Youth and the Church - Jonathan Williams

 

Whenever we think about the of youth ministry this is one of the ways that we tend to think about it. We think of youth and the church. In many of our churches the youth and the church seem to be rather separated. The youth have youth group, maybe a Wednesday night Bible study, their retreats and conferences and the adults have everything else. I’ve been in the area of youth ministry since 2012. I realize that pales in comparison to some other ministers in our denomination. But what I have found is that it is hard at times to get the youth to feel like they are part of the church. We’ve spent so much time treating them like they are separated that when they graduate they don’t really know what to do. Jesus tells us in Mark 9:33 through 37 that to be the greatest we are to be servants and to receive the little children in His name. Later in chapter 10:13 through 16, He becomes indignant when the disciples rebuke the little children from coming to Him and tells them that we must receive the Kingdom of God like a child to enter it. He then pronounces a blessing on the children and lays hands on them. We see clearly that children are important to the Lord. We know this as ARP’s. We baptize our children because we believe that baptism replaces circumcision and because we believe that the children of believers are children of the covenant. We have struggle though to prepare our youth to be Christians after youth group. Youth group is a wonderful ministry and tool to bring in teenagers and to get them around other Christians their age. At its best it is a place where kids can learn the Scripture, grow in their walk with Christ, have fellowship with other Christians their age to build lasting relationships so that they can continue to go to church in college and on into adulthood and raise their own children in God’s house.

 

​What I have found is that we get very focused on drawing youth in and keeping them entertained and we lose two crucial ways of keeping youth in church and teaching them that it is important. First, we have to have parental backing. During my time in youth ministry I have learned something that has both humbled me and made me learn what my job actually is. What I learned is that I am not that important. At max I may have about 4 or 5 hours with the students in my youth group a week. That’s including Sunday School, Sunday morning worship, Sunday evening youth group and Wednesday night Bible study. It is important to have the right person in that position. Someone that knows the Scripture, that teaches it well, that engages the students, and can be there for them when they need a pastor. But my time with them pales in comparison to their parents. They are the ones teaching them to be passionate about Christ and how to follow after them. My work as an associate pastor over the youth and children is to supplement that. If parents aren’t doing family worship, talking to their children about their days, bring them to church when they have the opportunity to be there and being godly examples, then as pastors we are fighting against a tidal wave trying to get them to understand the importance of being in God’s house with His people. We need to be teaching the parents how to do family worship, give resources as are needed, and to be invested in the lives of the parents so that we can reach the students. We need to ponder how we can make these practices a focus to what we want to equip our people to be able to do. We also need to help them manage expectations about family worship. As we well know, it doesn’t have to be perfect children, being perfectly quiet, listening perfectly. It simply needs to be consistent teaching of the Word by parents to children. The more we enable the parents to see the importance of standing fast to the Word of God the more they will be able to teach their children the same thing and the more the children will continue in God’s house.

​The second thing I’ve learned is that youth want something ancient. Our world is filled with the newest and best things. The next model of this gadget, that car and those gaming systems. The youth that I minister to learn in school in very different ways than I did. I never had an iPad or any sort of thing like that in school, the closest I got was typing class in middle school. I know that other pastors will say that they didn’t type they learned how to chisel words into rock. But the point remains that our children are inundated with the thought that new = best. While I wouldn’t advocate that new is evil or bad outright, there is something to be said for the ancient faith, the means of grace ministry that has been passed down from the patriarchs, from Christ, from the Apostles, the church fathers and on and on. I read a book years ago called Giving Up Gimmicks. Its main point is that teenagers do not want to be entertained they want to be brought near to God. We believe that we do that through the means of grace, prayer, the Word and the sacraments. This isn’t new but old. We believe that we serve the Lord by serving His Body the Church. If we want our children to grow up into maturity in Christ we have to give them what will do it, the means of grace and opportunities to serve Him. Pastor, elders do you speak to the children and youth in your congregation, asking them about their weeks, praying for them, when you preach do you think through applying God’s Word to their hearts and lives? Youth directors/pastors are you letting your youth know the importance of the sacraments, the means of grace, giving them opportunities to serve the people of the church aside from one mission trip in the Summer? Do we treat our children like members of the church or like little people that are running around? 

 

​I’m a firm believer that our people are over programed. We can be reminded of these things and think of a million things to do to engage the youth or other members of our church. That isn’t the point. The point is, are we treating the whole church like the church or are we hiring a guy to deal with the kids. That is often the temptation. But as we all know the church has all of God’s people in it from the womb to the tomb. May we seek the guidance of Christ and His Spirit in ways to reach the youth of our churches and to grow them more into Christ’s body.