Positive Peer Pressure?

According to dictionary.com, peer pressure is “social pressure by members of one’s peer group to take a certain action, adopt certain values, or otherwise conform in order to be accepted.”

Every human knows, especially teens, how detrimental peer pressure can be.  Bad effects such as poor self esteem and becoming anorexic, drinking, doing drugs, and more can result.  However…could there be such a thing as positive peer pressure?

Yes, I believe there is.  And though back in the day of being in youth group we first started the term jokingly, it does have valid points.  For instance, if you’re trying to tell a friend about Jesus and convince them that Jesus does love them and becoming a Christian is the right thing to do, aren’t you pressuring that person?  Yes, you are.  Will it make them go and do drugs?  No, not unless they’ve been doing it anyway.  It is a positive pressure you’re putting on that friend.  Therefore, it does exist.

It’s interesting to note that most teens are adversely affected by bad peer pressure because of low self esteem and the feeling that they aren’t good enough unless everyone else approves, while teens who have good self esteem because they know they are children of God use positive peer pressure to try and get others, usually the older generations, to get on board and get radical for God.  Those positively pressured squirm as they think that maybe God does have more for them, that maybe there’s more to the Christian walk than they ever imagined.

So how else can radical Christians and especially teens use positive peer pressure?  They can pressure their peers to stay strong in the rough times, to follow after God even when it’s hard; to be pushed toward boldness and courage and to be stopped from doing something harmful.  The best kind of positive peer pressure is (and it makes sense) the exact opposite of bad peer pressure: To be like Jesus, not the world, and to be a shining light and not conform to the darkness.  Philippians 2:15-16 says, “that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.”  We are also instructed in 1 Peter 1:16, “because it is written, ‘Be holy, for I am holy.’”

The one day in Sunday school our youth group was discussing the alter calls that our pastor had been extending to the congregation almost every Sunday recently, and how few people would go up, if any.  Our youth leader joined the discussion and together we all decided that people in our church, as with many Brethren and Mennonite churches in the area as well as our area in general, were much too nosy and judgmental.  We thought that surely, there should be nothing wrong with going up for an alter call; it didn’t mean that you just committed some big sin or weren’t saved, but that you need more of God in your life and forgiveness for daily sins that all humans commit because we are not perfect like Christ.

The decision we made was that at the next alter call, all of us would go up to the front in an act of “positive peer pressure” towards the rest of the church.  I said, joking, that I should write a book, “Positive Peer Pressure for Your Church,” if we could come up with more examples.  However, is it really so much a joke?

There are biblical examples of this as well.  David danced in the streets in worship to God and his wife got angry at him.  I consider what David did a form of positive peer pressure.  He was listening to what God was telling him to do and it made those around him (his wife) uncomfortable.  Take also the Apostles, especially in the book of Acts.  How often did they preach in the cities they went to, among even those who wanted to have them jailed or killed?  They preached, they healed, they started movements for God by making people very uncomfortable.  They encouraged the Jews to look to Christ, the One who sent the Holy Spirit, whose name held the power to do the signs and wonders they were witnessing.  In the Old Testament, the Israelites (well, when they weren’t rebelling and forgetting about God) lived out their faith in the God who led them out of Egypt, and even travelers had to abide by the laws of God.  They boldly lived out their faith, encouraging each other to do the same.

This is a challenge to all who read this post, especially teens.  Teens have a big responsibility in the church, even if that is not common thought.  Paul tells Timothy to not let people look down on him because of his youth but to be an example (1 Timothy 4:12) in all things good.  In other words, positive peer pressure.  And yes, in the case that I’ve been making, “peers” are those in the church.  After all, in Christ we are all brothers and sisters.

What kind of positive peer pressure can you exert among your brethren in Christ? Too many people seem wary of making others uncomfortable – but in reality, I’d say it’s good for them. No one ever changes by being perfectly content with the way things are.