I recently had the documentary Divided brought to my attention. I know, I’m so far behind it all since MarkO was talking about it last summer.
The main purpose of the documentary, using a study done by the Barna Group, was to show that age-segregated ministry (i.e. youth and children’s ministry) was unbiblical. While I don’t agree with the premise – that youth ministry is ‘unbiblical’ simply because it isn’t found in the Bible – it raised some interesting questions for the way in which we ‘do’ youth ministry, particularly with respect to parental involvement in the education process of our youth.
Like the other critiques alongside MarkO’s, I agree that the film is very biased and has an obvious agenda. I also don’t care for the filmmaker’s use of a lot of emotive language throughout like ‘damaging, destructive, danger’, all playing on the fear experienced regularly by parents and in our wider culture.
Fear is endemic in our culture. The media plays on these fears because it hooks people in and causes them to keep turning on the TV or the radio for answers. I definitely would have preferred the documentary to use facts and personal experiences, rather than relying on ‘fear of the alternative’ to guide their views.
The filmmaker only showed one side of the argument. He doesn’t have any real discourse between the two sides. He just shared the one side and set it up that you either believe this or you’re not on God’s side because the Bible says ‘(insert interpretation here)’ and their personal opinion is the definitive word on the subject.
That’s not to say there isn’t absolute truth to be found in the Word of God without room for interpretation on many subjects, but I don’t believe that’s the case on this issue. I have a big issue with this practice, not just within this documentary but in life in general, and especially when it’s a ‘skill’ we pass on to the youth in our care. We can easily teach that one side is right (ours), the other side is wrong (anything else that differs from our view) and we’re unwilling to explore the tension in between the two viewpoints by asking questions and seeking answers, even if they aren’t the answers we want to hear.
The importance of differing viewpoints
When I moved to England, I had a long and painful process of deconstructing and reconstructing my worldview. I’ve received some criticism for straying from my traditional, Southern Baptist theological upbringing (as have many others I know who grew up in the same environment), whereas I see it as an opportunity to get to God’s heart and not just accept what I was taught growing up.
I only saw things one way – the way I’d been taught – from an American middle-class / working-class cultural context. During the time I lived in England I had to decide in my Christian walk, what is truth, not just what is American.
It was really hard and a process that I’m still working through. Filtering information as it comes to me. We often hold the Bereans up as the example for how we need to research what we’re taught in scripture, and yet we only tend to research that which supports our point – at least that has been my experience.
Even in this subject, my notes while watching the documentary, Stephen’s thoughts as I shared about what the documentary covered, even before watching it, and even hearing what our friends had to say, we’ve all tried to defend why our side is the right one. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Maybe there’s a different way that is an amalgamation of the two sides.
I’m really passionate about everyone, and particularly young people, taking the time to think what they believe about something, not just taking others’ word for it and I think that’s reflected in this documentary. They are sharing only one side and we are quick to defend the other.
The ‘Biblicalness’ of Youth Ministry
As far as youth ministry being biblical or not, I think that there are a lot of things that are cultural to the Bible and cultural to us now. The Bible talks about head-coverings for women, etc. and many don’t encourage or practice this now.
There are also a myraid of topics not covered in the Bible and we have to best determine God’s direction for that in our life with what we have from His Word. I don’t think God is okay with anything that causes harm to our children and youth, but I also don’t think that percentages of children and youth dropping out of church creates the direct link between age-segregated youth ministry and ‘long term damage’ as the film suggests.
I don’t see anything in the scripture that says, ‘yes, separate your children out for ministry’. I think there is something to be said for including youth and children in the teaching / work of the entire church. I feel like many churches find a good balance in this by sending home the worksheets for parents about what the children learned and talked about. This does work off the assumption though that parents are reading the scriptures and know about the story enough to sit down and have a conversation with their children about it, thereby ‘training them in the way they should go’.
Unfortunately, many parents are not in this place, spiritually, educationally or physically and therefore there’s an important gap that the church needs to find a way to fill. I would suggest that this needs to be in the form of ‘parenting’ classes, maybe something around the idea of parents taking lessons not only on reading the scriptures, but how to teach those principles to their children.
