DOES
YOUR YOUTH MINISTRY MESS WITH CHRIST’S BRIDE?
FEB 25, 2015
Much ink has been
spilled and many words have been typed about shallow approaches to youth
ministry and their damaging effect on young people’s engagement with Christ and
the local church as they enter adulthood. There are valuable critiques; I’ve
issued many of them. Youth pastors, directors, and workers need to be
constantly called back to a focus on substantive, biblical, and gospel-centered
ministry to young people, so that they do not fall prey to the gleam of a
thriving and fun youth ministry that does not contribute to lasting kingdom
fruit.
A strong and drastic
reaction against youth ministry, by some, has been to eliminate it
completely—to entirely integrate the younger generations of believers into the
life of the church. There’s warrant in this move . . . when it actually works.
The problem is that it can sometimes cut out a key season of ministry for both
students and leaders, a time that God can use in powerful ways in spiritual
development and relational growth in Christian community.
Holding the Balance
The “balance” that I
want to call for in youth ministry today continues to walk a careful line
between “entertainment” youth ministry (the shallow type that gravitates toward
attraction rather than biblical substance) and the elimination of youth ministry
(the move that provides no age-focused community for biblical teaching,
training, and discipleship within the local church). It’s a balance that
identifies a slightly different key question than the one that’s being asked
many times: Should we do youth ministry? Here’s the question I would propose
asking instead: Does this youth ministry contribute to the development of
lifelong members, servants, and leaders in the local church?
In the church contexts
where I’ve served, it’s the students who have connected with the wider local
church body in significant ways during their junior high and high school years
who have matured and become deeply involved in local churches during college
and beyond. Many of them have participated in vibrant youth ministries filled
with fun events and activities, yet they have been groups led by youth pastors
who have intentionally labored to grow the students’ faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, a faith that will be lived out, built up, and strengthened throughout
their lives in the context of biblically solid and gospel-centered local
churches. If youth pastors aren’t preparing students for that kind of future for their faith, they aren’t
doing their jobs.
So, with this kind of
evaluation metric for youth ministry in mind, I want to offer a few
“diagnostic” questions that I would encourage pastors and church leaders to be
asking of the youth ministries under their care. David Plant, Cameron Cole, and
I hope to develop these
questions more fully at our workshop in Orlando in April at The Gospel
Coalition National Conference.
Diagnostic Questions for Youth Pastors
Does
our ministry compete in any way with the priority of corporate worship for
students? We might consider, for
example, how our desire to have relevant and age-appropriate teaching for our
youth might sometimes prohibit them from being challenged to begin engaging
with expository preaching, even during their young teenage years. This
diagnostic question might force us to evaluate musical choices and styles as
well, in both the youth group context and the corporate worship context.
Do
our youth leaders intentionally encourage inter-generational relationships for
the students? Part of the role
of the youth leader is to do discipleship, obviously. But it’s sometimes just
as valuable for a 20-something youth leader to encourage a high school student,
for example, to meet regularly with an older leader in the church for prayer,
encouragement, Bible study, and wise counsel. Youth leaders might consider
setting an example for their students through their own engagement with the
older generation in the church.
Does
our ministry generally support or compete with the discipleship work of godly
parents in our congregation? Is our heart truly to support parents’ gospel-centered
work in the home, or do we secretly relish being the fun counterpart to
parents, as students complain about strict rules and misunderstandings in
discipline? Often, we can begin to evaluate the state of our ministry in this
regard by looking carefully at our communication, transparency, and relational
engagement with the parents of our students.
Are
students encouraged to choose between youth ministry involvement/leadership and
service in other areas of the local church? Especially in larger churches, this can become an issue,
as participation in a youth group leadership team can become quite consuming.
Youth leaders should be looking for ways to allow—and even encourage—students
to serve in the broader church body as well as in the youth group context. They
shouldn’t have to choose.
Does
the youth ministry hinder, in any way, the preparation of young men and women
to engage in local church contexts as adult Christians? This is a big question, but one that we
should be constantly asking. Our answers will probably lead to constant
tweaking of our approaches to youth ministry, as we prayerfully consider how
our ministry can contribute to lifelong lovers and servants of Christ’s body in
local churches around the globe.
Let’s ask the tough
questions of our youth ministries, for the glory of God and the good of his
church.
Editors’
note: Jon Nielson will
lead a workshop at The Gospel Coalition National Conference in April, along with
David Plant (Redeemer
Presbyterian Church) and Cameron Cole (Rooted Ministries),
on the topic of ”Stumbling Blocks: Preparing Students for Life in a Fallen
World.” Cole and Nielson are also co-editing a book—Gospel-Centered Youth
Ministry (Crossway)—to
which Plant is a contributor.
Jon Nielson is the college
pastor at College Church in Wheaton, Illinois. He blogs at Something More
Sure.
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