After going to the Forge Conference (read post below) i've started wondering about what the future of youth ministry will be. Here's what i'm thinking at the moment. Currently we all run very program based youth ministry. Even though we know there is so much more to what we do we are still spending large amounts of our time running and maintaining programs. Like for example, we have evangelistic programs, discipleship programs etc.
But how should youth ministry look in a post-christendom era? I think that a good program ministry can be very very effective. And i'm not going to chuck it out at all. But i have a feeling we need to work out how to make our youth ministry more organic and more student led.
These are just my early thoughts.
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OK, here is a little more to the story. Bob started a coffee shop and realized all of these goth kids that were hanging out there, smoking and skateboarding in the parking lot, had nowhere else in the entire town they could go without getting kicked out or bothered by the police. So we started throwing concerts for the kids. It was their bands, their music, we basically just opened the doors and made sure they didn't break stuff. The concerts happened every Friday night and Bob just really started hanging out with them pretty regularly. He wasn't trying to push Jesus down their throat but since they all wondered why this old man would care so much about them they started asking him questions. They know he is a follower of Jesus. Bob has since sold the coffee shop and is now looking for a new building that can be used only for these kids. It will be a place for them to do art, skateboard, listen to music, not get arrested, etc. His vision is birthing a church from within them and you can see the seeds he has planted start growing. This is the epitome of an organic youth ministry. It's really hard to do that from a church. That's not to say that organic youth ministry can't be done from an established youth ministry. I think you're in one of the best churches in Hobart to start moving in that direction from because you would have support from Tim and Dave.
ReplyDeleteHey Chris, You're absolutely right. IMO the place to start is "indigenous" (i.e. native to a new generation) ministry. Too many programs exist for their own sake, or are too focussed on individuals. For mine, the main message to a youth group is this: "This youth group is your church,and you are its leaders and servants. What do we do next?"
ReplyDeletePersonally I think the challenge is to merge both organic and mechanical structures into the one program. Both an inward and outward approach is needed. This perhaps maybe obtained through a lot of pray and reliance of God. work.
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