I know you’re a church leader, but do you truly know the gospel?

April 10, 2020/3 Comments/in church, theology, youth work /by admin

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

Advocating for Women in Youth Ministry – we really must do better!

January 14, 2020/0 Comments/in church, culture, theology, youth work /by admin

A couple of years ago I received a bit of pushback to my 11 essential youth ministry books because none of them were written by women.

My response was that this, unfortunately, is the reality of the market. For every youth work book written by a woman there are dozens written by men. There is an enormous problem with the body language of youth ministry towards women.

Women and Youth Ministry

I’m always nervous writing on topics like this because I don’t want to come across as a yet another entitled, white, middle-class man, swooping in like a hero-ninja-knight trying to rescue women. Women don’t need rescuing by men who think they’ve got all the answers. But it’s time that the wisdom, experience and voice of women is promoted, listened to, valued and learned from. And this will mean that men like me must be willing to advocate for women.

Women have been immensely mistreated across leadership in the Church, and – even though there have always been more female youth ministers than female ministers generally – they are still seen as second-rate workers for the Gospel.

This is just wrong.

A few years back I collected stories from 40 women in youth ministry. These were shocking to the core. They included lines like:

“For about a year, I had people tell me I needed to hurry up and find a man because, being a woman, I couldn’t relate to boys. Two years later, they told me to be more ladylike so I could relate to the girls, because I’m only good at relating to the boys (I’ve always been a tomboy). Also, there are some concerns that me wearing men’s clothing may make my girls lesbian?”

and

“Do you know how many job descriptions have the words he/him/his? And then I have gotten responses back with one question: “Are you a man?” I have two degrees in student ministry and have volunteered for nearly 15 years in various capacities but rarely get any response.”

also

“I am the children’s minister at our church, note I am paid staff. I was told last week I wasn’t allowed to go on the staff retreat bc I was a woman…. my husband could go and “represent” me.”

This doesn’t just come from the culture of youth work, but from the Church as a whole, and even from churches hiring women as youth workers. Although there is a growing openness, there still seems to be a generational plague of views that see a woman in ministry as somehow less than a man.

I know that I’m less traditional on women in church leadership than many of my evangelical brothers and sisters. I believe that women in leadership is supported by the Bible and should be practiced in the Church today. This is not that post, however, so for now I’ll just point towards an excellent exposition of this from Bishop Tom Wright.

Where would youth ministry be without women?

Some of the most amazing youth workers I’ve ever met have been women. My own teams have always had incredibly wise and able women in them – and my ministry suffers without them. My own experiences aside, however, the shape of youth ministry today owes a lot to female influence.

There are, of course some important youth ministry books written by women, including ‘God-bearing Life’ by Kenda Creasy Dean and ‘Youthwork’ by Sally Nash. There are women heading up a huge amount of the accredited youth ministry training across the UK including Alice Smith at St. Mellitus, Alia Pike at Nazarene, Mel Lacey at Oak Hill, Dr. Sally Nash at CYM, and – until very recently – Dr. Carolyn Edwards at Cliff College, and now York Diocese. The editors of Premier Youth and Children’s Work Magazine are women (Ruth Jackson, Jess Lester and previously Emily Howarth). There’s also Naomi Allen heading up Open Doors Youth, and Chioma Fanawopo leading Release Potential. About 60% of National Youth for Christ staff are women, about 70% of Youthscape’s, and almost half of Scripture Union’s.

This represents a significant amount of influence in shaping the development of future practitioners. Youth ministry would look immensely different without women’s significant influence in shaping it.

So what can we do?

Balance for balance sake is surely not the answer. We should hire and support those with a clear calling and measurable gifting without taking sex into the equation. My concern, however, is that a lot of the standards we measure gifting and calling against have been inherently masculine for quite some time. We often have this bias at play, even when it’s not explicitly stated. We might believe we’re trying to hire ‘the right person for the job, regardless’ yet still have subliminally pictured a man in the role and so measured candidates against that image.

Levelling the playing field must start, therefore, at the heart level, looking inwards at our attitudes, not just outwards at our hiring and management practices. It’s important to remove the bias from our rules and structures, but on its own, that is just not enough. We should first address our biases in our own minds and attitudes. This is where the change has to come from. There’s lots of dark areas that might need lighting up, and impertinent questions that need to be asked.

At very least, can we love our co-workers in Christ, and see them first as professionals? We are partners in the Gospel, seeking the same goals, and shooting at the same targets – together.

