Shaping a new generation

Will teenagers presently in youth group still be in church 20 years from now? Helen Grace Lescheid talks to Matt Ewert, student ministries pastor at South Abbotsford MB Church, Abbotsford, B.C., about today’s youth and how to make an impact on their lives.

H.G.L.: What’s the value of church for a teen?

M.E.: The immediate value of church is community. Teens need to have friends with the same values, and not just in their peer group. Youth group has a lot of great programs and meets a definite need for friendship and fellowship. But teens also need the multigenerational church – people older than they are.

Teens need to mature in their faith. Maturity comes from seeing people who are beyond where we are and learning from them. We need to be with older people who have walked the journey of faith to see what it means to be a disciple.

Talk about youth group.

The attitude of the church seems to be: we’ve hired a youth pastor so our responsibility ends there. The teens seem to feel: we’re supposed to relate to the youth pastor, not other people in church. So youth group happens in a corner away from the rest of the church.

We’ve lost the value of being the church together.

I’ve heard that 80 percent of youth beyond senior high are no longer a part of a church community. Why is that?

I don’t think it’s because they didn’t love Jesus or didn’t want to grow in their faith. It’s because they didn’t understand the importance of a community beyond the youth group.

If their identity [is found in being] part of the junior or senior high group, and then that network disbands, what happens? If teens haven’t made the connection with the larger church, they lose their way.

Do mixed groups really work?

I read an interesting story by another youth pastor about two grade 12 girls. One came to youth group faithfully. She was his star student, keen and committed to everything. The other girl, for schedule reasons, couldn’t come to youth group but sang in an intergenerational church choir.

A couple years after grad, the star teen was not in church anymore. Yes, she’d had five to 10 good years in church (while she was in youth group) and then walked away. Why? She didn’t understand the value of church as a whole and never got connected to a group of believers that would continue beyond her youth. Meanwhile, the girl who sang in the choir was still as committed as ever to the church.

The youth pastor asked himself, which of these students is the success story? Which one did we fail? It had nothing to do with whether they came to youth group. Rather, it had everything to do with whether they understood their place in the larger church. Did they integrate with people more mature than they? Did they receive discipleship?

Can a teen have a faith journey alone?

Perhaps, if a person were stranded on a desert island God would graciously allow them to have a faith journey. But, if we were meant to go alone, God never would have created a church. He wouldn’t use images of being members in the body of Christ who need each other. He wouldn’t leave us with these pictures if we weren’t intended to be in community. It would be foolish to suggest that anyone can do it alone.

How does mentoring happen?

We’ve bought into the world’s philosophy that teenagers and adults don’t mix. Sure, there will be differences at times, but they needn’t separate us. We need to be together to learn from each other.

For example, a youth and an adult could teach a Sunday school class together. It’s a give-and-take relationship. A teen is teaching younger kids but, at the same time, he or she is learning from somebody older and more mature.

Another example of intergenerational learning happens in our girls club. Older women work together with senior high students and both work with children. Teens are learning from the wisdom and life experience of older teachers and they, in turn, benefit from the energy and zeal of the teens.

What’s your vision as a student ministries pastor?

We can look at youth ministry and say, “We’re doing great.” But we have to define success in terms of lifelong discipleship. For that, we need life-on-life contact. Teens need to interact with people more mature than they are.

I want to see teens 20 years down the road still walking with God and attending church. That’s the test of real success.

Helen Grace Lescheid is a writer who lives in Abbotsford, B.C., where she is a member of South Abbotsford MB Church.