On his blog recently, Adam McLane theorized the very difficult statement Youth Ministry is Flatlining. Basically his argument is…
Statistically speaking you are flatlined. (As in– no heart beat!) You’re reaching just about the same percentage of people you’ve always reached. That may be OK from a church politics situation but I’m not sure I’m OK with that from a theological position.
And I’m positive that this flatlining has lead to the following problems in youth ministry over the last decade:
> A general cynicism about youth ministry internally and externally.
> A decrease in youth ministry staff and general budget funding.
> An increase in expectations that new youth ministry staff grow the program immediately.
> Lots of great youth workers moving on to other ministries or careers.
> The rise of family ministry models designed to circle the wagons. (Historically, youth ministry existed for evangelism. Popular models today are primarily interested in keeping church families engaged.)
Adam is NOT providing answers in his post, but he is asking perhaps the right question. Do we set up youth ministry, or church for that matter, for the very slight percentage that can dedicate a thin sliver of the pie chart of their lives for us? Or to utilize the language of the Occupy Movement… Are we designing our ministry to the 1% when the great commission calls for us to go out and make disciples of all the nations… ahem, the 99%.
So, what changes to kick life into the flatlined? It doesn’t make sense to step up our present efforts… We can only provide those eclectic paddles of more intensive efforts so often before before we admit our same old, same old solution won’t work…
Maybe we have to expect more of the 1%… not just to treat them as recipients or customers, but as actual collaborators. Perhaps, we have to also find new ways to collaborate in the lives, in the arenas, where young people are spending the pie charts of their lives. Perhaps we need to understand ourselves as the Church that occupies… like Jesus did. We need to find ourselves within meals of others, not just at our Eucharistic meal. We need not to enclose the Living Waters within our Churches, but to share them in the Samaritan Woman’s wells of young people’s lives.
What changes if we re-configure our church, our ministry efforts to occupy on behalf of the 99% we are not reaching?
Here’s a link to Adam’s article
http://adammclane.com/2012/01/02/youth-ministry-is-flatlining/
This is a great concept, are we reaching the 99% who don’t come'” it is similar to the Money Ball entry about changing the game. As far as I know there isn’t yet a resource, or training designed for an actual New Youth Ministry, it all seems to be in the stage of’ “we are aware that something needs to change, but what and how.” So hoping to get more ideas from others here’s what I’ve done to reach out beyond the 1%. I hope I’m on the right page. I’m also going to throw out some numbers beause I still don’t fully know understand what’s missing.
When a Youth Ministry event is at its peak there are approximatly 20 High School Teens present.
To reach out to those who don’t “come” to youth ministry I was involved as a coach with our parish grade school’s boys baseball team. My hope was to make it about more than fundamentals and make it a ministry to the players, and help them become men of faith. This reached an additional 15 Youth.
I began training Extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, and changed the training from a 10 min list of “chores” to a full hour of prayer, and teaching about Jesus, the Eucharist, and being an EMCH. This reaches approximately 10 more youth.
Are those the type of change you’re talking about, and where do I go from here. I know that “I” cannot “do everything or reach” everyone. So how do I expand beyond what I can do? How do I convice the leaders of the other slices of the pie of the lives of youth to make their slice a ministry?
Matt- if you find this similar to Moneyball, it’s becuase these are the areas where I and many others are thinking. And, we are working up some possible resources… BUT, I think you are on the right track.
How can we get more adult to be coacjhing as a “church” committment?
How can we engage the adult EM’s to take over your training efforts and mentor young people as EM’s…? And, do the same with all liturgical ministires?
Youth Ministers need to become facilitators of the adult community, especially parents, in reaching the 99%
Scott… YOU ROCK. I loved this concept when you first broke it open at http://www.rebuildmychurch.org . I am loving it more as you continue to break it open.
@ the conversation that you an Matt are having. I think we need the radical transition back a mobile Church. Our lives may be rooted in the parish, but like the members of the early church, and the occupy movement, we need to be out in the streets sharing the message. In the public square inviting encounter and transformation by a living God. We often become comfortable with our in house efforts, as well as afraid to reach out to those unchurched individuals in the midst of our community. I think we are all guilty of this in some way. Just my two thoughts, but when I read Adam’s blog a few days ago and Scott’s yesterday. This is what hit.
Tony
Still being motivated by this article, and though of the parable of the lost sheep. In that instance there was only one sheep which wandered off which the sheppherd searched for, but the Occupying Church article tells us that the 99 have wandered off. Youth Ministry is now a ministry, “In Search of Ewe”
Wow, that was a brilliant as well as challenging pun…. That very well might become a larger blog post soon.