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Last month, we looked at how we attract young people to our church by living out the call of the gospel by getting out of the church building and living in relationship with people. Young people are looking for a faith that is real and lived-out, something that is overtly spiritual, something they can sink their teeth into.

In the midst of sometimes turbulent times for mainline churches, I think we secretly wonder if the mainline has anything left to offer, especially in light of the claims made in articles such as last month’s Tennessean (7/6/08), which claimed outright that young people prefer non-traditional worship.

Pulling from my experiences working with a non-denominational church before moving to Tennessee, I’ve noticed some trends in these alternative worship services. First of all, at the church I was working at, we started experimenting with periods of silence, call and response sections of the service, communion where everyone came forward to the same table to receive—things I have since discovered have been part of the Anglican tradition for a long, long time, and possibly led me to feel more at home here in the Episcopal Church once I tried it out.

Yes, these services usually use contemporary worship music, something that some of our churches in the diocese would find very difficult to incorporate, but I don’t believe that young people’s preference for a church rises or falls based exclusively on the music. Again, I believe it is the way that a congregation lives out its faith and practices community that draws people, not just young people, but people of all ages, to our churches.

And because I’ve witnessed the adoption of practices, if not straight from the Prayer Book, then pretty close, in non-denominational and less traditional churches, I think that what we have in our tradition is a huge asset to attracting people, but especially young people.

So, you may ask, if all this is true, why is there a huge gap of young people in our churches? Well, part of that I think will be the subject of perhaps another article, but I think one part at least is that we as the body of Christ sometimes forget that the body of Christ is a family. And in families, we interact with people of multiple generations; do life with people of different ages; hold gatherings with multiple generations present. It’s easy for us to look to the church to provide our social needs, and as we think of being with friends, we typically picture people our own age. I know I do. But we as the body of Christ are called to more than that. It’s great that we find friends and social interaction at our churches, but we are called to be ambassadors of the gospel (2 Cor 5:20), and to be known by our love for one another (John 13:35).

Imagine what we could be like as we reach out to people in our sphere of influence no matter how similar or dissimilar they are to us, and start doing life with the people around us, including them in our heritage and in the glorious message that we’ve been entrusted to impart.

If we’re going to be serious about ministry to youth and young adults, then we have to face up to the fact that the biggest thing standing in the way of that ministry is our own insecurities. Ministering to young people instantly throws us back to that stage in our lives and we long to be cool again, aligning ourselves with the “cool” kids, and shunning the “un-cool” ones. This is especially hazardous for those of us who didn’t fit into the “cool” category in junior high, high school or college ourselves, and see the acceptance of the cool kids as finally having “made it.”

Of course, since we’re now adults, none of this should actually matter, and putting it out on paper like that sounds rather silly, but I’ll confess it’s happened to me, it’s something I see in me that I constantly have to override (and it does get easier to override as you do it!).

Teenagers by nature want to question everything. A soon to be ninth grader that I was talking to the other day said something about herself, qualifying it with “since I’m at the age where I’m trying to like, figure out who I am and stuff.” She seemed very self-aware for a 13-year-old considering that’s exactly the definition of adolescence but I don’t think most teenagers, especially those on the early end of adolescence, usually see it quit so clearly.

But this constant questioning of everything, including what we as adults believe and why, tends to make us feel defensive, especially if we don’t have a good answer for one of their questions. It makes us want to pull rank, as it were, tell teens to do things “just because I said so,” or knock aside questions that we don’t have answers to.

All of that is detrimental to ministering, and for that matter parenting, teaching, being anywhere near, teen and young adults. And for the same reasons, it makes us as adults actually scared of teenagers in particular, if not young adults as well.

So how do we get rid of these insecurities?

Insecurities fall into the category of things I like to call little demons. They’re usually quite small, but they have powerful cumulative effects, especially when left alone in the dark too long. Sort of like mold, really. A bit of air and light will do wonders for them, as these noisome little demons really can’t stand light, it tends to make them shrivel up and die.

That mixed metaphor is to say that we have to acknowledge our insecurities for what they are, and consciously choose to not act out of them to the best of our ability. This is they only way to make them shrivel and start to die. And, unfortunately, it’s not an instant thing. It seems to be one of those life—long wrestling matches, but one that gets better as we stay with it consistently.

Here’s another way that insecurities get us in trouble in ministry, but especially in youth ministry. As we build relationships with the kids, provided we get around those initial insecurities that make us scared of interaction and such, we find that the affirmation and love we receive from teenagers and even young adults, but especially teens in this case, is unparallel. For all their often justified suspicions of adults, teenagers once they’ve been won over have the capacity for great admiration, love, and dare I say, even a bit of hero worship.