I’m really proud that over half of the contributors to YouthWorkHacks are women and my own book includes two amazing sidebars written by women: Dr. Sam Richards and Rachel Turner. In fact, the YouthWorkHacks audience in 2019 was 58% female. I don’t mention this to make me look balanced, but because these women have contributed massively to the message that I care so much about. They have written with grace, wisdom and power, and they have taken my work to levels it just couldn’t have gone without them.

There’s so much more to do

A few days ago, my wife and I celebrated 12 years of marriage together. Sharing life together has been an unmatched privilege and the greatest adventure of my life. I, however, am not the cutting edge of our partnership; Jesus is. Our life together has been built by mutual submission and sacrifice to one another (Eph. 5:21) – letting Jesus be the final leader of our growth together. If I was to strip Katie of any authority in our marriage, I would certainly be worse off for it. I need her, she needs me, and we both need Jesus – together.

The way the church has treated women in youth ministry (and across all ministry) is shocking. We need to do all that we can to remedy, restore, and reconcile this litany of subversive abuse. Men shouldn’t just try to be heroes, but they can be advocates. Let’s be more aware, more open, more professional, more bold, and far more humble towards (and on behalf of) our fellow co-workers in Christ.

There’s much more to say, and much has already been said by people far more qualified than I am. This is neither a last word nor a first, but to my brothers, let’s just try harder for the sake our sisters, the sake of our ministries, the sake our young people, and the sake of the Gospel. There’s a lot to put right, so let’s be advocates, so we truly can be partners.

Ps. Some writers to check out…

There are some truly amazing female writers, pastors, and thinkers out there. Take some time to check out:

Rachel Tuner
Sally Nash
Kendra Creasy-Dean
Rachel Gardner
Kate Coleman
Bethany Jenkins
Melissa Kruger
Trillia Newbell
Katherine Sondergger
Amy Orr-Ewing
Kristen Deede Johnson
Bethany Hanke Hoang
Elaine Padilla
Kara Powell
Frances Young
Gloria Furman
Nancy Guthrie
Kathleen Nielson
Jen Wilkin

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

The Youth Church Experiment: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

October 27, 2018/0 Comments/in church, models, youth work /by admin

Youth Church can be driven by cheese, polished with hero-worship, beached on consumerism, flooded with inappropriate age groups or simply swallowed – Jonah style – by so many One Direction puns that the best thing to do is vomit it up on some desert shore in the vain hope of finding some real mission to do!

However, Youth Services can also drive a dying church back into relevancy, bring ship-wrecked souls back to dry land and provide a community rich in authenticity and deep in missional effectiveness.

If you’ve spent any time thinking about Youth Work, odds are you’ve thought about Youth Church before; whether to run one, why not to run one or how it fits with ‘regular’ church. I don’t think I’ve ever met a youth leader who doesn’t have a strong opinion on the Youth Church or some experience of either its stunning success or devastating failure.

I’ve run and been part of several Youth Churches and Services over the last fifteen years and I’ve changed my opinions on them more times than I change my socks.

What I hope to present here is a wee snapshot of where I’ve come out. What is it, what are the pitfalls and the ways – I hope – to to it properly!

I do not hold the only relevant opinion – please feel free to comment, share, poke and be part of the conversation.

What Is Youth Church?

Let’s start with the basics – Youth Church covers a spectrum of gatherings from a basic, semi-regular, alternative service for a specific young age group, through to teenage driven Churches complete with sacraments, pastors and a solid organization structure.

They often cross-pollinate elements of youth clubs with church services and they might add bits (like prayer stations) from alternative and emerging worship gatherings.

This makes youth services nearly as varied as the regular services they emulate. In most Youth Church services, however you will probably find things like crowd games, modern band-led music, a talk of sorts, some kind of response and maybe food. There should always be food… always!

A Wee Bit Of History

Youth Church is nothing new. Before the Sunday School Movement led by Robert Raikes (incidentally the great granddaddy of my Greek lecturer!) in 1780, Children up to age twenty-five met regularly together for teaching and worship in ‘Children’s Church’ across the UK. Raikes effectively split this into smaller, age-specific classes and divided the well oiled team of adults up to all become teachers (regardless of gifting) – which is why today we have to spend hours fussing with rotas and driving square pegs into round holes. Grr.

Youth Services enjoyed a brief comeback during the 1940’s particularly through the Billy Graham rallies, then they came back with a vengeance in the 1960s when mainline denominations started to accept developing Pentecostal values into their gatherings. New Wine’s 1993 brainchild ‘Soul Survivor’ has added something of a standard or template for many Youth Gathering’s today.

