YOUNG PEOPLE
Does history tend to repeat itself, a) because it eats too many onions, or b) because no one is listening? History may not be the only determinant of the future, but it offers some good clues about what looks likely to happen! This brief article looks at a few key contexts that youth ministry has come from, in order to explore the
path ahead.
My own hope for the future of youth ministry is summed up in an old Hebrew proverb that says, ‘Happy the generation where the great listen to the small…’ It seems to me that the best future for us is one in which we catch a vision to listen and act with authentic Christian love that is rooted in Kingdom values, alongside the young people we serve. There are some great examples of this in The New Friars, which describes simplistic, radically applied faith that is executed in costly solidarity with marginalised children, young people and families. It seems to me that the rhetoric about incarnational youth ministry, from the 70s/80s, has yet to be consistently applied on a grand scale across the UK. There are notable exceptions in terms of incarnational youth ministry, but it seems to me that too much of what we do has been seduced by personal careerism or hit-and-run sensationalist project production that lacks long term commitments to young people in the context of their community. However, I sense and hope that this is about to change.
I also suspect that the outcome driven culture that we are part of has taken our eye off the ball in terms of the value of quality relationship-based youth ministry that is not preoccupied with employment, education, training, the creation of pew fodder and other prevalent agendas. A future which respects the value of positive voluntary relationships between adults and young people through youth ministry, is highly desirable given the impact of fractured relationships between young and old. The ‘cross generational’ damage to our young people is well documented and I believe youth ministry faces the challenge of presenting a coherent case for the value of its own existence.
However, it is perhaps best at this point that I should tell you that the term ‘youth ministry’ is not one I like at all, it implies one way service (patronising) and leaves out families and communities from the equation. Youth ministry of any kind, which is not cognisant of the importance of helping young people in their widest sphere of adult relationships, runs the risk of usurping the role of the people best placed to help, nurture and support them. I see a future where the definition and actual practice of what we do is renewed by a term used more dominantly in the 70/80’s – ‘youth and community work’. There is a need for us to facilitate, build and agitate for community activity and action that flies in the face of individualism a dominant spirit of our age- and there are signs that it is happening in a number of areas across the UK.
Social commentators characterise young people as materialistic, hedonistic, apolitical, technologically sophisticated, sceptical, subjective, right brained (feeling rather than fact orientated) and spiritual but not interested in organised religion. I think this offers us great hope to any authentic expression of youth and community work that is rooted in the radical and subversive influence of Jesus!
I find myself wondering if we are not at a key turning point in our social history. Organised political and religious systems are becoming increasingly discredited, many are becoming more conscious of the ‘Matrix like’ power of the media; and as the muscle of global corporation is pitched against the green shoots of ethical concern I wonder what kind of world is emerging? I think (and hope) that I glimpse a generation that wants to do Christianity rather than just talk about it. For example, when I demonstrate and talk about my beliefs to young people on the street as a Street Pastor and when they feel the care, concern and compassion of Christ I find that they seek to understand and even emulate that kind of faith. Tired debates about the social and spiritual divide in mission are silenced by the way that young people respond to a God that they can feel, touch, smell and see in youth and community work that takes seriously and applies sermons from the mount! To meet this challenge we need youth and community work that will take seriously the role of young people in mission – alongside leaders and mentors who are versed in socially and spiritually reflective, active Christianity.
I have it on very good authority that C. S. Lewis made a posthumous appearance to J. B. Philips in which he stated, ‘it is more simple than you think’ and I rather suspect this is what I want to say to us as we face the next chapters of youth and community work. Any over complicated or elaborately sophisticated expressions of youth and community work are less welcome than those which listen to young people; that flesh out the love of God and which see and behave as if young people are our partners in trying to change our world and not the subjects of our philanthropy!