Archive for month: April, 2020
Does Youth Ministry have a Future?
I’ve been a youth minister my entire adult life, it’s my privilege and my pleasure. I can think of no greater thing then helping young people encounter Jesus Christ for the very first time.
Youth ministry as we know it, however, is very young. We don’t have centuries of practice to draw on, or inspirational patriarchs to model. Modern youth ministry is only a few decades old. It’s not yet fully mature, and all of us within it have lots of room to grow.
In just the last few years, however, a new question has formed: Will we ever get the opportunity to grow into a whole and healthy ministry?
There are exponentially fewer churches than ever offering provision for young people. There are fewer positions for youth ministers available than there were just ten years ago, and far fewer people applying to those positions. Many UK Bible colleges have stopped their youth ministry training programs, and much too few have opened in their place. Even where training is available, course leads are finding it increasingly hard to fill those positions.
The numbers surrounding youth ministry in the UK are troubling – it feels like the branch is creaking.
So is youth ministry over – or do we still have a future?
Does youth ministry have a future?
This is the question asked by my new Grove Youth Series booklet, ‘Does youth ministry have a future? Lessons learned and lost from youth ministry past and present.’ Here’s a short extract from the introduction of that booklet:
Is it just me or does it feel like Christian youth work is disappearing?
I’ve been a youth worker my entire adult life. Outside of this I have no actual human skills, so I really hope that youth work isn’t disappearing, or I’m scuppered! To be honest though, I am just a little scared. It feels like the branch is creaking, and I don’t think it’s just me. I spent a chunk of my last year travelling around UK training centres talking to youth ministry students. During the Q&A times, I could see worry in their eyes. They were asking ‘am I going to have a job at the end of all this?’
So, are we done? Should we all retrain as door-to-door salespeople (we’d be good at that!), or ‘graduate’ into ‘proper’ ministry?
I don’t think so! As a clinically diagnosed optimist I truly believe that there’s hope. The branch might be creaking, but God’s plan for youth ministry is far from over. In fact, I’m suspicious that He’s just getting started.
I think to see a pattern for growth, you have to look back in order to look forward. Modern youth ministry is actually only a toddler when compared to many other ministry areas. It’s only really been around since the 1950s, after all. As a movement, we’re still learning to walk, and there’s still drool on our chins.
We’ve learned so much over the last few decades which should continue to inspire and motivate our work. There are a few things we’ve lost as well, however, and we would do well to rediscover them. I believe that youth ministry in 20 years’ time will look radically different than it does right now, and I believe that it could be so much more effective if we’re able to make the hard choices today.
How do we make those hard choices?
Last night I was talking to my American mum-in-law on the phone, and she quite wisely said that every youth worker wants to invent the wheel. I think she’s right, we are naturally innovators, and we don’t always play well together. Building on the shoulders of those who came before it’s not natural to our DNA; we all want to be the Maverick superheroes that create something new and fantastic.
We just can’t do that anymore. As innately tribal as youth ministry is, we do much better when we cross gaps and talk to each other. If we as a movement can be so much more conversational and teachable – for the sake of our young people – then I believe there is a golden future for youth work.
There’s so much to be said on this topic by people far smarter and more experienced than me. However, we do need to look this issue in the eye and learn from our history in order to grow into the future. Please do grab a copy of the booklet and get involved in the conversation. We need to draw together in order to grow forward.
Live Launch
I’ll be doing an informal live launch of the booklet tonight (Monday 13th April, 2020) at 7pm BST on Facebook.com/YouthWorkHacks
I’d love to see you there!
What’s the most important – and hardest – thing for a youth worker to know? Easter Special Q&A Video
I know you’re a church leader, but do you truly know the gospel?
We love to be black-and-white don’t we? We love to be super clear on where we stand on complex issues. We know exactly what the Bible says about… [fill in the gap.]
We can talk intelligently, with rehearsed answers and memorised verses about all manner of social, ethical, and philosophical ideas. We know how to reduce complexity to a snappy soundbite.
We think this boldness on issues and our uniqueness in a relativistic world comes from the gospel’s influence in our lives.
But the world doesn’t need to hear ‘gospel-influenced’ answers if they don’t first hear – with the same levels of clarity, passion, conviction, and purpose – what the gospel itself is.
Does the gospel play second-fiddle to our pet hot topics?
A question surfaces then: If the gospel feels more like background, and doesn’t come up with the same passion or clarity as other topics, then are we truly crystal clear on what the gospel itself really is?
The gospel:
- Jesus came,
- He lived,
- He died,
- He rose,
- He ascended,
- and He is coming back.
It’s too easy to frame the gospel in ‘us’ terms, but the gospel is the celebration and proclamation of Jesus. This is His world, we are His people, and His name is the name above all names. It’s all about Him.
The gospel is all about Him.
Good Friday is all about Him.
Easter is all about Him.