Youth Church today is often at the heart of thriving Youth Ministries and, done successfully, can be the defibrillator to the dying heart of a church!

So What’s The Problem

There are two:

First, they are often responsible for splitting a church, sinking a ministry and creating a generation of bottle-feeding Christians.

Second, they create deeper layers of segregation in the Church which is simply not a Biblical practice.

Let’s look at both of these in a wee bit of detail:

Note. I’m using the word ‘often’ below to show the potential danger zones and not to categorize all Youth Church projects. Hopefully, if you read beyond the problems section you’ll find out how massively in favor I am of Youth Church and how it can be used to great effect! 😀

First

A classic scenario in the UK is this: a church hires a very likeable, charismatic young and often generic Youth Leader. They pump money into his budget and don’t keep his work accountable. Said Youth Leader starts three things: an open youth club, a big show-based event and some kind of Youth Church.

After 2 years the youth work is ‘thriving’ but then the youth leader gets a better offer and moves on. The youth club implodes (or more likely explodes) because the volunteers can’t handle it. The event stops being popular because it was all based around that one person. Finally, the Youth Church now has no feeding or missional structure and so slowly breaks down too, leaving the church with less than it started with.

This highlights the first part of this issue: Youth Church is often dependent on immature ministries.

It’s quite hard to create the critical mass of people needed for a Youth Service from scratch or from the average sized UK youth group. This usually means you need feeder programs like open youth groups or big one-off events. These can provide a quick number boost but usually under the enormous strain of both leaders and budgets. More importantly though these programs tend to be incredibly leader-centric and skip the important stages of discipleship, service and the youth integrating with the wider church (*see endnote).

These programs often create a whole youth work world that is totally isolated from the church. They then suck the resources from the church until dry – and in the worst cases effectively leave the church altogether. I’ve seen two Youth Churches split from their church and try to sustain themselves as Church plants – both inevitably failed and left everyone worse off.

I just hinted at the second part of the issue: Youth Church often bleeds leaders and churches dry.

Even in the less extreme cases than our scenario above, Youth Services still tend to only have a minimal resemblance of the church they are a part of. As such they either leech its resources or – even more unhealthily – try to push on without the needed support. This chews people up and spits them out.

I developed a Youth Service like this and for three years was run by three amazing but very, very tired people. Of course they all quit and now it looks nothing like it did!

The young people start to develop their idea of Christianity, Church and Jesus based on that single styled consumerist experience.

The more pressing issue off the back of this though is what kind of Young People does this create?

So the final part of the first issue: Youth Church often develops highly Youth Church-dependent Young People.

Youth Churches often fall into two categories; youth led and adult led. The former with the right supervision are generally the better of the two, however in both cases they are churches designed solely to serve those within them.

The music, style, games – everything – is aimed at young people. It’s aimed to reach and serve them where they are at which – if done in isolation, like Youth Church often is- develops an incredibly consumerist experience.

The young people start to develop their idea of Christianity, Church and Jesus based on that single styled consumerist experience. When they meet something that doesn’t fit that experience, or more likely when they outgrow it, they ditch it.

Without regularly mixing young people with the whole body, learning to integrate with the family, instilling a sense of community belonging and service, and creating a healthy youth community within that – young believers won’t grow into whole believers.

Second

Church in the Bible refers to the body of believers both globally and locally and, although we do see people-specific gatherings we do not see people-specific churches.

Some groups go the whole hog and say that all youth work should be disbanded because of this. A couple of years ago a bunch of Christian film makers created the documentary, “Divided: Is Age-Segregated Ministry Multiplying or Dividing The Church?”

I don’t go that far, but I do think they are on to something really significant – you simply don’t find any model of Youth Church in the Bible.

What you do find is a gathering of young people in the Disciples. You find mentoring of young people through Eli and Samuel, Elijah and Elisha, Paul and Timothy etc. You also find significant young people used by God throughout every stage of salvation history for instance David, Josiah, Esther and Mary. This forms our Biblical foundations for youth work.

Its not an argument from silence however; the Bible is clear on what a church should be which contradicts a youth-only congregation.

When it comes to church it’s definitely a family affair. Every member serves the others in community to both reflect the nature of God and reach out to the word beyond. When you start segregating parts of the church you are effectively doing extreme amputation surgery which, according to1 Corinthians 12, we’re all going to feel!

