If there’s a buzz word in youth ministry it’s ‘relational.’ Every activity from game nights to day outings and youth group classes to mission trips are conducted with an eye towards building relationships. But what does this mean?
In my own ministry, I’ve used the term when talking about creating clubs at school, positing this time as an opportunity for students and teachers to get to know each other in a different way. Clubs would give students a chance to build relationships with teachers over a shared interest like fishing or obscure indie music. Many thought it was strange that such an initiative was coming from the Spiritual Formation team, but we were able to sell it because it was ‘relational.’
But what was I talking about when I suggested that teachers use this time to ‘build relationships with teens?’
If you had asked me this question six months ago, I would have talked about the importance of having a student feel comfortable enough with an adult so that when they began asking questions about faith and salvation, they would have someone they would listen to. My theology of relational youth ministry hinted at a principle of influence. We build relationships with teenagers and then we use those relationships to influence them to make good decisions and commitments of faith.
Andrew Root’s Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry challenges this idea of using relationships as a strategy to influence teens. Using Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology of community and relationship, Root questions and reforms youth ministry’s fascination with relational, urging ministers and teachers to embrace a deeper theology of incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection.
In the first section of Root’s work, he reminds us of the historical roots of relational ministry, tracing out the beginnings of adolescence as a distinct developmental stage. Through para-church organizations like Young Life, the church hired youth ministers who were trained in the practice of building community by using the influence of popular teens. Youth leaders sought out those who were “cool,” made them believe that they too were cool, formed relationships with them and capitalized on that friendship to reach out to other students.
Root goes on to correct this method of ministry by examining Bonhoeffer’s three questions of theology: Who is Jesus Christ? Where is Jesus Christ? What then shall we do? I’ll examine each of these in a future post.
I really valued Root’s analysis of relational ministry and the way he utilized Bonhoeffer’s theology to describe a theology of youth ministry. For too long I myself have felt uncomfortable with the view that youth ministry success is focused on the dynamics of the group’s leader. Instead, Root calls for youth workers to reexamine their theology of using relationship for the sole purpose of influence because it is within these relationships that Christ dwells.
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