Note: This article speaks specifically about the generic youth group. Is your youth group different? Does it function well? Leave your comment below about what has or hasn’t worked in your youth group.
Disclaimer
Before we begin this discussion, I must acknowledge a personal bias against youth groups. In my own anecdotal, personal experience, youth groups contributed very little positive experience to my life and a great deal of negative. Almost every worldly activity that kids participated in their schools seeped into the youth group and eventually into me. You cannot expect whatever perversions kids are learning in school to not seep into the youth group as a whole.
Before I could even learn about sex from my parents, I had learned “everything” about it from my friends/peers in the youth group who were indoctrinated by the government-sponsored “Sex Ed” programs and whatever else they learned by reading magazine articles. I would require years of work and re-education to undue the ungodly view of sex that was created in my mind in just a few nights of laughter shared between “the guys“. My mind was polluted from those I spent time with.
Despite this partial bias, these points are no less accurate.
It is my personal opinion that the current youth group model is just as functional as the current American educational model. And as such, it is in need of a serious renovation. Let’s go over a few problems with the modern youth group.
I. Fun is Prioritized over Faith
The first issue with the youth group model is that the adult members of the church feel that they must snatch the attention of young people from the secular world. The religious world feels it must convince kids that the gospel is more fun and interesting than whatever other events they were going to participate in on a Friday night. This is a strategy that is sure to fail, or at the least, it will lack any long-term results. This is because the religious world cannot compete with the world of instant gratification.
In fact, the lifelong religious experience is entirely a delayed-gratification training session.
The fact is that real faith is not always fun. In fact, “fun” in religion is a rarity, but that is beside the point because fun should not be the focus nor even a variable of the discussion of religion. That is certainly not to say you cannot have fun in life or in your faith, but it is to say that fun should not be the focal point during religious events. If you are trying to gain lifelong followers of Christ, starting the discussion with “How can we make this event fun and entertaining to the youth” is a bad beginning. The Church needs to stop trying to sell Christianity to kids for three easy payments of $9.95.
While it is true that we can recondition our mind to look favorably on the occasional discomfort of obedience just like we look favorably on the discomfort of physical training, this itself takes time and is not the mission of most youth groups. Youth groups need to shift their focus from fun to lifelong faithfulness. If you want to begin working on the problem of young people leaving the church, then you should start by adjusting the religious training they receive while they are in youth groups. Because it is in these years that kids form a weak belief that leads them to leave the church. Strong faith is built by training young people, not by entertaining them.
Training, not Entertaining.
Fun should not be the focus of youth groups.
Young men in youth groups should be trained to embrace difficulty and look with admiration on men who behave nobly and wisely. Instead, we have pizza nights and Fall Festivals and then we are shocked when these kids leave the church. They were never given a rock-solid foundation to build faith on because all they ever knew in the church was “fun”. They were sold a “fun faith” and left when the fun ended as soon as they left the youth group. Look at this quote:
But this is also why youth ministry is particularly susceptible to the temptation of gimmickery, a word which should exist. When convincing is the name of the game, we often go about it in the way we are taught by our capitalistic culture — find what your “market” likes and sell it to them. We are tempted to piggyback the faith onto already-liked objects — like pop music, t-shirts, and hashtags — and thereby close the gap left by our lack of authority by disguising the faith as an already accepted authority — the authority of the culture.
Marc, The Problem With Youth Ministry
A few years ago I volunteered at an event put on by a national youth ministry. The evening was fun but grueling. We bobbed for apples, captured flags, and raced eggs across the floor using only our noses. The games culminated with a frigid indignity: I lay on my back and let three giggling teenagers make an ice cream sundae on my face.
As I toweled chocolate syrup from my chin, a leader ordered the teens into a semicircle. It was time for the devotional, which included a gospel presentation—but it was a gospel presentation that made me want to stand up and scream.
“Being a Christian isn’t hard,” he told the group. “You won’t lose your friends or be unpopular at school. Nothing will change. Your life will be the same, just better.”
The entertainment emphasis can be traced back at least a generation, and perhaps nowhere was the impact felt more profoundly than in youth programs. Instead of stressing confirmation of faith—youth ministry’s original raison d’être—the focus shifted to attracting more and more kids to the ministry (which inevitably involved entertaining them). Not necessarily bad goals, but there were some ugly unintended consequences.
Today some youth ministries are almost devoid of religious education. They are “holding tanks with pizza,” as church researcher Ed Stetzer has called them. Some use violent video game parties to attract students through the church doors on Friday nights.
I was confused. I asked Josh Riebock, a former youth pastor and author of mY Generation, to solve the riddle: If these young people had such a good time in youth group, why did they ditch their faith shortly after heading to college?
His response was simple. “Let’s face it,” he said. “There are a lot more fun things to do at college than eat pizza.”
Drew Dyek, What do teenagers need from youth ministry? Christianitytoday.com
Does anything else need to be said regarding the issue of “religion-o-tainment“? If we focus too much on fun, we never develop a faith of steel.
