I sat down on the standard-issue youth ministry beanbag with a resigned thump. It was the end of a long, unforgiving session, during which we’d faced behavioural problems, a technology breakdown and a sense of almost total disengagement among our young people. It had not been one of those evenings which remind you exactly why you love youth work.
Next to me, faithful old Geoff (not his real name, but it sounds appropriately faithful) lowered himself wearily onto a chair. Geoff had been serving the young people at our church since before I was born. Minibus driving, tuckshop-maintaining, ever-present Geoff. I couldn’t help feeling that this evening had let him down too. He didn’t want to say as much, but the look on his face belied his disappointment at how far our youth ministry had declined.
It hadn’t always been like this of course. In the past, I was reliably informed, the youth group at the church had been bigger and more vibrant than the adult congregation. Many, if not most who had been a part of that group had gone on to own their faith in adulthood. Now I was in charge – albeit as a volunteer – and the nine teens who I’d seen that evening, a disconnected mix of oddball outsiders and forced-to-be-there church family kids, were anything but a vibrant growing youth group. They knew God only as a distant rote answer to a Sunday school question, they didn’t seem to like me or each other; they’d never be seen dead inviting friends along.
So to Geoff I spoke the first difficult words of the necessary break up: ‘this isn’t working is it?’ As I said that, my mind was full of thoughts of resignation and disestablishment. With only two people prepared to volunteer, it wouldn’t be hard to convince the church to close its youth group and suggest the young people attend the vibrant youth congregation down the road. Geoff, an elderly former builder, heard my words very differently. His fire had not gone out. He asked simply: ‘so what are we going to do instead?'
He didn’t ask: ‘what are we going to change?’ As a builder, he understood that if a building is really falling down, there’s little point in propping it up to prolong the inevitable. No, in his business, you demolish and rebuild. I was sold on the first half of that equation, but not yet the latter. Then Geoff talked for a while about the way the group had shifted and evolved over four decades; he reminded me of positive moments – even that evening - that I’d forgotten in the midst of the prevailing gloom. Geoff could see that the building was falling down, but he saw that only as an invitation to rebuild.
After a while, he convinced me too. Our young people weren’t a lost cause, only the model we were using was. We would begin again – we would think through what they and the other young people in our area really needed, we would listen to God and to them, we would innovate and we would serve. It was time to restart our youth work from scratch. Perhaps you too find yourself in, or near, the place that we were in at that time.
Perhaps you feel like your current youth work model has reached its natural end, but you can’t get your head around what to do next. In this short article, I want to unpack a few of the principles that we used – and some that we perhaps should have used – in reshaping and reimagining our youth work.
LISTEN
How do you begin the process of starting something new in youth ministry? With a vision? That’s part of it, certainly. Whether you’ve already been visited by The Big Idea or feel like you’re desperately scratching around with no idea, the first step for a leader is always to listen:
- Listen to God: It sounds like the most obvious first step, yet how many of us have embarked on an important new endeavour without stopping to listen to God, of whose unfathomable creativity our own is but an echo? More often we’ll pray – asking God for his blessing and practical assistance for our idea – but it’s vitally important that we also give God the space to speak to us, and we do that by being quiet long enough to listen. Before you start your reboot then, try to spend some significant time in prayer – including plenty of silence – asking God: what should this new thing look like?
- Listen to your young people: Don’t neglect the knowledge and creativity that resides within the young people with whom you are already in contact, or indeed their feelings or preferences. This shouldn’t be the only factor in your thinking, but it is an important one. So try to hold some sort of consultation with them so that they feel involved and empowered in the process of change.
- Listen to your community: As you try to discern what your new expression of youth work should look like, don’t simply think in terms of the young people you already know. Also take time to consider the geographical, social and cultural make up of your local community. What do young people do? Where do they congregate? What kinds of youth cultures or tribes are represented? Taking the time to find answers to these questions will help you to shape an outward-looking youth ministry. If you want to take this really seriously, you’ll find two resources - a community observation form and a community interview form - in my new book Youth Work From Scratch.
This part of the process isn’t always intuitive, especially to the more visionary among us. Yet listening is vital – it’s the solid foundation work upon which a successful new project can be built. Taking time before you start to listen makes the process collaborative and thought-through, and rightly places God centrally in the genesis of new ministry.
WHAT?
Once you’ve listened, it’s time to establish what your project is going to look like. It may well be a ‘traditional’ (in the context of the last 30 years anyway) model, gathering young people in or near the church for social time, informal Christian education and worship. But it won’t necessarily be that. You might decide that your project is one of the following:
YOUTH CONGREGATION
Few youth ministry models provoke such passionate debate as separate youth church. Advocates say that youth congregations create the sort of relevant worship service that will draw young people in and keep them there; critics call this ‘ghetto church’, and argue that those who grow up in a youth-only church will find it difficult or even impossible to integrate into an all-age church context when they reach adulthood.
I am one of the advocates – I have seen the model work well and of all the youth ministries I have ever volunteered in, this seems to be the one that has seen the greatest percentage of active faith retention in its ‘graduates’. One of the great joys of my life right now is continuing to bump into the former teenage congregants – now in their mid-20s – and discovering that not only have the majority continued to practice their Christian faith, but several are now working full-time in ministry.
UNIFORMED GROUP
One of the most instantly recognisable forms of youth work, Christian-based uniformed organisations take the activity and achievement-based model of the Scouts and Guides, and add a (stronger) faith element. These shouldn’t simply be seen as a traditional model – for some young people they are the perfect context for faith development because of their holistic focus. There is great variety within the organisations – some Girls Brigade groups for example don’t wear a uniform at all; some groups still do a once-a-month ‘church parade’ march. The basic premise however is the same: groups of young people (usually all of one gender) meet weekly to have fun and share faith (like most youth groups), with the added extra dimension of learning skills.
