This is a guest post by Josh Griffin. He is the High School Pastor at Saddleback Church and blogs at www.morethandodgeball.com
What I really respect about Josh (besides the Griff Bomber’s ability to defend his title as Kill Ball Champion of the World) is that he articulates a vision for youth ministry that’s practical yet visionary. He’s also a great friend and dad. If you don’t believe me, check the evidence on Instagram: joshuagriffin
The Best Kept Secret in Your Church
I recently realized that our youth ministry was one of the best kept secrets in the church. I walked around the adult services last week and read every word in the church bulletin β and found hardly a mention of our high school ministry. Now certainly in a megachuch with so much cooking you could explain away this news, but I know from my 7 years in a smaller church this happens everywhere.
Here are a few questions to get you thinking about raising the visibility of your student ministry:
- What is the most visible print piece our church does?
- Can you find us incredibly easy on the website? On the church app?
- Should we create a basic 1st timers/visitors pamphlet?
- Where are the highly trafficked hallways where we could place materials?
- Is there a place for us to be featured in the new members class?
- Are we represented in the church annual report?
- How can we increase word of mouth with parents and families that have had a great experience with our ministry?
- Would a “welcome lunch” or “orientation meeting” help in some way?
- Is the right contact information listed? When people DO find us is it in a format we will actually follow-up on?
- Is there a chance we could host a service every quarter?
- Is there a way for us to be better integrated on stage?
- Could a representative of our ministry do the welcome/bible reading/announcements?
- Do we have a champion on the elder board / leadership?
Don’t let your ministry become the best kept secret in your church! What other questions would you add to the list?
I think these are good and helpful questions. I wonder if youth ministries are “hidden” because there is often a failure on the part of churches to integrate youth and the youth ministry into the life of the church. And this problem can persist even if there is improvement is “visibility” (you can imagine a scenario where a church improves the visibility of the youth ministry on the website and other materials yet the youth ministry still has no presence in weekly services, etc.). I think the questions about the integration of youth into the life of the church and questions about representation on elder/leadership boards are the more important questions because these questions get at how youth ministry is integrated into the regular life of the “adult” church world and how the youth ministry fits into the larger mission/vision of the church. I’m not sure how many churches, on a theological and philosophical level, see the youth as having something to contribute to the life of the church.
So while I think youth ministers need to be proactive about making sure they have a presence in the church (and this certainly can go a long way), I think that this needs to be done in tandem with other things. 1) Ensuring that the youth ministry has a presence in the formal and informal organizational structure (who has a seat at the table, whose voices are included, who has power), 2) the church is clear, theologically, with regard to how the “youth world” relates to the “adult world” (I think too often youth are not seen as having something to contribute) and 3) the church has a vision for how to practically integrate youth and the youth ministry into the regular life of the church (other than funding events, occasionally asking youth to give a post-mission trip testimony, etc.).
Having said all that, another question I would ask is why the question of visibility is a an important question. Is it visibility for the sake of visibility? Why does it matter that a youth ministry is hidden? What is this question itself actually getting at? Is it that youth ministries aren’t valued? Is it that youth pastors and workers aren’t appreciated? Is it that youth are seen as having nothing to contribute? Is it that lack of visibility means difficult in growing/strengthening a youth ministry?
Jerry these are great questions and give us even more reason to have conversations about intergenerational youth ministry.
I think I’m leaning toward the camp that lower visibility means that there probably hasn’t been a great integration of the youth ministry into the life of the church.
Hope to dialogue more on this. Thank you for the excellent feedback and thoughts!!!
I read this right before I went to bed. Mistake. I ended up not being able to sleep because I was thinking about intergenerational ministry.
From what I’ve observed, it’s not that youth ministry isn’t visible, it’s just not connected with the rest of the church. It’s the whole separate but equal. When good things are happening with the youth, it’s reported on and shared like it’s an entirely separate entity. We tend to function as a church within a church with all our own separate services and leadership teams. I don’t think that this is necessarily a bad thing, but I do wonder about what this separation teaches our kids. Are we losing students post youth group because of the lack of rootedness with the rest of the Body? Is it like everything else in the church that has been effected by our consumer-driven mentality?
We have different preferences in music so we have different worship services based on music styles. Our pastors wear different clothes in different services based on people’s preferences. We work so hard to accommodate everyone that as soon as there’s differences we figure out how to separate from each other instead of doing the hard work of looking each other in the eye and figuring it out together. Then, we stop serving each other and serving with each other. This is the difficulty of youth ministry. Our students are serving alongside each other, which is great, but we miss the relationships that form with the rest of the church. We miss opportunities for our students to make those important connections with adults. We have awesome youth leaders, but students typically only get to see them serve within the context of youth ministry. Maybe that could be a key element in bringing youth together with the rest of the church- getting youth leaders to involve their students in other areas of ministry.
