Youth programs are failing...
Tell me, someone please tell me. If our children and youth programs are so wonderful why have we and are we losing the younger generations here in America? There is a real disconnection following the youth group (upon graduation) from the church. We are failing to produce what we claim.
Why do we continue to use programs that are not working? Can anyone answer this one for me? A friend of mine called youth ministry a "failed experiment". What do you think?
Still trying to see a move of God in America that will be unlike any move of God we have ever witnessed on American soil. But in order to experience such a thing, we must wake up and face the facts instead of defensively protecting them. It's NOT working...!
posted by Bob Carder @ 12:04 PM
12 comments
12 Comments:
Youth ministry doesn't work because parents enlist a 20 year old to do the discipling that they've neglected.
As a thirty year youth ministry veteran, Youth ministry doesn't always fail! Youth ministry only fails when we try spend all our time making great programs instead of discipling. I learned to spend all my time disicpling and putting together little programs to help in that process. I can't say exactly because I am like bob and I try not to do numbers. But an educated guess would say of my last 3-4 graduating classes at lease 60% of the regular youth group people are still serving Jesus with all their hearts.
But parents also have a great deal to do with it. If parents know how to disciple their own teens the teens mature much faster and will have the maturity to disciple others even as teens.
I appreciate your comments and clarification. I tend to write in generalities. But the truth is, you are a rare and I say very rare former/present youth leader.
You discipled the youth in your ministry and I have met some of them.
GREAT JOB! YOUTH PASTORS SHOULD PICK YOUR BRAIN, YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO OFFER THEM.
Joel, you never missed a beat in your response. You almost sound like you did youth work at one time or another and then got blamed when the kids didn't turn out. I also love the hint of sarcasm here.
Martilou I was writing about you above, I just failed to mention you when I started, The other part was for Joel.
I've dabbled in youth ministry a bit, but generally speaking my comments arise from what I've witnessed in churches. They hire some hipster to to organize cool programs and get some religion in their kids. Not all youth ministry ends in failure, but a lot does because it's often no more than glorified babysitting. Also, parents have in large part abandoned their responsibility to disciple their kids and dropped it in the lap of the youth ministy or Sunday school class. They also tend not to reinforce the things their kids are taught in church or youth ministry.
I witnessed the same thing teaching at a Christian school. Discipleship has become professionalized because our society as a whole has lost the idea of familial responsibility. We hand our kids over to the paid professionals because they OBVIOUSLY know more than we do. They have the credentials after all. I think the church has been infected by our nanny state political system. We've adopted the idea that Big Brother will take care of us and our kids -- be it government, church, whatever.
Bob, I see what you're doing as raising up a remnant which will hopefully survive when God shakes this nation in judgment (unless, of course, He mercifully sends revival). I think homeschooling also fits with the disciple-driven vision you have. Keep up the good work, but don't expect large numbers of people to buy-in to what you're doing. Our conditioning makes it difficult to take back our responsibility.
The sarcasm is just part of my natural charm. I once heard someone say that a cynic is an idealist with a broken heart. That sums it up.
I've been looking at this for 25 years, and here are my observations:
1. There are some tremendously gifted youth pastors out there who have given heart and soul to their ministries, and those efforts have not been without effect.
2. The problem is in looking at the big picture of the church. For the most part, hardly any church has even a PLAN to transition the youth into the general congregation. Even for those that do, I have yet to see one that in any sense effectively and regularly completes that conversion.
The age where the overwhelming majority of people leave the church is the young adult/college age, immediately following the "youth group" stage. Most churches simply have no plan for the youth to transition to the young adult OR general congregation. The problem is found in point 3:
3. The major issue that I see regarding youth groups is that is normally tries to teach kids how to be good high school students. This doesn't work very well, because it is a very short range objective. As a father (of nine), I see my job, with or without the assistance fo youth groups, as training my teens how to be ADULTS. If I wait until they ARE adults, I've waited too long. Any ministry focused on a scant four-year window seems to be short-sighted.
I should amend this to say, we teach our kids how to be high school CHRISTIANS instead of MATURE BELIEVERS. I once attended a megachurch, where 800 kids showed up every Wednesday night to hear head-blowing music, cool young pastors, everything just right...for teens. How in the world they expected anyone at all to move out of this into a bland prayer and sharing service and magically fit right in (and desire to be there) was completely beyond me. As a matter of fact, it didn't happen. No one wanted to grow up and leave the youth group. Once they were told to leave, they were done with church forever.
John -- Great comments. And I would add that most Christian parents, myself included unfortunately, left most of the Christian training to the supposed professionals, in large part good young men, but young men with less experience than us, rather that do it ourselves. We have a real "leave it (ministry, education, discipleship, etc.) to the professionals" attitude in the church these days. No one wants to invest the time to learn to do it right..."that's why we have (insert the name of the youth pastor here)."
And the youth pastors are falling apart from the pressure.
I actually believe that youth ministries are helping soon to become young adults to leave the church. We show them how to disconnect from the overall church body and once disconnected they actually stay that way.
Youth ministries that are disconnected from the church family end up producing more disconnected young adults.
Youth ministries in America are the back door of the church in large part today.
By the way, once they go out the back door they have not been discipled to stand firm with the whole armor of God. They are lost.
I agree in part. However the majority of young adults are not leaving the church because youth ministry separated them from the Body. Even in the exception church where the Youth Pastor is focused on Family ministry, the young adults are still finding the back door. Youth ministry holds them temporarily because it offers a form of koinonia and freedom to find oneself. When a teen who has experienced this type of koinonia and freedom (even if it is just a taste) has to move into an adult program that takes away the freedom to be and koinonia becomes chit chatting--it just feels fake so they either leave or they try to change things which brings on condemnation and then they leave.
thanks Martilou - I was hoping someone would pick up on this.
I was also among those who experienced a positive youth program upbringing. We had Jim S, Mrs. D and Lyllus M who were fine adults who led our youth group. Back then the youth program seemed to have much more substance that it often does today.
We were not entertained, we were stretched and disciples to walk like Jesus. We saw living testimony through these older leaders the meaning of following Christ.
They showed me that they loved me and that Jesus loved me even more.
The success of the youth group I grew up in was truly in large part because of the maturity of our adult leaders. The mature leaders led many of us in deeper faith and discipleship. Our youth Teen Club was a serious place to grow like Christ.
Thanks, Mrs Downey, Jim Stanifer, and Lyllus McHargue. You made a difference in my life. God used you all.
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