We live in a serious world. One has only to read a newspaper or watch the news to understand how serious things are. The reports of violence, death and worldwide problems are staggering. As youth workers, we are also eyewitnesses to the sometimes severe situations facing our students. Take a moment or two during your next youth meeting or activity to look at the faces of the kids. You probably will see the emotional (and sometimes physical) scars of abuse, trauma, violence, isolation and other cruelty. If you take the time to get close to them, you’ll hear their stories of suffering and the seriousness of the circumstances they are facing.
Youth ministry is serious business—not only because we deal with the hurting and needy lives of today’s students—but because our mission and the message we share are serious, as well. Passages such as
Therefore, we should do all we can to have fun!
So much of life is serious. Why make other things too serious? Here’s a lesson that all youth workers need to learn: Not everything is serious. Relax and have fun.
Sure, it’s easy to get bogged down by the serious problems we see everyday. We look into the faces of our students and see the hurt, but if we look closer we’ll see them craving fun; and the fact is they need to have fun.
Let’s be honest, one of the main reasons most of us are in youth ministry is because we were attracted to the fun and excitement of it. Who else except youth workers can hang out with kids, go to camp and on wilderness trips, take students to ball games and amusement parks, organize activities and events, and plan parties and socials? Yep, youth ministry is a blast!
However, I want to call attention to a trend I am seeing in many churches today. In fact, just a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to talk with some other well-known leaders in evangelical youth ministry. These men are some of the leading voices championing youth ministry in our nation. Each of them spoke about the need for students to have fun, and they all talked about this trend of moving away from plain, old, simple fun.
I’ve seen these scenarios in big churches and small churches alike. Please don’t get defensive. Instead, let’s take an honest but lighthearted look at ourselves to see if this trend is true.
1. My problem with being driven by purpose.
While I applaud the media’s attention on Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life, I am also somewhat concerned that this whole experience has caused a purpose-driven nightmare for some in ministry leadership.
Warren’s first book, The Purpose-Driven Church, and Doug Field’s follow-up, Purpose-Driven Youth Ministry, made many of us rethink how we do ministry. They taught us to live intentionally and to minister with a sense of purpose and mission. I have to admit I struggle with the idea of being driven by purpose. I know this confession probably will cause some readers to think less of me, but I want to do some things just for fun. I don’t want to have a clearly defined purpose for everything I do. I know, I know, your opinion of me will be shattered; but last weekend I spent a couple of hours watching a basketball game on TV and playing a game of baseball on my computer. Yep, I wasted all that time. I can justify those kinds of activities by saying that I needed a break or a diversion from my overly busy and hectic schedule. I could say those things relieve stress and the pressure of a busy life, but the truth is, I really don’t have a clear sense of purpose for doing those things. I just enjoy doing them.
My guess is that our students are the same way. I believe in having a purpose for what we do, and I know that it is important to have a sense of mission and intentionality for what we do in ministry. But let’s not be so driven that we have to have a grandiose purpose for everything. Maybe the most important thing we can do is just hang out with kids and show them the love of Christ through our lives.
2. My worry about worship.
At the risk of sounding almost heretical, I also wonder if we are making too big a thing out of worship. The words of a well-known chorus may have it exactly right: “I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it.” It seems to me that we have made worship into a thing—a movement, a trend or a phenomenon. We no longer sing, we worship. We no longer have song leaders, we have worship leaders. I actually have sat in services where the crowd has been scolded or yelled at for not worshiping. I am afraid we inadvertently have led our students to believe the creation of a worship experience is the ultimate, the pinnacle of successful youth ministry. As the Lord Himself told the woman at the well so many centuries ago (
I am also concerned this current emphasis on worship actually may be leading to an unintended result. Do we gather our students together on Sunday mornings in Sunday School to worship? Do we gather them together again for Wednesday night youth group to worship? Do we take them to concerts and youth conferences to worship? We may be sending them mixed and confusing messages. We may be telling our students that worship is a lifestyle of devotion to the Lord while inadvertently showing them that worship is an experience we share at a youth meeting. There are certainly other valid reasons to hold youth meetings such as Sunday School and youth group. What about teaching God’s Word, building group unity, evangelism—or fun?
We may have lost something valuable in current youth ministry by abandoning fun in favor of worship. (Now you know I am a borderline heretic.) Maybe we are making youth group way too serious all the time. The days of game nights, fellowships and socials seem to have gone the way of wiener-roasts and gunny-sack races and have become obsolete. So many of today’s youth workers are spending their budgets for worship CDs instead on ideas books.
