Vision & the Young-In-Years

Yesterday was "Quest Sunday" at St. Peter's, where leaders from our major program areas (Council, Youth, Music, Mission, Evangelism, etc.) briefly shared their vision for the coming year.

My vision for the "young-in-years" shares the same purpose as our vision for the whole church; that we serve the world as Jesus Christ, and strengthen each other for service. Within that purpose are literally thousands, if not millions, of possibilities for worship, growth, and action. Towards this purpose, I understand my role to be a builder/midwife of "redemptive fellowships" - small, intimate, family-like groups of struggling, striving Jesus-followers.

The always-question; "So, what does that actually look like?!"

I have five markers for purposeful youth ministry, which I did not write myself (thanks JR). In order of importance, they are: safety, fun, affirmation (knowing God loves you and the people at church love you), message, and community (which is a result of the first four).

For the younger kids, this looks like Sunday School during 10:30 worship; we have a lot of fun, prioritize the experience of a loving community over the lesson plan, and learn Bible stories in a concrete way. For the older kids, who are or are approaching adulthood in the church, there is a dialogue between the group and I. I set out and create some opportunities for service and strengthening; I also listen and respond to the older kids' own discernment about the kinds of service and strengthening they feel called to engage in.

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I hold my vision in conversation with the larger universe of youth ministry, and Time Magazine's online edition has an article about what young people are looking for in a faith community (thanks Bill Tammeus).

When coupled with conclusions of scholarly research, a pattern emerges. "The amount of freedom and opportunity kids have in high school to express and wrestle with doubt, the mysteries of scripture and its applicability to the problems in their own lives is related to the maturity of their faith [as young adults]," says Kara Powell, executive director of Fuller Seminary's Center for Youth and Family Ministry...

There's a lot at stake. Those who seek but don't find typically abandon religion, often never to return, says Justin Taylor, whose theologica.blogspot.com blog mixes theology, culture and politics. "So many youth ministries quickly become irrelevant to teens," he says, "because pastors get kids excited with cool video clips and cutting-edge music, but then when a parent gets cancer and the teenager is lying in bed wondering what life is all about, he or she discovers there's nothing to sustain them."

The other thing that has interested me lately is the evangelicals' own statistics that project fewer and fewer of those who are now teens (Ron Luce is quoted in the Time piece, and you may remember my posts on BattleCry's 4% statistic). The evangelicals have out-programmed and out-youth-ministried everyone else for forty years, and this is what they've accomplished?! Concerned friends, are we at a place where we can finally recognize that pizza-party-based, CCM-blasting, ski-trip-taking youth ministry led by fresh-faced, enthusiastic, baseball-cap-wearing camp counselors* is broken?

I am.

Kids can smell inauthenticity from a mile away (so can I). Why, at the time in life when we are crazed with energy and passion, are at our most idealistic, are ready to throw our whole lives into a long-shot attepmt to change the world by living differently... do we tack towards a ministry of pizza parties?

I will not. I am happy to host a pizza party, or a lock-in (like this past weekend's), as part of a youth group's (redemptive fellowship's) living-out of its larger purpose to serve/strengthen. But without the wider vision, we are only hindering the efforts of Jesus-followers, and the possibilities for young people to become such. We are underestimating (or scared of?) people's need for authentic community; it's messy, it's dangerous, it requires our whole, true selves, and it cannot be contained or mediated by curriculum, video clips, music that apes the latest pop, or any other quick-fix.

I suggest (again, inspired by Trueblood) a return to the kind of community that infected the Roman world in the wake of Jesus. I am working on it. It may be naive, but it's all I can see. I may sound repetitive, but so is the gospel. This is my vision, ancient and bleeding edge, and I know I am not alone.

-h

*Yes, this is a broad swipe, I mean no offense but only aim to draw a sort of verbal cartoon as a caricature of a truth I percieve. I've even been known to be "enthusiastic" from time to time myself - I am part of the cartoon.