“My hunch is that many of our students, as a result of not knowing the Bible’s story, haven’t been guided toward an understanding of the work of the church in the mission of God and therefore have no framework for or devotion to the church and its nature and work.”
This is it exactly, or at least a major part of the recipe. Though I remain congregationalist in polity (by which I mean I do not favor large denominational hierarchies and bishops and so forth), in much of evangelicalism there is an excessively low-church mentality, to the point of simply having no ecclesiology at all. “The Church” is simply what we call the aggregate mass of individual Christians. There’s no sense of being a part of God’s called-out people. There’s no sense of God’s mission in the world, or a faith that is relevant (by which I don’t mean “pastors who wear jeans and spike their hair”, but a faith that actually means something for the real world we all live in).
What do we do? Get back to the Narrative. What role does the Church play, as the people of God, in the Bible’s story? It’s not just sitting around singing hymns and holding potlucks, as wonderful as both of those things can be.

In my experience as a Youth Pastor, our ministry is in constant conflict with a variety of other events that dominate the lives of the youth. In my local community, youth are involved year-round in sports and other extra-cirrucular activities. There seems to be more and more competing interests keeping youth from being the “church” gathered on a regular basis. One of my challenges is providing unhindered space as the church “gathered” in order to train the youth about being the church “scattered”. Parents are busy, they sign their children up for everthing under the sun, leaving little time for at-home family time let alone church gatherings. Our church is struggling to find a venue where we can capture and sustain our youth long enough to break through all the distractions in order to instruct their minds and hearts on the nature and work of the church. We’re really making an effort to support family-based ministry among our youth, but without the parents living it out, we’re really up a creek. This is one of many issues we face in helping adults and youth understand the mission of the church.

Before entered church youth ministry I spent two years organizing, mobilizing and leading a grassroots Jesus movement we called “The Revolution” in my hometown. Our main goal was to reach “over-churched” kids who were bored, disinterested or disenfranchised with their current, rather stale, domesticated experience of church.
The challenge was to recapture the revolutionary, grassroots “movement” feel of the early Christians. The entire success or failure of this experiment depended largely upon the type of Christianity and “Church” mission we were describing and inviting them into. NOTE: If you can capture in words the exciting, BIG, story and global mission God has called the church to be part of teens will give you a hearing.
***They really do want to change the world, and are naive enough to believe they can. If the church doesn’t give them a bigger purpose and challenge, they will join other causes (e.g., see the wildly successful promotion of “Invisible Children” among teens).
It’s a long, good story you can read about at http://www.revolution4life.wordpress.com. But I just wanted to say that we saw an amazing response and a neat community of teens gathering weekly in my home representing the committed kids from a dozen different church youth groups, all gathering together because they wanted to do something bigger than they were being given in their youth group at church.
We leaders have to recapture and share the full Story that we are part of as we bring the message of the Cross and power of the Kingdom to the world.
Peace.

To be honest, there were many unique factors that enabled a more “movement” approach to ministry with the Revolution. MDBach has pointed out well the challenges that come with trying to have a “scattered”, “movement” church experience while operating under very “controlled”, “gathered”, programmatic structures that are expected by parents and leadership in a local church ministry.
I have not been able to successfully bring that “revolutionary” experience to my church youth ministry where I now lead teens. Still wondering how one can bring the revolutionary VISION to a more structured youth PROGRAM. Thoughts?

Another angle to consider is that its tough for some young people to conceptualize “the mission of God in the world” when their world consists largely of the immediate drama: homework, soccer, BFF, personal and family and economic stress, etc. They can hear people talk about the greater Church or “Mission of God in the world but what is that to a teen? I’m not saying, that they’re not smart, but i think they need to see/feel themselves in a practical movement right now, before they catch the bigger picture. I think kids get into movements that declare great global things with passion (Thanks Kenda Creasy Dean; “Practicing Passion”) not because they really believe in the great ideas behind it or get the big picture but because the passion to do something now with others equally passionate is exciting. just some thoughts.

Trqavis #1 – I’ve been trying to figure out why or how our daughter, now 26, turned away from the church and God in her late teens. I think what you wrote : ” a faith that actually means something for the real world we all live in,” may be spot on for what she needs to see in order for christianity to look enticing. She’s said that faith has to be more than emotional feel goods, you know, what we get knowing God loves us particularly and intimately and is involved in our world and other such things. I’ve been trying to figure out what to say to her in response to that. On the other hand, from the values she holds and how she speaks out on them or acts on them, she is more of a christian than she admits. I tell her so. Anyhow, what you said gives me a new direction to start thinking so to have something to say in response to her. thank you.