II. Quantity of Young People is More Valued Than Quality of Their Character
The sole goal of most youth ministers is to “get more kids involved with the youth group”. Ask any church about the quality of their youth programs and they will likely respond, “Well we have a lot of kids involved with the youth group“. That was not the question. Just because there are a lot of kids in a youth group doesn’t mean those are quality kids who are truly interested in the church. Youth groups provide pizza, and kids like pizza so they tolerate “devo-time” and other youth group activities. The fact that youth ministers think kids can go from stuffing their faces with pizza and soda to being calm and ready to participate in a period of devotion is absurd beyond all reason.
Consider the nation of Israel as an illustration: Men like sex and pagan Canaanite nations had worship services that involved having sex with cult prostitutes. Men would tolerate pagan worship to get sex. Is it any shock why Israel rebelled against God again and again? Because when men get to choose between killing animals as sacrifices or having sex they will choose the sex, even if they witnessed miracles of God firsthand. Any man who says that he “Doesn’t understand why Israel kept rebelling against God” needs to consider that point.
Though on a lesser degree, this same principle applies in youth groups. Many kids like hanging out with each other and eating food, and church is just a side note. They tolerate devo-time because they like the fun or the food. In addition to being a poor use of time, this version of the youth group system can create a socialistic mindset in the youth if taken too far.
If you wanted to create a religious system that mimics the Welfare system, it would look like free food and fall festivals with minimal spiritual growth and commitment required.
Young people succeed by modeling themselves after successful adults. Pick up any Tony Robins book and you will read that one of the fastest paths to excellence is to model yourself after people who are already excellent. Young people fail when they model themselves after each other, yet that is exactly what happens in a youth group.
The youngest and least mature members of the church all gather together in a room being led by a youth minister not much older than they are, and then we are shocked to find out the the “good-hearted” youth group kids are having sex with each other.
The fact that we think young people influence one another for good means that we do not understand how influence actually works.
Look at a point from ministrytodaymag.com:
3. There are no standards based on biblical ethics and holiness. A youth group needs to have consistent preaching on holiness, repentance and standards of ethics. Without this there is a vacuum and the youth will adapt the ethics of the surrounding culture. I have heard of many churches closing down their youth groups because they became a haven for sex and drugs. This is what will happen without consistent powerful preaching on holiness. Grace without truth is a recipe for disaster.
10. The youth group has a sordid history. In many cases, there is a history of drugs, sex and alcohol abuse within the ranks of the youth group. In some cases it is done outside the context of the church services and cannot be helped but often it can be part of the sub culture of the actual youth group.
(Interesting point. Sex in the youth group? Who would have guessed? – My note)
In some cases, the youth leader needs to be dismissed because they either tolerate this and or are oblivious and are unqualified to lead streetwise kids. Young people indulging in this kind of behavior in the context of the youth group need to be confronted and dismissed from the group is they do not repent.
Joseph Mattera, 11 Signs Your Church Youth Group Is Really Bad For Your Teenager
Let’s also look at a quote from Greg Stier at ChurchLeaders.com and explore one interesting assumption he makes:
1. Teenagers need models and mentors
“O God, You have taught me from my youth, And I still declare Your wondrous deeds. And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me, Until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to all who are to come.” Psalm 71:17,18
In the Jewish culture it wasn’t just parents that poured into the younger folks. Older men poured into younger men and older women poured into younger women (Titus 2:1-8.)
Of course you as a parent are called to be the primary spiritual mentor of your own teenager but he/she also needs other godly adults! It’s important for your son or daughter to see that this whole “Christianity thing” is more than just mom’s and dad’s belief system. They need to have models and mentors that reinforce all of the spiritual truth they are learning from you.
Greg Stier, Parents: 5 Reasons to Keep Your Students in Youth Group
I find this very interesting because the writer either: A) assumes there will be good models and mentors in a youth group or B) has a youth group at his church that is well integrated into the whole church and that provides good mentors for the kids. Because we are discussing the opposite problem – young people are modeling themselves after each other and are developing disastrous character.
So yes, I agree with Greg that young people need models and mentors. But I disagree with the assumption that the youth group will be the place to find those mentors. I’ve known very few men of good character who were in youth groups (see my bias disclaimer at the beginning of the article). That is not to say that no men of good character engage in youth groups when they are younger, because it is almost impossible to exempt oneself from youth group activities that are heavily pushed by parents and the church (I tried to get out of my activities as soon as I discovered they were low quality, but my parents would have none of it). All the good role models in the church will be the adults, and unfortunately, these adults are seldom involved with the youth group – at least when the youth are participating in “youth only” activities.
Youth ministry is the “Common Core” for the church.
In youth groups, any high quality, substantial doctrine is dumbed down so every kid can learn it. This seems noble, but the reality is that these kids should have learned basic Bible principles in the home from a young age. Attending Bible classes at church should be supplemental work that complements the basic training kids need.
