SAFE YOUTH MINISTRY
and the
COMMITMENT LEVEL MODEL

1. The Goals of Youth Work - groups have mission statements such as: to provide a safe environment in which youth can grow in Christ.

2. The Concerns of Parents - where parents are concerned about the dangers of youth culture, the evils and influences in the media, they encourage and sponsor youth workers to run ministries that protect their children.

3. The Strategy of Leaders - youth workers tend to involve youth exclusively in Christian activities: they keep them in groups, they involve them in leadership within these groups, they encourage youth to avoid non-Christian friendships and they seek to integrate them into the church where further protection can be offered.

4. The Content of Books - many books reveal the emphasis on protecting youth, ie. Winkey Pratney’s Devil Take the Youngest; James Dobson’s Preparing for Adolescence; Pete Gilbert’s Teenage Survival Kit.

5. The Emphasis of Teaching - leaders spend a lot of time focussing on teaching youth about clothes they should or should not wear; about music they should or should not listen to; about behaviours they should or should not engage in; about media they should or should not consume; and about technology they should or should not use.

He says that while these things may be noble pursuits for youth leaders, there are problems with safe youth ministry:

1. The Impact on Youth Development - while leaders desire to see youth grow in faith and maturity, their youth ministry tends to be a series of groups that are designed to keep people to the end of their days. Much of the safety and protection works against youth’s need to develop and grow. Safe youth ministry fosters dependency which militates against growth towards maturity.

2. Impact on Evangelism - often the world is viewed as the enemy and youth are encouraged to find safety and security in the youth group, which becomes a place of refuge. Youth become distanced from their peers as they enter into a Christian subculture with its own music, magazines, television, heroes, etc. They stop engaging with the ‘real world’. Evangelism becomes limited to brief forays into the outside world to encourage non-Christians to join the youth group. Christian youth remain safe in their world, from where they invite non-Christians ‘in’ to appreciate their Christian subculture. Friendship evangelism, where youth are encouraged to reach out to non-Christian friends, becomes virtually impossible as friendships grow out of shared activity and intimacy.

3. Integration of Unchurched Youth - new converts do not change overnight, so unchurched youth may bring behaviours into the group such as swearing, drugs, crime, sex, etc. These youth are seen as a threat to the Christian group, and often fall away because they cannot buy into the rules of the new subculture.

4. Youth Workers as Provider and Youth as Client - in safe youth ministry, the youth leader or the group is provider of events and activities that youth consume as clients. A passive ministry approach is unhelpful in developing youth to independence.

5. Church-Based Leadership - the safe youth group seeks to involve youth in various forms of leadership, but only within the youth group and the church. Activities outside the group are seen as less important or unimportant.

These comments by Pete Ward stress the need for leaders to avoid the temptation to limit ministry to the youth group context. Leadership development of young people should prepare them for leadership roles within the community as well as in the church. This will require the development and implementation of a leadership development programme within the youth group (probably not just aimed at the leadership level of the model - which primarily concerns leadership within the youth group). Leaders should publically recognise and promote youth who have leadership roles in the community as well as in the church.

In order to equip youth for ministry in their community, youthworkers could consider the development and implementation of a Life Skills programme within the youth ministry structure. Such a programme would focus on teaching youth about accountability, commitment, responsibility and discipline. It would include training in practical skills such as time management, vision and communication. They should help youth to identify their spiritual gifts and natural abilities and help them understand that the distinction between these two does not have to be absolute: ie. that they can only use their spiritual gifts in the church and natural abilities in the community, or vice-versa. They should also teach youth about ethics. The purpose of the programme should be to help young people to integrate the whole of their lives - to avoid the compartmentalisation that so often is seen. They should help youth to understand that their involvement and training in leadership for ministry within the church is equipping them for ministry within the community as well. The Life Skills programme should be Bible-based to ensure a good foundation is at the heart of the teaching and training. Leaders could also consider running the programme within the local school or in a community center - to widen the base of young people who will benefit from the programme.