How Can We Make Youth Ministry More Missional?

Adam McLane, from The Youth Cartel, has written an excellent guest post for the Asbury Seminary Seedbed site on “Why Youth Ministries Are Not Working in America,” and the first item on his list is … “Amissiological approaches”:

“If you were to move to a new community as a church planter or if you relocated cross-culturally as a missionary your first year would be heavily engaged in research. You’d spend months doing ethnography, learning the nuances of language, understanding norms, mores, and discovering not just how people communicate but how the culture really operates.

“We don’t do any of that in American youth ministry. Our approach is amissiological. Most youth workers start a new job the same way pioneers tried to settle Massachusetts. We don’t just deny the importance of local culture and church ecology, we find our identity in ignoring it and pressing forward without ever asking the question, ‘Is this even Good News to the students in my ministry?'”

What are your thoughts on missional youth ministry? What does it look like? And/or what does it take to make the missional shift in youth ministry?