Youth Ministry - Families and the Future

Michael Treston

As we move into the future and the new shape of families in the 21st century one thing is clear that family structures are changing and we as a church need to respond to that. I think part of how we do youth ministry needs to be a response to how families look.

Historically the basic building block of the Church has been a nuclear family, where the younger children go to Sunday school, the teenagers go to youth group and the adults sit in church. It worked well in theory, a good youth group would almost certainly encourage families to settle in a church and hence provide growth while at the same time the unity of the Church was provided by this family unit. With that break down we can no longer guarantee that a strong youth ministry will bring families to the same church or even to church. It is not unusual even for married parents to go to different churches let alone the children - we are more mobile and more separated in our family structures.

The average youth group responded to that break down in family life by becoming a youth community - a place where like could meet like and receive the support they need. This has worked well but has been limiting – where once the youth group was something additional to the life of the Church, the youth community has either become Church or replaced the church connection. On the negative side it has meant that many churches have lost their life and vitality that the young people brought, and it has meant that the 'regular' church has become narrow focused catering only for a small spectrum of the adult population. It has also produced a huge lack of unity in the life of the Church, I think this coupled with the media portrayal of teenagers as hooligans, hoons and drug smoking drunks has meant there is an increasing fear of teenagers by the average older person.

As for the teenagers they have an increasing picture of older people as boring irrelevant and having never really lived. Society is becoming split as we run off to our ghetto to seek out refuge.

There is a positive though. Teenagers who are involved with strong youth communities are becoming increasingly 'radical' in their faith. As they develop in isolation under strong leadership they are learning more and more about following Jesus. I suspect that if all goes well in the next 10 to15 year there will be a huge outpouring of missionaries from these youth communities. That, these young people will grow into adults that are prepared to question the values of this society in ways that have not been seen for several hundred years.

The times ahead are exciting but there is a problem still. The split has also meant that as people move out from youth communities they will struggle to fit into the life of the established Church. Tony Versey compares it to switching from youth communities that are TV3 to church services which are Prime TV, as ha has pointed out some head of to the Sky Digital churches - but rarely stop there because they are (a) full of repeats and (b) always after your money. Others will seek out alternative ways of living out and being equipped in their faith such as in community or through mission's. While others will simply just drop out - I think Jesus will still be important but in having no support crew in the church they will struggle. As one young adult said to me last year I still love Jesus but I hate his sister. Another possibility is that a serious look is taken at planting churches among young adults in the hope that through bringing their faith into maturity that they will discover for themselves what it means to be church.

Also what will happen to the churches that we know call mainstream? Well one possibility is that they will die out as they fail to hold onto a generation, one lost generation we could probably survive (we have largely lost the generation X), but I doubt we could afford to loose another generation. If we loose them we will also miss a huge amount about what they have discovered about following Jesus - they have much to teach older generations (other than how to operate a computer and program a video recorder). As one older person said about our young people, "I jumped out of plane over enemy lines during the war but that is not as scary to him as having to share your faith in an atmosphere that is anti Christian." The life of the church needs these young people more than ever not only for their vitality but for what they can show about following Jesus I guess this scariest thing about it is that this new fresh 'revival' among teenagers has a danger of just coming to nothing, so what can we do?

Certainly not do away with our youth ministries - they are more necessary than ever, but maybe we need to put them back into the hands of our churches more and out of the hand of the paid professional. Older people need to get involved more, not just as a support person but to come along side them and learn along side them. We need to stop letting the media form our opinions of other generations and begin to see people for who they really are. Realize that teenagers and older people are not that different.

In the South Island recently there was a conference on working with the elderly, among the workshops was a session on taking services for dementia patients. As a Youth Pastor I work with 'dementia' patients every week in out youth service, the approach used was almost identical. Both generations are living in transition, the future is as uncertain to a teenager as it is to someone approaching retirement, both have dreams, but both have no money to carry them through - the fears are not that different.

Allow younger people to take more charge. We have some great minds with great ideas and some fresh understanding of how to live for Jesus in a postmodern world. The church needs this now, not in 15 years time when these people are too busy with families to get involved. We need to seriously look at what family ministry is - because the nuclear family is not God's model, God's model is extended, messy and with blurred boundaries it is community, not everyone the same but everyone playing a part and encouraging each others. We need to work hard on reconciliation and conflict resolution all of which is largely due to misunderstandings - we cannot assume that the young people know why they have offended some of the older people because they moved the chairs in the sanctuary.

So what of youth pastors? Well I think they are still needed, a person who can communicate the gospel to the average teenager will always be necessary, but maybe they need to be taken more seriously, possibly even made into the senior pastor. Martin Luther said the secret to a good sermon was that it is pitched at a 14 year old. Could many of our senior pastors say they are doing that? There will also be a greater need for resourcing, maybe youth pastors need to be more regional workers who resource the local context, building up multiple youth leadership teams rather than putting heart and soul into one church.

As I look to the future , I do so with a sense of optimism - the crisis we face also brings opportunity and a fresh wave of the Spirit. May we keep our ears to the ground.

- Michael Treston is the Anglican Youth Facilitator for the Diocese of Nelson