From where I live in Michigan, it is only a 45-minute drive to Michigan’s Adventure, a local amusement park. It’s not Cedar Point or Disneyland, but my youth group kids love it, and we take a trip there every summer. It’s a day full of rides, food and people in their late 20s, realizing that riding wooden roller coasters is not as fun as it was when they were 13. At first glance, it may seem as if this is a day full of adventure. After all, we are hopping on adrenaline-fueling rides and screaming with abandon. Upon closer examination, however, it is better classified as a day of entertainment. We are consumers, who exchange money for thrills, joy, memories and nausea. Adventure may include some of those things, but real adventure invites transformation. Rarely do we leave the park having experienced any life-changing moments.
An amusement park is just one of the many industries that comprise the booming entertainment sector. From film to music, collegiate to professional sports, and digital gaming to television, one can be entertained 24/7. We live in an entertainment-crazed culture. There has been a practice for far too long in churches, particularly in youth ministry, to entertain. What is good for business must be good for the church, right? Keeping people from being bored has become a driving force behind how we structure worship. The problem with this philosophy is that it not only lacks substance, but it does not create lifelong disciples.
Throughout my time working in ministry, I have come to understand I never will be able to capture and sustain a student’s attention if I try to entertain him or her. With the amount of time, money, talent and energy that goes into the myriad entertainment options, my hour-and-a-half offering on Sunday is hardly a blip on the radar. The good news is we don’t have to try and entertain students. Instead, we need to help awaken their imaginations and invite them to come along with the church on a journey full of adventure and discovery. Entertainment may occupy our students’ minds, but it never will occupy their hearts like the gospel. The gospel uniquely offers what entertainment cannot: a life full of passion, adventure and discovery. These three things invite life-long transformation and a journey compared with singular events offered through entertainment. The call of Jesus is to give up everything, follow Him, and create a whole new world. Adventure and discovery are elements of this call because they require commitment, courage and action; entertainment does not. The call of entertainment is to consume a product.
During Lent this year, we decided to take a more liturgical approach to our program. We wanted to invite our students to go on an adventure with us to discover how the church has understood its place in the world and what that means for us now. Adventuring together, we are discovering our past and allowing it to shape and transform our future. This corporate posture to adventure and discovery is the opposite of what entertainment-centered ministry offers. It is about what I am feeling, what I am experiencing, not about what we are discovering together. This individualistic adventure is great for watching television, but it is terrible for creating authentic and transformational community.
Adventure and discovery in youth ministry cannot come through entertainment because entertainment is passive. Adventure and discovery are what happens when tough questions are asked: questions about faith, identity, God, culture, belonging and mission. It’s what happens when we do not answer a question that a student can answer for herself if she is encouraged to believe her voice matters to the ongoing dialogue between God and the church. It’s what happens when students are given important roles in our programs, allowing them to be co-creators instead of passive receivers. It’s what happens when we allow students to doubt and seek an autonomous expression of their faith. It’s what happens when we refuse to view students as numbers.
Entertainment communicates that you are not important. You are not important enough to be understood and valued as an individual. You are not important enough for my presence. You are not important enough for a supportive, non-self-serving relationship. You are important enough for my product, but not enough for my vulnerability. An incarnational ministry, which I believe involves adventure and discovery, requires time, effort and sacrifice. It also invites us to see students as our equals, as fellow journeyers and our teachers as much as our students: “Pray with me; speak these words with me; read with me; question with me; discover with me.”
When entertaining our students becomes the purpose of our ministries, we not only have abandoned our mission, but we have abandoned our students. So let’s stop trying to entertain our students and invite them into a life of passion through adventure and discovery. Let’s journey alongside them with love, humility and an insatiable desire to be a part of what God is doing in this world.
Kyle Lake is the Fifty6 (fifth and sixth grade pastor) at Mars Hill. He graduated from The University of Michigan and currently is a student at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. He is an avid Michigan Wolverine and Detroit sports fan and cyclist. Kyle lives in Grand Rapids with his wife, Sandra, and dog, Walter. In their free time, they enjoy camping and exploring Michigan.
