Youth Group Reconsidered
I’m pro youth. Some of my own kids are youth. I’m not sure, but I think I used to be a youth myself a long, long time ago. In fact, I think most people have to move through youthness before they arrive—if they ever do—at some semblance of adulthood. So it’s probably safe to say that youth is a fact of life.
There are many things I like about youth: the exuberant hope, the marvelously irrational conviction that they will never die, the Zen-like embrace of the present, the envious ability to ignore implications, the boundless energy, the exquisite belief in a world that bows at your feet, and the persuasion that this is the best of all possible times. Youth is a heady cacophony of heroes, hormones, and hedonism—an all-too-brief Golden age that is to be celebrated; and if the Bible is any authority on the subject, youth is also something to be shaped by those who know better.
This post concerns that most precocious of church institutions, the Youth Group. There are many good things about Youth Group, including fellowship, some passable Biblical teaching every so often to keep the charter, and a boatload of relatively harmless, completely meaningless activity that adults need more of. (I’ll take burping contests over political games anytime.) Generally speaking, Youth Group offers kids from Christian homes a place to have some fun away from the bald-faced spirit of antichrist that pervades our culture, something for which their parents are grateful.
Of course there are some very real issues too. Many parents are concerned about what they see as a troubling encroachment into Youth Group by a worldly spirit. Values and practices formerly associated with the “world” have become integral to the fabric of Youth Group identity. Rather than nurturing a sense of holiness, of being set apart from the world for Divine purposes, Youth Group often revels in the attitudes and idols of an irreverent and blasphemous culture. The mandates of Scripture have been reinterpreted by a grace now defined by license rather than Christlikeness. And it often seems that it is the youth themselves who run the Group rather than those who have been given charge for their spiritual welfare. What is more, for many parents Youth Group functions as a surrogate for their own deliberate involvement in their kids’ spiritual lives.
The result, with notable exceptions, is that the graduates of our Youth Groups, like so many of their parents, are spiritually sincere but also deeply conflicted. They have hearts toward God, but have been given little definitive direction. They have been repeatedly fed the smallest teaspoons of spiritual milk laced with lots of cultural candy, the effects of which are deep cavities in their Biblical, moral, and missional understanding.
Perhaps my biggest concern about the way we do Youth Group is that it can foster a fracture in the practice of family. Most Youth Group activities are designed to be away from Mom and Dad. I realize that kids need to have space to be kids, and I’m not talking about those special activities where parents might function as hosts or chaperons. I’m referring to the overarching Youth Group paradigm that assigns (though not explicitly) the central organizational responsibility for the youths’ spiritual development to outside the home. Youth Group often seems to compete with parents for their children’s attention, interaction, and filial allegiance. And when Youth Group has all the bells and whistles, the concerned parent can come across as an obstacle to fulfillment rather than a loving guide to lasting spiritual fruit.
If we must have our “youth pastors” (a trend that begs the question as to youth as an incompatible and separate spiritual “species”), I would love to see them spend more of their time figuring out ways to facilitate parent/youth interaction. I would love to see them direct the youth toward their parents by fostering at home gatherings, helping equip parents to input more effectively the lives of their children, and nurturing in the youth a desire to grow in the Lord with their parents rather than a desire to escape them.
Mostly, I wish to erase the culturally driven, Youth Group sanctioned divide between parent and child, a divide the Scriptures neither condone nor recognize. I would love to see parents and youth able to stand on the same ground in their relationship with God. This will require a major reassessment by parents of their real role in their kids’ spiritual lives. It will require churches to turn away from fostering our youth as a separate spiritual culture. It will require that parents lovingly impart to their own children the God-gifted distinctives of each family unit.
I firmly believe that God has given me my particular kids because he has entrusted to me something he wants me to entrust to them. If not, they would have been born to somebody else. Even I—though one of the most opinionated people on the planet—would never presume to tell other Christian parents how to raise their kids. I appreciate the efforts of churches to provide for our youth, but they cannot give to them what only God has given me to impart. I do not offer my children to the template of another’s values and practices, even if they are far more entertaining. If we can grasp this, and respond fully to it, then Youth Group will become what it should be, an adjunct to the home fires. Until then, I guess, it’s up to parents to rise to the call.
