My Take on Youth Ministry 3.0

Last year, I read Mark Oestreichers ‘manifesto’, Youth Ministry 3.0, and I loved the concept of Youth Ministry 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 as a way to understand the history of youth ministry. It was like this book was an answer to Mark Senter’s book, “The Coming Revolution in Youth Ministry” (that’s for all you old youth ministry guys). And I think the book is timely – it seems like many in youth ministry are unsatisfied with where we are and are looking for a way forward.

Charting the Course

Something that I found very helpful was that in each section of the book, Marko (as he is known throughout the youth ministry world) builds a chart that lists and compares/contrasts various characteristics of the three different youth ministry eras (pages 49, 61, 78) including youth culture fixation, cultural influence on youth ministry, key themes, driver, and theme verse. By the time I got to the end of the book, I found myself wanting to add another characteristic to his chart, namely the ‘relationship of youth ministry to the church’.

A. Youth Ministry Outside the Local Church

Marko does talk about youth ministry’s relationship to the local church in Youth Ministry 1.0 and 2.0. On page 46, Marko says “So those early youth ministry pioneers who knew they had to be true to their calling found – in large measure – that they had to do youth ministry outside the context of the local church.” In other words, the primary context of youth ministry 1.0 was outside of local churches. Although this doesn’t appear in Marko’s chart, I think it’s an important enough observation that it could. As Marko points out, Youth Ministry 1.0 was the birth of groups like YFC, Young Life, FCA, etc. (parachurch youth ministries), but a shift happens in Youth Ministry 2.0.

B. Youth Ministry Inside the Local Church

On page 53, Marko says “Churches [in the late 70’s and 80’s] were finally waking up to the need for youth ministry and moving beyond offering only a ‘young persons’ Sunday School class. Youth groups sprang onto the church scene, and churches started hiring youth pastors left and right.” So the primary context of Youth Ministry 2.0 was inside local churches.

C. Youth Ministry Connecting Local Churches

When he gets to Youth Ministry 3.0, the context continues to be youth ministry inside local churches, but I found myself wondering – couldn’t the primary context of youth ministry (relationship to the local church) also be changing just as it had between YM 1.0 and 2.0? And Marko’s descriptions of Youth Ministry 3.0 actually hint at what I believe could be the next primary context of youth ministry – youth ministry connecting local churches.

On page 93, he says “But what might this look like, to have a youth ministry of the various youth subcultures in your church and community, acknowledging the uniqueness and value of each-including the styles and preferences of each-but moving toward a supra-cultural taste of the kingdom of God?” (emphasis mine).

Could we be heading into a time when youth ministry needs to break out from the four walls of the local church and spill over into the whole community including other local churches? To be more about the Kingdom of God than buildings, denominations or theological distinctives? I believe that this is the case, and I believe that Marko’s description of Youth Ministry 3.0’s characteristics support that.

1) To reach multiple cultures

For example, he says that in Youth Ministry 3.0, there should be multiple youth ministries to multiple subcultures – that could be done in a single church, but what if all the churches in a community recognized this need and different churches were strategically focusing on reaching those different subcultures. What if we had an attitude that we need other youth ministries in our community to reach the entire youth population of our community?

2) To be true to our context

Another characteristic is contextualized youth ministry – the context of the students in your community is important, but doesn’t that context include other churches and youth ministries? What affect do other churches have on each other and what effect should they have. Could some good come of acknowledging that ‘our church is not the only church in this town’?

3) To be free from being overwhelmed

Doing less and getting small is another characteristic of Youth Ministry 3.0 – imagine the freedom in realizing ‘Hey, I’m not the only person trying to reach teenagers in my community. There are others out there doing the same thing. I’m not alone.” I think that realization could take some of the pressure off of youth leaders and we could feel free to not feel bad about being small knowing that there are many groups out there doing the same thing. A whole lot of smalls make for something big!

4) To be communal and missional

The two key words that Marko gives for Youth Ministry 3.0 are communal and missional. I love that – what fresh ways of looking at what we do. But again, wouldn’t communal youth ministry also mean that the youth pastor needs a community of like-minded people? His community needs to be bigger than the students he/she ministers to – he or she needs a community of people who understand their passion, struggles, goals, etc. And nothing is quite as encouraging as knowing that the mission you are passionate about is shared by others.

