5. Youth min must shift the focus from reach and keep to equip and send.
I entered youth ministry with a very strong desire to reach as many youth as possible so that we might see some converted and then some become leaders in the church. My mindset in ministry (which I found to be common) dictated that we needed to reach and keep students involved. This was my primary focus and shaped the way I did ministry for a very long time. We needed to reach unchurched as well as the disinterested semi-churched teens and keep all who got involved in our programs. We strategized on how to best accomplish this and my particular method shifted over time from a Young Life style to a Willow Creek approach. In both cases it was a matter of attracting students to youth group, sharing the gospel, and nurturing those who responded. Youth group was oriented towards the non-believer and Bible study was for the serious. Over time though, my perspective changed. I believe that 21st century youth ministry demands much more.
Without minimizing the need to reach out to unchurched and especially the inactive, disinterested (bored of church) students, I think our emphasis needs to shift to that of equipping and sending students. While I don’t believe in little exclusive clubs and the thought of an unwelcoming group upsets me, I don’t think the primary purpose of youth group should be outreach to non believers. (if I dare say it, I don’t think that Sunday services are God’s plan to reach the unchurched Harry and Mary’s of the world either) I am convinced that we are not the best missionaries to students – they are. We should not be relieving students of their responsibility of being a witness and sharing the gospel. We do this though when we communicate to students that they should just bring friends to youth group, sit back, have fun and let us share Jesus. It removes the responsibility that is actually theirs to begin with. The tougher challenge of course is teaching them to share their faith and making the youth ministry a supplement to that work of evangelism.
Rather than a youth group of well preserved believing teens that head out to college or into the working world, we actually need a group of young revolutionaries who are equipped to go change the world wherever God may call them! Maintaining status quo is not the goal we need to be shooting for. Given the stats on college age drop out from church and our ever increasingly secular pluralistic world, we don’t have the luxury of trying to keep kids well entertained or pacified. Now, I know it’s fun to do reach & keep oriented ministry. Set up the right balance of ski, rafting, and mission trips along with a few retreats, a really fun youth group each week as well as some Bible studies for the serious, and we can attract a good crowd. All the while we get to have the most fun job in the world! Here in the southeast, where youth group participation is common, we may even feel the need to compete with the church down the street for the most attractive youth program. (Hey, down at “First Church” they play killer dodgeball every week and do all night scavenger hunts!) In the context of the ultra fun, super attractive youth group we can actually seriously challenge students to live for Jesus… but what is the end result? Will they become stats in a few years because church at college “just wasn’t as fun”?
The difficulty with this shift is that it goes against the expectations many church leaders and parents have of us. If we are going to raise up a generation of Biblically faithful students (or make Biblical Anglicans for a global age), then we may need to get a new vision for what youth ministry is and how we do it. We then have to get church leadership on board with the vision, clearly understanding that it won’t look like they participated in years ago. We then have to do the same with parents. I don’t think it is as difficult to persuade students to become world changers. There is something attractive about that in itself.
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