We like to paraphrase verses likeMatthew 18:20 as ‘when two or more are gathered in Jesus’ name – that’s church.’ Not only does this drastically misinterpret the verse but it totally removes it from it’s context which is about loosing a brother to sin. Church is the body of believers, varied and unified. Without both unity and diversity you don’t have a church you just have a club.

Because a church necessitates variety and diversity I do believe its helpful to have specific teaching and discipleship groups and programs – but these generally should not separate to form whole congregations apart from the body, and like all separated covenants in the Bible, should only do so in order to be reconciled. Churches and Parents have the primary responsibility to raise young people – not Youth Programs.

So Is The Youth Church Lost?

No. Now that we have the bumpers up, let’s throw the ball and hit some pins! There are some specific ways that the Youth Church can be a healthy part of Church as a whole. Let’s look at some:

Youth Church As Supplement

When not replacing regular church, Youth Services can provide a very helpful place for young people to explore their faith and worship in relevant and safe ways that whole congregations just cannot cater for.

I currently run a small Youth Church-styled gathering of about twenty – thirty young people from eight or nine different churches. We meet to supplement what is happening in their churches in a relevant way while providing a community of young people that no one of those churches could on its own.

We meet outside of service times, know all of their pastors and work hard to find out if each young person is being integrated as part of their home church.

Youth Church As Transition 

For many young people they love Jesus but the church is totally alien to them.

Youth Church can provide a safe place to sample and talk about church activities and elements without the sometimes overwhelming pressure of it.

Youth Church As Place Holder

Sometimes the tragedy is that the only church available to a young person is drastically inappropriate for them. Youth Church can provide an environment to grow as a Christian while the local church trains and develops who they are to be more approachable to young people.

For this to work you need a realistic idea about growth, a personal active involvement and voice in that church for the young people to be in a serving relationship with.

Youth Church As Reconciliation

I meet so many young people that have been so burned by church that they have all but given up on it – however they may stick with Youth Church for a while.

Done well and sensitively this can provide a space for healing and hopefully restored faith in church as a whole.

Youth Church As Training Ground

Unfortunately – and much to my continued displeasure – many if not most ministries and jobs inside regular church services are inaccessible for young people. Youth Church can be a safe and accessible place to develop skills and gifts and to learn to serve.

All Youth Churches I have worked with have had young people on planning teams, in bands, running games, driving publicity and occasionally doing talks. Youth Churches also allow you to run young people specific local missions.

Youth Church As Culture Yardstick

Odd thing to say perhaps, however Churches should he ahead of and driving culture not a generation behind it.

Youth Church is a great place to develop culturally relevant material and styles which can through healthy integration be bought into the church as a whole.

Youth Church As Worship Developer

Similar to culture yardstick, Youth Church is often made up of ready-to-try-anything young people who can gauge, test and try new worship songs, prayer methods, service elements and styles of approaching God.

These can then be sensitively shared with the church as a whole.

Youth Church As Community Hub

A healthy collection of youth projects needs a place of general overlap. A Youth Church is a great place to bridge gaps between evangelistic and discipleship programs.

Often you can fill the space with community-driven activity and ideas that reflect a Biblical view of church but doesn’t make anybody too uncomfortable.

Youth Church As Match-Maker

A random one to end with but my current youth group is going through the pains of relationships and love triangles at the moment. *sigh.*

Youth Church not only provides a good sampling of potential Christian partners, but also an open and social place of Christian accountability for those blossoming relationships.

Conclusion Type-Esq Thoughts

Having sat for the last three hours writing this in the midst of being off work with a relativity nasty virus I’m not entirely sure how it will come across! However over my last fifteen years I’ve been involved with many Youth Churches and Youth Services and have seen and made some tremendous errors!

However I’m not a baby-and-bathwater person and I would love to see the Youth Church thrive and help drive the church into growing health.

Does every youth program need one? No! Should every church have one? Definitely not – but if you do, seek God and seek whole church health through it. Be in it for the long haul and let the youth programs you already have drive it rather than trying to use it as a youth work kickstart.

Have fun. Love young people. Love Jesus. Love Church.

* I am in favor of both open youth groups and one-off events however in the UK I believe these should generally be shared ecumenically and often with the help of dedicated charities like YFC or Urban Saints. This spreads the load and allows more intentional followup through a variety of churches.

Flat Packed Worship

October 27, 2018/0 Comments/in church, worship /by admin

Why kids aren’t afraid of Church anymore

October 27, 2018/0 Comments/in church, strategy, youth work /by admin

(N.b. – Before you read mine, I’ve found someone who say’s it better! Mark Grithiths, here.)

Not in the church!

