The Future of Next Gen Ministry
Here are 5 futurist ethics that I believe must be a part of Next Gen Ministry in the next ten years, if the Lord tarries. Next Gen will not survive if we fail at these 5 ethics.
Five Ethics for the Future of Youth Ministry:
1. Contextual or Missiology Ethic
It is important to understand the relationship between sociology and theology. They go hand in hand as context (sociology) and content (theology).
We must raise students who would rather be the church and not just go to church. We must get students to understand that they can serve God in the context of their world, to help them see that worship, prayer, and reading their Bible does not just take place at youth group once a week.
They need to live out their faith in the family, the school, their teams, and in the places where they hang out.
A missional mindset of every youth leader must be to be present in the neutral site setting of students and teenagers. Youth leaders must be seen at each of the places where teenagers do life.
When a student understands that their faith does not have an address on the church property, they will have grasped one of the most important principles of youth ministry—that God is present in all things in and outside of the church building!
Here are some practical ways to bring missiology to youth ministry:
● Create youth ministry events that are not held at the church
● Move the youth ministry to a high school or community setting quarterly
● Use the language of the youth culture in your messaging
● Take advantage of social media to bring the gospel footprint into culture
● Teach a strong apologetic or biblical mission to students so they understand their place in the world
2. Diversity Ethic
Fifty-one percent of Gen Z is non-white. This is the largest percentage in American history. This fact must shape the way we do youth ministry in the next ten years as we look at language, the diversity of the youth team, race education, and total inclusion.
Do you know that we could be on the verge of rewriting the race relations narrative in the church and ultimately the culture? We could leave a story of healing for Alpha Gen if we simply continue with this unity, healing, and inclusive emphasis in youth ministry.
By doing this, we will have a hand in the makeover of our nation in just a decade. We are one generation away of either recovering from the race stain of our nation, or, rewinding to and reimagining the race stain for the future of our children. The research supporting the racial unity in the younger generations is clear and undeniable. Now we need a clear vision and trends to support it.
What does that look like?
● A diversity make-up of the leadership team that places value at the authority level
● The language that we use in our messaging must be current and reflect race relations
● Involvement of every student in leadership positions
● Race-inclusive strategies for social media posting
3. Family Ethic
The family has been disintegrated in America. We’re not just raising a fatherless generation anymore. We are raising a fatherless, a motherless, and a sibling-less generation. I can’t think of a time in Next Gen that we need a greater emphasis on family. I mean, look at the athletic programs and the language they use in the locker room … “This is a family“.
Think about it this way. The world loves teenagers conditionally. If the church could love them unconditionally, it might be one of the easiest ways to grow your youth ministry. I truly believe a genuine culture of unconditional love and acceptance would be a viral growth tool for any student ministry.
The classic family structure that was such a strength in our nation’s past has been lost. But youth ministry has the potential to change society at the family level. As President Ronald Reagan said over 40 years ago, if you want to fundamentally change a society, it begins at the dinner table.
The fundamental element to change any society starts at home.
Here are a few practical ways:
● Affection and the family setting brings security to teenagers and closes the door on predators who are preying on our children
● Promoting the value of sibling relationships brings accountability to children and intimate relationships that are protective
● Making sure the youth leadership team is multigenerational and mirrors the family makeup
● Parental training sessions annually in the youth ministry will be revolutionary and a value-add to the validity of youth ministry in the church
Many people blame government, education, social media, entertainment and the arts, and a multitude of other things for the condition of our society, but the number one issue is the health of the family. Youth ministry must get this right. If we do not, we raise another weakened generation.
4. The Sexuality Ethic
Identity among the Gen Z and Alpha Gen sets is confusing at best. I say this because there
has been so much redefinition going on as it relates to gender. I last counted over fifty gender type names that have been created just in the past five years. It is stunning to see the variety of ways that people define their sexuality.
If youth ministry is going to have a voice in this latest sexual revolution, we must define a biblical identity for teenagers today. They cannot get their identity from culture, they must get it from scripture.
Yet this ethic is not just about identity. It is about purity and the restoration and redemption of anyone who may have fallen under the deception of sexual confusion.
Just recently in Nebraska, I had a conversation with a young lady who was raised in the church about the power of words spoken over her that turned her life away from a scriptural ethic of sexuality and toward the destruction of a cultural ethic.
We have to tell Gen Z and Alpha Gen to unlearn everything they hear in culture and find the creation design and intent of God in scripture for their sexuality.
Here are some practical steps to protect the principle of the sanctity of sexuality and gender:
● Inform students of the theology of sexuality and gender
● Identity is a missing discussion in youth ministry and must be reset in Scripture
● Organize parent meetings to educate the family on current social trends and language
● Do not be afraid to talk about issues that are seen as hands off
● Hold annual seminars with professionals to help train the church
Each of these ethics are critical to the future of youth ministry. However, the greatest future principle or ethic in youth ministry is the valuation of theology and spiritual formation. When the ethic of theology is restored to youth ministry, we will raise a generation who has everything they need to handle each of these first four needed ethics.
5. Theology Ethic
Discipleship must be restored in youth ministry, or we will raise another generation void of a biblical worldview. Another Gen Z STAT we have shared often, and that should influence the future of youth ministry, is that only 4 percent of this generation has a biblical worldview.
And this generation includes more atheists than any other generation in American history. This is not an encouraging trend. We must see a renewed emphasis on theology in youth ministry.
A theology ethic is critical for youth ministry in the future because of the generational loss of theology in Gen Z.
All of the research statistics show a spiral downward in youth Christian thinking and worldview. The research has shown that Gen Z is dangerously God-less. Even among Christian teenagers who attend youth group, only one-third can name half of the Ten Commandments.
These startling statistics demonstrate how critical it is for youth ministry to place theology at the center of our work.
Here’s how we can do that:
● A greater emphasis on preaching directly from the Bible and not a movie series or the headlines in the news or social media
● Creating our preaching or teaching series around a passage of the Scriptures for an entire month
● More application and practical teaching from the Bible placed in the context of our teenager’s lives
● Biblical worship
● Biblical counseling
● Redeeming social media for the purpose of theology
The need for each of these ethics in youth ministry cannot be understated.
Finally
As we have noted, we have a crisis in this generation—that we are serving a God we do not know. All the research statistics show that the theology in this generation is anemic. However, if we are not careful, the Alpha Generation to follow is going to be even worse off than Gen Z.
Each of these discipline will help to shape what youth ministry looks like in the coming years. It will require all of us doing our part.
We cannot deny the future impact of youth ministry on our culture. The next great politicians, educators, business leaders, entertainers, service professionals, and spiritual leaders are growing up right now in the church.
One thing is very clear: whatever we have been doing in youth ministry over the last twenty years is not working. This reality should motivate current youth leadership to shape a different outcome than what we have seen in the last two decades.
A prophetic look at the future of youth ministry will help its leaders stay current in the field. Without a doubt, the future of youth ministry must include the development of Next Gen Faith through these 5 ethics.