Last month, thanks to some of you, I was able to go to the Anglican 1000 conference in Plano. While it was a church planter's conference, it did have a youth ministry track. I've been to a lot of youth ministry conferences, both sponsored by the Episcopal Church and through other groups, and this one had the most down-to-earth advise and encouragement in dealing with doing youth ministry in a very small church. Most probably (as I found out later) because nearly all of the churches represented there were very small.
A while back, when I was in my "I've got to get a job or else!" phase of this journey God has had us on this year, I sent my resume to every Diocese in the U.S. that had a youth ministry coordinator. I learned two things: One, there are way too many dioceses that do not even have a youth coordinator on staff. Two, some of them that did only had a handful of churches in their diocese that had a full time youth minister on staff. While I knew that the Episcopal Church had a problem with putting priority on youth ministry in general, I had no idea that it was that bad across the U.S. It really made me appreciate the great things that the Diocese of Texas (for example) is able to get done for youth ministry.
At the conference, I learned some more startling statistics. There is a diocese (I won't name it) that did a study of their youth ministry situation and discovered that 62 of it's 66 churches spend more on trash removal per year than they do in youth ministry. They also found that 60% of their teens 13-17 do not attend church, 80% in urban areas. I would imagine that their statistics are not much different than most. In fact, considering the amount of attention that they give to youth ministry, I'd suspect that you'd find much worse in many places.
Other studies (outside this diocese) have shown that 20-30 year olds are attending church at 1/2 the rate of their parents and 1/4 the rate of their grandparents. Of the kids that do come, 68% of kids who participate in youth group never come back to church after they graduate. Youth ministry as a profession started about the time that these kids' grandparents were youths in church. The idea was to focus on teenagers strengthen their relationship with Christ and strengthen the church. We are failing.
Bottom line: Most of our churches aren't doing youth ministry, and many of the ones that do are doing a terrible job.
So, what do we do about it? There are three options, I suppose. Give up, do nothing or get better. The first two options are the easiest, and therefore, what most churches are doing.
Of course, some of us want to do better. The conference focused on several things that, coincidentally, I've been contemplating for some time in light of all the above information. I've heard it a million times - "the youth are the church of tomorrow". I used to counter, no, the youth are the church right now. I thought it was clever and didn't really focus on what the statement meant. Like it or not, the youth are the church of tomorrow. When they grow up, they'll serve on the vestries, financially support the church and fill (hopefully) our pews. Something was said at the conference that crystalized this for me:
What we win them with is what we win them to.
Looking at the kind of youth ministry that's mostly being practiced at our smaller churches, its no wonder that 68% of those kids never come back to church. They aren't being "churched" - they're being entertained. Although I never got into the ridiculousness of some of the games that I've seen in other places (Chubby Bunny, Sardines, etc..) we do like to have fun. I'm not saying that fun is the enemy, unless it is all that is going on. I've told interviewing vestries that I'm not looking to be an activities director for their kids. If they want someone "fun", I'm not their guy.
However, as I look back on the way I've been doing youth ministry for a long time, I see a problem. We have free time, some organized fun time, some worship (singing) time and then I give a message. Our actual ministry time was much more like being in a Baptist or non-denominational church than anything Anglican/Episcopal. While I don't say this to take anything away from my Baptist brothers, there is a reason I am a part of the Anglican community. I love the liturgy and the way we "do" church. Most of my youth ministry the last 10 years hasn't reflected that.
We've recently started adding in a much more liturgical aspect to our ministry. We were using a heavily modified version of Compline and it was going well. Even more recently, we've started doing Compline straight from the prayer book. One of the great, and seemingly mostly looked over aspects of the Episcopal/Anglican Church is the Book of Common Prayer. It is really an amazing tool if you know how to use it. Hopefully a more user friendly edition will come out sometime soon, but even the one we have now is fantastic, and from what I've experienced in youth ministry, vastly under used.