My experience is that parents often feel ill-equipped. They don’t know how to make a crying baby stop, they don’t know how to handle tantrums in toddlers, they don’t know how to explain death and sex to small children, they don’t know how to talk about puberty, peer relationships and drugs with 9-13 year olds. They don’t know how to provide boundaries and teach independence to youth as they reach adulthood.
The church could provide such a valuable minstry to parents by helping provide some of those answers in the form of experienced educators coming in and teaching. We’re so quick to only want to teach our children in church about Daniel and the Lion’s Den and Jesus feeding the 5,000 that we miss the opportunity to support healthy family and childhood development through other topics, discussions and lessons. In our current generation, there are a lot of adults who need to be ‘trained up in the way they should go’ so that they can in turn teach their children.
The documentary goes into the fact that this generation is looking for answers, honesty and authenticity. I do have to agree with one point made by one of the interviewees that authenticity is often ‘just being us’ rather than about authenticity being about truth. The church, and youth ministry in particular that is trying so desperately to get the youth through the door – especially skeptical youth that have access to any kind of information they want just by googling it – is in danger of just being a place to come and be entertained. They can be afraid of losing the ‘butts on seats’ that they need to keep the value for money for their salary and justify their ministry. This does our youth a great disservice, as in many cases youth pastors are their only connection with the Word of God and it therefore needs to be communicated in a way that is transformational.
Youth and children’s ministry would be better served by partnering more with parents and I don’t mean just trying to get them to volunteer more. But it will be a long painful process, just like the one I experienced when moving abroad, to ‘undo’ the socially and culturally inbuilt emphasis on the youth pastor and Sunday School providing the biblical teaching for the children and youth.
Youth ministry plays an important function in allowing youth a place to be and something positive to be involved with, which is really important. But it also needs to be a safe place to explore issues, ideas and questions, both with each other, with the youth pastor and with their parents.
It might take more youth pastors sitting down with parents and youth to facilitate conversations. Youth pastors often have a natural rapport with youth that allows them the platform to speak into a young person’s life, particularly because they aren’t responsible for the discipline of a youth at home. Youth pastors can take this rapport and use it to strengthen the family unit, rather than break it down.
Dialogical Youth Ministry
Paulo Friere is one of my favorite authors on the topic of education, because he does speak to the way in which we educate children and youth, rather than on the age-specificity of it. He calls what we currently use in most schools as a ‘banking system’ of education: we put information in and expect information out on tests and quizzes, or in the case of youth ministry, in real life situations.
We input scripture memory and stories and expect youth to just regurgitate that when they’re faced with a hard choice. However, Friere explores the idea of ‘dialogical education’, of asking questions and discussing the answers. Teachers and students having a dialogue, and THIS in my opinion is very biblical.
Jesus didn’t answer close ended questions with close ended answers. He reframed the question and created dialogue. He answered questions with questions. This created mutual respect between him and his questioner, not just ‘my way or the highway’ kind of answers. However, he spoke with authority that amazed everyone who heard and they knew that what they were hearing was truth.
I think our youth ministries would do better to work on a more dialogical footing rather than game, music, 20 minute banking session on biblical principle, music, prayer which is the concept of most youth and children’s ministries today. Small groups do serve as a very good place for this kind of educational method.
Conclusion
I think the main thing I came away with after watching Undivided, is that simply because it’s not found it the Bible, I wouldn’t say that modern youth ministry is ‘unbiblical’. However, there are ways it can be improved to better meet the needs of youth, children and families in the context of the Godly family and church body as a whole.
Youth ministry has an opportunity to improve and better meet the changing needs of youth culture in an information age. One way to do this might be to improve dialogue between youth pastors, youth and parents on a variety of subjects previously considered taboo. Barna also recently released another study about the importance that some youth pastors place on emphasizing a healthy family relationship which youth pastors might find interesting.
Question: How can youth ministry improve to help youth develop a long-term relationship with God that goes beyond just attending youth group? We’d love to hear all your ideas in the comments below.
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