Is the youth room making your church sick?

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

1 Corinthians 12:12-14

I’ve taught on this passage dozens of times. The Pauline epistles make allusion to it a number of  times. Reading Paul’s writings you are left with the impression that this illustration was part of the stump speech he delivered everywhere he went.

Paul also encourages his protege, Timothy, with this, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.” (1 Timothy 4:12)

So…

  • Paul tells Timothy that age isn’t the deciding factor for wholeness for individuals in the church.
  • Paul tells the church, over and over again, that wholeness in the church involves everyone in the congregation.

And somehow in the 20th century we decided that the best way to live that out was to segregate all the ages? 

Yeah, that doesn’t make sense.

Stick with me. I’m not out to body slam youth or children’s ministry. I promise-ish.

Memory Lane

Modern youth ministry took root in post-World War II America. We were in kind of a collective Post-Traumatic Stress period as a country because every family had been impacted by the war. On top of that, the emergence of the middle class fostered the sudden creation of teenage culture.

These two factors came on so hot & fast that the local church struggled to know what to do.

Sunday School started in the 19th Century and had taken root in congregations… but, for the most part, worship services were integrated across the age spectrum. (In other words, there was a moment of age separation but also a moment where the congregation came together.)

But, churches found, this wasn’t working well with teenagers.

What was obviously working well was the parachurch ministries. Things like Younglife, Youth for Christ, Campus Crusade, and others took off in popularity. They were gathering a certain spectrum of the population that the church missed.

This was (and is) a very good thing.

Largely in the 1960s, the church started to mimic what the parachurch ministries were doing. Many churches hired staff from these parachurch ministries because they wanted to integrate what Younglife or YFC was doing into their congregations. And that was a good thing.

But this is really where the idea of what we refer to as church-based youth ministry got going. As that matured over the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, the idea of an age-specific ministry to teenagers really got codified into our thinking. The way teenagers were reached through the local church became more and more a specialized ministry, often with it’s own identity and set of values but meeting at the host church.

So that’s how we got where we are at with the idea that youth ministry done well is somehow a separate ministry.

The Course Correction

I don’t look at our shared history with regret. So much good is being done and was done. But we are at the point where we need to re-awaken to some realities.

  • Youth group, as it’s been codified as a separate ministry within the church, only works for a small percentage of teenagers in any given community. Even the largest youth ministries in the country each reach a small percentage of the students within their congregations reach. (I’m not suggesting youth group stop, just that it become part of our youth ministry instead of the end all, be all.) It’s just a statistical reality that roughly 100,000 youth workers in America cannot reach the 224,000,000 teenagers.
  • Adolescent youth culture is so segmented at this point that it’s impossible to think of a single ministry reaching a theologically appropriate level of teenagers. The answer can’t be a bigger program. The only way to reach more is to diversify and control less. In other words, to reach a theologically appropriate level of teenagers the local church has to “deputize” more than just the people who work in the youth group.
  • The church has matured and stands ready to integrate ministering to teenagers into the general mission of the church. We simply aren’t in the same place, culturally, that we were in the 1940s-60s. We, as the body of Christ, do know what to do. We are well aware of youth culture. And hundreds of thousands of Christians have dedicated their lives to investing in teenagers. (Vocationally, as volunteers, etc.)

So, is the youth room making your church sick?

9780988741379-frontMaybe. But I’m suggesting that the youth room is part of the problem and part of the cure, too. (Does that make youth group the vaccine in this metaphor?)

Yes, we need some level of course correction. The church needs to take seriously the lessons Sticky Faith teaches. (April Diaz’s book, Redefining the Role of the Youth Worker is a case study in how her church went through this course correction, moving from a youth pastor to a Student Integration Pastor.)

And yes, we need to keep ministering to the population of the church for whom youth group works.

But more than anything… we need to get serious about encouraging and “deputizing” everyday youth workers in our midst whose lives already revolve around teenagers.


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7 responses to “Is the youth room making your church sick?”

  1. Brian Seidel Avatar

    This is down the same line of thinking as my book Flimsy Ministry, I focus on the unwritten rules of youth ministry as we know it and how they are hurting the church and youth workers.

  2. Sonya Snyder Avatar
    Sonya Snyder

    What to do when the youth group is blessed by being filled with children from the community- some of whom understand Christianity, and a small number of kids from church. How do we become one body with the other students in the room? How do we bridge cultural barriers? And even more importantly, how can we integrate children that only come on Wednesdays into the whole church body?

    In an attempt to understand, I did start reading Sticky Faith. I felt depressed by the tone. Anything else out there that speaks to this?

    1. adam mclane Avatar

      These are all great questions, Sonya! (And ones lots and lots of people are trying to figure out.) I’d encourage you to try to work through Sticky Faith… it’s one of the better works out there that’s based on research & praxis as opposed to just theory & anecdotes. I also have been stirred by Kenda Dean’s book, “Almost Christian” which is really a translation of Christian Smith’s academic longitudinal study.

      I am particularly interested in the scenario you brought up about students who are engaged in your youth ministry but come from families that aren’t necessarily engaged with the church. The long term answer is integration with the wider body of the church so that they establish a place in the church beyond the age-gated youth ministry. But how to do that and not lose their interest is something I’d love to hear from fellow youth workers about. 🙂

  3. KennethJRLC Avatar

    I found this article very interesting. I really enjoyed you honest opinion on how you felt about youth groups and I cant wait to read more of your work.

  4. Kurt J. Avatar
    Kurt J.

    * Sonya, I’ve read most of the books that speak to this topic, and think Sticky Faith is the best. And remember, no book or workshop or church’s way of addressing this issue is THE ONLY way…you’ll need to contextualize stuff to your unique church context.

    * AND, remember that most books (Redefining The Role of the Youth Worker included) are equal parts real and ideal…April would be quick to acknowledge that her church is still very, very much in process and in many ways still functions like a very traditional model.

    * It’s an understandable temptation to read books, listen to other’s stories and feel like you are lagging behind if you aren’t making the same changes, in the same way, at the same pace. Youth ministry, more than just about any other, has room for lots and lots of variety and diversity in methodology. DO WHAT WORKS IN YOUR SETTING!

    * The youth room is only making your church sick if it is viewed as the only acceptable place for teenagers to hang out. If it’s a means to the end, and not the end in itself, then it can be a wonderful tool…hopefully one of many resources your church allocates toward teenagers.

    * Adam, what’s up with the tiny little comment box? 🙂

    1. adam mclane Avatar

      Lots of great words there, Kurt. And I dunno why that box is so small… that’s just the size they come in.

      1. Kurt J. Avatar
        Kurt J.

        No…it shrunk! It wasn’t this small before.

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