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Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry

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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In-Service Prayer for Students

We give praise to you God for you hold our lives in your hands. You cause the sun to rise and you call us from our sleep so that we might spend our working hours teaching others to follow you. We are thankful for our work here and within your greater kingdom. May our eyes look to you for guidance as we work from class period to class period.

As we work today to prepare our hearts and minds for a time of prayer for our students, we are reminded of Jesus’ teaching on prayer in Matthew 6, and our hope is to put those words into action and in service to you.

When we pray for our students, may we go into our offices and our classrooms and shut the door and pray in secret, just as your son taught us.

May we not babble on and on, thinking that our words carry strength, but may we listen for your quiet voice and spirit urging us to act in the lives of our students. Give us the strength whe need to respond.

May our students know that you are holy, and may we model this in our teaching and in our actions with one another.

May our students come to serve you in your kingdom, and give their total allegiance to you above all things. Protect them from other callings and other voices that don’t align with this call.

May our students know your will for their lives, and live on earth as it already is in heaven. Help our students to respect us as their teachers, and may we respect them, and teach them to love each other, as well as their enemies.

Sustain our students with love and compassion and joy. Those who are in homes and families where this is in short supply, or where parents are just too busy, we pray that we might provide some of the love they need to grow and serve you and others. Give us the wisdom to see what our students need and give us strength to provide it.

May we forgive our students when they disrespect us. Help us to love them when they are unloveable. And help us to use these moments to teach our students what it means to truly love and care for another.

We thank you for the saving grace of Jesus’ blood. May all of our students claim him as Lord and savior of their lives and come to know him in their minds, hearts and hands and feet.

Lord, help us to be a forgiving people. Help us to be united in service to you at this school.

By the grace of Jesus’ name we pray,

Amen.

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Bushnell and Christian Nurture

Horace Bushnell (1802 – 1876) proposed the idea that it was the duty of the Christian parent to nurture faith, never alerting the child to the fact that they have any other identification other than Christian.  He stated this was nothing new and uses scripture and church history to support this thesis:

That the child is to grow up a Christian, and never know himself as being otherwise. (p. 10 Christian Nurture)

Bushnell saw this approach to Christian Education the more desirable because of the focus on identification and practice, rather than an attempt to teach a child that he or she is a sinner and then working to teach them that they must choose to follow God.

The Christian is one who has simply begun to love what is good for its own sake, and why should it be thought impossible for a child to have this love begotten in him? (p. 16 Christian Nurture)

Bushnell believed that the Spirit of God was just as active in the lives of the young as in the old, and that the best time to capture a child’s heart for God was when they were young.  As a child grows and matures, questions will arise and these questions should be answered, but this is done in the child’s timing, and not governed by parents or teachers, reflecting notions of Romanticism from a generation or two before.

Bushnell’s work is best characterized as an attempt to develop a deep sense of identity in a child as one of God’s children, hinging this work on God’s spirit and movement among His people.   Of course, the role of community in this process is extremely important.  A child needs a strong community with a sense of shared life and similar goals in order to help reinforce and develop their Christian identity.

Horace Bushnell – Christian Nurture