OPEN YOUTH CLUB
A very different approach, and one which is likely to immediately meet very different needs, is a Christian-run open youth club. The budget cuts felt in the statutory youth sector in recent years mean that fewer such clubs exist for young people now than in the past; the rising cost of most entertainment for young people means the need for such clubs is now greater than ever. In a local community youth club, the emphases are on creating a safe space for young people to build positive relationships and spend their free time well. It could be that in your local area, young people have limited options for how they spend their free time; a drop-in youth club, where a laid-back programme of activities is organised but not enforced on young people, could be an amazing service to those young people.
SMALL/CELL GROUPS
These may well act as complimentary meetings to a main weekly meeting. Small groups of up to ten young people (in my experience, the group dynamics change significantly above that number) meet on a weekly or fortnightly basis to talk about God, faith, and their lives. This is basically the youth version of the adult ‘house group’, but hopefully with less staring at the floor. Generally these take place in homes, so you’ll need families who are prepared to regularly host a group of young people; alternatively you might meet in different areas of a church or other building if you have access. This, incidentally, is what Geoff and I chose to do with our previously ‘traditional’ model group.
SCHOOL-BASED
Every youth worker should try to find a way of engaging with local schools. Aside from being the place where young people spend a huge part of their lives, they are also the one place where all the young people in your community gather. If at all possible, this should be a part of your overall approach to youth ministry, but it may be that you want to go further.
A youth ministry might be entirely focused on – or even based in and around – local schools. Faith schools are a particularly good place to start, but others might be equally open to your help – if that really is what you’re offering. No school wants Christians who are simply going to come in and proselytize, but if you’re prepared to offer genuine services – teaching balanced lessons, taking assemblies, or being available as a chaplain or mentor, then they may well be interested.
DETACHED WORK
One of the key motivations for doing work in schools is that you are leaving the relative safety of the church, and going to where young people are, rather than waiting for them to come and find you. Similar rationale underpins detached youth work – the ‘detached’ referring to the fact that it takes place on young people’s own ‘turf’, and potentially never actually moves into the church. This could be a big deal for some church leaders, if in their minds the main reason for your work is to eventually increase the numbers of young people engaged and involved with their church. If however your vision – and theirs – is to see young people in your community impacted by the love of God, and the kingdom extended even if the size of the church isn’t, then spending part or even all of your youth ministry time in detached work could be a viable, and even a prophetic move.
TEAM
Geoff and I made a great team all those years ago, but we were all-too-aware that this team could be improved with the addition of more members. Some churches seem to be blessed with an abundance of people ready and willing to throw themselves into voluntary youth work service. Perhaps more commonly though, as in our case, there seems to be a distinct lack of volunteers. So how do you find these people and persuade them to get involved… and what do you do with them once you have? Here are a few things to consider:
- Team shapes: The kind of team you need will be to some extent shaped by the sort of project you’re embarking on. So as you work out what the new thing is, consider what mix of skills and how many people you really need – this is a much better starting point that blindly recruiting anyone whose interested.
- Recruitment: Some people think the classic notice at the front of church doesn’t work – I say it’s all about the delivery. I’ve seen a brilliant example, where a leader outlined his personal vision for the youth ministry, but then got one of the young people to actually make the ‘ask’ for more volunteers. This helped the congregation to see tangibly that a) the church actually had some young people and b) the young people weren’t as terrifying as the Daily Mail would have them believe. One tip – don’t ask people to become youth ‘leaders’, as they’ll think they’re not worthy of that title. Recruit people to ‘help’ instead.
- Vetting: You don’t just want anyone. As you build your team, you’re looking to assemble a group of envisioned, passionate, appropriately-behaving people who care about serving teenagers. Interview potential volunteers, and always consider the possibility that it’s not right for them to be involved. Crucially, you must also ensure that you recruit a safe team – everyone involved in your work with young people should be subject to a background check (visit www.ccpas.co.uk for details).
- Retention: You serve your team, not the other way around. It’s really important to remember that volunteers are exactly that – they’re giving up their time to help you. So make sure they feel empowered and involved; make time to plan, pray and have fun together, and you’re much more likely to build a team that lasts.
RE-EVALUATE
Once you’ve listened to God and your community, devised a plan, and assembled your team, you’re ready to get cracking with your new, improved youth work project. There are of course many more elements to consider than we have time to discuss in this article, but there is one last vital thread to mention. The cycle of change is never complete in youth work. As you reboot your work through thinking, listening, planning and team-building, be aware that just as youth cultures aren’t static, neither should your provision be. If you’re not careful, you may find yourself once again in the place where your youth work isn’t working.
To avoid this, commit yourself to a constant and endless process of evaluation. Not only that – it also means being prepared to change things that aren’t quite working, even if you like them. It means listening to the wise voices around you, including those of the young people you’re seeking to serve. Practical resources to enable this can be found in the book, but my suggestions include:
- Observations… where others watch you work, and report back to you on the positives and the areas for improvement (you might ask another local youth worker, and reciprocate).
- Aim check… where you intentionally spend time assessing the usefulness of your work against your stated aims and vision.
- Appraisals… where you meet annually (or twice-annually) with your line manager to intentionally discuss what is working and what needs to change.
If nothing else, these simple steps provide a framework for thinking about change. Listen to God; get the team and the vision right. Commit to evaluating and constantly re-imagining your youth work over the months and years to come. If you are able to remain aware of these principles, you will hopefully never find yourself slumped in the beanbag of despair, ever again.
