How often have you heard . . .
“They never even try to talk to me.”
“It is like I do not even exist!”
“I might as well not attend this church!” “It is like we are from two different worlds.”
I could go on and on with similar expressions of frustration. I am sure you have heard them, but surprisingly not from the youth. Instead, these have been spoken by adults, often ministers, about their interactions with youth.
We need to move away from expressions of frustration and focus on the youth. What are realities of youth ministry today? Here are some of the crucial realities we face:
• Every church is only one generation away from extinction.
• The youth of the church are its greatest asset and hope.
• Connecting with youth is difficult.
• Many youth are angry, hurting, and lonely.
• Youth have a need to be loved, connected, and needed.
• Youth are leaving the church at an alarming rate.
As pastors, in order to connect our youth to Jesus, we must connect with them ourselves. We cannot delegate this responsibility to someone else because most churches do not have the budget for a youth pastor.
Before the youth are excited about attending church, we have to make sure that we approach them as Jesus would. We have to be willing to try to understand them and their world, meet them at their point of need.
The problem
Jesus knocks on the doors of our hearts (Rev. 3:20) and invites Himself to be part of our lives. Yet many times His invitation is drowned out by what the world offers us—money, reckless sex, power, position, and prestige (1 John 2:15, 16). Jesus makes it clear that we cannot love God and the world. But the devil tries to fool our youth to think that they should be afraid of God and not see Him as a Friend. The devil did the same thing to Adam and Eve. After they sinned they became afraid of God, and yet God came looking for them (see Gen. 3:8–10).
Teens have been hiding from God ever since. The devil has convinced many of them that God wants to take their joy. But in reality, the only way they can truly have fun, freedom, fulfillment, positive power, purpose, and peace is experiencing life God’s way. The apostle Paul asks the Romans, “When you were slaves of sin, you didn’t have to please God. But what good did you receive from the things you did? All you have to show for them is your shame, and they lead to death. Now you have been set free from sin, and you are God’s slaves. This will make you holy and will lead you to eternal life. Sin pays off with death. But God’s gift is eternal life given by Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:20–23, CEV).
David also reminds us that fulfillment is found in God. He writes, “My soul finds rest in God alone” (Ps. 62:1, NIV and “You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water” (Ps. 63:1, NIV). God’s love, David points out, brings joy and gladness: “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days” (Ps. 90:14, NIV).
If the youth do not experience joy in the Lord, their connection with God will be damaged or even destroyed. Roger L. Dudley points out that more than 40 percent of teenagers who accept Christ will leave the church in their twenties.1 Dave Kinnaman, of the Barna Group, shared another alarming statistic. He points out that 59 percent of Mosaics— also called Millennials—drop out of church life after their teen years.2
Reason for optimism
It seems to me that the youth in our churches and schools often have knowledge about our doctrines but may lack godly wisdom or true experiential knowledge of a deep and abiding relationship with Jesus Christ as their Lord. Because of this, they neither understand nor experience practical Christianity.
I believe there are reasons to be hopeful. Our young people can comprehend deep, applicable, real-life biblical teaching from someone who not only knows the information and can teach it effectively but, more importantly, lives the message.
We must help our youth understand that Jesus is the answer to their needs. They must have a saving relationship with Him today. They also need to know what they believe, why they believe it, and how to live it. Finally, they need to know how to explain what they believe and share it with others. We need to help them realize that Jesus fills the collective holes in their souls.
We can help
Our youth need to connect with parents, teachers, youth pastors, youth leaders, and adults who have a positive relationship with God. These individuals will be able to help the youth with some of the questions they face. It seems that there are at least six burning questions that they want answered:
• Security: Who can I trust?
• Identity: Who am I?
• Belonging: Who wants me?
• Significance: Do I matter?
• Purpose: Why am I here?
• Competence: What do I do well?
If the youth have a good relationship with others who are followers of Jesus Christ, they will hopefully also develop a positive relationship with God. A personal connection with God is needed, for “we cannot see God. So how can we love God, if we don’t love the people we can see?” (1 John 4:20, CEV). Through the lives of others, the youth will be able to see God and experience God in their own lives.
Fixing what is broken
Roger Dudley points out some of the needs of youth and possible solutions. He lists items that adolescents need and adults may have difficulty understanding:
1. Time to think and daydream—to develop abstract thinking—to question values.
2. Time to scream—we need to love them through the period of turmoil, no matter how trying.
3. Time for privacy—time away from parents.
4. Time to explore their sexuality.
5. Time to form a philosophy of life.
6. Time to consider the claims of Jesus Christ on their lives.
Dudley also lists what adults need to do in order to understand and help adolescents:
1. To recognize in ourselves the tendency to be intolerant and threatened by evidences of independence in youth.
2. To understand the effect of rigidity and overcontrol on the need for adolescent independence.
3. To recognize the crucial difference between morals and mores (customs).
4. To understand the key role that modeling plays in making religion attractive to youth.3
Dudley posed this question to youth: “If you could design the ideal . . . congregation, what would it be like?” Out of the hundreds of answers several themes emerged.
• friendly and caring
• deep spirituality
• like a family
• involved in community and mission
• a thinking climate
• young people involved
• meaningful worship
• diversity4
Develop a strategy
After we consider the problems, issues, and approaches, I suggest that we develop strategies for our youth ministry. Here are six simple strategies for connecting with youth:
• Understand the realities that youth are dealing with. A lot of church leaders acknowledge that they feel unprepared and unqualified to understand youth culture. Read more about it and get more training.
• Be honest with youth about your lack of connection. If you have been neglectful about connecting with them, apologize.
• Connect with youth on a regular and consistent basis. Whether a weekly “check-in” with the youth group or teaching the youth group once a month or quarter, be consistent and communicate with them. You will be amazed at how this will translate into stronger relationships in the present and future.
• Connect with their support systems in any way that you can. As I previously stated, today’s youth lack effective emotional and spiritual support structures. This can usually be seen through a lack of interest in spiritual things and many times behavioral, academic, social, and even legal difficulties. Although initially the family of a teen may not appear too interested or excited that a pastor shows an interest in connecting with their son or daughter, assure the family that your motivation is to provide assistance for the family with their young person.
• Connect youth with older, more experienced church members. Encourage mentoring because it is an effective way to strengthen others. The apostle Paul, when writing to Titus, made the point that for Christian maturity, mentoring remains crucial (see Titus 2:2–8).
• Teach youth how to effectively connect with their world. This generation of teenagers deeply wants to do something positive to help others. Take some time to educate them about their spiritual gifts, and by extension, help them explore how these gifts can be translated into real-life vocations. As we have seen, our youth are not that much different from us; all they want is to love and be loved. The Christian church is literally only one generation away from extinction. But God can work through us if we make a conscious and concerted effort to honestly connect with them and their worlds. Then, and only then, can we truly hope to lead them into any kind of loving, saving, and vibrant relationship with our Lord.
1 Roger L. Dudley, Why Our Teenagers Leave the Church: Personal Stories From a 10-Year Study (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 2000), 35.
2 David Kinnaman, You Lost Me (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2011), 24.
3 Roger L. Dudley, The Complex Religion of Teens: A Lifetime of Research Reveals How Adolescents Relate to Spiritual Matters (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 2007), 126, 127.
4 Ibid., 194.
