Beyond ’00:
What will youth ministry look like in the new millennium?

Murray Brown

As Youth Ministry proceeds headlong on into the new millennium, many difficult questions are being asked.

Society is changing and throughout the western world youth workers are debating how youth ministry needs to change to met society’s trends. What new directions lie ahead for youth ministry?

Looking Back

My first experience of youth work in the church came at the end of the sixties as I found myself entering the tail end of the Bible Class movement. It had been ten years since the successful Billy Graham Crusades, but society was now looking very different from those “happy days” of the late fifties.

A revolution had taken place and leading the revolution was the young. New music signaled that the revolution was underway and with it came new styles and new fashions. More significantly, attitudes were changing. While their parents had grown up through a depression and a World War, young people possessed a new idealism about the world and a new cynicism toward the establishment.

The university campuses became forums for debating and dismissing previous belief systems and hotbeds for nurturing new ideologies.

As is always the case, these changes brought new challenges for the church which sought to hold on to and reach out to young people who were energetically challenging all that had previously been held so dear.

Parachurch groups such as Youth for Christ had long been showing the church the way and their ideas and emphases were now finding a place in a church which was evaluating the way it programmed and presented the gospel to young people.

New packaging was needed. Names such as Bible Class, Christian Endeavour and Young Peoples’ Society no longer held the same appeal to young people living in a society that challenged Biblical beliefs and was becoming increasingly cynical toward the institutionalised church.

The Day of the Youth Group

The parachurch groups had seen the value of changing the label on the package. Scripture Union’s Crusader programme became Interschool Christian Fellowship (ISCF), while YFC had Campus Life Clubs and Impact Groups. The term “Youth Group” became a popular one in American churches and over time was almost universally adopted here. It was not a name that carried negative connotations for outsiders and was useful in making the church appear relevant to a new generation.

But is was not the label alone that was changing. The weekly Bible study was beginning to look different. Taking a leaf again from the Campus Life Clubs, churches realised that they needed to make Bible study times creative, innovative and even fun!

“Ideas” Manuals and Reach Out magazines became essential tools on the bookshelf of every youth leader in the country. Games, icebreakers and creative discussion starters had found their way into the young people’s Bible study groups and a new revolution was underway. Church youth programmes had long had a strong “social” emphasis to complement the spiritual teaching. However these social programmes were seen primarily as a “safe harbour” for Christian young people who needed a wholesome environment to meet together: a place free from alcohol, cigarettes and bad language. Increasingly this “social programme” was to become a key element in an evangelistic strategy that set out to tell the world that Christians could have fun.

Like the changing Bible study times, these social events would esteem creativity and innovation. Young people were encouraged to “bring their friends” and a five minute “devotion” was tagged on the end of the night to ensure that everyone “got the message.” Compared to today’s world of videos, multiplex cinemas, playstations, and the internet, a social void existed in the Saturday nights of many young people. Unlike many youth groups today, it was the norm for a youth group to have significantly larger numbers in attendance at its “social programme” than at its “spiritual programme.”

An essential part of many youth group Saturday night programmes was the monthly Saturday night Youth for Christ Rally. These large rallies were effectively reaching young people through creative presentations and modern music. It was a place to bring the “contacts” made through the local youth group social activities. There they would be entertained before being presented with the gospel in a contemporary way and invited to “come to the front.” It was like having a youthful Billy Graham visit every month and resulted in many “decisions”.

Enter “YOUTH MINISTRY...”

“Where are these young people now?” became the question that challenged a new generation of youth workers who had seen many of their peers brought into youth groups through an attractive social programme and creative meetings, only to drift out again once the fun was no longer fun.

Enter the next shift, typified by the cry, “Anyone can have a youth group - we want to build a Youth Ministry.” A Youth Ministry sought to maintain the social programme with an evangelistic emphasis, but set out to make “active discipleship” a higher priority. Programmes now included outreach activities where young people were involved in “going” instead of just inviting their friends to “come”. Terms such as evangelism, service and mission became words that defined the purpose of a youth ministry’s existence. Whereas the focus of a youth group was to “get young people in”, youth ministry sought to “get young people out” - out into mission.

It was a time at which there was renewed interest in the concept of “the body” and spiritual gifts in the church. Young people were reminded that they all had a role to play in mission and so there was a diversification created to allow creative expression in a whole variety of ways. Drama, puppetry, clowning, mime and dance became big and youth ministries had teams involved in each.

The creative revolution of the seventies had continued but now it was not just the leaders, but the young people themselves who were expressing themselves with creativity. Unfortunately the boom in creativity and involvement disappeared all too soon amongst a generation beset by apathy and the desire for something new. What was once creative quickly became uncool and disused puppets and clown makeup were left lying in the youth group cupboards of many of our churches.

