All Work And No Play

by Bo Cassel

As the choir started leading the congregation in the second song, Gabriella couldn’t find him.

“Tony was in Sunday school, but I wonder where he went?” she wondered, trying to focus on worship, but often taking a mental roll call of the teenagers in the service.

After the service, Gabriella saw Tony in the parking lot.

“Where were you? I didn’t see you in the worship service,” she prodded.

“I was working in the nursery,” Tony replied.

“Since when did you become interested in nursery work?” Gabriela asked, knowing Tony was an athlete with a streak of mischief—not your typical child-care provider.

Tony saw an opportunity to share something that had been bothering him, and he took it.

“Honestly? I started doing it because it was a way to get out of church. I figured as long as I had to be here with my parents, I might as well do something interesting.”

Gabriela faced a scenario all too often encountered by youth workers. Teenagers who enjoy coming to youth group don’t often feel the same way about “regular” church. What can a youth pastor do about disconnect between the fun, game playing, and chorus-singing youth group when the congregational service hasn’t been updated in 20 years?

When Fun Youth Ministries Must Apologize for Boring Adult Church

There’s a cultural schism. The youth ministry has adapted to youth culture to stay relevant, and teenagers attend youth group and find a connection there. But the aging main body of the church is quite happy using the same methods and worship styles—often the same pattern used since the ’60s or ’70s (or even much earlier). The students try to fit in, but they’re bored to tears. They are young, active, and want to participate; but the old model of adult worship prevents that—there’s some singing, but then someone sings a solo, and then someone preaches. Youth sit passively and often politely, but they count the seconds until it’s all over.

There’s also a theological schism. The worship service and preaching hit teenagers like a motivational speech to try to do better. They see a well-polished crowd that goes through the motions and seems to know what they’re doing. But teenagers are acutely aware of their own failures and don’t feel they can measure up. They want to draw closer to God, but there is little emphasis on grace in the worship service, which is the element they are starving to hear.

Most of the time however, the church is stuck in a rut because it has confused eternal matters with cultural ones. The eternal matter (worship) becomes equated with the method (the culturally appropriate expression of worship). Pretty soon the method (which should change from place to place, and from generation to generation as each generation creates its own cultural expression) is held up as an eternal value. The adults start to think that doing church any other way than they have been doing it is wrong. And along come the young people—who have no connection the methods from 30 years ago. These students hunger for God, but they’re rejecting the cultural practices of church, and thus risk rejecting the living God they long for. Kids sit through painfully dull services and wonder, “Why can’t church be more fun?”

Generations become immersed in their cultures and methods (“stuck in the ’80s,” so to speak) and are resistant to change. But methods can be negotiated when the emphasis is placed on common goals.

All Work and No Play Makes Church a Dull Joy

Critics may say that youth ministry is all “fun and games” with no substance. There certainly have been youth ministries that were nothing more than that. A “fun without substance” approach certainly is a danger. However, it is also true that most youth ministries have struck a better balance of life and faith than the rest of the congregation precisely because they have integrated fun into church life.

Churches that have changed and adapted and have balanced their worship services to include participation, imagery, and plain old fun are successfully connecting to the upcoming generations. I know of one senior pastor who made a conscious effort to include more humor in the main worship service. He made the “order of worship” feel lighter and would spend hours crafting sermons that had at least three moments when the congregation could laugh. In this case, young people gravitated to the “adult” church. The church had two services, and youth Sunday school was held during the second service. That church developed an interesting problem—kids would skip out on the youth Sunday school time to make sure they didn’t miss the main service!

If We Are Not Disneyland, Must We Be Prison?

There’s a balance between having Robin Williams as your senior pastor and Ferris Bueller’s teacher (“God gave Moses how many commandments? Anyone? Anyone?”) leading the congregation. But regardless of the pastor’s personality, is it that unrealistic to appeal to and interest young people? Is it too much to ask to have students integrated into the congregation as a whole?

To adolescents, adult church members are all too often too serious, caught up in trying to appear righteous, and not “real” or authentic. The church would do well to learn to not take itself so seriously, remembering that God created humor and fun. The life of the church should be a celebration of all aspects of human life—including fun and laughter.

The Day the Church Threw a Party

A few years ago I was the youth pastor at a medium-sized church north of Los Angeles. Our senior pastor had a crazy idea. He started preaching about how the church exists for the people outside of its walls, and that the church could better accomplish its purpose by having church outside. So he told the congregation that the church was going to throw a block party and invite the neighborhood. The regular worship service was canceled, and plans were made.

Students quickly caught the vision. Seeing this as something daring, authentic, and relevant to what they’d been thinking church should be all along, they begged for ways to be involved. It wasn’t hard. A rock band formed, and several kids rotated in with various instruments. Other young people placed themselves with the cooking staff and helped make hot dogs (which were free of charge). Others handed out invitation flyers throughout the neighborhood announcing the block party.

They set up a sound system and chairs on the front lawn of the church, along with the banners and food booth. One teenager noticed a man who lived across the street slowly coming out of his apartment and inching his way toward the commotion. The teenager came up to me and asked excitedly, “Do you think it would be okay if I took that man a hot dog?”

I said, “Of course.”

When the day was done, we talked as a group. We all felt as though the experience was what the church was supposed to be doing—throwing parties, celebrating, and inviting others to share that joy. The teenagers saw that church could be authentic, caring, and fun. They said that they liked that there were ways for them to participate alongside the adults. They said it was the first time they felt like they were united with the “adult” church. They had a blast at the party. They couldn’t wait to come to church to see what fun thing they were going to do next week.

Integrating Church Back into Youth

It seems that one of the mistakes we make when trying to bridge the gap between the youth ministry and the rest of the church is thinking in terms of “getting youth back into church.” But we would be better off if we thought in opposite terms—“getting church back into youth.”

This means a creative effort to find where the church and the young people connect. The best way to do that is by making the church relevant; and not only to youth, but to their surroundings—to their neighborhood. This may take a great deal of effort by the adult leadership of the church, including the youth leaders, the senior pastor, the church board, and the key opinion leaders. Here are some ways to begin a conversation that can lead to church fun that students not only enjoy, but feel a part of.

1. Communicate to key adults your passion to connect to the upcoming generation. Talk in terms of “passing the torch” and intentional youth involvement in church life. Adults may resist changing familiar church methods, but most of them deeply desire to make sure their children and the next generation are connected to church.

2. Discuss church cultural practices that are barriers to those immersed in youth culture and those outside the walls of the church. Talk about how a culture constantly exposed to media and centered on entertainment has difficulty with some forms of church that don’t include variety, humor, or fun.

3. Invite key adult leaders to sit down and listen to what young people think about church. They’ll hear real needs first hand. They’ll also be able to put names and faces to some of the needs that may later become part of discussions in the church boardroom.