Transcending Age Limitations

Now let’s be honest. In most church youth ministries, advanced age and maturity are not always top on the priority list of desirable characteristics. “Young and dumb often are the more accurate discriptors.” This needs to change. It does not have to be one or the other. It really should be a combination of the two. Youth ministries need the age, maturity, experience, wisdom and resources of an older generation. Youth ministries paradoxically need the youthfulness, enthusiasm, energy, technical savvy and entrepreneurial spirit of a younger generational leader.

Age is relative and unavoidable. Some people are old because they think in old ways. Their age of mentality has caught up with their chronological age. If you begin to think in old ways, then you are old, no matter what chronological age you are. What do ageless people look like? They help things progress; they exchange ideas, make decisions, change decisions, encourage initiative, bring visions to fruition. Everything is kept on track because of ageless thinking. They are in your church or ministry. There aren’t many of them, but when you have them, you wish you had a dozen more like ’em.

Making it Easy for Adults

OK, you’re probably looking for the “handle” to make this an easy step toward intergenerational volunteer leadership. That’s what I’d be looking for. (This is where I’d be using my highlighter.) To make it easier for other generations to be involved in youth ministry, you have to make it easy for them. In even more simple words, you need to create ministry situations that make it easy for older generations to interact and minister to the young generation. Let’s face it: Teenagers can be a bit intimidating. Thanks to the Internet, they are the most intelligent and impatient generation ever. (It takes Google .08 second to find 85,800,000 sites for MTV.) Who wouldn’t be intimidated?

Let me give you an example of “easy.” Many ministries are investing in youth ministry via the development and construction of youth rooms and youth centers—kind of like a community center with a spiritual dynamic integrated into the program. Sometimes these facilities are in the current church building, a separate building on the property or a free-standing structure off the property, but a youth center is a way of making it easy for other generations to be involved. Why? You just show up!

In one youth center, the entire facility is designed for interaction. There are no snack or soda machines. Students have to ask an adult for something to eat or drink. All the games are designed for interaction; participants have to play against someone, usually an adult. So what’s hard about that? Stand there and play. That’s easy; the kids come to you! Not so threatening. That is what has to be developed—ministry situations where the students have to come to you, to engage, to interact, to talk—situations where adults have to be sought out and are in positions of leadership.