Revolutionizing Youth Ministry

By Greg Stier

Revolution: “A sudden or momentous change in a situation; to overthrow the current system for something radical and fresh.”

Youth ministry needs a revolution. It needs to be overthrown, retooled and reborn. The majority of what passes as youth ministry is organized babysitting: songs, games, a short devo and pizza afterward…yippee!

Mark Senter III wrote in The Coming Revolution in Youth Ministry that there is no way which the programs and youth ministry tactics currently being used will ever stem the moral tidal wave of corruption that has encompassed our teenagers. In his ground breaking book, Mr. Senter emphasizes again and again the urgent need for a fundamental transformation of the way that youth ministry is done in America. I agree with him. Do you?

If you disagree with the radical assertion that the overall approach to youth ministry is a failed experiment, stop and think about three stark realities. According to Dr. Gary Railsback up to 50 percent of evangelical college freshman will forsake their Christian beliefs by their senior year of college. According to George Barna: 2 out of 3 Christian teens will leave the church after they graduate from high school; 63 percent of our teens don’t believe Jesus is the Son of the one true God; 58 percent believe all faiths teach equally valid truths; 51 percent don’t believe Jesus rose from the dead and 70 percent don’t believe an absolute moral truth exits.

Not only are we failing to reach the non Christian teens in our culture, we are failing to reach the “Christian” teens in our youth groups. We all have bad, sad stories of teens who have forsaken their Christian roots for the tempting fruit of this world. We are not alone. Jesus had Judas. Paul had Demas. Who do you have?

As I think of the teens in my youth group who became sad stories I have to ask myself if there was anything I could have done to have prevented them from going AWOL. We should all be asking ourselves the same thing.

Weak answers

I believe that, for the most part, the answers that typical 21st youth ministry thinking has proposed for these problematic stats and stories are weak. Most curriculum factories churn out dummied down tidbits of truth that barely challenge the thinking of the average Christian teen. Of course, there are exceptions to this (praise God!), but the average curriculum taught at the average youth group is producing average Christianity. And “average Christianity” is an oxymoron that ranks right up there with “jumbo shrimp” and “military intelligence.” Average Christianity is not enough to give our teens the moral fiber they are going to need to serve Christ with passion in the temptation trap called the college life.

The same Christian teens going to youth group every week are taking Calculus, Trig and economics at school. Their minds are being pushed by ambitious teachers, trying to expand the thinking of their students. Meanwhile we are giving them five reasons not to have sex before they get married! Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for abstinence, but what about the character of God, the deity of Jesus, the doctrine of Justification, Sanctification and Glorification? Plunge a teen headfirst into who God is, what salvation is, all the great stuff of theology, and then abstinence and holiness, and practical Christianity will become a no-brainer.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, an English Baptist Preacher (1834-1892) said that “The key to great preaching is great subjects.” Most youth leaders have taken the greatest subjects, hidden them behind the counter and fed their kids junk food Christianity instead.

Teens today need to be pushed in their thinking. They need to have their minds expanded through the amazing truths in the Word of God. We need to help them stop and meditate on the mystical, mind-blowing truths of God and get a good old fashioned debate going over key theological truths. The fireworks will trigger spiritual adrenaline in your teens’ minds and souls that will help them to know and own the truth for themselves instead of living off borrowed faith.

It’s not just our curriculums that tend to be weak. Our strategies are weak too. Instead of challenging teens in and equipping them toward the fulfillment of the Great Commission we compress most of their outreach energies into the annual mission trip. Too little. Too late. Too bad.

It’s time we believe in teens, motivate them to go for it and unleash them in real and viable ways to change the world. In so doing, they themselves will be changed and youth ministry will be revolutionized.

Don’t wait for the curriculum or the conference or the whitepaper. Starting a revolution begins with a simple, radical idea. These radical ideas are often simple to understand yet hard to execute. Why? Because, as one sage put it, “Every significant break through started as a break with.” Anyone wanting to join the revolution will be breaking with mainstream youth ministry thought.

But the real revolution begins with each of us as individuals. If you are willing to live a revolutionary life then God will use you in powerful ways to launch the revolution in the teens around you. Revolution ultimately finds its epicenter, not in a revolutionized curriculum or youth ministry model, but a revolutionized life.

Let the revolution begin in you and me and watch it spread!

Publisher’s Note…

Greg Stier is founder and President of Dare 2 Share Ministries. He launched Dare 2 Share (D2S) in 1991 while serving as the preaching pastor at Grace Church of Arvada in Colorado. Greg had become increasingly alarmed by news stories of young people in trouble. In 1999, after the Columbine High School shootings, he resigned his pastorate position to pursue a fulltime ministry to teenagers.

Over the last decade, D2S has impacted the lives of over 100,000 Christian teenagers across the country through Dare 2 Share Conferences. D2S’s goal is to train and equip 1,000,000 teens to know, live, share and own their faith in Jesus by 2010. Dare 2 Share, in association with Focus on the Family, is bringing the REVOLUTION: Change the Course of History tour to the Savvis Center here in St. Louis on February 10-11, 2006. Featuring a full production drama, awesome worship, transformational training, a four-hour citywide “serve and share” outreach project, and a closing concert by national recording artist Starfield, thousands of teens’ lives will be transformed during this powerful weekend conference.

For more information about D2S, conference registration, free youth ministry resources, or volunteer opportunities visit www.dare2share.org or call (800) 462-8355.