Bible class should be graduate level work that is done after the elementary work is completed at home – this principle applies both to adults as well as to kids.
People cannot expect to develop spiritually if they are having to relearn the basic principles of faith at the assembly (Hebrews 5:12-14; 6:1-3). For some people, the church is their only source of biblical instruction for the entire week. How is that working for the Catholics? Do they have the reputation for being knowledgeable about the word of God?
So much of the focus in modern religion is on “love, unity and grace”. These ideas are taught at the expense of personal ownership and the responsibility of the individual to behave like a Christian. Most young people are of the mindset that, “It doesn’t really matter what I do because the grace of God will cover me“. they begin using God’s grace as a credit card to pay for sins. They use God’s grace as an opportunity for the flesh (1 Peter 2:6; Romans 6:1, 15; 2 Corinthians 7:1).
Grace and love have been re-framed and packaged into effeminate, emotionalistic goodie bags that make young people feel good. Effeminate youth ministers give effeminate talks that highlight emotion instead of reason and discipline. What young people need, especially young men, are the harder doctrines of responsibility and ownership. If you want to know where the real men have gone, then take a look at your youth group that turned them into girls (like the public school system).
When was the last time you heard a “devo” where the main point was “How are you going to answer to God one day? Because no one can answer for you“. When have you heard a lesson about taking ownership of your life and faith and growing on your own. These kids have to be able to stand on their own one day, and encouraging the “herd mentality” in youth groups is not helping them.
Many youth group kids were never instructed in the home, so it is up to the youth minister to get these kids up to speed on the gospel and bear the burden of their entire religious education.
The primary youth ministers should be the parents of the young person
Let’s look at another piece of Greg’s article:
4. Teenagers need theology.
“Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.” Ephesians 4:14,1
Youth group is a place where teenagers can wrestle through the theology you’ve been teaching them (you’ve been teaching them right?) and have it reinforced in a powerful and personal way under the guidance of a youth leader who knows how to ask great questions and point teens to sound truth
This should result in your teenagers knowing and owning their faith on a deeper level. Youth groups and small groups should be a place where teenagers can ask tough questions and even share doubts and struggles with their beliefs without fear of rebuke. Skilled youth leaders can take questioning teens back to God’s Word as the source of authority and help them process through all of the biblical truth you are praying they grasp, believe and live out
Why is youth group important? Great youth groups build on the foundation that godly moms and dads have laid. And, for those teenagers who don’t have believing parents, an effective youth ministry helps lay a solid foundation of biblical truth for the rest of a teenager’s life.
Look at some of the key points of this article.
The value of youth ministry extends only as far as the foundational principles of faith have been taught in the home. This point of Greg’s Article assumes that kids are being taught in the home, which is a huge assumption. It wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest that only 25% of kids are actually being taught the Bible by their parents.
Do not outsource your child’s religious upbringing to a third-party. You are responsible for their soul, not the 26-year-old youth minister.
The focus in youth groups should be shifted from simply increasing the number of youth to actually maintaining faith over the lifetime. It would be better to have a youth group of 20 where 2 leave the church than to have a youth group of 100 where 50 leave the church.
III. Youth Should not Be Isolated From the Rest of The Church
This point applies to more than simply youth group segregation. Most modern churches have split people up into all kinds of groups that lump people in with their age groups. This is a violation of the integrated model of the church that is taught in the bible.
But as for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine. Older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love, in perseverance. Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.
Likewise urge the young men to be sensible; in all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds, with purity in doctrine, dignified, sound in speech which is beyond reproach, so that the opponent will be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us. Urge bondslaves to be subject to their own masters in everything, to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith so that they will adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect.
Titus 2:1-10, The Biblical Model of Church Integration
We have small kids split up into groups by grade, Youth Groups, College Groups, Young Adults Groups, Married With Kids Groups, Middle Aged Groups, Ancient Groups, Vegan Groups, Yoga Groups, Care Groups, Lunch Groups, etc. Tell me again how this isn’t the Sectarianism Paul warned against in 1 Corinthians 1 & 3. How are older people supposed to mentor and advise younger people if everyone is segregated by age? Group separation has to be one of the stupidest things ever contrived by religious men. In fact, religious men didn’t come up with that, they just copied the school system model.
If you want to practically eliminate the problem of isolationism in churches, then eliminate these artificial barriers that separate people based on age. This is stupid – there is no nicer way to say it. I’m sure on the Day of Pentecost when 3,000 souls were added to the church (Acts 2:47) that they immediately split into “Care groups”. 100 groups of 30 seem reasonable.
Many churches will try to artificially combat this lack of integration by ironically putting people in more groups! They try to force integration in the church rather than let it occur naturally. They will assign people to hang out with certain people rather than letting people meet naturally like normal human beings!. This is not how a mentorship should work. People should be able to choose who they spend time with.
