Relational Youth Ministry

In their book ‘Reaching out to Troubled Youth’ Dwight Spotts and David Veerman state that you should be able to answer the following questions with a firm ‘YES’ before you decide to work with a troubled young person. I personally think they are good questions to ask prior to (and in the middle of) working in youth ministry period.

Why not spend a moment and review them right now – can you still answer them all with a yes? a firm yes?

1. Am I willing to make more than a short term relationship with this young person?
2. Do I have genuine interest in them and not just in their problems?
3. Am I willing to suffer personal setbacks and discouragements?
4. Am I willing to be involved in their total life and not just Sundays?
5. Am I willing to work co-operatively with other people interested in their lives?
6. Am I prepared for defeat?
7. Do I recognise my limitations?
8. Will I make very effort to understand their point of view without becoming judgmental?
9. Am I willing to be inconvenienced?

If you struggle with one or two of them then don’t quit but find a friend/mentor/guide to talk them through with and see if they are temporary issues.

A couple of quick questions to set the scene: What is community? and Why bother building it?

What is Community?

Often it is easier to define what something is by considering what it isn’t. So community in your youth group would not include:

• Cliques and small ‘in-groups’.
• Teasing others because they are different.
• Kids that won’t sit with other kids that go to a different high school
• Rumours
• Lack of honesty and willingness to own up when something has happened but instead there is a blame culture.
• A closed sense to the group that makes it difficult for anyone new to break in.

But rather there is a sense of openness, willingness to accept others, honesty in dealings and communication, no sense that they need to conform.

Why bother building community?

Common Unity is a Biblical concept – Psalm 133:1 says ‘it is good and pleasant when we are living in unity’; John 17:21,23 Jesus prays that we ‘may all be one’, 1 Cor 1:10 ‘no divisions among us’ – and there are more.

Starting thoughts:

There are a few things to think through before we can look at specific things to do, activities to involve the group in and outcomes that we are looking for.

Building Community must be intentional

If you have been in youth ministry a while or even observed it for a short period of time you will know that community doesn’t happen naturally. It’s a little bit like gardening – if you don’t intentionally go and plant, weed, water and cultivate you won’t naturally get a garden that is pleasant to look at, full of colour, weed free and prize winning. I understand that God is fully able to do it by His Spirit just like He is able to grow a garden on His own!

Building Community takes time and commitment

Again a little like the garden example – if you expect instant results then you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Youth work is often scattered with disappointment and in the case of building community you will need leaders who are committed and willing to stay the course. When things start to happen you will then need to hang in there as the young people themselves start to see and feel the benefits and then you will need to encourage them to hang in there too. I know, it could (and probably will) takes years.

Building Community must respect the individual

Of course community building is a group activity and purpose but if it overrides the feelings of the individual then there is something wrong. Groups are made up of individuals with their own ways of relating to others, communicating in their own styles – some shy, some out spoken. A good starting point is to talk to individuals in the group and ask them what they enjoy, what they would like to see different, how the group could be made more inviting to new people etc. The art is hearing everyone’s perspective and then forming a plan to include everyone.

Building Community is a community task

Leadership will be a vital commodity in building community – it won’t happen without you taking the idea seriously and making it happen – but, by definition, you can’t do it without the group. You will need to identify key youth that are either naturally community builders or natural community breakers. Involving them, shaping them, encouraging them to take the idea seriously will greatly speed up the process and ultimately make it happen.

Building Community is Christ centred

The earlier scripture verses indicate that in building community we are following Christ’s example and that is itself a compelling reason to do so.

This post was inspired by Tim Schmoyer in his Life in Student Ministry post where he listed ‘100 blog topics I hope you write‘ and the ideas came from Wayne Rice’s book Up Close and Personal (which being copyright 1989 appears to be out of print). Thanks to both you guys for helping me put my head into this space.

Relational Youth Ministry is all about, you guessed it, relationships and they grow and develop based on the following criteria:

• Commonality
• Communication
• Care and
• Commitment

Effectively a relationship starts at the point where you have something in common with the other person; it develops through communication; grows through demonstrating that you care and continues by giving the relationship your commitment. (Budding and fellow preachers will note the alliteration and have my permission to use this in a talk if they wish – using someone else’s idea is called research isn’t it?)

A suggested topic by Tim Schmoyer in his blog post 100 blog topics I hope YOU write was ‘Conversation starters to ask a student you just met” and it started me thinking.

