Why No Youth Ministry?
Why No Traditional Youth Ministry?
In our church we say we have the greatest youth ministers in the world – our dads. Our dads do all the planning for recreation. The children never have anyone other than their father to be a major impact player in their life and teaching them God’s Word. We say that we don’t have a youth ministry, but we do have a youth group, as we have a lot of teenagers. It’s just like we have a lot of children in our church, but we don’t have a “children’s ministry.” With this model we have gathered a lot of other families that have been hurt by the typical approach to youth ministry.
A lot of youth ministries today look and act a lot like the world, in the way they dress, talk, etc. Statistics are indicating that 85% of students from a typical church will fall away from the faith within three years after finishing school. So if you have an 85% failure rate, then why do you keep doing things the same way? We are not! We do have activities for all ages of kids, but most of our recreation is planned for the whole family. Now there are times when the older boys will get together for paint ball, led by some of the dads. There are also some planned play days especially for the younger children. However, all activities are driven by the parents, and the parents are the activities directors.