The Problem With Youth Ministry

The other day Tim Schmoyer posted some thought provoking points about the current and future problems that we will face in youth ministry. Here is what he wrote (don’t worry, it’s all cool, Tim rocks the Creative Commons license):

[ This post is based on an interview I did last year. ]

These lists could be a lot longer, but here are a couple to get you started. I’d love for you guys to continue these lists in the comments below.

Current problems

1. Youth leaders are not internalizing the Word themselves before they teach it to others, and thus a disconnect between real life and faith is unintentionally communicated.

2. Parents are not being the spiritual role models their teenagers desperately need.

3. Youth ministries are too wrapped up in “doing” ministry rather than “being” ministry. Ministries find their identity in their function instead of seeking the Lord first for their identity and vision and then letting function flow from that.

4. Youth leader don’t pray enough. If we truly believed in the power of prayer, we’d spend more time in prayer than anything else.

Future challenges

1. Perhaps the biggest challenge for youth ministry in the next several years will be defining what community is, and then somehow enabling it to organically take place. The Internet and youth culture continue to change how people view relationships and how they interact. Since we are made in His image and one of the core essentials of that is relationships, we know that community will never go away, but the church’s ideology will either have to shift or be intentional about making a stance. Forming small groups and telling the participants to talk to each other for a couple years is not necessarily community.

2. Somewhat related is that our communication and teaching styles may need to change. Rather than lecturing from a stage or even discussing in a classroom small group, perhaps teaching will need to change to a community-driven experience that interacts with the real world.

What problems do we have? What future challenges do you see for youth ministry? Perhaps most importantly, how are you addressing these problems and challenges in your youth group?

As soon as I read this I knew that Tim’s points were right on but I could help but feeling a little unrest that those were really the problems.  That’s when I just started typing in the comment section, here’s what came out:

I wonder if there is a deeper problem that is nudging youth workers toward sacrificing their time in prayer and in Scripture. If I’m right the problem is two-fold. 
I’d say that this deeper problem is that for the most part most people in ministry still subscribe to the thinking that our value comes from what we produce. With this in mind the two pressures are: 1 – Within ourselves, striving to produce to attain self-worth. 2 – From sr. pastors and boards, pressure from above because those people are finding their value in the stats. 

When we fall victim to thinking that way we fall into a vicious cycle of producing for God instead of being with God.

So what do you think?  Is there a problem with youth ministry?  If there is just how would you articulate it?

BTW!  If you aren’t following Tim’s blog, you should be!

[Photo by:  jksimpson]