Essentials in Youth Ministry: Others

We want to feel necessary.  We want to feel important.  An easy way to fill these desires as a youth worker is to make our youth ministries about us.  We even do what I just did -- call the youth group “ours” and come up with clever tricks to make the kids want to come be with us.

But it’s not really about us.  Youth ministry is about our Triune God - giving glory to the Father, in Christ, by the Spirit.  Certainly we’re actively involved in the work of God in these kids’ lives, but it’s God’s work through us - not ours in which to boast.  Ultimately, these kids are God’s. The glory is His.

What these kids really need, then, is not more of us, but more of Jesus and His grace.  Certainly they need to see more of Jesus in us and through us, but we are not the only - nor the primary - means through which the Father by the Spirit points the youth in our churches to Jesus. 

The primary means through which - by faith - the Spirit roots our youth in the grace of Jesus is Scripture, prayer, the sacraments, and fellowship with other Christians.

And the primary community through which God has ordained to practice these means is the church - the family of God.  And though we serve the church in a very unique capacity as youth ministers, we are not the fullness of the church in and of ourselves.

The youth need to see and experience God at work in others. They need to see and experience the wisdom of God through others. They need to see and experience the fellowship of God with others.

And “others” as I’m using it doesn’t refer only to other youth in the youth group.  They need to know their senior pastor(s). They need to know other parents. They need to know seniors and other adults in the congregation.

 

Though it has many flaws and downsides, one of the helpful correctives of postmodernism is that it reminds us that we all see things from a perspective.  This includes how we see God.  I am much too heady for my own good.  I need people in my life with passion and emotion in their worship and relationship with God.  They help me see aspects of God that I can’t on my own.

If the only picture of God that our youth see is from our preaching and teaching, then they are missing out.  Involving other adults in youth group -- or better yet, involving the youth in the fuller life of the church -- is one of the ways God uses by his Spirit to nurture our walk with him.

It might feel like a slap in the face to be told we’re not as important as we think we are, but really, this is good news.

We can’t do it all.  We can’t be all things to all people -- we aren’t meant to be.  There are kids with whom we have difficulty connecting.  But the same Spirit at work in and through us and our ministry is also at work in and through other Christians and the other ministries of the church.

If a kid doesn’t want to meet with us, maybe they will want to get together with someone else from the church.  If they don’t want to come to youth group, maybe they will want to join the choir or the praise team.  If they don’t want to come to Sunday school, maybe they will want to join an adult Bible study.

As Paul puts it in a beautiful passage on the unity of the one church in the one Spirit, “Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” (Ephesians 4:15-16)

The family of God is an incredible blessing for those of us who can’t do it all (which is all of us).  Let’s not neglect the body of Christ in our ministries that we might together be built up in God’s love.

Mark Howard is the Youth Director and Assistant to Pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Covington, GA. Mark has a Masters in Theology from Wheaton College Graduate School. 
 

Ministry Around America: New England Edition

-->  

1. Please describe the context in which you minister (geographically, ethnically, socio-economically, etc.)

I am a proud, life-long New Englander.  I attended college and seminary a little over an hour away from home, and now I serve in a church only thirty minutes from where I grew up.  I serve in a church of 250 that's about half an hour south-west of Boston.  New Englanders are generally well-educated, brutally honest, and traditional people. 

The suburban towns Emmanuel Baptist Church pulls from are largely upper-middle class, mostly white communities where many commute daily into Boston to work (most commuters work in the financial world or in one of Boston's many hospitals or universities).  In New England, it is simply assumed that not only will you go to college after high school, much of your teenage life after freshman year revolves around getting high enough grades and excelling in enough extra-curricular activities to get into a good college with a scholarship.

There are two general assumptions most New Englanders make (especially in my area around Boston): You will go to college and you're Roman Catholic.

2. How do teenagers in your region feel about the Church and Christianity as a whole?

My wife teaches eighth grade in our town's public school and frequently gets questions about being married to a priest.  A few weeks back, something about church came up in one of her classes and since she's not Catholic she was asked what religion she was, as if being a Baptist is like being a Buddhist.  She had to explain what "Protestant" and "Baptist" meant, since "Christian" and "Church" simply means "Roman Catholic" to most unchurched teenagers.  It's simply assumed that if you're religious, you're Catholic. Many parents have a difficult time agreeing to let their teen attend anything a Protestant church is doing - in some ways the changes of Vatican II are still being worked out.

Even though many will identify themselves as Catholic, they rarely attend Mass and dread attending CCD. The Roman Catholic Church is viewed with skepticism because of the clergy sex-abuse scandals, and all other Churches are untrustworthy because they aren't Catholic. Religion simply isn't something that should affect real life. In many ways, it wouldn't be unfair to make the observation that the universities (which were ironically founded by the Church to train up the next generations of pastors and missionaries) have taken on the authority the Church used to hold in public life.

