There were no matching youth group hoodies, or t-shirts. Weekends away were called weekends away and not the 2014 youth conference. There were no youth group iPhone apps, websites or podcasts. We were a small church in the middle of a mining village with a battered ping-pong table and a TV for film nights.
There wasn’t the pressure back then. We now have the pressure to create cool and engaging venues or we are in danger of losing our young people to someone who will do it better. We are competing with a world of options so we end up having to do things that grab their attention before someone else does. The pressure is on to buy the newest games consoles, have funky and flashy websites, and be seen as the place to be.
There is a problem with this pull. As youth workers, we can start to think that our youth group needs to be cool in order to attract and keep young people. We can get sucked into this never-ending cycle and end up aiming for our youth group to be seen as a cool place to be - because we want to attract young people, and we want them to be able to invite their friends. But what then are we inviting them into? There are two huge dangers with aiming for cool: it sets unrealistic and ungodly aims and it alienates those who don’t feel cool enough.
Losing Jesus
I wonder if at times I’ve failed to give young people Jesus but given them a cool place to hang out. Five years ago I was in the midst of this large existential moment. I was about to hit 30 and a young person asked me when I was retiring from youth work, claiming I was getting too old. I looked around and realised that I had become surrounded by so many young people focused on fashion, looks and what would be cool for our youth ministry. Realising our youth ministries can be dangerously built around the lead youth worker’s character, and realising I needed to detox, I chose to take the Nazarite vow from the book of Numbers. I didn’t drink, didn’t cut my hair and avoided the things that bought me death: clothes. For a whole year I made my own clothes, didn’t enter a clothes shop and focused on reusing things long lost in the bottom of the drawers. As the year went on, I became hairy and the young people chilled out. We ended the year with quite a scruffy youth ministry, but it was also our best year for connecting with young people on the edge, and we saw some incredible breakthroughs with young people on the local estate.
At times over the years, I’ve lost Jesus somewhere along the way, in the attempt to make my youth work relevant or cool. Our focus can subtly shift away from Jesus. That’s not to say Jesus wasn’t relevant or cool; he was cool in an anti-cool kind of way. People ran around lakes to get to him because what he had to say was powerful. Jesus’ kind of cool wasn’t to do with his clothes but the fact that he was the person to be around. He lived beautifully in such a way that people were drawn towards him. The gospel that Jesus presented on the Sermon on the Mount was hopelessly uncool and served as an antidote to a world taken over by the cool, celebrity and a desired lifestyle. Jesus describes his way as narrow compared to the broad road.
Alienating
The other problem is that some young people will naturally be put off by the cool and hip. Some people see right through the fake and plastic fashion world. Some young people just don’t care for looks, trends or the glittery world of cool. Some young people are simply looking for a deep authentic community that we can offer. Make your group too cool and many will disconnect thinking they don’t fit. I think this is a bigger problem than we realise. I’ve spoken with a number of young people over the years who have disconnected from the local youth worker, because they are too cool leaving them unable to engage with them. This is painful.
Fourteen years ago I started out as a youth worker in a wonderful middle class area of Birmingham. Arriving at the church God gave me an imagination for what youth work in the area could look like. One day in the church car park I realised it was perfect to turn into a skate park. Skating wasn’t quite taking off yet in the area and I realised I could get ahead of the game. We built a half pipe, ramps and grind boxes. We set up a web- site and started to promote the SK8 Café. Very quickly it became the place to be - even though it had an 8 in the name. (This was the era when every youth work project had a number in its name: Gener8, Active8 etc.) All the cool kids would arrive wearing their brand new cool trainers, jeans and t-shirts. All of them would wear baseball hats and have expensive skateboards. We were reaching the ‘in’ gang, but soon realised that there was a whole other tribe we weren’t reaching. There were others who couldn’t connect because they didn’t have the right clothes and weren’t interested in skating.
In an attempt to create other windows of opportunity we started a World of War Craft club among other things. For this particular group – it worked. There were others who still found our youth work alienating because they were intimidated by the noise and the extroverted youth worker. And we didn’t have all the answers. But it highlights to me the importance of considering what type of young person we are seeking to attract through our various youth group activities, and how we can make sure we are reaching all young people – regardless of their interests and social status.
