I’ve never been present when a youth received genuinely bad news about a parent.
In fact, it’s been pretty rare that I’ve found out anything of that nature on any kind of timeline that would enable me or other leaders in our ministry to help process the circumstances in a helpful way. For some reason we’ve learned to keep our difficulties separate from the ministries of the church that could help us most, reserving them for when things are okay again or just too late to save.
Even issues related to health are often kept guarded. People prefer not to impose or inconvenience. The ecclesial community Andrew references is only brought to bear in most instances in an after-the-fact role, relegating it to tired, insufficient or wholly inappropriate conjecture about what might have been or what might be and often piling on with terrifying interpretation about what God does/allows/wills, etc.
This setting aside of ecclesial community places youth ministry itself in the middle of an ontological crisis that mirrors in many ways the one described and experienced by Andrew Root in Young People, Divorce, and Youth Ministry. The identity of youth ministry is somewhere at the crossroads of youth, parents and spiritual understanding. When that intersection is compromised within a family and then that family closes off from community, the heart of youth ministry is asked to stand down. Like Root describes, our individual sense of being, our ministry’s ontological security, is also “a social, or relational reality,” and to have that security or understanding suspended threatens the youth worker’s sense of purpose.
Our human condition has rendered us experts at avoiding the awkward. In youth ministry, it’s practically a martial art: the small-group leader who isn’t quite ready to lead; the high school boys who don’t want to visit the nursing home; the silent, collective stare from the table full of brand-new middle school girls waiting to be greeted. Rarely do we rise to take awkwardness head on, especially when we can sidestep it.
Beautifully and mercifully, awkwardness eventually passes, and we can finally exhale and move on. The leader gets better. The boys make friends at the nursing home. The girls get older and eventually accept you. But Andrew points out the fallacy in trying to outwait the awkwardness of a divorce or presuming that a youth whose parents divorced at a young age has “moved on.” Even divorce that happens when a child is young is affecting: “Research reveals that even when the divorce occurred before the young person was cognitively aware of it, it nevertheless became an issue.”
Sometimes awkward is a necessary role to play. Often, actually. If we give up in ministry at a response of, “Oh, everything is fine” or, “I’m doing okay,” we’re often letting someone in need founder when they really need to be drawn in to a community of support. In fact, by not being that community, we inevitably become part of the disruption in their lives.
We like to believe that our ministries play a major role in the lives of youth, that we’re there for them no matter what. But when children are forced to suddenly take stock of everything they have ever known—up to and including the ontological security of their physical home and the nature of the “family dog,” as Root notes—what does it say to them when our ministry, in their moment of need, backs away and redefines itself as a skittish, cautious worrier, quietly wringing its hands in the corner until trouble seems to have passed? What genuine part of their being can we really pretend to have a part in if we act like that? How can we pretend to care about how their world is coming apart when we actively deconstruct part of it ourselves?
Too often in youth ministry, we judge success by poor markers. Everyone lived. Nobody left the church. Somebody said they liked the program. The ontological identity of youth ministry is tied to so many variables that it can look impossibly different from local church to local church. What kind of person is in charge? Are the goals for the ministry driven by a need for childcare or the recognition of a need for spiritual growth? How well is the ministry supported by parents? By staff? By the rest of the church? How is the ministry viewed by the community?
Many of these carry legitimate weight in certain conversations. But on Tuesday, when Rebecca finds out that her parents are splitting up after 23 years of marriage, she’s not going to wonder about the ROI of the last fundraiser or whether ProPresenter had issues with Apple’s new OS. She’s going to reach beyond things she thought were certain to other things she hopes still are. And she may not even have the strength to ask. She may even withdraw at times. But real community understands that.
Most of all, we need to understand that often there is nothing for us to do. Andrew’s final call to movement isn’t actually to movement: “This is what youth workers need to do for children of divorce. We need to do this simple but profound thing that is really not doing but being—being together.” There are dozens of variables that complicate this simple truth, but it remains in simplicity; youth ministry needs to learn to just be for the youth with whom it comes into relationship.
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