4 Views Of Youth Ministry - The Missional Approach

April 12th, 2007

“the church that ministers to young people must embrace the culture in which the adolescents live…The goal is not to simply focus on those who already are involved in a given church’s youth ministry program”

I figured that I could use some more of my sick day to continue the series on 4 views of youth ministry and the church, this time by looking at the missional approach to youth ministry, those who have seen the powerpoint presentation I uploaded a while ago might recognize that the Missional Approach sits in the mission now / fellowship later section of the scale, so it wouldn’t be hard to see where it’s emphasis sits.

“this approach recognises that there are cultural barriers that separate adolescents from adults. This is not only true of the secular world, but also the world of churched young people”

The missional approach recognizes that the church has long thought that it’s program, music and ethos is enough to convince young people to attend and overtly disagrees with these assumptions. The missional approach understands youth ministry as mission and is focused on going where young people are and working with them in their community, in their culture.

This model is more concerned with those who the church has no contact with rather than those already in the church and sees its ministry as a part of the great commission. It’s strengths are that it’s usually grown out of a strong passionate response to the scripture to go into the world and make disciples. It’s passion tends to attract other young leaders who are equally as passionate about reaching the community and culture around them.

“Missional youth ministry seeks to present the community of the church as the end, not simply another (and often less desirable) community…

A missional ecclesiology must clearly identify and resist all attempts to equip the church merely for its maintenance and security”

Para-Church organizations like Young Life and Scripture Union (at least in Australia) are prime examples of a missional approach, as their mission is to the schools, campsites and community around them. Similarly these organizations seem to attract young leaders from a variety of churches and denominations who are passionate about reaching young people where they are. Other examples would include churches that have intentionally set up programs or mission workers inside schools, skate parks, music venues, shopping malls or other places where young people frequent.

In a perfect world we’d see these approaches linked with a congregation as a “welcoming destination” for those who have been reached by these organizations and missional outreaches, unfortunately this is not normally the case. A mutation of this model might see young people never leaving the missional program, or even leaving the missional community when they grow up and not connecting with another faith community. In these cases the model has mutated in a way as to remove the “fellowship later” from the ministry model.

“we have become convinced that our programs, music and ethos of youth ministry are enough to reach the lost, uninterested and disenfranchised…

Very few churches see youth ministry as their missional mandate…”

One of the drawbacks of this kind of approach is it’s reliance on training leaders in “appropriate” or “incarnation” models of mission and faith formation. These approaches also tend to be finance and leadership intensive and rely on a constant growth of leader numbers to coordinate and staff programs in order to continue the ministry.

“Every youth ministry must constantly ask itself… Who are our targets? How do we best reach out to them? Where do we want these students to end up after they leave the program?”

Well, I think that lists many of the strengths, weaknesses and mutations of this particular model of youth ministry, if you really want to dive into it more I’d suggest giving the book a good read.

The next model I’ll explore is the Inclusive Congregational Approach to youth ministry…