Stars and Stripes: 12 Ways USA and UK Youth Work Differ

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When I started as a full time youth worker I read every book and listened to every talk I could get my hands on! I found some powerful principles and timeless truths that have been priceless in my ministry with young people.

All the best, most current, official looking and practically driven books and talks that I found came from America. This caused some real problems and disruptions in my job.

Disclaimer… I love America!

Now I love America – so much so that I married an American! I’ve also spoken on an American Camp, helped in an American Church youth group, worked with an American schools-based evangelistic charity and nearly went to an American seminary… twice. I’ve been to a bunch of American churches and spent two years living with a whole bunch of American friends. Just to cross the line into the weird I also stayed up all night to watch the general election coverage after months routinely quizzing my American friends and family on their state polls.

However…

The UK is not America. As much as we love American television, drool over classic American muscle cars and lap up American fashion and food we are not America. We love ‘reality show exchanges’ too – we sent Gordon Ramsay to host Masterchef America and we gained David Hasselhoff for Britain’s Got Talent – although the jury is probably still out on who got the fuzzy end of that lollypop! The UK is simply not the same as America.

In Youthwork

This is really evident when we try to apply contextual American ministry models to UK based Churches. So when I picked up the ministry model in ‘Doug Field’s ‘Purpose Driven Youth Ministry’ and tried to slap it onto a South London Church youth club things fell apart.

First off, for each of the 5 areas of purpose he proposes you need a specific group or project to create the funnel effect he’s looking for. Then each of these require their own leadership, bureaucracy, accountability and resources. I ran a pretty big youth club for the UK, but suddenly shaking it up and segregating it this way meant 1. Christians rarely mixed with non-Christians in constructive ways, 2. the leadership group became stretched beyond their means, 3. we were more polarized from the Church itself, 4. the community fell apart, and 5. everything shrank and lost its depth. This took three years to rebuild!

Today I visit lots of youth clubs as part of my job, and you can tell pretty quickly which ones – just like I did – have been listening to too much advice from over the pond. It’s not that American youth ministry models don’t work – it’s that they don’t work prepackaged, flat-packed and superimposed over here uncritically.

The Cultural, Contextual and Church Differences between the UK and the USA that Impact Youthwork

Some of you might remember that Mark Driscoll, gave a controversial (go figure!) interview a couple of years back on the shape and direction of the British Church. Even though he made some fair points, he also demonstrated a real lack of understanding of the differences between American and British history and culture, and specifically the church culture.

I’m going to carefully and (hopefully) open-handedly suggest some differences between the established Youth Work of America and that of the UK.

These aren’t all true across the board, but these do tend to be true of the ministries that publish books and get to speak in the UK. I’m not therefore, saying all American Youth Work looks like this, I’m saying the one’s that most easily get to influence us often tend to.

I’m not going to spend time outlining every single way these differences affect what we do. Instead I hope just to encourage you to think contextually and culturally when you design youth work in the UK.

So – in no particular order:

America is still in ‘some form of’ Christendom whereas the UK is long past it

The UK’s Church driven state is at least 50 years gone now. We are 3 generations behind from when Church attendance was a cultural expectation. This, as a basic rule of thumb, makes our youth clubs and our interaction with family units much smaller. More on this here.

American Christian Media is a Much Larger Industry

There is an enormous market in the US for Christian books, films, television, music and magazines whereas in the UK it is virtually non-existent and shrinking. This sometimes contributes towards youth work projects that seek to compete with consumer culture rather than standing against it.

America Has a Much More Positive Leader-Worship Culture

This can make American youth ministry much more leader-centric and individual-driven than is necessarily helpful. In the UK we like to beat people down. In fact we really can’t help ourselves. We don’t romance about political leaders and we don’t esteem charismatic church leaders quite so high either. The US loves a hero, but in the UK we simply don’t allow people to become heroes.

