Unless you keep that intentionally, you do very quickly become a community or social club – which are all valid – but is that really what we do as youth workers? Or do we believe there’s a gospel imperative; that there is an urgency?
There has been a change in priorities because the needs of young people have increased. With more challenging family structures, the need for social development of young people is far greater than ever before. But we cannot deny that the teenage years are the ripest time to reach anyone for the gospel. I think it’s got to be recognised that what youth workers bring is so key.
The opportunities today are far greater. If you take the ‘Talking Jesus’ research, 18 to 34-year-olds are most vocal about sharing their faith of any age group, which has got to be good news. This means that they are probably coming out of teenage years seeing Jesus as a spiritual leader. I think the context we find ourselves in provokes and pushes us to ask: what are we here for? What do we do that is really effective youth work? You do see young people really open to conversations about the gospel and to experiencing the Holy Spirit. An experience of the love of God is very important to them – we live in an experiential time. People listen with their eyes.
I am a big fan of the residential experience. – it is essential for youth ministry. You can do more in a weekend than you can do all year because you’ve got time, you’ve got space, you build relationships, they’re talking, they’re with you and God comes! For me, this continues to be very powerful.
Another positive is that the environment where young people engage in the digital world creates so much interest that we never had. You can post up anything and if you’ve got a little bit of creativity around it, it is phenomenal what the reach can be. There can be social media that operates in a negative way but the positive is very strong. I think that’s unique and something that we could capitalise on in a great way.
The challenge is that you never really know what is going to work. Whereas there used to be a loyalty – we’ll all turn up on Friday night – now you don’t know whether they’re going to come because if something else takes their fancy a couple of hours before, then they don’t show! Another challenge of youth work is that it is cyclical so you’ve got to reinvent yourself every three years because the kids you’re working with move on, you get a new intake every September and that is really hard. You have to constantly rethink and reschedule because September is coming. It all kicks off again!
We need an environment where things can be questioned and discussed
You don’t have to be the most dynamic speaker, you don’t have to be the most gifted: the given is a relationship. Love these kids and love Jesus and it will bear fruit. It takes one significant adult to influence a young person. The relationship is not age dependent, it’s not even experience dependent, it is just that you become interested in and invest in a young person’s life. Your influence on their life is phenomenal.
Going forward, we have to keep on intentionally about the gospel. We also need to recognise that youth ministry is still the ripest harvest field because people are reviewing what they believe and how they think it. I think we’ve got to give an apologetic of how young people understand their Christian thinking in the context of what they’re hearing: ‘How do I live out my Christian values in the environment I find myself?’
We need an environment where things can be questioned and discussed. Young people want to know why you believe the Bible rather than just quoting a Bible verse. There’s questions around validity of the Bible, validity of what it says, validity of values and lifestyle. What do I do with finances? What do I do with morality? Those factors that were a bit more of a given are all up for grabs going forward and where do you find the source and the means to navigate that with your young people? There’s this dualism: I go to church, I serve but I also do whatever I want to do and young people seem to live with this wonderful dualism and don’t see a problem with that. It makes evangelism harder.
Walter Brugermann, in Biblical Perspectives on evangelism: living in a three-storied universe, said that you’ve got to reinterpret the story in the cultural context that you find yourselves. In the Old Testament when they got to 13, young people would sit around the table at Passover and be quizzed on why they were doing this. If an adult told the story but a teenager didn’t understand it, they had to reinterpret it until the teenager did understand. We need to listen better but then realise there’s the connect point for the gospel. Those connect points and the language are going to be different but the core story remains the same because these are truths that will be reinterpreted for the present culture that we find ourselves in.
Roy Crowne is HOPE Together’s executive director. He was previously the national director of British Youth for Christ.
