What is Youth Ministry?
Attend almost any parish in the Archdiocese of Adelaide on a Sunday morning and you’ll be hard pressed to find more than a handful of young people between the ages of 16 and 30 (this is a generalisation and not always true for every parish every weekend – don’t string me up just yet!). The absence of youth isn’t anything new, and there are a million contributing factors including wider cultural attitudes towards religion, expectations on young people’s time (especially on Sunday mornings), and the scandals that continues to shake the foundations of the church and other institutions. This is not to say that young people reject outright belief in God, an exploration of faith and spirituality, or even their Catholic identity. But it is complicated.
St Francis Xavier Cathedral in Adelaide
In my role as Coordinator of the Catholic Office for Youth and Young Adults I am often a guest at Parish Pastoral Council meetings, school boards, and many faith groups and diocesan agencies. I am usually there to listen and offer advice on pastoral ministry with young people. Inevitably someone in the meeting will ask a question like, “Where are the young people anyway? How do we get them to come back to church?” Or if they are a really despairing individual, they will say, “We’ve already tried youth ministry, it’s a lost cause. We need to focus our attention and resources on those who show up on Sundays.” Both responses are completely legitimate reactions to the absence of young people from Sunday worship, but they are misinformed.
Our current cultural understanding of what we call “youth ministry” was developed over the past 50 years, and most of that is based on youth ministry models of the 70s, 80’s and 90s developed by Protestant, Evangelical and Pentecostal churches. They might look something like this:
The parish hires (or appoints a volunteer) to take on the task of leading the youth ministry. This person is called the youth minister and is preferably young, just a few years older than the youth they are leading. Unfortunately this means they have little to no training or formation for pastoral ministry or adolescent development. Their role ends up looking more like a combination of an activity coordinator on a cruise ship and a rock star! The ministry itself consists of youth group meetings with games, pizza, singing, and maybe a bible or catechetical lesson (again, the leaders of these groups usually have no theological or religious education formation). Retreats, service projects, and youth masses are commonplace.
A young Fr Dean Marin and young people at a retreat in the 1980s
Do not mistake this broad description as a criticism. This model worked incredibly well for a while. Other groups like Young Christian Workers and Young Christian Students, as well as other youth movements and ministries have had great success for their time. It is impossible to measure the success of these programs, but I have met scores of older people who had incredible formation in these groups. They are doing amazing work in the church and wider society and will attribute their life’s direction to their experience in these groups as a young person.
The problem is these youth ministry models and programs worked in the time and culture for which they were created. Their success was measured by the numbers of young people in groups and their presence at Mass on Sunday. But they did not change as the times and culture changed, they lost their relevance and potency, and their measurement for success no longer makes sense.
If salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out.
In other words, when the models stop working, get rid of them and find something new and fresh.
So what is youth ministry anyway? And how do we know when it’s working?
Kelvin Maynes shares his experience of being a young person in the Church at World Youth Day Adelaide 2019
Ministry to young people is not about exclusive groups or pre-packaged, one-size-fits-all programs or even getting them to come to church. It is about the Christian community’s proximity to young people and their capacity to enter into a relationship of mutual accompaniment and unconditional love with young people. It is about recognizing young people as full members of the community, as neighbours to be loved, as marginalised to be included, as emerging leaders to be empowered, as the energizers and animators of the whole community. It is about listening to young people and taking their ideas, opinions and struggles seriously – which means suspending judgement or comparison and simply loving them! It’s about working together to develop responses to the needs of young people, and trying out their crazy ideas. Yes, it includes spiritual and intellectual formation, but it is more like walking on a trail with a friend than a lecture in a sterile classroom.
This kind of youth ministry is daring, and it demands courageous communities. It requires the whole Christian community to accept their responsibility to young people rather than place the entire burden of youth ministry on the shoulders of an underpaid and overworked individual. It will demand stepping outside the boundaries of the church, physical and metaphorical. We will need to remove the false metric of participation in Sunday liturgies as the only qualifier for what it means to be legitimate member of the community. Partnerships with families, schools, agencies and organisations Catholic and non-Catholic alike will be necessary. It may mean a reorganising of priorities and a refocusing of vision in order to achieve small steps forward. And it will require a softening of the heart, loosening of the budget, and reliance on the energy and passion that only comes from trusting in God’s Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit and renew the face of the earth.
This might seem like a lot. And it is. But here’s the thing: We don’t have a choice.
World Youth Day Adelaide Community Mass
When youth ministry is working, the entire community thrives. Not just for those who attend the church groups, functions and liturgies. When we shift our focus outward to the needs of others, we are transformed, the world is transformed. We start to see things differently, our perspective changes. No longer hung up on the minutia of community life, we are more concerned with sharing the joy of the Gospel with the world around us. Our horizons expand outward, and so too the doors in to our community. When we go out to be church to the world, the world takes notice. If we are unwilling to attempt even small change, we might as well pack it in and call it a day. We risk becoming like Jonah, the reluctant prophet who preferred death rather than see God’s reign expanded to a group of people he thought unworthy.
So what’s the first step?
Prayer. Reflection. Conversion of heart. Then:
As an individual: Engage with the young people in your life. Children, grandchildren, students, neighbours, fast food cooks, grocery store cashiers, friends, co-workers, pew neighbours. Get to know them as a friend. Ask questions, become interested in their life, their opinions, and their challenges. Be Christ to the young people in your life. Withhold judgement and offer only unconditional love. Accompany them on the journey of their life. The transformation will take time and may include some heartache and embarrassment, but it will be worth it!
As a community: Go to the edges, the places where young people are already present: schools, shopping centres, sports clubs, the beach, online, etc. They may already be in your parish, so invite them to share their experience and ideas with the Parish Pastoral Council, Finance Council, school board, staff, and the whole community. Start to develop ways for young people to not just participate but offer leadership and guidance to the whole community. Follow the advice above for individuals, and be ready to change and shift priorities as needed!
True transformation takes time and won’t be measured by the usual metrics, but you will know it when you see it just as the disciples on the road to Emmaus didn’t recognize that their walking partner was in fact the risen Christ until they shared in the breaking of bread. And their hearts burned within them.
Written by Peter Bierer, Coordinator of the Catholic Office for Youth and Young Adults.