Youth Ministry Isn’t Working

It was all fun and games until people started puking.

What had started out as a gross but routine youth game quickly deteriorated into chaos. It was a race, you see, competition is always prevalent in youth group games. The youth leader asked Ami and me to provide the game for the evening and so we mined all of our resources until we found the perfect game: a peeling-bananas-with-your-toes race. Perfect.

A young man and a young lady dutifully removed their shoes and socks to the delight of the rest of the group, thirty or so kids, and the race was on. It was a disgusting race, kind of the point. The bananas quickly became mush between the toes of the two participants, to their obvious chagrin. The others cheered wildly; I nearly threw up. The young man finished first, his feet and toes smeared with banana goo.

I don’t remember how the transition happened, but we had a gross kid. Every group surely has one, a kid who deliberately liked to gross out the girls. “And now they have to feed it to someone…with their toes!!!” someone shouted, and before I could muster anything, Jon was on his knees in front of the dude, eating squished-up bananas…from his toes.

I caught a quick glimpse and only saw banana goo, tongue, hairy toes, and I turned rapidly, swallowing down vomit. Squeals of delight yielded to cries of horror as kids began to turn and literally puke on the floor, and the more disgusted everyone became, the more vigorously Jon consumed the banana goo, spurred on to heights of heretofore unseen provocation. Legendary. One girl threw up so hard she burst a blood vessel in her eye.

I don’t remember how it ended.

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, (Proverbs 22:15a)

Is there anyone more foolish than a teenager?

I know it’s not fashionable to reference Bill Cosby today, but in the decades before it was known that he was a scoundrel, he became the comedic face of dads everywhere. I remember one particular bit where he referred lovingly to his children as “brain-dead people”. As a father to nine, I can attest to the moniker. “What were you thinking?” I’ve asked incredulously more times than I can remember.

I recall with much fondness the foolishness of my teenage years. I prioritized girls, though they terrified me, what people thought about me, how I looked, specifically my clothes and hair, and having fun. I did other things too like vandalism, underage drinking, and eating over a dozen tacos from Taco Bell in one sitting. And I was a good kid, graduating near the top of my class to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point.

If you have teenagers, you know what I’m talking about, but at the very least, you were a teenager at one point. Recall your own foolishness.

I also recall my foolishness while young in the faith, a new convert. I knew I was a sinner in need of a Savior and that Jesus had died on the cross for my sins. That was about it, but I believed it, and that was all I needed to be saved. “Read the book of John. Join a Sunday school class,” they told me.

What, other than convenience, might necessitate a marriage of the youth with the spiritual youth?

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. (Proverbs 14:12)

The primary indicator that the church’s ministry to the youth isn’t working is that it isn’t working.

I don’t know if losing the youth spawned the colossal de-churching of America or if the de-churching lost the youth. Maybe it’s a little bit of both. Each subsequent generation in our nation is both larger and more unchurched than the previous generation. Generation Z is the largest and least religious generation ever.

And systemically, youth raised in the church and youth groups abandon the church once they leave home for college or the workplace. Research it for yourself. They almost all leave the church.

Yet, the youth are key to any future.

The Taliban knows this. Spawned from countless madrassas, Islamic schools in the Federally Administrated Tribal Area (FATA) of Pakistan, legions of wicked Imams continue to raise up young men steeped in fundamental Islam. Taliban is a Pashto word from Arabic meaning students. The godless leftists know this. That’s why they systematically inject their wicked ideology into the public school system, dominating the public library system and school boards, and bombarding our children with godless, racial and sexual indoctrination. The church knows it too.

It's the means that are at issue.

I didn’t consider it an issue when they asked Ami and me to teach the youth. We were new converts, having been saved less than a year when they gave us stewardship over a tenth-grade class. “Here is a study guide. Good luck!” The thought that this might not be a good idea didn’t occur to me, but we gave it our best effort for sure…with no oversight whatsoever. After a year or two, they moved us to the college-aged class. The pinnacle of my hubris came when I decided to teach the book of Revelation to the youth. At the time, I thought it went well, but looking back, no one checked to see what I was teaching or if I was even qualified and so I taught…the most difficult and misunderstood book in all of the Bible.

We later joined a church plant that had a pretty sizeable youth group, including a sizeable population of teen boys. I noticed the problem when the young men wanted to stay with the youth group, the children. They would graduate high school and then hang around the youth group.

The idea of going with the men just didn’t appeal to them.

Segregation is standard in most churches. Stroll into a contemporary church and they’ll likely direct you to a colorful and lively-looking children’s area where a friendly nursery worker will relieve you of your children. The babies and preschool-aged children to the nursery, the other children off to a children’s worship service. Can’t have them distracting you, and more importantly, others from the service. Perhaps they have a youth service. If not, they’ll have to endure “grown-up church” with you.

After the worship service, dispatch your teens over to the youth group and then head to your thirty-something married with kids Sunday school class, or your forty-something married with kids class, just past the singles class, across from the divorcée class, near the empty-nesters class, but certainly not in the nicest room in the entire facility, the Owls (old folks) class—gotta keep them happy since they have all of the time and all of the money.

Segregation is the order of the day.

