i get quite a few emails a month asking for some advice or follow up conversation on youth ministry. i am humbled to be asked my views on youth things and generally spend quite a bit of time writing. it occurred to me, so why not publish some of these.. they can be helpful to someone searching out there. so i introduce today, "dear gavin." feel free to email me your questions.

Gavin,

 

My name is Todd and I recently took on the leadership role
of our Youth Group at our church, First United Methodist. Our youth program has been in a state of decline over the past few
years. I did some research on the internet and came across the web site
for your Youth group. We are a small church with about 300 members
overall and an average Sunday attendance for service of 180 – 200. Our
Youth Group has shrunk from 25 – 30 kids to ten or less. I wanted to
contact you to see if you could give me some ideas or suggestions on
what we can do to bring back our youth as well as develop a strong
youth ministry. We have many people within our church membership who
would like to see this area of our church grow as it has been neglected
for far too many years.

 

Anything that you can suggest or ideas that you may have would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!

Todd

hi todd,

got your email i am happy help impart whatever wisdom
that might help. so i’ll share a couple of things here and ask
questions as you like. did you find our youth website? or did you
stumble upon our blog? most folks find my blog, i’d be interested to
know what you thought of the youth site. it gets some isolated play.
back to your youth stuff

first thing i suggest for people is time of discernment and
examining what you do well and don’t do so well. by "don’t do well,"
you do all this, but it might be at a small number and might not be
very intentional. discernment as a group will get more people invested
into what actions you take on. you need as many youth ministers that
you can get. that said, they need a job to have validity. i would
suggest reading the UMY handbook by mike sellick.
it is kinda dated in that is not the most modern book, but i am
rereading it currently and finding a lot of reminding of some very
sound advice and teaching in youth ministry. plus it gives a lot of
steps to set up a ministry. it is more into youth leadership and youth
led, which is not the trend that is out there in worship based models
that are adult led. which, seem to grow numbers more, but arguable if
they grow disciples.

second, take that discernment group to set some goals. goals not
just as in growth of youth goals, but goals in getting youth leaders,
setting up some covenant group, strategic events, upping the budget,
youth council meeting times, choir, praise band, achievable weekly
programming, etc…  people want the perfect youth ministry with
numbers and perfectly functioning teenagers but they don’t want to
acknowledge the mess that comes with teenagers. it seems as children
everyone is okay with the mess, with teens they want out the mess and
the only thing i can think is different is that you cease to control a
teenager. they are like the rich young ruler, they have a lot, want to
know how to follow Jesus but when told (even by Jesus) they walk away
because it is too hard for them and you can’t control that. but that is
just my theory.. you need people, young old clergy laity, to outline a
plan, put some stuff in writing. your job is to help guide that
comprehensiveness. (nothing is cooler than having stuff written down
for a year and just rolling with that when you are tired or
uninspired.. then when you have the energy and inspiration change a bit
around.) then have these folks help you work that plan. don’t let them
leave.. their job might be in helping to recruit others to do the work
but that is work.

what we are doing.. i’ve been at this church for 2.5 years. we’ve
structured our programming that was already in place and added a few
elements and events to fill out places for the youth that are here, but
on a recent self-exam of where we are and where we will be, we do not
adequately facilitate leadership at the local level and discipleship is
more incidental than intentional. so we have a team of folks discerning
and planning for a long term plan of sustainable small group
development as the core of our youth community. we have around 90 youth
so i am guessing that our needs for youth ministers (i don’t ask for
chaperone’s or volunteers, ministers are invested in relationships)
range around the 16 to 20 depending on the size our groups will start
at. that will be set up for growth in the groups for the first year but
after that we might say our numbers would be to 120 youth and 25 youth
ministers. other markers would be those who made professions of faith,
confirmation, attended a second event, joined into a conference design
team, plugged into a ministry inside or outside the church, decided to
go into the ministry.. and those markers are also for adults not just
youth. adults make great leaps in their faith formation when they start
working with youth. i call that the "oh crap!" theology.

i have a few years of collect youth ministry thoughts, links & ideas on the blog. the link is to the youth ministry section.

hope this is somewhat helpful for you.

shalom
-gav

note: these are the simple thought of me, the author and are not always applicable to every context. i mostly write out of a united methodist youth ministry background and model, which can be very different from other faith expressions.