I was never much involved in any youth ministry of my Catholic church....
My wife, however, did TRY to get involved. Her small Reformed church had two (small) youth groups - one for Middle Schoolers and one for High Schoolers, and most in the church were involved. She tried both.... but found them "silly." She wanted to do in depth Bible studies, she wanted prayer support, she wanted to do service in the community. But all the youth groups did was eat and play. They seemed focused on "pizza and bowling" and while she enjoyed both, she just didn't see how that was "ministry" or feel a need to enjoy that specifically with other teens at church rather than with her family, etc.
Personally, I have no experience and thus no opinion on this. I'm SURE there are churches that do amazing MINISTRY in and through their youth. BUT I have a fundamental "uneasiness" about how very modern Christianity seems intent on separating people by outward things - gender and age especially. My church does this, too. Seems to ME we should work to unite families and generations, etc. Seniors and youth share the SAME Christ, the same faith, the same church catholic - they thus have MUCH in common and probably can bless each other. I'd like to see churches focus on helping families communicate and share and bless each other rather than immediately separating them. Just not sure how to do that. I know the LDS is very big on "Family Night" stuff... maybe they can teach us a thing or two on this point?
But I'm not at all opposed to youth ministry.... and I'm sure many do it well.
Thanks, Lamm, for sharing the resource!
- Josiah
