"Just Not in Charge..." (2004)
From 2002-2004 there was a lot of conversation about "the death of youth ministry". I think the term can originally be attributed to Holly Rankin Zaher, around the same time, but there were several of us who'd been asking questions about the future of youth ministry and how it needed to change.
I gathered a group of people at the convention that I respect. DeVries wasn't at the convention, but he lives in Nashville and happened to be in town and showed up as a favor to me (I think I still owe him!) and a wonderful conversation occurred. I wrote this article shortly after the conversation.
Re-reading this post I'm reminded of a few things: 1.) I asked my friend and former assistant youth pastor (and later YS staff member) Alex Roller what he thought of the article (he was in his early to mid 20's at the time) and he told me he threw the magazine across the room when he was reading it. :-) I love that kind of honest feed back.
Eventually something similar to this found it's way into a chapter of my first book (Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors).
It's also interesting to me that Chap Clark's influence is very evident on some of my material here. the U of Chicago stat is straight from him and his thinking.
So here's the article from 2004. Enjoy.
================================================================
"Just Not in Charge..."
by Mark Riddle
Youth Worker Journal July/August 2004
This May at the Emergent Convention in Nashville I led a conversation discussing the current state of youth ministry and its future. I invited Mark DeVries, Holly Rankin Zaher, Jonny Baker, and Tony Jones to give their thoughts. Almost 50 people sat in on the 10 p.m. conversation and contributed their thoughts and ideas. What follows are the main themes discussed in that setting: Twenty-three-year-olds shouldn’t lead youth ministries. Can God use a 23-year-old to minister to students? Yes, and God does. Should this person be in charge? No.
Let me confess that I started getting paid for youth ministry when I was 19. It’s always been a point of pride with me. My first job was within a highly dysfunctional mainline church. 90% of the people attending were born or married into membership, and there were lots of big fish in this little pond. People were gripping for power like Sergio Garcia gripping his driver on the 18th hole at Augusta. There was enough calculation for control and paranoia regarding agendas that John Ford Nash, Jr.’s beautiful mind would’ve fit right in. I worked for a great pastor named Paul. I stayed close to Paul, and he protected me. We spoke every week about every conversation I was having with students. When Diane’s mom called Paul to complain about the fact that I wouldn’t put a Garth Brooks poster on the youth room wall, Paul knew it was coming and he handled it. He had my back. I was young and not yet a man. There’s one unrelenting fact about my first two years of ministry. I wouldn’t have survived had it not been for my pastor Paul. I can’t tell you that I’d even be in ministry today if not for the constant and consistent encouragement, processing, and strength of Paul.
Youth ministry is changing, and I’m not talking about small changes. Examples of small changes are changing the night of the week you meet on; moving from large-group Bible study to small groups; and moving from lecture-style teaching to helping kids create experiences. These are all fine changes I’ve made through the years (and they felt huge at the time), but the changes coming in youth ministry make them all appear truly tiny in comparison.
Almost every week I hear of another youth pastor declaring the need to kill life-stage ministries in our churches. (I don’t have time or space to dive into this, but our systematic separation of teens from the rest of the church is creating enormous problems involving perspective and warped theology in our teens as they grow.) This change is coming. It’s a fact, and its implications for ministry with teens and families are legion. Negotiating the currents of this change is immensely challenging and not for the light-hearted.
Let me just say it: the 23-year-old has the heart to change his or her church (with God’s help), but seldom the skill—which often results in burnout or departure from that particular local church, only to experience the same pathology and frustration at the church down the street. Many youth pastors simply leave ministry all together. The road to modern-day youth ministry has been paved with the lives and souls of young youth pastors who fell on their journey and were trampled under the feet of the church and its lust for forward momentum.
It’s encouraging to see so many youth workers at the large conventions; but what about the thousands of unknown youth workers who were out-maneuvered by parents, church boards, and senior pastors, resulting in their hearts being emotionally and spiritually burned by the system? No one speaks for them; in fact, we don’t remember them. We are silent.
The University of Chicago declared that modern-day adulthood begins at 26, and I have yet to meet anyone over 30 years old who disagrees with that declaration. Yet we expect the 23-year-old late adolescent to lead a congregation in one of the church’s most emotionally charged areas. What chance does a young youth pastor have when he or she is working with a 55-year-old, passive-aggressive Vice President of Marketing at WalCo who has 30 years of experience and training in playing politics? We need more 23-year old people in ministry, just not in charge.
I realize this may not be a popular notion, but let me ask you a question: Does it show we value 23-year-old humans when we put them in leadership of youth ministries, or are we in an indirect way harming their souls and their future ministries?
Let us nurture, value, and protect our younger sisters and brothers in ministry as we give them an appropriate level of responsibility and attribute to them an appropriate understanding of life with God. Let them be well-guided interns or volunteers until they’re adults and found ready within the community. Let us all continue to thank God for these young people and for their faithfulness to the callings they’ve received. We mustn’t mislead them or take them for granted—for their voices and lives are desperately needed within the church. Let them lead-—in their season.
I gathered a group of people at the convention that I respect. DeVries wasn't at the convention, but he lives in Nashville and happened to be in town and showed up as a favor to me (I think I still owe him!) and a wonderful conversation occurred. I wrote this article shortly after the conversation.
