Ask Someone Who Knows

This is post #3 in my series attempting to address the question, "What would I do if I were starting a youth ministry from scratch- today?"  To read the introduction to this series simply click here.

Just hangin' with the gang! This is Youth Ministry!

Once you've got a Strategery in place when starting a youth ministry from scratch, the first question you have to answer is this: "Where am I going to find some youth?"  For many years the traditional answer to this question was to offer good programs- and they will come.  The will come because it is normal to go to church. They will come because their parents will make them.  They will come because their friends do.  They will come because they don't have many options.  The task of the youth pastor was not so much to get them to come, but to keep them coming back.  Those days are gone.  I look at my son and his friends.  He (and many of them) attend church on a regular basis, but only a few are involved in a student ministry.  My own son is not.  Why is this?  Contrary to the popular myths floating around in youth ministry circles, many of them choose not to go because there are too few pizza parties and too few relationships being built.  They worship in church.  They do service hours for school.  What they lack is a community that shares life together, meeting at a time when busy students can actually attend.  And far too many student ministries don't offer that anymore.   But I digress.   Our little start up is going to need something major to get it kick-started- and here's how I would begin.


About a month ( I am assuming am October kick-off) before our first Sunday evening youth meeting, I would go to all of the local eateries where teenagers hang out - Yogurtology, Steak 'N' Shake, Dairy Queen, Tijuana Flats, the local Mall Food Court- and ask for permission to post some signs.  The signs would simply read, Ask Someone Who Knows!, and then give the date of our first meeting.  That's all.  I would put signs everywhere I could get permission to put them.  I would purchase ads in the local high school football programs.  I might even try to get someone to donate a billboard!  I would want the entire community to go wild with curiosity over the simple phrase Ask Someone Who Knows!  Then for the next 3 weeks I would go with the students I already know (many of whom work at those very hang-outs) and be at the schools, at the hang-outs and any other place I could introduce myself to teenagers.  And then 1 week before our first meeting, there would be an event.  There would be adults and teenagers at every location we had targeted, and they would all be wearing buttons that say I Know.  We'd be handing out info to anyone who was interested, trying to build momentum for our first meeting.  After that, I would continue to rotate my "office space" to those same locations every afternoon after school to continue to build relationships with the kids.  The initial response would most likely not be huge, but we would have made our main  points- we are here and we care!!!   In the end, youth ministry in 2011 is not about how many teenagers you can get to come to a function at church.  It's about how many students you can impact by being on their turf.  Churches should actually limit the number of hours a professional youth pastor can spend in his/her office.  It's no longer "if you build it they will come."  Our new mantra should be "they are out there- now take Jesus to them!"  


So that's how I would start.  There are hundreds of other options, and this is the opinion of only one man.  But on this blog, it's the only opinion that matters!  :)  Next Friday we'll talk about what our Sunday evening youth fellowship (GASP- I said the "F" word!) might look like.  Have a blessed weekend!


Because of Jesus,