Immerse Blog

Contextual Youth Ministry

by Brian Hull on July 14th, 2011 -- filed under

There are many youth cultures, and they are everywhere. But if you are hanging out with teenagers, you already know that. Even if you have not said it out loud, you know that this cluster of teens is different from that one, and it goes far deeper than just the ones who own skateboards and those who do not. You know that their language is different (do not even try to tell me that all English speakers speak the same language); their actions are different; the spaces and places they go are different; what they do with their time is different.

This rapidly changing reality of many youth cultures where teenagers act as brokers on the global stage, swapping videos, information, money, values, religious views, and more is also calling for youth ministry to change. But how? What does youth ministry to so many different kids and cultures look like, anyway? Where is the book for this?

I would like to propose here what most of you also already know. Our change in the way we do youth ministry has to start with our theology. We need to continue to learn from missiologists and start thinking and talking in terms of contextual theology. “The contextualization of theology—the attempt to understand Christian faith in terms of a particular context—is really a theological imperative.”[1] This is the idea that the way we study God, think of God, talk about God, worship God, live like Jesus, etc., has to meet the place where we live.

I had been the youth pastor at a local church for about six months before the end of October came around. For me growing up, and for most people I knew (Christian or not), this was the time to celebrate Halloween. This was the time for parties, funny costumes, bobbing for apples, and lots of candy. When I started talking about a Halloween party with some of my leaders, they quickly pulled me aside and challenged me to think in terms of a harvest party or something similar. I initially balked at their hesitance but began to listen to them and to our students and to our context. I discovered a growing group in our town that was devoted to Wicca, or a form of magic. For this area, Halloween really was a pagan holiday. The idea that we as followers of Jesus would celebrate this holiday was incomprehensible to some of our students, who had once worshiped in those ways. We began to pray and ask God for direction. We began to see how important it was to communicate the gospel in a way that our context could understand, connect with, and live into. Words like sacrifice, power, and initiation became more and more important.

While we did not know to articulate it this way, we were developing a contextual theology. In fact, when we began to see the world and the power of the gospel through this one Wiccan culture, we also began to see other cultures around us. There was a need to articulate and live the gospel using different language, connecting to different symbols, and emphasizing different parts of the story. We were not perfect and made plenty of mistakes, but we were trying to faithfully live the gospel.

This contextual theology is where real change in the way we think about theology—and the way we do youth ministry—needs to start. What is happening in your context that is changing the way you talk about God? What shapes the way you worship? What words do you emphasize because of your place?

There is no book to tell you this for your students and your place. There is no program that works everywhere. There is God in this place. What does it mean to follow Jesus in your context?

 

[1] Stephen B. Bevans is one of the leading experts on contextual theology. This quote comes from his book, Models of Contextual Theology. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2010.

 

Image used from Wonderlane


Comments

  • http://twitter.com/PaulSheneman Paul Sheneman

    I like what you’re saying.  I wonder what happens when we start recognizing multiple youth cultures among our teens.  

    For example, if there are three dominate youth cultures that impact our teens are you suggesting that we embody our practice of the way of Jesus toward three different cultures?  Would we tell the story of God with three different thematic emphases that are appropriate to each of the three different cultures during our teaching time?  Would we serve our community in three unique ways?

  • Brian Hull

    Great question Paul! 

    A few thoughts in response:

    I think once we begin to understand the varying cultures within our communities, that helps us first of all evaluate much more accurately the effectiveness of our current programming.  This is important because it forces us to not just “do what we did last year”, but ask questions about what the students in our community need to connect to Christ. This leads to what you are asking about… realizing that there are more cultures than just one in our midst.

    Once we do realize this diversity and multi-culturalism, I believe we can make some key and important choices to help share the gospel.  While there is a very long answer and discussion around this, let me make a few short observations here. 

    1) Yes, we can do different things for the different cultures in our midst.  This does not mean that we have to completely change all that we do for one of the cultures, but can’t we do an activity a year that focuses on communicating and embodying the gospel for that culture specifically?  So maybe that looks like a skate board event for those students that we engage in together once a year. If we are making these decisions together though – and I believe this is key as a community lives out its theological convictions – then it makes complete sense for one cultural group to serve and support another for this one event and vice versa.
     
    2) Perhaps that greatest challenge and the most beautiful expression of the kingdom is the way that many cultures can come together (not become the same, but come together).  This is where it takes a true hermeneutic community to engage Scripture and cultural context together.  The work here is to find where we as a community connect and find ourselves within the story of Scripture and the work of God’s Spirit.  The story of Scripture is full of multiple cultures coming together, hearing their call and living into it.  While I am not suggesting that we do not read certain parts of Scripture, I do believe it is appropriate to emphasis certain places within the story based on our community.  This is hard work.  It means that we must constantly be listening to each other, working to understand each other and adapting what we are doing based on where we find ourselves in Scripture. 

    3) A few places to go for more on this might be Kenda Creasy Dean’s many books helping us engage practical theology for youth ministry, Andrew Root’s “Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry”, and from a missiological perspective Paul G. Hebert’s theory of Critical Contextualization as found in his many articles and books.