We do feature and we’re scuppered without it, but it’s His story, and we are involved – wonderfully and graciously – in the radiance of that. It’s like this:
- Jesus came – God Incarnate – revealing the fullness of God to a broken world and ushering in a New Creation
- Jesus lived – a perfect and sinless life – fully keeping God’s law where we simply can’t
- Jesus died – the Sacrificial Lamb – a just human sacrifice for a human problem, and an eternal divine sacrifice to reach every human across space and time
- Jesus rose – resurrected not resuscitated – defeating death itself, revealing His victory and power, leading the way and carving the path for us to follow
- Jesus ascended – into Heaven to sit at God’s right hand – he is the ultimate King and Lord of the universe right now
- Jesus is coming back – He will return – to wipe every tear, defeat every injustice, and to establish the ultimate Creation world when Heaven and Earth finally meet, and the Spiritual and the Physical truly mix.
If you want to share the gospel, try and talk more about who Jesus is and what He has done, than you do about who we are and what we get from it. Believe me the world is inspired by Jesus, and they’ve seen too many self-help schemes to be interested without Him.
Those six things Jesus did represent the different movements or acts in the gospel story. We need to hold them together – as one narrative – carefully balancing each piece in tension as a whole. This is the story that moves mountains, heals the sick, and raises the dead. It’s the story at the centre of history and the foundation for every molecule of the universe. This story is the gravity of the ages. It’s powerful and rich and full because it’s truly His story.
I believe that you can trace every issue in a church, every difference in denomination, and certainly every ‘heresy’ to a misbalance in this story. Heavily leaning on one piece, while casually downplaying others, will inevitably create issues.
Heavily legalistic churches, for instance, often overemphasise the ‘Jesus lived’ bit, focusing on His behaviour and thus the requirement for ours. Prosperity churches will often focus heavily on the ‘victory’ aspects of the resurrection and ascension, subtly downplaying Jesus’ death. Closer to home (and maybe close to the bone) classically evangelical churches tend to focus in on the death and miss out on the fullness of the resurrection. Think about it – can you articulate why Jesus rose from the dead for you, just as well as you can why Jesus died on the cross for you?
This is not the right time to be fuzzy on who Jesus is. The gospel is the heartbeat of our lives and the cornerstone of our ministry. Are we fuzzy on the gospel as youth workers?
[The rest below is a fitting extract from Rebooted]
The Gospel and Youth Work
Have you ever heard someone who cannot tell a joke try desperately to put the moving parts together? They cram the punchline somewhere into the setup and end lamely with “but it’s funny! Why aren’t you laughing…” My favourite is when a friend of mine tried her hand at a classic:
“Hey Tim, a horse walked into the bar, and he had a long face. And the barman said… … … darn it!”
The gospel is a little like that! It is the good news, yet so many Christians cannot articulate the basic moving parts of it. That Jesus came, lived, died, rose, ascended is the most incredible event in all of history. Why does the question ‘what is the gospel’ get met with so many abstractions and so much fuzziness?
I often hear youth leaders at events telling young people that Jesus died for them. Brilliant! Please keep telling your young people that. However, the obvious question that arises from such a radical idea is why? Why did Jesus die for me?
The answer I often hear is because He loves you. And then they leave it there. Yes, but no, but yes, but no, but — ! Yes, it’s absolutely true that Jesus loves us, and loves us unconditionally, fully and completely! Yes, it’s true that His love drew Him to the cross, but love, in isolation, was not the reason He died. The punchline has been swallowed in the setup.
Let me put it this way: I love my wife, but killing myself is not really a very constructive expression of that love. There needs to be a reason that my love would express itself in that way… like pushing her out of the way of a car; or more heroically, diving in front of a speeding bullet. The reason my love would express itself in death would be to save her from it.
Fine, Jesus loved us so He died to save us. Is that enough? Well no. Save us from what? Why? When? Who? How does dying save us from anything anyway? And if he’s dead, how does it really matter to me? And did he stay dead? What did the resurrection actually accomplish other than proving he was God?
Jesus paid a substitutionary price for our sin and separation from God, being both the eternal sacrifice as divine and the just penalty as human. He died in our place, paying our debt. Then He rose again, defeating the powers and chains of death itself, unlocking the doors of eternity. This is the gospel.
Consider that,
The greatest sin ever committed was humanity nailing Jesus to the cross.
The greatest pain ever experienced was for Jesus to die in the absence of His father.
The greatest injustice ever was Jesus becoming the guilty one in our place. An injustice God transformed into the supreme act of righteousness.
The greatest act of love, mercy, grace, and beauty was Jesus surrendering himself to death for our sake.
The greatest victory ever achieved was the Holy Spirit raising Jesus up to life and promising to do the same for us.
This should be the greatest part of our lives, touching everything in it, and therefore the greatest portion of our teaching.
The cross bought our forgiveness, our justification, and our assurance of salvation. It cleared our record, disarmed Satan, and gave us permission to sit on God’s knee on the throne for eternity! How is this not all we talk about?
We need to live and breathe the Gospel in our saturation teaching; it should be at the absolute heart of all we teach. In fact, I’m going to challenge you that every passage in the Bible, properly understood in context, will tell you something of that gospel. It is the central action of all history, the most pivotal part of creation.
