Doing Youth Ministry Poor

Back to a little blogging before the start of my final few classes which will, undoubtedly, get me riled up enough and leave me bored enough to get back into the blogosphere. So, here is the first of three blog entries about Doing Ministry Poor.

I was thinking back the other day about my Youth Ministry education in college compared to what my youth ministry looks like today. I've further reflected on it in conjunction with two fellow area youth pastors who have had to do ministry amongst the culture shock of post-factory Greenville and Belding, so thanks to Dan and Paul for their thoughts.

What is clear to all of us is that we are in a situation that our youth ministry educations and youth ministry experience did not prepare us for. Its very interesting to me, and rather frustrating, that the vast majority (if not all) of the ministry innovation resources you can pick up at your local Christian bookstore are geared at middle class and higher folks in urban or suburban areas. Don't believe me? Search CBD or Amazon and, other than Tex Sample, you won't find anything under the category "rural" or "blue collar". Theoretically, ministry innovations and models are conceptual, and therefore just need to be applied differently in urban, suburban and rural churches. What we're finding more and more is that it is the very models of youth ministry which must be altered to work in our area.

The one experience which does inform ministry here for me was working in Appalachia. Having known folks working in Martin County, KY (the former poorest county per capita in the country) is consistently similar to working in Montcalm County, MI (the current poorest county per capita).

Many churches have given up. Some churches have given up because they have been backed into a financial corner by their own parishioners or by poor mortgage decisions. Some churches insist on doing white collar ministry in a blue collar community, pinning their hopes on the bank employees, civic leaders and Grand Rapids commuters. One such church recently left our neighborhood and built anew 5 miles outside the city limits. Its really hard to blame them - after all, ministry innovations, resources and concepts are geared for white collar ministry, seminaries train pastors for white collar ministry, white collar ministry is more economically secure and white collar ministry is usually more consistent, with people taking responsibility in areas of volunteerism and leadership.

Other than when I lived in Appalachia, I have always been a part of white collar ministries and it is all I knew. Its all many of us knew before coming here. Its all many of our churches knew before the factories left town. Its all older brothers and sisters of current young people knew and now their younger siblings are left with scaled-back programs and non-staff leaders.

The distinctives of doing "poor" youth ministry, as I see it, are as follows. First of all, events must be low-cost or free. We give away virtually everything and when we do plan the occasional out-of-town trip, we end up covering the entire cost of those kids whose parents can't afford food for their own tables or like to spend the money on themselves. Second, "poor" youth ministry doesn't value the arts or technology like white collar ones do. While kids everywhere still love Guitar Hero and big screen TV's, blogs, big name Christian concerts, contemporary worship services, art shows and the like are out the window. Third, teaching must be more innovative. The brunt facts are that lecturing is not attractional and small groups are hit or miss in terms of effectiveness. Where you go from that depends on how creative you can get. Fourth, good lay leadership is tougher to come by in blue collar churches. This is especially true for anything that happens on a day other than Sunday, but its true for Sundays, too. Fifth, community collaboration is the one of the few rays of hope for smaller churches which can't afford a youth staff position, but that truth is unequivocally hitched to the benevolence of larger churches who are willing to be sacrificial of themselves. Sixth, it occurs to me that "success" in youth ministry might be measured differently in the blue collar community. Whereas in a white collar ministry, success might be students in discipleship programs, individual mission efforts, Christian college attendence or marrying a Christian partner, it seems to me we might be ecstatic about our students not winding up in jail, getting into community college, not getting pregnant before age 21, or, ironically, getting out of town. Finally, in a more immediate way than in an urban, educated area, quality rural churches do not start at ground zero in terms of legitimacy. To put it another way, extremist churches, which often gain a more prevalent voice in less-educated communities, leave level-headed churches with ground to make up, even before being evangelistic or missional in their communities. In short, we need to convince the public that we're not naive idiots before we can even have an audience to share the gospel. If you don't believe me, check out my pictures from our good friends here in town: Liberty Photos.

What occurs to me is that youth ministry here (and in Appalachia) feels like a more needed ministry. Ultimately, in the consumer-driven culture that is youth ministry (maybe the biggest consistency between urban & rural), its sometimes easy to go home at the end of the day and wonder if your presence was really needed - if your youth ministry is even really needed. After all, stats show that kids who graduate from churches with dedicated youth programs fall into moral decay at the same rate as those without them and ultimately spiritually mature parents generally spawn spiritually mature students and vice versa regardless of what we do as youth pastors. However, in an area without hope such as Greenville, Belding or Appalachia - where depression is as much psychological as economic - where entire generations have become non-religious, perhaps doing youth ministry here, no matter how thankless and frustrating, is youth ministry in its very best form.