Death of Youth Groups
I'm preparing a workshop I am to lead this Saturday at our synod's training event for adult volunteers and paid staff working with youth in our congregations. When asked by our synod coordinator (whom we lovingly call our "sy-co") to lead a workshop about what is working well at St. Stephen the Martyr, I gladly agreed and said the name of my workshop will be "Death of Youth Groups: Raising Disciples." Our sy-co knows me well enough to recognize what that title meant, and so she enthusiastically welcomed the idea.
Why am I talking about the death of youth groups?
At SSM, when asked how many kids we have in our youth group, our adult leaders respond, "zero". We proudly boast that we don't have a youth group, because youth groups aren't the most helpful approach to making disciples. This is true for two reasons, and they both have to do with the two words "youth" and "group". First, "youth" is a misnomer because we do everything cross-generationally to mentor discipleship. Second, "group" is inaccurate because by definition, groups have insiders and outsiders.
We're not interested in getting people involved in what we're doing. We want to get involved in what God is doing through the lives of people in the world 24/7/365. Why waste our energy in a one-size-fits-all approach of trying to force square pegs into round holes?
I haven't seen research on this, but my personal experience tells me that those who experienced youth groups in high school are the same ones leaving our churches after high school. (Except, I think, those students who take on leadership positions and learn self initiative within a church setting.) Students graduate high school and move away from home, often to college. They visit a new congregation there, and it doesn't feel right to them. They're used to a nice cozy group that welcomes them and gives them lots of attention. They're used to hanging out with people their own age with similar interests. But upon entering an unfamiliar congregation they don't find anything like their familiar high school youth group, so they look elsewhere for a spiritual connection (if at all). My friend and colleague who is a campus pastor agreed with my hunch. He tells people that our ELCA youth groups are the best feeders for groups like Campus Crusade for Christ, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and the like which offer the homogeneous attention of the familiar youth group -- despite a theological disconnect from their Lutheran catechism.
For those graduates who do get involved in another congregation after high school, I think the main reason they do so is because our youth groups teach them how to be good "churchy" folks. These are the few who took on leadership responsibilities while in high school. They know how to serve on a committee. They know how to walk the walk and talk the talk of the institution. Some of them even know how to start their own ministry if the new congregation doesn't have what they're looking for.
(Of course there are other variables to consider, the most influential I would think is that of family involvement and expectations. But even here my experience has been that young adults of active families still have at best a 50/50 chance of being active in a new congregation away from their families. If anyone out there is looking for a good D.Min. dissertation, this would be a helpful study.)
So instead of having a youth group, we at SSM coach discipleship cross-generationally. We meet people where they're at on their faith journey, walk alongside them by helping them discern their vocation and holding them accountable to it, and thereby we help each person become a leader of their own faith life and within the faith community. Only time will tell whether come young adulthood the statistics for these folks are different than the observed trend. But already we are seeing a difference. We have young students who are purposefully engaging in a disciplined life of discipleship, learning not how to be good "churchy" folk but how to follow Jesus 24/7/365.
(If you'd like to know more about how we raise disciples in this manner, read the previous posts on living WORSHIP and coaching discipleship.)
1 comment:
This is a "Titanic" shift in perception Kevan and will be hard for most to stomach. In most congregations, we compartmentalize the energy of our children AWAY from the activity of adults.
"We don't want children in worship," we say, because they offer up a disturbance. And we don't want our teens with us either because they might shift our worship patterns, the level of energy, and might change the ways we've always done it.
I remember Mike Breaux, teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, IL, speaking at a GenX conference I was at two years ago. He was talking about the necessity of "being the church," intergenerational ministry that transforms the faces of congregations. He talked about a youth ministry call he'd had during his years in Kentucky. While there they had been working on a youth model very similar to what you're suggesting Kevan. He said the most beautiful image he had was of an 85 year old matron of the congregation who'd felt a call to invest in the students of the congregation. The image of the church that brought tears to his eyes was of this woman, standing with the small group she invested in, standing in worship with her one good arm raised while singing a praise hymn, and then of her kids singing with equal passion "The Old Rugged Cross."
It's time for a church that isn't bifurcated along the consumer lines of homogenous groups. Whether we're talking about our student ministries or other situations, the church as a healthy body must be a body that knows how to live in relationship with its many parts, all joined to the common purpose of praising and serving the risen Lord.
Thanks for your articulation of "The Death of Youth Groups," Kevan. And may the HS give you transformative speech as you present this material today. Peace!
Nathan S-R
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