This is actually more dangerous for our own souls then having to get over the fact that they want to question everything we say. Far more dangerous. If we give into this one, we end up doing youth ministry not for the teens, but for ourselves. And that means that we’re using the teens for our own end, something that should never occur in ministry.

Let me say that again, because this is important too. We can’t do ministry because of the results we hope to get either for ourselves or for our church. All of that is a by-product, a function of God working in situations and blessing us and our community for our faithfulness. The ministry itself has to be done for the sole purpose of the people being ministered to. It will be beneficial to both us as the ministers and to the entire community of the church, but again, that’s God working and responding to our faithfulness in answering his call and being obedient to looking after all of his kids, not just the ones that have learned to sit still and not whisper in church (which, now that I think of it, would exclude me some Sundays).

I was thinking as I got started on this final installment of the Youth Ministry series that perhaps this last piece should have in fact been the first.  I’m guessing there’s a good number of you who are reading this, or skipping over them, and thinking that they don’t pertain to you because they’re talking about youth ministry.

And when we talk about youth ministry, we tend to think of programs and youth ministers and buses and lock-ins.  Lots of pizza, staying up all night, and who knows what else. 

And let’s face it, most of us aren’t cut out for that sort of thing!  I don’t even want to stay up all night any more. It’s not fun.  And I’m so sick of pizza that I’ve wondered if it was a good enough reason to leave youth ministry all together! (okay, so I’m not wholly serious on that one!).

So while not all of us are called to be a part of a youth ministry program, I think a lot more of us are called to ministry to youth then we tend to think. 

See ministry to youth, as opposed to all the programs and such, which have their place, is in some ways a whole different ball game.  We as Christians are called to be disciples of Jesus and ambassadors of his reconciliation wherever we go (2 Cor. 5:11-21).  We are the ministers of the body of Christ—all of us, together—old and young, ordained and not ordained.  And as such, we are called to be disciples who make disciples. 

I hope that the previous three articles (and if you missed them, you can download them from the website!) have painted a different sort of picture of what ministry to youth looks like.  It’s a process we can all be involved in at some point or another.  Mentoring teenagers and young adults is something that all of us in the body of Christ can do as we draw them alongside us to journey along in this adventure with Jesus.

I’m willing to guess that everyone reading this knows a teenager or a young adult.  How would it change your relationship with them if you knew that they desperately wanted input from a mature adult?  Adolescence as the process between childhood and adulthood has lengthened to where some say the average end of it is now twenty-four years of age.  Twenty-four! And that’s the average! Which means that you’ve got some later 20-somethings and perhaps even some early 30-somethings that have never made the transition into functioning adulthood because there was no one to show them how.

There’s a poignant scene in the recent movie Lars and the Real Girl where Lars, the protagonist, a 27-year-old living in the garage apartment at his brother and sister in-law’s house asks his older brother, “How do you know when you’re a man?”  And his brother is stumped by the question for several minutes.  Finally he answers some to the effect of “Doing the right thing just because it’s right. Putting other’s first.”  I think the scene illustrates so well the predicament of even 20-somethings who have fewer issues than Lars (the movie is about his recovery from delusion, but that doesn’t do it justice, you really should see it!). 

I think the young people of today are dying to ask us not only “How do you know when you’re a man or a woman” as in “How do you know when you’re an adult” but also “How do you really follow Jesus?” “What does that look like?”  Our society has allowed itself to become so segregated among the generations that few of our teens and young adults have someone they truly feel comfortable asking those sorts of questions.

But they are desperate for the answers.  Will we form relationships with them and help them to figure out what those things look like?  It has to be us that initiates, that proves we’re actually just interested in them for who they are and not what they can do for us. 

Will we take up this call to disciple the younger generations?  To be ambassadors of reconciliation, as though God himself was making his appeal through us?  This is our mission, our vocation as the church, Christ’s body.  How can we say no?

After laying the groundwork for ministry to youth by understanding that God calls people of all ages, we looked last month about what it means to step into what often feels like a completely foreign culture: the world our teenagers inhabit. And so building on the concept that for youth ministry to be effective it has to be incarnational (we inhabit their world as Jesus came and inhabited ours), then the third piece is that ministry has to be relational in ordering for mentoring to occur. And it is in mentoring that the real stuff of making disciples happens.

In the gospel of Mark, we find Jesus and many followers up on a mountainside. “Jesus… called to him those he wanted, and they came to him” (Mark 3:13). There are several points that we can draw from this passage.

