I have never been a fan of youth ministry as it is conceived within the Catholic Church. We have 2,000 years of doctrine, liturgy, art, and music upon which to draw in order to bolster the faith and Catholic identity of our youth and we give them watered down doctrine, bad music, bad liturgy, and felt banners. Our youth deserve more.
So it is that I am amenable to drawing the same conclusion that many pastors are now forumlating. That “Modern Youth Ministry a ’50-Year Failed Experiment.‘
The film is produced by the National Center for Family Integrated Churches in association with LeClerc Brothers Motion Pictures. The producers released the documentary earlier this month online, and have made it available for free until Sept. 15.
“Divided” follows “edgy twenty-something” Christian filmmaker Philip LeClerc on a quest to find answers to why his generation is increasingly turning away from attending church. Recent surveys have shown that as many as 85 percent of young people will leave the church and many never return.
NCFIC Director Scott T. Brown told The Christian Post that today’s modern concept of youth ministry is a “50-year failed experiment.” Brown said that when he was a church leader in the ’70s and ’80s he could have been the “poster boy” for the youth ministry movement in California. However, he said he now feels that dividing children from adults at church is an unbiblical concept borrowed from humanistic philosophies.
“The church has become divided generationally,” Brown said. “It’s not doing what Scripture prescribes and is actually doing something foreign to Scripture by dividing people by age or by life stage.”
As Catholics, we should be teaching our young about the glories and difficulties of our faith, about our rich history, about the music created by masters for God’s own purpose. We hide our riches from the young and as a result they go looking elsewhere for it.
I grew up with this garbage and I always knew it was garbage. Kids are not stupid. We should teach them good doctrine, good liturgy, and good music. If we teach them, if we pass it on, they will stay.
ht @amywelborn2
May 8, 2012 at 3:33 pm
Glad you can make such a sweeping generalization of all youth ministers and their programs. Here in the KCK diocese we youth ministers have amazing programs of outreach and discipleship. Don't be so harsh against those working tirelessly for His Church and its youth.
May 8, 2012 at 3:38 pm
Amen to that!
May 8, 2012 at 3:39 pm
Kids know the difference between candy and real food. If all you feed them is candy, they'll love it for awhile, but what they really want is something that truly feeds them. If it isn't given to them in their church, they will look elsewhere. An all fluff diet gets really old, really fast.
May 8, 2012 at 3:39 pm
(That is amen to Patrick's assessment…)
May 8, 2012 at 3:40 pm
I'm with you, Pat. My Catechesis before Confirmation (10th Grade) was on the inellectual level of maybe 3rd or 4th. It's a travesty, really. Now, I'm sure there are great youth ministries out there, but all of my experiences with YM have been a joke.
May 8, 2012 at 3:42 pm
The failure begins when we export them out of Mass when they are three and hand them a box of crayons. So begins the lifelong habit of choosing amusement over self-control, what is easy over what is hard, and what is trivial over what is important.
May 8, 2012 at 3:46 pm
Young people want authenticity and challenge. They resent being patronized. "Youth ministry" is spiritually crippling and exploitative. The real youth liturgy is the traditional Latin Mass.
Romulus
May 8, 2012 at 3:49 pm
I really don't think it helps that sexual misconduct is still going unchecked. In the case I know of it's at a Catholic grade school but the diocese will not return parents' calls because the diocese continues its established view that it's up to the priest to take care of issues. Well, it doesn't help when the priest isn't doing anything. How can anyone believe that the children are protected? The kids are not dumb.
May 8, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Total agreement. There are some wonderful and holy people in youth ministry, but the idea of youth ministry as I knew it growing up is broken. My earliest memories of Sunday school are resentment for being separated from the "real stuff". From early youth through to today it's always been a huge thrill to me to experience well-crafted liturgies that draw us beyond ourselves toward Christ our God!
May 8, 2012 at 3:54 pm
Dwayne Evans? Have you reported it to the authorities?
May 8, 2012 at 3:55 pm
It's been reported to the authorities but so far there's been one charge brought against a person who is still allowed to attend school.
May 8, 2012 at 3:56 pm
Personally, I wouldn't indite youth ministry, I'd say catechism period has substituted fast food for what should be a slow roasted feast, crayon paper coallges for what should be stained glass. When adult formation is weak, children will follow.
May 8, 2012 at 3:56 pm
I had an incredible experience of youth ministry, and the program I went through has grown to over 400 teens on a weekly basis with 250 plus going on retreats twice a year. And they are not coming back just because they get to play games–they're coming back because they have a real encounter with Christ.
Plus, a number of solid priestly vocations came out of it, and I, along with a number of my close friends, even entered seminary to give priesthood a serious look because I was so moved by God in my experiences with youth ministry.
I think what your title should have read was "BAD Youth Ministry Has Failed."
May 9, 2012 at 1:59 am
Where is this youth ministry you speak of?
May 8, 2012 at 4:12 pm
It seems to me that the problem with youth ministry – aside from the geregious dumbing-down of Church teaching and liturgy – is that at some point, the youths involved grow out of it. We Catholics should never outgrow any part of the Faith.
May 8, 2012 at 4:15 pm
Of course, not every individual program has failed, but I think it is safe to say that youth ministry programs as generally conceived have failed to bear the anticipated fruit.
I am sure there are some good people and some good programs, but generally they are nonsense.
May 8, 2012 at 4:17 pm
"I am sure there are some good people and some good programs, but generally they are nonsense." I think that sums it up very well.
May 8, 2012 at 4:18 pm
I agree with Paul – BAD youth ministry has failed. My home parish had a fantastic, vibrant youth ministry, where I watched kids minister to their poorly-catechized parents and bring them back into the life of the church.
Don't be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
May 8, 2012 at 4:30 pm
When Catholics ape the youth ministry of Protestants through things like pseudo-iturgy with the praise music and lyrics splayed up on the video screen, then yeah, you can attract a following. We know something is off, but we really can't say what. I'd say it's the Matrix of therapeutic culture. Therapy of course is all about the self and your feelings are the ultimate arbiters of right and wrong. Feelings of course are fickle, so guess what doctrine is going to be. We don't see this because secular therapeutic culture has swallowed the world and civilization lives in its belly. This is why Life Teen can put out doctrinally sound materials and turn around and foster dreadful liturgy. You've heard the expression, "He went over my head". Well, therapeutic liturgy appeals under your head so to speak and can obliterate sound doctrine.
May 8, 2012 at 4:43 pm
As a child we had the "folk mass" (that's about the same time that some church musicians started calling themselves music "ministers" as they were part of the "music ministry". I guess my dad was part of the collection ministry.). The children were expected to attend the folk mass in the basement. One could hear the organ from the mass upstairs. When I was old enough my parents let me attend mass by myself upstairs while the rest of the family when to the folk mass.
May 8, 2012 at 4:51 pm
Youth ministry works when there are enough adults involved to provide coaching, modelling (positive and involved example), and direction. Like sports – where adults teach children or Scouts where the "dads" also wear uniforms and are right in the middle of the woods with their sons… so too a good Youth ministry will have enough adults and everyone doing 'adult' level Catholic things: liturgy, piety, doctrine, corporal and spiritual works of mercy… introducing the kids to what adult Catholics do, what we pray, the sacraments we attend, etc.