In the early chapter of Youth Ministry 3.0, Marko describe the tasks of adolescence as identity, autonomy, and affinity. I think that church history has played itself out in this way, especially since the protestant reformation (the church’s rebellious years?). At first, the church struggled with a sense of identity: What is the church? What are we supposed to be about? And then for several centuries, the church has been all about autonomy — How are we unique and different from other churches? I think it’s about time the church started moving more toward affinity – What do we have in common? How can we connect?

In Youth Ministry 3.0, We Need Each Other

Youth Ministry 1.0 took place outside of local churches because churches hadn’t caught on. In Youth Ministry 2.0, churches took hold that responsibility they should’ve had all along and made it core to what they do. In Youth Ministry 3.0, I think that they overwhelming forces of culture, economics, media, technology, globalization, and spiritual decline are going to force churches to see that we need each other to successfully reach future generations for Christ (see Jason Pauli’s recent blog post). In fact, as my friend Nick Arnold recently reminded me, youth workers from parachurch ministries started in the 1.0 era and church youth pastors from the 2.0 era also need each other to reach this generation of young people. I’m excited about Youth Ministry 3.0 and I’m thankful to Mark Oestreicher for helping us see what this exciting new time can look like. My hope is that, more and more, we’ll make this new chapter of Youth Ministry something we do together.

Thinking about the BIG PICTURE

As we roll into 2010, I wanted to remind myself of why I do what I do. Our ministry, Teens For Christ, works in two counties in Pennsylvania (and some surroudning areas). A simple Google search gave the the following information:

There are 143,925 people living in Fayette County (we know that 12,000+ of those are teenagers). We would need all 150 churches in the county to have 1000 people in them in order to reach all of these people!

There are 361,589 people living in Westmoreland County (including 35,000+ teenagers). If the 300 churches that we know of in this area each had 1000 people in them, we still would not be reaching everyone in this county!

We all know that our church attendances (save 1 or 2) are no where near those numbers. And we know that not everyone will follow Jesus - the road is narrow and few are those that find it - but I believe it is God's will that every person hears the Gospel. So the fact is, we need EVERY CHURCH to make EVERY effort to reach EVERY person in EVERY community in these areas. If we don't make every effort to reach them, we might as well be saying "Go to hell" to all of those people. These facts, but more importantly the call of Jesus Christ (the Great Commission), should compel us all to reprioritize our lives and realign ourselves with the great mission of God in this new year.

Help us bring TO SAVE A LIFE to western Pennsylvania

This amazing movie is coming to theaters January 22nd, and we are making an effort to bring it to southwestern Pennsylvania. As of now, we've made a deposit on 100 tickets sales but we need to guarantee 1000 ticket sales for opening weekend (so far we have 550 ticket sales pledged by 20 local churches). Next, the movie producers will decide soon if the film will be offered to our area and then they'll contact our local theaters to make it happen.

Please pray that God would open the doors for this movie to come to our area and powerfully impact the lives of literally thousands of teenagers, which I believe it will. And please ask everyone you know to watch the movie preview at www.tosavealifemovie.com. Thanks very much!

Why We Work Together #6: Because it is a LOT of fun!

If you go to the Eat N Park in Murrysville, PA for breakfast on the second Thursday morning of the month, chances are you'll hear a group of guys in the back of the restaurant laughing their heads off. And it's probably the youth pastors in the Murrysville Youth Network listening to Lu (youth pastor at Murrysville Alliance - pictured right) telling some hilarious story of his youth ministry exploits. The guy just has a thousand funny stories to tell! We had a new guy come to our network meeting today and Lu's "Find the Youth Leaders at the Mall" stories were his introduction to our network. And I was loving it (I think he did too). There's just someone great about sharing those stories of the funny things that happen when you work with teenagers. If you ever meet Lu, ask him about his favorite game, "Dunking for Dollars". Unbelievable. We have another guy with great stories in our network named Frank. There's a story he tells that gets re-told every year at our annual "Welcome to the Area" lunch for youth pastors. It's so well-known that it's become sort of become an urban legend now.

