Ministry News

Youth Ministries Get Real

Details: Tuesday, 15 February 2011 16:31

You’ve read the reports about teenagers leaving the faith in droves. Despite the blood, sweat and tears of many youth pastors, a study from Britt Beemer, a former senior research analyst for the Heritage Foundation, reveals a disturbing trend: As many as two-thirds of young people in evangelical churches will leave when they enter their 20s.

These and other studies sounded an alarm in the body of Christ—and a new breed of youth ministries is rising to the occasion to stop the enemy from stealing, killing and destroying not only church kids but also unchurched kids in need of a Savior.

Randal Lee is among those setting out to ignite a passion for Jesus in American youth. The 20-year-old minister has been on the “Stand Up and Stand Out” tour with solo artist Leah Faith since January. Lee is known for using visuals—like a Pizza Hut delivery car light or a can of Coke—to get Christians thinking about what they are proclaiming to the world with their lifestyle.

“My vision is to encourage other teens to be world changers in their communities and wherever they go in life to always be a light for Christ in this darkened world,” says Lee, who first sensed a call into ministry at age 12. “It’s OK to be excited about God. It’s OK to be different. It’s OK to be all that God has called you to be.”

While Lee is preaching the gospel on tour, Ron Hutchcraft Ministries is taking a different tack. Hutchcraft uses comedic shorts and video blogs to connect with young adults, and reports bringing 11,000 youth from 48 countries to Christ through the multimedia effort.

Hutchcraft’s latest effort is The Doug and Jon Show, a web site that offers teens a place to laugh, connect, share and go deeper. The site features light-hearted, quirky videos and cartoon shorts based on the latest pop-culture trends, as well as a “Life Video Blog” section that touches on serious issues young people face, like popularity, loneliness, bullying and sex.

“It is amazing at how young an age people can throw their lives away. These days they face so many heartbreaking problems tied in to family, school and peer expectations,” says Doug Hutchcraft, site personality and co-founder of The Doug and Jon Show. “Our goal with thedougandjonshow.com is to provide a refuge for them. A place where they can laugh and be entertained or discuss tough issues ... or even choose to hear the hope only Jesus can offer.”

The Doug and Jon Show aims to fill a void of “clean” teen-oriented comedy web sites. Visitors may not immediately recognize the Christian aspect as site personalities. Doug, Jon and Kara Taylor, who offers a female perspective, focus on connecting with teens in a real way, creating relationship and trust, before discussing Christ.

Once a relationship is established, the trio encourages teens to check out the “God” section of the site, under which each personality shares honestly about their Christian faith in a straightforward but “nonreligious” sounding way, offering teens the opportunity to make a personal salvation decision.

Aiming at even younger youth, the Almighty Bible offers a multimedia book series that brings stories from the Bible to life in a way that aims to connect with media-driven youth. The project aims to make the Word of God more engaging and relevant to a “bored” generation.

That’s potentially pivotal, considering the National Study of Youth and Religion shows that more than 77 percent of youth associate themselves with one of the denominations of Christianity—yet 48 percent of those surveyed claim to never read Scriptures alone. The Almighty Bible relies graphic novels and mobile apps to present Bible stories.

Dramatically illustrated layouts support a story edited from the original Bible text. In Exodus, for example, readers go on a journey with Moses. They witness God’s selection of Moses, the devastation caused by the plagues, the Passover, and the crossing of the Red Sea.

“A lot of today’s kids and teens resist reading the traditional bible,” says Kevin O’Donnell, the project’s producer. “We’ve made the bible as engaging and entertaining as possible.” —By Jennifer LeClaire

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Comments

0 #11 MarkDeckard 2011-05-03 05:25

I know a lot of people I went to high school with in the eighties who were wild kids with Christian parents. I have reconnected through Facebook 20 years later and many of them are serving God today. So let's trust that the word does not return void, it just does not always return to our churches in the time we so desire. Keep planting the word and shining the light. Jesus has got this thing under control.
Read my 3 posts from bottom to top

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0 #10 MarkDeckard 2011-05-03 05:23

Also remember not all the youth are falling off the wagon. There is a minority who are staying with the faith. What do they all have in common. We may be surprised to find the answer is a wholistic one that involves what their parents are doing and what is happening in their life. You do realize that Jesus never said we would win everybody right? This idea that we are failing might indicate that we are taking too much responsibility for other people's choices.
Granted we want to improve, but really even Jesus faced the frustration of ineffectiveness due to an overarching culture of unbelief in a particular culture.
Another part of this story is how many of the teens of ten years ago have come back to the church since they had kids and grew up a little?