First, relational ministry is not to the crowds. In verse seven of this same passage, we see crowds of people following Jesus. He went apart, and “called to him those he wanted.” He limited the group of people that he would spend most of His time with. Second, He called them to Him. This shows deliberate intention on the part of Jesus, and thus, we must also be intentional about how we go about our relational ministry. Third, they came to Him. This may seem obvious, but it is important that we are clear enough in our intentions toward people that we are investing in so that they want us to be in their lives in that capacity. It’s a waste of time to try to mentor someone if they don’t want to be mentored. However, this needs to be done in a subtle way, because the concept of mentoring is often completely foreign to folks. Think of it as coming alongside someone and journeying with them as you both grow in your lives with Jesus. You’ve been further down the path then they have and can help them out as they learn some of the things you’ve already learned. But you can also learn from them, and so while you may be that person’s mentor, don’t forget to be a student yourself! And find a mentor for yourself as well… none of us were meant to accomplish life all on our own.

In Acts, Paul is depicted as always traveling with someone: first Barnabas, then Silas, then Timothy joins with him and Silas (Acts 13:1-3; 15:40, 16:1-3). As Paul went through his ministry, he brought people with him. Despite the fact that it was a disagreement that separated him and Barnabas, Barnabas also followed this model in taking John Mark with him, (Acts 15:39) which increased the number of two-man teams that were modeling this type of ministry in that day. The discipling relationship came before the sending out.

We see this also in Matthew when Jesus sends out the twelve (Matt 10). They had been with him, learning of Him, and then He sent them out. At some point, which is unclear in Matthew, the disciples come back to learn more. In Luke, the evangelist has them coming back to report to Jesus what they had done (Luke 9:10). When they did this, Jesus took them and they went away by themselves, or tried to, but the point is that they withdrew for more time with Jesus.

Again in Luke, when Jesus sends out the seventy-two, He sends them out two by two, they return and tell Him what happened, Jesus responds with more teaching (Luke 10). All of these examples point to a pattern in the Scripture of what relational ministry looks like. In the New Testament, we don’t find examples of people in ministry by themselves per se; they seem to at least be in groups of two. Also, as a pattern for discipleship, the disciples are taught, and then sent out. They return and give a report; they receive more teaching. They are not left cut off from relationships, and they are not left without feedback or teaching. This is key for our ministries today.

We’re not just mentoring young people in a vacuum: we’re teaching them how to do the work of the ministry so that they will be disciples who make disciples. We’re helping mobilize the next generation of workers in God’s harvest, and we’re doing the work of the ministry ourselves while we are accomplishing this.

The Great Commission tells us to go and make disciples of all nations. This is how disciples are made: as we who have gone further in the faith look behind us and pull someone up alongside us and teach them from what we’ve learned. Then as they do that, and the person they pull up beside them does that, we very soon have a whole network of relationships where the people of God are learning from one another and growing together to spread the good news of the kingdom of God to world in turmoil that desperately needs to hear it.

Last post we looked at how the basic groundwork of youth ministry calls us to understand the truth that God gifts young people, calls young people and uses young people and therefore we must take seriously ministry to young people just as we take ministry to adults seriously. But as adults, ministry to other adults is often far easier to fathom. We inhabit the same world, often have similar or parallel life experiences to draw from in conversation. With young people though, we all too often feel at a loss. Their world seems so different, their experiences different than ours, and different than ours when we were in high school. How can we possible hope to relate?

In order to do successful ministry anywhere, we must be willing to follow in the steps of our Savior and become incarnate, or take on flesh, in the world of the people we are ministering to. Paul outlines what incarnational ministry should look like very clearly in his letter to the Philippians, chapter two. We then, as adults who are called to pour into youth, are to follow Jesus’ example in that he made himself nothing, (Phil 2:7) being found in the appearance of a man, (v. and was obedient. What does that mean in our world? He came into our world, assuming nothing. He emptied Himself of all His heavenly glory and authority to come into our world and meet us where we were. We, then, need to empty ourselves of all our “grown-up-ness,” meaning that we must go against the stereotypes youth have of other adults in their world as being aloof, uninterested in “kid things,” authoritarian, among others (but not implying that we have to then start acting like the kids). This doesn’t mean that we have to act like kids. We need to be comfortable with being adults, but not so hung up on it that we can’t be interested in what the youth are for the sake of showing interest in them.

Assuming nothing also means taking on those pesky insecurities that we have that are so easy to sort of take out on the youth in the form of unnecessarily displaying knowledge to the disadvantage of the youth (e.g. making the kid feel stupid for not knowing something). All of these things are potential barriers to adults being able to enter the world of the youth.