Yet while the vehicle for mission may have passed it’s “used by date”, the emphasis remained and youth leaders talked increasingly about “friendship evangelism.” There was a growing challenge regularly put before young people to “be real” about their faith in their homes and places of study. The emphasis was not just on “talking the talk” but “walking the walk.”

This emphasis was to lay the ground work for a “new” model of ministry that has been quietly emerging in our churches: one that builds on the strengths of the past yet meets the needs of the present.

The New Youth Ministry

Now, in the late nineties, questions are being asked again. The changes in society are producing a remarkably diverse generation, more entertained yet more hurting and lonely than any previous ones.

While there are still the young people who are ready to rise to the challenge of mission, many others are just looking to be loved. Youth work in the church needs once more to reinvent itself. What has gone before need not be discarded but it must be built upon. I predict the next observable shift in church youth work will be from a youth ministry to a Youth Community. Already we are seeing this take place.

Describing the Youth Community

These Youth Communities will have three characteristics. As has been the case with previous models of youth work, these are characteristics that are not entirely absent from previous models. They do however represent emerging trends that are increasing becoming central to church’s mission to young people.

1. A Caring Community

The first characteristic of these emerging Youth Communities will be that there will be a strong emphasis on creating an environment where young people are supported and cared for. Bible study will not be conducted primarily for the purpose of passing on new information to young people. It’s primary purpose will be to bring hope, comfort and change into young people’s lives. The growing emphasis on small groups will continue but they will be increasingly regarded as places of nurture where young people can be open and honest about their lives and receive comfort and prayer.

2. A Diverse Community

One of the features of the emerging youth culture is its diversity. Once youth culture was largely homogeneous but now it broken down into an increasing number of subcultures often based on music and fashion. In order to be effective youth ministry must reach into these subcultures. No longer can we build a ministry based on the characteristics of one or two of these cultures and expect all young people to come.

Another cultural trend is the desire to simply hang out instead of making a commitment to belong. Fewer young people are joining clubs and organisations and so youth ministry needs to meet young people “on their turf”, structuring “meetings” around their preferences and interests.

For example, a young person’s contact with a church could be with a group of teenagers who work on old cars or surf together. Their “youth group leader” is someone from the church who organises activities and gets everyone together, building a sense of community. In the context of these activities the leader loves the young people, models their faith, and challenges young people with the gospel. Over time they would ideally begin to meet for “Bible study” and prayer but these need not be the beginning point or a condition of belonging. A church’s youth work will therefore exist of a number of diverse “groups” who meet at different times and engage in different activities. Each has its’ own culture and aims to reach out to young people of like culture.

3. A United Community

While there may always be a place for the traditional church youth programme that meets on Sunday night, diversity means that many of the church’s young people will not show up at this meeting. As far as they are concerned it is not their “group”. Their group may meet on Sunday afternoon at the school gym, or at the local park.

However a sense of unity will be an important part of these new Youth Communities. Regularly, (once a term?) the various groups meet together under the heading of a single Youth Community. They may meet at a cafe or go to McDonalds for a meal. They could all meet for an evening at the beach, or even go on a weekend camp. At these times each member will be reminded that their group is part of a larger community that is affiliated with a local church. There will be sense of belonging and mission that comes from being part of a larger body but
this will be balanced by the intimacy and caring of a small group.

Through this, the meaning of the word “church” will face increasing scrutiny and I predict our definition will alter. Church will no longer be something that happens for an hour and a half on a Sunday morning. It will be the activity of a group of like minded people who meet as part of a caring community in which Christ is central.

An Objection

Some might object to this scenario: “It sounds fine for the large city church, but what about the small church with a dozen diverse young people people with little in common.” The point is a valid one, yet it leads me to yet another trend which I believe will be characteristic of the emerging Youth Community particularly in smaller provincial areas.

Increasingly we are seeing youth leaders choosing to “network” with other youth leaders in their locality. This networking is not only a desirable expression of church unity, but it essential if we are to have the resources to establish youth communities. Few churches will have the people to establish a caring community aimed at more than two or three youth subcultures, yet if the resources between churches are combined the scope of what can be accomplished is multiplied.

Churches need to stop thinking about your youth ministry/group and ours and begin to think about a Youth Community that embraces all of the youth ministries of a town or suburb. All these changes will not happen by themselves anymore than previous trends simply “evolved”. It will require enough key people to catch a vision of what could be, and then intentionally implement the strategies to make it come about. The result will be a community of young people who experience the richness of church life through in depth relationships and costly commitment. It will be a community of young people who will capitalise on diversity while at the same time pursuing unity.

It may even result in a church that looks more like the Christ centred community that God had in mind.

- Murray Brown is the Director of YouthTRAIN