Comments on: Youth ministry’s contribution to the missing 20-somethings

By: Why Young Adults Aren’t Connecting « elevating a generation

Why Young Adults Aren’t Connecting « elevating a generation — Sat, 03 May 2008 13:43:11 +0000

[...] been asked several times why we don’t have youth services on Sunday mornings at Destiny. This article by Tim Schmoyer sums it up well for [...]

By: Catch up in youth ministry « Chris Kidd - applied youth ministry

Catch up in youth ministry « Chris Kidd - applied youth ministry — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:29:07 +0000

[...] Youth ministry’s contribution to the missing 20-somethings a great article by Tim Schmoyer with some interesting thoughts on the development of church. [...]

By: Tim Schmoyer

Tim Schmoyer — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:11:40 +0000

@ Nick: Oh, I don’t care about traffic. I send people away from my site all the time with links! Resourcing people is much more important than dinky website hits. :)

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:28:45 +0000

How? Here Chapter 6 talks about integration into the larger church body. Unfortunately, the book preview cuts out about 4 pages, so pick up the whole thing! :) Don't mean to send traffic away from your site, Tim, but this post begs Luke's question. :)

By: Tim Schmoyer

Tim Schmoyer — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:29:00 +0000

Brandon, I hear your predicament, but, without being trying to be critical, I really think if you start a youth service you’re only delaying the inevitable. In theory it sounds like a good short-term solution, but in the long-run you’re just shooting yourself in the foot. Maybe instead you guys could consider ways to intentionally integrate students into the main worship services, ways to create interaction between the generations, ways to give students responsibility over the church. Obviously your situation isn’t solely a programmatic problem, it’s a mindset problem of the people (parents and teens) who attend your church. That’s why you can focus all your energy into mid-week stuff and still have it flop. So if you shift your energy to Sunday programs instead, the mindset of your congregation remains the same and thus so does your problem. Gotta dig to the root, my brotha.

By: Brandon Riley

Brandon Riley — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:47:53 +0000

I do think that teens should be integrated into the church, but in my experience most churches do a bad job at contextualizing to younger generations. One problem we have faced is that our local church culture is a sunday morning culture. We’ve focused a lot of our energies and resources on ministry teams and wednesday nights thinking that Sunday will take care of itself. What we’ve discovered is that most parents and teenagers at least in our part of town think Wednesday or Sunday night is either an inconvenience or an option. Because of this thinking our mid-week meetings are dying, but our sunday morning is packed full of students. Because of this situation our youth ministry has considered starting a youth service in January 2009, not to give into the culture, but to attempt to reach a majority of our students. We wrestle with this question because we know they may never enter the doors of the main church again, but for many of these students and parents Sunday morning is all they will give us. There is something about a large gathering of people, whether it be teenagagers or adults that enables someone in front (insert pastor/youth minister) to cast a vision to his audience of this is where we should go as a people and here is how we are going to serve our community. The problem we have faced is that for more than 1/2 of our students that only show up on a Sunday morning, they are missing this part of being connected to a vision to go into their schools and make a difference.

By: Luke

Luke — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:27:42 +0000

How?

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:10:31 +0000

Don’t worry, Tim, there’s lots of controversy in this issue, but I don’t think it’s in whether or not youth ministry has contributed to the disconnection of so many in their 20’s. It’s in actually implimenting the integration of students into churches that often only want their youth ministries to keep kids occupied so the adults can worship without so much young distraction. How do we actually lead students and adults to mutual ministry in contexts where the ages are divided by walls of abandonment and mistrust? Does being in the same room on Sunday morning really do that?

By: Nikomas

Nikomas — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:43:13 +0000

I think that in a perfect world we would not need youth ministries at all. But to get there we have to change the entire adolescent culture that was started in late 19th century: rights of passage, independence, tailored marketing strategies, specialized public schooling, an entire nation that revolves around teens, and so much more. I definetley think teens should be integrated in to the church but in order to completely integrate, I fear we fight a battle that will take more than just the church to fight, but America in general. I don’t know…just ramblings.

By: Why Young Adults Aren’t Connecting « elevating a generation

Why Young Adults Aren’t Connecting « elevating a generation — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:33:09 +0000

[...] been asked several times why we don’t have youth services on Sunday mornings at Destiny. This article by Tim Schmoyer sums it up well for [...]

By: Tim Schmoyer

Tim Schmoyer — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:25:00 +0000

Man, just when I think I’ve finally written something controversial, you all have to go and agree with me. You guys make it so hard to shake things up! lol j/k Glad I’m not alone in this.

By: Shawn

Shawn — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:21:55 +0000

Thanks for putting words to the reasons why I never have and hope to never have a separate youth service on Sunday mornings. I agree wholeheartedly.

By: Has Youth Ministry Killed Our 20-30’s? « Blogging With Poess

Has Youth Ministry Killed Our 20-30’s? « Blogging With Poess — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 05:53:53 +0000

[...] Tim attempts to answer the question here. [...]

By: Sean McGever

Sean McGever — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 05:22:17 +0000

Great post. I volunteer with Young Life. If you know anything about Young Life, you know that we focus on the unchurched. When we introduce kids to church, they often have no relational connection to the kids or the youth leaders. They are often reluctant to jump in, not because they don’t like church or Young Life doesn’t promote church connection, but because there is no relational connection (which is usually why they came to Young Life in the first place, with the focus on incarnational ministry). Anyway, I’ve found that they feel more at home in “big church” because they sit with their Young Life leader rather than a youth leader that they don’t know. Our Young Life leaders often are willing to go to the youth group meetings, but also need to maintain their own church involvement and can’t do both at the same time.

All this to say, that your post makes me feel better if the kids I know don’t get connected with the youth group, but do get connected with “big church”. I often feel pressure that if they don’t become die-hard youth group kids, then Young Life is a group of lame-o people who don’t care about “depth” or discipleship.

I’d look forward to constructive feedback regarding how this might be viewed from a non-Young Life angle.

By: PlugRug.com

PlugRug.com — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 05:08:06 +0000

Youth ministry’s contribution to the missing 20-somethings…

Great assessment to the exodus of 20 somethings from the Church….

By: Brian Eberly

Brian Eberly — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 05:05:33 +0000

And to that I offer a hearty, Amen! Simplified, yes. Accurate…absolutely! Well put Tim!

By: The Mayward Blog

The Mayward Blog — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

a great post by Tim Schmoyer