Book Review: 5 Views on the Future of Youth Ministry
Youth ministry is a moving target. This is one of the things that many veteran youth pastors love about it. You can’t get bored or complacent, or you’ll quickly become irrelevant and ineffective. Once you have things “figured out,” youth culture changes and you need to re-contextualize. Youth workers have a reputation for being creative and out-of-the-box risk-takers who are willing to try new things to reach teenagers with the gospel. So, in a time when youth culture has changed considerably over the last decade, it only makes sense to reflect on the future trends we’ll see take root in youth ministry. That’s the subject of 5 Views on the Future of Youth Ministry: Perspectives on What Could or Should be, edited by Mark Oestreicher.
Oestreicher, the founder and president of The Youth Cartel, brought together a compelling group of youth ministry leaders to reflect on the future of youth ministry, each bringing their unique voice and perspective to the conversation. Unlike other “5 views” types of books, a book that tries to envision the future isn’t working from a framework where there are set viewpoints. For example, a book about the views of baptism will have fairly well-defined stances to represent. But with a book about the future of youth ministry - how do you begin to quantify a well-rounded perspective? This book easily could have been “10 Views…” and still left a significant perspective unrepresented. In a way, I think that’s the point.
One of the undeniable themes represented in the book is this: we need to change. Chris Curtis writes, “What’s dying in the face of secularization are our methods. The way we’ve done youth ministry for the last quarter century. And maybe good riddance” (107). So, where do we go from here?
Summary of the Five Views
Kenda Creasy Dean proposes that youth workers need to embrace the oddness of Jesus and “re-weirdify” Christianity for today’s teenagers. She reflects, “By failing to place the oddity of Christ at the center of our work, by downplaying suffering love in the name of personal happiness, another gospel crept in” (25). The dropout rate we see today is a wake-up call to parents and church leaders that students need a gritty faith that’s worth their commitment and that grapples with the complex realities of life.
Tommy Nixon highlights the diversity of GenZ and challenges youth workers to earnestly wrestle with the ways their ministry is or is not ready for what that will mean. One of the primary ways youth workers will need to care for students is by embracing compassion and suffering with students. Nixon argues, “we need to express the truth of the gospel in a way that recaptures and communicates the power of what Christ has done for us and how it changes things in the here and now” (41). If our salvation is only future-focused but not a present-day reality, then students will continue to leave the faith.
Mark DeVries predicts, “The role of full-time youth pastor is not quite in danger of extinction, but it probably does belong on the endangered species list” (59). With this in mind, youth workers will need to get increasingly creative regarding the ways they fund both their ministries and their own livelihood. Additionally, resources for youth ministry will need to become more focused on volunteers who have little formal training.
Virginia Ward raises the concern that although “family ministry” is common today, there are many types of families who are overlooked. “The church will need to decide if every family really means every family, no matter its exact description. Once all families are valued, engagement will look very different” (94). If youth workers truly want to minister to students in the years to come, they will need to change in order to minister to every family.
Chris Curtis brings a perspective from the UK, where secularism is more advanced than in the USA context. In many ways, the church in the UK is experiencing what DeVries predicts, and ministry is almost entirely volunteer-led. This means “at the very point when evangelism is more vital than ever, we’re doing less of it than ever” (111). While many churches are concerned with keeping their youth through prioritizing discipleship, students are too spiritually numb to be compelled by what they hear in church. Curtis highlights the lack of “spiritual curiosity” in teenagers’ lives. If this is what’s in store for youth ministry in the USA (and I think we can all see this happening already!), then maybe it’s time to re-read Dean’s chapter about re-weirdifying Christianity.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Book
5 Views on the Future of Youth Ministry represents a wide spectrum of the Christian church. Reading the different views honestly opened my eyes to some perspectives I haven’t considered, and I’m thankful for that. Most of us tend to read books by people who live and think like we do. Even if you try to read broadly, there’s just so much published content it’s hard to keep up. That’s probably the greatest benefit of this book. It will lead you to consider a wider spectrum of the future of youth ministry than what your own “tribe” is forecasting.
As mentioned previously, it would be impossible for such an open-ended topic to reflect every perspective. The book never claims to present five views from the entire spectrum of youth ministry. That said, the book would have been rounded-out by including a Reformed perspective. Mainstream youth ministry continues to carry the most significant voice in the broader youth ministry world, but the Reformed, Gospel-Centered movement has gained considerable momentum over the last decade and it would have been beneficial to include that perspective. There’s enough distance between the mainstream and Reformed camps of youth ministry, this seems like a missed opportunity for the wide spectrum of theological traditions to sit at the table and listen to each other.
There are many predictions in the book that I personally agree with, and a few that seem overstated; but I honestly learned from every contributor. I highly recommend youth workers to read this book. Wisdom and humility lead us to read in order to learn, not to correct or argue. So, regardless of one’s presuppositions about mainstream youth ministry, there’s a lot to learn in this book. Read it. Genuinely listen to the viewpoints of others who have significant ministry experience in a context and tradition that’s different from your own. As you reflect on the warnings and recommendations offered in 5 Views on the Future of Youth Ministry, your own ministry will only benefit as you lean into what’s next.
