Advancing

Contra-Correinte

Seth Barnes recently received an email from a youth pastor that hits on major themes that concern me regarding the current youth ministry wineskin embraced in North America.

"After much prayer, my wife and I decided that now is the time to resign and set out to find a church where we could explore what it could look like to minister to youth without being concerned about how many youth were coming. Is there a church out there that doesn't base success on whether the youth group has grown? Is there a pastor who will coach me, and not just turn me loose (as much as I appreciate the trust and freedom that implies)? Is there a pastor (and church leadership) who is willing to explore, and isn't simply set in stone how ministry should look? On top of this, I want to work with parents to radically disciple students, instead of encouraging a culture of dividing parents from the youth ministry because we're the professionals and know better than they how to do it. That's going to be a paradigm shift for them and me, as I've become a little too comfortable where I am."

Mohler And Harris On Dating

9 Marks has some fantastic audio resources available to church leaders for free.  Last night I stumbled upon an interview with SBTS president Al Mohler and I Kissed Dating Goodbye author Josh Harris on the important topics of dating and marriage.  The provocative thoughts shared here (primarily by Mohler) could encourage some great discussions within families and churches wrestling with how to define a Biblical pathway leading to marriage.  At the end of the interview Josh mentioned that his churches' youth pastor recently made a strategic move to make parents a vital part of their youth program, involving them in weekly meetings.  Josh feels this will bring long term change affecting how his church views male-female relationships.  I personally believe that this inclusion of parents in church youth ministry is a Biblically sound alternative to the prevailing model.

National Study of Youth and Religion Conclusions

I was recently impacted by a LifeWay article entitled Why Parents May Be Losing Their Teenagers, written by True Love Waits co-founder and seminary professor, Dr. Richard Ross.  I emailed Dr. Ross to express appreciation and ask if there were additional parenting resources he might recommend.  In his reply I learned that he and best selling author, Dr. Ken Hemphill just released an awesome parenting resource, Parenting with Kingdom Purpose. 

Most of Ross and Hemphill's conclusions are drawn from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR), a recent survey based on telephone interviews with over 3,300 youth/parent pairs.  Soul Searching:  The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers by Christian Smith and Melinda Lunquist Denton was the first important book based on this study. 

Chapter 5 of Parenting with Kingdom Purpose is titled Introducing Children and Teenagers to God.  In it a progressive chain of facts are laid out that, soberly considered, should send a chill down the spine of any loving parent.

1.  No parental duty matters more than introducing one's children to Jesus.

2.  Even though teenagers and children tend to be religious, the great majority have not grasped the basics of salvation.

3.  Parents who do not teach what the Scriptures say about salvation almost guarantee their children will simply make up their own ideas.

4.  Children who make up and trust their own ideas about salvation likely never will be saved.

5.  Children from Christian homes who never are saved spend eternity in hell.

Reimagining Youth Ministry

God has chosen to bless the “Youth Pastor” model for several decades. It could be said that much good has been done in the name of “youth groups” and “youth ministry.”  But parents are being circumvented. The current model often unintentionally encourages parents to abdicate their biblical responsibility by its very existence. My questions are these:  Are parents doing their job? Are parents raising godly children according to the scriptures?  If not, what do we do about it? We hire a youth pastor.  It’s the church's reflexive solution to poor parenting.  We hire a youth pastor to do for us what we are unable or unwilling as parents to do ourselves.

*What about parents who lack spiritual maturity?

We cannot ignore the fact that dysfunctional families will always exist in the church. Their children will need ministry. The question is how do we respond to this need? A family pastor model would address the root of the issue, the parents. It’s not the most convenient answer. It’s also not as fun. But when I contemplate 20, 50, or 100 years down the road I’m convinced equipping and training parents is paramount in obeying the great commission and the great commandment. The standard YP model provides short term, symptomatic teen solutions whereas parental reformation would yield long term results as the next generation emerges.

*What if parents don’t want to be trained?

How much time and money is spent every year putting out fires that could have been addressed much earlier by equipping parents to do their job?  Our youth need moms and dads who know the Word of God and are held accountable by a strong eldership committed to strengthening the family. This is where the rubber meets the road.  We can talk about family values and parental responsibility all day long but it’s another thing completely to embody those values by making them a budgetary priority. Parenting must be intentionally and consistently addressed in the church for a healthy, vibrant, youth ministry to emerge.  Any youth pastor model that excludes parents is predetermined to fail based on the fact that parents, not youth pastors, are primarily responsible for their kid’s souls.

*What about youth evangelism?

Our primary role as parents and church leaders is to prepare our children and youth for a lifetime of Christian service.  Most youth are more easily influenced than influential. Using weekly youth meetings primarily as evangelism opportunities is short sighted. I’m sure the youth group evangelism emphasis has been used to produce some good fruit. My questions would be these:

A) How much of this “fruit” remains?

B) How many of these “converts” are in the church today?

C) How much discipleship potential has been supplanted in the process?

Those questions may sound cold but I believe we should regularly measure the effectiveness of any ministry and be willing to make necessary adjustments.  Weekly youth services should be used primarily as discipleship training opportunities for our Christian youth.  We should create a safe, discipleship-friendly environment where young people can mature quickly in Christ-like character.  When their friends visit they will have a far more compelling picture of who this Jesus is.  They’ll have witnessed His character firsthand.

Un-churched youth must be reached with the gospel. Statistically this is the harvest field demographic. Much time and prayer should be spent considering the best ways to reach them before they make permanent faith based decisions.  Hospitality is the church’s untapped evangelistic natural resource. We should be inviting our lost neighbors and friends into our homes on a regular basis. Then we can share the love of Christ with them from a position of strength. It begins with the example of the parents. As we cast the vision of hospitality and reaching our neighbors through our example I believe our kids will follow. They’ll begin inviting their lost friends over to the house. I’m all for youth evangelism. Nearly half (43%) of all Americans who accept Jesus Christ as their savior do so before reaching the age of 13 (Barna: 2004) With parents leading the way our youth are called and empowered to reach their generation with the gospel much more effectively. 78% of American teens say that their parents have a lot of influence on their life. (Barna: 1997)  Josh McDowell writes, "The most powerful impact upon a child's ethical, moral and spiritual development is the relationship with the parents. It is 300 times greater than the church."