YOUTH MINISTRY IN YOUR PARISH
A SIMPLE PLAN TO HELP YOUR CHURCH EXPLORE ITS OPTIONS
The Pastoral Plan for Youth Ministry of the Diocese of Algoma encourages every Parish “to develop a comprehensive ministry to, with and by youth,
which is based on the assessed needs of their area youth”.
Does this mean that your parish should have a youth group? NO
Does this mean that your parish should have a youth coordinator? NO
Does this mean that your parish’s ministry should extend to the teens in your community? YES
There are many types of Youth Ministry, and some types will suit your church and community better than others. As a parish family, your goal is to assess the needs of the teens in your area, and to respond to the needs in the best way you can.
THIS PROGRAM CAN HELP YOU ACCOMPLISH THAT GOAL!
There are five simple steps to this program.
The total time is 3 hours, but it can be divided into multiple sessions.
STEP ONE: ASSESS THE NEEDS OF THE YOUTH IN YOUR AREA (30 minutes)
STEP TWO: ASSESS YOUR RESOURCES (30 minutes)
STEP THREE: EXPLORE DIFFERENT TYPES OF YOUTH MINISTRY (30 minutes)
STEP FOUR: DEVELOP AN ACTION PLAN (60 minutes or 2x30 minute sessions)
STEP FIVE: KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK! (30 minutes)
Note: these steps can also be used to develop other types of ministry plans in your church, such as ministry to children, families, retired people, shut-ins, etc.
STEP ONE: ASSESS THE NEEDS OF THE YOUTH IN YOUR AREA
There are many ways to do this simple, 30 minute exercise. It can be done at a parish Board meeting, committee meeting, or during coffee hour after church on Sunday. Gather together. Provide paper and pens, or record all the answers on a chart. Begin the meeting with prayer. Ask the following questions, and keep all answers for your records. Try to stick to five minutes of discussion per question.
Close the meeting by encouraging people to think about what their Church can do to respond to the needs of the teens in their community. Remember: Step One and Step Two can be distributed in the form of a questionnaire, if you chose that option!
STEP TWO: ASSESS YOUR RESOURCES
This Step can be done in the same way as Step One. Gather together. Begin the meeting with prayer. Ask the following questions, and record all answers. Try to answer the first five questions in fifteen minutes, and save the remaining fifteen minutes for the last two questions.
*include paid staff if applicable.
Conclude the meeting by challenging people to think of ways that their church can use the resources it has available to meet the ministry needs of the teens in your community.
STEP THREE: EXPLORE THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF YOUTH MINISTRY
This step can be done in the same way as Steps One and Two. The goal of Step Three is to preview ten types of Youth Ministries and highlight the types that you feel would be suitable for your church. Literally. Gather together, and give each person a highlighter or a pen and a copy of the “10 Types of Youth Ministry” list below. Have each person take 15 minutes to read the list and highlight the parts they feel are applicable to their church. When they are finished, take the last 15 minutes to discuss. Here are three suggestions for the structure of the final 15 minutes:
i) Group discussion – ideal for a group in which everyone is comfortable speaking.
ii) Survey – each person says which types they picked, tally the results, and discuss the most popular choice(s).
iii) Equal time – if there are 15 people, everyone gets one minute to explain their choices. If there are 5 people, everyone gets 3 minutes. You get the picture…
TEN TYPES OF YOUTH MINISTRY
This type of ministry is characterized by a ‘Youth Group’ that meets regularly for Bible Study, worship, and social activities. These meetings can be part of a Sunday School program or an evening program during the week. Youth Ministry is geared toward the development of the ‘group’. This is the common structure in large churches.
This ministry has an intergenerational focus. Instead of segregating the teens in their own ‘Youth Group’, this type of ministry seeks to develop relationships between people of all ages in the church. Family-related activities, mentoring programs, and youth participation in all ministries of the church are common elements of this type of ministry.
This type of ministry is important in each congregation, but is particularly useful in churches that do not have teens in regular attendance. The focus of ministry shifts to the parents of the teenagers in the congregation and community. The church provides opportunities to support and educate parents in their attempts to form loving relationships with their teens, and encourage their teen’s faith journey.
In many churches the teens are too few or too busy to commit to regular attendance at church or at a youth group, but they will eagerly attend occasional events such as camps, trips, ‘youth’ services, or weekend retreats. An event-based Youth Ministry is focused on creating opportunities for occasional events that gather their youth for brief, but intense, periods of spiritual reflection and development.
This type of Youth Ministry is particularly useful in small communities, where it may not be possible for each church to support its own Youth Ministry program. Please feel free to meet with the other churches in your area and develop a strategy for combining your resources and programs. Your church may have one teen that is passionate about art, music or drama – but no support. If you combine your Youth Ministry with other churches, you may be able to produce a teen art show, worship band or drama team!