America Has a Recent Mega-Church History

Whatever your view on the ‘mega-church’ we didn’t see a whole lot of it in the UK. In the US however, the emergence of the mega-church completely changed church and mission culture. The mega-churches dried smaller community churches up, stole all the most talented leaders and put them in a melting pot, and they started a trend towards the business model, becoming more professional looking and culture competing entities.

America Has More Clearly Defined Expectations For Youth Work

In the UK, employing a full time youth worker is a relatively new thing and – once we’ve done it – we don’t know what to do with them. We don’t know how to manage them, how to nurture them, or how to fit them into the life of the church. In the US, youth work is well established and has a much more understood bureaucracy – for better or for worse.

American Youth Projects Are Simply Bigger

This is largely because of the Christendom thing – but its true, the average youth club in the UK is about 5 people and its more like 25 in the US. A reasonably large youth group in the UK would be 50+ but gets to several hundred in the US.

American Teams Look More Like Teams

With formal interview processes, application forms, regular reviews, project areas, dedicated secretaries and line management strings – American youth ministries have a much more formal team structure than the UK’s general ‘lets see who shows up’ approach. Something that we really could learn from, but in our own culturally specific way.

The American Church Doesn’t Have The Same Monarchical History

The UK Church has hundreds of years of political and foreign war-time history saturating it. For examples look at the French Revolution, the emergence of Catholicism, the Reformation, the Crusades and the heavily state-agenda controlled nonsense of Henry VIII, the dynamics betwwen Edward and Victoria. The American church got to observe and learn from this after-the-fact; we’re lumbered with it and all of its decaying baggage.

The American Church is Much More Polarized

American mainstream-media presented views (recently more-so after the Bush Jr era) are incredibly polarized with extreme flanks; even if most of the country are actually centrists. With things like politics, morality, ethics, and theology much more clearly presented in preaching, American churches can be more competitive and polarized than in the UK. This becomes more true when you factor in huge sub-culture driven churches, ethnicity-driven churches, and cult-driven churches.

American Youth Work is Better Funded And Resourced

Some of the youth work budgets for American churches would simply blow your mind. In the UK simply having a clearly outlined budget is a miracle. Not to mention that each US State has a bunch of well operated perennial Christian camps and retreats that would make even our best look like a second-hand tent sale.

American Youth Work is More System Driven Than Community Driven

To their credit, some AMAZING youth leaders in the States have been saying this for a while (DeVries, Cosby etc.). It’s an issue they push against but we don’t necessarily need to as hard.

American Separation of Church and State Dictates Schools Work

Unless you work with a private school, talking about Jesus in any context just isn’t going to cut it. In the UK we have far more openness and opportunity to bring Jesus, God and Acts Of Worship into the Schools. The constitution of America simply will not allow the level of overt honesty and openness that we have available here.

So what?

Lets learn from and stand with our American brothers and sisters, but please please please, lets also think how to build a UK expression of Church in our UK Youthwork! 🙂

 

Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash

Style vs Substance: a youthwork showdown

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“Don’t bother with the style – just get on with the substance.”

“Stop trying to make it relevant, and just preach the Bible.”

“If you’re teaching the Gospel, the ascetics won’t matter.”

“If you’re showing authentic love, then style won’t be a factor.”

Heard phrases like this before? Me too! In fact I’ve been slammed in meetings before now for trying to make my youth groups fun and relevant to the detriment of (at least in the meeting’s view) depth and authenticity.

Since posting “youth work is 10 years out of date” I’ve had several comments that effectively said the things above. I could reduce these down to folk only reading the first half or even just the title of a post, however there still is a genuine concern behind them.

It sounds right too doesn’t it? ‘Just be authentic and Gospel-centered and you won’t need to worry about style.’ It sounds right, and wise, and Godly. It sounds like a driven passion for young people and truth. It’s a shame through, that it’s load of crap.

You see when it comes to relevancy and style you’ve only got two options: 1. Think about it and 2. Don’t think about it.

