19 Things I Learned In 19 Years Of Youth Ministry, Part 1

The scene: A random afternoon in my office, around mid-March many moons ago. A phone call from someone I didn't know is put through to me.

Caller: "Hi, Brent. We're new to the area and my husband and I are looking for a church. We visited there last week and we enjoyed the pastor and our teenagers enjoyed the Sunday School classes. We're thinking about getting involved at CBC and I was wondering if you could give me the dates your youth group goes to summer camp so we can plan our schedules."

Me: "I'm glad you and your family had a good experience when you visited. And I'm glad your kids enjoyed it, too. We do a lot of things in the summer. We have a mission trip the first week in June, and many of our students are involved with serving our children's ministry through VBS, which will be...lemme see here...(flipping through my planning calendar)...ah...the third week of June and others volunter...lemme see...for Music Camp held the third week in July."

Caller: "No summer camps? Gosh, that's kind of disappointing. My kids loved the summer camp they went to in our old city."

Me: "Actually, I can recommend four different summer camps our students attend that are all good, in various price ranges and different locations. We'll even put you in touch with the parents of those students to arrange for carpools..."

Caller: "But you don't arrange for all your church's students to get on a bus and go to a place with other church youth groups?"

Me: "No, ma'am. See, CBC discovered a few years back that parents were spending close to $1,000 to send two kids to camp for a week and they didn't even see their children. We thought we could get that same price and get the entire family of four to go away together. So, we've arranged for our first-ever Family Camp in Colorado this summer. We just think that families have a hard enough time getting together with their kids and we didn't want our church to foster that any more than we had to. I think that, philosophically, this is closer to where we want to be as a church..."

Caller: "Philisophically or not, what I hear you telling me is that you're recommending that our entire family load up in the van and drive to Colorado and go to CAMP...TOGHETHER. Is that right?"

Me: "Yes, ma'am. I think lots of families are looking for an excuse to be together instead of apart if they have a choice. We like the option. I mean, you can still send your children to camps. In fact, I've got the web addresses right here that I'll be happy to e-mail to you. But I really like the idea of Family Camp. It'll be like a family vacation with your church family!"

Caller: "It sounds great if you're into that sort of thing. But if you don't have summer camp for two weeks in the summer, what are my husband and I supposed to do? We look forward to that time every year. It's valuable to our marriage. If we don't have those to weeks, how are my husband and I supposed to re-connect? It doesn't sound very family friendly, if you ask me. I don't think we'll be attending your church, but thank you for your time."

Click.

I sat there with the phone to my ear, kind of laughing to myself. I mean, maybe it's me, but I kind of took the way she said "re-connect" to mean "have lots of sex." But I don't take things like that personally. She was doing what she thought was good for her children. She was doing what she thought was best for her husband and marriage. She's very likely a good mother and a good wife. She was simply used to the student ministry where she came from doing things a certain way and I'm certain that ministry was program-driven.

In other words, so many student ministries are viewed by people as a place where their teens can have good supervision, and their kids can have a good time doing something pretty cool with some other really good kids.

And, traditionally, student ministries have done the fun stuff as a means to attract students to their churches. So, much of this perception has been done by our own selves. You get a 20-something youth minister in his first gig and watch how many movie nights, ski trips, Six Flags runs, lock-ins, retreats, etc. happen as he pulls out all the stops and tries to grow his ministry. And, for the most part, these events are done well, too.

But, I'll tell you this: It isn't really all that much fun planning an event for kids to have an event with good supervision, doing something pretty cool, and hanging out with some other really good kids. Ever tried getting 85 teens and adults room, lodging, food, lift-tickets, ski rentals, transportation in airports, busses and trams, to get one group to ski lessons, show them all the meeting place for lunch, let them on the slopes, get the medical forms to the on-site clinic, and oh, yeah, wear the beeper in case one of your teens gets hurt and we need to use those medical forms? And that doesn't count the stuff before we left, like gathering payments (or tracking down those that were late), including forms that have to be notarzied, getting them packing lists which they didn't get to their parents who call the office to get one, to late sign-up forms, getting the background checks run on the room leaders to getting the speakers ready for each night (and arranging the hotel meeting room to accomodate that) to making sure Nathan's got the Jehu Hat ready for the nightly "trial," etc., etc., etc.

Ever tried to get a group of 150 to a baseball game and getting their tickets?

Ever rented out a movie theatre and tried to get tickets to each individual?

Ever arranged for a mission trip to Juarez, Mexico, in which your group of 140 will camp out for a week, in four military tents and you'll need two kitchen tents and you'll need to bring your own food, water, cooking utinsels, tools, equipment, etc., and you've got to move it all from Dallas some 700 miles away and you've got to make hotel & travel arrangements for two separate teams and this kid doesn't like that kid so they can't room together, which can shift 95 room assignments? And don't get me started on raising funds to make that happen.

Ever tried to arrange for a lock-in at your own church with food, drinks, entertainment and have to patrol the entire building with two people all night--that's their only responsibility--to keep middle schoolers from...umm...making out in various nooks and crannies 60,000 square feet can provide?

The reason I tell you this is not to have you give me a pity-party. I actually enjoy doing those things. Yes, there are a lot of details and minor headaches that come with planning events. C'mon. It's supposed to be FUN. And student ministry is FUN. I've been blessed to have an eternal Peter Pan syndrome job for 19 years. Frankly, I've had a blast.

But I wouldn't have if it was for the express purpose of having some positive entertainment.

But I wouldn't have if it was for the express purpose of having a really cool event.

But I wouldn't have if it was for the express purpose of letting kids hang out with other really good kids.

See, every time we have an event, it's for a reason. There's something greater we're trying to accomplish. Maybe it's building relationships with the incoming freshmen with their new Bible study leader. Maybe it's to give them a missions experience with the ultimate goal of finding out who has a missions heartbeat and might want to do that as a career. Maybe it's to focus on a specific teaching that our teens need to hear and getting away for the weekend is the most effective way to do that. Maybe it's to teach them the value of service. Maybe it's to let families spend time together with other families. Maybe it's to get teens to open up. Maybe it's to give teens who don't know Christ the chance to.

The reasons vary. So do the results.

Sometimes, we "win." Sometimes, we "lose." Sometimes, we "rain out." Sometimes, we "tie." Sometimes, we go to "overtime."

And, no, I have no problem with parents choosing to use the times we take them away to...

...ahem...

...re-connect. There are some parents out there who owe me about a month's worth of time to re-connect with my wife for the times I've emptied out their house for a weekend or three-week mission trip to Holland. Bully for them!

But I'd never plan events for the express purpose of positive entertainment.

But I'd never plan events for the express purpose of having a "really cool event" or getting "positive community buzz."

But I'd never plan events to keep kids hanging out with other really good kids.

Those might be nice side benefits of things we do. However, if that were really the case, then that's an awful lot of work. An awful lot of time. An awful lot energy. An awful lot of money.

And that would make us very expensive and resource-taxing entertainers and babysitters. There'd be more effective ways to get that done.

So the first thing I'll say that I learned in 19 years is that...

...we are not babysitters. We are not entertainers. We have bigger fish to fry than that. We are to communicate the everlasting love of Jesus Christ to a specific group of people He has entrusted us with. I couldn't be a babysitter or entertainer for 19 years.

It's too much work to babysit and entertain.

And it's a joy to be where Christ wants you, serving His people using your gifts and talents. And that's FUN.

To reduce that to babysitting and entertainment is a trite, colossal waste of time at best, and a failure of the highest demands of Scripture at worst.

May it never be babysitting and entertainment. Anywhere. Ever.