This type of ministry encourages the Church to serve the teenagers in their community, and to provide opportunities for the teens to serve the community as well. A service-based youth ministry dedicates it time and money to supporting initiatives that respond to the needs of teens, such as after-school programs, public facilities for sports, a community ‘teen centre’, or free access to computers. A service-based youth ministry also creates opportunities for teens to serve their community by volunteering their time in Church programs such as soup kitchens or kids camps.
This type of ministry is essential in each church, but is particularly useful in churches where adults are afraid or reluctant to form relationships with the teens. This problem is due to the generation gap between these groups, and can be resolved by educating adults about the needs and challenges of modern teenage life. An education-based Youth Ministry involves opportunities for adults to study books, videos or websites about teenagers, and to interact with teenagers so that they bridge the generation gap. This type of ministry can be the ‘first step’ in developing other types of youth ministries.
This type of ministry is particularly helpful in situations where youth are too busy with other activities (school, job, sports) to come to church on a regular basis. These churches provide teens with opportunities to nourish their faith at home. They provide them with daily devotionals or Bible Study books. They have a teen website, or provide their teens with information about Youth Ministry websites that they can access from their homes. They maintain email contact with the teens, so that they are always available if their teens need help or have questions about their faith.
This type of Youth Ministry is particularly useful in urban areas where it is easy for teens from several Anglican Churches to meet as a Deanery youth group. These churches use their resources to support the work of their Deanery Youth Unit, and encourage their youth to participate in their DYU. At the parish level, the teens are encouraged to participate in parish ministry and given opportunities to report to the parish on the activities of their Deanery Youth Unit.
Prayer is essential in every ministry. It is important to include teenagers in our prayers.
However, there are churches that make ‘prayer’ a specific youth ministry by recruiting volunteers to pray every day for the teens in the church and community. These churches include a prayer for teens in each liturgy. They may have a group of people who gather together once a month to pray for teenagers. This type of ministry can also be a good ‘starting point’ for churches that have no connection to teenagers and no vision for developing a Youth Ministry. Ask God for the opportunity and inspiration to minister to the teens in your community – keep praying and see what happens!
STEP FOUR: DEVELOP AN ACTION PLAN
This step will take 60 minutes, so plan for extra time, or plan to split this Step into two sessions. Gather together. Begin the meeting with prayer. Then proceed to a quick review of Steps 1-3. Ask the following questions and review the answers given at each session. Try to spend 5 minutes reviewing each Step, for a total of 15 minutes.
i) Step 1: What are the needs of the teens in our community, and how are those needs being met? Who are the teens in our church?
ii) Step 2: What resources do we have available to develop a ministry to teens? What would we like to do with these resources?
iii) Step 3: What types of Youth Ministry are most appropriate for our church?
Spend the next 45 minutes developing your Action Plan for Youth Ministry.
Here are two possible ways to develop that plan. Keep the plan simple and limit the number of new projects so that the plan is feasible, not a ‘wish list’ or a burden.
1. The Emergent Method.
There may be an obvious plan emerging from Steps 1-3. If these discussions have sparked some creativity, and people have the passion and energy to dedicate to an idea, then develop the idea as part of your Action Plan.
Example:
Step 2 revealed the need for a ‘youth room’ in our church, where our teens could hang-out after school and church. Since then, several people have expressed an interest in helping out with this project. This is a goal in our Action Plan.
Action Plan: 1) Work with the teens to develop a plan for decorating the room.
2) Work-out practical concerns: who will supervise, clean, ensure the doors locked?
3) Appeal to church members to donate games, videos, snacks, drinks or $ for supplies.
2. The Ministry Method.
Pick the three types of ministry that were the most popular choices in Step 3. Brainstorm a ministry project for each of the three types. You will have an average of 15 minutes of planning time per ministry type. These three projects will be your Action Plan.
Example
Ministry Type: Educational
Goal: To educate the adults in our church about the needs and challenges of teenagers.
Action Plan: 1) Talk to a teen that you know. Learn about life from their perspective.
2) Gather at the library and find books, magazines, or videos that talk about teenagers. Study them as a group (book-club!) or individually and tell each other what we learned.
3) Invite a parent or high-school guidance counselor to give a presentation in our church during sermon time or at coffee hour.
Ask for a volunteer to write or type a ‘good copy’ of the plan and bring it to the next session. Conclude the meeting with prayer.
STEP FIVE: KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
This is the final step. Gather together. Open the meeting in prayer. Give everyone a copy of the Action Plan and have each person spend the first five minutes reading the plan.
Evaluate the Action Plan, by discussing the following questions:
Try to spend 15 minutes discussing these questions.
Take the last 10 minutes to assign a timeline to each of these projects, including when you will meet again to evaluate the progress of this plan. Close the meeting with a prayer. Congratulate yourselves!
Here’s a useful tip:
To find resources to help you implement your Action Plan, try looking at the sheet entitled “YOUTH MINISTRY RESOURCES – AT YOUR FINGERTIPS!”