Informality, impatience with tradition, entertaining worship services, spiritual seeking, falling in love with Jesus, idealistic (or naïve) political activism, the gospel of emotion management. What do these aspects of contemporary church life have in common? They’re all byproducts of the juvenilization of American Christianity.
For at least 50 years, Christian youth ministry groups have been digesting youth culture and sending its nutrients (and sometimes its poisons) into the body of Christ. Because the church has so successfully reinvented itself to appeal to young people, we’re all adolescents now.
Don’t get me wrong. Youth and youth ministry are not the problem. It’s wonderful for a 14-year-old to be an adolescent and for a youth minister to create an age-appropriate ministry to reach that student.
The problem comes when much of the church camps out in adolescence for life because we idolize elements of that life stage and because no one ever modeled for us an attractive spiritual adulthood.
Always Searching, Never Finding
At times, various Christian leaders and groups have idolized the spiritual seeking and political idealism found among young people. Adults influenced by this version of teenage spirituality value alwayssearching-but-never-finding and naïvely expect to change the system through symbolic protests alone. At a recent consultation on Christian formation of youth, I scandalize some of my colleagues when I suggested that those who celebrate spiritual seeking and questioning might be just putting a positive spin on an age in which strongly held, life-changing religious beliefs are increasingly rare.
Evangelical Protestants have idolized the fun and emotional intensity of adolescence. In these churches, worship services look like rock concerts; program offerings are reminiscent of the local shopping mall, and the believer’s relationship with Jesus resembles a teenage infatuation.
I get puzzled looks (or outright rejection) from my students when I suggest that “falling in love with Jesus” might not be the best way to describe the Christian life. As with an immature romance, in this gospel of emotion management, Jesus and Christianity exist to make me feel good. The recent National Study of Youth and Religion shows that this is precisely the gospel that is most commonly believed among American teenagers and adults alike.
Passionate—and Mature
So what should youth ministers do?
First, take seriously your responsibility as cultural gatekeepers for the church.
Don’t spend all your energy getting the church to change to keep up with youth culture. Spend some of it trying to get young people excited about the rich heritage and traditions of your church. Don’t be so eager to appeal to students in their language that you forget to teach them the foreign language of the biblical faith. Would I be comfortable if 20 years from now adult church life looked exactly like my youth ministry does today? Where in my youth ministry am I idolizing spiritual immaturity? Will my students value the adult church and want to join it after they leave the youth ministry?
Second, proclaim and model the biblical gospel of the Kingdom of God, not the false gospel of emotion management and “falling in love with Jesus.”
Does the menu of youth activities reinforce the notion that God exists to entertain me and help me feel good? Do my students assume that their relationships with Jesus are identical to a romantic crush? Where in our youth program do we talk about and put into practice the cost of discipleship? ‘
It’s great that American Christianity is more passionate and personalized than it was 50 years ago. But let’s work to make it more mature 50 years from now.
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Tom Bergler is Associate Professor of Ministry and Missions and Associate Director of the Link Institute for Faithful and Effective Youth Ministry at Huntington University in Huntington, Indiana. He specializes in youth culture and the history of youth ministry.
