Dear Church Planter… (and anyone else starting a youth ministry)

How to invest in the lives of young people when planting a church

A lot of good comes from church planting. New things attract new people. Stagnating churches get re-energised. Passionate, mission-driven leaders are raised up. A lot of good comes from church planting.

A lot of these good things started around 15 years ago. The church plants of 15 years ago are becoming more like church trees. They are established and maturing.  What was once families with toddlers are now families with teenagers.  For many church plants, ‘the teenager’ is a new demographic to be taught, loved and evangelized.

The question is: what will you do with this new creature in your congregation? For some, you may be an excellent long-term visionary who has always had a plan. For others, the arrival of the teenager may take you by slight surprise. Either way, there are a few approaches you could take to loving the youth in your church:

Option 1: Follow the patterns of the churches before you and around you

This is the path of least resistance. It’s the approach I took when starting out in my first full-time ministry job. When I arrived, I simply went into automatic drive. I looked for ways to create the same structures that I had come through. I aimed to create the same programs from the days when I was a youth. For the large part, this worked well. In the youth group I grew up in, the leadership team was A1. They ran great big gatherings. The MCing for each night was filled with laughter and Jesus centred language, the prayer segments were thoughtful and the games had a good mix of fun and content. The leaders did a great job and this was a great strength.  And so when I began to lead a youth ministry, I invested in the leaders and they did everything. Sounds good, right?

Well, not exactly. This leadership centric model under valued the part that every member of the body can play at a youth gathering.  And so, these weaknesses were passed on. This same blind spot was inherited. It has required hard work to reshape the culture and get to the point where youth and leaders are regularly serving. My example has not led to the worst outcomes, but following the patterns before you, or around you, can be an incredibly dangerous approach if these patterns are unhealthy or unthoughtful.

Option 2: Resource your leader-poor children’s ministry

The arrival of the teenager may lead you to give a sigh of relief. Finally, you will be able to strengthen your children’s ministry team with fresh blood. It is excellent to include youth in your children’s ministry. It fosters rich relationships across age groups and it gives younger children people to look up to who are just a little ahead of them. It involves youth in service which is an essential aspect of maturing.

I once joined a church with the role of overseeing the youth ministry. The first time I went along there I met one of the boys who impressed me a lot. Where a lot of his friends might have been sleeping in, he was throwing in as a Kids Church leader. He was quite proud of his role and he appeared to take his job seriously. I am not sure how he came to be part of the team. It might have been how he knew the glories of Jesus and wanted to make him known or it might have been a convenient place for him to go so that he could avoid the sermon. I am not sure why he was there, but what I do know, is his leading in children’s ministry did not help him.  It hurt him. Not long after I met him, he walked away from Jesus Christ and I don’t think he has ever returned.

Leading a ministry when you are not ready to lead can stunt growth.

Many teenagers, like my friend in the story above, are still working out who Jesus Christ is and what it means to live for him. Throwing them into serving too early can hinder this process. It puts them in the position of teaching things they may not necessarily fully believe. This might reinforce the typical teenager-habit of wearing one mask on Sunday and an entirely different one every other day of the week.

What a teenager needs more than anything is solid, engaging bible teaching. If there is only one gathering at your church where they can be fed, then this needs to be the priority over serving.

Option 3: Begin a youth group

A typical approach when the teenagers arrive is to create a youth group. A youth group is a brilliant place to teach in age-appropriate ways and to deal with the unique questions teenagers are asking. A youth ministry which bleeds bible and evangelism can be the tool God uses to bring many more young people to know and love Jesus.

But this model is not enough. This model can feed the consumerist culture we all live in. Because youth ministry is set up to minister to youth, everything is catered towards youth. They come along for the ‘youth’ product and anything which is not ‘youth-packaged’ is ignored and overlooked.  Youth groups are great for evangelism but can lead to a disinterest in anything which is not youth-related.

I can’t tell you how many times I have seen this play out. Teenagers who come and listen to God’s Word on a Friday night, but then as soon as they sit down on a Sunday morning, their eyes turn from their bibles to  staring at the roof above. Sure, this could be due to the way a sermon is packaged, but it could also be  what ‘starting a youth group’ teaches them. Youth group is for youth, church is for adults. 

If you don’t believe this is a problem, think of this horrid word, ‘transitions’. Lots of time, anxious thoughts and planning is spent on helping a child and youth transition from one group to another. I can understand shepherding a person through different transitions of life, from teenager to adult, but it does seem strange to think of ‘transitioning’ from one church family to another. Which leads to the final option…

Option 4: Embrace them as part of the body of Christ

Dear Church Planter, you have a unique opportunity as youth grow up in your church. This is an opportunity that will only come once. You have done an excellent job of creating the DNA for your church… but what will be the DNA for the next generation? The decisions you make now will have an impact for many years to come. Change in later years will be much harder than at this beginning phase.

So, what will you do as youth grow up into your church?

A fourth and final option is to embrace them as part of the body Christ: that their church is the church. Their family is the family which everyone, young and old, is included in.

I admit, this is the most challenging of the options. It is difficult to prepare teaching that engages both youth and adults. It is hard for adults and youth to cross the cultural divide our world loves to emphasise and widen.

Both groups have told me how the other group would not want to speak to them and both groups have shared with me how they are ‘scared’ of the other. And it is hard to be patient, patient as children transition to youth and as youth transition to adults and as everyone ‘transitions’ to mature and godly members of God’s family who welcome each other like Christ has welcomed us.

But challenge is opportunity. Imagine how your teaching will grow in clarity and imagine how your church members will grow in looking out for the ‘other’. Can you imagine the beauty and the ever closer reflection of young and old gathering around Jesus and serving Jesus as we will in heaven?

So as youth grow and mature, embrace them as part of your church. Include them in every way you would include an adult congregation member. Include them as welcomers, prayers, readers, band members, slide operators and morning tea servers. Interview them and hear their stories of friends coming to know and love Jesus Christ.  Do all this, while remembering they are still growing up. They will need extra instruction on how to serve well as they are still learning. They may also need extra help to understand God’s word and so a discussion group post sermon could be a great help for them to keep growing in Jesus.

Dear Church Planter, the church is the pillar and foundation of God’s truth. As we gather, like a pillar, we uphold the beauty of what God has designed. So, let’s hold out to the world a place, unlike any other, where teenagers are embraced because they have been loved by Christ.