I began my youth ministry career as a Young Life volunteer more than 30 years ago. I had never considered youth ministry as a career. But because I have organizational abilities that exceed those of the typical (read: tremendously scattered) youth worker, I was asked to come on Young Life staff. Eleven years later I found myself starting a youth ministry at a church. Fifteen years and a few hundred students after that, it felt like I’d done everything I could do at the church, and I resigned, thinking my youth ministry career was coming to a close.
I was wrong. Soon after, I was asked to start teaching Bible and faith foundations at a Christian high school, and I realized I still loved working with teenagers, perhaps more than ever. So here I am at 50 years old, feeling like I’m just starting to figure this crazy thing out called youth ministry.
As anyone who has worked with youth knows, a programming slam dunk is the testimony. I can have students falling asleep in three seconds if I start using phrases like, “Church history tells us…” or, “Scholars theorize that…” But I can raise a kid practically from the dead if I say, “And I’ve asked Jeff to share with you a few things about his life…”
That doesn’t mean I cater completely to that desire we all have to hear the juicy stuff, but I do enjoy watching my students lean forward as someone starts telling their story. After all, isn’t that why reality TV is so dominant on cable these days?
Dr. Jeff Keuss recognizes that appeal in his article about St. Augustine but also notes the unique effectiveness of Augustine’s spiritual biography, a classic for centuries known as Confessions. But before I read Dr. Keuss’ article, I never put together the singular difference that Augustine brings to his work: “Augustine writes his life story as a prayer to God because, if we do not make sense to God first and foremost, we will never make sense to ourselves.” In other words, rather than just sharing the alluring details of a debauched story leading up to conversion, we get a peek into Augustine’s intimate dialogue with God about his sin and salvation.
Furthermore, Dr. Keuss uses the metaphor of a short-term mission trip as a valuable contrast to what truly is the faith journey of our students. If there is anything I’ve learned up close and personal over these years, it is this somewhat Pauline sentence that Keuss writes: “Where some youth ministry models see the primary goal to get youth to a point of accepting Jesus into their hearts and become convicted at one moment in time, Augustine sees this process as continual and always in motion—a life that always confesses at every moment and in every place is what we are called to through a commitment to following Christ that is always new.”
I heartily agree. I could tell so many stories of people I knew as youth groupies who then wandered off in college but then wandered back onto my radar as 35-year-olds, not really having left Jesus so much as having re-engaged in the “process [that is] always in motion” otherwise known as a life of faith.
The only place I might diverge from Keuss’ recommendations for youth ministry (according to Augustine’s Confessions) comes in his ideas for creating space and reflection in our youth groups. Make no mistake: I really enjoy carving out times of worship, silence, reflection and prayer with young people on occasion. However, I do not believe young people understand, for the most part, the deep value of what we are asking them to do at the moment. Sure, they love the warmth of group sharing and the power of intense worship but only in hindsight, after years of having lived more of life, experienced more mistakes and perhaps faced down some deep regrets, do they understand the “power of memory” and what that brings to the soul-making process.
So I am not afraid of asking them to be quiet and reflect. But my experience has been that they do not have the developmental maturity to really “access and spelunk.” They feel deeply, they question, they yearn. So we meet them there and pray that seeds are well planted for the future.
Over the years I have discovered that we “hang out with youth and build relationships with them” in order to log trust and credibility with them. Whenever possible, I encourage youth workers to return and ask their former students to draw upon the foundations built in them through family (hopefully), church and youth group mentors. Keuss seems to agree: “By walking with youth and showing them that we can walk in faith amidst constant change, we offer them the enduring nature of God.” Buckle up. Youth ministry is a one long road trip. But well worth the bumpy ride.
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