Demonising
It’s important to remember that although aiming for cool is problematic, there’s nothing wrong with being cool; we have to be careful that we don’t demonise something that isn’t of the devil. Being cool or hipster isn’t evil, and neither are skinny jeans and facial hair. Our young people who are searching to fit in aren’t doing it in worship of the God called Hipster. The heart’s desire to create trend into a god is though. When we strive to be something we aren’t, when we focus more on looks than the heart, then we have a problem. But being cool isn’t a sin. Some people are just cool; they ooze their coolness like sweat. For the rest of us who don’t, it’s more of a challenge.
We aim for excellence and beauty, but not cool for cool’s sake
Let’s just pause for a moment and recognise that creativity comes from a creator God who loves us to be creative. Pioneering and creative ideas can eventually catch and become what lots of people want. When this happens it becomes ‘in’ fashion. Obviously this is only for some people and not all people. Some people are just happy in their own skin and don’t strive to conform to what is considered cool. What is true of young people’s fashion is also true of our youth groups. We must make sure we don’t condemn cool and hip but remember that we were created to create culture and not copy it. As youth workers we have an eye on critiquing and condemning the culture young people are surrounded by, but we need to encourage them to create culture, pioneer fresh new things and not just conform to what the masses proclaim as cool.
Authenticity
Back in September 2010 my family and I planted a church in the East End of London. The church is based in the heart of a tough neighbourhood, surrounded by people who have been lost in a mental health system or abandoned by employment. Our desire was to see lives changed and transformed with a major focus for us on children and teenagers. Not long after planting the church we realised one thing: we were gathering lots of young trendy folk and not connecting directly with those we wanted to reach.
Some young professionals were traveling quite a distance to get to our church and would walk in with designer shirts, handbags and Brogues. There was a confidence about them that even I was intimidated by. Without thinking about it we were becoming the place to be and we quickly had to reassess. It’s a funny problem for a church to have, and I imagine quite a rare one. Many churches would dream of becoming that kind of church but we found that for our mission it just wasn’t going to work. We wanted to reach those on the edges of our community, the poor and abandoned, and yet where we were headed wasn’t somewhere they would feel they could belong. Without thinking about it, we had become something we didn’t want to be. We discussed it and came to a decision: we would make the conscious effort not to be a ‘cool’ church. We still aim for excellence and beauty but not to be cool for cool’s sake.
What's a Hipster?
Hipsters are a subculture that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and indie-rock. The ‘effortless cool’ urban often bohemian look of a hipster is embodied in Urban Outfitters and American Apparel. Think black-rimmed glasses, checked shirts, skinny jeans, ironic t-shirts, love of vintage, converse.
There has to be a narrow way. On the one hand being ourselves, on the other honouring all those people we meet with, able to relate to both the cool and the uncool. Is this even possible? It’s certainly a narrow way. It has to be. Paul says be a Jew to a Jew, Greek to a Greek and a Roman to a Roman. I think it’s ultimately about how we choose to live life: real, genuine, authentic and sincere.
My youth worker recently spoke of a major break through one day when she bumped into a young person in the corner shop. She was wearing her morning scruffs with slippers and had nipped to the shop for a pint of milk. The young person suddenly connected with her because of this real, raw and normal moment. Our young people want to be able to relate to us, but not in a ‘you have to be cool’ or ‘you have to have a cool venue’ kind of way. Young people are looking for us to be real, normal and honest. They are looking for authentic and relevant - not relevant in fashion terms, but in life terms. They want us to show how the gospel really is good news even in their world. Jesus doesn’t need to have an image change, wearing converse and shades to connect. Jesus connects because the gospel is just true, and because he was beautifully authentic.
The truth of it is that young people don’t want cool. Cool is unobtainable, the pursuit of it is exhausting and the need for it is depressing. Young people simply want a relationship with someone who is genuine in their actions and genuine in their love. Someone who is trustworthy, challenging and real.