No one knows who I want to become more than me. Therefore, I am the best possible person to make the decision of who I will model myself after and who I want to be my mentor. I am a huge proponent of mentorship, but not the way that religious people try to do it.
Why do modern churches segregate young people into one section in the church building, tell them they are the “church of the future” and then expect them to feel no pressure as a result? Young people do not respond well to pressure like that, especially considering most youth today have experienced zero pressure in the home. Young people need pressure that slowly and gradually increases over their lifetime rather than having all the pressure of adulthood thrust onto them as they become “adults” or enter the youth group.
Going back to ministrytodaymag.com:
5. The youth staff has no instruction or integration from the eldership and or lead pastor. Unfortunately I have seen many instances in which the youth leaders had very little interaction from the lead pastor and elders. In some cases the youth leaders did not want any accountability. The result is an isolated youth leader who builds a group according to his own vision and standards, which may contradict the standards of the congregation. If the youth leaders are not integrated into the general vision and life of the congregation that is a sign there is no real accountability. Also, the elders and mature church leaders should also be part of the youth preaching team to ensure there is proper balance in all these areas.
11 Signs Your Church Youth Group Is Really Bad For Your Teenager
Young people have a tremendous need to be integrated into the full assembly as quickly as possible. The sense of belonging that young people feel in youth groups is minimal compared to the belonging they would feel if they thought that they were part of the “Real Church”. If young people are not integrated into the full assembly, they simply will not mature – it’s the Crabs in a Bucket scenario. The second someone in the youth group begins to mature, the others will pull him/her back into immaturity. The negative influence will always be more powerful than the positive influence. For every negative influence you have, you need four positive influences just to cancel that out.
Young people cannot all be stuffed in the same area and improve themselves. Young people do not obey the leadership of the youth minister because he himself is often a child. The value systems of your youth group kids are dictated by those around them, which is not a pleasant thought.
As mentioned before, the only leader these young people have to look up to is the youth minister. This places the youth in an unfortunate position because the youth minister is typically not very old and has very limited life experiences. This makes him a weak leader who kids will not want to listen to or imitate, so kids start to lead themselves and immaturity feeds on immaturity.
This will progress until a Lord Of The Flies situation breaks out and kids start killing one another (slight exaggeration). Like many politicians, parents will turn blind eyes to problems in youth groups until people start getting pregnant, killed, or costing them money (slighter exaggeration).
IV. Young Men In Youth Groups Are Given Too Much Responsibility Before They Are Ready
Far too much responsibility is placed on young people before they are capable of handling it. If you have been at a church where young men present devotional talks, then you have probably seen those young men embarrass themselves because they have no idea what they are talking about.
They are expected to teach others before they even know what they themselves believe.
(This is another problem with forcing kids to evangelize before they are ready. The importance of evangelism cannot be overstated, but pushing kids to evangelize before they themselves are truly converted in their own minds is an exercise in futility. Do you want a kid to teach your child how to do trigonometry before he himself knows how to do addition and subtraction? If not, then stop requiring your children to do the spiritual equivalent of teaching beyond their current level of understanding. And you must especially stop this if you are not doing any evangelizing yourself.)
3. Teenagers need mission.
When Jesus challenged his most-likely teenaged disciples to “go and make disciples of all nations,” he was tapping into the activist wiring of these young men. In the same way, your teenager needs to be challenged with the mission to reach their peers with the good news of Jesus in a loving and contagious way.
Again, see the above points. Young people are bad at sharing the gospel because they generally do not know the gospel. They do not know the gospel because they are not being educated in the home. they are not being educated in the home because many parents think that two church sessions per week are adequate for knowledge of the gospel to be gained.
Every time some young person is able to convert a friend, it becomes the story of the church for years. Just because one kid was able to convert someone else does not mean all kids are ready to evangelize. In fact, those kids are likely ones who have had heavy instruction in the home which resulted in the evangelical attitude.
Back to the main point of responsibility: The intention behind making young men give devotional talks is good, but that does not make the Trial By Fire preaching system effective. Young men need full-scale classes on how to preach, teach, lead singing, pray, and even give announcements. Simply assigning them these jobs and saying “Good luck” and punting them up before the entire congregation may seem like a good method to some people, but it is actually a poor method.
The reason this method is so poor is because the environment is not right for the young men to get immediate feedback on their performance. Without honest feedback, they cannot improve.
In a class setting, young men are first instructed on how to prepare and give lessons or talks, the skills are then demonstrated by an experienced teacher and lastly, the young men give their own talks and get immediate feedback from the instructor. This feedback is vital to the improvement of performance in any skill, especially that of public speaking.
Yet young men who give talks in congregational settings get no feedback, they are only told how great they did. People in the church will compliment young men on the talk not because it was good, but because the young men were brave to give the talk. While it is true that it is impressive for a young man to overcome his nerves and give a talk before the entire church, that does not make the talk one of good quality. Quality can only improve with constructive feedback. And ideally, that feedback is given in small training groups with low risk and low pressure.
