Trendwatch

Group, Jul/Aug 2001

YOUTHANDCULTURE

postmodern lepers: the parking lot kids

Unchurched teenagers feel less welcome in the church than ever before, and youth ministers who are trying to reach fringe kids on their own turf are often getting little support-both financial and emotional-from their churches. All over the country youth ministers are planting community-based outreaches to "crack kids"the growing ranks of teenagers who don't fit in the mainstream and have created their own subcultures. But "success" is difficult, and wary congregations and parents seem quick to pull the plug on these high-risk ministries.

Denver's Larry Pambianco is a good example. Two years ago, around the time of the Columbine shootings, Pambianco had built up a growing ministry to Goth kids that included home Bible studies, a Saturday night outreach with bands, and even a Christian Goth music festival. A local church helped by donating the use of a house for the ministry and paid part of Pambianco's salary. Just days before the Columbine shootings, Eric Harris showed up, at his Saturday night event. But a little more than a year after that, Pambianco's church support was cut off and he was forced to leave his "street congregation" and re-enter church-based youth ministry to pay the bills.

Washington youth pastor Blayne Greiner's story, reported in the Christian Reader, is hauntingly similar. After a group of Goth kids started showing up in his church's parking lot, Greiner left his churched kids inside and walked out to greet them. At first shocked and skeptical, the kids warmed up to Greiner when he invited them to return every week. Soon the parking lot was full of close to 100 fringe kids. Greiner and a couple of youth ministry friends made a commitment to meet with the Goths each week, with the goal of demonstrating God's unconditional love to them.

But it wasn't long before church members and neighbors alarmed by the kids' appearance began flooding the church staff with complaints. Some church leaders said, "The [parking lot kids] don't represent us, It's nice in theory, but we have a million-dollar mortgage." In April of last year, as the church was losing members over the controversy, church leaders asked Greiner to disband the ministry. Later that year, he resigned his church position to work full time with Youth Unlimited, a local outreach to fringe kids.

As some churches have shifted their focus away from the gospel's core, it's ironic that Christian researcher George Barna's latest church salvo is focused on its inability to reach the unchurched. He says, "Church leaders will have to better understand why the unchurched don't feel they need organized religion. Church leaders will need to find better ways to make the church relevant through programs that help people with their needs, whether that's learning about computers or improving marriages... We think the major obstacle is the attitude of the unchurched toward the churched, but the bigger issue is the attitude of the churched toward the unchurched."

a sabbatical year for the newly graduated

"I don't think any 18-year-old, for any reason, should be in college," says Cornelius Bull, a "time-off" consultant who directs the Center for Interim Programs in Massachusetts. Instead, he says, the newly graduated should take a year off to travel, experience life, and maybe learn how to build a boat in Russia or be a juggler for a family circus in California. Bull says a little buffer between high school and college helps prepare teenagers for success. "If you're older, you do it better," he says. "You don't fall down drunk and waste your time."

Bull's advice dovetails nicely with a growing trend: More and more well-to-do students are taking a break before college to pad their resumes, travel, learn new skills, and find adventure. It's always been true that many low-income students work after graduating from high school so they can save for college. Now kids who have the money, but also a wanderlust, are waiting to fill out a college application.

Harvard's dean of admissions, William R. Fitzsimmons, says the "interim year" idea is a great idea. "Most students would be better off if they were able to get some perspective on themselves, the says, "The testimony from people who have done this is extraordinary. It permeates the entire way they think about using university."

the absolute necessity of dragging kids to church

The most successful evangelism strategy in America has nothing to do with door-knocking or tract-waving-the most powerful force in effective evangelism is a parent who stubbornly insists their children accompany them to church until they graduate from high school.

According to a new study by Carol Lytch, a Lilly Endowment researcher at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary, parents who refuse to give up when their kids resist accompanying them to church can make a lifelong difference in their lives. "When parents send the message that their families attend church, it makes a positive difference," says Lytch in a Family News in Focus interview. But Chuck Gordon, Georgia youth minister, says, "This kind of teen has a 'drug' problem-they've.been 'drug' to church!" But Gordon admits the tactic works as long as parents get involved in their kids' faith development instead of using the youth group as a baby-sitting service or a fast-faith provider.