3. What perceptions and reactions do teenagers in your area have to Christian morality?

When I was a teenager, I remember classmates getting drunk and partying hard on Friday and then going to confession on Saturday.  Religion is thought of as something peripheral and pretty insignificant.  Disappointingly, "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" is a very accurate description of teen spirituality - God exists but doesn't impose himself on you, he's just there to help you when you need him to and help you do good things for others.  

In a culture so dominated by both secularism and Roman Catholicism, the Gospel of Grace is not easily understood and is often under attack from both groups of people.  The Gospel is either stupid and unnecessary because God, sin, and judgment aren't real anyway, or the Gospel is a New Law declaring what we ought to do without giving us the ability to do it. 

Practically speaking, most teenagers around here don't seem to think too much about moral decisions.  It's not that they're more thoughtless than other teens, but they're simply postmodern and think with their feelings and impulses.  As the Ben and Jerry's Bumper Sticker says, "If it doesn't feel good, why do it?" 

4. What approaches have you found helpful in dealing with the aforementioned stumbling blocks such that you effectively can share the Gospel with students in your area and bring them in to the life of the Church?

One of the most effective things you can do is to invest your time to gain the trust of parents.  Evangelical churches (especially Baptist churches like mine!) are often viewed with suspicion and distrust.  This makes earning the trust of parents both difficult and essential.  I've had a number of students get plugged into the youth ministry who wanted to attend our Sunday morning worship services; but they have been told they aren't allowed to come "because we're Catholic" (even though they rarely attend Mass).  I've had students drop off the map for a season because they had to attend CCD in order to receive their first communion.  It's becoming a bit "trendy" to emphasize parents today, but I'm increasingly convinced that we need to minister to the whole student, and that means we need to reach out to the whole family... parents included. 

I often hear youth pastors from around the country talk about the importance of plugging into the local schools, and I agree that's really important, but in New England it's extremely difficult to do.  I'm not allowed to eat lunch with students, and even if I was, I'm not sure how many students would be willing to put such a huge target on their back by allowing me to sit with them and their friends.  I've been a volunteer coach for one of the local high school's Track & Field teams and that's been a great blessing and a great challenge.  A few years ago one of the students I had already coached for a whole season was surprised to find out I'm a pastor (I have no idea how she didn't know, since it comes up quite a bit) and proceeded to ignore me for the rest of the week because she was so weirded out that one of her coaches was a priest. 

5. What encouragement would you give to other youth pastors in your area trying to reach teenagers?

Don't give up, and stay somewhere long enough to make a difference!  We've all heard the statistics about how short most youth pastors stay at a church before moving on... I want to encourage you to try breaking the record as the longest-tenured pastor in your church's history.  I've been serving at my church for seven and a half years, and it wasn't until year four that I felt that I really had gained significant trust from the parents at church (so how much more of a challenge will it be to gain the trust of parents from the unchurched community!). 

You will see mini-revivals break out among families, churches, schools, and communities through your ministry the longer you stay, the more consistently you model the servant-love of Christ, and as you continually proclaim that amazing grace of the Good News.  Don't set out trying to be Jonathan Edwards or George Whitefield or whoever else... set out to be faithful in your calling to serve the students and families God has given you and trust Him to bear the fruit as you scatter the seed.

Besides, we all know New England is the American Church's best-kept-secret... God is doing a mighty work here!  Friends, stay faithful.

Where We Need to Point Kids after the Presidential Election

-->

Four years ago to this date, I had the privilege of speaking to a class of ninth grade students in an inner city area of Birmingham, AL, known as Woodlawn. Imagine the intrigue of having a conversation with a classroom of all African American students in one of the most violent, segregated sites of the Civil Rights Movement, on the morning after America elected its first black president. Students told stories of their grandparents, who lived under the threat of the Ku Klux Klan and used “colored” public restrooms, sat in front of the television praying and weeping as they saw President Obama chosen for office. 

Since that morning, which stills gives me chills when I recall the spirit of redemption in that classroom, I have had my eye on Woodlawn, where several friends serve, minister, and attend church. I can say definitively that there has been no mitigation to the suffering, poverty, estrangement, addiction, and violence over the last four years. Children struggle without fathers. Men and women fail to find work. Teens fall into gangs. The only real effect government has made in Woodlawn has been a bribery scandal among county commissioners that has led to the bankruptcy of their county and increased burden on residents to pay their utilities.

Simultaneously, during the past four years, several churches have established new ministries that are bringing real hope to the Woodlawn community. The Church of the Highlands has established its Dream Center that includes ministries of mercy, such as affordable healthcare, financial counseling, tutoring, and Bible study. They have a satellite church location that includes an integrated congregation. Church of the Redeemer, a church plant led by pastor Joel Brooks, has a thriving congregation with powerful relational ministry and strong biblical teaching in the Woodlawn area. Hungry families can depend on Grace Episcopal where meals are served daily. A rush of tangible hope and redemption has rolled through Woodlawn in a new way, probably not at a macro-level but to a degree like not before in decades.