Let’s return to the main point: Youth groups must stop being separated out in the church and should rather be fully integrated into the entire congregation if you want them to develop properly.
And most people who say that “Youth are the church of the future” are only trying to excuse themselves from being the church of today.
“Let me give young people the tasks I should be doing as an adult in the church and tell them it’s because ‘they are the church of the future’. Then I don’t have to lead singing or pray or anything. I just get to pawn off all responsibility to the next generation and complain when they occasionally leave the church”.
Standard Religious Man
V. There is a Lack Of Fundamental Discipline in Young People
A problem that is rooted in the home is the fact that youth group kids cannot be disciplined by church leaders without invoking the wrath of easily offended parents. Because kids are not disciplined (i.e. spanked) inside the home, they have no discipline in the way they behave outside the home. They have no mental framework by which they can associate actions with consequences. You don’t have to be able to send a rocket to Mars to see that basic principle play out every week in the assembly.
Undisciplined kids will behave poorly in youth circles because they are encouraged by their equally immature and undisciplined peers. Their behavior will escalate until they do something that necessitates punishment like damaging the building or injuring one of their peers (which if it is boy-on-boy violence, I argue that is natural and healthy). Now, what is a 26-year-old youth minister going to do about that? He cannot do anything because he is likely a poor leader and is fearful of the parents. Were he to take even a slight disciplinary measure against the child, the parents of that child would have his head on a platter.
The solution for this problem is simple: Parents must agree that the youth minister can execute a certain level of discipline for poor behavior.
A temporary suspension from youth activities would be a good disciplinary measure for most crimes. The problem here is that youth ministers are very concerned with being liked by the youth (which is one of the reasons they tend to be poor leaders) and will be unlikely to carry out those disciplinary measures. Your church must employ a youth minister who is a good leader and can execute discipline when necessary and beneficial. Young people need to learn that actions have consequences since they haven’t learned that fact in the home.
VI. Parents Assume That Youth Groups Alone Are Enough to Cause Their Children To Grow Spiritually.
Parents assume that dropping their kids off at “Hang out Night” with the youth group will be enough to cause their kids to grow in the faith. I’m sure they will develop the faith of steel after eating 450 grams of sugar and running around the church like wildebeests. They are so hyped on sugar and soft drinks that the youth minister can barely get them to sit down for five minutes to talk to them about being “good followers of Jesus” (which generally includes a heaping dose of emotionalism to really reel the kids in). I’m sure they are very interested in that message.
Let me ask you this: If I drop you off at a gym, will you become physically fit if you apply no effort, lay on the gym couches, eat sugar and play board games? If not, then why do you think your kids will grow if you drop them off at a “spiritual training center” where precisely zero spiritual training is done?
Youth group events should be like training camps for faith. Get the kids together and do bible exercises instead of playing Mario Kart for six hours and calling it “youth ministry”.
VII. Baptism Becomes The Goal of Youth Ministry Despite Insufficient Bible Understanding.
The church has made baptism the highest priority in youth groups. Please do not misunderstand this section, I am not minimizing the vital importance of baptism in salvation. I am merely emphasizing the equal importance of faithfulness over a lifetime.
Look at a piece of this article from Jeremy Zach:
4. Hurried evangelism
Youth ministries are excited to get kids saved. However the transition from evangelism to discipleship is tough. My good friend Dan Haugh says it well: It starts with many, many intentional Jesus conversations before the conversion. What if youth pastors started with discipleship? What if youth ministry totally skipped evangelism as the first step? I think if we can educate and get our students to experience God before they accept Jesus, they will most likely latch onto their faith in a more deep and real way. The students will be able to test drive the car and know what they are getting themselves into before they sign on the dotted line. I am arguing that discipleship is the new evangelism. Please don’t misinterpret me. I still strongly believe in evangelism. I think it should appear later in the game. In the gospels, Jesus never asked His disciples to believe in Him right away as the first step. He only required them to follow Him. Essentially experiencing and knowing God can possibly produce a student who wants to deeply and fully desire and believe in God. Granted, our youth ministries may be a little bit smaller … but deeper.
Jeremy Zach, 5 Problems With Youth Ministry in America
While I think that article was a bit emotionalistic and lacked scriptural backing with regards to “accepting Jesus“, I believe it gets the basic idea across.
What the church tries to do is get kids to sprint to the baptistery, dive in head first and then the church just dumps them on their heads to “figure their faith out” on their own.
We throw kids into the waters of baptism but don’t teach them how to swim.
While there is something to be said for the story of the Ethiopian Eunuch who was baptized after learning the gospel during a single chariot ride, you must understand an important item:
The Ethiopian was ACTIVELY SEARCHING for the truth. He was in the process of reading Isaiah and trying to understand what he was reading (Full passage: Acts 8:26-40). How many youth groups of kids possess that mindset? How many of your young people are truly, actively searching the scriptures and trying to understand them? I would suggest that it is a very small percentage. Most youth group kids can tell you more about Fortnite than they can about the Bible.
