Creating a Healthy Youth Culture

  An atmosphere for people to connect with God and each other

By: Samuel Deuth

If you want a youth ministry culture of passionate worship, hunger for God's word, a positive relational atmosphere, generous givers, committed team players, and outreach oriented, than you must purposefully & intentionally lead the youth ministry in that direction.

You see, a great youth culture doesn't happen by itself. If you've noticed, it seems like what happens naturally is, youth getting "clicky" and selfish, teams that begin to be unwilling to work with each other, leaders yelling at kids, youth making out behind the church, kids sitting down during praise and worship, and you can fill in the blank of what it is for your specific group.

I think many of us would say there are areas of our ministry that we want to be different and that we want to have more of an impact. So if you want to create a place for young peoples lives to be changed than you need to purposefully create that culture in your youth ministry. (I emphasize the word purposefully, because a culture will develop either by accident or on purpose, but the culture of your group is being developed).

There are 3 areas where you need to create the culture:  

1. In yourself?
   1. Are you the leading edge of the culture you desire to create? If not then no matter how many training videos you watch or books and articles you read, you won't be able to create the very culture you are aiming to build. Jesus says, "Come, follow me." Paul said, "Follow me as I follow Christ." So take some time to do a self evaluation of the things you don't like about your youth ministry. It's possible you'll see an unfortunate truth that your atmosphere is a reflection of..gulp..you. (Believe me, I've seen this plenty in my own team).
2. In your leaders
   1. This is key because the culture must be in them if it's going to be in your youth.
   2. And not only should your leaders be passionate worshipers themselves, but they should be inspiring others around them to do the same. Leaders that inspire others and work together as a team to influence this generation.
   3. Also a note about your leaders, just because they may be a volunteer doesn't mean that you don't need to help correct wrong thinking or behavior. You may even need to release them in extreme cases. This is where good leadership can make the difference. If your leader has an attitude problem or they're always complaining about something, don't just overlook it, confront it and call them to change. If they won't make the adjustment, than release him from the team. If you don't you risk poisoning the rest of the group and you lose that atmosphere that your trying to create.
3. In your youth
   1. Too often as youth pastors we feel like we don't want to put rules on youth because they might not like us or they may rebel against them. But I've found the opposite to be true. Just like good parents give their children boundaries, good youth pastors give their students boundaries.
   2. Remember you're not supposed to be your youth's best buddy, your supposed to be their pastor!!! Often they match up, but when they don't, then always go with being the leader and their pastor.
   3. In our youth services we do specific things to create a great service.

          i.  When youth come in, we don't allow them to leave until the service is finished to minimize distractions.

ii.  During praise & worship, we have everyone stand, we can't make them sing, but we don't allow youth to just sit down and disengage. This creates a 100% participation-in-worship environment.

iii.  If youth are disrespectful during the message we move them or ask them leave to the room with one of our leaders.

iv.  Every week we talk about giving (tithes and offerings)-we don't shy away from it because we want youth to be generous.

v.  Every month we have an adopt-a-block program called "The Justice Project" which we help our local community with yard work, cleaning, etc. This helps them to focus on others instead of themselves all the time.

vi.  Most of the time we finish our services by taking time to pray for our unsaved friends, this allows them to keep focused on reaching out and inviting people to church that are in their everyday world.

vii.  We remind our student leaders (group of high school students that lead within our youth ministry) "no one sits alone" to help them remember to connect with those students that may not be connected and they may be new.   So the question is what do you want your youth ministry to look like? What is the culture of your team? Are we leading by the example of our own lives? When we answer those questions we can begin to purposefully create the culture that provides the environment for people to connect each other and God!

Samuel Deuth is the Youth & Young Adults Pastor and Director of Wisdom for Life Leadership School at Champion's Centre in Tacoma, WA.
252culture.com
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