Meaty Monday: The issues we face with church and our youth

Jim - this is indeed a struggle for many if not most of us. We have been blessed to have a woman working part time with our youth and children but it's not a quick fix. Like you most of our young people are children and only a few youth. Now with more care placed in policies for sexual abuse protection can you even meet at all if only one adult and one youth shows? An interesting thing we've heard about are in neighboring large church in our presbytery with a seeming vibrant youth program they have 100 or more youth come out to events but have over hundreds if not 1000 youth on the role. So perhaps when you look at percentages we are not doing so bad if only 2 kids come out thats 50%! but the critical mass thing is a problem, I know.

Anyway, I believe the key here lies in what has been said already that we have bought into a lie of age segregation. So many biblical images for the community of faith are given in language of family beginning with God as a Father. In Ephesians Paul talks about becomign a part of the household of God. Maybe we are looking at it, in the traditional sense, in the wrong way. And then even in the large youth groups statistics say that many of those kids do not connect with church in college.

If I'm not mistaken I think that some of the rapidly growing quasi emergy type churches -- for example like Mars Hill, Mark Driscoll -- have childcare to age ten or so and then everybody is together in worship. Not positive about that but I think so.

And there is an old scottish pastor William Still - great book THE WORK OF THE PASTOR. He had even kids in worship and would ask them to take a paper and draw. He wanted them to listen to the scripture. then listen to at least a wee bit of the sermon and then draw about what they heard as a way to engage them into corporate worship at a young age. I guess that's not rocket science but I know I could be more intentional about such things.

Sorry to go on so long. No doubt this subject is troubling for the future.

-Mark Hunt

Of course your ministry rubbed off on me, J-Bo! No doubt about it.

I'm taking my youth to a presbytery retreat this weekend... maybe I'll meet my future husband there. ;-)

Karen, so great to hear from you! I'm more than happy to provide a reason for you to avoid writing papers...i'm also happy to know that "my" youth ministry with you rubbed off and you are now in the trenches doing it ; ) Ok, i doubt that I really had much to do with it...

I really like this and I do think with you that it should be the overriding philosophy, regardless of what else we think it should be, when it comes to youth ministry: "youth ministry should be providing a place where youth feel loved, safe, and valued."

Well said!

Hey Jim... instead of finishing the papers I have due tomorrow, I found myself reading your blog.

I've been working for the past two years as the part-time youth director at a 200-person church outside of Houston. We have about 12 (on an extraordinarily good day) middle- and high school-aged youth. Maybe that's more than you have, but I think it's a similar situation. If more than three show up for Sunday School on Sunday mornings, we throw a party.

I think it's interesting that your third point/question has to do with the objective of youth ministry. I think that all of the emphases that you articulated are too narrowly-defined. When it comes down to it, what youth ministry should be providing is a place where youth feel loved, safe, and valued. I may not "have a clue as to what I'm doing in ministry with my kids" but I don't think that matters. I have strong relationships with them, and they know that when they come to P.A.L.S. (Presbyterians Are Loving Souls -- clever, huh?) on Sunday nights, they can be themselves and be accepted. What's important is our relationships. Sometimes that means our Sunday nights are focused on Bible study and faith, sometimes I try to impart my ideas of social justice, and sometimes we just play silly games. But I don't think that the focus of each meeting is the goal of my ministry. The goal is to form meaningful relationships that will last for a long time.

When I was a camp counselor, the only piece of instruction we got was to love our campers. And that's still how I see my role as "youth director." I love the youth in my church, and the rest is just details. Maybe that answer seems too simplistic, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary to have a huge group of people or to have a detailed objective for your youth ministry. What youth need and want is a place where they can go and feel valued for exactly who they are. And I think that's what church should be for them. It should be a place where they can explore anything and everything, while knowing that no one will judge their thoughts or ideas.

Even though I know this response is getting long, I'll include a final anecdote. As I've gotten deeper and deeper into this position as youth director, I've thought more and more about my own experiences in youth ministry (which were only about five years ago -- I still don't ever feel old enough to be a "chaperone"). And the thing is, I can't remember exactly what games we played or what we talked about each Sunday night at HSF. I can't articulate what I learned from going to HSF every week. But what I do remember is the lasting relationships I formed with Steve Huston (we still talk on a regular basis) and my friends from church (who are still my closest friends).

In response to the above responses... my youth are completely responsible for a Youth Sunday worship service in the fall (we even got in trouble for it this year because we showed movie clips from Saved!) and for the Good Friday service in the spring. And, the youth host social events (in the fall a Bingo night and most recently a Valentine's Day party) for everyone in the congregation. As for resources... I've been reading Postmodern Youth Ministry.

