My travels around the USA give me opportunity to talk to lots of youth pastors, and something is changing. What is changing is that the same-old isn’t working as well, and youth pastors know they are the threshold of news ways for new days. What is perhaps most exciting to me is a desire for a more theological and biblical approach as these youth pastors are turning away from programs that are neither adaptable nor theological enough.
One of the youth pastors creating a new paradigm is Chris Folmsbee, and his new book is an exceptional example of what is happening: Story, Signs, and Sacred Rhythms: A Narrative Approach to Youth Ministry.
What are the major themes shaping youth ministry theology today? What are you seeing? Are you seeing any narrative approaches to youth ministry? Any missional approaches?
Before I go any farther, an observation: an increasing number of youth pastors see that instead of saving kids from secular culture or instead of protecting Christian children from the world, there is a desire to prepare them to think critically and to engage holistically in the culture. In other words, to use the words of Gabe Lyons, many youth pastors are intent on preparing young adults to be restorers.
Chris begins his book by sketching youth pastor/youth ministry discontents, including a need for a fresh approach, no more “plug and play,” no more isolated deconstruction, a desire to help students learn through discovery, a recognition of unique context (instead of one size fits all), a yearning for a solid model that has flexibility, and a desire to have a wiki-approach — to find the gems in each set of proposals to fashion their own.
What you will find in Chris Folmsbee’s book is no program; nor is it a set of what-tos or how-tos. Instead this is a narrative approach to the Bible’s Story, a story that shapes both identity and practices. In other words, this book is a Story-ified approach to reading the Bible for youth pastors so they can adapt and adopt this approach in their local context.
The book moves through five layers: revelation in Story, foundation in theology, implication in identity and calling, integration into a way of life, and application into behaviors and expressions. I told Chris this once over lunch: if youth pastors are thinking like him, we are in great shape. Doing biblical theology through the lens of Story and letting that story shape our Identity so that our behaviors are transformed … just love it. The book is theologically alert and filled with graphics and ideas that will give every youth pastor plenty of suggestions … suggestions that can be adaptable to local contexts.
Yes, Chris and I, along with Syler Thomas, co-wrote The Jesus Creed for Students: Loving God, Loving Others.
Perhaps less youth specific ministry, or youth ministry better integrated with the community as a whole, should be considered. Ghettoizing the young may not be the most effective way to encourage discipleship.
I’m in complete agreement with the removal of silos in youth ministry, in all ministry. This is a cultural change that is timely and necessary. It is not a cultural change that will come without resistance. The major theme in my suburban context is a battle for the souls of children. Unfortunately, the battle is a two front fight. On one side you have the world with all its excitement and thrills. On the other side, you have a boomer led church that thinks if you decrease programs, if you remove the silos (ghetos), the church is giving up the fight to the world.
The boomer, and now buster, parents want more 80s/90s style ministry. They want their kids to be consumers of church because in their minds, you must consume the world or you must consume spiritual things. Really, it is only select things in culture that these parents want their children to be protected from. While they want many consumer-oriented youth ministries in church, at the same time, they are busy the rest of the week teaching their children how to be a successful part of the economic, materialistic world.
Scot, you’ve just given me another book to read. It sound great, but not easy to know how to use in the suburban church.
Deets,
I found Gabe Lyons book quite insightful. I think this book looks good, and I think that Scot’s book is outstanding. But the dichotomy you are putting up here is, in my opinion, a bunch of damaging malarkey.
I don’t want my son (15) or daughter (19) to be a consumer of church any more than I want to be a consumer myself. And I don’t want them to be protected (it certainly hasn’t been a cornerstone of our approach as a family on any level). I want them to be committed heart, soul, mind, and strength both to the mission of God in this world and to a local gathering of the body of Christ.
But I am one of those suburban “resisters” because the change I see happening from people who use the language you use in your comment is a move from church as a community, a local gathering of the body of Christ (“programs”), to church as a loose agglomeration of people who gather for a Sunday morning service.
Youth need a place to know and be known, to belong, to relax and to be discipled. (So do adults by the way.) That can happen in a number of forums and ways – but removal of age specific gatherings is not the right approach. In most instances these are not silos but community. There are not enough opportunities in most churches for adults to be appropriately discipled and engaged. Dump the youth into the same mix and we all lose.
What do you see as an appropriate approach? How am I wrong in the way I read this?
Just picked it up on Kindle. Thanks for the recommendation. Looking forward to reading it.