The Ethiopian already had the right mindset, all he was missing was the knowledge of the gospel and guidance on how to understand it. Most youth group kids have some knowledge of the gospel, but very few of them have the intense desire to learn the Words of God.
In order to correct this, we must instruct kids in the home before they are instructed in the church and baptized. Are you seeing a recurring theme here?
If you want the change that would correct nearly all the problems in youth ministry today, it would be to teach and discipline kids in the home.
VIII. Feelings Are Prioritized Over Logic in Youth Groups
Instead of pursuing truth, people in youth groups pursue emotion. The focus of most youth ministry involves trying to “convict” kids in their little hearts. This undeniably involves some level of emotionalism, which is not beneficial to discovering the truth, only for maintaining faith in later life after faith has been built.
When it comes to young people, they must be encouraged to set aside their emotionalism and try to think logically about their faith. Feelings should actually be avoided for a period of time to allow the beliefs of individuals to solidify in an environment where they are not contaminated by emotion.
While it is certainly true that emotions are helpful for convicting people in their hearts as was the case for the people in Acts 2, that does not mean we should aim to stir up emotions directly. Peter told those men on the day of Pentecost that they murdered Christ. He gave them explicit facts about what they had done and as a byproduct, they felt guilt and immediately changed their actions.
In youth groups, it is the opposite. Instead of starting with facts, youth ministers start with emotion. Their single goal is to convict kids emotionally. What they should focus on instead is giving kids the truth, and the conviction will come as a byproduct of that just as it came for those men who heard Peter’s words.
Also, note that true conviction is always accompanied by immediate and lasting change. Those men on Pentecost immediately changed their lifestyles. But in youth groups, people “get convicted”, they get emotional and feel bad about their actions but are right back to the same sinful behaviors the next day. They are emotional and convicted on Sunday, and they are looking at pornography on Monday.
Prioritize logic in your youth group. Explain to kids what they have done wrong, why it is wrong, and what Christ has done for us. There is no need to make it all touchy-feely. Because any man who realizes the evil he has done in life and the sacrifice necessary to pay for the evil will be convicted and will make lasting change.
IX. Youth Rallies Are Hormone Rallies
Besides being a Bataan Death March to liberalism, youth rallies are hardly more than amalgamations of mid-puberty teens who are confusing their sexual urges for spirituality. This is nothing new, even C.S. Lewis wrote in Screwtape Letters about people mistaking their lust for genuine love.
I have actually had a peer in a youth group who once told me after going forward to repent at a youth rally that “The main reason I go forward is so I can hug a lot of girls“. It should be no surprise to you that this young man was a “chronic public repenter” but never changed his behavior. He was more interested in feeling a girl’s breasts pressed against him than he was with actually changing his actions and lifestyle. If you are a father, think about that the next time you send your daughter to one of these glorified hookup gatherings.
2500 young men do not go to youth rallies because they are spiritual. 2500 young men go to youth rallies because there will be 2500 young women in attendance. And these men are psyched out of their minds on more testosterone than they will ever produce again in their lifetime.
The youth rally model has decayed over time and now most youth rallies are nothing more but weekend-long emotion camps and are just places where guys can go to meet girls.
I can tell you from personal experience that of the few youth rallies I went to, the last thing on my mind was listening to speakers. I cannot tell you a single thing I learned at a youth rally other than the portable Lord’s Supper packs having bread that tasted like cardboard, as someone mentioned in their sermon.
Create youth rallies that are for men or women only and see how many people show up. When there are inevitably fewer people who want to be involved, you will see how many people were interested in nothing more than finding a sexual partner.
X. Too Many Youth Events Are a Burden on Parents and Teens
There is this idea in the religious world that the more church events you attend, the more righteous you are. Not only is this idea emotionalism and stupid, but it encourages a “check the box” mentality that suggests your spirituality is proportional to your attendance of church events (even the secular events). You simply need to apply this same line of reasoning to other avenues of life to unveil its absurdity. For example:
If a person goes to a gym five days per week, does that mean they are healthy and fit? Or does fitness actually depend on 1) the intensity of effort applied in training and 2) congruent lifestyle choices (i.e. nutrition/sleep etc). A person can go “workout” five days per week and still be a fat slob because he/she is not applying intense effort and he/she is not maintaining a proper nutritional regimen while he/she is away from the gym. I cannot think of a better analogy that illustrates the discrepancy between the “just show up” mindset and the actual growth the results from training, whether spiritual or physical. If a man who not have a nutrition plan that matches his efforts in the gym, he will continue to be fat.
Likewise, it does not matter if a person attends all the church services and events if he is living like a person of the world during the week. Everyone knows a case of individuals who lead in church on Sundays and then deal drugs or hook up with women on Mondays. Are they “spiritual” because they attended all the youth events and church services during the week? Or perhaps is there more to being a follower of Christ than checking the boxes of the youth group and Sunday worship? Is the guy who attends every youth event but has regular sex with his girlfriend more spiritual and righteous than the man who attends youth group events twice a month but regularly studies scripture, memorizes passages, and actually lives like a Christian (a novel thought, I know).
