The Generation Gap

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First Published January1992 - The First Pair of Cleats on Church Family-Based Youth Ministry

In my ten years of youth ministry, I have always held to the belief that the parents’ place in youth ministry is in parent meetings and helping out with food or transportation on an occasional basis. It was a rare discovery to find parents who could serve as a volunteer staff member.

The reasons for this were that youth in their years of struggling for identity would be cramped with their parents in the youth meeting. The youth group is the place where youth could share their struggles of growing up and try on new roles and new expressions.

Read more: The Generation Gap

Challenge: To Get Your Youth to Gain From Sunday Church

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You are a great teacher.  You are a great Bible teacher.  But unfortunately, your senior pastor is not.  At least not enough to keep the teens’ attention.  Between worship songs that are older and unfamiliar and/or your pastor’s style of preaching and/or other reasons which you know, your youth may not get much out of church.  Since your role as the youth worker is to bridge the parents to the youth and to bridge the youth to the church family, here are some ways to help your youth engage during “adult church.”

Read more: Challenge: To Get Your Youth to Gain From Sunday Church

The Not-Abandoning Church

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The following is a lengthy quote from Black and White Styles of Youth Ministry:  Two Congregations in America by William R. Myers. St. Andrews is the "white" church which was studied. Pastor Able and Grace Church is a neighbor church to St. Andrews and is the "black" church which was studied.

"Without rejecting the need for competent administrative practice, Grace Church remains wary of St. Andrew-like corporation models of youth ministry. 'Such models fragment the church,' indicates Pastor Able. 'When a church hires a professional youth minister to "do" youth ministry, that youth minister has been hired to run a second church, a "youth only church," alongside the intergenerational church.' Pastor Able continues: 'Youth in this model start relating to just the youth minister; they don't relate to the ministries of the church. Such youth ministry tends to promote a kind of "us" versus "them" mentality, never the "we" of the church; never the belongingness.'

 

Read more: The Not-Abandoning Church

The Church Family as the Needed Authoritative Community

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The Commission on Children at Risk, a panel of 33 leading children's doctors, neuroscientists, research scholars and youth service professionals, drew upon a large body of recent research showing that children are biologically primed ("hardwired") for enduring connections to others and for moral and spiritual meaning. In this report the authors introduced a new public policy and social science term--authoritative communities--to describe the ten essential traits across social institutions that produce better outcomes for children. Of those defined authoritative communities, families are first. The second recognized authoritative communities are spiritual communities. Yes, our church families. (Learn more about this report at http://www.americanvalues.org/html/hardwired.html)

 

Read more: The Church Family as the Needed Authoritative Community

The Extended Family's Role in Youth Ministry

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For the start of Advent, one of our 8th graders at my church, the one who has grown to be taller than his own father over the past year, showed up to church wearing a suit and a tie. I was wearing jeans that day (dress jeans for those who understand that fashion) and the practice for the rest of the staff is to rarely wear a tie. Randy’s appearance was a shock to us, many whom have known him his entire life. So the moment he entered into our worship center he was mobbed with comments. Comments he definitely expected to receive. Comments he definitely did receive. He came to church that morning knowing that he would receive the hubbub he did receive. This once shy, asperger’s-diagnosed boy came to church purposely to be the center of our attention that morning.

This reminds me of a story Mark Yaconelli told in his classic read, Contemplative Youth Ministry: “When I leave my house to go to church, I usually begin walking like I walk to school. But then as I come around my block and see the church building, I start smiling. And by the time I reach the curb in front of the church, I’m giggling. And then when I reach the front door of the church, I’m just about ready to fall down laughing because I know as soon as I open that door all of these older folks are going to be looking over and see me and start smiling. Then they’re going to come over and hug me and they’re going to ask me all kinds of questions and they’re going to want me to sit by them in the service. And that just cracks me up.” (pp. 100-101)

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The Long Transition to Church Family-Based Youth Ministry

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Maybe by now you are becoming more and more convinced from the now many blog writers and resources (like from Wild Frontier!) encouraging you to include parents and your church family into your youth ministry in a greater measure.. Certainly you’ve been swayed by the great amount of statistical research that backs this up. We continue to compile these numbers at Support Statistics.

But you still may have questions as to how to incorporate this new practice of youth ministry into your local church situation. This may be true especially if you’ve been at your church for some time and the youth ministry is clicking along well.

