No More Adolescent Daycare

When I was a youth pastor, I was strongly against anything that smelled or even hinted at the idea of adolescent daycare. One of my soapboxes in ministry is how the consumer-based model is rotting away the inside of youth groups as we speak. We’ve developed a generation of takers, complainers, and well-rounded sticks in the mud. We’ve trained our youth to come to the group to take rather than to give and take (emphasis on the give!). We’ve trained them to sit and receive rather than to get up, make some mistakes, and grow in their faith.

Jesus was never interested in adolescent daycare. Notice how Jesus never says, “O here let me do that for you.” I’m thinking about the feeding of the 5,000. He says, “You give them something to eat.” The disciples look at each other, and their limited grasp of the situation tells them that they have been given a titanic sized task. It’s only after they have been given the opportunity to respond that Jesus provides the miracle. Jesus doesn’t say, hey guys a little boy has a lunch, but let’s be honest that’s not enough… I got this one. He waits for the little boy. He gives His disciples an opportunity to learn and He continually makes room for them to fail forward.

You need to practice this part of Christ’s methodology of leadership and teaching. Stop doing everything for your students. Your students can plan games. Your students can lead worship. Your students can lead a follow up and next steps ministry with guests and visitors. Your students can teach!!! Give them space to do this in your ministry. Plop down some huge tasks in front of your students and give them space to do something for the kingdom of God. Walk with them and help them grow from their mistakes. Your youth ministry should always smell like a learning lab. Every youth ministry in the nation should be an innovation space for the local church. All we have to do is give them space to fail and have a willingness to get messy with them.

Here are a couple of practical things you can do to flesh this out in your ministry.

1. Your student leaders need to know! Invite your student leaders to come to your larger adult ministry leader’s meeting. You might not want to do this all the time as from time-to-time you will need to discuss sensitive issues. However, involve them in the bigger conversation about what’s going in their ministry. Have them propose ideas. When you meet to discuss the calendar for the year, make sure you have student representatives from all your school districts so they can give a heads up to the major rocks in the coming year. You don’t want to plan a major retreat the same week as homecoming for three of the four schools. Right? Keep your student leaders in the know!

2. Be an innovation space. So many groups end without any action items. So many times our students end a night with a satisfaction towards an uplifting message or fun activity. Why not drop the hunger and poverty in your community in the laps of your students and give them space to come up with a solution to the problem. Create a dream space for them to pray, think, and come up with solutions. Mobilize the energy of your students to combat life issues going in your community. Think of new ideas and lead them to do more than just absorb on group night. Give them an outlet to give and use their gifts for the benefit of others.

3. Games. As a youth pastor, you should never have to plan games. If you’re planning games it only should mean that you’re training a student in how to plan games. In the end, they are going to plan the games they and their peers want to play. Have them work through the planning of a weekend retreat. Give them control of the budget and teach them to manage that budget well. Teach them how to organize the logistics for a huge event. Train and empower them to do important things. Have them work alongside you in making these things happen. Never do ministry alone and always give more and more ministry away.

4. Give them opportunities to teach. At the beginning of the ministry year, give a couple of your students your pulpit for the night. A lot of your students have something that God has laid on their hearts. Some of the best lessons in my youth groups were not the ones I taught. There’s something powerful about one of your peers getting up and sharing what God has laid on their hearts. Make a space for this in your ministry. Over time… give more of your pulpit away.

5. Never waste a moment to teach them something. Have your student leaders come together and do a review of what happened. I like how hospitals do this. They throw a case number on the board, and they tear it apart. It’s how they get better at what they do. The most successful teams in the world do this frequently. Always be evaluating and asking good and penetrating questions with your students. How could we make this better? What did we learn? How did we fail? What can we improve next time?

When it comes to your students, this is their ministry. It’s not adolescent daycare. Make a space now for your students to develop leadership and ownership of the ministry. Involve them today, and you won’t have to worry about if they will go to church come graduation day.