Anyway, I've gotten a little off track. What I mean to convey here is that the conference did do one great thing for me. It made me feel that what we are doing in our youth ministry is the same thing that the Anglican church feels is the way that God is calling them to do youth ministry as well. This is encouraging, since if we are all asking God for direction, we should all be going the same way, eh? I'm looking forward to a new direction and purpose in this next phase of my youth ministry career. Hopefully, we can raise up the church of tomorrow, today.
A while back, when I was in my "I've got to get a job or else!" phase of this journey God has had us on this year, I sent my resume to every Diocese in the U.S. that had a youth ministry coordinator. I learned two things: One, there are way too many dioceses that do not even have a youth coordinator on staff. Two, some of them that did only had a handful of churches in their diocese that had a full time youth minister on staff. While I knew that the Episcopal Church had a problem with putting priority on youth ministry in general, I had no idea that it was that bad across the U.S. It really made me appreciate the great things that the Diocese of Texas (for example) is able to get done for youth ministry.
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| Just thought I should put a chart here since we're quoting stats. |
At the conference, I learned some more startling statistics. There is a diocese (I won't name it) that did a study of their youth ministry situation and discovered that 62 of it's 66 churches spend more on trash removal per year than they do in youth ministry. They also found that 60% of their teens 13-17 do not attend church, 80% in urban areas. I would imagine that their statistics are not much different than most. In fact, considering the amount of attention that they give to youth ministry, I'd suspect that you'd find much worse in many places.
Other studies (outside this diocese) have shown that 20-30 year olds are attending church at 1/2 the rate of their parents and 1/4 the rate of their grandparents. Of the kids that do come, 68% of kids who participate in youth group never come back to church after they graduate. Youth ministry as a profession started about the time that these kids' grandparents were youths in church. The idea was to focus on teenagers strengthen their relationship with Christ and strengthen the church. We are failing.
Bottom line: Most of our churches aren't doing youth ministry, and many of the ones that do are doing a terrible job.
So, what do we do about it? There are three options, I suppose. Give up, do nothing or get better. The first two options are the easiest, and therefore, what most churches are doing.
Of course, some of us want to do better. The conference focused on several things that, coincidentally, I've been contemplating for some time in light of all the above information. I've heard it a million times - "the youth are the church of tomorrow". I used to counter, no, the youth are the church right now. I thought it was clever and didn't really focus on what the statement meant. Like it or not, the youth are the church of tomorrow. When they grow up, they'll serve on the vestries, financially support the church and fill (hopefully) our pews. Something was said at the conference that crystalized this for me:
What we win them with is what we win them to.
 |
| The Chubby Bunny Game |
However, as I look back on the way I've been doing youth ministry for a long time, I see a problem. We have free time, some organized fun time, some worship (singing) time and then I give a message. Our actual ministry time was much more like being in a Baptist or non-denominational church than anything Anglican/Episcopal. While I don't say this to take anything away from my Baptist brothers, there is a reason I am a part of the Anglican community. I love the liturgy and the way we "do" church. Most of my youth ministry the last 10 years hasn't reflected that.
We've recently started adding in a much more liturgical aspect to our ministry. We were using a heavily modified version of Compline and it was going well. Even more recently, we've started doing Compline straight from the prayer book. One of the great, and seemingly mostly looked over aspects of the Episcopal/Anglican Church is the Book of Common Prayer. It is really an amazing tool if you know how to use it. Hopefully a more user friendly edition will come out sometime soon, but even the one we have now is fantastic, and from what I've experienced in youth ministry, vastly under used.
Anyway, I've gotten a little off track. What I mean to convey here is that the conference did do one great thing for me. It made me feel that what we are doing in our youth ministry is the same thing that the Anglican church feels is the way that God is calling them to do youth ministry as well. This is encouraging, since if we are all asking God for direction, we should all be going the same way, eh? I'm looking forward to a new direction and purpose in this next phase of my youth ministry career. Hopefully, we can raise up the church of tomorrow, today.
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