Last week, there was a great comment on my post about Youth Ministry’s Illegitimate Children. Aaron Decker asks two great questions:

1) Are we doing evangelism because we want to add members to our church-organization, or because we truly rejoice in the new life we have in Christ, and want to share that joy with others? It has to be the latter. Any other motivation–to win converts, to add members, whatever–won’t work.

2) Are we doing youth ministry all on its lonesome, or do we have as our goal the real incorporation of our youth as full members of the whole body of Christ?

These questions should be asked by every church. I wish more ministers would ask these questions. While the questions are more important than the answers, I will try to give some answers as well.

Evangelism

Evangelism from a Biblical perspective brings good news. The change of focus from good news, to hell, to a church’s good news that they get more givers (money) becomes a problematic error in theology. I say theology only because the error comes from faulty beliefs.

If I could provide good news that was life changing, then I wouldn’t need God. Since I can’t, then the outcomes of the gospel have to be placed in God’s hands, not mine. When the church makes its goal to receive new converts, it drifts away from the gospel.

The imperative of the church has always been the work of Jesus in his Kingdom. The gospel isn’t a message of fire insurance. Jesus came to free people from sin and give life to those who are perishing. More then that, the life he gives is better than we can imagine. That’s good news. Anything else becomes suspect.

I teach 1 Peter 3:15 in all of my evangelism efforts.

Youth Ministry Ghetto

Every church I have served has had this problem. Maybe they all do. I personally have gotten comfortable with it, and that bothers me. The seclusion of teens in churches points to several issues of spiritual unhealth.

• Young adults aren’t real believers.
• Young adults can’t do anything of kingdom value.
• Parents should be the focus of youth ministry (a growing trend just as disturbing as any).
• Parents need surrogates to care for their children’s spiritual health.
• The church needs a mobile group that can do things for them to feel good about.
• The church needs a place to fence in all that craziness.

I could go on and on, but what really matters is that all of these are again misplaced or non-existent faith. If the Bible is true, then a lot of our heroes in the faith were young adults. From Timothy, to David, to Mary, you have to acknowledge that God uses young people to do his work. Any church that doesn’t realize that wastes valuable resources and misses part of God’s plan for his Kingdom.

The only solution I think will work is to give young adults the space to serve like any other member. Sure they may be less mature than some older members (or they may not), but they have the same call as any other believer. Any youth who has proven themselves able ought to be able to serve in leadership. They ought to be in any ministry in the church where their gifting is a good fit.

So here are two problems facing the future of youth ministry. They aren’t new. Hopefully with all of the attention being focused on the future of youth ministry, we will start to see new practices evolve that better the situation.

Depending upon which statistics you consult, between 60 and 95% of teenagers in youth ministries in America leave the church after graduation. According to Barna about 7-8% of the nation hold the basics beliefs that would distinguish them as Christians. I haven’t seen these two statistics used together, but I think they represent similar or same issues.

Attractional ministry sucks. From Willow Creek’s Reveal to Sally Morgenthaler‘s confession, it is becoming more apparent to the mainstream church that wrangling people into the church with promises of entertainment doesn’t work. In fact, it has proven to be utterly self-destructive.

I didn’t have a clear way of thinking of this until I heard an urban philosophy. It goes something like, “young men go around making babies as if they are trying to prove they can.” Youth ministry (and adult ministries as well) is very similar.

Youth ministries create illegitimate children. When they are more concerned about creating new life than nurturing it, they make orphans in the faith.

To be fair, churches have put pressure on youth workers to post numbers of salvation prayers and re-dedications. When we reduce evangelism to the newest gimmick, we must realize the sad state we are in. Evangelism isn’t the only problem though. Discipleship that focuses on curriculum instead of people is like rearing a child focused solely on the food (or media) they consume.

Corrections

How do we recover? Here are my solutions, though I acknowledge their are hopelessly incomplete.

1. Stop  tracking numbers. Just stop. I’m not saying numbers aren’t important, but I am saying we should take the emphasis off of it.
2. Start tracking transformation. It’s much harder to measure changes in teens than it is to track how many prayers they pray. It’s not impossible though. The fruits of the Spirit are a good place to start.
3. Stop hiding behind books. I’ve done it myself. It’s so much easier to just teach from a book than engage someone personally in their life. Transformation doesn’t happen in books, though. It occurs most in close relationships with others. Live there instead.

Other ideas? Anyone?

Another great article on attractional ministry is over at Benjer’s site.

Update: And just saw another post by Joel Mayward about Orphan Care.