What is Christian Youth Ministry?
Will the real We please stand up?
Christian Youth Ministry…
Where to start?
Well, it would be traditional, it would be seemly, it would be academically sound, to begin with definitions: to define Christian; to define Youth; to define Ministry. Perhaps that is what is expected. I do not think that is what is needed.
It is my opinion, right or wrong, that enough ink has been used in recent years defining these things. Some of that ink has been wisely spent. Some of it, quite frankly, could have been more profitably utilised – speculating on the existence of Nessie, for example.
For this generation, for this century – for today – we must be prepared to move beyond definition as it has usually been circumscribed. To define is to analyse what is. For God’s sake, we must begin to define what will be. What must be. What is destined to be.
For, without wishing to sound melodramatic, Christian Youth Ministry is all about destiny. What else could it be about if we are to stand in the tradition of the man who defined his own ministry as warning and teaching “in order to bring each one into God’s presence as a mature individual in union with Christ” (Col. 1:28)? Or the man to whom God said, “I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for” (Jer. 29:11)? Or The Man who said, “I have come in order that you might have life – life in all its fullness” (John 10:10)?
That is our heritage. It is a heritage that reveals our destiny. Where we have come from is where we shall be. The Now – the moment in which we exist – is therefore a journey to and from the Past, to and from the Future. The Present is inextricably bound up with the Past and the Future. Our heritage and our destiny are both timeless. If we are to encourage others to surrender to their own heritage and destiny, we are inviting them onto a journey – into a state of Being – that transcends time. Christian Youth Ministry, therefore, is timeless and knows no boundaries.
Why, then, try to define? To do so is to put limitations on a calling that is limitless. In Christian Youth Ministry, we are called to think ‘outside the box’, to pursue activity ‘outside the box’, not because it is cool and trendy to do so but because our heritage and our destiny is ‘outside the box’. That is where we come from. That is where we are heading. ‘The Box’ is not where we should be. Christian Youth Ministry must, by definition (that despicable word), exist ‘outside the box’.
To step ‘outside the box’ means to die to the way things are perceived to be. Maybe not the way things are – but Perception can sometimes be confused with Reality. You don’t need to have seen The Matrix to know that is true. Read the newspaper and see how Perception is portrayed as Reality.
Christian Youth Ministry that is true to itself – that is prepared to find itself ‘outside the box’ – must be about death. And that is true in two ways. Listen to this…
Are you holding the map the right way up?
First, the Christian Youth Minister is called to die. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his Ethics, distilled that wonderful soundbite, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” That is true of the Christian Youth Minister because we model our ministry on The One who died so that we might live (Mark 10:45). If we are to follow in his footsteps, what right have we to live? But how shall we die? What does that mean in the context of our Christian Youth Ministry? The answer is given in the previous verse: “If one of you wants to be first, he must be the slave of all.” A slave. The Greek word is doulos. It was an unambiguous title when Jesus used it to describe us. Slavery meant death. A slave, a doulos, had no legal personality, no rights, no day off, no pension scheme. A slave had one purpose – one destiny: to serve a Master. The very Being of the doulos was subsumed into the well-being of the Master. To be sure, a slave was not necessarily harshly treated; indeed, cruelty was rare and it was more usual for the slave to be content, even happy, with the security of their lot. Ironically, any sense of personhood was inextricably bound up with the state of slavery, non-being. “I think, therefore I am”? No. “I serve, therefore I am”.
The Christian Youth Minister must die to self. Christian Youth Ministry is hallmarked, theologically, by death. This, of course, is the humorous paradox. After a decade of fighting for Youth Minister’s rights – status, housing, pension, pay, education, training, professionalisation – we must now call the Christian Youth Minister back to slavery and death. It is our heritage to die. It is our destiny to die. Who is our Master? For whom must we die? God, yes. But we must also be prepared to die for those whom we serve. We must be prepared to die for our young people. We must die in the service of young people so that they may live.
Hey, doulos, how will you choose to die so that your young people may live?
Would the last one out…?
Second, we remember that Christian Youth Ministry is not an isolated ministry. We are part of the Church. Like it or not, we are part of that Church. Yes, you know the one I mean. Please don’t pretend that you are so cool and hip to the ways of ‘yoof’ that you are not a part of it. You are. So am I. And here is the most staggering truth of all. If we are called to die as we minister to young people, so the Church is called to die as it ministers to young people. What right has the Body of Christ to live when the Body of Christ came to give his life so that others may live?
