The Future of Youth Ministry

I wrote this a while back and just came across it yesterday. After re-reading it I was quite impressed with myself because I realized I wasn't just blowing smoke. It has given me a couple things to think about with the ministry position I have been filling for the last year, and I hope it's of some service to you as well...

Someone recently asked me, "What does the future of youth ministry look like?"

It’s hard to say where youth ministry is “going” It would be impossible to tell you exactly what the next fads are going to be and what programs everyone will be running. What I can say however is what is going to be necessary for youth ministry to have a future.

Long ago youth ministry left the realm of hay rack rides and singing “Kumbaya”. Kids needed something more lively and in the 1990s we saw an explosion of Christian rock bands, crazy clipart filled newsletters, and wild games. Yet again youth culture has shifted and now Facebook reigns supreme while high school students could care less about watching their classmates eat baby food blindfolded. We are finding that students are entertained less and less by simple and more and more by flashy. The good old wholesome fun has died and hype is the new king.

How do we combat this? What should be our response? Should we make flashy programs that depend on an over the top budget? Should we compromise our own character to be “relevant”? Do we need a really cool youth building?

No, the answer is in authenticity.

Youth ministry has come to the state where the only thing that is really going to successfully reach kids for Christ is real people advertising a real Christ and offering a real gospel.

This means leaders not trying to entertain kids by being characters or trying to catch their eye by dressing and talking any younger than we really are. We need to stop trying to be interesting and just be interested in kids. There are enough posers in the world, but not enough people that genuinely love these kids on a daily basis.

This means teaching students who Christ really is, (not timid Jesus “meek and mild” that they learned about in Children’s Ministry). Ask any teenager at your local high school what they think about God and they will say things like, “boring”, “outdated”, and “for old people”. Kids need to know that Jesus is a brave and brilliant person worth studying, a rally point for change in their world, and a radical model to live by.

This means offering teens a real message of good news, not just feel good candy. Today’s youth need to hear how the Bible can actually be applied to their lives rather than another rendition of the parable of the Prodigal Son. Our kids need to desperately know about a faith that can help them instead off how Jesus is like a bottle of Coca-Cola.

Kids can smell fake from a mile off , but when they see people being real, something that makes real sense, or a catalyst making a real difference, they will realize it is something that the really want to be a part of. If that’s what our ministries were like we would see far less kids getting bored and walking away from them.

The point I am trying to get at is that authentic is infectious, and if we are entering into an age where we are fighting against hype, the only choice I see is to identify our ministries in one of those two fields. If you choose to go with hype you will run the risk of loosing kids because the allure has worn off and you can’t keep up with what’s “in”. But if you go the route of authenticity you will live to see the future of ministry, and by that I mean kids taking ownership of their faith and sharing it for generations.