In my experience I know that I always want to get to the heart of the matter as quickly as possible, I am not one for small talk, but I have learnt that other people need an opportunity to warm up to the conversation and topic before the harder questions come out. So where do you start? Well it depends. it depends on another c – context. However it is always best to start with something that you have in common. Some suggested things in common could include:

• Location – well if you are physically meeting them then you have that physical location in common. Always good to ask questions, always good to make them open questions. So they might include “What persuaded you to be here tonight and not somewhere else?”; “If you weren’t here right now where could you be?”; “When was the last time you were at a place like this?”
• Physical appearance – that is something we have in common, well aspects of it at least. Now here you need to be sensitive and focus on the positives so I would exclude “How long have you been overweight?” and “How many people have more pimples than you’ve got?” For guys I always comment on someone taller than me [I am 5’11″} and they seem to love it. Either that or hair (seeing as mine is now a memory) or occasionally what they are wearing “Wow, where did you get that ….” type of thing.

As we start to get into things a little bit here are a few of my favourite questions (yes the ‘u’ in there shows I am British) and they work at various times, I think they are self explanatory, as to why I am asking them, but feel free to seek clarification.

• Who are you?
• How can I serve you?
• Where is God in your life?
• How is God treating you at the moment?
• How are you treating Him?
• Who lives at your house?
• What would you say has been one of your greatest achievements?

Thinking about it, I have heaps of questions – maybe another post will be required.

Earlier I stated how I first fell into Relational Youth Ministry on a bus trip in Wales but I later encountered 2 quotations that helped me clarify what ‘mattered’.

The first is by George Carey, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, he said:

Many young people are searching for a sense of identity and personhood. It is relationship, firstly with God but also with each other, that we find ourselves to be who we are.

Many of us in youth ministry would agree that young people don’t fully understand who they are as the travel across the great divide between childhood and adulthood. They are searching for identity and uniqueness whilst at the same time not wanting to stand too far out from the crowd. In today’s culture it would seem that many young people aren’t in relationship with God, certainly not to the extent where they would find ‘who they are’. In my experience they need someone to guide them into that relationship, to introduce them to God and then to stay with them as they get to know Him better.

The second quote was made at a YFC staff meeting by Stephen Gaukroger (at the time he was a member of the YFC board and is currently the Senior Pastor of Gold Hill Baptist Church in the UK. He said, and it has stuck with me for over 15 years:

Relationship without content isn’t discipleship.

Simple, yet profound.

It can often be easy to make a relationship with a young person, befriend them, hang out, have fun, do activities, sport, chill – but that is only part of what it takes to be effective at relational ministry. It also takes content, not necessarily structure, but without discussion at some point about God, faith, future etc then it can’t be classed as discipleship. Now my experience has shown that the young person usually brings the content to the relationship – they have questions, concerns, comments and rarely do I ever need to mention God – I don’t get the chance before they have done so.

Who has inspired you?

I don’t intend to make this a habit (posting a link without much extra commentary from myself) – but this article says it all!

Looking at how churches are using Halo3 to bring youth to church and the dilemma that creates using quotes from a New York Times article as a basis for the discussion.

I suggest that you go and real the full thing – it kinda makes you think!

In a recent post Undernews reports on a recent Barna study with some very interesting results. Of course the commentary varies slightly from one website to the other so for the purpose of this post I will stick with the Undernews site as it is more provocatively written (well from a Christian stand point).

Some of the results and comments are as follows:

just 16% of non-Christians in their late teens and twenties said they have a “good impression” of Christianity.

I am not intending to defend these statements but more to provoke further thought – where do they get their impressions from? I know quite a few young people who know that they don’t like church and that is why they have never been. How do they know?

The study also spoke to young church goers – they weren’t always favourable either:

Half of young churchgoers said they perceive Christianity to be judgmental, hypocritical, and too political. One-third said it was old-fashioned and out of touch with reality.

I suppose the question as to the source of their thoughts hits closer to home. Maybe we can take a moment and ask ourselves – am I judgmental, hypocritical, too political? Am I old-fashioned and out of touch with reality? Again I must be careful not to simply assume these young people are attending churches that don’t have a youth ministry – that could be considered a ‘cop out’.

And finally (from me at least)

When young people were asked to identify their impressions of Christianity, one of the common themes was “Christianity is changed from what it used to be” and “Christianity in today’s society no longer looks like Jesus.”

For me that one is a mixed blessing – well to be more precise I am glad Christianity has changed. YFC used to have a saying that their ministry to youth was ‘geared to the times but anchored to the rock’. So the message never changes but the delivery stays fresh and contemporary. And whilst refraining from wondering what Jesus they think we don’t look like – I still need to examine myself and ask not only What Would Jesus Do – but What do I do with the life I live.

I was walking round prison one day (If you are new to this blog then I was working as a youth worker with Youth for Christ and spent some time working in a local youth prison) and was asked a couple of questions – one was quite disturbing (well, kind of).

This young guy, he was aged 20 and new to this particular prison, came up to me and asked:

“Are you a chaplain?” (This was the disturbing one as I wondered if I looked like a chaplain or if he had been given the heads up by another inmate). Upon receiving my reply he went on to ask what I later learnt was his regular question for anyone religious: “If the devil repented would God have him back?”

Theology is an interesting subject with many levels – many way out of my depth for sure so the question caught me a little surprised. Of course I didn’t show it but when on to answer along these lines.

1. We both understand that this is a hypothetical question as the end of the book shows that the devil didn’t repent at all
2. The Bible tells us that he was previously an angel.
3. There are very few details of angels but we do learn that they rejoice when we repent. Luke 15:10
4. 1 Peter 1:12 implies that angels would love to understand this repentance/salvation thing some more.

So I thought, in conclusion – there was no way the devil could repent.

I then asked the young guy a question in return, in fact I asked if I could ask him a question and being polite he replied that I could.

When are you going to repent, I asked.

Repent is a word I rarely use even in the church so never outside it, but it was introduced by the young inmate so I felt it appropriate to bounce it back. The discussion between us both lasted approximately 3 months until his release.

I love Relational Youth Ministry – it is so varied.

Tags: troubled adolescents, troubled teenagers, troubled teens, prison ministry

This story, of a young man I will call Luke, spans a period of about 5 years – and is still ongoing. Luke appeared in my life as he was passing through my city for a college course and he became part of a local church youth group. Somehow we clicked. (I say somehow although I am becoming less surprised when these things happen and now just go with the flow). He told me about his life so far – not a totally pretty story, his dreams, his ‘issues’ – everything really. Including his inability to stick at the things he started and see them through to the end. (Hands up if you see a little of yourself in that last statement).

So I was not surprised to find that Luke had passed on through and had moved on. However, I would continue to get a random phone call every 4 to 6 months, usually updating me on life, his dreams and his issues. One time – probably about 2 years ago – he asked me my opinion of where he was at. Not always a wise thing to do as I am renowned for answering those questions with H.O.T. communication. (H = hot; O = open; T = transparent). I think he actually hung up on me, or maybe his cell phone dropped out and he wasn’t able to reconnect. I definitely got the silent treatment for several months (I can recall this happening on 2 specific instances earlier in my ministry and realise that sometimes it is a price that has to be paid to get the message across).

The next phone call was on my list of all time greatest surprises, well not so much the phone call but the content of the conversation over coffee. He told me he was still with the young lady who caused me to give him the hard word, they we still living together (I never expect people to follow my advice, although it is thrilling when they do – but not this time), but they were getting married and (bombshell alert) they wanted ME to marry them! I needed to draw on my counselling training where I learnt to not show on my face when I was shocked – well shocked wasn’t the right word – thrilled was more like it.

It made me think – it always pays to say what you think because that’s ultimately what young people expect when they ask you a questions and even though it can look as though you have lost a friend they are still there and have the capacity to surprise you.

Relational Youth Ministry allows you to meet some amazing people. For a 5 year period of my life I spent my time working in a local high school and a youth prison. Whenever I did church talks I explained that there were some similarities between the two groups of people that I used to meet:

• They both wore a uniform
• The both didn’t really want to be there
• They both knew exactly what time they were going to get out

It was just that one group was more honest than the other. Don’t get me wrong – the high school group were still honest but the prisoners were more honest. Not in the sense that they had committed a crime but when you asked them how they were they really told you. No need for polite responses – if there day was bad they told you; equally if their day was good they were happy to share that too.

I have many happy memories of my time inside, I met many people that I will introduce to you – starting today with a young man I shall call Kevin.

Kevin was arrested, charged and found guilty of theft – or similar such charge. He could argue with you very persuasively that he was hungry and they had two video recorders. He could discuss the morality of it all and justify himself as to his actions. How right is it that a human being starve while people duplicate electronic gadgets? Who would you like to die while you bought yourself another essential accessory?

Of course he omits to say that he also took their television, microwave and of course, both the videos. Another thing he forgets to mention is that he was hungry because that’s a side effect of his drug habit.

Interesting how we can both twist truth and be selective with it don’t you think?