In a non-youth ministry book was 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.

Your youth ministry is a great place to take this responsibility back. It is a responsibility. To help both the parents and the youth workers to take this back, we have compiled a downloadable resource with all sorts of ideas. You can find it on our website.

Some churches operate that the church building should be open every night of the week otherwise the church would not truly be helping the community. Good theory but what is sacrificed for that theory is family time and I believe the church should be the greatest supporter of family time.

Take a good look at your church schedule. If Sunday mornings is the planned time for the family to be in church, make your Sunday school program better.  Maybe more like the weekly youth meeting. Maybe planning something better and more memorable once a month would be more effective than a weekly thrown-together youth meeting that a youth forgets what was taught two days later. Maybe meet after school. Maybe do more small groups.

The greatest youth ministry planning you can do is to help your parents do their job which is to raise their own children spiritually. This goes back to those office hours you put in. With your resources, you can create tools to help parents do their role better. Moms & Pops Stuff is a great resource as you are giving them ideas that they can do in their own time. Create such resources and such opportunities so spiritual growth happens outside of the youth meeting. Parents do have countless more hours of influence in their children’s lives than you do.

For some of you because you are paid, you think you could never get away with this because then what would the church be paying you for?  The turth is they would be paying you to move around the adults in your congregation to be a part of the youths’ lives. That takes preparation and work, lots of it. Lots of office hours.

Remember that a youth ministry centered on you doing everything turns into a “(insert your name here) youth ministry” and not one centered on the youth of your church.

More thinking on this…

Syncretizing Youth Ministry

“Had you knocked me unconscious, dragged me to this space, and woken me up by throwing cold water on face, I would have had no idea I hadn’t been kidnapped and taken to the local mall. In fact, that is why I had the sensation that I’d been there before.”

Continued here: 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 we don’t agree with. The main reason for this 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 to not rent that school building 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.

We’ve 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. Brenda 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.

I could re-list the numerous studies here of how important teens believe their parents are but I won’t here. We did over here . Just know that parents really are number one and your youth ministry needs to reflect that if you truly want to help teens. We believe this fact so much that we created an entire website of practical resources over at Church FamilyBasedYouthMinsitry.org or cfbym.org.

A good use of your time would be to plan such spiritual markers and memories. Whether they are rites of passages, out-of-the-ordinary-God-experience events, and/or relationship builders with the church family. Your time investment will have the best returns. Your youth will remember this more than any of the messages you will have preached.

Here is a truth. If youth have no important memories of the faith, of the church, of an experience with God, of worship, or of spiritual feelings, they will find themselves in a faith vacuum as young adults.

Two ideas you can borrow: Your church is a public facility with walls, roof, bathroom and seating capacity. Just like you can use your building for community events, the community can use your building. One specific use that many schools, particularly middle schools, could benefit from your church building is your “auditorium” and sound system. Your sound system is better than most schools have. And with budget cuts affecting such clubs as drama, you could offer your building for practices and performances.

Here is another idea. Teachers are underpaid and are in the constant crosshairs between the parents and the administration. This is the teacher’s number one complaint about their chosen profession. Do something extravagant and creative for no reason at all for them. If you did this only once a year, your church will be reflected upon fondly for the rest of the school year and the next school year. I know. I am at my school quite a bit and hear the teachers talk.

Take that time and actually help the school. In doing so you will be helping the school with their agenda and your youth will still go crazy with appreciation for seeing you in their territory.