Relational Youth Ministry – What is it?
Young people [and those not so young] have various needs that should be met by a well rounded youth ministry:
- Social
- Intellectual
- Emotional
- Physical
- Spiritual
Each youth group will have it’s own particular blend of flavour – mainly depending on it’s leadership. If the youth leader is big into praying then so will the group; if they love games then the group will have a blast doing social things. But for me there is a need for balance between Relational and Program based ministry. I feel that the balance has, over time, swayed towards Program based ministry – so if this post seems biased it is in the spirit of challenging the status quo.
Of course program are essential – they can be used to build group dynamic, invite new people, create a great atmosphere and enable youth workers to plan and strategise and ensure that all of the important topics are catered for. But programs are not enough by themselves.
Young people want more, they want connection, reality, understanding – they want a relationship. The research I took for my Master’s Degree resulted in the fact that young people leave the church because they didn’t have a relationship with a caring adult. Yes they initially said they left because church was boring – but young people that stayed said the same thing.
Relational youth work takes time – a commodity that we are often poor of – it doesn’t come with quick results – a commodity we are often pressured to produce – but I believe it is more long lasting [look out for some stories in the future of young people I still connect with after 10+ years and 12,000 miles].
Isaac, The Rookie Youth Worker talks about it:
the rarest gift teenagers have is an adult presence who truly listens to them, and those words jumped out at me. I like to teach, and talk, and I put a lot of pressure on myself to always have something useful and Godly to say to my students when I see them.
But this morning I decided to go about things a little differently; I went in determined to listen. And before the main service, I’d had four good conversations, two of them with students I haven’t seen in a while