Our young people need this message of hope, love and beauty more than anything else. It is naturally relevant, it sits at the heart of everything the disciples did, and it is thoroughly expressed in how Jesus lived.
Photo by Sean Mungur on Unsplash
COVID-19: A chance to do less, well
Let’s face it kids, as youth workers we’re incredibly trigger happy when it comes to projects. I’m not sure if it’s our attention-deficient-riddled brains, or just too many years hooked on the out-of-date tuckshop sugar highs, but we start more projects than we have hot dinners. We just can’t help ourselves.
In my first youth work job there was already twenty-two projects, clubs and events that I oversaw, so what did I do in the four years in post? I added seventeen more! That’s more than inexperience, that’s an addiction. We just love to do new things, more things, bigger things, more things, superfluous things, and more things.
For years we’ve seen the meme-dressed statistics that say young people spend around thirty hours a week in school, fifty hours with family, and only two-four hours with us as youth workers. The lesson this should have taught us is to spend more time supporting both schools and parents, and make the few things we do the best they can be. Did we learn that? Nope. Instead we just added more stuff!
We just can’t help ourselves, right? No wonder we’re always strapped for resources, begging for leaders, and befuddled as to why young people have such shallow, sporadic relationships with us.
We just keep doing more stuff.
There’s a flip side to this too. Going back to that first job I was aware of a pretty constant stream of gossip that said, ‘what is Tim actually doing?’ Because people didn’t see the prep, the prayers, or the presence, all they had to go on was the church calendar. To counter the gossip (without actually addressing it – rookie mistake), I just added more stuff.
This means I was stretched, strained, stressed, and scuppered! You can’t do effective ministry from a straitjacket.
Enter, stage left: COVID-19
Like a horrible, tragic miracle, a few weeks ago that all changed. Or at least it should have done.
Not for one-unintentional moment do I want to make light of the desperately sad and scary situation that COVID-19 has plunged us all into. This ‘new normal’ for us still comes with too many unsettling unknowns and very real fears about homes, businesses, and those that we love. So, stay in, stay safe, and wash your hands!
This also, however, came with an interesting curve ball for us in youth work: all of our stuff just suddenly – and perfectly excusably – stopped.
Everything closed. Our projects, church services, events, festivals, one-to-ones, clubs, communities, drops-ins, detached times, and schools work shut down. Everything. Just. Stopped.
Or at least it looked that way… for about fifteen minutes.
Enter, stage right: Zoom
Two days after we announced our project closures, we did our first simulcast live stream – followed by another the next night. A day later, we had our first video conference with team, and a day after that, one with young people too.
In the first week of lockdown I think I worked more hours than I ever have before during this job. I read, I watched tutorials, I rewrote policies, I took legal advice, I bought new lighting, I started creating new content. I was suddenly working ever hour of the day, without a break to ‘come home’ (because I was home), and with very little real human contact.
And that’s just weird!
We’ve suddenly become digital masterminds. YouTube channels are popping up everywhere (I just launched mine!), and everyone can suddenly debate the finer points of mic-placements and backlighting.
Now, I’m not a parent, but when you add to this newly found home-school duties, and maybe care for vulnerable family members too, youth workers have simply become very suddenly – and unexpectedly – swamped.
Are we missing a trick here?
Missing the point
We were never meant to oversaturate young people in our presence, but to support and equip them – in their families – to encounter the presence of God.
We were never meant to project young people into the Kingdom of God (digital or otherwise), but to help them discover it for themselves.
We were never meant to own a young person’s faith, but to help them take their own responsibility for it.
Are we missing a blessing in disguise here?
A few days ago, I spent some time on zoom with a class of third year theology students, and at some point, towards the end I remember telling them to do less, well. My encouragement to them was not to see their calendar as a thing to fill with projects, but a thing with organic space to develop and facilitate real ministry.
My book, Rebooted, is all about this; youth workers becoming facilitators for youth ministry rather than simply the de facto deliverers of it. I believe the youth worker’s primary function should be to enable a movement of the gospel to young people through the mechanisms of church, family, and each other. You were never meant to be the show-runner superstar! You can still run a project or two, but most of your time should be supporting, enabling, and empowering others to do that.
When we cancelled all our projects two weeks ago, did we just pull the plug and let all things digital flow into that space instead? We absolutely can (and should) be doing digital work right now, but if we’re busier now than we were before trying to reinvent and replace our projects under a different medium, then I think that we’re just missing a trick. And if our video projects are just adding to our superhero complex cult of personality, that’s probably not doing us any favours either!
We have time and space now. Right now.
Stop. Pray. Think.
Re-learn what it means to be in the presence of God while being present to yourselves. Re-evaluate what really matters in youth ministry and what would have the most lasting effect.
Do some digital projects and do them well, but don’t come out of this the same youth worker you were when you came into it.
Let me say that again: Don’t come out of this the same youth worker you were when you came into it.
Sure, explore digital mediums – we should – but even more than this – rediscover presence.
Do less. And do it well.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash