Youth Ministry is Dangerous?

I was recently encouraged to watch a short documentary on the effects that modern youth ministry has had on our youth.  The film, Divided, takes up this issue by, shortly, examining the development of age segregated ministry and the lack of biblical foundations for youth ministry.  Here’s a few of the most pertinent points of the movie.

First, there is a great lamentation that American youth are streaming from Protestant Evangelical churches at an alarming rate.  According to the film’s makers, churches are losing up to 85% of their youth by the time they graduate high school.  Up to 40% of these students leave the faith by the end of middle school, while the remaining 40-45% leave during or after high school.  These are remarkable figures.  The film’s makers did briefly point out that the statistics for youth leaving the church may not be that high.  They admitted that the number, biased numbers according to them, could only be as low as 40%.  No matter how you slice the statistics, anyone who is involved with youth will tell you there is a serious problem with youth retaining their faith post high school.

Second, the film, set as one young man’s quest to find out why so many youth are leaving the church, determines that this mass exodus from the faith is due, largely anyway, to modern youth ministry.  There are two reasons why youth ministry is to blame.  First, youth ministry has catered to the attritional model of ministry – although the film did not put it this way.  If you build it, they will come.  If it has high energy music, games, lights and free coffee, they will come.  Youth pastors are interviewed who have left youth ministry because they became aware of the fact that all of their attempts at outreach through attraction and fun were for naught.  These pastors admit that they spent a lot of time and money on an attritional form of ministry, yet lives were not significantly or seriously changed.  Secondly, youth ministry is unbiblical.  The majority of the film is spent building a case for why modern youth ministry shouldn’t exist because it is not biblical.  There is, and I agree with them, no office of “youth pastor” found in either the Old or New Testament.  But, I suppose, neither is the modern worship leader, usher, parking lot attendant, or sound guy accounted for in our holy scriptures.  It just doesn’t follow that if something isn’t in the Bible, the church shouldn’t, carefully, use it…

Finally, not only are American youth leaving the church at an alarming rate because of modern youth ministry, modern youth ministry and age segregated Christian education on all levels are responsible for families neglecting their responsibility to disciple their own children.  The film traces the development of age segregated education from Plato to Jean-Jacques Rousseau to John Dewy and Robert Raikes.  All of these men, except for Raikes (the father of the Sunday school movement), were he-men Bible haters.  Of course, Plato knew nothing of the Bible.  Why, it is asked, should we listen to men who were heavily influenced by humanistic and Darwinian logic?  The answer, unsurprisingly, is that we shouldn’t.  Age segregated education and ministry, especially youth ministry, relieves parents of their duty to disciple their children.  If the church can do it, then why should I? 

The film ends with an impassioned plea for a return to age integrated worship and education based on biblical models.  Youth ministry, as we know it, should be abandoned and fathers should raise up to take back the task of discipleship.  The church’s job, then, is to equip the parents – always fathers, but never mothers – to bring up their children in the ways of Christ.

My initial reaction to the film was mixed.  Here’s what I disagree with: Youth ministry is labeled as dangerous.  Yes, in some instances, I believe it can be.  But children’s ministry, senior pastors, and any other ministry you might be able to think of, can also be dangerous when not guided by the teachings of Christ.  Additionally, if we are going to read the Bible in such a way that prohibits the church from engaging in any activity or ministry that isn’t specifically mentioned in the Bible, then we have a lot of examining to do.  We shouldn’t, then, be Trinitarian.  We shouldn’t have full-time paid pastors.  We should not allow women to participate in ministry or to speak in our worship services.  Women shouldn’t have their hair uncovered.  We should be living a life of generosity sharing with each other our resources so that none would be in need.  There’s more to this list.  Finally, just because the church has taken it upon itself to educate children and youth in age specific ways does not excuse parents from doing their jobs as religious instructors. 

Despite its faults, the film did bring to light some important things.  The fact that youth have been leaving the church in droves is not a new revelation.  But it is always good to try to discern why this is so.  It may be that age specific and segregated ministries do need to share part of the blame for our youth walking away from the faith.  In life, it is always easier to let someone else do your job if they are willing.  I’m willing to bet, however, that the founders of age segregated ministry, the founders of youth ministry, had no intention of replacing what parents are instructed to do.  Rather, I believe, they wanted to work alongside and in concert with parents.  For those children and youth, these segregated ministries sought to provide a place where love and learning could be received.  Parents must do their part. 

       

The bottom line is that parents and the church need to work together to raise their kids in the faith.  It’s a long, hard road and blame cannot be laid just on youth ministry.  Everyone, head pastors leading, teaching and instructing their congregations, children’s ministers and workers, and youth ministers must all work together.  Parents can’t raise their kids to be Christian all by themselves.  Children’s workers can’t raise kids to be Christian without the help of a parent or a parent like figure.  Youth ministers and workers can’t guide youth into a mature relationship with Christ without the foundation that the parents, children’s workers, and senior pastoral leadership have laid.  It takes a community to raise a child.

So what about you?  Parents, are you depending on someone else to help your child become and stay a Christian.  Are you doing your part?  Even if you don’t think you’re the best Christian, even if you have flaws, and large gaps in your biblical and theological knowledge, transmit what you know.  Discover the rest together.  Disciple your children.

Youth, are you counting only on your youth minister to feed you and grow your faith?  Listen to your senior pastor too.  Beg your parents to explore God’s word with you.  Ask lots and lots of questions.  And when you don’t know the answer, when your parents don’t know the answers, bring it to church.  We may not know the answer either, but we want and need to be part of the conversation.     

Churches, are we doing our part at enabling and empowering our parents to disciple their children?  What can we do better?  Is getting rid of age specific ministry the answer?