There are 2 questions that surfacing about youth ministry that I think a lot of people are trying to answer in better ways. (1) How do we structure teen ministry? and (2) What do we teach teens when they get there. The book you’re recommending seems to answer the second question in a valuable way – inviting students to enter into the narrative of scripture allows them to ask questions and look at the story of their own lives to see where the two collide and interact.
One of the challenges to this approach is the mentality that rapid growth within a youth group is the only measure of success. It’s difficult to invite unchurched teens to youth group when the model is not based around fun and entertainment. As our culture shifts more and more secular this will only become more difficult and many in the church (at least in my experience) find it hard to support a youth group if they don’t see it as bringing in all the “troubled teens” in the neighborhood and leading them in a sinner’s prayer on a regular basis. The question becomes, “Is it my job to reach all the kids in the neighborhood with a bit of the gospel, or focus on discipling the ones who are a part of this church?”
rjs,
I’m not sure you are reading me right at all. Scot’s book is great. I’m giving it to my church’s graduates this year. I really appreciate what Scot says about Folmsbee’s book. I’m a family pastor of a mid-sized suburban church, and I’m telling you that this is not a message that is being accepted by suburban parents. I think it will be over time as I see more openness in the parents with younger children. But at this point, our parents, or more so, our church leaders want more programs. They like mentoring within programs, but they are skeptical of mentoring outside of program.
My church isn’t alone in this. I can’t tell you how often I talk with other pastors dealing with the same issue. Chap Clark talks about this problem in Hurt.
Pastor are reading and studying the need, but it is a slow sale for church members. You can be a suburban resister if you want–some days I’d like to be one–but I’m in the suburbs and this is reality. I see it as the next battle after the worship wars. One worth fighting because the youth need more than just convenient programing that keeps them busy in the church.
deets,
Maybe I am reading you wrong – and I don’t understand what you are getting at.
Maybe Joe is right and there are two questions involved.
So tell me – what do you see as the problem and the solution?
If I might interject, rjs, I wouldn’t describe your position as wrong. I don’t think the answer need be framed as “either/or”.
What I have noticed in our church community is that a significant number of the young people who participate in youth programs don’t advance into the adult culture of programs and service upon graduation. Many in fact leave or distance themslves from church altogether. I am told by friends within other RC communities of the GTA (greater Toronto area) that this experience is common to their parish also. While these perspectives are purely anecdotal and not neccessarily reflective of the truth, there does seem to be a growing concern that we need to minister to the young more effectively than we presently are.
I want young people to have a safe secure youth oriented envioronment from which to deveope in discipleship. What I worry about though is that we are simply providing them with a somewhat tepid and self absorbed faith expression that seems to serve them only between the ages of 12-24.
rjs,
I think Joe is asking the right question. The problem with the solution is one of perception. With respect to Joe’s first Q, most churches I know still measure quality of ministry by number of programs in the bulletin. Typically a program in youth ministry is 1) run by a professional staff member; 2) has fun/social activities that draw interest; and 3) has a teaching segment that focuses on right behavior. Or as Folmsbee calls it, “plug and play.” This is were I am struggling to implement change.
Deets,
Do you mean you struggle to implement change in the teaching segment or you struggle to implement change by abolishing “programs.”
I think we rely too much on professional staff and not enough on community involvement of volunteers within a church. I also think a church can rely too much on flashy programs.
But relationships and interaction, including fun, is an important part of church as a gathering of the body of Christ. Not the biggest party on the block, the flashiest program, but time to hang out and shoot baskets or play pool. For youth (and for adults in different ways). Not because it draws interest, but because we are meant to live and thrive in community. Kids need community time and they need community time together.
I looked though what I could of Chris’s book on amazon (which is limited) – and I like his approach from what I can tell – but what of his approach would you find resistance to?
By the way – I pursue this because I am part of a church that is proposing radical changes to youth ministry and it affects my 15 year-old in rather profound ways.
I think Deets is saying that many churches and parents want program and that that often comes at the expense of community, and that is community writ large, ie the Church, the body of Christ. I see it. We’ve had families leave our church because they wanted programs for the kids and they were missing the benefits of having multiple generations in the church involved in their kids live.
I think a temptation is to want to protect kids from the world with programs run by specialists rather than to prepare them to live as Christians in the world.
Thanks Rick
Protection from the world is a serious problem – not just with youth ministry, but with much college and parachurch college ministry.
I didn’t grow up in a church with a youth pastor. The church we attend now had one about half the time we’ve been here but doesn’t now. Frankly I don’t care if we do or not. I’d rather see adults in the congregation working with the kids – and most of the involvement has always come from parents and other adults – even when there was a “professional” in charge.
Revisiting the “curriculum,” the approach to teaching, is always appropriate.
