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As a youth minister, I am constantly being bombarded by contrasting approaches as to the most effective methods in which to bring youth into the church and retain them. Sometimes it is advice from a veteran youth minister with his or her 10+ years of youth ministry experience, the popular monthly youth publication that features articles written by nationally recognized youth pastors, or even that older matriarch or patriarch within the church who has faithfully taught Sunday school for so many years. The reality is still the same: everyone has her or his own take on what youth/children’s ministry should look like. While it is helpful to be able to reap the benefit of so many varied resources, it can at times cause confusion and disunity within a youth or children’s ministry program. This is especially true for youth and children’s programs with an array of different adult volunteers and no one centralized leader.
There is no fool proof method for evangelizing and retaining youth and children within the church. If there were, then every church in the known world would have adopted that particular ministry archetype. Furthermore, a youth or children’s ministry program that finds success in a certain church or area may not yield the same results if transplanted to another church or area. In some ways, a youth/children’s ministry is a lot like an organ transplant; doctors may receive a healthy and robust organ from a donor, they may even be able to find the best transplant candidate immediately available, but in the end if the body rejects the organ there is nothing that modern medicine can do. Likewise, even the most contemporary and well administered approaches to youth and children’s ministries do not guarantee your church a successful program.
Please don’t misunderstand me, though; I am not someone who turns my nose up at new or different approaches to youth ministry. In fact, I tend to embrace those new and different approaches to youth/children’s ministries if I feel they will enhance my own ministry. However, I believe that some of the problems that arise in youth/children’s programs today are due in large part to the following beliefs:
*A belief that programs that work for larger churches will undoubtedly work for smaller churches or even other large churches.
*The idea that you must continually change your approach to ministry to meet or exceed current ministry trends.
*The belief that traditional approaches to youth/children’s ministries are the only truly effective methods.
*The belief that the number of students that attend a youth/children’s ministry program is a good indicator of the health of that particular youth/children’s ministry program.
I understand that not everyone may agree with all or even any of these statements, and I do not view them as a standard by which every youth/children’s ministry model should be viewed. I do believe, though, that they are some things that we should keep in mind when trying to determine the ministry approach that best suits the needs of youth/children we are ministering to in our geographical areas.
Some might argue that in order for the church to be truly effective in reaching youth/children for Christ and keeping them in the church, we must simply have the proper programming and best leadership available. Yet every year, thousands of students within the best youth ministries around the country are leaving the church upon entering college and young adulthood. This just shows me that there is problem with youth and children’s programs in our churches today. Is it simply enough to draw students into the church with great programs and hope that they “buy in” enough to stay around after graduation? Or is there something more that we as ministers can do to not only draw in new students, but also retain the ones we have?
Youth and children’s ministries have changed a great deal over the last ten years, and they will probably continue to change pretty dramatically in the years to come. These days, the face of youth/children’s ministry seems to change on a yearly or even semi-yearly basis. This is largely due to the dynamic evolution of areas like technology, social media, cultural trends, and social issues within our society today. Yet despite all of that, there is one thing about human beings that has not changed since the creation of Adam, and that is that we are by nature relational beings. God has uniquely created us with the desire for relationships with other people. If you look back through history you will see that subjects like technology, communication, cultural trends, and social issues have and will always continue to change, but the one constant area of humanity is that of interpersonal relationships.
Jesus understood the importance of building relationships within His own ministry, and that is why He invested so much time, teaching, and love into His twelve disciples. Those twelve men didn’t always understand what their Master was trying to teach them. There were numerous times when they doubted what He had told them, and when their Rabbi died on a Roman cross at Golgotha they returned to the life and work that they had done before He had called them. It was their relationship with Jesus that brought them out of their former life and into the life of a disciple, and it was the lack of relationship that drove them back into their former lives. The same rings as true for us today as it did over two thousand years ago, and that is that relationships are a key part of our own individual identities.
It is vital for us as youth and children’s ministers to be familiar with the current ministry trends in order to remain relevant to today’s youth culture. Being aware of the current pulse of youth culture helps us to attract and grow the number of youth that we minister to. In the end however, it is the relationships with those youth that will ultimately keep them coming back to the church. You might have the best youth/children’s program that money can buy with dozens of adult volunteers at your disposal, along with the latest and greatest teaching and media resources on the market, and an incredible youth or children’s pastor to boot. However, it is all nothing more than a glorified Chuck-E-Cheese experience if you don’t develop solid relationships with the students. Students want to know that they are loved, respected, and that you care about what they say. The pizza, music, and games are just the icing on the cake. They want to know that you aren’t some far off figurehead who is inaccessible to them. They want to know that they have a personal relationship with their youth/children’s leader(s).
Let me add to this by also saying that it isn’t enough to simply build relationships with youth and children. It is a great thing when a youth or children’s leader can develop a positive interpersonal relationship with a youth/child, but it is an even greater thing when that leader has the ability to speak the truth of God into that student’s life. The building up of relationships with youth/children just allows avenues for leaders to be able to speak into the lives of students. This is why building personal relationships with students is so important, but also why we as spiritual leaders shouldn’t content ourselves with just being friends with our students. Once we have developed those positive-rapport-driven relationships with students we need to be able to cultivate those relationships into discipleship and mentorship driven relationships.
It all comes back to the discipleship approach that Jesus modeled to us with His disciples. Christ had dozens of followers at any one time during the course of His ministry on earth, but He chooses to invest the crux of His time, teaching, and ministry into a group of twelve men. It was that group of men that became the nucleus of the early church, and would likewise disciple others who would go on to lead the church. I am not saying that this approach guarantees that 100% of students who graduate high school will remain active members of the congregation, but I do believe it will go a long way in helping to develop a sense of “kingdom citizenship loyalty” within the hearts and minds of the youth and children currently in our churches today.
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. . . every year, thousands of students within the best youth ministries around the country are leaving the church upon entering college and young adulthood. This just shows me that there is problem with youth and children’s programs in our churches today. Is it simply enough to draw students into the church with great programs and hope that they “buy in” enough to stay . . . ? |
