My Young Staff Are Being Asked About It

She is nineteen and she is on the register on her own from four until eight.

That is the shift. It is a fine shift and she is good at it and she has been doing it for seven months.

And since the whole business happened, people have been asking her about it.

Not aggressively, mostly. But asking. Standing at a register asking a nineteen year old to account for a decision made by people whose names she does not know in a place she has never been.

You found out on Thursday, because she mentioned it in the way young people mention things, sideways, while doing something else. She said it happens about four times a shift.

Four times a shift, for six weeks, and she had not said anything.

Here is what has been on you since Thursday.

You have not given her any words.

You have your own three clauses. You worked those out for yourself and you use them and they work. And it did not occur to you until Thursday that the person who is on the register from four until eight has never been given anything at all.

So she has been inventing something four times a shift, at nineteen, in front of adults, with nobody to check it against.

There is a verse written to a young person in exactly that position and it is stronger than most people remember.

Let no man despise thy youth

Paul writes to somebody young who has been put in a hard position.

Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. (1 Timothy 4:12, King James Version)

Let no man despise thy youth. That is not a note to the young man about self-confidence. It is an instruction about what the room is allowed to do.

And then the second half is a list of specific things: word, conversation, charity, spirit, faith, purity. Concrete areas. Nothing vague.

You have somebody young who was never meant to be left to invent it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gave that letter to a young man in a hard spot. 1 Timothy 4:12 hands a young person specifics rather than encouragement, and He gave him particulars.

Now notice who is doing the equipping in that letter.

Paul is. The older one. The one who has done it before and has words for it. The entire letter is an older person handing a younger person actual language for actual situations.

That is not a coincidence and it is not sentiment. It is the shape of how this works.

You are the one holding the words in that building, and Scripture puts the handing over in the hands of whoever has done it before. The Spirit of God is the one who arranged it that way, and it is written in 1 Timothy 4 as one person equipping another with particulars.

And here is the thing about nineteen that will help you get it right.

At nineteen a person does not lack courage. She has plenty. What she lacks is a sentence, and courage without a sentence turns into either over-explaining or going quiet, and both of those cost her something in front of an adult.

You have been letting somebody spend courage where a sentence would have done, and it is written that a young person is to be given the specifics rather than the encouragement. The Holy Spirit is the one who put her on that register and He is the one asking you to hand her the words.

Give them the actual words

Let me be plain about what to do, because a general conversation about it will not help her at four o'clock.

Do not tell her to use her judgment. She has been using her judgment for six weeks and that is exactly the problem. Give her the words instead: the actual sentences, out loud, so she hears them in a voice before she has to say them in her own.

Something like: I do not know why it happened. My manager is here until six and I can get her. And I am sorry, it must be frustrating.

Three sentences. All true. None of them requires her to explain anything she does not know.

You are handing over language rather than a policy, and 1 Timothy 4:12 gives a young person specifics in every area named. The Spirit of God is the one who makes borrowed words become a person's own after about the fourth time, and He does that quickly at nineteen.

And add the second half, which is the part that matters more.

Tell her she can hand it to you. Any time, without checking, without apologizing, and that she will never be in trouble for saying she is getting somebody.

Because the real weight on a nineteen year old at a register is not the question. It is the belief that she has to handle it alone.

You are able to take the alone out of it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who has been beside her for six weeks of it. The written word puts an older person's language into a younger person's mouth on purpose, and 1 Timothy 4 is where the equipping belongs.

Say the words out loud to them

So here is the thing to do, and it is this week, and it is out loud. Gather the youngest two or three. Not a meeting. In the middle of a shift, by the counter.

Say the actual sentences out loud, and have them say them back once, which will be awkward and is worth the awkwardness.

Then tell them plainly that they can get you any time and will never be in trouble for it.

You are equipping somebody rather than reassuring them, and 1 Timothy 4:12 hands a young person the particulars rather than a feeling. The Spirit of God is the one who is present for that, and He does not need it to be a formal thing.

The reason they have to say it back is that a sentence heard is not a sentence available. It has to have been in a person's own mouth once before it will come out at four o'clock in front of a stranger.

Ten minutes by a counter. Six weeks of a nineteen year old inventing it ends there.

You have ten minutes that change what happens four times a shift, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes them stick after the fourth time. Scripture puts the words into a young person's hands rather than leaving them to find their own, and 1 Timothy 4:12 is the whole warrant for handing them over.

Then open in the morning and let them use them.