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Parents are number one.
Raise the youth in the church family.
Don't Feel Guilty About Spending Time in Your Office.
Youth services are designed as outreach opportunities for the unchurched.
Youth services should include times of worship. Youth services should include times for games.
Youth strive for challenge, so challenge.

The location of the youth service is not a billion dollar investment. Some churches do give large budgets to build the ideal youth room and often that budget money is spent to make the youth room look like a high-tech Starbucks. If you've got it, use it. If you don't, do not fret that you don't and spend your time wondering 'only if..." That musty couch which was dumped on you may be that sacred place for some of your teens. You can make that musty couch a sacred place too.

Even with the high dollar youth room, youth still struggle to come to it. Maybe the reason why outsiders don't come to the "Teen Scene" or "Extreme Lounge" or whatever set up there is might be because they are tired of being ripped off by the church. When the banner advertises "Music - Games - Food," would that be what an outsider would come to a church for? What I mean is people come to a church expecting to come to something churchy--not the MTV-style/Hollister-look of something that is nothing like the real thing. It is fraudulent for the church to try to be something it is not and it feels fraudulent to the crowd you are trying to attract. Dr. Christian Smith, director of the National Study of Youth and Religion, had this to say about such efforts, "It's a creative effort to reach people, but at another level, it's a pretty drastic accommodation. They mostly define religion in consumerist terms. 'We want to sell you our product.' It signals a shift from the authority of the religious tradition to the individual consumer as the authority." (The Indianpolis Star, September 26, 2004)

Some churches purposely hold youth meetings in a rented room, often at a high school, because of the understanding that unchurched youth would more likely enter a common space like that rather than through a church door. This I don't agree with. The main reason for my disagreement is your youth ministry should also be a part of the life of your church which will be helped by the adults and youth bumping into each other in the church building. This is good even for your visitors. How often do they get to have conversations with adults who are not school teachers and managers at work? Another reason is that your youth do tire of going into a school building. For some, their time in a school building is torture enough. For some the school building is a reminder of the stressor that school is.

I also heard a youth worker recommend using a bowling alley or park to meet for youth group in response to the problem that the youth whose parents are highly involved in church didn't want to come to youth group. This offsite location would be so they could find a place and style of learning all their own. Whatever. If those youth with involved parents have a problem attending youth group, don't you think there is a bigger problem than the meeting location?

Then there is the underlying question, with the youth meeting at an off-site location are the minors in your care safe? Are there enough adult volunteers to keep an eye out? A church location offers all kinds of eyes to protect minors. I once preached at a youth group who's youth pastor purposely moved them to an off-site location which coincidentally had a McDonald's across the busy street. The rules were to not cross the street to McDonald's but who could stop the 50-plus youth from doing that when there were only three adults with them. It was a scary situation and I was only there one night.

Teach what youth are coming to church for: understanding God, looking for their place in the world and why they were born. Youth are scheduling youth group into their busy lives on purpose. As quoted in a previous Pair of Cleats (and worth quoting again): "In a round table discussion about faith with teenagers, one girl said, 'I go to a public school, so basically they try to avoid talking about religion. (Students), of course, we talk about it all day long.' Another teenage girl said, 'I go to a Catholic school so I have religion as one of my classes. We debate a lot in there about different issues that concern us about the church and how we live out our religion in our lives. Most of us are not afraid to say what we feel. We are at a time in our lives where we're supposed to be questioning what we believe. In my day to day life, religion does come up.' (The Courier Journal, March 16, 2003). Teens want to know this stuff. It is a part of their daily conversations. That is why they are coming to church. Of course, some youth are forced to be there by their parents. But addressing these life issues in the church setting will somehow sink in even to them."

By representing and teaching these things, you will not be fraudulent. And your visitors will not feel ripped off. Remember that youth are coming to church expecting to be taught things about God and church.

Teach a correct Biblical worldview. Dr. Christian Smith, backed up by the research from the National Study of Youth and Religion, defines the worldview of today's youth as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism defined is: there's a God who created the world, but that God is not particularly involved in my way of life. I live my own life apart from God except when I have problems. Then I can call upon God to come solve those problems for me. Moral Therapeutic Deism asserts that people should be good which basically means not being a jerk. God is something like a divine butler or cosmic therapist who is there to meet your needs but doesn't get too personally involved with you and certainly is not demanding. Religion's main benefit is that is applies therapeutic satisfaction, that it meets therapeutic needs. This is a faith that saves from. It saves them from their problems. This is a faith which can be left behind by a decision. This is a faith that if you adhere to this and this and this all the way through to number 999, you are set.

There is a lot wrong with this worldview as you can see. Since the youth are coming to church, take the opportunity to teach the correct Biblical worldview. This is imperative.

The Barna Group's August 2005 report discovered that only five percent of adult Americans have a correct Biblical worldview. Five percent! Teaching this to teens is imperative.

A good definition of a Biblical worldview has been defined by George Barna is: "A biblical worldview was defined as believing that absolute moral truths exist; that such truth is defined by the Bible; and firm belief in six specific religious views. Those views were that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life; God is the all powerful and all knowing Creator of the universe and He stills rules it today; salvation is a gift from God and cannot be earned; Satan is real; a Christian has a responsibility to share their faith in Christ with other people; and the Bible is accurate in all of its teachings." ("Only Half Of Protestant Pastors Have A Biblical Worldview," January 12, 2004)

Remember that youth are coming to church expecting to be taught things about God and church.

Plan ritualized times together. This sounds like an awful idea. Ritual is a word many youth workers over the last 50 years have run from. Yet it is one of those special comforting things we can offer youth.

In a non-youth ministry book I read this letter from a then 20 year old: "In the last six years I have come to feel strongly that parents need to spend one to one time with their teenagers. Ritualized time together, however long or short, allows trust to build in a healthy, deliberate manner. The ritual time I shared with my father (every night at bedtime until age 13, then ice cream out once a week) helped me connect with him as a respectful adult and parent, who, through it all, was there for me regardless of whether I felt like sharing my problems." (Putting Family First, p. 79)

Ritualized time together is necessary for teens to survive through adolescence. When looking at youth ministry overall, we are built on ritualized times together. Our schedules are built on it. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed with schedules and programs. We sweat over the creativity of these times together so they are somewhat memorable. Sometimes we devalue Sunday School as not important when in reality this is truly ritualized time together. The times we teach from the Bible (again, why they are scheduling church into their busy schedules) and the relational bonuses of these ritualized times together are youth ministry.

We need to value our ritualized times we have with our youth.

Next issue:

Small groups are organized around common interests.
You don't necessarily have to have a weekly youth meeting.
Plan events around the church calendar.
Plan events around the school calendar.
The youth minister doesn't have to do everything.
Youth leaders are authority figures.
Spend purposed time at the school.
Initiate involvement with the school.
Purposely celebrate rites of passages.
Purposely provide spiritual markers and memories.
Your youth ministry is one of many youth ministries in your community but it is still part of the youth ministry movement of your community.
Youth ministry is a tool for a long life's journey.
There are some great people in youth ministry