  1. Think about it
    Think about it properly, lay it before God and make ‘take-it-captive-for-Christ’ decisions. Talk to Godly people and decide how to carefully implement a style and how to enforce the right boundaries within it.
  2. Don’t think about it
    Neglect the discussion. Neglect to respect the world that young people live in. Don’t talk to God or Godly people. Crack on with content and simply see what style develops on its own – because it will!

Active vs Passive Style Development
There is no ‘style-free’ option. You always, always make style decisions, either actively with God and Godly people, or passively through negligence.

Think about it. How you present any content in your youth group is a style decision. Do you give talks, have small group studies? Who leads and how? Where do you meet and when? How do you advertise? How do you make first contact with young people? What books do you buy them? How do you choose themes and teaching material? Do you have music, food, games? What kind of chairs do they sit on? What rules do you have? What do you let them wear? What do you wear?

Everything you do in your youth group creates some kind of style rightly or wrongly. You simply cannot have a ‘don’t bother with style’ approach – that will always end up with negligence and a style developing passively.

This means either the young people themselves will dictate the style, or you will unknowingly dictate it for them. The former usually results in polarised spirituality; a group that’s Christian in situ but with no clue how to act it out in real life. The later often creates a group that you fight with and that only takes in a minuscule amount of substance and content anyway.

This high-minded approach is one of the reasons youth groups either die out or get overrun. Enforcing our style over theirs is irrelevant and letting theirs overtake the group is anarchy.

Why Is This Neglect?
You have a responsibility to give these young people the best respect, care, love, teaching and mentoring possible. This often means meeting them where they are at, rather than waiting for them to catch up.

If you don’t approach style like this actively you will:

– Neglect the young people’s world that they have to deal with and live in – so your content will prove irrelevant.
– Neglect the places and times un-churched young people connect – so you will be missionally ineffective.
– Neglect the real differences between you and them – so you will be leader-centric.
– Neglect the desperate needs they have that are missing in their world – so will program driven rather than community driven.
– Neglect Godly decisions needed to keep them feeling safe and secure – so will be just another stress in their lives.

Style Is Important!
Style Is Important. Find me one place in the Bible where teaching happened out of context of people? We are called to create a space where young people have the absolute best chance of hearing the Gospel, experiencing God’s love, and learning how to take those things applicably into real life! We also have a responsibility to lead them in 1 Cor. 12 Body-Of-Christ style community. Creating these spaces require intentional style conversations and discussions!

Some Rules Of Thumb
When you start asking what style you should create to make your teaching and community welcoming and relevant there are a few rules of thumb to consider:

  1. Gospel Should Drive Style
    Rather than Gospel instead of style – Gospel should dictate style. You should not create a space that contradicts the Gospel or limits its reach. Allowing a relevant style doesn’t mean you can let just anything from the world infiltrate your group.
  2. Authenticity Should Drive Style
    Too much style in youth work is copied from / or set to compete with secular consumer culture. Your style should be driven by a sense of reality, human depth, community substance, participation and timeless reality.
  3. Personality Should Drive Style
    Many youth groups cater to one personality type or people group. Often small group driven projects cater to the introvert and middle class – often concert driven projects cater to the extrovert and working class. Who are the young people you know and does your space allow for varied personality types and backgrounds?
  4. Purpose Should Drive Style
    What and who is your group or project for? If you’re aiming at first contact then you simply cannot impose a totally full-on Christian-driven morality on their space. Style should create a context where your aims and content are going to be most effective.
  5. Context Should Drive Style
    You could meet in an Inner-City School, or a rural chapel. The young people could be primarily churched, un-churched, working or middle class. Think hard about where you are and who you pool from and bring that into the conversation.
  6. Relevancy Should Drive Style
    This was the heart behind my ‘youthwork is 10 years out of date’ post. We should seek to create a style which is relevant and applicable to them today so that our teaching can be more clearly received.
  7. Resources Should Drive Style
    If you don’t have lighting rigs, rock bands, a massive hall and dozens of able leaders then the modern music concert approach probably isn’t for you! Try to match what you want to create realistically with what God has given you to work with as good stewards.
  8. Young People Should Drive Style
    Have young people themselves give ideas on, feed into and participate in the creation and implementation of your style. They frankly get it better than we do anyway.
  9. Applicable Content Should Drive Style
    When you have thought carefully about style you are able to craft the delivery method for your content that will be most heard, understood and applied for your group. ‘We have a two hour Bible Study’ is not impressive if the young people switch off after the first five minutes. I’d rather have a five minute talk where the group took in every word and tried to apply it to their lives than a one hour completely ignored Bible study any day!

