Teer Hardy on Youth Ministry Beyond the Bubble

At PYM16 Teer Hardy and Amanda Pine presented a seminar called “Youth Ministry Beyond the Bubble. Teer and Amanda both work at Great Bridge United Methodist Church in Chesapeake, VA. Connect with Teer at his blog.

I have to admit, I was a little hesitant to head to Dallas for PYM16.

A drag queen worship leader?!? Faith and science?!? Social Justice?!? Rob Bell?!?

Speaking of Rob Bell, it’s not everyday Rob Bell gets to be your opening act.  I mean usually it would be the opposite, but at PYM16 that’s just what happened.

Riding on Rob’s coattails, the seminar I co-led was part culmination of my studies at Wesley Theological Seminary and part self-experiment.  Like most faith communities, the youth ministries at the community I serve is silo’d into it’s own corner of the building.  Literally, three rooms all connected make up the “youth wing” and that’s where they stay.  My goal in this new ministry setting is to get this misunderstood and B.O. plagued contingent of our community out of it’s bubble.

This is not to be a critique of the leaders before me but rather a symptom of a larger problem many congregations are facing when it comes to ministering to teenagers: congregations don’t know what to do with teenagers.  The days of quick attractional fixes are not going to work. Students are not impressed with the prizes we offer when they have the latest iPhone in their hands and drive nicer cars than we do.

Youth Ministry Beyond the Bubble was designed not only to share with other faith communities and youth leaders but it was also a practical exercise for our own community to explore how we got to where we were and what steps were needed to move us out.

With me being a cradle Methodist, it should be no surprise that Amanda and I came up with a “quadrilateral” to get us out of our bubble: risk taking, practicality, intentionality, and community.  We found that each of these are equally important and aid in moving out of the bubble our ministry had been existing in.

Youth Ministry Beyond the Bubble is not a new way of approaching youth ministry.  I think it is safe to say we did not add any groundbreaking ideas to youth ministry arena.  What we did do, was find resources that worked for our context and organized them.  Our community has decided the status quo of “attractional” youth ministry is not going to be our focus.  And in doing so, we are now able to take risks that are intentionally geared towards growing our ministry presence throughout the community.  By looking practically at the community around us, we are moving to take our ministry outside of it’s bubble and outside corner of the church that has been allocated to the youth ministry.  We are taking our ministry outside the walls of the church.

So how are you taking your ministry beyond the corner of your church building allocated to the youth?  How are you taking risks, and being practical and intentional to engage your community?

I’d love to hear about it and learn from you.