In the fall of 2011, I sent out a letter through email to about 50 youth workers across the country representing vaious sized churches, denominations, geographic location, etc. My hope was these youth workers would take a few moments to fill out a questionnaire I had put together. I wanted to know how, in today’s world of youth ministry, we measure the effectiveness of our discipleship. I have come to realize for myself the standard (in my opinion) of how we measure discipleship is ineffective.
I was extremely disappointed in the response I received. Perhaps it is because I am not well-known in youth ministry; maybe if I were a published author or a hired speaker/presenter at major conferences I would have received more attention. Maybe if I had more Twitter, Facebook or Instagram followers I would have received a bigger response. Maybe, but I do not think so. I think the topic scared people because they simply had the same amount of answers I had about how to measure the effectiveness of discipleship, which is none.
As I mentioned earlier, I think the model we now use is ineffective. It is true. I cannot help but think there has to be something new, something different, something better. What is our current model? Wait and see. We do our youth ministry; we invest our lives, time, prayers, thoughts, everything we have into the lives of youth and their families; then we wait and see. For some of us, we wait to see if any of those teenagers will commit to going into the ministry. (We get bonus points if this happens, right?) We wait to see once they are in college whether they still go to church, get involved in InterVarsity or some other faith group at their schools. We wait to see what happens when they graduate college or get married and have kids. We wait to see if they still are coming to church and if they are participating in the mission of the church and reinvesting their lives in those around them.
Now, do not get me wrong: There is nothing wrong at all in trying to pay attention to these things. There is nothing wrong with desiring for the investments we make in the lives of youth to be reinvested into the lives of another youth. That is just incredible to think about. My issue comes with the waiting part. Why can’t we figure out a way to track the progress of our youth when we actually are doing ministry with them? Why can’t we figure out whether the investment we are making in the lives of youth is making a difference today, next week, next month? Why do we settle on the wait-and-see model? I would love to think the investment I have made in teenagers is going to make a real difference in their lives and in their faith journeys, but I am too impatient to wait 10 years to know the results. If what I do as a youth worker isn’t going to work, I want to fix it now rather than wait 10 years and find out everything I’ve done has been a waste of time.
In a materialistic, consumer-driven world, there continually have been new products, curriculums, tests, etc. designed to determine the spiritual location of someone. While these tests vary, my hope was to talk directly with youth workers of different church settings and youth ministry programs to find out what is being used in contemporary youth ministry. I received less than 10 percent response from the 50 youth workers I contacted. While this was disappointing, it further clarifies for me the idea that I wasn’t alone in not knowing how best to measure the effectiveness of youth discipleship. Youth workers across the country share the same experience.
I recall a general parent meeting I had in a previous ministry setting. A parent asked how I disciple teenagers who have made first-time decisions for Christ. I was astounded by my lack of an answer. I trusted there was conversional fruit (teenagers making first-time decisions for Christ) in the ministry, but what did I do to help them? Was I stubborn and arrogant enough to believe my teachings and programming would reach all these teenagers regardless of when they made their decisions for Christ or whether they had at all?
As I sent out my questionnaire to these youth workers, I wanted to find out how they viewed and approached discipleship of teenagers and how that changed (if at all) between middle school and high school students. While the responses varied depending on context of ministry, I was comforted (to some extent) that everyone responded with a similar answers in that we have no particular way to measure internal growth. Either we haven’t considered this a priority, or we lack a way to figure out how to measure it. As a result, youth workers all depended on the relationships each student has with the ministry to be able to determine where students are in their faith journeys. While I am a proponent of a relational-style of ministry and trust that in my relationships with teenagers I am able to decipher their faith maturity and growth, I realize that at times I needed something else–a framework to put that relationship into in order to see the situation more clearly.
How can we as youth workers be so passionate about bringing the gospel to teenagers, so passionate about discipling teenagers to become the next generation of the church, yet have no effective way to go about doing that in which we could measure and see whether our efforts as youth workers are making a difference? Our current tool is the wait-and-see model. Reach today’s youth, love them, build relationships with them, be an example of Christ to them–then wait and see whether they stick around for the long haul or whether the church loses them as they transition into and out of their college years.
The church cannot afford to continue to operate on the wait-and-see method of effective discipleship. There is too much at stake. In research done by the Barna Group in 2006, studies showed 81 percent of teenagers had attended a church for at least a 2-month period during their teenage years. However, the problem–the epidemic that today’s church faces–is that these teenagers disengage at some point. The disengagement occurs during their college years. Barna says in its online article about their findings: The research shows that compared to older adults, twentysomethings have significantly lower levels of church attendance, time spent alone studying and reading the Bible, volunteering to help churches, donations to churches, Sunday School and small group involvement, and use of Christian media (including television, radio and magazines).
In fact, the most potent data regarding disengagement is that a majority of twentysomethings–61 percent of today’s young adults–had been churched at one point during their teen years, but they are now spiritually disengaged (i.e., not actively attending church, reading the Bible or praying).
If this trend is real, and if we as the church have been practicing the wait-nd-ee method to discipleship, it’s clear it’s not working. We’ve got to find another way to disciple teenagers and to see how our discipleship is working before it’s too late.