Your Name was me, BeckyR

Chris,–I’ll just put my answer inbetween some of you words:
“By conversion I mean that the Church is to be a people concerned about evangelism, hospitality, generosity, liberation and formation.”
I think the church needs for show themselves to be hosipitable, generous etc TO THE YOUTH IN THEIR MIDST first–instead many see youth as almost intruders into their sacred space.
> By community I mean that the Church is to be a people concerned about providing a sense of belonging, responsibility, inspiration, sharing, diversity and inclusivity.
if there is some group that doesn’t sense belonging it is youth.
> By conformity I mean that the Church is to be a people concerned about their desire to form spiritually.
The elders need to model true spirituality at all times and to all people. I know that my own daughter is quick to see all the strife between members of the church–but almost never gets to hear the faith stories of older people.

Here are three reasons why I see kids leaving the church with no intention of returning when they pass the youth group age:
1. Youth groups are about NUMBERS. How many kids show up to a lock-in. How many kids prayed the “Sinner’s Prayer” while at camp. None of those kids that “prayed the prayer” give a shit about the church because they don’t have a fundamental understanding of what being a Christian is. And we’re not teaching it to them. We either dumb everything down to get tons of kids who come because its fun or we teach them about defending meaningless doctrines and theologies that they can’t apply to their life. Obviously teenagers need to have fun and youth group should be fun, and they need to learn basic theology. But we’re doing it wrong.
2. Youth groups are about YOUTH. And this is an extension of number one. How can we make sure all the kids are enjoying themselves and having fun? Well, once you get out of high school, go to college, get an apartment, a job, bills, a girlfriend, a wife, a kid, life isn’t about having fun. Nobody is concerned with whether you’re enjoying yourself. We’re not preparing kids by letting them focus on themselves all the time.
3. Youth groups are about EMOTIONS. High Schoolers are overflowing with emotions. We get High School kids to go to giant conferences, get into the mob, fit in with their friends, sing rock songs, and we get them high. White kids in Suburban America join youth groups for the SAME REASONS minorities in inner cities join gangs. It makes them feel good, accepted, and cared about. And we feed these emotions with one of the worst plagues in the church: the modern “worship music” movement.
I don’t have the answers. But here are some suggestions.
1. Teach kids the basics. Does anyone give a shit about me? Does GOD care about me? Do I have value, a reason, a purpose?
2. Give kids a purpose. Teach them that life isn’t about them. Christianity isn’t about them. A huge portion of the message of Christ is that we are to do good to other people. I’d be willing to bet if we could do a study, we’d find that kids who learned how to serve the needy in youth group are way more likely to stay involved in church than kids who just had camps, lock-ins, skate nights, etc.
3. Teach kids that God is beyond their emotions and their needs. While God can and does give us peace and fill our needs, He’s about SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT. It’s easy to love God when you’re filling up ARCO Arena or the LA Coliseum with thousands of other kids who are loving God and having a wonderful emotional response to the “worship” band that sounds like U2. Anyone can have an emotional response to rock and roll. It doesn’t mean you’re growing spiritually. Teach kids that God fills our needs SO THAT we can be Him to the world and fill the needs of others.

Unfortunately, most of the youth programs I see remind me more of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” than Christ. There seems to be this need to entertain, but the drive appears to come from leaders and not the teens/youth.
Teens are pretty good at finding the bottom line (to the confusion, it seems, of the leaders). So many times I have seen them drawn to geeky nerds who actually live and use the Truth, rather than “Cool Joe” with the hottest guitar, spouse, car and attitude.
But that still leaves so many, who have no clue about what Scripture really says, who ARE drawn to, and entertained by, “The Man” or “The Woman.” Perhaps it is our fault in selecting the leaders. We always seem to default back to the “Ken and Barbie” quotient.
There are some awesome youth programs out there. They just seem to be outnumbered by, “The Cool Church.”

Very good Joshua

We try to strike a balance between fun and providing a good solid Biblical foundation for our church youth.
Bible quizzing is a fun method of encouraging teens to study the Bible for themselves, instead of giving it to them in pre-digested bits.
They actually study what the scripture says instead of hearing from the 22 year old Youth leader what he thinks it means, with 4 jokes and an FM radio song quote thrown in for ‘relevance’.