What I Have Appreciated In Youth Ministry

I’m no longer a youth pastor, but I’ve been recently reflecting over my tenure in youth ministry. It hasn’t been all happy thoughts. In fact, much of it has been disappointing thoughts. I think being in youth ministry is one of the hardest areas of ministry, because you’re working with people who are usually not at all mature. Not only are they not mature in faith, they aren’t mature as people in general. They’re not stable. You can’t rely on them for very much. Yet you pour your life into them, looking for fruit, only to often find quite a bit of frustrating and disappointing results.

I think with technology today, it makes it even harder. In the past, you could pour your life into kids, and just pray and hope that it would make a difference in their lives as they grow older, not knowing how their life would turn out. But today, with things like Facebook, you stay connected with them. I look at my friends on Facebook from both churches I youth-pastored at, and I am often extremely disappointed to see their attitudes, lack of faith in Christ, poor life-choices, etc. Part of me wonders if it was really worth it. Did Christ really do anything in their hearts?

That’s why near the end of my tenure at my last church, I became increasingly aware that the best way to really disciple youth is to see their parents become genuine disciples of Christ. Too many parents think that being a Christian is just going to church and volunteering somewhere there. It’s been called “churchianity.” The parents do very little to teach their children what it means to follow Christ. They do not know very much about the Bible themselves, nor do they know how to lead someone to Christ. They struggle being able to even share with someone how to become a Christian and what that really means. On top of this, there seems to be very little eagerness in adults to change this. They don’t seem very willing to change. It’s a large reason why I tried to focus on working with teenagers, rather than working with adults.

As a result, I shouldn’t be surprised to see the majority of teenagers not rising above their parents’ faith. Statistics show that the vast majority of kids will end up approaching their faith like their parents do, regardless of their involvement in a youth ministry. There are always exceptions, of course. Nevertheless, what I read on the pages of some of my former youth’s pages often discourages me and disappoints me.

But there are parts of youth ministry that I am already missing, now that I’m a “real” pastor….ha.

I miss how youth didn’t put on many pretenses with regards to their faith. They didn’t pretend to have their lives together. They were honest, although they weren’t sharing all the juicy details either. But they were just who they were. I appreciate this in youth, because I feel I need to become more like them in this regard. I wanted to hang out with them, because I want to be more authentic myself. I regularly feel the need to close myself in.

I miss the eagerness of youth to volunteer for whatever. If we said, “hey–we’re starting a worship band,” or “hey, let’s share our faith with strangers at the mall,” or “hey, let’s have a marshmallow-eating contest,” there was excitement to go for something. With adults, you just get complacency or excuses or skepticism. I see in myself how I’m much more like an adult in this aspect as well, and really appreciated being with kids who challenged me by just going for it, and being willing to try it.

I miss how teenagers had questions. They wanted to know the answers. Adults feel like we know the answers. We aren’t really all that interested in learning more in our faith. We think we already know enough. I appreciate how youth helped me keep seeking to know more about God.

I miss their energy. I’m not a very energetic person, so being around them helped keep me more energetic. Now on Sunday mornings, it’s not like I’m throwing a football around before worship service, and coming in out of breath. No, things are quite stale with adults. We show very little excitement in our worship of God or our attitude in life.

I could go on, but I share all of this to say that I think it’s rather disappointing that adults have quite a bit to offer teenagers, and teenagers have quite a bit to offer adults, and yet we keep an arm’s distance away. We relegate youth to the youth room, and they end up walking away from the church when they graduate high school. And us adults continue having our boring, largely-meaningless gatherings where very little interaction occurs.

Our church is very small, and right now doesn’t have a youth ministry. That’s about to change. I imagine how differently our church will look once it does. Teenagers in the sanctuary laughing to each other when everyone else is being quiet and has a somber face. I’m guessing there will be a little bit of an unsettling adjustment, and I can’t wait for it! I really miss just going for it, and having a good time doing it.

I don’t think adults are hopelessly lost when it comes to this. All it takes is for us to start hanging out with teenagers (if we are willing to do so), and they rub off on us. I know that from personal experience.

Here’s to the future–to a church who values relationships with one another, and who is willing to let those of us who are younger to help us become more human, more fun, more daring, more eager, more hungry in our faith. A church where teenagers can get to know people who are mature in faith, begin to envy their walk with God, and follow in their footsteps instead of walking away.

A church that is both bold and wise, daring and stable, passionate and grounded. It’s the best of both worlds, and it’s possible if we can have enough grace to work with the worst of both worlds too.