The point is, people in ministry need friends they can share a laugh with. It's good for the heart, good for the soul, and you just can't buy entertainment like that!

Why We Work Together #5: Because the problems we face are just too big to solve on our own

Last night, I had the opportunity to hear a local pastor* teaching on Richard Stearns' book, "The Hole in Our Gospel." The pastor was talking about the 12 BIG challenges in our world today. The statistics that he shared in each of these areas were mind-blowing. Here they are...

1) Poverty (as he said, a very complex problem)
2) Hunger
3) Water (lack of clean water specifically)
4) Disease
5) HIV / AIDS
6) Tyrannical Leaders (I was so glad he talked about this one)
7) Illiteracy
8) Sex Trafficking/Treatment of Women
9) War
10) Abortion (again, glad he mentioned this one)
11) Spiritual Emptiness
12) Apathy and Selfishness of the Church (OUCH!)

These 12 enormous problems demand our attention, but I also think they demand our cooperation. More and more churches seem to be responding to these needs these days, but as I sat there listening I could not help but think that these things are just too big for any one church or any one organization or even any one country to tackle on their own. WE NEED TO WORK TOGETHER to effectively address these big issues in our world today. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the stubborn insistence we have of operating independently from each other only exacerbates many of these problems. Duplication of efforts, redundant spending, overlap, and lack of adequate resources are just a few of the issues we could eliminate if we came to the table together, each bringing the resources that we have, and seeking God's solutions.

Anyone have further thoughts on this? I'd love to hear if you've seen cooperation among churches or organizations make a difference in any of these areas.

* Dr. Donn Chapman, Cornerstone Ministries, Export, PA

Why We Work Together #4: Because we can't afford not to!

The Westmoreland County Youth Network has five community networks - one of those, the Penn Trafford Youth Network, started meeting last February. By summer, they were deep into planning an event to reach out to students in their school district. They decided to bring a BMX stunt bike team (ProTown BMX from Greenville, NC) to their area. Problem was it was going to cost $4500. (including the Crucified Ministries skateboard team). None of the three churches involved (another church joined in later) could afford all of that by themselves. But by combining their resources, as well as finding concerned adults who also made donations, they were able to do together what they couldn't have done alone. ProTown BMX (pictured below with our Youth Pastors and the Skateboard guys) came to Harrison City on Oct. 24th and they were AWESOME! They gave a great presentation of the Gospel and did some incredible jumps. We highly recommend them.

On a side note, we have to give praise to God - it was raining that morning, but stopped when the event was scheduled to begin. It took some time to dry off the parking lot (using towels and a leaf blower), but everyone got to see the show. The rain and wind kicked back in just when the event was ending. God is good to us!

Why We Work Together #3: To discover resources we didn't know were there!

Back during the summer, the directors of a local camp asked us how they could let youth pastors in the area know about the great climbing walls they have at their camp's adventure center. Our group of youth pastors in the Fayette County Youth Network had an event planned for October, but in early September those plans fell through. So we asked the camp directors if we could have our event at their place - that way they could show it off to the youth pastors in the area and we could still have our event together. 80 students from 10 youth groups got to experience the climbing walls and a lot of the other cool stuff that this camp has to offer youth groups. Our network youth pastors enjoyed the climbing walls as well as you can see pictured above. If we hadn't already been working together and if we hadn't been willing to work with these camp folks, we would have missed out on a great experience!

Why We Work Together #2: We've got great resources to share with each other

At our Greensburg Youth Network meeting a couple months ago (pictured above), we were talking and discovered that some of us had curriculum that others of us really wanted to use, but couldn't afford to buy at the time. So we started making a Curriculum list of stuff that the guys are willing to share with each other on our Greensburg Youth Network Facebook group (which needs updated right now) . There's so much great stuff out there and it would be impossible for any one church to buy it all - so why not share what we have. So that's another reason we work together - because we all have stuff that can be helpful to each other!