Re-reading this post I'm reminded of a few things: 1.) I asked my friend and former assistant youth pastor (and later YS staff member) Alex Roller what he thought of the article (he was in his early to mid 20's at the time) and he told me he threw the magazine across the room when he was reading it. :-) I love that kind of honest feed back.
Eventually something similar to this found it's way into a chapter of my first book (Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors).
It's also interesting to me that Chap Clark's influence is very evident on some of my material here. the U of Chicago stat is straight from him and his thinking.
So here's the article from 2004. Enjoy.
================================================================
"Just Not in Charge..."
by Mark Riddle
Youth Worker Journal July/August 2004
This May at the Emergent Convention in Nashville I led a conversation discussing the current state of youth ministry and its future. I invited Mark DeVries, Holly Rankin Zaher, Jonny Baker, and Tony Jones to give their thoughts. Almost 50 people sat in on the 10 p.m. conversation and contributed their thoughts and ideas. What follows are the main themes discussed in that setting: Twenty-three-year-olds shouldn’t lead youth ministries. Can God use a 23-year-old to minister to students? Yes, and God does. Should this person be in charge? No.
Let me confess that I started getting paid for youth ministry when I was 19. It’s always been a point of pride with me. My first job was within a highly dysfunctional mainline church. 90% of the people attending were born or married into membership, and there were lots of big fish in this little pond. People were gripping for power like Sergio Garcia gripping his driver on the 18th hole at Augusta. There was enough calculation for control and paranoia regarding agendas that John Ford Nash, Jr.’s beautiful mind would’ve fit right in. I worked for a great pastor named Paul. I stayed close to Paul, and he protected me. We spoke every week about every conversation I was having with students. When Diane’s mom called Paul to complain about the fact that I wouldn’t put a Garth Brooks poster on the youth room wall, Paul knew it was coming and he handled it. He had my back. I was young and not yet a man. There’s one unrelenting fact about my first two years of ministry. I wouldn’t have survived had it not been for my pastor Paul. I can’t tell you that I’d even be in ministry today if not for the constant and consistent encouragement, processing, and strength of Paul.
Youth ministry is changing, and I’m not talking about small changes. Examples of small changes are changing the night of the week you meet on; moving from large-group Bible study to small groups; and moving from lecture-style teaching to helping kids create experiences. These are all fine changes I’ve made through the years (and they felt huge at the time), but the changes coming in youth ministry make them all appear truly tiny in comparison.
Almost every week I hear of another youth pastor declaring the need to kill life-stage ministries in our churches. (I don’t have time or space to dive into this, but our systematic separation of teens from the rest of the church is creating enormous problems involving perspective and warped theology in our teens as they grow.) This change is coming. It’s a fact, and its implications for ministry with teens and families are legion. Negotiating the currents of this change is immensely challenging and not for the light-hearted.
Let me just say it: the 23-year-old has the heart to change his or her church (with God’s help), but seldom the skill—which often results in burnout or departure from that particular local church, only to experience the same pathology and frustration at the church down the street. Many youth pastors simply leave ministry all together. The road to modern-day youth ministry has been paved with the lives and souls of young youth pastors who fell on their journey and were trampled under the feet of the church and its lust for forward momentum.
It’s encouraging to see so many youth workers at the large conventions; but what about the thousands of unknown youth workers who were out-maneuvered by parents, church boards, and senior pastors, resulting in their hearts being emotionally and spiritually burned by the system? No one speaks for them; in fact, we don’t remember them. We are silent.
The University of Chicago declared that modern-day adulthood begins at 26, and I have yet to meet anyone over 30 years old who disagrees with that declaration. Yet we expect the 23-year-old late adolescent to lead a congregation in one of the church’s most emotionally charged areas. What chance does a young youth pastor have when he or she is working with a 55-year-old, passive-aggressive Vice President of Marketing at WalCo who has 30 years of experience and training in playing politics? We need more 23-year old people in ministry, just not in charge.
I realize this may not be a popular notion, but let me ask you a question: Does it show we value 23-year-old humans when we put them in leadership of youth ministries, or are we in an indirect way harming their souls and their future ministries?
Let us nurture, value, and protect our younger sisters and brothers in ministry as we give them an appropriate level of responsibility and attribute to them an appropriate understanding of life with God. Let them be well-guided interns or volunteers until they’re adults and found ready within the community. Let us all continue to thank God for these young people and for their faithfulness to the callings they’ve received. We mustn’t mislead them or take them for granted—for their voices and lives are desperately needed within the church. Let them lead-—in their season.
Labels: decade
posted by mark at
4:16 AM
2 Comments:
Having been given charge of a youth group at the age of 23 and literally told, "Make something happen," I understand the overwhelming amount of pressure involved. I was one of those young people who were trampled by unrealistic mandates of the ministry marketing machine. When I failed to produce results, I was told that I just wasn't "really called to minister." Luckily, there is healing and restoration in the Jesus who started this grand experiment we call church.
Having been given charge of a youth group at the age of 23 and literally told, "Make something happen," I understand the overwhelming amount of pressure involved. I was one of those young people who were trampled by unrealistic mandates of the ministry marketing machine. When I failed to produce results, I was told that I just wasn't "really called to minister." Luckily, there is healing and restoration in the Jesus who started this grand experiment we call church.
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