Don’t forget about the Wednesday night youth group.

but the companion of fools will suffer harm. (Proverbs 13:20b)

It’s the model, not the execution.

What if we talked about it this way? Let’s assemble the most foolish people in the church (teenagers) and put them all together. Then, let’s assign the most inexperienced pastor oversight of them. What could go wrong?

In the 1940s, Jim Rayburn began to minister to youth in a local high school, starting what became known as Young Life. About the same time, the parachurch organization Youth for Christ began holding large rallies around the country. By the 1970s, the church realized a need to minister specifically to youth and began to hire youth pastors and establish youth groups, mimicking the parachurch organizations that had been doing this for several decades.

Fast forward half a century, and the youth group is firmly entrenched in American ecclesiology. Seminaries have youth ministry tracks. The youth pastor is a mainstay on most church staffs, whose presence in some way indicates that a church is “established”. And the youth group meeting is a part of church life.

Having served in three separate youth groups, I feel like I have a handle on what a youth group looks like. It must have a name, something edgy. The Gathering. Merge. Encounter. The Mix. The Foundry. The Movement. Our snarky students abruptly named ours Youth Group! Loud music, maybe concert lights usher the students into the gathering. Some youth ministries are even blessed to have their own building. Lots of games and other attractions. The youth group almost always starts with games of some kind. Teenagers are a hoot and super fun to interact with. The edgier and messier, the better the game. There will be praise and worship, hopefully student-led, but certainly emotional, followed by time for the youth pastor to give a message. I’ve seen anywhere from a ten-minute pseudo devotion to actual expository preaching. The youth group must have t-shirts and it must do stuff. It must go to camps, hold camps, participate in other events, go to concerts. The youth group is driven by activity. I used to despise youth camp because it almost always involved sleep deprivation.

Some issues:

1. Isolation. I find no biblical mandate to segregate the saints in any way, by age, life situation, etc., but that is the order of the day. What if we could all glean something from one another at different stations in life? What if we assembled together, babies and moms, old people, young people, teenagers, singles, and parents? Our teenagers need the wisdom and oversight of those who’ve gone before them. The older need the vitality and enthusiasm of the younger.

2. Attractional. Mimicking the western church in its entirety, the youth group is no exception in seeking to attract. Do whatever it takes to get them in the door and for the youth, it’s fun. Let’s make it as fun as possible. Whatever else you do, have fun for God’s sake. Have fun and then teach them about Christ. I’ve seen slip n’ slides (no two-piece bathing suits please), frisbee golf, shuffleboard, and all things in between. What could the outcome possibly be but a well-taught consumer-driven mindset? The Gospel itself is not enough. Whenever the fun ends, for whatever reason, they move on to something else, like clockwork.

3. Licentiousness. My family fostered for many years, lots of teenagers. At some point, we just began to assume that all teenagers will try to smoke weed and have sex. It’s what they do, or what they want to do if given the opportunity. Teenagers in a youth group are no different. They are great chameleons, putting on an aura of spirituality, when necessary, but otherwise content to put their hands right back down one another’s pants at the first available opportunity. What happens at youth camp stays at youth camp. And never mind the intense cliquishness of the average youth group, just like any other assembly of youth. How many young men or women harbor intense hatred of the church having been ostracized by a youth group?

4. Discipleship. A typical youth group sports a younger pastor, often the most junior or inexperienced, and a handful of faithful and committed adult volunteers. The kids usually outnumber the adults greatly. I’ve seen some youth pastors truly seek relationships with the kids outside of youth group, but the sheer volume coupled with disinterested parents makes it nearly impossible to effectively disciple the youth.

Don’t hear me faulting the youth pastor. A great friend of mine and mentor is a youth pastor. Of the ones I’ve known, almost all possess a deep-seated desire to minister in a meaningful way to the youth, to see them come to Christ, to truly have life change, and it does happen. It’s not as if there is no fruit, but they find themselves laboring in a model flawed at its very foundation.

5. Temptation. Perhaps most difficult to discuss, this is also perhaps the most damaging and important. Again, consider the context…lots of impressionable and hormonal young ladies and an energetic and vibrant young man leading the youth, a young man with authority, maybe charisma. I remember observing with horror a young youth leader accompanying young ladies from the youth group to the movies. Talk about a disaster waiting to happen. Talk about teeing up an easy shot for the enemy.

The LORD has made everything for its purpose. (Proverbs 16:4)

Our youth pastor left four years ago.

At the time, I was beside myself with worry. What would we do? But God, in His sovereignty, simply removed all of our teenagers. They all graduated at about the same time, and He didn’t send any more for several years.

Today, we have a thriving youth ministry in my estimation. They attend worship services with the adults. They participate in our Wednesday night Bible study. They come to our Friday night gatherings. Wherever the adults are, they are there. They are in small-group discipleship relationships with adults. We take them shooting with us—we’ve quite a few gun enthusiasts in the congregation—and include them in any other activity we do.

Not to impugn the work of legions of faithful youth pastors and volunteers. So many have been influential in my life, but again, it’s the model. For us—and I stress, this is what is right for us, our church— our youth ministry is inextricably a part of our overall ministry, indistinguishable from it.

It’s just ministry, and I don’t think I’d have it any other way.