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0 #9 MarkDeckard 2011-05-03 05:22

There is so much more to this trend than what this study addresses. The idea that we look at a study and then based on the stats develop some strategy that we think will endear teens to the faith is a bit wishful. How about a study that asks WHY they are leaving the faith? If we can determine that we might find out what we are doing wrong.

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0 #8 Al Silvestri, III 2011-04-26 04:43

Quoting Rev. Gilham:

Pizza parties and rah-rah-rah, loud pep rally atmosphere...

If the pizza and games are the central focus of youth gatherings, then you are correct it will accomplish the same as Jesus said of the 5000 that were fed with the five loaves and two fish.
However, it is an unreasonable ministry that would take such aims, and not focus on relationship with Jesus and with one another through those times of fellowship pervaded with teaching in those real life experiences.

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0 #7 Al Silvestri, III 2011-04-26 04:42

A classroom atmosphere is already something youth would typically rather avoid, and that seems to be what you propose. Please fill me in about that if this is mistaken.
I don't see Jesus having taken people out of the context of everyday life and relationship to teach them theology in the stifling context of a classroom (I realize He met those who were gathered in the synagogue on the Sabbath). Teaching in a classroom context more, often than not, rendered in theory since it is bereft of experiential living, especially in our culture that is growing to be less and less people oriented.
While the classroom is more efficient (numbers of people), it is far less effective the way Jesus taught. Putting new wine in old wineskins is something He warned against.

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0 #6 Al Silvestri, III 2011-04-26 04:42

Teaching in a classroom is done in hope that--having been dictated to outside the contexts of actually relationship—what was rendered in theory (teaching is only theory to the learner until it is acted upon in life, and cannot be anything more until doing so) and become integrated into actual relationship of living. Theoretical teaching is the opposite of the apprentice in which Jesus taught His disciples. He modeled and lived out what He was teaching with His disciples. Wherever people were in real life contexts, Jesus met them. It is the Western philosophies that have infected the way adults "do" church that is far less relational than it was decades ago (so also does the rest of our society). Young adults want something more authentic, and rightly so!

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0 #5 Rev. Gilham 2011-04-26 01:52

Pizza parties and rah-rah-rah, loud pep rally atmosphere, obviously are not working. Could it be that a more reasoned, thoughtful approach to explaining who Jesus is and what our Savior came to do, will win our kids' hearts and minds. An ignorant approach to youth ministry doesn't work.

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0 #4 Keith Ling 2011-02-25 01:42

Considering there is no Scriptural mandate for age segregation in ministry, what do we teach the youth when we use gimmicks to get our message across? Is it that marketing is more important than the message of the Gospel? I believe that is the case.

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0 #3 Al Silvestri, III 2011-02-16 03:50

I am not only suggesting that it is folks who are untouched by God are walking away from the institutional church, but also sincere lovers of Christ are being discouraged by the general lack of growing intimacy among the members of His body within the setting of many typical traditional evangelical churches. In fact I think it is more often that the youth are hitting much closer to the mark of what the Holy Spirit makes possible in Christian community.

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+1 #2 albert wiseman 2011-02-15 23:33

Al is speaking to the root of the matter. Youth workers for too long have been consigned the task of looking after semi christianized young folk socially and even spritually till they are old enought to sin legally
Many second generation christian young people are not in fact Christian and as soon as the constraints of family allow, they leave home and leave church.
Fundementally we need to change the way we assemble and allow adults and youth to participate together in the learning process. This process is to bring them to true relationship with Jesus not to delivera moral lectures in the hope of reforming lives that have never really been touched by God in the first place

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