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But, actually, um...well...uh...this is not an article about youth culture, or the world of today's teenagers. This is an article about the youth ministry culture, the folks who work with teenagers. And over the next few issues of Good News, I want to explore one of my gravest concerns about the current youth ministry landscape: we seem to be sliding into an adolescent approach to faith and mission. Look at the "must read" books, listen to the conversations, go to the seminars, measure the values. Even a quick survey of the current youth ministry culture tells the story: we're not just working with teenagers, we're starting to think like them.

Adolescent-driven ministry
. Trendy: The youth ministry culture is extremely susceptible to fads.

I recently heard a youth worker defend a new book by saying, "It's really 'edgy.'" Being hopelessly unhip, I thought, "But shouldn't the question be, not whether something is "edgy," but whether it is constructive and helpful or (pardon me for not being edgy here) whether it is actually true (cf. Acts 17:11)?

I'm concerned that in our efforts to make the gospel more "relevant," we are in danger of dressing up and dumbing down a message that Paul described as inherently foolish to those who are perishing (1 Cor 1:18). I suspect that what is sometimes labeled in the youth ministry world as "edgy," might more accurately be described as an attempt to round off the jagged edges of a gospel that is scandalous (the Greek word "skandalon," 1 Cor. 1:23).

C. S. Lewis, whose writings have had a profound impact on Western culture, wrote in his prologue to The Problem of Pain, "I have believed myself re-stating ancient and orthodox doctrines. If any parts of the book are 'original' in the sense of being novel or unorthodox, they are against my will and as a result of my ignorance." This doesn't sound like a guy who is trying to be edgy.

. Obsessed with cool: Our current youth ministry culture often defines itself by what it is not-one of the traits we so often see in our students. This tribal behavior draws boundaries on the basis of clothing, music, values, etc. "Dude, I would never wear something like that. That is so lame."

Reading through Dan Kimball's otherwise fine book The Emergent Church, I was struck by the almost comical efforts made to be sure that readers understand how the emergent church is not like those "Saddleback-type, seeker-sensitive churches"-you know, that are not emergent (see Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Church). In reading through Kimball's book, a book that talks about how we can be more sensitive to postmodern seekers who are faith-impaired, un-churched, and unfamiliar with God-language, one can't help but think, "Gee, when you're being sensitive to seekers like that, isn't that like being, you know, 'seeker-sensitive'?" Of course, it's a different approach, but isn't it the same idea?

Here's the problem: if part of the Church is the emergent church, who or what are the rest of us-those who are occasionally close-minded, hypocritical, and judgmental? Submergent (Baptists)? Divergent? Convergent? Detergent? This desire to witness to the world, by showing how much we are not like those we do not wish to be like, only shows the world one more form of tribalism. What this view of the church doesn't seem to comprehend is that we are all one Body, and a hipper-than-thou identity betrays the basic theological fact that we are all one in Christ (Ephesians 4:1ff).

What smell?
My friend who manages a seafood processing plant in New England tells me that there comes a point when you've worked around the odor of dead fish for so long that you don't even notice the smell, which is dangerous, because the odor of tainted fish provides an important warning to the trained nose.

Our mission in youth ministry is to be fishers of teenage men and women. Our effectiveness in this work is based on our being able to discern and avoid the tainted odors of adolescent thinking. In the next issue of Good News, we will explore further some of the risks we invite upon ourselves and our students when we are not faithful to this mandate.

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The culture of youth ministry by Duffy Robbins

The culture of youth ministry
by Duffy Robbins