It seems like all of our effort in churches and church growth is driven toward worship attendance. At youth group, even if we are having several elements of worship in our group (singing, prayer, Word) there seems to be an emphasis on "getting them there" for Sunday morning worship. The reverse is also true. If youth are involved on Sunday mornings we need them plugged into a "youth fellowship" during the week. Lately I have been wondering if all this is not more culturally bound than we have realized.
Lets pretend you are a person looking for a spiritual connection, and you come to a mid-week small group Bible study. You grow in your faith, you grow in your love for the other people in the group, and you feel truly connected to your faith and the church. Why is this less important or spiritual than the congregational worship service? Why is Sunday morning what we "count".?
As a youth pastor I have always been under this pressure that if you cannot get kids who come on Sunday morning to come to the youth program you have failed. Furthermore, if you cannot get the kids who come to youth group to come to THE SERVICE you have failed to disciple them properly.
The argument goes on that when they get older that they will not settle for the boring, flat "adult" service if they don't get disciplined to it when they are younger. Although I do think worshipping is a spiritual DISCIPLINE, in many ways I am not sure we should always settle for what we get on Sunday morning anyways.
It seems to me that there are many meaningful levels and ways that people could be involved with Christian community. The crux of our growth strategy should not be for people to tie in to a particular thing we call the worship service (as if nothing else counted as "real worship", but to connect with Jesus and with others.
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I share this frustration. If you want my honest opinion, I think that there are a lot of pastors who see the youth program as a "feeder" for the church attendance. All these statistics now exist about the "new generation of evangelists" in the church, and how children now bring their parents to church rather than the other way around. And as much as we like to pretend that church is about bringing the lost to Christ, most churches still play the numbers game. As successful as you feel, you still look out on Sunday morning and judge your "performance" on how many people sit in your pews. (This is the royal "you", I guess, not you specifically.)
This pressure (to have kids in the service) is one of the reasons I can't get kids to come to a regular "youth service" during the week. Most of our Youth Groups end up being fellowship time and fun because they get "Church" already, and they don't want it again. Maybe that says more about my inability to be an effective Youth Pastor, and the spiritual immaturity of most of my youth group than it does about any over-arching pattern in Youth Ministry, but it's still frustrating, nonetheless. Probably mostly because it's due to my own inadequacies and not to the fault of anyone else. It's the speck and the log...always harder to deal with the stuff in your own eye, right?
Anyway, I feel this same frustration. There is a growing trend, I believe (or have heard) in Youth Church on Sundays in bigger churches. Some of these Mega-Churches have separate services for the youth on Sunday mornings. But, unfortunately, all the ones I've heard of still have the Senior Pastor's message piped in somehow. Honestly, I think the kids need Youth Group on Sunday morning. If they go to the trouble of hiring a trained Youth Pastor who also happens to be a brilliant speaker, why make the kids listen to a sermon prepared for adults? They're not adults! Speak to them on their own level. That's why they don't want to be in church in the first place. I hate to admit it, but in our church, the service is for the adults. So where does that leave the kids? Most of them pass notes, sleep, or try to skip church altogether. And that hurts my heart because I know they need the development. But they just aren't the intended audience, so why should they be forced to sit there when they're not being taken into consideration?
This is a very interesting conversation, Clint. I'd like to hear more on this.
To argue with myself, my concern on the other hand is that the church needs to be more sensitive and practical for families to be together. There is something I dont like about the mega-church model where everybody in the family goes to a different service, even if they are at the same time.
How do we be pro-family and not separate everyone out from one another and at the same time be real about how current church model are less and less relevant to emerging generations?
And while we are on the subject, I keep thinking about how a senior pastor can keep the same attendance year after year and have the church feel good about that, but if the same thing happens to youth groups than we are made to feel like failures. I think you touch on some of the reasons in your comment, Becca, but I think it is horribly unfair for the low man on the ministerial totem pole to be given the most pressure for the churches success with the least respect and compensation.
If you want more food for thought on this subject read
"In Search of Belonging" by Myers from the Emergent series from Youth Specialties.
I'm honestly not sure that it's fair to all members of the family to keep the family together during the service. I think part of the reason the mega-churches do the separate services is because they know they need to reach each individual person on their own level, and they understand that there is really no way to do that if everyone has to be together. Because Sunday School is starting to become a thing of the past, and those mega-churches have the staff, I think the best thing is to split everyone up. I'd rather see a family spend one hour apart and really grow as individuals in Christ than force them all to be together and have only the adults getting fed.
On the other hand, I think if you have a really talented Senior Pastor who can be both deep and shallow at once, then I think you can keep the families together. Also, in most of those mega-churches, the Sunday morning services (or at least the ones I've been to) are pretty elementary, because they're aimed at people who aren't "knowledgeable" about the faith. They're trying to draw people into the community and then hook them into small groups that will meet their needs. If fellowship or community is what you're seeking, then I think the big churches do it best, because they have a large-group welcomeness, but they also have open small groups. As the ABCW Area Minister pointed out in October (very wisely, I might add), most small churches are closed. They are friendly, yes, but people don't want friendly, they want friends. And people in small churches have reached capacity for taking on deep friendships. That's why they like small churches. I have a passionate belief that many of our churches are going about things completely backwards, but there's nothing I can do about it. I'm just the Youth Pastor.
To get back to what you were saying, I do think that there's a double standard when you're the low-one on the totem pole. And yet it amazes me that the senior pastors all look to the youth programs to build the church, but they don't allow the youth pastors the leniency that they're given. You make a good point. Unfortunately, I don't think it's ever going to change. I hate to say this, but there's a certain arrogance about senior pastors that really puts me off. The "this-is-my-church" idea. And I don't think that youth staff will ever be given their due. They'll always be underpaid and underappreciated. Look at all the churches who just ignore their youth programs completely. They don't even pay (let alone train) staff for their youth. That's the saddest of all. I keep thinking, 'at least we have a youth pastor'. We're one of only two ABC churches in Montana who do. And the other one is Belgrade. That, to me, is a big part of the reason why our youth aren't growing. We won't let them. So, in reality, who loses out? Us? The youth? The pastors? The congregation? Or everyone?
I don't know.
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