This is a little off the arts ministry topic, but I think it’s important. On one of my ministry lists, someone posted a link to the new movie, Divided. This movie says that youth ministry is not biblical and favors a family ministry approach. While I love the idea of family ministry, families actually have to train up their children for it to work and our society’s condition reveals that this is not happening in a lot of households. I also disagree with the idea that youth ministry is not biblical. I believe it is a great supplement to family ministry and a great outreach tool for the church. I posted that I had a few problems with the premise of the film and someone asked what I thought should be done to stop losing the young people from our churches. This was my response.
First pray!!! Then…
1. More parental involvement in the spiritual well being of their children.
2. Churches being more intentional in involving youth in the life of the church. Tapping into their gifts and giving them real and age appropriate ways to serve. Not a token role so you can pat yourself on the back for having the youth involved. If you’re going to put a youth on a commission (or whatever) their input has to count. You mention my pastor (Bill Waugh) finding a use for my art gift and that was a key and crucial element in where I am today. I was a little older than youth by that time, but I was a baby believer and finding a place for me to fit was crucial. I believe that is the case for all believers.
3. Churches supporting youth leaders and youth ministries. (This was my main problem with the movie. If a church wants to switch to a family focused ministry as the movie suggests, fine, but the parents need to step up and they have to actually do it, not just decimate the youth ministry.) The average life of a youth leader in a church is about a year and a half and this is thoroughly unacceptable. I’ve talked to youth leaders all over the country. You’d be amazed how many of them are fired at the drop of a hat. If they’re being fired for heresy, fine, but it usually has more to do with disgruntled parents or reaching the “wrong kind of kid” (you know, kids who need Jesus). The danger zone in youth ministry is as a youth leader, I’m the person who gets to answer the questions your kids are too scared to ask you (this includes even the best parents). We need to show them a little more love and support.
4. Pastors need to have their youth leaders back. They need to correct the youth leader when necessary but they also need to stand up to unreasonable parents on the youth leader’s behalf. They’re crucial not disposable.
5. Youth leaders need to be intentional about involving the youth in the life of the church.
6. Parents need to be intentional about involving the youth in the life of the church.
7. Youth leaders need to remember that we are making disciples, keeping the teaching of the Word of God far in front of fun and games ministry.
8. Denominations and Districts need to steer their youth events toward teaching the Word of God and leave the politics and controversial issues at home. Nothing worse than feeling like you have to deprogram your students after taking them to a denominational event. Oh and by the way if you feel like you have to do that, the answer is to get involved with the planning of these events not just writing them off.
9. Volunteer youth ministry is not “warm body ministry” i.e. “we need someone to do this, take the first “warm body” we can get…” Youth ministry is a special calling. It’s not necessarily for the youngest person, or the hippest person. It’s the person who can put up with 20 of your teenagers all at once and still love them.
10. Parents, don’t expect the youth leader to fix your kid. Don’t think he can do in an hour a week what you haven’t been able to do in the rest of the week.
10b. Parents if we want kids to keep God number one in their lives we must demonstrate this to our kids. This means they don’t miss church and youth group every time some coach (or teacher or director) decides to have a game or a practice (or whatever) on Sunday morning or over a scheduled church function. If the coach could not field a team (or whatever) every time he had a game on Sunday morning, he’d soon learn how to schedule things leaving your child (and maybe even HIMSELF) time to worship his God.
11. We need to expect more from our kids. They are capable of doing great things for Jesus. That same Spirit that came upon David lives in your child if he is a believer. I once heard that we can’t have a message more than 12 minutes long for middle school students giving them one minute for every year. That’s crazy. They sit in 40 minute classes all year long. We get great things out of our kids by giving them great things to do. We get what we expect.
12. And this is second only to number one. Older members of the church (anyone no longer a youth) need to be intentional about building relationships with the youth. In this day and age many are far removed from their extended families, the church family filling that void is crucial. We lose a lot of students when they go off to college and the movie correctly points out this is getting younger. A lot of this is due I believe, to the idolatry of our society and has at least as much to do with the obsession of having enough extracurriculars to get into the best colleges, but I digress. What would happen if a caring person from church sent a college student a card every so often or better yet a care package? What if you had them over for dinner? What if you really got to know them? What if we prayed for them and with them? These connections will help be “the tie that binds” our students to the Church. Whoever said the teen years are the best years of a person’s life has a short memory. It’s a very hard time of adjustments greater than most they will face in the rest of their lives and they don’t have the benefit of years of experience to deal with them. They can’t always see Jesus but they can see you model him. And you’re never too old. One of the best assistants I ever had was old enough to be a grandfather to every one of my students and that’s what he was to many of them. He met them where they were. He loves them and they love him.
The church is a body, all parts are needed and like a body new cells come in as the older ones die off. We need to keep our youth connected. The family is a key building block in all of this and parents have the primary role in the spiritual development of their children. On this I am in total agreement with the film. I believe God has raised up youth ministries as a way to supplement this and cover it for parents who are falling short (and lets face it, even the best fall short sometimes) because God loves your children even more than you do. One last thing… Banish the idea that the youth are the church of future. They are the church of the right now and we need them right now. 80 percent of people who will ever come to Christ will do it by the age of 18. If this is the case, our youth are the forefront evangelists in the ripest mission field on earth. We need more ministry to youth not less.
These are my thoughts based on a long time of doing youth ministry and ministering to youth ministers. I welcome your comments or as I said on my original post, “Let the beatings begin.”
By the way you can see the movie for yourself here.
http://dividedthemovie.com/
AMOKArts 