Why We Work Together #1: We share the same burning passion

We find that youth pastors work together so well and so easily because we share the same burning passion - for teenagers to know, worship, love and serve Jesus. That drives us - it's why we do what we do. The desire to help students know Jesus simply outweighs all other things that might divide us.

Our youth pastor networks started out the 2009 school year with two events (same event different locations) designed to equip, inspire, and challenge Christian teenagers to share their faith with their friends at school, to look at school as if it were a 9 Month Mission Trip. Between the two events youth pastors extended that challenge to 800 students from 40 youth groups and at least that many schools.

Thing is, while helping teenagers know Jesus is a passion we all share, we all also know that Christian teenagers are by far the best ones to express the truth and love of God to their friends. So the passion that drives us, also motivates us to work together on the best ways to get this job done including equipping our students.

And the fact is, they will do that job better when they know they are not alone. There is strength in numbers - it's just a fact. It's the reason the author of Hebrews tells us not to forsake assembling together. We need the strength we gain from being together, and teenagers need that strength perhaps much more so.

There's just something empowering, strengthening, renewing, refreshing, energizing, and encouraging about coming together with those whose hearts burn with the same desire that your does - whether it's a group of youth pastors together over lunch or an auditorium full of worshiping teenagers.


Pictured top: Youth pastors from the The Murrysville (PA) Youth Network with Revive at their school year kick off
Pictured below: The Fayette County Youth Network's school year kick off with Rush of Fools leading worship

I love days like today!

Today was an exciting day!

THIS MORNING - Youth Pastors in Murrysville got together to finalize plans for our School Year Kick Off event, IGNITION, which they sponsor at the beginning of each school year. Those guys are a lot of fun and they have a heart for the Kingdom of God. We're expecting a thousand students at that event.

LUNCH - Next I had lunch with the Greensburg Youth Pastors Network. Those guys love to share ideas, resources, as well as funny stories. They are praying about and considering doing a large scale outreach with The Freedom Experience - Brock Gill (Christian Illusionist), BMX stunt bikes, and more.

THIS AFTERNOON - The Christian Club at Franklin Regional Senior High in Murrysville met today. They have a lot of new students there and needed a little inspiration. So I arranged to have Frank Audia, a youth pastor and Christian Club coach of nearby Penn Trafford High School, to come and talk about the outreach events they do for different groups of students in their school (mostly sports teams). First of all, Frank is a tough, built, tattooed guy who is just really cool. And he is passionate about students reaching their friends for Christ. The students asked Frank questions and agreed at the end that they wanted to be serious about reaching outreach this school year.

I love days like today!

30 Ways that Adults Can Spiritually Impact Schools

We've heard the mantra of 'separation of church and state' for so long that we often think there's nothing we can do to make a difference. In fact, there's a lot we can and should do!

Prayer Ideas
1. Organize prayer walks at local schools (www.reviveprayerwalk.org)
2. Pray as you drive near/through school zones (www.prayerzonepartners.com)
3. Start a Moms in Touch prayer group (www.momsintouch.org)
4. Make sure Christian students know about See You At The Pole (www.syatp.com)
5. Adopt a School (www.everyschool.com)
6. Claim Your Campus (www.claimyourcampus.com)
7. Copy pages out of a school's yearbook and ask adults in your church to pray for a page.
8. Dedicate a bulletin board in your church to encouraging prayer for schools.
9. Create prayer magnets to remind people to remember schools in their prayers.
10. Plan a commissioning service at your church to pray over, encourage, and support Christian teenagers in your church as “missionaries” to their schools.

