Washing feet, not dishes

Group, Sep/Oct 2003 by Case, Steve

Your kids are hungry for real ministry opportunities, but the church offers them cleanup duty after the Pancake Breakfast. Here are five ways you can move your teenagers toward significant ministry responsibilities.

Right now as you read this article, there's some committee meeting in some room at some church. There are 10 or 12 people sitting around the biggest table they could find. They're mostly nice people. Their job is to plan the annual church Pancake Breakfast or Chili Supper or Crepe Luncheon (you know who you are) or World Missions Sunday Buffet featuring dishes from all over the world.

The committee has decided who'll cook, who'll serve, and who'll make those little centerpieces out of crepe paper and Styrofoam egg cartons. It's time now to ask the key question: "Who's going to clean the dishes?" Before the pregnant pause sets in, someone will say something like, "Hey, the youth need a service project. Let's have them do it." A lot of nodding heads. They write it down. Maybe they'll mention this to you, and maybe not. Even if they don't, it's already down in ballpoint. What can you do? They've even offered to give a "portion" of their profits to the youth group.

Say it with me: "Oooooooooooo."

Too often churches view their youth group kids as sources of free labor. It sounds cynical (because it is), but "youth group" often translates to "manpower" for the dirty little jobs that no one else wants to do. And our teenagers learn that "ministry" means scraping the food from someone else's plate.1

So how can we get our teenagers involved in "real" ministry? How do we teach them that they're a vital part of the body of Christ and the church's life, not just the grunts the "real" church groups turn to when they need something?

NUMBER 1. YOUTH ARE SERVANTS OF GOD, NOT SERVANTS OF THE CHURCH.

I once worked at a church where the previous youth director had set up a sort of "indentured servitude" for the youth group. If a church member needed her lawn mowed or garden weeded, she simply called the youth minister and he volunteered a student who needed "scholarship money" for the winter retreat. My first week at the church, a woman asked me when the youth group would be free to clean her swimming pool. She was very nice about it. She even said they could use it first and then clean it.

I think we're often too afraid to say no to these requests. If the Pancake Breakfast Committee never asks the Ladies Quilting Circle to wash dishes, why is it acceptable to ask the youth group? When you're asked to provide dishwashers for an event, it's perfectly okay for you to respectfully decline the invitation: "No, thank you anyway. We're doing pretty well on service projects this year."

Just because someone volunteered your kids doesn't mean it's a done deal. That's why, on the sixth day, God created the delete button. The next time you're asked to offer your kids as day laborers for dishwashing duty, suggest that the committee invite your teenagers to the meal instead!

NUMBER 2. "SMALL MINISTRY" IS AN OXYMORON.

There's an old story about a traveler who journeyed a great distance to see a cathedral under construction. He arrived at the site as the sun was going down and the workers were cleaning up their tools to go home. He met a blacksmith who told him about bending wrought iron for the gates. He met a carpenter who explained what it was like to make the altar and hammer the pews together. He met a stained-glass craftsman who explained the process involved in creating a window.

After everyone had gone home, the traveler met an old woman who was pushing a broom, sweeping up bits of metal, wood shavings, and shards of glass. When the traveler asked, "What are you doing?" The woman said, "I'm building a cathedral for the glory of almighty God."

Make sure your young people understand that youth ministry is not simply what the church does for them, it's what they do for the church. They may not see what they do as valuable to your church's life, but anything they do for the church is, in fact, ministry.

Do a Bible study that explores how the body of Christ functions. If possible, bake chocolate chip cookies as an experiential illustration. Form several groups, but give only one of them all the ingredients in the recipe. After you bake all the groups' cookies, see if your kids can identify the batch that had all the ingredients. Then talk about what happens when a great recipe is missing a key ingredient. Tie that in to their participation in church ministry. Remind them often that it's not okay to simply hang out in the youth room and not participate in the life of the church.

In my church we have this "old crazy dude" who's in his 80s. He has a heart condition that makes him feel tired most of the time. By the time he gets dressed for church, he's too tired to go. One of our young people suggested we take the church service to him. He and his wife were so grateful they asked us to come back, so we do. Once a month we bring the worship gathering to him. And it's dawned on our young people that they're actually doing ministry-youth ministry.