What’s Wrong With Youth Ministers? Some Common (and often Legitimate) Criticisms, Part 3
Disclaimer: I have been involved in youth ministry in some fashion for almost ten years now, so the statements below are based on observations I have made during that time. That being said, I am in no way claiming to be an expert on youth ministry, and I am certainly not suggesting that I am a perfect (or even particularly good) youth minister. Below are a collection of humble opinions and suggestions based on personal experience. See Parts 1 and 2 of this series here and here.
(4) Youth Ministers are shallow.
I had a hard time coming up with the title for this area of criticism, but really it’s just an umbrella description for specific criticisms of youth ministers that I’ve heard voiced or implied several times like, “All he does is plan fun events! There’s never any spiritual emphasis!” or “His Bible classes are pure entertainment! There’s no Bible to them!” or “He doesn’t even know the Bible! Why is he teaching our kids?”
Fun Events: in a time when a lot of teenagers are having fun in some decidedly unholy ways, I think there’s nothing wrong with having certain events that are for the express purpose of having good, clean fun. Of course, these fun events should be balanced with other types of events, but I honestly don’t know of any youth ministers who do nothing more than play basketball with their teens. Most organize regular devotionals to provide a time outside of worship to study the Bible, and many travel to a variety of youth rallies, retreats, and summer camps to provide an opportunity for worship and spiritual growth.
If there is one area in which I think youth ministers as a whole could be more intentional about planning activities it would be service. Fundamentally, Christians are supposed to be servants, but that’s a hard message to get across in our self-centered, consumer culture. One thing I’ve always tried to do as a youth minister (sometimes more successfully than others) is to provide a variety of opportunities for service to remind my students that following Jesus means adopting His model of servanthood.
Entertainment vs. Bible: I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but teenagers in today’s world don’t exactly have stellar attention spans. This isn’t particularly surprising since most of them have been watching television since birth and spend most of the day plugged in through a smart phone, iPod, or laptop.
Because of this, there is undoubtedly a need for capturing the attention of our students in order to teach them effectively. That being said, if you’re not careful, you can spend so much time engaging the students that you don’t have time to engage Scripture. I’ve seen Bible lessons for teens that were so focused on grabbing their attention and making the Bible relevant that they barely had mentioned the Bible at all!
Fundamentally, I believe that the Bible is relevant to the life of every person, and because of that, it is interesting. I don’t claim to be a great teacher, but the Bible is a great book, and since I make it a priority to teach Scripture in my classes, it’s usually fairly effective.
Bible Knowledge: I have become personally convinced that Christians, on the whole, are woefully ignorant of the teachings of the Bible. That’s a scary thing to me, but even worse, a lot of Bible teachers (including some youth ministers) aren’t much better.
I don’t want to over-generalize here, because everyone is different: I’ve known youth ministers with little formalized training who are outstanding Bible students, and others with college degrees in Bible who seemed completely unaware of basic biblical teachings. Regardless of that, on the whole, we as a people don’t know our Bibles well enough, and I’ve never known anyone who spent too much time reading and studying Scripture.
And, related to the point above about Entertainment vs. Bible, the better you know and understand the Bible, the easier it is to teach it. Being able to describe the historical and cultural background of a specific story or passage is more interesting than just having your students take turns reading it out loud. Better understanding leads to better teaching.
(5) Youth Ministers are liberal.
I really dislike the labels “liberal” and “conservative” when it comes to church discussion, because everyone defines those terms so differently that they become largely useless.1 I dislike the labels so much that I almost left this one off the list entirely, but it is a common criticism, so I thought I would address it briefly.2
In this last criticism, I am not referring to the idea held by some people that having a youth minister is inherently liberal,3 but rather the notion that youth ministers individually tend to be more liberal than the congregations that employ them, and thus, cause problems at those congregations.
Like I said above, this is a common criticism, and I’m sure it’s valid to a degree, but I think it tends to exaggerated a lot. Let me explain.
It makes a lot of sense for youth ministers to be a somewhat liberal group as a whole when you remember that, as a general rule, youth ministers tend to be young, and they also tend to be only a few years removed from an education at a Christian university (typically, people are more liberal when they are younger, and usually Christian universities are somewhat more liberal than are a lot of the congregations whose young people choose to attend them).
Nevertheless, if a congregation has done a good job in the interview process to find a youth minister that is a good fit for them, then really it shouldn’t be an issue—more liberal churches will have no problem accepting youth ministers with more liberal views, while more conservative congregations will avoid those candidates and instead hire someone whose views are more in line with their own.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that if there is4 a huge problem of youth ministers being too liberal for the churches they work with, at least part of the blame should fall on the congregations who hired them in the first place when they obviously weren’t a very good fit.
In this last criticism, I am not referring to the idea held by some people that having a youth minister is inherently liberal,3 but rather the notion that youth ministers individually tend to be more liberal than the congregations that employ them, and thus, cause problems at those congregations.
Like I said above, this is a common criticism, and I’m sure it’s valid to a degree, but I think it tends to exaggerated a lot. Let me explain.
It makes a lot of sense for youth ministers to be a somewhat liberal group as a whole when you remember that, as a general rule, youth ministers tend to be young, and they also tend to be only a few years removed from an education at a Christian university (typically, people are more liberal when they are younger, and usually Christian universities are somewhat more liberal than are a lot of the congregations whose young people choose to attend them).
Nevertheless, if a congregation has done a good job in the interview process to find a youth minister that is a good fit for them, then really it shouldn’t be an issue—more liberal churches will have no problem accepting youth ministers with more liberal views, while more conservative congregations will avoid those candidates and instead hire someone whose views are more in line with their own.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that if there is4 a huge problem of youth ministers being too liberal for the churches they work with, at least part of the blame should fall on the congregations who hired them in the first place when they obviously weren’t a very good fit.
The next (and hopefully last) post will close out the series with a few summary observations.
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1For example, some people use the term “liberal” to refer to the idea that Jesus wasn’t actually define and wasn’t physically raised from the dead, while other people use it to refer to the practice of clapping hands while singing in worship. The fact that the same term is used to describe such widely varying theological beliefs and practices renders the term almost meaningless. It becomes just a relative term—anyone to the left of (whoever is speaking at the time) is “liberal”, while anyone to his right is “conservative”.
2I won’t put the terms in quotation marks from here on out because that would be annoying to read; just realize that I am making no attempt to actually define the terms, but am just using them in a general and relative sense.
2I won’t put the terms in quotation marks from here on out because that would be annoying to read; just realize that I am making no attempt to actually define the terms, but am just using them in a general and relative sense.
3Some Christians/congregations believe that, since the New Testament doesn’t specifically speak about the use of youth ministers, congregations that have them are using a “liberal” innovation. Obviously, I disagree. Not wanting to go into great detail on this point, I would suggest that since the New Testament comes much closer to supporting a congregation having a youth minister than having a multi-million dollar building to worship in.
4There is no doubt in my mind that there are multiple examples of guys who have come in with more liberal views, tried to bring change to the congregation they were working with and caused a great deal of damage in the process. Nevertheless, I don’t really think this is a common occurrence; it is certainly not true of the vast majority of the many youth ministers I have known and worked with.
4There is no doubt in my mind that there are multiple examples of guys who have come in with more liberal views, tried to bring change to the congregation they were working with and caused a great deal of damage in the process. Nevertheless, I don’t really think this is a common occurrence; it is certainly not true of the vast majority of the many youth ministers I have known and worked with.
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