Read more: The Long Transition to Church Family-Based Youth Ministry

Growing a Youth Ministry That Looks Like Your Church

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This title may sound like a “duh” but hang with me a bit.

I know no one intentionally grows the youth ministry to be separate from the church but this has become a problem in youth ministry.  Much has been written about the problems of age-segregated programming in church life.  I don’t need to rehash that here.  Anyone who has read a youth ministry blog is well aware of this without having to read more about it.  Growing a youth ministry that looks like your church is more than that problem of separation.  The problem is having a passion-filled youth ministry that is one way and the church family operating in a different passion.  For example if your youth ministry is an outreach youth ministry, your church needs to also be an outreach church.  The entire church family is needed to be supporting those teens who are coming in.  The support has to come from more than just the youth group wing.

The first thing to correct this separation or continue the course you are on is to find out why you were hired or nominated?  Do you know why the committee or pastoral staff thought you were a fit for this particular church family?  There was something about you that the church wanted.

Read more: Growing a Youth Ministry That Looks Like Your Church

Is the Generation Gap Gone?

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Times-are-a-changing.  Experts are declaring that the generation gap is gone.

Wikipedia defines the generation gap as “the differences between people of a younger generation and their elders, especially between a child and their parent’s generation.  Although some generational differences have existed throughout history, because of more rapid cultural change during the modern era differences between the two generations increased in comparison to previous times, particularly with respect to such matters as musical tastes, fashion, culture and politics.  …This was coined during the 1960s as the generation gap became so prominent most likely due to the unprecedented size of the young generation during the 1960s which gave it unprecedented power and willingness to rebel against societal norms.”

Read more: Is the Generation Gap Gone?

The Three Families It Takes to Raise Teens

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Currently many resources and articles are being written to support the correct ministry thinking of the power of parents in youth ministry.  I am seeing it in nearly every e-newsletter, book, and magazine which gets published.  This is a very good thing from our viewpoint as it has been one of Wild Frontier’s core youth ministry beliefs for over ten years.  (Wish it was a part of those beliefs for all of our 20-year existence but I still thought myself too central to youth ministry in the beginning.  Read more)

The more I practice youth ministry at my church, the more I see the positive results of including parents in the youth ministry.  That is not all though.  I’ve also intentionally included the entire church family in the youth ministry and that is garnering even more positive results.

Read more: The Three Families It Takes to Raise Teens

The Two Generations That Need Each Other

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I was honored recently to yet again share with church leaders who were not youth ministers my belief and findings about church family-based youth ministry.  During the Q & A time, I was asked a question about how old my church is.  I replied we are an older church family, because we are.  This person doubted that I knew what an older congregation was so I had to publicly say that I’m nearing 50 (ugh) and so those older than me are in their 60s and 70s.  Doesn’t that make up an older church family?  I made my point at the cost of admitting my age.

Read more: The Two Generations That Need Each Other

Brenda-Based Youth Ministry vs. Church Family-Based Youth Ministry

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It is hard to see my name in the title but it is there on purpose.  Too many youth ministries are centered on the youth pastor.  No one would ever tout ourselves as so central to a ministry.  Yet whether from church expectation, our training, or our makeup, we have become too central.

Let me ask this test question.  When you first arrived at your church, did you feel that your number one priority was to hang out with the teens so they could get to know you?  And you felt this was important to be done before they would believe in the next youth ministry vision?  That simple and oft-used statement then leads to the next question.  Why do they need to believe in the new youth ministry plans you brought with you?  Why do you feel the need to change things as a way to show ownership of the youth ministry?  Why is the youth ministry changing when you arrive instead of you continuing what has been happening but what maybe tweaked under your leadership giftings?

Read more: Brenda-Based Youth Ministry vs. Church Family-Based Youth Ministry

Where the Potential of Teens May Be Found—Our Churches

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We are believers in teens.  We believe that through their relationship with God they can change their world.  We believe this can happen like in stories of old such as David against Goliath, the young Joshua, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and Mark, the teen who followed Jesus.  We share recent stories such as the testimonies of Bethany Hamilton, Zach Hunter, Austin Gutwein, Mackenzie Bearup and others.  But not everyone believes in the potential of teens.

Read more: Where the Potential of Teens May Be Found—Our Churches