Dear youth work problems, I have a lot of young people on gap years or unemployed while they look for work. How can I practically care for them?
Transition is a really hard thing for young people to get their heads round. Their lives have shifted dramatically and the likelihood is that they’re not getting masses of support from anywhere. They’ve moved from the spoon-fed nature of school to being let loose and fending for themselves. It certainly is a difficult time of finding identity and figuring out who they really are.
WHAT DO THEY WANT?
The first and most important thing you can do is pray, but after you pray, listen to them. Find out what they want. Supporting them in what they need and want will make all of the difference.
FIND THEIR NICHE
What is it that gets your individual young people fired up, excited and passionate? Whatever it is, encourage and inspire them to pursue it and use it to glorify God and serve the church.
ASK CHURCH LEADERS
Go to your church leaders and ask them how they want to grow and develop the young adults’ ministry. Get them to dream and scheme about the possibilities of the ministry for young adults staying in the church. How are they going to help make that happen? How are they going to raise the profile of that group in the church? You never know, they might even increase your budget!
SEEK OUT OTHER CHURCHES IN YOUR AREA
You are not the only youth worker asking these questions. Chat to other youth groups in your area and see what they have in place for their young adults. This is a brilliant chance to collaborate with churches near you to organise a group that meets together from all the different churches to hang out. It’ll remind them (and you) that they aren’t on their own, which might be exactly what they need after seeing their friends leave for university.
MENTORING
It is the responsibility of the church family as a whole to support and pray for your young people, along with parents or carers. A great way to support your young people on an individual level is mentoring. Produce a discipleship map for each young person alongside them, asking where they want to be in six months and how they want to mature their spiritual life. Identity is a theme that comes up time and time again when going through transition, no matter how old you are! When paired up with someone in the church, work through some identity questions such as, ‘Who do I want to be?’ and ‘How does God see me?’
THEY ARE ADULTS!
We can easily forget that these young people are in fact adults. They might need some encouragement or challenging in their faith, but chances are they will be questioning and going deeper in their faith individually. Young people at this stage will transition from being a ‘responsibility’ to more like a friend.
RAISE THEM UP INTO LEADERSHIP
A great way of engaging them with the youth work you have going on is to raise them up as leaders within the group. Use their experience and new perspective to give your ministry a fresh view. If they’re already helping out give them more responsibility - let them organise a trip to a theme park or camping weekend. They need to be ministered to but also to be ministers themselves; it’s good for their faith too. Email your youth work problem to youthwork@premier.org.uk
