Monthly youth leaders column

During the summer, many young people go away on camps and house parties — well some do.

And they come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Many of these young people are a great encouragement and come from churches where good biblical youth ministry is taking place. But that kind of provision seems to be a little patchy. Towards the end of an event I was teaching at, I was confronted by a male student, aged about 16, who confessed he wasn’t looking forward to going home because his church was ‘rubbish’. After we talked a little while, it became clear that he was trying hard to follow Christ and cared about many of the people in his church. But he went on to tell me that church leaders had promised to look into some kind of youth provision but he had heard nothing — he was simply feeling let down. His family were part of the church and were serving there and he wanted to be loyal to them, but his heart was longing to be with others of his own age. There was one other young person in his church.

No provision

Reading between the lines, it seemed that this church simply lacked either the energy or the understanding to know how to deal with a youth group of two and were therefore doing nothing. I suspect there are many churches going through head-scratching exercises wondering what to do with such people and desperately looking for a volunteer or two. As I meet with church leaders, this lack of volunteers seems to loom large in many people’s thinking and I begin to wonder if it is possible for all the churches that have young people in their church family to sustain youth ministry in any kind of viable way.

Teenagers

This is a real problem in rural areas where congregations are small to medium but where people like to live. With children it is possible to keep a work going but it seems to get harder post 11. Young people like to meet with others in numbers that makes it good to be part of that group — the need for a ‘critical mass’ is part of their culture and many churches don’t get to that level. But this problem is not confined to the rural scene — there are many smaller urban churches who find it hard to sustain youth ministry. They often have to compete with the large church down the road with a staff of 15, three of whom are committed youth and children’s specialists. These churches often attract young people away and are accused of sheep-stealing.

The solution?

So what do we do about it? Working with other churches has always been a tricky area. We fear it will only do ‘them’ any good and probably do us harm. We fear that their doctrinal position may be at variance with ours and, quite rightly, we need to exercise judgement in this area.

But the idea of working together with other gospel churches so that our young people get an opportunity to meet with other young Christians is something we need to develop. We must be careful not to drift towards unhelpful youth church models where young people see such a gathering as a replacement for their local church. I see this as a both/and approach where young people remain faithful to their local churches and, hopefully, learn from the wisdom of their elders but also have the opportunity to hear the Bible taught well and discussed with their peers.

It would be interesting to hear from those who have tried and (maybe) failed with experiments in this area. Having just returned from the Keswick Convention, I have received several letters from young people who found the teaching helpful but also loved being in the company of many other young people. Why not try starting a group which takes in several churches covering a wide rural area or your half of a city. Keswick Ministries would love to support such events and would be glad to help in planning and delivering them.

Let me know what you are doing and what you think.

In the gaps...

No provision

Teenagers

The solution?

Dave Fenton

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