Youths want more heart, less formatting

Leaders say churches
have be real to reach
out to this generation

By Rachel L. Toalson
Managing Editor
He began working with youth soon after his attendance at Riverside Community eased into regular.
Josh Dean, 34, volunteers weekly with the Spring Branch chapter of Young Life, an organization that reaches out to youth of all denominations. He’s watched his “kids” return to their individual congregation with the same passion they carried to the Young Life meeting.
“Some of my kids go to the Catholic church down the road,” Dean said. “It’s about as old school as you can get, with robes and everything. But they feel very comfortable there. They enjoy their congregation—because it serves. The idea of serving their community is attractive.”

Just being real
It’s more about the heart of congregations and their leaders than it is about style or format—although style and format do make a difference, said Dave Wiant, youth director at Oak Hill UMC, Austin.
But churches that are “more service-minded, more authentic and real” are the ones attracting younger people through their doors, he said.
“Most kids really don’t care if it’s traditional or contemporary,” said the Rev. Rusty Freeman, youth ministries director for the Southwest Texas Conference. “They just don’t want it to be static, nor do they want it to be dull. They want authentic, heartfelt, passionate worship.”
Even so, he said, young people respond better in informal environments—when they sense no pressure to “look a certain way or dress a certain way.”
They don’t want sermons to be “stuffy” but relevant to where they are and practical to their lives, he added.
“Churches that believe God’s word and that Jesus is the center are the ones that are growing,” Freeman said. “Churches that remain orthodox in their faith and beliefs and that emphasize the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit are the ones that are growing.
“Churches that are putting Christ at the center of their faith are the ones that see growth.”

Participation in worship
Wiant said he tries to explore more emergent worship with his youth group. Emergent worship involves more sensory experiences, he said—like smells and scents or lighting to create atmosphere.
He encourages movement, too, he said. His kids will journal or write their prayers on a large sheet of paper that they’ll hang on their wall.
He’s learned that youths want to participate more in worship, Wiant said. Most of his most successful Bible studies are the ones that are student-led, times when his students have to get up and be involved.
“They don’t want to sit and listen to someone tell them something anymore,” he said. “This culture is telling them from every angle that they have to be more and more independent, even at earlier ages. The schools are telling them they have to embrace their future and their career and be concerned with themselves.
“They are taught to be strong, independent thinkers. As a generation, as a culture, we, as a church, are having to respond to that by giving them opportunities to worship and study and be involved.”

Attraction’s challenge
He’s had many challenges over the years, Wiant said. But the most detrimental right now is that his youth ministry is competing “in the lives of young people for their attention and time.”
“We’ve become something on their to-do list because they have so many other things to do,” Wiant said. “They have to schedule time in for us. It’s not a priority. We have kids who are running away to soccer or baseball practice. Sundays are not holy days anymore.
“It’s hard to say to them, ‘You need to choose this,’ because, socially, the choices they are making are important for their careers and their futures. The church doesn’t offer help with tutoring or education. We can’t offer all the sporting opportunities.”
So churches have to evaluate what they can do to attract the youth of the community—and whether they are offering enough to keep youth involved in the church, Wiant said.
“My friends are all at the church,” Wiant said. “My livelihood is at the church. Everything I could possibly need is at the church, but it’s not like that for all these kids.”
Freeman said many people 20 years old to 30 years old drift away from the church because churches do not have programs geared to keep them involved. They don’t belong in the youth group, but churches typically don’t have a young adult Bible study.
Churches have to maintain contact with young people, make them one of its priorities, he said.
“Churches put their money where the majority of the congregation sees importance,” Freeman said. “But this is important. There are always young people. If they’re not in the church, they’re out in the community.”
Unification
One church alone won’t solve the problem of attracting youths, Wiant said. Churches have to band together.
“These churches are going to have to unify,” he said. “In some ways, that’s probably counter-culture for the Methodist church, but it’s not a bad thing for us to do—to get on board with each other and share resources.”
Dean said leaders at Riverside are never afraid to ask if other churches would want to partner with their efforts. John Hinkebein, youth pastor at Riverside, recently joined with Bulverde UMC and Bulverde Baptist Church to host XLR8 weekend, where young people joined together to do service projects, worship and fellowship.
David King, pastor of John Wesley UMC, Victoria, said many of the Victoria District churches are trying to link together people who work with youth. They’re in contact through e-mail, he said, and plan to get together once every few months to talk about what they’re doing and plan events.
His church, King said, is struggling to attract youth and can’t do it on its own.

Finding younger pastors
Eradio Valverde, chair of the Board of Ordained Ministry, said the number of people set to retire from Southwest Texas Conference pastoral leadership in the next 10 years is a “staggering number.”
Attracting younger clergy is “very important because the future of the conference depends on it,” he said.
“We need to be proactive in our responsibility,” Valverde said. “Clergy members, lay speakers and church members need to identify those young people who have the gifts and graces to serve the Lord in professional ministry.”
He said it starts at home, where parents can “reinforce in a positive way the role of the minister” by speaking lovingly about their pastor.
“That goes a long way showing their children the special place a pastor can hold in people’s lives,” he said.
But the responsibility also rests on leaders, Valverde said. He remembers his pastor talking to him about the ministry when he was only 6 years old. It stayed with him until the eleventh grade, when he felt the actual call, he said.
Mark Deaton, vice chair of the Board of Ordained Ministry and pastor of Bulverde UMC, said local churches haven’t really taken the time to “intentionally discuss” young people joining the ministry.
The Board has been talking about how it might encourage churches to see themselves as the responsible ones to foster pastoral leadership as a vocation.
“For many years, we just kind of assumed that now God’s working only with middle-aged people, and that’s not true,” Deaton said. “We’re finding that young people are being called to ministry as much as ever.
“But that also means that churches have to be ready to change and tolerate and give permission to young people for their voices to be heard in a way that may not be traditional, may not be what they’re used to.”
Some churches have already figured it out and are “clergy mills,” Deaton said. But the majority of them haven’t.
Talking about the impact pastors have on the world might help the vocational ministry be seen as an option for young people, he added.
“What I know about this generation is that they truly want to make a difference in the world,” he said. “They don’t want to just do something to make money. They want to do something that will make a difference. So the same reason that they would want to be a doctor or a nurse or a teacher, is the same reason they could want to be a pastor.
“I don’t think they perceive that we are really making a difference in the world. We have to make them see this as one of their options for pursuing their strong desire.”
Wiant said a pastoral vocation has trouble competing with other vocations.
“The gifts that a clergy member needs are very marketable skills in the world,” he said. “I don’t know that what we present to the kids is an attractive package. We’re losing the outstanding leaders to other elements. My significant leadership is gone to soccer teams, to the band, to the National Honor Society.
“They’re taking my leaders because they offer more promise for the future. All I have to offer them is their salvation, and if that promise isn’t good enough, I don’t know what else to do.”
He oftentimes has to remind himself that the church has survived for 2,000 years because “God has put it on the heart of others.”
Freeman said attracting youth to programs and leadership is important for turning the church around.
“This is the future of our church,” he said. “Our church is not getting any younger. Our denomination is not getting any younger. If we do not reprioritize for youth and young adults, we will wind up in a continued decline. And some other church or denomination will pick up those people.”