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 10, 2012 at 9:50 am
As a student who discerned a vocation to youth ministry serving young people, these comments, including the entry itself, are amusing, entertaining, but most of all convicting. Many of the points are valid, stating many truths of many youth ministries in the past and call me to learn more.
However, I feel, like a few other posters, that the title should be "bad youth ministry has failed." I have experienced a multitude of parishes, serving from the most wealthy, to those were most students in the area high schools are on free and reduced lunches. Each are different and no two are alike.
I was confronted with the Gospel, Scripture, with Papal teaching, and I, initially, denied them. Call it childish selfishness, but I wasn't ready to accept such intense teachings that moved beyond concern of myself, but in time I would. Blessed with parents that taught me openmindedness, I eventually understood these to be true, as my youth minister, a passionate Southern Baptist convert, was responsible for challenging me to understand them, through the grace of Christ, accept them, after much searching. However, my peers struggled to accept them, for many reasons, includling parenting.
Parents are the first educators. Yes. But what happens when the parents are removed from the situation? What happens when Mom and Dad are gone working jobs day and night, and only grandma can raise them when the parents are gone? A disconnect forms quickly.
Youth Ministry has so many extremes. The affluent, healthy 3000+ family parishes in suburbia stand far from ailing, broken kneeler, inner-city parishes with less than 500. They are different, but at the same time, both have young people that hunger and desire for Truth.
It is easy to declare that YM has become out of touch, sensational, flashy and even diluted, but the moment while on a retreat that a teen (who by the grace of God and intercession of our Blessed Mother even came!) shares with you his or her deepest hurt, of cutting, depression, pregnancies, sexual abuse and so much else, and desiring for healing through truth, you immediately forget any type of criticism of failure and bring them to the Divine Healer. Miracles come from the most unexpected places. Youth respond to authenticity. Are we being authentic with our lives?
May 10, 2012 at 2:11 pm
I did not notice the importance of teaching virtues to combat the vices and the Rosary for Our Blessed Mother's assistance in this discussion.
See what youth are exposed to in parochial schools and CCD programs and then ask yourself why there is not a crusade to save our youth from churchmen who intend to destroy from within:
http://www.motherswatch.net/content/view/12/6/ – Part 1
http://www.motherswatch.net/content/view/15/6/ – Part 2
May 10, 2012 at 4:34 pm
As someone in the KCK Archdiocese, I limit my teen's involvement in the parish youth ministry because it is watered down, shallow, and not "real food" at all. She went to the Confirmation retreat at our parish and was hit with gross humor, weak skits, and very little catechesis or preparation for the sacrament. And I've heard MANY complaints about the Jr. High and Lifeteen programs at our parish, as well as the "small group" high school ministry, where the teens are essentially advising each other. Tell me, how much advice did you receive as a teen from other teens that was solid, faithful, and helpful? The adult moderators of these groups aren't always helpful as leaders, sometimes involved in lifestyles contrary to Church teachings themselves.
May 10, 2012 at 10:53 pm
Ok…was a youth minister for 6 years. It's not the Church's fault! It's BAD PARENTING! The kids who NEED youth ministry are the ones who come from families where the parents rely on everyone else to teach their kids the faith. They looked at me and wondered why their kids couldn't list the 7 Sacraments. Not that I didn't teach them. And not that I didn't take them before the Blessed Sacrament and do everything to lead them by the hand to Jesus. But if the parents didn't teach them love of Christ for the first 14 years, how is a youth minister supposed to do it in one or two years?????
May 11, 2012 at 7:41 am
But what happens when the parents are removed from the situation? What happens when Mom and Dad are gone working jobs day and night, and only grandma can raise them when the parents are gone? A disconnect forms quickly.
James, you're absolutely right. In that case, the pastors and priests themselves should be the second line of offense, as it were, in teaching the Gospel fully.
Unfortunately, most priests are as ignorant about the Gospel as most Catholics. Those who understand it and its implications fully are more likely to be thorns in the sides of bishops, which doesn't do much for their job security.
May 14, 2012 at 4:04 pm
Teach them good Catholic doctrine like partying are the club then waking up for mass?
May 14, 2012 at 5:10 pm
Ok, most of us agree that we 50 year olds had poor catechesis growing up and I, for one, did not do a good job catechizing my own children. But I have grown in my faith, thanks to a great pastor these past 7 years, and now teach Confirmation class to 9th graders in a small rural parish. 9 out of 12 of them went to Catholic grade school and do not know the 10 Commandments or the mysteries of the Rosary. One was late for confirmation Mass rehearsal due to ball practice. Etc, etc, etc. I encouraged parents and sponsors to attend. That fell on deaf ears.
I have 7 months, meeting weekly, to teach kids what the Sacrament of Confirmation is all about, what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is all about.
PLEASE!! Like the movie stated, these "fatherless" kids are now at my table and I am the one feeding them (Job 31:17) We all know the problems. I NEED SOLUTIONS!!
Thank you, Ora Pro Nobis, and those that shared links. I pray that parents find the faith to teach their own children, but for now, this is where I am at. PLEASE SHARE what is working in your parish ministries.
BTW, a good start for Confirmation catechists is the book, "Called to Knighthood" by Thomas Sullivan.