How about that, then? There is a righteous ethic in suicide after all! The Church is called to kill itself off. Die so that they may live. That is its mandate. That is its destiny.
Where are the prophets? Where are the seers? Here’s one…Jonas Ridderstrale, writing Karaoke Capitalism:
“The old faiths have failed us. The next driver of change is the dismantling of the institutions that dominated the past…Traditional institutions are becoming history…People feel as if they have tried the temple, but, somehow, it has failed them… The trouble for the temples of the world is that we have already tried that particular route to happiness. Religious belief once created meaning…[but]…people in the West are leaving the temple behind.”
Now, here’s the catch. Were we pushed or did we jump? You see, if the Church starves to death, there is no victory in that. But if we burn ourselves out in ministry, amputating limbs and cutting out useless organs that have become mere excess baggage in the pursuit of a new way of serving, well, that is a good way to go. And who knows, maybe a new and beautiful Body will be born…
The 19th-century poet Shelley, in the Preface to Adonias, wrote,
“It might make one in love with death, to think that
one should be buried in so sweet a place.”
There is no sweeter place for the Church to be buried than in the tomb of Christ, awaiting our own resurrection Body that is to come.
Once upon a time in the West
So, here’s the thing…
It’s time to think outside the box.
It’s time to give everything that we are in ministry to young people.
It’s time to stop being precious about the Institutions we have created
The Temples are crumbling…
…we can watch them fall and crush our young people to death or…
…we can assist in the process and maybe salvage a few bricks for a better Temple
A strange twist of fate
I played peek-a-boo with a child last week at church.
A silly game but it kept us both amused whilst left in the lurch
as adults drank coffee and shared a smile
All desperate to get home, but lingering a while.
Every now and then, I would say, “Boo!”
…but, as I thought about it later, who was watching who?
Christian Youth Ministry.
It means we must die. But then we will live.
It means the Church must die. But then be re-born.
So, hang on a minute…
Doesn’t it mean that, as we minister to youth, they are actually ministering to us? As we die to offer them the message of eternal life so, through our death, we receive eternal life?
Doesn’t it mean that, as the Church ministers to youth, they are actually ministering to the Church? As the Church dies to offer them access to Christ so, through that death, the Church enters into the very presence of Christ?
Christian Youth Ministry…
Is it the Christian Ministry to Youth?
Or is it Youth Ministry to Christians?
Who is watching who?
Righting the Wrong that seemed so Right
Oh dear. It seems that I was wrong. Perhaps definition is needed after all. Perhaps we do need to define Christian Youth Ministry.
But not as that thing that we used to do. Not as that power-trip where we had the Truth and they needed to know it. Not as that “Come to us on a Sunday night and we will let you know all you need to know for a Happy And Contented Life.”
No.
Christian Youth Ministry must now be defined as a relationship. A relationship of equals. Christian Youth Ministry is about a conversation in which we, as youth ministers, minister to the needs and desires of young people – and we allow them to minister to us and the Church.
Karl Lehmann, a Catholic theologian involved with the 1976 International Theological Commission wrote, “In liberation theology, the frontiers between the Church and the world are blurry, or they disappear in a total way.”
Gustavo Gutierrez, in A Theology of Liberation, wrote, “A theology of the Word must be complemented by a theology of the world in the Church.”
I used to struggle with these ideas. The notion that the Church needs to be converted to the World went against every Reformed fibre in my being.
But maybe, just maybe, Lehmann and Gutierrez have something to say about the definition and future of youth ministry. Christian Youth Ministry. Perhaps they are the prophets. Perhaps they are the seers. Perhaps the future – maybe the only hope – for Christian Youth Ministry lies in the realisation that we need to dialogue in love. We need to minister as we are ministered to. Just as Jesus died for Simon Peter, so he allowed Simon Peter to die for him.
We are called to die. But never, ever let us use death as a power-game. Let us never, ever stand over our young people and say, “Look how much I am willing to give for you!”
Youth Worker: die in silence. That is Christian Youth Ministry.
Church: die in silence. That is Christian Youth Ministry.
Young Person: Help us to die so that we may live. That is Christian Youth Ministry.
That is our heritage. That is our destiny.
And there is no place for ‘The Box’ anymore.
Rev Dr Steve Griffiths runs Youth Focus, a Company dedicated to providing resources for Youth Ministry training and education. www.youthfocus.biz
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