‘You can’t run a youth event in the church building because the kids won’t come!’

Something you’ve heard before? I’ve heard it too! In PCC meetings, planning sessions, prayer meetings, training days, and from a whole bunch of different people; older generations who genuinely believe it, and younger generations who have heard it so many times that they just assume that it’s true.

Everywhere I go the prevailing belief is held that young people are afraid to come into a church building.

So begins the era of neutral venues: gymnasiums, school halls, coffee-shops etc. – which often cost more time, money, energy and drives the segregation wedge between ‘young people and church’ even deeper.

But where did this belief even come from, and does the same issue exist today? Are our kids really so anti-church?
Some Generational History

The Last Of The Baby-Boomers

Three generations ago during our grandparent’s childhood, (speaking from a twenty-something’s viewpoint) going to church was an expected Sunday activity. You went, because you were supposed to go. No questions asked.

The dregs of this time can be seen on the brass plaques of Sunday School registers around the halls with old forgotten offices like ‘Sunday School Superintendent.’ The rooms were full, the youth work ‘thriving’ because of course, young people were supposed to be there.

Generation X

Enter then the generation of rebellion: generation X. This is the culture that gave us glam rock, the punk movement and incredibly dodgy haircuts. This believe it or not, is our parents generation. Go ahead, ask them to recall their ‘rebellion’ era, or to show you some snapshots of their ill-spent youth. Remember though, once you’ve heard the tails and seen the pictures you can’t just delete them out of your head, they’re going to haunt you forever! I still can’t believe the length of my dad’s hair, or the cheesiness of my mum’s flares. Gah.

‘Generation X’ were a ‘post‘ generation. They were post-war, and tired of the high profile political scandals that we’re surfacing as a result. They we’re post-baby boomer, and tired of the rigorous logic and cold analytical appetites of modernism. They were therefore the first post-moderns. They we’re also post-religion and stopped attending church once they we’re old enough to make that decision. They didn’t send their kids to church either. Sunday mornings became family time, football practice, or Big Breakfast telly-time.

Generation Y

Then of course came ‘generation Y,’ my generation of mainly twenty-and thirty-somethings. We are genX’s kids and, like it said above, we were mostly not sent to church. Part of genXs rebellion was bringing up kids free from perceived tyrannies like religion and church going.

GenY, however, were bought up with their parent’s stories of how awful church was, how irrelevant, boring, painful, false, and out-of-touch. GenY believed their parents stories (why wouldn’t they?), but had no experience of it themselves.

Generation Zzzzzzz

GenY’s kids, ‘generation Z’ aka gen Zzzzzzzzz came next; the young people that we work with today. They have no relationship to church. Their parents didn’t go and didn’t have stories to tell. GenZ have next to no experience, no context, no stories and no relationship at all with churches.

Gen Z is three generations behind the core of the problem.
Three Generations Behind

Our young people today do not have the same cultural phobia or institutional memory of earlier generations. They might see church to be relics of a bygone era, but no more so than the old post-office building or a town hall. They are three generations behind the root of the issue and have little or no personal stake in connection to churches.

I’m speaking in sweeping generalizations of course. Most of the young people in the UK that we work with today however, will still be three generations behind the personal problem of church phobia:

Baby-boomers (grandparents) were ‘you’re supposed to go to church.’
Generation X (parents) ‘went until they didn’t have to anymore.’
Generation Y (20/30-somethings) went to to church to be ‘baptized, married, an
buried.’
Generation Z (today’s teens) have little or no ‘church relationship’
So what?

There simply isn’t the same cultural problem with church-going today for many of the young people that we work with. Many youth workers and youth ministries however, borrow from history’s issues. Because we’re not aware of the dramatic cultural shifts with young people and church going we’re stretching out a non-existent issue from previous generations without even realizing it.

By boycotting Church buildings we’re possibly trying to fix a problem that doesn’t really exist – therefore creating a new one!!

I have definitely met young people who don’t want to go to church, but most of that is based on new misunderstanding rather than historical cultural experience. I’ve also met youth clubs who think there’s a problem simply because their youth leaders have tried so hard to fix one.

Just food for thought then. Are our teenagers scared of entering a church building really? If they’re made comfortable and welcome, is the church hall really a ‘no go.’ Think about your young people, are they really so shallow to have taken on a passionate, stubborn, life-phobia from their parents, parents, parents?

In a future post I will argue for the benefits of using Church buildings for groups and events on the basis that young people are looking for something ancient, spiritual, deep, and mystical to belong to.