The Single Objective of Youth Ministry

My friend Paul Martin did a series of blog posts just before (and after) Christmas that I’d like to point to.  He invited me to write one, which I’ll share below.  You can see my original post here which include Paul’s thoughts on what I wrote.  But you can also check out Mark Oestreicher‘s post, Benjamin Kerns and Jeremy Zach’s post here and Joel Mayward and Adam McLane’s posts here.

What follows is my response to his question, What is the Single Objective of Youth Ministry.  Tell me what you think? Am I off base?

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Today I’ll discuss my objectives for my kids as a father who happens to have a couple of decades of youth ministry experience.

I’m a parent of 3 kids who as I write this are 14, 10, and 6. It’s a bit surreal for me that in six short months I will be the parent of a high school boy, a middle school boy and an elementary aged girl.

I want my kids to be disciples of Christ which I’ll describe as a citizen of the kingdom of God. I like the sound of that.  When I say, citizen of the kingdom of God, I mean something very specific these days and  I’m indebted to Peter Block’s incredible book “Community” in which he describes a the nature of citizenship. Below are some things adapted from Block but have been central to they way I raise my kids, and to the way I think youth ministry in the future must function. Each of these contain such richness, that they could each be unpacked in a book, (which they will be), but for now, I’ll share a summary of each.

As followers of God in the way of Jesus and citizen of his kingdom:

1.  I hope my kids will hold themselves accountable for the well-being of the larger collective of which we are a part. This could be their neighborhood, their church, their family or their circle of friends.  I hope I’m raising my kids to see themselves as the people who steps into the spaces of need without losing track of where they end and others begin. Accountability is always chosen and my hope is that their lives will have this as their overall trajectory.

2. I hope my kids will choose to own and exercise power rather than defer or delegate it to others.  Entitlement and consumerism is the abdication of power to others.  To choose to own and exercise power is not to rule over others, but to accept maximum responsibility for things which they should be responsible. Most institutions today, including the family and the church train kids unintentionally to defer power and blame others for their circumstances. It is simply to say that I have power and responsibility in my community that no pastor, politician, or parent can accept on my behalf.

3. I hope my kids learn to consistently enter into a collective possibility that gives hospitable and restorative community its own sense of being. Kids don’t need to be told where they screw up or where they are messed up, but in an environment of possibility they will discover their gifts, exercise power, they can see what God is doing and thus create space for restoration. Restoration is always about hope and possibility. Restoration is the work of God in the church. I hope that my kids will enter into the collaborative creation of community that gives hospitality space and thus creates room for redemption and the work of God.

4. I hope my kids will acknowledge that community grows out of the possibility of citizens of the kingdom of God. Community is built not by specialized expertise, or great leadership (pastoral or otherwise), or improved services; it is built by faithful disciples.  Put more personally, solutions to the problems my kids face are best answered by my kids and their community.  The quick fix or the need for an expert or leader to bring change or health or restoration will never create community and only further cultivates entitlement.  Community comes from faithful disciples who see themselves as citizens of the kingdom.

5. I hope my kids learn to attend to the gifts and capacities of all others, and act to bring the gifts of those on the margin into the center.  As my kids encounter people who are marginalized by society, the church, or simply their high school friends, I hope they will work to help these kids see they profound ways they have been gifted and fit into the Body of Christ. Or more profoundly, as they themselves are marginalized by society, the church or their their high school communities they will work to bring their gifts to the center.

This has significant implications for every aspect of youth ministry and church life, but we’ll save that for another day.”