The following aspects of youth ministry have been concerns of mine during the twenty years that I have been involved in youth ministry:
1. Why Is Attendance So Erratic?
Youth groups have always seemed to fluctuate greatly from week to week. Sometimes as leaders we feel that youth only attend the group for the fun programmes, like ice-skating, and they are totally uninterested in learning about God. At any time it seemed possible to have a youth group of fifty and the next week a youth group of ten - depending on what programme is run.
2. What Do We Do About Inappropriate Attendance?
Young people always seem to attend the youth group when the programme scheduled for that night is not aimed at them. An unchurched person from the area visits the group for a programme on tithing or on evangelising the lost. The youth group leadership spends the whole night hoping that the programme will not turn the visitor off Christianity for the rest of their lives. It seems that our programming puts barriers in the way of unchurched people, making them endure teaching that is aimed at mature or growing Christians, or listen to a fire and brimstone preacher thundering about the flames of hell before they had even had a chance to meet someone who loves Jesus.
3. Should We Go To Youth Or Wait For Them To Come To Us?
Is youth ministry about going to where young people are to reach them for Christ, or is it about waiting for them to come to us so they can find Christ. Most youth groups rely on the latter option - but what about young people who WON’T ever come to the youth group, how will we reach them? Should we close down the youth group and do door-to-door visitation? Jesus spoke of two aspects to ministry: people were invited to come to him to find rest (Matthew 11) and believers were commanded to go and disciple people (Matthew 28). How do we integrate both of these aspects in a youth group?
4. What Do We Do About The Back Door?
When we made a master list of every young person who had visited out youth group during the past year we discovered that our youth group should be double or triple its curent size. Why? Where did all those newcomers go? There are two ways to grow a youth group: (a) to bring people in the font door and (b) to stop them going out the back door. What can we do to help youth who visit to be assimilated into the group?
5. Why Do We Lose People Between Groups?
When we look at the places where many young people leave the youth group, and the church, we discover that is around the time that they leave primary school, or high school. Many simply do now make the transition from children’s group to the teenage group, nor from the teenage group to the young adult group. What can be done about correcting these difficult transitions during the various life stages?
6. How Do We Coordinate Ministries?
The different age group ministries (children, teenager, young adult) seem to function totally separate from one another. Shouldn’t the teenage group be building on the foundation laid in the children’s group? How can we know what is happening in the other groups when we are so busy ministering among the age group we are responsible for? Surely there must be a way of co-ordinating the various ministries?
7. How Do We Cover All The Bases?
There seem to be so many different dimensions to ministry among youth that require our attention as youth workers that we struggle to keep track of everything. There is relationship building, discipleship, evangelism, follow-up, leadership development, worship, prayer, fun, church, etc. Surely there is a way to integrate all these aspects into a strategy for ministry.
8. What Do We Do About The Tension Between Relationship And Programming?
We often hear about the importance of developing relationships among young people, and are left thinking that we should cancel all the programmes for the coming term and simply hang out with young people. Should we feel guilty about the amount of time that we put into programming? How should relationships feature in our ministry among youth?
9. How Do We Handle Conflicting Complaints About Programming?
Leaders often hear some young people complain that the programmes are too spiritual, while others complain that the programmes are not helping them to grow spiritually. While some youth refuse to attend the group if the programmes include teaching from the Bible, others won't come unless there is worship and serious Bible study. How do we deal with such conflicting reactions?
How are we going to solve these frustrations? After years of living with these frustrations I believe that I have stumbled across a model of ministry that to a large degree solves these frustrations. The solution is a two-fold strategy of (a) developing and implementing a commitment level ministry within each age specific group that targets ministry at each commitment level; and (b) co-ordinating the age-specific commitment level ministries among youth (ie. pre-schoolers, children, teenagers and young adults).
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