There’s a lot more of this to flush out but I have 2 kids jumping all over me and I’m losing my thoughts as I try to make breakfast for them. π
Thanks for this post, Josh!
I really appreciate the heart behind asking this question – at least, how I read it – which is: how can I make sure my youth ministry is a known and integrated part of our church and its ministries. This is important to me because we want more Godly men and women interacting, knowing, praying for and loving on the teens in our churches.
I have a couple other questions that I might add to your already good list:
– how can I make every adult a “cheerleader” for our youth ministry?
– how can I encourage every adult to smile at teenagers?
Because so much good publicity today comes from word of mouth, I also think asking questions about our relationships helps:
– what other ministries are we as a youth ministry supporting? (knowing that people who know us and whom we support will help support us)
– are we on the prayer lists of the church? Not in bad way – “Dear God, PLEASE help us control these crazy teenagers!” – but in a helpful way. Are we as youth leaders giving the prayer warriors of our church some places and people in our ministry to pray for?
One final thought… which is another post altogether, but worth bringing up here:
– is your youth ministry the best kept secret in our community?
Thanks for this post, Josh!
I really appreciate the heart behind asking this question – at least, how I read it – which is: how can I make sure my youth ministry is a known and integrated part of our church and its ministries. This is important to me because we want more Godly men and women interacting, knowing, praying for and loving on the teens in our churches.
I have a couple other questions that I might add to your already good list:
– how can I make every adult a “cheerleader” for our youth ministry?
– how can I encourage every adult to smile at teenagers?
Because so much good publicity today comes from word of mouth, I also think asking questions about our relationships helps:
– what other ministries are we as a youth ministry supporting? (knowing that people who know us and whom we support will help support us)
– are we on the prayer lists of the church? Not in bad way – “Dear God, PLEASE help us control these crazy teenagers!” – but in a helpful way. Are we as youth leaders giving the prayer warriors of our church some places and people in our ministry to pray for?
One final thought… which is another post altogether, but worth bringing up here:
– is your youth ministry the best kept secret in our community?
Great post, Josh. Jerry and Brian highlighted what are, I think, two important questions: (1) Why are we seeking visibility? (2) How visible is our Youth Ministry to the community?
With regard to visibility in the church, I’ve often wondered: How visible is the Youth Ministry to the Lead Pastor and/or Senior Staff? Or maybe I would ask it another way, Is the Youth Ministry in the Lead Pastor/Senior Staff’s scope of vision? Seldom have I experienced a Lead Pastor/Senior Staff attend any youth worship services or youth events. If the youth ministry was more visible to the Lead Pastor, would it become more visible to the church?
I’m loving the robust conversation going on here.
Kelly, I hear what you’re saying about how we compartmentalize so much. Maybe we hurt more than we help when we try to be a “wal-mart” church where you can find everything you want, instead of being a church that focuses on a few main things…hmmm…
Coy, since you’ve been serving in a “lead” type of roll on Saturday nights. How do you see yourself thinking about the inclusion of teens in our small community? As your wife and as a youth pastor, I can’t say that I’ve thought about them much. And that’s scary!
Josh, thanks for your post. It’s going to be helpful for many of us!
Brian,
Great final question…is our youth ministry the best kept secret in our community….what would be the indicators that it’s not a secret? I’m making a list now… π
A few indicators that it is not a secret in the community:
– people in the community know people from your ministry team because they see and interact with them at schools, events, community gatherings, etc. and think well of them
– people feel comfortable calling you when they need help – from setting up chairs to helping counsel kids grieving from the death of a student and everywhere in between
– you or some people from your team are asked to be on community based councils, program committees, etc. Look none of us need another committee meeting, but they help expand our relationships and lets the community know that we care and want to make a difference.
Assuming a lack of integration between the youth ministry and the rest of what is going on in the community, I wonder how youth pastors would answer the following question: “What is the church community missing out on by having our youth ministry invisible/marginalized/separated/etc.?” Or stated another way, “What does the local body of Christ lack because our youth are not more involved or our youth ministry is not more integrated?” I’m sure people much smarter and more experienced in ministry than me might find these question a no-brainer, but I’ve found them more difficult to answer than I thought they would be (full disclosure: I’m neither youth pastor or senior pastor, so I am not connected to ministry in this way). I think these questions could be helpful in identifying what youth really have to offer the community, what they can say about vibrant faith, etc. (Side question: do all youth pastors think they’re youth have something to offer the local congregation?) It’s one thing to lament youth being disconnected (and don’t get me wrong, this should be lamented) but another thing to really identify what youth in general and one’s own youth ministry in particular offers the body (and know that I read it this “offers” language could be problematic). I think it requires some serious thought to identify these. Imagine a scenario where a senior pastor says to his/her youth pastor, “You’re right, the youth ministry is invisible. Let’s work on visibility and integration. What do you have in mind? How can the youth enrich/challenge what is going on here?” I wonder what youth pastors would do/say. Maybe those of you actively involved have a list of things building up.