Outreach Ideas
11. Encourage Christian students you know to start a Christian Club, prayer group, FCA, Youth Alive, Club 121, or First Priority Club at their school (www.gocampus.org, www.catchthis.net, www.campusmissions.org,
www.fca.org, www.fpoa.org).
12. Buy resources to help students have a successful See You At The Pole event (www.syatp.com)
13. Buy Bibles, Gospels of John, tracts, etc. for Christian students to distribute at school (www.ibsdirect.com, www.pocketpower.com, www.bookofhope.com, www.atstracts.org).
14. Buy tickets to Christian concerts that students can give out to friends at school. (www.genexconcerts.com – western PA only)
15. Buy pizzas for the Christian club at a local school to do an outreach to their friends.
16. Help bring school assembly programs to local schools (there are many out there sponsored by Christian ministries – www.feelthepower.org, www.reachyourcity.com, www.thesevenproject.com, www.sevenfaith.com).
17. Encourage Christian students you know to participate in Fields of Faith outreach event (www.fieldsoffaith.com)
18. Encourage Christian students you know participate in MBA day on January 22 (www.teensforchrist.org/mba.aspx).
19. Equip Christian teenagers with knowledge of their legal rights on the public school campus (www.aclj.org).
20. Become a mentor to a teenager (www.mentoryouth.com) in your church or in your community.

Serving Ideas
21. Join your school district's PTA group.
22. Organize parent meetings on a regular basis to pray for schools, communicate prayer needs, resource needs, and volunteer needs.
23. Meet with school administrators and ask about ways to volunteer.
24. Run for election on the School Board.

Ideas for Youth Pastors
25. Make an appointment to meet with principals, guidance counselors. Ask them what help they need.
26. Work with other youth pastors to bring school assembly programs to schools.
27. Become an assistant coach for a sports team.
28. Do the Campus Checkup your students and other youth groups.
(www.everyschool.com)
29. Sponsor an evangelism and/or campus ministry training event with other youth pastors in your community.
30. Connect with other youth pastors in your community to share ideas, create a common strategy, etc.

If you have other ideas about what adults can do, please comment below. To download a PDF version of these ideas, please go to www.teensforchrist.org.

The 9 Month Mission Trip begins this week!

This is it! Students go back to school this week all over the country - the unofficial signaling of the end of summer, but the beginning of a great adventure. Teenagers see the new school year differently - for some it's a new football season, for other it's time for a new girlfriend or boyfriend, and for still others it's the beginning of a new prison sentence. We are challenging Christian students to see the new school year as a 9 Month Mission Trip. Think about it - transportation is already provided, students still get to eat strange and exotic food, and the people there already speak their own language. Our schools are a great mission fields and Christian teenagers are the best missionaries to that field. A girl from a local youth group (Lia Fischer) posted on her facebook status this week - "I'm dedicating this school year to proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ! Who's with me!?!?" Please pray with me that God will raise up many more students like this in the days and weeks to come.

Find others going on the 9 Month Mission Trip - www.facebook.conm/9monthmissiontrip

Find upcoming Back-to-School events - www.teensforchrist.org
(Unleashed: Student Evangelism Conference, Ignition: School Year Kick Off event, and Connect: School Year Kick Off event)

Read our new resource - 30 Ways Adults Can Have a Spiritual Impact on Schools - www.teensforchrist.org

What to do when your students go to another youth group

Just read a great blog post this morning from Neil Young, a youth worker in Ireland, on Morethandodgeball.com. He's talking about what our attitue should be toward other churches in our communities. Great stuff! We all need to see the BIGGER picture!

http://www.morethandodgeball.com/guest-post-the-youth-work-franchise

The brand new www.YouthWorkers.net - very cool!

For all of you Youth Pastors, Youth Leaders, or Youth Workers of another kind, I want to invite you to check out the National Network of Youth Ministries' updated www.youthworkers.net. The new format makes it easier than ever to connect with fellow youth pastors in your community and around the country.

Our local youth ministry networks here in Pennsylvania are affiliated with the National Network of Youth Ministries, an organization filled with people passionate about building the Kingdom of God by connecting the Body of Christ.

How to Avoid Train Wrecks in Networking

Nine years ago, I attended a conference for Youth Ministry Network Coordinators (people who help churches connect and work together) sponsored by the National Network of Youth Ministries (www.youthworkers.net). One of the key things we learned was this: an effective network of youth pastors carefully balances strategy and relationships - like the two rails of a train track, they keep a network moving smoothly. You can't run a train without two rails and you can't lead a network of youth pastors without strong relationships and purposeful strategy.