Therefore, because of this, we have to consciously empty ourselves, and not consider our current position as something to be grasped (Jesus “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped (Phil 2:6)). Rather, we must let go of it and become obedient unto death (v.8)—death to ourselves, death to our pride, death to our insecurities—so that by our death, the youth in our sphere of influence might be exposed to life through Christ. In order to come across in the right spirit to these youth when we enter their world, we must have the mindset of a servant, the “very nature of a servant” (Phil 2:7).

Two other things that are important to notice are these: when Jesus came to earth, He came to earth and He came to earth. The first involves motion, the second location. He moved from where He was, but this move was more than moving from the sanctuary to the youth room, He came to where humans were, and not just the clean, nice-smelling respectable humans, but also to the blind, the beggars, the tax collectors, the lepers, the prostitutes, in short, the unwanted, the “unclean,” the outcasts. Hence, it is not enough to be seen in the youth room of our church on a regular basis, though this is important. But we must also be seen in the malls, in the libraries, on the school campuses, at the talent shows, the basketball games, and anywhere else that youth gather. We must go because the vast majority of them will never come to us while we remain safely ensconced in the neat, clean youth rooms (okay, so somewhat clean and neat) decorated with posters of Christian bands and having Veggie Tales marathons and worship services. This going forth, this living in the context in which the youth of today live, this is incarnational ministry, the kind of ministry that points young people to the reconciling power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What basic understanding must be in place in order to provide good groundwork for the youth in that ministry? Throughout scripture we see examples of God calling young people to do his work. If God can use, and in fact, wants to use people of all ages, then we as the adult member of the body of Christ must take on as our solemn responsibility the discipling and equipping of our children, teenagers and young adults.

When God called Jeremiah to be a prophet, he was still young enough to consider himself a child and doubted that he could do the task at hand. God’s response to him was this: “…do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ …Now I have put my words in your mouth.’” (Jeremiah 1:9 NIV). In the same spirit, Paul instructs Timothy, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12). This God hasn’t changed. He’s still putting his words in the mouths of young people, and they still have the capacity to set an example for us all. Most of the time, all they need is for someone to get them started in training for godliness.

Just prior to the verse in 1 Timothy, Paul urges Timothy to “train yourself to be godly,” painting an image of rigorous, daily practice. We all know that physical exercise does no good if only done haphazardly, and the same is true of striving to be godly. We must train every day, and train our young people to train every day, for only when a daily practice of godliness is made is it possible to “Set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.

Paul’s next instructions are to “devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and teaching. Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid hands on you” (vv. 13-14). Here he not only outlines habits that are part of striving every day for godliness, but recognizes Timothy’s gift. This highlights two elements that are often lacking in our ministries to youth.

The first element is the gift. All the youth in our sphere of influence have spiritual gifts, but often no one helps them to realize this. A college girl once came to me after having taking a spiritual gifts inventory, and said, “Wow, I have gifts?” And I asked her, “What, did you think God left you out?” Her eyes widened and she said, “I guess I never thought of it that way.” All of our youth have gifts, but many of them perhaps think that God somehow left them out. This must be addressed in our ministries so that the kids can realize that God has equipped them to do His work.

To call out the gifts in our young people takes the body of elders. This is the second element. Too often, the church as a whole is not as committed to the youth of today being equipped for ministry as they are committed to the youth minister equipping the youth for ministry—when they are older of course and have learned how to dress like grown-ups do. This cannot be. Our youth need the recognition from the adults that they are gifted. It’s not enough to merely have the youth minister or the adult volunteers recognize this, but the church as whole, the body, must take part of recognizing the gifts of young people to empower them to step forward in the calling God has placed upon them. Granted, most youth don’t have a well-defined idea of what calling is. However, as they mentored by adults in the church, who continually affirm the gifts that God has given them, then they will be able to start actively walking the path that God has for them.

When God called Jeremiah to be a prophet, Jeremiah thought he was far too young to do what God had asked him to do. God’s response to him was this: “…do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ …Now I have put my words in your mouth.’” (Jeremiah 1:9 NIV). Several hundred years later, we find Paul encouraging Timothy, not to let “anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12).  Our God hasn’t changed.  He’s still putting his words in the mouths of young people, and they still have the capacity to set an example for us all

Young people have great gifts, but too often no one helps them realize this. A college girl once came to me after taking one of those spiritual gift inventories, and said, “Wow, I have gifts?”  And I said, “What, did you think God left you out?”  Her eyes sort of got really big and she said, “I guess I never thought of it that way.”