Rjs,
I’m not sure were I’m not communicating here.
I say both teaching methods/style and structure are held tightly by much of our church. It seems to me that they are a package in the end. It seems it’s SonLife model Has rule the roost for quite a while.
“The book moves through five layers: revelation in Story, foundation in theology, implication in identity and calling, integration into a way of life, and application into behaviors and expressions.” This sounds awsome. really awsome.
i became a Christian at 19, after leaving home and entering the work force. i am now 36. i was never really a part of any formal church group. fortunately all my church experience has involved social interaction with people from various age groups and various stages in life (both Christian and non-Christian).
i have never truly understood youth groups. i never understood there purpose or why they exist at all. i have always wished deep down that youth groups would dissappear from Church altogether, but i know that would never happen.
i have often struggled with how to address this issue. i visited a youth group from a large church once when i was about 22. i never saw people so naive and isolated. it scared me. (i wish i could say this was an isolated incedent. it turned out not to be the case at all)
as a church leader, i have stuggled for many years about how to engage this problem. (the church i attended for many years had a sunday school group of about 200 kids, manay approaching there teen years). Chris Folmsbee seems to have captured that which i have been attempting to formulate.
i truly hope these ideas take form in many churches and are bery successful.
i also hope that churches will recognize how bizarre youth groups look in the eyes of the un-churched.
also, in bible school i read a couple of books on youth ministry that grossly lacked any theology of ‘Church’ and how youth fit into it. the books were all Americana and anecdotes that were cheezy.
deets,
I had never heard of the SonLife model, so I went and looked it up to see what it was. I still don’t quite get it. But my reaction is really against the position advocated by Dennis J. … abolishing middle school or high school Sunday school (or youth group) in favor of a strictly age integrated approach.
This works for some groups, in some situations. But I don’t think it is an ideal situation, especially in larger churches.
rjs,
you are right in noting that i favour integration, but i was thinking of post-highschool for that. when i said i wished youth groups would dissappear it is with the realization that it is not a proper way of addressing the situation. it is just a powerful feeling i sometimes have a hard time shaking out of. i just wish sometimes that church kids in highschool would just integrate with their peers in school. just a crazy thought that i know is very problematic.
Since the church I attend just announced the intent to abolish high school Sunday school effective next year – electing instead to have the kids do things like direct traffic in the parking lot, … I’m particularly sensitive to this – and not entirely rational about it. There needs to be room for kids to interact with Christian peers and to be, oh say, taught the kind of things in Chris’s book.
rjs,
I certainly believe that there need to be places for the high school and all students to meet with their peers, but I don’t think that their only contact with the church should be in peer setting. Moreover, youth must be socialized into a church so that they understand service.
Where would you teach the youth to serve the body of Christ? Where would you mix the youth with other generations of the church? If we have an intense youth training class on Sunday evening, why is it wrong to use the time that the body comes together on Sunday morning to pair them up with mature believers in service?
If we don’t use that time, I’m afraid it isn’t going to happen. I’m quite open to discussion as long as the issues of generations and service are plainly addressed by the church. I’m not convinced that the church body understands that those two experiences are as valuable to the discipleship of youth as sitting them down for another Bible study.
Note that I’m only proposing this as Bible study is a part of your church plan elsewhere in the calendar.
I think the story of the last 2 graduating classes from the youth group I pastor will help in this discussion.
The 4 students who graduated last year were celebrated as teens who lived their own faith. Many in our church believe they will shine in whatever they do, and if nothing else will hold strong to their faith.
The 4 students who have graduated this year leave for their future endeavors in a cloud of questions and concern. Questions about their careers as well as their faith linger.
These students all come from different backgrounds and levels of success, and all have enjoyed the events we have planned and have grown because of our teaching. The most identifiable difference between the classes is that from the time they were in middle school, each of the 4 from last year’s class had 10 -15 adults from the church who reached into their lives and shared life with them. It wasn’t formal or planned, they just felt compelled to be in these kids’ lives. No one did that for the 4 students from this year’s class.
My question is “How do we continue to have a space/time where teens are able to be themselves as teens and engage in community with their peers, while also leading the congregation to care enough to engage in whatever ways they can in the lives of the teens of the church?”
deets,
Ah – you are looking at this same model. And I am absolutely one of your reactionaries.
