Sometimes I wonder why some stuff in the church never seems to really last. It’s like there’s a big hype about things for an extended period of time, people jump onto all sorts of bandwagons and then duplicate the hell out of programs. I remember one time exploding the nonsense out of your youth ministry was the cool thing to do. I use the term “exploding” as a word to describe “increasing numbers”.
I remember seeing youth pastors do anything imaginable. Kids wanted to go to coffee shops, so they turned their youth centers into coffee shops. Kids wanted rock concerts, so they invited some of the best bands to do a concert at their church building. Kids wanted bowling alleys, so they built them into the church’s recreation center.
None of that seems to work anymore.
Youth ministry’s on the decline. Why? Because kids just aren’t attracted to glitz and glamour anymore. Shiny stuff has no appeal. I think that the deafening cry of America’s youth is one that’s often overlooked. I don’t want to stand on a soapbox and say, “I told you so,” but I remember being the youth pastor that cared more about having relationships with my students than I did about building the program; I could have cared less about the program (and I lost my job because of it).
Our country’s youth need people investing into their lives that genuinely want to be there, that sincerely want to pour into them. Does that make sense? I think too many youth ministries have cared too much about padding their pockets with numbers. As long as the seats are filled, the youth pastors get to keep their job.
Whatever happened to discipleship?
And I think that teenagers are longing for that. There’s this aching within each of us for the Kingdom. There’s more to Church than what we originally thought, right? Clearly the current model for the Church is on the downhill slide. So what are we going to change? Are we willing to admit that we possibly got it wrong?
Because most teenagers I talk to these days see through the façade of the Church, of the candy-coated youth ministries, and want nothing to do with it.
They want something raw, something real, something painfully beautiful. They want something radical, something revolutionary, something that is growing newer each day. They need something that echoes their soul’s cry, that resonates with the kingdom of God groaning inside of them. They want to see heaven invade earth and the world truly changed with the power of God’s love.
It’s something we all need.
So how do we get there as a Body?
