Youth Ministry to the Detriment of the Church

There's something that they don't often teach you in Youth Ministry in college, and something most youth ministry people don't like to think about. Its the dark side of youth ministry which often causes more problems than good. Statistically speaking, youth ministry is one of the most unsuccessful ventures the Church has ever embarked on, and yet it has caused nearly the same amount of turmoil where absent as Contemporary Christian Music has. Half my income comes from youth ministry, so I'm not about to advocate the removal of it from churches across the country, but I think that we would be wise to consider the ramifications of this beast we've created.

The thought started in the late 80's and early 90's that high school students needed their own staff member at churches. It would be helpful, at this point, to notice that this movement came from an internal outcry of young people, which was not alone, but simply louder than that of other age groups. For instance, there were hardly any churches at this point with paid Worship Pastors, Congregational Life Pastors, Evangelism Pastors, Children's Pastors, etc. We should immediately recognize what effect a staff member with a targeted age group has on a church. The positive is that the group is usually blest by this person and therefore enjoys the addition. In the case of youth pastors, parents were also pleased because their kids were receiving a greater deal of attention while paranoia ran rampant that our kids were being marched off by a secular pied piper wholesale. What was lying in the background of these hirings, however, were the host of people who had little or nothing to gain from a teenager-focused staff member. Children, young couples, middle-aged adults, older adults, and sometimes even parents were told that they were less important in the church's eyes, not by a word off the pulpit, but by the church's checkbook. This was evident not only in the hiring of youth pastors, but in the program funding that would inevitably blossom.

This is not to say that hiring youth pastors often makes a church angry. Many of the people in the congregation get a martyr-like attitude with respect to youth. One of the classic lines I hear over and over again in churches is: "We need to lay aside our preferences because they are the Church of tomorrow!" I suppose there is some noble truth to that statement, but suddnely you have entire generations of passive Christians that believe their non-involvement and the lack of ministry to their age group has a direct correlation to super-fueled ministry to teens.

In fact, passivitiy is one of the harshest drawbacks to the hiring of any staff members at any position. Teachers feel teaching is covered, singers feel worship is covered, youth leaders feel youth ministry is covered, but the passivity of the "sacrificial lambs" in the congregation is perhaps the greatest loss. While we often complain about those who only want things their way, we often also lose those who don't feel hip or with it and are just fine with clamming up. All of this is often a direct result of any pastor who is a "do-er" and not an "enabler".

The other thing that we as youth ministers often like to forget is the simple fact that youth ministry is very rarely effective. Ouch! Of course, my more careful colleagues will be quick to point out to me that "effective" is not a good word to use in ministry. After all, ministry should not be results-driven, but might simply be God planting seeds in the hearts of kids. Given, but those who take a quick inventory of kids they graduated five years ago from their programs are often very, very humbled by the fact that many of those have wandered to other churches or often from the faith completely. If our goal as youth pastors is to keep our kids in the pews from cradle to grave, then most of us would admit that we are failing greatly.

One of the reasons for this phenomenon is that youth ministry has been a narrow-scoped concept from the very beginning. The Church as a whole was losing people to the world at a near-record pace and we needed to do something. The most logical something was to stop the obvious bleeding - our teenagers who were uninterested in church and rebelling because, well, they're teenagers. What youth ministry has accomplished in that respect is a delayed exodus, with the Church now maintaining huge numbers of high school students, but losing huge percentages in the first couple years following graduation. Those who even dare attempt college-aged ministries are frustrated by kids that are uninterested in developing their faith past the music-festival experiences of their local youth group.

Another reason that the scope should be considered narrow is that science does not support our most common conviction: that high school is the most formative time in a person's life with regard to faith commitment. Psychology and research clearly indicate that the most formative time for faith development and commitment, for whatever reason, is much earlier. To this end, ministry focuses have continued to get younger-reaching. Many churches have developed Jr. High ministries, and many churches have hired Children's pastors. Research indicates that the largest percentage of people make a faith commitment in the 4th-6th grade range and the percentage gets exponentially less each year after that. We missed the target.

Churches that do have successful educational programs outside of Sunday morning worship are churches that do not gap their ministries. While this is true for the developmental ages we've just talked about, it is just as true for adult ministries which are often lacking or non-existent in many churches. Some black eyes that many churches don't want people to see: junior high ministry, post-high/college-aged ministry, singles ministry, new believers ministry. All of us should do a self-inspection to see that our overall ministries do not suffer because of one ministry. A wise speaker I once heard commented that the devil can use church programming by setting one program against another or creating an idolatry in one program or another. For instance, if hiring a full-time youth pastor means cutting three other ministries, perhaps the motivation is poorly founded. This is true not only in your local church, but in denominational programming, funding and ciriculum development, as well as other tell-tale signs. We in youth ministry need a slice of humble pie, sometimes, as we drain our congregations of volunteer hours and resources that could be used for other purposes. How can we promote holism in our churches which promotes the good of the community for the benefit of everyone?