How to be a Youth Worker when you can’t meet with your youth [Issue 2]

Who am I? - Personal Identity

How would you finish the sentence, “I am a _________.”? I am a youth worker. I am a youth pastor. I am a…

For many of us our identity is closely linked to our job title. This may not be the most helpful, especially at a time like this when we feel restricted in carrying out our job description. Stepping back from our job title and job description for a moment, God’s word would encourage us look at things a little differently. 

Rightly understanding who we are in relation to our heavenly Father clarifies our identity and helps us to get on with the job of serving others.

We see Jesus living this out in John 13:3-4. “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist.”

It’s worth applying to our own lives the truths we often use to encourage teens.

“I am a child of God.”

John 1:12 “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

1 John 3:1 “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” 

Before considering anything to do with my role or responsibilities, if I have accepted Jesus I am a child of God. Grab hold of this truth, thank God for it and ask God to press the reality of this massive privilege deep into your heart. Understanding this truth will anchor you securely as you try to work out how to serve teens and their families during this challenging time.

What is my job? - Shared Responsibility

That’s cool and all and I get it, “I’m a child of God”…but I still want to know how to minister to teens when we can’t meet up.

Again it’s worth us stepping back from thinking about what to ‘do’ to thinking about what youth ministry is and is not. Clearly defining youth ministry may help us to better do youth ministry. It won’t take away all the challenges of this current crazy period but it will help direct us in how to spend our time, prioritising and planning what’s most important.

Youth ministry is not about running activities to ‘entertain young people’ and ‘keep them safe from the world’ but is about investing time and energy in young people, in partnership with parents and the church family, to serve young people with the word of God and a clear gospel message so that they have every opportunity to trust in Jesus and become mature believers as part of the wider church family so that they’ll not only survive in a dark world but be salt and light within it.

Youth groups may facilitate this – and they usually provide plenty of opportunity for activities that don’t endanger teens – but youth groups are only valuable to the extent that they facilitate the fuller, broader understanding of youth ministry.

Being forced at this time to think about and do things differently gives us an opportunity to understand and then communicate with teens, parents and perhaps volunteers on your team the reason for your youth ministry – its purpose and end goal. While we would all love if all of the teens we minister to were followers of Christ, the end goal is mature Christian adults not Christian teens.

Colossians 1:28 “[Jesus] is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.”

Ephesians 4:12-13 God gifts us “to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

Identifying our end goal helps in identifying the steps that will help us reach it. Our ministry needs to incorporate ways of inspiring and equipping teens to be independent followers of Jesus for the whole of their lives, as part of a maturing church family. You might like to take some time, as a team where possible, to discuss and jot down the core purpose and long term goals of your youth ministry and then communicate this to parents and even teens.

Partnering with Parents

Central to our role as those who minister to teens is acknowledging the role of parents as the primary educators and disciplers of their own children. Parents are the ones given the responsibility by God to bring their children up in the training and instruction of the Lord. The assistance of youth ministers and church family is invaluable but should never take the place of parents.

Our role should be to support parents in theirs. Many parents can feel their role has been eroded or erased by social media; other parents can feel they’ve been relieved of their role because their church has a youth worker.

Though teens may not realise or openly admit it, parents are still some of the primary influencers of their children. Children and teens are constantly watching and learning how to ‘do life’ by observing to what extent the beliefs of their parents work in the real world, directing their priorities and developing their lifestyle.

When we acknowledge the role of parents it will lead us to share valuable resources with them that will help them in their God-given responsibility. We will communicate clearly with parents regarding the ways we are reaching out to their teens and what we are teaching them from God’s word. We will pray for parents and find ways of encouraging them in this challenging task. Even where parents are not believers, including them in the process is important and can be a means of raising their interest in spiritual things.

Take some time, as a team or with the church leadership, to compile a list of resources that can help parents see the value of their role and equip them to carry this out despite the challenges. Consider if you need to increase your general communication with parents to involve them more fully in this shared responsibility.

What tools do I have? – Precious Seed

We know from the parables of Jesus and the teaching of his apostles that the word of God is the precious seed that births eternal life and brings growth. As we ‘consume’ God’s word we ‘taste’ that God is good. Teens may need to be reminded of this as you encourage them towards spending time in God’s word. Setting challenges with rewards can be an additional incentive.

Bible passages can be selected to address a topic or can be a process of working through a book of the Bible, a few paragraphs at a time. Printing out the passage can make it easier to focus on a section, allowing for writing on the text. Findings from the activities below can be posted to a youth group blog or a shared social media platform.

Some Bible passages that may be particularly helpful at this time are:

Psalm 46 (God in control); Matthew 6:24-34 (Trust instead of worry); Philippians 4:10-13 (Secret of contentment); 1 Timothy 6:6-16 (Value of contentment).

Below are a few ideas for helping teens to get into God’s word for themselves so that they begin to develop independent growth. These ideas are all ‘from first principles’, i.e. looking at the Bible text for yourself rather than listening to a prepared talk or completing a prepared Bible study.

It can be really helpful to give ‘live’ examples to teens to show how to study the Bible, especially if they are not used to doing this. You or other leaders or some of the older teens could briefly video themselves doing the various stages of a study idea and share the video with teens. Alternatively a couple of leaders could complete one of the activities and then video themselves sharing their findings with another leader.

Here are a few ideas. Brace yourself…there’s nothing spectacular here!

See What You See. Say What You Saw.

Choose a Bible passage. In pairs, teens read the passage and then spend 5 minutes on their own looking to see what they notice in the passage. You can direct this with questions or themes to focus on or simply leave it undirected. After the 5 minutes each teens takes it in turns to spend 5 minutes sharing what they saw.

Read. Journal. Share.

Choose a Bible passage. On their own, teens read through and then answer these questions, jotting down their responses in a notebook or journal. Teens are then encouraged to share what they’ve learned with at least one other person.

First response:

In your own words what does the passage say? (Remembering to consider what it meant to THEM THERE THEN before considering what it means for US HERE NOW.)
What did you like about the section?

Thinking it through practically:
• What does this passage teach us about God?
• What does this passage teach us about humanity?
• Is there an example to follow, command to obey or sin to avoid?
• What will you do to obey what you have learned?

Afterwards:
Who could you share this passage or story with?

Read. Journal. Create. Share.

Almost identical to the previous activity except that afterwards teens get creative in how they respond and share. This could be through art, music, drama, video or anything else they come up with.

Best Book. Best Place. Best Purpose.

Children often learn memory verses in Sunday School or kids club but this tends to decrease the older they become. When given the challenge or the opportunity I’ve been impressed with the ability of young people and adults to learn larger portions of scripture off by heart.

King David wrote about how he would hide God’s word in his heart so that he wouldn’t sin against God. (Psalm 119:11) You’ve probably heard it expressed as the best book in the best place for the best purpose.

As we learn a longer section we begin to understand it better. The better we understand a section the easier it is to learn it.

There are some classic sections of scripture (e.g. Philippians 2:6-11; Colossians 1:15-20) that are worth teens having ‘under their belt’ although learning any section will prove invaluable.