I've seen this principle play out many times over the years since then. Sometimes you have a group of youth pastors who are all business - they want to get something done. I'm all for that, but without the trust and camaraderie that relationships provide, heavy-strategy networks seems to only last as long as whatever event or project they are doing and they leave people feeling drained, not refreshed.

I've also seen networks of youth pastors who were all about connecting and not much else. Those groups are a lot of fun, but I believe that they are missing out on so much that God could do through them. A relationship-only network becomes a little too me-focused (Am I getting something out of this? If not, I'm outta here). The strategy element keeps the relationships purposeful and missional.

One group of youth pastors we work with plans two events a year - the events are strategic and exciting (a school year kick off event attended by 700+ kids, and a baccalaureate service for graduating seniors). But the events really just provide an excuse for the guys to get together and hang out - and they have a GREAT time together. No notes are taken, no minutes, no agendas handed out. We just work on our projects as we can fit between joking around.

Another group of youth pastors we work with has several big events which they do together throughout the year, but all of that was born out of friendships and sharing the same passion for teenagers. That group of youth leaders also throws baby showers for each other, has dinners together, and constantly keep in touch via facebook and twitter. They make their work a lot of fun.

The two rails of relationship and strategy (or maybe they're more like the two ends of a balance pole carried by a tightrope walker) exist in a sort of tension, but carefully balancing these things makes working together work well.

From a Senior Pastor's Viewpoint

Found this quote from Geoff Surratt, Pastor of Ministries at Seacoast Church, SC. This was from an interview with Ed Stetzer where Ed asks the question...

What are some other ideas you have for increasing the fruit of the local church and not just the growth?
"...Finally, fruit will be increased when churches lower their force shields and begin to work together. At one of our Seacoast locations we go out into the very tough neighborhood once a month to be a blessing to people who have very little in life. We take them clothes, food, work in their yards, pick up their trash, anything that will show the love of Jesus in a tangible way. The cool part of the deal is that we have several churches who join together every month to minister to this neighborhood. We aren't worried about where the people go to church or if we can win them for our scorecard; we're all just trying to be the hands and feet of Jesus. There is powerful fruit in dropping our defenses and joining hands to make Jesus famous."

Amen!

Another story of youth ministries working together!

Check out this newspaper article (thanks again to Nick Arnold) about churches in Kansas City that are doing mission projects together. Imagine not only reaching our communities together, but reaching the world together!

Kansas City Youth Groups Partner to Serve Others

8 Benefits of Youth Ministry Networking

Wow! My blog was found today by someone with a similar passion - churches working together to reach teenagers for Christ. I want to recommend Nick Arnold's blog as a very nice youth ministry networking resource! (www.ministryallies.com)

Check out their recent article - 8 Benefits of Youth Ministry Networking.

Thanks Nick for connecting and thanks for your heart for the Kingdom of God and for reaching teenagers for Christ.

Dunk a Youth Pastor!

A couple Saturdays ago, our group of youth pastors in Fayette County did an event together which they called "FULLY ALIVE". The idea was to have something fun to do in the summer, yet something to keep spiritual fires burning. So we had inflatable games, food (of course), worship, a speaker (we recommend Nikita Koloff, former WWF wrestler!), and the highlight of the day - the Youth Pastor Dunk Tank. What was great about this was that all of us have developed relationships to the point where we all felt comfortable getting in that crazy thing and even made a point to dunk each other. It was great! I guess it's just one more way to see that youth ministry is FUN! But, even truer, doing youth ministry TOGETHER is WAY FUN! Until you fall into that cold, nasty water for the 10th time. :)

Pictured here is Ron Hudson, youth pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Uniontown. We want to say a special thanks to Matt Swenglish and Abundant Life Church, where Matt is the youth pastor, for hosting this great event for us!

Great blog posts about Youth Ministry Networking!

I came across three blog posts from www.youthminblog.com - one from David Hertweck, a Korean youth pastor in Syracuse, NY about the benefits of youth minsitry networking and another by Mike Kupferer about what makes a great network, and another by Shawn Michael about not doing life alone! This is great stuff!

Networks Make You Bigger

4 Qualities of a Good Youth Worker Network

Get Your Act Together!

I couldn't have stated these things any better myself.