I’m going to put it out there. Correct me if I’m wrong. But be honest.

 

Youth ministry operates in abstractions.

 

And I’m going to guess why…

 

 

It may be because, in the realm of abstractions, we can feign a pseudo-intimacy. I’m not saying anything new. If we pay attention, we witness repeated echoes in corners of youth ministry everywhere…

 

 

• “How do I get my students to open up?”
• “Jesus, I pray for my aunt’s friend’s sick kitty.”
• “I spend more time getting my youth talk right (connecting through programming) rather than getting my relationships right (connection through informal interaction).”
• “How many students did we have at youth group?”
• “Don’t look at me… look at Jesus.”
• etc. etc.
  

 

Could it be that we’re in the midst of a missional rut in which youth ministry communities are having a hard time escaping? We’re often unwilling (unable?) to move beyond a programmatic/controlled approach to serving adolescents, stuck, unable to change, because the very structures established in youth ministry pay us… to not take risks. No book, magazine, mission trip, talk, small group structure, or brochure is going to lead us toward a new trajectory that truly embraces adolescents.

 

 

The problem is that we’re trying to get our adolescents to follow Jesus… but they’re doing a good job of following us.

 

 

And this is more than, “it’s all about relationships” (which has always been a confusing phrase to me). I think youth ministry must reconsider the fact that it has embraced a power-structure that subjects adolescents to “giving their all to Jesus” with little risk to the youth ministry or the youth pastor.

 

 

• We monitor their behaviors.
• We channel them toward our events.
• We use them for our purposes.
• We often separate them from family and school relationships.
• We shame them into uniformity.

 

And we wonder why they don’t stick around after high school. Let’s just say, we can’t blame the Sr. pastors. We maybe have to look at ourselves.

 

I think what we may find is that abstract youth ministry exists because many of us are abstract youth ministers.

 

 

We don’t let many in.

We aren’t really connecting.

We’re not that honest about our own spiritual journey.

We’re worried about our reputation.

We’re afraid we’ll be found out.

We’re lost and found… daily.

 

 

There is hope. Youth workers have always been about taking risks and its time to cash in that persona now.

 

The challenge is whether any youth worker is willing go beyond the abstract into real space before one more adolescent is challenged or programmed to. Only then will abstractions be forced out and a life-giving community will emerge…

 

This entry was posted on Friday, March 14th, 2008 at 1:26 pm and is filed under Youth Ministry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.