on us. So, what do we do?

As a former longtime middle school teacher and current youth pastor, I’ve spent a lot of time in the front of classrooms and churches preaching to students, but that’s not where the most influential moments of my career have happened.

The most impactful learning opportunities for students take place when I’m living my life with them on bus rides, at fast food restaurants, around backyard fires and in gymnasiums. That’s where they see the “real” me. I’ve learned that the most important lessons I teach are a lot more about what I do than what I say.

I often preach to my students about valuing others more than ourselves. Can they see that in the way that I listen to them? I preach about forgiveness and grace. Do I ever give them room to make a mistake? I preach about humility and repentance. Do they ever hear me say “I’m sorry”? I preach about loving with excellence. Do they see that in the way I treasure my wife? I preach about overlooking offenses. Do they see me honor God in that way? I preach about contentment. Do they see me live with joy in spite of my circumstances?

Am I the example they so desperately need? Are you?

My hope and prayer for all of us is that we can confidently say along with the apostle Paul in 1st Corinthians 11:1, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.”

Our young people need that from us. 78

Philip A. Williams serves as the student pastor at Glory Fellowship Baptist Church in Jasper.