I bring this up only because, today, I have dealt with students with very powerful reactions to the presidential election. Some have threatened to move to Canada, fearing that America will collapse. Four years ago, many kids unrealistically believed that America had found a messiah, who would redeem all problems. Teenagers are filled with passion that we can channel in a fruitful direction. Today, I will remind students of three important truths.

First, Christ reigns as King. His Kingdom already has come and will continue to increase. Only Christ will save and redeem this world. No government can do so.

Secondly, God ordains all elected officials. We are called to pray for them and respect their authority.

Third, the Church is the worldly vehicle through which God will redeem the world. The government can improve circumstances, but only God through the Church can revive desperate, sinful hearts through the proclamation of the Gospel, teaching of the word, prayers of the people, and missions for our neighbor. The Church relates to people face-to-face and heart-to-heart, not through policy, regulation, or bureaucracy. Policy operates at a surface level, while the Church (when functioning properly), engages at the epicenter of all the world’s problems: the human heart. It would be irresponsible not to acknowledge that, like the government, the Church can be a source of injustice and oppression, when its people do not have their souls anchored in Christ and the promotion of His Kingdom.

Therefore, let all of us- student, ministers, and parents alike- be encouraged that the most powerful change agent in the world remains Jesus Christ working through His bride, the Church. Let us not waste energy fretting over political elections, obsessing over cable news, or making inflammatory remarks on Facebook. Instead, let us exalt Christ the King and focus our energy on our role in God’s Church as agents in the complete redemption of the world. 

Cameron Cole is the chairman of Rooted: A Theology Conference for Student Ministry and the Director of Student Ministries at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, AL. He is a candidate for a Masters in Religion from Reformed Theological Seminary. 

Book Review: You Lost Me

*There is a 43% drop off between the teen and early adult years in terms of church engagement (p. 22).

I can honestly say that in the last six years of being a youth minister, I’ve seen the cultural norms and the atmosphere of youth culture change drastically.  For example, it’s no longer the stray teen who doesn’t have their own cell phone, it’s the stray teen who doesn’t have a smart phone.  And the impact of social media on understandings of relationship has been enormous.  So, as teen (and worldwide) culture continues to evolve at a pace unlike anything the world has ever seen, how do we meet our kids where we are to love them, speak truth into their lives, and share Jesus with them?

David Kinnaman, President of the Barna Group, (somewhat) recently published a book called, You Lost Me.  Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church…And Rethinking Faith, wherein he evaluates years of research the Barna Group undertook in relation to the current population of 18-29 year olds in America (who are deemed, “mosaics”).  He identifies three realities of our current culture that have implications for any of us out there working in youth ministry (p. 21): 

1)   Teen church engagement remains robust… (while teens) are not growingup to be faithful young adult disciples of Christ. 
2)   Every story of disconnection requires a personal, tailor-made response. 
3)   The dropout problem is… a disciple-making problem.  The church is not adequately preparing the next generation to follow Christ faithfully into a rapidly changing culture.

So, this means that we must seriously reconsider how we approach youth ministry if we are no longer meeting kids where they are (since ‘where they are’ is an ever changing target).  Kinnaman uses the term ‘discontinuously different’ to describe this ‘ever changing target,’ meaning that the “cultural setting in which young people have come of age is significantly changed from what was experienced during the formative years of previous generations (p. 38).”  They have unprecedented access to information, analysis, relationships, and worldviews, they have unprecedented levels of disconnection (and feelings of alienation) from family, community, and institutions, and they have a changing spiritual narrative that includes a large skepticism of authority.  All of these factors combine to create a melding pot of relativism and poorly defined boundaries to meaning and truth.

Consider: They have been raised in a culture of tolerance, inclusiveness, diversity, and political correctness- ideals that have greatly shaped their generation.  They have a compulsion toward unity, and they prioritize (their idea of) fairness over rightness.  The majority sees the church as intolerable and exclusive.  So what now?

Kinnaman brilliantly explores some of the effects these cultural realities are having on kids’ understandings of Christianity and the church (highlighting science, sex, and doubt), and the book concludes by offering some incredibly pertinent ideas for engaging our current teens in meaningful ways in the body of Christ.  Three important things we can do to serve our kids are:

1) Rethink relationships with them (especially by fostering intergenerational relationships)

2) Rediscover vocation with them, and

3) Reprioritize wisdom with them (as information is a finger-swipe away, but the wisdom of how to interpret, understand, use, and scrutinize that information is something that comes with time through relational and process learning).

I cannot speak highly enough of this book: it is crucial for us to better understand what is happening in the minds and hearts of our younger generations, so that we may better love and serve them as the church.  This book offers an insightful and pertinent synthesis of a colossal amount of research and I recommend it to anyone working in youth ministry!

Liz Edrington previously served as a youth minister at Christ Episcopal Church in Charlottesville, VA. Liz presently is pursuing a masters in counseling at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, FL .