I’ve been writing this column in this journal for a number of years now, and I don’t think I ever took the time to explain its title, “From a Hole in the Roof.” It refers to the story in the Gospel where four guys take a sick friend to the house where Jesus is teaching.

They can’t get in, so they climb on top of the house and tear a hole in the roof. They lower their sick friend down, and Jesus says, “Get up and walk.”  McNair Wilson (the noted speaker and creativity enthusiast) has said the man probably got up and danced. Imagine the freedom. To go from being unable to stand to suddenly having a full and healthy body — you’d dance, too.

I’ve always believed (though there is no biblical evidence to support this) that the four men on the roof were probably youth ministers and the man on the mat was probably a teenager. This event encompasses many classic youth minister traits: going out on the roof, demolition of private property — and if  they took a sick kid away from his house, it was most likely without a permission slip or even his parents’ knowledge. Most of all, they went to creative (albeit destructive) means to get a teenager to meet Jesus.

Our question is not How do we reimagine youth ministry? Our question is How do we NOT? Youth ministry must be constantly reimagined. The books and the seminars and the conventions are great; but when it all boils down, our job is to get teenagers to meet Jesus. To do this we must be willing to change — sometimes DAILY.

I have a youth worker friend in Texas with whom I was talking recently. She mentioned she has almost no regular meetings any more. (Regular meetings being the traditional

Sunday afternoon game-fest and discussion.) Her students are so busy they cannot commit to any one day of the week. However, not a day goes by that there aren’t kids in and out of her office at all hours. She’s desperate for a curriculum that can be done in oneshot lessons with two kids over a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

Youth ministry as we have always imagined it involves creative ways to get students to be involved in the life of the church. It involves creative ways to get  the church involved in the lives of the students.

Some of us change the way we do things to increase our numbers — because no matter how much reimagining we do, that’s still the way our successes or failures are judged.

How many warm bodies are in the youth room on a Sunday night?

If we were to say to our boards, “Hey, I had coffee with Shawn three times this week, and I really think he’s starting to come into his own as a Christian,” the first question we would hear would likely be, “Is that what you do with your expense account?” or “Did you save the receipt?” or “Did you tell his parents when the new members’ class meets?”

Youth ministry is all about imagining in the first place. It may not need to be reimagined by those doing it, but it does need to be reimagined by those who are watching it from the outside looking in. Monty Python alumnus John Cleese said it’s much funnier to watch someone who is watching someone behave strangely than it is to just watch someone
behave strangely. From the seat on the Staff Relations Committee, it must seem like we spend all our time hanging out with teenagers. The reimagining must happen so they realize that’s EXACTLY what we are doing and that’s perfectly OK.

__________________________

STEVE CASE has been active in youth ministry for 18 years and currently serves at Windermere Union United Church of Christ near Orlando, Florida. He’s also a popular
speaker and the author of several books, including Everything Counts, The Book of Uncommon Prayer, and The Big Book of Case Studies (YS). This is Steve’s final column for YouthWorker Journal.