A Proper Confidence: The Prophetic Nature of Adolescent Discipleship

This paper argues that to help adolescents respond to Jesus’ call to pick up their cross and follow him, the contemporary Pentecostal/Charismatic practice of prophecy/revelatory experience must be reimagined and framed within the ministry of Christ. Without this Christocentric framework these experiences are reduced to immediate therapeutic experiences of individual flourishing and are not sufficient to redefine the adolescent’s past and offer direction for a future developing faith identity. Synthesis of Walter Brueggemann’s The Prophetic Imagination, with adolescent identity formation and critique of the contemporary Pentecostal practice of prophecy highlights implications for realigned practice in order to foster the confidence in adolescent believers to form counter cultural identities in light of the Coming Kingdom.