Go against the flow, my friends.
January 29, 2008 at 6:13 pm
A very interesting post. This really got me thinking and oddly enough taking somewhat of a defensive position. If you were talking about public education rather than youth groups, I think I’d be more apt to agree with you. However, in my own experience, I haven’t seen such a “Youth Group sanctioned divide.” I think Sunday morning Youth Services (as an alternative to regular church) can have this effect more so than a Weekly youth group meeting.
A lot can be said about youth groups, but I don’t think there is anything wrong – or unscriptural – with the concept of them, whether they are Bible study focused or merely social. Youth Groups don’t usually exist in a vacuum, they are merely subsets; if there are issues with the larger body, they certainly will show up in smaller groups as well. The lack of direction you mention in youth group alumni – which I don’t doubt exists – can’t really be solved with a 2-hour meeting once a week. Here, I fault a world of Christian adults who have never been themselves educated in the faith (a systemic problem), and have nothing to offer their own children except the hope of some existential experience.
Youth groups, like vitamins, are meant to be supplements, not replace a regular diet. However, our culture being what it is, many children in today’s youth groups have parents who have gladly given up their parental rights and responsibilities. And, some of these kids have parents who are not believers at all. As a result, the youth group takes on a different burden than it was possibly meant to carry. I don’t think youth groups are to blame for the divide – if anything, they have stepped in to fill a gap which already existed.
There is always the issue of “rogue” youth pastors/leaders, but again, they can only cause problems if parents and church leadership are absent. So, perhaps what can look like an “overarching Youth Group paradigm” is really a consequence rather than the cause?
So, just a few thoughts, which are only from my own experience, which I admit is pretty limited when it comes to Youth Groups.
January 31, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Just a few observations.
In Proverbs it show the younger man finding his way to maturity in his walk with God by listening to the words being given by the “older” more mature person who is doing the writing. Snares, death, seduction, being slaughtered like a bull, that sort of thing. Seems though that most all our youth are guided, taught, and mentored by individuals who are barely six years older than the youth themselves. Some aren’t even married yet nor have they had or even raised children of their own. Then they get in trouble by leadership and some kids parents for doing stupid and immature things with the kids at camp. Don’t they know any better?
The other thing that tends to happen is the “You’re the generation God is going to use to do great things!”
That’s cool I guess, but I’ve heard that spoken to every generation (graduating class) over the last thirty years. Hhm.
Our kids youth group happened at home. Worked pretty good I think.
I’m done.
February 5, 2008 at 11:40 am
My favorite thing about youth is their curiousity. They are being forced into adult bodies, but they are as curious as a 2-year-old.
It’s too bad our education system(ie measure of success) is the one thing that robs their creativity. In return they get a diploma and the potential to make more money, the root of real happiness.
I agree with Alden on the youthgroup thing.
February 5, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Alden?
Are you a Reverend? Cause that would be fitting; Little House on the Prairie and all.
February 5, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Tonight I am reviewing a book I had previously read: No Place For Truth (or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology?) by David F. Wells. On page 68, he writes a lengthy sentence:
“It may be the case that Christian faith, which has made many easy alliances with modern culture in the past few decades, is also living in a fool’s paradise, comforting itself about all of the things that God is doing in society (which is the most commonly heard religious version of this idea of progress) while it is losing its character, if not its soul.”
This “religious version” of the idea of “progress” reminded me of Ken’s reference to the “You’re the generation God is going to use to do great things” phenomenon.
April 6, 2008 at 7:15 pm
We have been concerned about the separate culture of Youth Group. It seems they don’t integrate much with the adults and many when it is time for them to graduate and they are no longer part of the Youth Group leave the church. Because, after all, they see it as their parents’ church. We read an excellent book called Family-Based Youth Ministry. I highly recommend it. The youth that we have had an impact on are those we have worked side-by-side with and talked with.