Passing it on: reflections on youth ministry

Christian Century, Oct 4, 2003

ARE MAINLINE CHURCHES capturing the imaginations of young people and leading them toward long-term commitments to the church? Or do they serve as revolving doors--leading one way into secularism and the other way into "hotter" forms of religiosity found in evangelicalism or non-Christian faiths? What defines a successful youth ministry?

These sorts of questions are being rigorously engaged at, among other places, the Institute for Youth Ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary. It offers degree programs supports research, produces an electronic magazine on CD (Cloud of Witnesses), sponsors lectureships, and holds biannual forums on youth ministry, one on the Princeton campus and the other on the West Coast.

At a recent forum Richard A. Kauffman, associate editor, had the chance to meet with some of the leading theorists on youth ministry--Kenda Creasy Dean, associate professor of youth, church and culture and director of the Tennent School of Christian Education at Princeton Theological Seminary; Rodger Nishioka, associate professor of Christian education at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia; and Evelyn L. Parker; assistant professor of Christian education at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas. lie asked them. about the challenges of youth ministry and the passing on of the faith to the next generation.

It's often said that the future of mainline churches lies in their ability to retain their own young people. How are churches doing at this?

RODGER NISHIOKA: I don't like that way of framing the question, for it seems to suggest that the reason for youth ministry is for the sake of the future of the church. Young people aren't just the future of the church; they are the church today. Besides, if the goal is self-preservation of the church as it is now, then I'm very happy to see it go away. I'm not worried about the future of the church, because the God who has been remarkably faithful thus far will continue to see us through. The question is: What kinds of blocks are we throwing in the way of the Spirit? Among such blocks: worship wars, poor pedagogy, the assumption that 9:30 A.M. on Sunday morning is the best time to gather a group of young people to talk about the nature of God and their lives, and the idea that control of the church belongs to those who have put in their time.

KENDA CREASY DEAN: My suspicion is that young people will reinvent the church with or without mainline presence. But it would be an impoverished reinvention if they lust threw the whole thing away. I have faith that young people might be more able to hang on to what is really authentic about the tradition than people who are invested in preserving the church as an institution.

What is the theological motivation for youth ministry in mainline churches?

DEAN: I'm perfectly comfortable saying that salvation is at stake. As a Methodist, I have a fairly social understanding of salvation. God's salvation is bigger than anything we're going to accomplish. We're concerned about saving young people, but we're saving them physically as well as existentially. We're saving them from themselves and from their parents and from society--saving them for the work of God and not just saving them from some eternal perdition. What's tat stake is for young persons to have a purpose. The kind of annihilation that teenagers feel in their own adolescent confusion can feel to them like damnation. And in some ways it is. You can't really function in the fullness of God if you don't understand yourself to be in a relationship with God.

EVELYN L. PARKER: A significant number of African-American churches are just interested in young people being saved personally. That is very different from the sociopolitical climate of the 1960s when the emphasis was on social justice, not just saving the individual. Churches with a sense of social justice and commitment to civil rights were then talking about the community, the African-American people--the churches being a part of that. An emphasis on spiritual salvation alone impoverishes the community, because there are still social problems that need to be dealt with. For African-American teenagers the systemic issues of racism are still gnawing at their souls and need to be addressed.

Salvation needs to be viewed from the standpoint of the freeing of people, not just the individual self. But in many black churches today it's more about being saved personally, preparing for the next life. Some otherworldly language still abounds. Then you also have a prosperity theology in large African-American churches that is not life-giving. It plays into the consumer mentality prevalent in society.

NISHIOKA: The theological issue is life over death. Are mainline churches preaching a gospel that offers life eventually when you die and go to heaven and see Jesus, or one that offers life today?

The corporate dimension of salvation leads me to ask about the nature of youth programs. Isn't there a problem with programs that isolate young people from the church rather than integrate them into the full life of the congregation?