Summary
Please don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater by poo pooing style! It’s Godly, respectful and loving to consider the best ways to interact with and present truth to young people. Style will always be there, the big question is are you with God’s help going to be in control of it – or will it be in control of you.

Frankly sometimes a bit of style is just what’s needed to make the content go in!

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

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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.

How NOT to do Youth Ministry!

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Being realistic with ‘incarnational youth ministry’

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Youth Workers, by and large, are human beings.

Mostly.

This means that there are a few bare necessities that they require: Regular feeding, a comfortable place to sleep, fresh bedding (and underwear) and a frequent change of water (or redbull).

There’s something else they need as well, though:

Space. Away from young people, church families, young people, school carparks, young people, the senior pastor, young people, church elders, young people, the treasurer, oh and young people. Youth Pastors need times when they are not ‘on.’

This is apparently a problem.

It’s a problem for the church board and senior pastors who haven’t quite made the mental distinction between ‘work’ hours and ‘get out of my face I need time with my wife and TV’ hours.

I remember – vividly – being called by my Senior Pastor years ago on my day off to give him a lift to the shops. Even though I was in another town, away at another set of shops with my wife. No apology, no thanks – and no taking ‘no’ for answer.

It’s also a problem for our young people, who (largely due to our ‘always on’ demeanor) think it’s entirely natural to call our private mobile number at 3am on a Wednesday. Entirely freaking natural! … bless.

It’s finally a problem for us! To the youth worker’s theoretical-dribble-driven interpretation of ‘incarnational ministry.’ Youth workers don’t make a habit of being youth workers for very long, so not many of us make it past the purely theoretical to the actually realistic practical zone.

What we think ‘incarnational’ means.

We think it means making every single part of our life open and available for any reason so we don’t miss any potential opportunity to minister. We have an open door policy for our entire lives, and we make sure that people can contact us in any way, at any time, for any reason.

Because this is what Jesus did right? *cough* Luke 5:16; 22:41; Matthew 6:6; 14:22-23; Mark 1:35; 6:30-32; 7:24 *cough*.

Your Senior Pastor, the Church Board and even your Young People are not entitled to every part of your life. You need space with God, with your family, and with yourself – so that you will be more effective.

So, why do this?

An ex-youth worker grabbed me after a young people related message I gave at a local church last week. She and her husband were one of twelve couples involved in a large (and seemingly amazing) youth ministry.

Out of those twelve couples, she and her husband are the only couple still together.

#justsaying, let’s get realistic and sensible – and be in this for the long road ahead!

44 Youth Ministry Models

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Ok, I lied: there are only really 11 here! Each one, however, will morph dramatically 4 different ways depending on whether your main driving focus is to bring people in, build them up, link them together or send them out.

These 11 (or 44) models of youth ministry are not exhaustive – but you’d be hard pushed to find one that doesn’t broadly fit into one of them. Usually we blend a few together with mixed success.

I’m not really critiquing or endorsing any of them at this point. They are, however, worth considering at both the creative and the strategic level, so have fun!

1. The Funnel Model

The Funnel Model – which was more recently made famous by Doug Field’s Purpose Driven Youth Ministry – has been around since the dinosaurs. The idea is to run several specific projects with different focuses and to funnel people through them as they mature and learn.

