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Do We Need Youth Ministry Any More?

Related article from Jul/Aug 2003 issue

I was sitting next to Chuckk (yes, there are two ks in his name), the youth pastor of our church, at a main session at this year's Emergent Convention. One of the speakers made a sudden passionate statement that went something like, "We should shut down all youth ministry. Youth ministry is a bad thing for youth and families, and we need to kill it."

As those words were spoken, I could literally see the invisible gamma wave of uncomfortable feelings rippling across the room. It caused the youth pastors' necks to jolt as they uneasily shifted in their seats. They turned to one another, mumbling words that were probably similar to Chuckk's as he looked over to me and said, "Well, I guess I'm out of a job then."

Now, I understood the heart of why this was said, as there's a valid concern for youth ministry when it dissects families due to the many segmented ways we design our churches. A moment or two after the statement was made, I wanted to shout out, "I agree!" But is youth ministry something we really don't need anymore?

No More Programs?

Last week I was browsing some Web sites and found a new blog by my friend Mark Riddle called "Re-imagining Youth Ministry." I love the way that sounds, and my heart resonated with the idea. In the blog, Mark makes the point that, through youth ministry programming, we've isolated our kids in their youth kingdoms and separated them from their families and the rest of the church. Mark states that in the future we may not want any more youth programs…or to be called youth pastors. He predicts that perhaps teens in the future will not even know the terms Sunday School or youth group. Mark may be on to something here as he again strikes at a very significant problem we've developed in our churches. But is youth ministry something we really don't need anymore at all? I wholeheartedly agree that we need to re-imagine what we're doing. But I'm not sure entirely cutting youth ministry and all youth programs is the answer.

Family-Based Ministry?

I've been personally encouraged lately by the growth of family-based ministry. Looking at the family as a unit in the church vs. pushing parents and teens into separate categories is a wonderful thing to design into the life and blood of our churches. The thought of parents and their teens worshipping together and growing in their spiritual formation together as a family is thrilling. Seeing parents taking on the biblical role that Deuteronomy 6:7 teaches of passing the faith down to their children (instead of thinking it's the youth pastor's job to be responsible for that) is also stirring. I see churches making efforts to design their worship gatherings to incorporate teenagers into the service itself and value them as a central part of the church life. I see youth pastors looking at their roles more as family pastors. But still, is youth ministry something we don't need anymore?

My personal opinion is that we need youth ministry more than ever. However, we need a re-imagined youth ministry, as Mark puts it. Because the fact is, teenagers are still teenagers, and there are limitations to our integrating students fully into church life to the point where youth programs and ministry aren't needed.

Home Church?

I know a pastor who was a strong believer in the "we don't need youth ministry anymore." He designed his church around a home church structure in which families all met together for a communal meal, then had a time of worship with Scripture together in their homes. He had a children's part of this gathering and was very pleased with the fact that the series of mid-week house churches and their larger combined worship gathering didn't have youth ministry. But then something interesting happened: his children became teenagers.

Soon enough, the teenagers were restless and becoming bored in their home church meetings. As the fellowship ate a meal and was deep in discussion about community life and focused on Jesus being the center of their meeting, the teens were deep in discussion about the new Play Station action game or the new girl at school. Eventually this pastor started a new gathering for the teenagers of his church to meet and discuss their faith. This time furthered their spiritual formation in a way that met adolescents in their current stage of life. Of course the teens are still fully incorporated in the life of the church and the larger church gatherings, but the kids required some things that were for them specifically.

Everything Together?

We can't help but recognize that some specific educational and spiritual formation needs of teens are different from those of adults. This calls for a program designed to educate people at different maturity levels. This calls for youth pastors (or whatever we may call them) who know the life stages and how best to teach students, how best to listen, and how best to love and care for them, but not at the expense of isolating teens from their families or the rest of the church. We must not repeat the ways we formed youth ministry into an isolated and disconnected program that rarely interacted with the whole church body.

Even in the times of Jesus, the Rabbis and other Jewish leaders would separate the children for special teaching, and it wasn't until the age of 13 that a young boy could participate in the full life of the synagogue. But at that time the families were primarily the ones who imparted faith to their children. The children saw their parents worship, saw them touch the mezuzah on their doorframes, saw them sing songs of praise to God, and went with them to Jerusalem for special festival times. Jewish Passover meals were (and still are) major family events in which children actively participated and weren't just shoved into another room. There was such beauty in this: their own version of family ministry.

We still need youth ministry because there are youth programs, such as skateboard ministries, in which I see God performing wonders. On Tuesday nights, there are probably one hundred junior high kids who come to our church and spend time on the various skateboard ramps we've set up. Without this program, many of these students wouldn't be here or at any other church. Right before this program, most of the junior high kids eat dinner together with their families at our church's family-night meal. After the meal, as the kids go skateboarding but also have a serious time of teaching and spiritual interaction, their parents are in classes or small groups learning parenting skills for raising their children in the ways of Jesus. These students go to worship gatherings with their parents on the weekends, so they aren't becoming isolated from their parents in the life of the church. And they go on family mission trips all together. To throw out all programs would sadly forgo such an opportunity for ministry.

Evangelism?

In our emerging post-Christian world, we can't forget that most teens coming into our church communities most likely won't have parents who are Christians. If we in youth ministry are truly missional, family-based ministry will take on even more interesting twists if the parents aren't followers of Jesus.

I know of one 14 year-old green-colored-spiked-hair guy who came to our church without his parents. A friend brought him. He absolutely loved our Sunday night larger all-age worship gathering and became a regular part of church life that way. He'd come up to me and ask all types of great questions (the kind I wish more adults would ask). He interacted with all ages and people got to know him. However, he absolutely thrived in the separate youth ministry in which he could have friends and specific youth volunteers and a youth pastor who were there to love, mentor, and shepherd him. He got to go on youth trips that were life-changing for him. He was baptized at our Sunday night Graceland service, and it was a thrill for us all! He excelled in his understanding of the ways of Jesus from his participation in the youth ministry programs. At the same time, he's fully part of our church life and even attends some adult classes because of his desire to grow. I see him as someone who will easily make the transition from teen to adult life in our church, because he's already part of the whole body. But, he loves his youth group.

So, do we still need youth ministry? Yes, but we need to re-imagine it. We don't need to throw it all away, just rethink what we do and what we need to do to see teens and their spiritual formation become part of the church life as a whole, not just in isolation. We need to rethink how we look at families in our churches and schedule church activities and church strategies to avoid constantly separating teens and their parents. We need to take this cry to our Bible colleges and seminaries and re-teach what it means to minister to kids in a healthy way that's not destructive to their spiritual growth and their families. We have a lot to learn; a lot to figure out; a lot to rethink. But youth pastors and youth leaders must lead the way in this re-imagining of a healthy, family-oriented, incorporated, missional, programmatic youth ministry that will produce new generations of disciples.

Related article from Jul/Aug 2003 issue

Dan Kimball is the author of the The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations and is pastor of Vintage Faith Church, a soon to be launched sister-church of Santa Cruz Bible Church in Santa Cruz, Calif. Dan is on the board of EmergentYS and is contributing editor for Youthworker.