I wrote a long comment – and decided not to post it because I need to think on it first. But I think that this “socialized into service” idea as part of “youth ministry” (especially high school and lower) on Sunday mornings is as misguided as the SonLife model. I don’t say this as a lukewarm Christian teaching my children the rest of the week to be part of the economic, materialist world.
rjs,
wow, this really is a hot topic for you.
peer interaction is important, i admit. i often question the supposed fragility of youth and their faith, but not enough to dismiss it’s existence. the real question is how to provide space for youth that does not incline toward the typical american passive consumer mentality, coupled with church angst. we need to somehow convey how to be engaged and OK with our surrounding culture, while actively fighting its negative side: radical individualism, secularism, etc.
recent history reveals that youth “programs” are consistently about protecting kids from bad influences “out there”. youth groups in america have grown almost exclusively out of a mentality of fear, not engagement with actual life issues. this whole mentality has to be addressed. otherwise, church youth endeavers are all doomed to failure.
Dennis,
This is only partly about youth ministry itself – it goes way beyond that. And I agree with you that we need to have youth ministry that is proactive for growth, not motivated by a mentality of fear.
Joe, I love you story and you phrase the exact question that I’ve been frying to address. The only answer that I have is that we must turn to a model of counting purposeful relational connections and decline for the model that counts program/program attendance. If you know how to make that happen, please help me.
Rjs, it’s not about Sunday school or no Sunday school. That’s a programatic question that does not on it’s own help us to know whether the youth will stay connected to the Church, or more importantly, to God beyond the years of parental influence.
Of course it isn’t about Sunday school or not – it is about a number of things including strong Christian families, examples,and mentors, and having a church to be socialized into.
A model that counts purposeful connections is absolutely necessary. Success isn’t determined by the number of bodies in the program but by the depth of the connections made.
rjs – #26 — re: purposeful connections, depth of connections
Aside from time, place and opportunity (programs? scheduled free time/hangouts?), what are the factors that create an environment where deep, purposeful connections will form?
In our experiences, it has to be more than a social gathering (cliquish dynamics seem to result), and neither can the emphasis be on isolating from the world (won’t associate with “sinners” for fear of getting dirty)… Kids have to learn these things from the adults, I guess, and certainly parents and home have a big responsibility in promoting the importance of community and fellowship in church.
To me, participation in the broader church life (worship, service, teaching/SS, and some opportunity for age-integrated fellowship, in addition to peer group) seems a healthy way to “socialize” kids to become active participants in the church, versus consumers of the product they like (programs).
This is exactly one of those issues that I meant when I agreed that you were onto something with the suggestion of maintaining a healthy detachment from the polity of the church while remaining open to generously investing in the people…but that this is hard. Really hard.
Susan,
My comment, as a 50 something adult, about learning to maintain a healthy detachment from church, to love the people but care about nothing in the church, take ownership of nothing, become invested in nothing, expect nothing, arose from the same context as the discussion here.
rjs – #28…okay, but how? The message at church (from the church) dealing with loving/investing in people but detaching from programs, polity, etc., has come across to me at times as mixed signals. In loving people (in the church as well as outside of it), the need and expectation to buy into and serve the programs created toward that end are implicit. Being an introvert (and being the parent of an introverted child) certainly adds to my difficulty in seeing this clearly, I’m sure. Church youth culture has been a sticking point in our past, so I am genuinely interested to know yours and others’ ideas and experiences here. We’re at peace with the matter now, though I continue to ponder what went right, and what went wrong in our past experiences, for future reference (how can we be part of the solution and not part of the problem, going forward).
I’m not sure I understand this concept of detaching from church but with an expectation that programs (i.e., Sunday school) will be offered. Can you explain that?
I’m interested in a lot of stuff that is being written these days that talks about de-structuring but that seems more consistent when it is coupled with de-programing church.
On the other hand, I welcome programs as an entry point to relationships, but I don’t think that can work without a clear strategy for also clearing the calendar so those relationships can grow beyond the program.
deets,
If my son came to me and said “Mom, I’d really like to be involved in “X” (worship or teaching little kids or…) instead of the HS class” I wouldn’t send him to the HS class.
My college age daughter taught an elementary girls Sunday school class last year. I certainly wouldn’t tell her to instead find a church with a college age class. (She attends a college far away from home.)
What I object to is the program approach – because so much of the service is “make work” with no real value. It, in our case, removes something of value and replaces it with something of little value. I don’t think my son and his friends will connect better to the church by directing traffic in our parking lot – there is not enough traffic for this to be necessary or even actually very useful. (This is the service activity that was offered to him.)
Great to see Chris Folmsbee get well deserved attention and acknowledgement for his pivotal role in steering youth ministry towards the embrace of the narrative realities of God’s Mission. Not only was he central to the development of my book, which also promotes narrative theology/ministry, his work is a central resource to youth workers of the future.