On Our Way To Crazy

“Yes, worship includes the experience of raising our voices together in songs to God. And, yes, worship involves prayer. But a broader – more scriptural – view of worship is about serving the poor, righting injustice, caring for those in need. When teenagers – whether they’re already followers of Jesus or not – experience this kind of worship in action, they have the enormous opportunity to have a tangible experience of God in their lives. This often leads to faith (or more faith). More importantly, it leads to sustainable faith. …for today’s teenagers, experience is what they trust. And, if we’re really honest, this is how we all live.”

I don’t write a lot on this site about youth ministry philosophy. For one, I think it would bore most of you. But mostly it’s because I am still very much figuring things out. I took the job at the church with zero experience. Sure, I had volunteered for a long time and headed up a project every now and then. Then one day two years ago (!) I jumped headfirst into being in charge without a fat clue what I was doing.

Obviously, I have learned a lot in the past couple of years. I am confident planning services and writing lessons and doing events and counseling kids. I get thrown for a loop approximately a hundred times a day, but I feel like I have my feet under me a bit. One thing I have realized over the past several months is that you can’t just operate on a week-by-week basis. You have to be coming from somewhere deeper. You need a basic working philosophy that informs the things you teach, the events you plan, the leaders you involve.

So I have been working on mine. I’ve been working from a community- and relationship-based idea from the beginning, even when I didn’t really know I was doing it. We don’t preach at the kids. We are very discussion-oriented. I don’t want our kids to grow up in a world where church is where you’re on your best behavior and you get in trouble for breaking the rules. I want them to connect to a faith and to a God that loves them wherever they are, and to a community of peers and adults who do the same. I’m still working on what that looks like, but I think I’m starting to get it.

Mark Oestreicher is the president of Youth Specialties, an organization that I love love love. This book is a bit of a history of youth ministry, a bit of conversation, and a lot of philosophy. I don’t agree with the whole thing. But I found a lot of passages that really put into words what we’re trying to do in our group. And that is really encouraging.

“Kids are just dying to be acknowledged. They need somebody to connect with them on a personal level. They need leaders who’ll take the time to listen and affirm that they’re okay, and they’re loved – no matter who they are, where they’re from, or what they’re dealing with. If that connection isn’t made, it’s highly unlikely that youth will allow leaders to take them on something so sacred as a spiritual journey.”