merefaith: discipleship in the ruins of empire: "We got to do something with these young people..."

Since half of my job description is the youth ministry at our church, I often get a lot of questions or comments along the lines of:

"We appreciate all that you're doing for our young people."

"How many young people do we have showing up?"

"We're just so glad we have someone who can help our young people."

"Young people" seems to be the phrase of choice. I'm just glad it's not "little people" or else I might have to say something about my lucky charms.

Our elders in our churches want to have something available for the "young people." They want the program or ministry or fellowship or whatever it is called to be instructive, spiritual, relevant and accessible. And they hardly ever want to have anything to do with it. Not because they don't like the young people, mind you. They just imagine they would get eaten alive. Who would listen to a technologically-ignorant, culturally-backwards old-timer? Well...more youth are willing than they realize. More than even the youth themselves realize. The key, of course, is building relationships.

So check out this great article, "Engaging Young Baptists," at the CBF blog. It'll be applicable for all other traditions, of course.

Labels: Ministry

Posted by Chris Schelin on Thursday, April 02, 2009 at Thursday, April 02, 2009 | Permalink

I think that youth ministry/young people's ministry as it has been practiced in recent decades has been detrimental to the life of the American church across the evangelical/Protestant board because it essentially cut off the youth/young people from the life of the congregation at large and cloistered them into a "youth friendly" environment, which more often than not meant "old-person free, regardless of the wisdom they could share."

When the youth/young folks grew up, they expected the rules of the cloister and instead got "big church," with [often] disastrous results.

(I know the thought is not original to me, but I cannot remember who it belongs to. Sorry.)

I know this is not true across the board, and anyway, that's the thrust of the article you shared — in an effort to reach the young people, don't unintentionally cut them off from the rest of the congregation. I think that shift in thinking would do a lot in reversing the abysmal retention rate of youth that most churches have these days.

Posted by Vershal | Saturday, April 04, 2009 12:18:00 AM