Ok so my last post on youth min was peppered with plenty of questions and precious few answers.

How very pomo of me…

But, alas I was born in 1964 right on the cusp of the boomer/gen x groupings so I am something of a hybrid by nature. Some days I like to be the questioner, but the boomer in me still likes to have a crack at the answers.

So for what its worth here are my suggestions for future directions in youth ministry if we are to both reach young people and keep them beyond their 18th birthday:

1. Forget about the $$$$ You remember that old saying by Mark Twain “Dance like nobody’s watching; love like you’ve never been hurt. Sing like nobody’s listening; live like it’s heaven on earth”?

Well, maybe the first step for those in vocational ministry is that we ought to serve like nobody’s paying us…

I don’t think we can even begin to calculate the difference a salary makes to the way we function. Suddenly we start to please people whose opinion we really don’t value becaue they are more powerful than us. They may not have any idea of how to do youth ministry, they may not even like young people, but if we piss them off then they might make our life hell.

Money changes the way we function. There is no question about that at all! My mate Alan Hirsch says ‘the only true revolutionaries are those who have nothing left to lose’. And don’t we need some more revolutionaries in youth ministry, people who will not conform because it is financially sensible?!

Maybe we feel like have too much to lose…

Really?…

Over the years I have seen so many soul-less, ‘sold out’ youth pastors that I can only say this strongly again – don’t let $$$ control you! Because if it does then you will not hear the voice of God leading you to what really matters and you will build a ministry on froth and bubble and other people’s expectations. What’s left to lose when you have sold out to the highest bidder?

In the comments section of my last post, Jules Birt quoted that old adage “Your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you are currently getting.” The system that sees young people file in the front door and disappear out the back door is obviously flawed, but it is still the dominant preference of paying parents and by default those in youth ministry.

Rather than trying to make that system work, why not just give it the toss and start over with a radically different plan built on what we truly believe rather than what others expect?

Check Question: How would your approach to youth ministry change if money didn’t matter and you knew you couldn’t get sacked?

2. Seek Jesus’ approval – not kids, parents or other youth pastors who you wish to impress

Of course… You do this already… Uh huh and so did I… As if…

Once we get past the need to please those who pay us, we move on to those who don’t pay us but whose esteem we place an excessively high value on. We all want kids to love us, parents to see us as stable role models for their children and our peers to look to us in amazement because we are such gifted leaders.

Could this cause us to do things that are more about us and less about Jesus?…

Possibleee I do think!

Maybe we would shy away from advising that teenager to give the year after high school to short term mission because mum and dad wouldn’t think it wise. Maybe we will work late into the night to keep producing funky programs because when we do kids tell us how wonderful we are, (until they get bored because we just can’t come up with any newer funkier ideas). Maybe we feel constant pressure to be in the ‘top 5’ of youth ministries in our own city, so that when we go to pastor’s conferences we will be respected and invited into the ‘pastors lounge’ at big events?

Practically, I imagine this will take different forms in different contexts, but that’s where my next suggestion is critical.

Check Question: Why do I do activity or program XYZ? Could I imagine Jesus doing it, or saying ‘well done’ for my involvement in it?

3. Live, think, breathe, and do youth ministry like a missionary

Almost all local church based youth min in the west (as with much of church) is geared for a Christendom climate where we expect young people to (sooner or later) come to our churches.

Why is that? Why would a pagan young person want to come to a church?

What would it take to re-calibrate youth ministry along missionary principles?

The time to train our young people to live as missionaries is now, not 10 years on at Bible college if they are still around. Part of this missionary identity involves equipping them to live and engage with their own culture rather than coming apart and living in a Christian ghetto.

I would suggest that if we don’t extract them, then they will have a higher survival rate than our current practice of parallel universing them. Perhaps if we expect them to live and behave like disciples and if we help them on that journey they may actually do it.

I have to say that this will only happen in very small groups – where the young people are in genuine community. We will not disciple 100 kids, 50 kids or even 20 kids. We might entertain them, babysit them and even teach them, but discipleship is intense, all of life stuff. I doubt any of us have the time to really disciple people properly and in that I believe we hit the nub of the problem.

I don’t know if I have ever discipled anyone properly. It just takes a heap of time and I have too many other people to pay attention to and too many tasks to get done. If discipleship can happen in a few hours of meetings and occasionally bumping into each other then all is good, but reality is that isn’t going to cut it.

If we are to prepare young people for missionary service then it will require us to live engaged lives and to place the highest priority on ensuring they are appropriately formed and equipped to cut it in the world they live in.

It will involve us not getting upset when they venture into places that are considered dangerous. It will mean taking some heat from parents who would rather their chlidren be kept safe and only hang around other Christians.

It will require a very different mindset to the ‘warehousing’ approach that is so dominant at present.

Check Question: Am I busy trying to get young people into my youth programs or am I busy trying to prepare young people to engage in the world they live in.

4. Encourage questioning and provide forums for those questions to be raised

James Fowler wrote about the various stages of faith. Alan Jamieseon wrote about a churchless faith. Those who live with a ‘churchless faith’ are typically Christians who moved beyond simplistic answers (stages 1-3 of faith) to tough questions and who were greeted with more and more simplistic answers.

If we are to make real disciples of our youth then we will need to do a better job of allowing them to question and of helping them really work thru those questions. Some we will be able to answer and others we won’t. That’s ok. Welcome to real life!

Thinking teens may well hit stage 4 when our youth ministries are still in a very literal phase. There must be space for thinking teens to explore these questions.

Check Question: How do I respond to teens who question me? (Teens who ask about biblical authority, expressions of church etc)

5. Make faith risky and costly

Campolo once said ‘youth was made for heroism not for pleasure’.

Don’t insult young people by offering them funkier programs.

Call them to devotion and to self sacrifice. Short term missions are often a good way of catalysing this. Get young people in risky positions and let them see God at work in their lives and in the lives of those around them.

Collecting the offering is not a risky ministry! Make sure you place youth in settings where only God can come thru. I reckon they are up for it!

Check Question: How often do the young people in my youth ministry enter potentially risky ministry settings and if they don’t often then why not?

6. See Youth Ministry as really long term

5 years is not long term.

I did 2 x 5 year stints of youth ministry – just long enough to get to know people. I am wondering if having a 10-15 year committment might change the shape of things?

Maybe we need to be there in an intentional mode to walk with young people thru the 18-30 stage rather than having a ‘fling’ with them and then going somewhere else.

Check Question: Have I ever considered a 10-20 year committment to my people? If not why not?

Anyway…Six easy steps?

Nope – not at all!

But I seriously believe that if we took these 6 principles seriously then we would begin transform our youth ministries and may see some substantial change.

Just some raw thoughts that might be some parameters to help us chart a healthier way forwards. What do you think? What do you agree with and disagree with?