The End of Youth Ministry
Andy Root TLDR
This is another post in my now-lengthening series on Andy Root.
In his book, The End of Youth Ministry, Root makes a few intriguing assertions.
First, modern-day youth ministry (think 1980’s onward) is about “slowing down” the growing up of teenagers.
In short, if we keep them busy in church, they won’t get into “adult activities” like drinking, partying, and sex. For twenty or thirty years, this is what youth ministry was about; fun & games, activities, age-specific teaching and instruction. There’s nothing “wrong” with this per-se, but it sets up this expectation that church should always be cool/hip/fun.1
Second, making youth group about having fun and feeling good has diminishing returns.
There was actually a couple interesting Hidden Brain podcast episodes on this topic, where the guest asserted that the reason for our sky-high rates of depression and mental illness is because our modern society has created endless dopamine hits meant to stimulate our brain. Yet, our brain can’t handle it and essentially pushes down on the “opposite lever.”
Third, making emotional safety and identity recognition the ultimate makes ourselves the moral horizon.
Root writes, “Recognition itself isn’t bad; it only because poisonous when individually achieved happiness becomes our moral horizon.”2 More, he writes, “for identity to deliver meaning, it must, in some way, be found outside ourselves.3
This last point is perhaps the most important, at least in my opinion. For, in the book, Root talks about parents seeking to shape or influence the identity of their children; to help them find their own unique identity. The implications here are obvious. If my identity is found in myself only or what I do, I have no need for others, especially God and church. This is essentially what it means to be “spiritual, bot not religious” then.4 The individual is the source and gatekeeper/filter of all.
And more, my identity is dependent on my continually maintaining said identity (think social media influence here especially). This creates sort of a “works based salvation” if I may use a theological comparison, in which my identity, whether it be my inclusiveness, my social-justice passion, my whatever-identity-I-choose is really dependent on my continuing efforts and output. No wonder our young people are exhausted and burnt out.5
The power of the story of Jesus, as Root presents it, is that we need not be the author of our own story. Through the work of Jesus, we have been invited into a bigger story, God’s story. Youth ministry then, and dare I say all ministry, is not about helping kids find their “unique selves” or making “safe spaces,” but rather creating space whereby teenagers might encounter the living God.6
See my previous post about children in worship.
Root, The End of Youth Ministry, 124.
Root, The End of Youth Ministry, 138.
Sure, this is a bit of broad brush statement.
For a great discussion on keeping up with the “speed” of life, see Root’s The Congregation in a Secular Age.
And, this is frankly the opposite of safe or controlled. Transformation never is. Root writes, transformation is often something to fear, because it “reorders the self.” Instead, we find it safer to “spin things closed” and be the author of our own change, “in a culture that feels out of control with identity options.”