Comments on: 7 sins of re-inventing your youth ministry

By: GMAN5284

GMAN5284 — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 16:21:01 +0000

I would add:
1) Watering down the message in an attempt to make it more palatable
2) Underestimating the intellectual abilities of the young people – schools have done this and look at the result – substandard education – we can’t allow sub-standard discipleship – the kids are capable of understanding more than most folks tend to give them credit for.

By: CJ

CJ — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 23:30:43 +0000

You missed some of my biggies:

– Assuming everything is broken

– Assuming the need to do massive, ground up restructuring for every new wave of ideas that tears thru youth ministry blogs

– Assuming that the closer you are to being a teen yourself the better your ministry to them will be (a pet peeve)

– Assuming that church as a whole is not relevant to them

– Assuming that separating them from the church adults and activities is better (or worse, for that matter)

– Assuming that parents are either the enemy or a bystander

– Assuming that teens don’t care about things like communion or other traditions

– Assuming they come to your group or outreach because of you or your program

I’ve seen unsaved, raw, inner city wild teens rove the church looking for where the communion supplies went, because they had missed communion and felt it was so important to them that they didn’t want to miss out.

Should they have taken communion? Of course not. But it does show me that sometimes things we think they don’t care about really are on their radar.

By: Chucky

Chucky — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:51:40 +0000

thanks for clarifying #4. i would have left a comment asking you to explain that a bit more but now i’m commenting on the clarification. This kinda hits home right now because i between two youth ministries right now and am planning to leave one to go full time to the other but not completely sure how to go about that. I was asking other people’s opinion but your clarification helped me realize that it wasn’t so much what other people think but what God wants in our lives.

This concept not only belongs in Youth ministry but in all parts of life.

Thanks again

By: MB

MB — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 12:40:53 +0000

While glad for your clarification on #4, I actually think it could potentially be the ‘sin’ with the most long-term detrimental effect. There are many things in ministry and life where a purely democratic process is detrimental. Let’s face it, even in our government we use representation…

Great post.

By: riddle

riddle — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:13:33 +0000

your right marko, i misread this thing.

By: scott b

scott b — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:22:01 +0000

good luck on speaking tomorrow (err… later today). i’m working on ym 3.0 after getting it yesterday. i hope to finish it soon. good stuff.

By: James Carmichael

James Carmichael — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 06:16:56 +0000

I love that everyone begins with “assuming”… lesson is: youth leaders need to do the hard work if they want the real growth

By: ED...

ED... — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:55:09 +0000

I take your point about democracy. It’s a short step to ochlocracy.

By: marko

marko — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:40:51 +0000

mark, did you read my “unpacking” of #4 at the bottom of the post? i am NOT advocating for a heirarchical, go off by yourself and find a vision then shove it down everyone’s throats! i’m advocating for communal discernment, which – i contend – is different than democracy.

on #5: hmmm. i’m not sure where you’re reading “top down” into this. it’s certainly not my perspective, at all. i’m only suggesting that a youth worker excited about change should be aware that not everyone will share that excitement (another reason the process of change needs to be rooted in communal discernment).

By: riddle

riddle — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:33:33 +0000

I’ll post this on your facebook site too, but here are my thoughts:

I’m not a fan of #4 or #5 frankly. Both assumes a certain brand of leadership that I’m less and less a fan of.
If by #4 he means that change must be top down then he assumes that either, that there people aren’t interested in rethinking youth ministry in the church, or that youth pastors are incapable of leading a community with this kind of engagement (discernment is a good word). Certainly change is not easy, and there are forces at work systematically to keep things the way they are, but saying the top down is THE answer is a flawed assumption. What’s more, most churches who aren’t change friendly don’t respond well to top down leadership.

#5 – is similar to #4. This is the language of top down. It assumes the leader is right (on board) and that the world will be right and good and best when everyone aligns themselves with the leaders ideas. It’s the antithesis of #3. Getting people on board with your ideas for them isn’t how change is actually done in most churches. (There are a few exceptions. Just go to a catalyst conference.) But most leaders don’t live in a climate that allows for this kind of thinking, nor should they.

Ironically, both #4 and #5 point back to old school youth ministry where the youth pastor is the hub of the youth ministry. They essentially say, “We need to change things and the youth pastor can’t be THE one to do it all. Now let’s ask the Youth Pastor what he/she wants us to do differently.”

Youth pastors fall into this trap often. It’s the idea that we just need a bigger hammer to change things.