Your spirituality is more than simply how many youth groups play-dates you attend each week. There must be more substance to our training of young people. If you want to grow in your faith you have to train hard and be consistent with it. It is not enough to simply attend church. Just like you cannot pass in school if you just attend lectures, there is homework you have to do on your own (or at least this used to be true).
Proposed Solution Models For Youth Groups
The last several thousand words outline a few of the basic problems in youth groups today. I do not want to end without proposing a few solutions. I do not believe men should complain about problems without proposing multiple solutions for those problems. Any man who complains without offering solutions is a whining baby who is wasting good oxygen by voicing his mindless opinion.
I have included a few solutions in the article already, so some of these may overlap. Read back through each point and you will see that the last statement is usually a “simple but not easy” corrective measure for the specified problem.
Solution I: Foundation
Parents Teach and Discipline Young People in the Home
We have already mentioned this several times, but that is only because this is the best possible solution for all behavioral problems. If young people are disciplined in the home, they behave better in public. Kids who behave well can hang out together without being sucked into an ocean of immaturity. If this single solution is implemented, all of the other more painful solutions would not be necessary.
95% of modern youth group problems can be solved if kids are disciplined in the home.
Unfortunately, most parents in the modern generation think that kids will just “absorb goodness from the universe”. They think their children are Rousseauian “Noble Savages”. This is wrong. Kids need direction and discipline or I will end up having to pay for their prison meals with my tax dollars (slight hyperbole disclaimer).
Spank those kids. Teach them to associate pain with doing the wrong thing. Kids who are not taught the relationship between actions and consequences will go to prison or even to hell. You need to be taking discipline that seriously. Treat discipline like your child’s soul is on the line because it is.
Do not withhold correction from a child,
For if you beat him with a rod, he will not die.
You shall beat him with a rod,
And deliver his soul from hell.
Proverbs 23:13-14
I wish I had been spanked more. I wish my parents had been harder on me and given me less. I would be more disciplined today if that were the case.
Solution II: Renovation
Disband the Youth Group Until a Functional Model Can be Generated
This is a painful method, but it would be useful for renovating broken youth groups. Because the youth group has been left separate and apart from the rest of the church for long periods of time, it has grown into a warped shell of what it was initially intended to be.
So the method for curing this is painful but it is necessary in order to allow the youth group model to be built properly, and it involves temporarily shutting down the youth group. This is like re-breaking a bone that has not healed properly and allowing it to repair itself again while aligned properly in a cast. So also the youth group should be “broken”, reset and fixed.
The method for doing this is simple: first, suspend youth group activities for at least 4 weeks, depending on the state of your youth group (I would recommend 3 months to give everyone a solid “reset” with regard to youth activities and structure).
Second, the youth minister should begin working on a youth group model that prioritizes faith-building training over entertainment. The youth minister should also regularly be meeting with the elders and ministers of the church in order to plan how the youth group will be fully integrated into the rest of the assembly.
How will young people spend more time around adults?
How will they be assigned to mentors?
What will disciplinary measures for poor behavior consist of?
How will immaturity be minimized?
How will God be the focal point of the youth group?
How will young people be retained over their lifetime?
These are just six of the dozens of questions that the new youth group model should answer.
This full church integration of the youth should include pairing up young people with mentors who are successful in life and faith and who are not their parents, since the parents are the root cause of the mess that youth groups are currently in. In addition to this, most young people are more inclined to listen to adults who are not their parents. After being paired together, the youth should have combined events where they spend time with their mentors and learn from them. Do not overkill these events.
Remember that scheduling more youth events does not equal more faith, especially if the spiritual quality of those events are low.
Third: Once a solid, logical youth group model has been created by the youth minister and several meetings with the elders have been completed, the minister should formally submit his new youth group model to those elders for approval. This proposal should read like a high-grade business plan. If a youth minister is not willing to put in the effort and work to create that model, he should be fired. Youth ministry is no place for those who lack work ethic and discipline, though the majority of youth ministers do lack both of those traits.
Fourth: Once the youth group model has been approved by the elders, the youth group events can be resumed. These events should now be occasional and highly purposed. They should be focused on spiritual training first, and entertainment last. There is no need to fill every waking second of the week with youth group activities. there is no better way to exhaust kids and parents than to overkill youth activities. Young people need to learn to manage their faith on their own. So instead of having 5 youth group activities every week, have 1 or 2 activities at maximum and encourage young people to train themselves at home.
You are preparing these kids to leave father and mother and make their own decisions and guide their own faith, therefore, they need to be equipped to do so. So train them to build their faith while they are alone, and they will be much more likely to maintain the faith as they continue to live.