The idea is to slowly move people through the projects at a comfortable and accessible pace so they can first feel comfortable, then hear the gospel and accept it.

This is probably what most youth groups use. If you have three projects, such as a large youth club, a mid weak smaller group and Sunday morning Bible study, and you have a goal to eventually see youth club attendees come to the Bible study, then you’re probably using this yourself.

Take care to not play bait and switch by being honest in every stage with your intentions to share Jesus.

2. The Hour Class or Full Circle Model

This is a slightly more modern variation on the funnel model. As the hourglass shape would suggest, once you funnel them into the point you then equip them to be the evangelists and team leaders of the initial projects – thus taking them full circle.

The trap here is a closed circle that has only limited appeal and limited application – thus gets smaller over time.

3. The Incarnational Model

The incarnation was God becoming man in Jesus and living among us. In the same way the youth worker immerses themselves in the lives and culture of young people as a way of living among them.

This is a very widely used model in America and is driven by the compassionate idea that we need to be involved in every aspect of young people’s lives and look for every opportunity to speak gospel truth. Obviously watch out for safeguarding issues!

4. The Cell Model

Organic cells split and multiply – as do Cell Models of youth work. The idea is to start off with one small group and to put all your energy and resources into making that work. It inevitably grows (because of your care and attention) and gets big enough to split into two groups. These groups continue to grow and split exponentially, and your ministry grows.

If not fully committed to this model then it’s easy to end up taking a side road and end up blurring into another model. The key is to make sure that you are constantly multiplying resources and training people to take on leadership roles.

5. The Hub Model

All projects and ministries effectively flow into and out of one central hub. This could be a youth gathering, drop in club, or established centre. I used to run a high street youth cafe which did just this.

A Hub Model is one of the best ways of creating community, but it can also be a stretch on your resources when you inevitably need to branch out into other areas.

6. The Grassroots Model

Very effective in smaller churches! You simply pour all your energy into discipling and equipping a few young people who you are already connected with (most likely though church families), then train them to be incarnational peer evangelists in their schools.

Make sure that these young people are well supported, and be prepared to create something for them to bring friends to.

7. The Institutional Model

The institutional model relies on basing ministry around an already established institution. Usually this will be a school, but it could easily be a library, community centre, sports team or scout troop.

The idea is to serve the needs of the institution first, then sow into it with Gospel truths, thus cultivating a Christian culture from within.

Care needs to be taken that you are honouring the institution by being transparent and servant-hearted.

8. The Enterprise Model

These often work well as social enterprises or social projects. You take an easy business model such as cafe, charity shop or community service project and then develop a Christian ethos into it. You then use young people to staff it as a way of doing vocational training. You use Christian business principles and share the Gospel through the work.

If done properly, this can be an incredibly powerful self-sustaining model. Done badly, it will drain your resources and will not be able to compete in a local market.

9. The Equip Model

Ideally suited to rural areas where young people turn 18 and leave, The Equip Model is purely focused on preparing them for adulthood. Rather than trying to connect young people to the church community for the long haul, you teach them what they will need to successfully find a healthy church community later. This model has a lot of footfall, and can awkwardly need reinventing every year.

10. The Family Focus Model

Currently being trialed by a few large evangelical churches, The Family Focus Model is driven by the conviction that youth segregation is not biblical. Instead of running particular and specific youth projects, it runs things that work for the whole family unit and trains everyone to take care of each other.

This can create an incredible seeker-friendly family environment for a church, but can also make young people on the outside feel isolated and rejected if not watched carefully.

11. The Mentor Model

More charitably this is probably a blend of the Family Focus Model and The Grassroots Model. The idea is to pair up young people with committed individuals in the church that will specifically mentor them personally. You will create projects that get all of young people and mentors together, and you will do training and debriefing with the mentors themselves.

Watch out for safeguarding issues, and know that this will only ever grow as large as the available mentors.