Anyway, that's my two cents (and then some). I hope you're doing well... it's been such a long time since I've seen you!

Hey Kim, I don't mind long comments that are on point!!

I have wondered about partnership with other churches, especially in our town since we have so many small Presby churches (and two big ones) it seems like it would make sense for our smaller churces to get together and do something.

Why can't those churches partner together, hire a staff person, and do youth ministry together? Why does each church have to try to do their own youth ministry poorly??

What kind of things do your kids do and how do they contribute to the worship planning?

Great post, Jim.

Wow, we serve churches that are almost the same in terms of membership and numbers of children & youth in elementary, middle, & high school!

We also face the same challenges as far as how busy the youth are. When I arrived we only had two who were in sr. high - one was so busy with sports he didn't want to be involved, the other wanted to be involved but she was the only one. So, she attends Bible study with an independent church in town. I've offered that she could host the group at our church, but in our little town there is a strange separation between mainline denominational churches and the independent churches - the latter see the former as being too liberal and think if they engage with us they will be signing on the dotted line somehow. But that's another story...

At the last meeting of our local minister's association, it was suggested that we go to the school board and to try to get them to not have events on Wednesdays - I guess here, too, it used to be Wednesdays were off nights for school activities so they could be involved in church but they got away from that. The pastor who is the de facto leader of the association and well-known in town will be working on this, so we'll see. But it doesn't make much sense to do that if we don't have a plan in place for what to do if they have an evening free. And hey, I know how I feel when I have an evening free - I want to stay home! So why should I expect the youth to feel differently?

Apparently there has been some success here with the local congregations uniting to do youth groups and host events on a rotating basis. A former youth director who has moved into town and is attending the Episcopal church has offered to do just that, so maybe we'll get something going.

I do involve the youth in planning and leading in worship. Interestingly, our youth all really like more traditional worship, including music. They've been exposed to contemporary worship, but find the traditional approach so much more meaningful. That was a discovery I made last year during confirmation!

As far as books go, Mark Yaconelli's "Contemplative Youth Ministry" was recommended to me by a few people. I've yet to read it, but there's another suggestion for you . . .

Sorry this is so long, and I know I didn't give any answers, but at least we know there are more of us out here struggling with this same thing!

Jake: Thanks for the book suggestion. I just got on the phone and ordered it from my local bookstore.

Interestingly we seem to have a few kids who don't do the computer social network thing (or if they do they hide it pretty well), I'm not sure if it's because they just don't care, or their parents don't let them or what...

I like the idea of having kids more involved in the worship planning and services. We certainly have a long way to go to make that happen, but my guess is that it would help pay off. I think however in a church like ours you really have to think in terms of 'family' and not so much in isolating the youth to involve them.

Jim,

Good questions. I'm sure it's difficult at your particular church, considering the fact that you can't hire someone for the position. However, I think there can be a problem of all churches wanting to do youth ministry a certain way, and when it doesn't work in their setting, they see it as "failing". Maybe a weekly gathering of youth headed by a paid worker isn't the best model for your setting, but that doesn't mean there is NO model that will work.

I don't presume to know your congregation, but my initial opinion is that the few youth you have can become involved more in your worship services and general happenings of the church, so that the youth/adult dichotomy almost disappears. You create more opportunities for organic, intergenerational, incarnational relationships that way, and the youth end up feeling ownership of the church and forming committed relationships.

In response to #3, I think that youth don't necessarily need a hip place to hang out. They need strong, mentoring relationships with people of all ages within the congregation. Have you read "Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry" by Andrew Root? I think it's the best YM book out there right now.

Also, if you can't get kids to come to church, meet them where they spend most of their time anyway - online. Find out what they're using - Facebook, MySpace, or whatever - and then use those sites to connect with them. Another alternative is a sweet new thing called Tuggle (http://www.tuggle.it) which is a MySpace-like web app that is just for your youth.

Again, good questions... I hope you're able to figure some things out (w/the guidance of the Spirit)!

Shawn, you raise an excellent point; it takes a lot to develop worship services that engage youth and that inspire kids to be there and excited about it all...but I wonder too if our services don't particularly engage youth, then my guess is that they aren't really engaging our adults much either!!

I'm in a church of 500 and struggling with the exact same questions.

The best answer I can come up with is that youth ministry begins in the sanctuary. If youth were excited, engaged, uplifted and challenged by our worship services then other ministries would flow out of that. If a church has worship that doesn't engage the youth then no other programs of that church should be expected to either.