Youth workers, I urge you, have fun with students. Why not plan something right away just for fun?
3. My terror of technology.
I have this recurring nightmare that I am standing in front of a large group of teenagers (no, not in my underwear) with a PowerPoint presentation that won’t work. Actually, that has already happened to me several times.
Here’s another biggie in today’s youth ministry: an over-dependence on technology. Where does it end? That’s the problem: I guess it doesn’t.
I see two ministry killers with technology: money and time. You’ll have to take an honest evaluation of your own situation. Do you have enough money, and do you have enough time?
I love technology. My laptop, projector, smart phone, iPod and new iPad are invaluable and indispensable; but I am finding this over-reliance on technology may be making our ministries way too serious. The same two insidious culprits that I mentioned above can cause each of us to become overly serious about our overall approach to ministry. Here’s why. If we have spent significant amounts of money and time preparing to use technology in our ministries, we naturally look at that approach as a stewardship issue. We tend to think, “If I have spent so much money paying for this equipment, and if I have put so much of my time into perfecting it, I’d better use it and it better be good.” So we haul our computers and projectors and screens and cords and sound systems to each youth group function, thinking that we have to use technology to impress and reach today’s kids and that we have to rely on technological advances to keep them coming. The over-use of technology can turn into a vicious cycle. Instead of starting our meetings by throwing out a spongy old ball for a rousing game of dodge ball, we are consumed with getting the technological equipment set up and working properly for one more personally crafted, personally filmed, personally directed and personally edited multimedia presentation.
Just a few short months ago, I heard the youth pastor from one of this country’s mega-churches say that his church had come to the conclusion they were going to move away from a dependence on multimedia in their regular youth meetings. He figured some 13-year-old kids in their group could make better presentations at home on their Mac than the church’s entire technology staff could do with thousands of dollars of equipment. Plus, he wondered whether all the glitz and effort they could put into their videos really impress teenagers, who are growing up in an ever-increasing high-tech multimedia world. His conclusion was that it probably was not worth all the effort.
Please hear my point. I am not advocating a departure from media and technology. I love these toys as much as anyone, but please don’t overly rely on technology. That reliance tends to get you out of balance somehow. Maybe our approach should be to grab a couple of sodas and sit down for a few minutes to talk to kids. Or maybe it’s time to dust off that old dodge ball.
4. My temptation to travel too much.
There’s at least one more factor that tends to make youth workers have a serious approach to youth ministry: the compulsion and obsession that effective youth ministry can only happen in airplanes or in church 15-passenger vans. Ouch.
I have seen so many youth ministries that remind me of the old 1980s Steve Martin and John Candy movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Where’d we get the idea that real youth ministry requires a trip somewhere?
I am a big fan of youth group trips. I have led my share of missions trips, tours to Christian colleges, and long bus rides to camp. Even now, my mind is recalling the smell of a church van after several days of traveling with a dozen teenagers. The problem is that travel can get out of balance. Really, this is probably a stewardship issue. We live in a day of escalating gas prices and vehicle insurance rates. You’ll have to ask yourself (or maybe your church’s leadership will ask you), “Is it really wise to take that many youth group trips?” I know that effective ministry can take place on long trips. The long-term exposure to a group of students is the key. The unity that is often a result of such trips can do a world of good for your group; but trips take a ton of work, and the planning and administration take an incredible amount of time (and money).
Church van trips used to be fun. We’d all pile in and drive down to the local McDonald’s for chocolate shakes and salty french fries. We’d spend the time talking, telling jokes and reminiscing about past trips in the same van. Now, we have to take out the back seat and make sure the tires are inflated just right because of insurance regulations. We have to record the exact mileage for tax or reimbursement procedures. We have to make sure the driver is qualified and properly licensed, and we have to take out a secured personal loan to pay for a tank of gas. Maybe it’s time to have the kids meet you at McDonald’s or ask them to show up at your house for a game of Monopoly.
Maybe the real problem is that we take ourselves too seriously. So we design mission statements and plan worship experiences. We rely too much on technology, and we go away too often. Perhaps effective youth ministry can happen by hanging out with kids, playing board games or dodge ball with them or buying them milkshakes at McDonald’s. You’ll never be accused of being a big spender, but you may just develop wholesome and positive relationships with kids—nd it just may be fun.