Weak points must be strengthened! The young person who is only motivated to learn the bible when he is with friends will be crushed by temptation later. Because the adversary never attacks us where we are strong, instead he always attacks our weak points and the chinks in our armor. If a young person is weakest while he is alone and separated from friends, when do you think the adversary will attack him? Right – when he is alone. This young man needs to be trained to strengthen those weak points. He must engage in high-level training that he can do alone so that this weakness of his can be fortified from attack.
The fundamental goal and purpose of youth ministry should be to build the faith of the young so that they are actually ready to leave the home and “work out their own salvation” (Phil 2:12). Fun is not the goal, lifelong faithfulness is the goal. I know I have stated this multiple times but it cannot be overstated. The youth group is a failure if only 50% of youth group kids remain faithful over the lifetime.
What would you think of a company that produced 50 broken widgets out of every 100? You would likely say there is something wrong with the building process of quality control, wouldn’t you? Then why are we in the religious world content with a “Christian Development Program” that is producing 50 broken adults out of every 100? Of course, this is not only the fault of youth ministry, it is primarily the fault of the parents. But some of the inadequacies of the parents could be mitigated if youth groups were more God-Centered.
Solution III: Expectation & Consequence
Create High-Level Accountability and Discipline
I know these solutions become less tasteful and popular as you read them, but they are necessary. I have written before that accountability becomes a crutch for most people, but in this case, it is needed. Accountability is useful at the beginning of installing a new behavior but should be removed as soon as possible. People need to develop their own discipline so that they are not eternally dependent on accountability to keep them from failing. This is just like how a person who has just had a surgical procedure may need crutches or a cane for a while, but it is the goal of his medical professionals to make him independent as fast as possible. Using a cane too long creates dependency and even structural maladaptations that can permanently damage the function and mobility of the individual.
At first young people need to be held to account for every action they take, especially during youth group activities. The youth group should start to look like a military unit where discipline is the ideal and weakness is punished or even expelled.
You may think, “won’t that scare away most kids from the youth group?” It might. Just know that those were very likely the kids who were going to leave the church as soon as they graduated. If they don’t like a little sprinkle for discipline in the youth group, how are they going to like the hard discipline that God requires of them? Remember the story of Gideon? The weak men were dismissed to go home.
Solution IV: Motivation & Admission Standards
Consider Eligibility Standards for Kids to Enter and Remain in Youth Groups
Every exclusive group in the world has standards of skill, behavior, or knowledge in order for admission. The church is no different: there are extreme standards of behavior, attitude, and thinking that are required of Christian people. If that is the case, why are we letting any rag-tag person into the youth group? I know this seems unkind, but remember that “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” (Galatians 5:9).
Create standards of behavior or require a certain level of basic bible knowledge for a person to be able to enter the youth group. This used to be how colleges worked – your general knowledge was tested and then your eligibility would be evaluated by a professional. Even if you got into the college you would still have to manage a certain level of performance to maintain eligibility.
Nowadays, as long as you can sign your name on the student loan agreement you can get into college (Even that is not true since most people don’t know how to sign their own names – this is why you can “virtually sign” the student loan agreement online). What has that done to the quality of the college education and to the value of the college degree? Has having no standards for behavior or knowledge positively or negatively affected the quality of the youth group and the ‘adults’ produced by it? Create some standards for your kids. Standards promote good performance.
Solution V: Youth Groups Need Specific Training
Just like exercising in the gym, you have to do specific work to get a specific results. The cells in the human body respond precisely to the type of exercise you do. Therefore, if you want a specific outcome, you have to train in a specific way.
If you want youth group kids to have bible knowledge and be well rounded, you have to train them specifically for that results. If you want Navy SEALs, then you have to train them like SEALS.
If kids are weak on the fundamentals of Bible doctrine, train this.
Are they weak on general bible knowledge? Train with quizzes, tests, and trivia.
Do they lack a “why” for their faith? Provide logic and study history.
Every young man and woman must be trained in a way that specifically improves them where they are the weakest. This involves evaluation followed by heavy training.
Administer quizzes and tests in Bible class. This is normal in schools. Is testing knowledge of the bible less important than whatever common core math your kid is learning? Be willing to give an “F” to kids who deserve it. This is not to be mean but rather to promote growth.
Create a sense of competition among the boys. Make them compete against each other to see who can learn the most verses or the most facts about a book of the Bible. In this way, you are redirecting their competitive nature towards something productive.
Reward kids who demonstrate excellent knowledge.
Through these solutions may you repair your broken youth group and build it into something great.
Again, share your strategies in the comment box below. Your youth group may be excellent! Share what has worked for you with the rest of the readers!
Further Reading/References to Consider
1. The Problem With Youth Ministry – Patheos.com
2. 5 Reasons to Keep Your Students in Youth Group – ChurchLeaders.com
3. 11 Signs Your Church Youth Group Is Really Bad For Your Teenager – Minstrytodaymag.com
4. 5 Problems with Youth Ministry In America
5. What Do Teenagers Need From Youth Ministry? – ChristianityToday.org
