One Sunday, one of our eighth graders (the one who has grown to be taller than his father during the past year) came to church wearing a suit and a tie. I was wearing jeans that day (dress jeans for those who understand that fashion), and the practice for the rest of the staff is rarely to wear a tie. Randy’s appearance was a shock to us. So the moment he entered our worship center, he was mobbed with comments—comments he definitely expected to receive. This once shy, Asperger’s-diagnosed boy came to church that day intending to be the center of attention.
How does this happen that teens come to church (not the youth group part of church) looking forward to being among and talking with old folks? As you know, in some church congregations, there’s usually a low percentage of cool old folks and a high percentage of not-so-cool old folks.
An even crazier question: Why do churches purposely separate teens from their elders? I recently received an email through CFBYM.org from a distraught parent because the leadership of her church decided to start a separate youth-only service on Sunday mornings. The small nugget of hope I was able to give her is that this experiment won’t last more than five years. The fruit will not be there; new stresses will show up, and leadership will reverse this mistake.
What have you done to create separation of youth from the church family? What was your reason? Did you think of it as protection from the not-so-cool old folks? Evangelism to reach more teens? Both are wrong.
Whatever your reason for separating teens from the larger church family, doing so actually contributes to the problem Chap Clark exposed so well in his book Hurt (now updated to Hurt 2.0). Teens have been abandoned by the adult world.
I understand you might think teens want to have their own space, further justifying the belief they need their own safe space to understand and grasp biblical truths. This is not what teens really want. Teens know how two-faced their peers can be because they all can be. Why would they desire to be abandoned among others who are still developing as they are? The is especially important when talking about something as fragile as faith. You as youth leader and your volunteer staff are not enough. The best thing you have is the community within the church family to offer your youth.
Your role in this is crucial. Typically, a youth minister’s role is to lead all things youth ministry, which he or she does passionately because of his or her love for teens. May I suggest redefining your role? Instead of being the center of the teen relationships or developing volunteer staff to form relationship with teens, you become the go-between of the teen relationships with everyone in the church family. You become this great chess master. You have one big chessboard with the prize being the faith and formation of teens.
In this role, you are moving all the pieces of the church family to interact with the teens. Every person from the widows to the nursery workers can be players in the youths’ extended family.
You probably are exhausted, also. When a ministry is centered on one person, he or she can become burned out easily.
Personally, I am 10 years into our form of church family-based youth ministry and am not as exhausted as I was when it was Brenda-centered youth ministry. This balanced schedule happened when I became a better chess player.
I hope suit-wearing Randy will be drawn into a level of faith that will strengthen and lead him for the rest of his life. Wearing a suit and tie one Sunday is not a youth ministry plan, but providing Randy the opportunity to know he would receive a positive reaction is.
Brenda Seefeldt has more than 30 years of youth ministry experience, but discovered 12 years ago how much she needs the church family. She has compiled these ideas at ChurchFamilyBasedYouthMinistry.org or CFBYM.org.