To call out the gifts in our young people takes the body of elders.  Our youth need recognition from adults that they are gifted. The church as whole, not just the youth minister or the adult volunteers, must take part in recognizing the gifts of young people to empower them to step forward in the calling God has placed upon them.  Granted, most youth don’t have a well-defined idea of what calling is. However, as they are mentored by adults in the church, who continually affirm the gifts that God has given them, then they will be able to start actively walking the path that God has for them.

Teenagers and young adults are looking for something to die for. See, if something not worth dying for, then it’s not worth living for. They are looking for a revolution, and what better revolution to offer them than the revolutionary love of Jesus Christ, who came preaching a kingdom that turned the world as we know it upside down, and made the most radical sacrifice of all in his death on the cross. This is the sort of passion young people long to find. They long to live a life with that sort of commitment and that sort of passion. As we get this message to them, disciple them, mentor them in what it means to live out the gospel—to live out the kingdom of God—on a day-to-day basis, they will pick up the torch and start to spread it themselves. And the next thing you know, we’ll have groups of young revolutionaries in our churches, working side-by-side with people of all generations, living out the call of God to us, the body of Christ, to do the work of the ministry.

The call is then to us, will we take up the mission of actively discipling young people? Intentionally include them in the corporate life of our church? Walk with them through the messy parts of the road to adulthood? For when we do this, we will see changes beyond our imagination in a generation of young people, we will see more variety in the generations that make up our own parishes, and we will all benefit from the life and passion that teenagers and young adults bring to anything that they have decided is worth living for.

 “Slipping through the cracks” is a cliché used for many things, but unfortunately it’s all too familiar in our churches. Mostly it’s come to define what happens to many kids as they transition out of high school youth ministry.

From The Journal of Student Ministries Read it all

I recently finished reading the long-awaited final installment of the Harry Potter series, and discovered several things the church could learn from Harry about what teenagers are looking for.

As early as the first book in the series, we learn that Harry is destined for a fight that could prove deadly. A terrible villain is looking for him and trying to kill him. Certain adults recognize this battle cannot be fought exclusively by them and that this young man eventually must face this villain. However, these adults, especially Dumbledore, some teachers, parents of his friends, and his godfather all work to make certain that Harry is equipped with what he needs before he faces the final battle that could kill him.

Starting at the age of eleven, Harry lives in constant awareness of the danger facing him. But he knows that unless he faces his enemy eventually, people he loves are going to get hurt and killed because his enemy won’t stop pursuing him. So he involves himself wholeheartedly in this fight, both being prepared by these mentors and helping teach other teenagers what he has learned.

And here’s the thing, the adults don’t prevent the teens from taking part in the struggle against evil. Wherever they can, they protect them. Whenever they can, they equip them, but they don’t pat them on the head and tell them to wait until they’re older and can be “real” members of the fight against evil.

Here is where we the church need to take notes. Kenda Dean, in Practicing Passion, talks about how teenagers are looking for something that they would be willing to die for. Teenagers are passionate, less cynical than most, and are still crazy enough to think they can actually make a difference in the world, something a lot of the rest of us too often forget.

And teens are not blind to the cost of such passion. Fighting for something means battle wounds. Teens are okay with that because if it’s worthwhile, it will always be worth it, even when it’s not fun.

This means that teens should be flocking to Christianity left and right because after all, where else do we see such a rich heritage of people willing to lay down their lives for what they believe it, or people persecuted for the simple act of claiming Jesus as Lord?

And this Jesus we claim is none other than the one who laid down his life for all of us, the ultimate act of a loving God. The passion of Christ both led to the cross, and was embodied in the cross. Jesus did battle against evil by giving up his life and then coming back again from the dead, thereby defeating the power of death. Sound familiar? Harry goes willingly to his death in order to stop Voldemort from continuing to do battle against the people he loves. As it turns out, this was the only way to destroy Voldemort (read the book for an explanation). And of course, it doesn’t kill Harry, he comes back to defeat Voldemort and save the day. While he didn’t defeat death itself or rid the world of all evil, the end of The Deathly Hallows shows us a teenager willing to die for his friends.

So if the parallel between what teens want and Christianity is so strong, where are they? Dean suggests the church “has largely sanitized love of suffering, leaving Christianity with a mealy-mouthed niceness that fails to ring true to young people who know in their bones that love and heartache go together” (p. 4).

How do we reach teens and draw them into the community of faith? We must rediscover the passion of Christ and the passion of martyrs all over the world who know all too well that love and suffering go together. Not only will we reach teenagers who are longing for something to be passionate about, but I venture a guess that we’ll discover something that’s been missing in our lives for far too long.

Thanks for the object lesson, Harry.