GEN-X RISING: Fresh perspective on youth ministry Andrew C. Thompson, Jul 29, 2009
Andrew Thompson
By Andrew C. Thompson UMR Columnist
Youth ministry is more prone than most other forms of ministry to mimicking pop cultural trends. Its mission is to reach teenagers, after all. But considering the market-driven superficiality of most pop culture, that’s a problem.
Youth ministry needs a fresh perspective. And a summer program on the campus of Duke Divinity School (a United Methodist seminary in Durham, N.C.) may have found a path to do just that.
The Duke Youth Academy for Christian Formation (DYA) approaches youth ministry in all the ways pop culture suggests that it shouldn’t. DYA brings several dozen high school youth to Duke’s campus for two weeks every summer so that they can explore living deeply the Christian life.
Instead of typical youth ministry fare such as whitewater rafting or ski trips, DYA offers days that begin and end with worship and are punctuated throughout with study, work, common meals and rest.
It’s a strange rhythm for today’s youth: 16- and 17-year-old kids hear lectures from seminary professors and work with artists as they learn to integrate art and Christian faith. They engage in local service projects and they spend time intentionally doing nothing.
In short, for two weeks the DYA kids live something like a monastic life.
And get this: they love it.
Recent statistics show that the United Methodist Church is a “graying church” whose membership is getting older by the year. While we could be lowering our median age through strong youth-ministry programs that form teenagers into mature followers of Jesus, too many youth ministries have bought into a ministry model that entertains as much as it forms.
And even solid programs have the bad habit of teaching kids that their Christian identities are defined over and against everything and everyone else: We know who we are because we “get it,” unlike parents, pastors and teachers. Youth ministers often encourage such an attitude. With these approaches, the church shouldn’t be surprised that the church commitment of young adults in their 20s plummets, and for many, never recovers.
United Methodist pastor and seminary professor Fred Edie had the vision to develop the Duke Youth Academy. Youth ministry, he believes, can be theologically grounded and fully integrated in the life of the larger church. He sees youth ministry through the lens of baptism, which is the means by which we all receive our true identity in Christ and the way we can learn our vocation into Christian service.
Against the entertainment paradigm, Dr. Edie wants to orient youth ministry around an “ordo,” or ordered life, consisting of the four components of book, bath, table and time. The “book” is the Bible, the “bath” is baptism, the “table” is Holy Communion and “time” is the patterning of life around worship and discipleship.
Dr. Edie also wants to help youth, parents, youth ministers and pastors think about discipling teens fully within the worshiping life of local congregations, not as semi-independent ministries.
Full disclosure: DYA’s summer session just finished and I was on staff. But my firsthand connection has convinced me of the contribution that DYA can make to our understanding of Christian formation for youth.
Typical scenes at DYA would seem extraordinary to most people familiar with conventional youth ministry. Morning might see 50 youth and their adult mentors listening intently to a seminary teacher help them understand the Crucifixion by sharing stories of the church’s work with the poor in Latin America. The same group in the afternoon would be working in clay making or sacred dance as a way to better understand the embodied nature of God’s creation.
Another afternoon they might visit a local community garden to learn about sustainable agriculture in economically depressed areas. And each night would bring the opportunity to rock out to the sounds of guitars and Djembe drums after hearing a stirring sermon and celebrating the Lord’s Supper.
For too long we have assumed that the church has to mimic the culture in order to attract young people. DYA proves that mentality to be wrong.
Youth are as hungry as the rest of us for something more substantial than pop culture’s sugary fare. Fred Edie and the Duke Youth Academy are offering just that.
Andrew Thompson
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