Youth Ministry: What exactly do you want?

What do you do when what you’ve always done doesn’t work anymore? I’m confused, lonely, and feel extremely guilty. I used to have all the answers. Students used to flock to events and programs. That’s not the case anymore and I’m now left with the nagging questions about whether it’s my incompetence or something cultural. I do know this: something is broken. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s youth ministry models, or maybe it’s all of the above. Gone are the days when churches can simply hire a youth director to run a program and expect large flocks of students with nothing else to do on Sundays or Wednesdays to show up, embrace the gospel, and become committed disciples. I know things have to change, but more times than not I have no idea what my job is supposed to look like. I question what I’m doing and I question whether I’m even the best person to be doing it. Would my church, and more importantly, the Youth of my church be better served by someone else?

What is youth ministry? Is there ONE definition to answer that question? What do we do with students that have now grown up in a totally digital era? Even the poorest of the students I encounter have computers, video games, cell phones, and TV. How do you “attract” that? Pizza? Crazy relays? Cool acronyms? I think not!

What is “Deep Biblical Teaching”? If the answer to our youth ministry quandary is that our students are hungry for more depth in teaching, why don’t they flock to the “Big” church service? I hear it said that our teaching needs to be deep, but also on their level. Seriously, what does that mean? Is it deep, or is it kind of deep? Do you remember more than a handful of sermons you heard as a teen? Why do we continue to believe in the evangelical world that the “cure all” is a lesson or sermon when time and time again it is proven that the teacher/learner model is one of the least effective? If I wanted to be in the business of imparting biblical information I would have taken a job as a professor at a Christian school.

Daily I take into account the diversity of personalities, race, financial status, geographic location, and family life of the students God has sent to our ministry. Am I the only one thinking about this? We are a church is filled with the same diversity. Yet, we offer a ton of different ways for folks to deepen their souls, find relationship, and join the mission because we know that no one program meets the needs of every person. At some point we have to state our vision and purpose clearly, narrow our programming to best fit that vision and purpose, and move forward the best we can.

The enormity of the responsibility I have been given in Youth Ministry is very real to me. I don’t know how long I can keep going but the thought of giving up and walking away terrifies me even more. Too much is at stake! Too many students need Jesus! I’m willing to fight this fight – regardless of the consequences. Another thing I know: if we go backwards in student ministry we will continue to ask these same questions about numbers, depth, and programming instead of moving forward with ideas and practices that will help today’s students deepen their souls, find relationship, and join the mission.

Am I the only one that's lost out here? Fix me if you can!

Multi-racial Youth Ministry

One thing that I rarely ever see in the emergence Christianity discussions is a post-racial church. I see post-evangelical, post-denominational, post-everything else, but I don't often see anything about post-racial. As our American culture becomes more and more diverse, I'm hoping for a church that starts to reflect the incredible variety of God's human creation. I'm as excited as the next person about the coming changes in our Christian culture. We're taking on big theological issues, social justice issues, yet we still have black church, white church, hispanic church, asian church, etc... Why does Sunday morning continue to be one of the most segregated times in America? Shouldn't that be a time when brothers and sisters of all kinds and colors get together? What a powerful statement it would be for the world to see a united body of Christ, living and loving together. I have to believe that this is what Jesus would want. Any thoughts?

Reduced Budgets in Youth Ministry

Well, the financial situation in our country has, and will continue to, put a strain on many youth ministry budgets. I work at a large nondenominational church and this year we have significantly reduced the whole church budget in an effort to be good stewards in a year where giving will most likely be down. I'm anticipating some changes in our ministry programming that could be a good thing. It certainly will cause us to focus on the things that matter most. Instead of new projectors or big inflatable parties, we will have to have more low cost relational events. Creativity will become essential as we will not spend as much on "canned" curriculums. Right now I'm wondering just how spoiled I've gotten over the last few years. And better yet, how much have we spoiled our students? Is it possible to do more with less? It sounds noble and all but I believe this will be a year that stretches youth workers to depend on Jesus, will not allow us to hide behind big, costly events, and will certainly allow us to model fiscal responsibility before our students. Money can be a powerful tool in impacting lives for Christ. But, without times like these we can often become lazy, knowing that we can make something look better than it is by spending some extra cash. I pray that this would be a year for all of us increase our dependence on God to provide all that we need - not what money can buy!

Web based curriculum getting ready to go live

Well, I've been working on a new way for our students to engage the Bible with a web based review study of our current series in Proverbs. We launch the series this Sunday and students will be invited to check out the site to further engage the passages from the week's lesson. After I get the website out to our leaders I plan on posting the link on this site so I can get feedback from y'all. There's nothing new under the sun so I'm sure this is happening somewhere else. Anybody got any links? Thanks for reading and I look forward to sharing with y'all the results of this new adventure.

Collaborative, Immersive, Online Discipleship

Collaborative online discipleship is the way of the future. We'll have to come up with a better name than that, but that is the first step we must take in transforming the youth of today. If you google wed3D books you will find some great info on interactive learning. Right now I'm trying to build a website that will allow our students to interactively engage the book of Proverbs.

Here's a snipet about what web3D books could look like:“Web3D Books. Web3D Books are Web-based digital books that support bidirectional interaction with Immersive Education learning experiences. Web3D Books are used to assemble and present any combination of text, imagery (such as images and videos), audio, Web content (HTML pages, Flash animation, etc.), and Web-based 3D content (such as Shockwave and X3D). A Web3D Book can be thought of as a Web-based presentation container that can seamlessly guide learners through three-dimensional (3D) immersive learning experiences. Web3D Books are read/viewed using a standard Web browser, through which they support bidirectional interaction with the stand-alone Immersive Education platform. For example, clicking on a hyperlink in a Web3D Book might teleport the reader into a specific location of an Immersive Education learning environment that is directly related to the subject matter they were reading in the book. Likewise, 3D objects in an Immersive Education environment can be linked to any section or page of a Web3D Book to enrich the virtual reality experience with supplemental learning materials.”

Would it not be awesome to put a tool like this into the hands of our students. I wonder if it wouldn't completely rearrange the way we teach scripture to our students. Here's the problem, I have no idea how to create a website. How do we make this happen?

No More Preaching!

OK y'all, nueroeducation is something that is really interesting to me. Google that word and take in some pretty cool stuff. It's about time the old lecture based teaching method gets put on the shelf. Why do we in youth ministry feel so strongly about the lesson, message, sermon, etc? It's long been a fact that the average kid takes in about 10% of what he or she hears. Are we okay with that? 10%? Really?

When did the pulpit become the most important piece of furniture in the church? I for one am going to dedicate the next few years to finding a new way to engage this digital generation. Do we really have a choice? Any thoughts?