Mission in Youth Ministry

If you work with students in any capacity, hopefully you are always open, searching, and pursuing new, fresh, thoughtful, and truthful ways to reach, teach, care, educate, nurture, and love kids in your context. Why do we do what we do? How do we do what we do? With whom do we do what we do? Etc. As I personally sit in transition as to what my "youth work" looks like in the next 1-5 years, one thing has never changed: the chance to grow in my understanding and skill as to what it takes to help kids and their families out in life.

There is a thoughtful dialog over at Jesus Creed about some of those thougths as they pertain to mission in the context of youth ministry. There is some good sharing, dialog and conversing that could be challenging to you and your work with kids, but hopefully it's also encouraging that there are others out there in the tribe of people who care about youth that are similar to you!

Here is a teaser to the conversation. Go and check the rest of the conversation out now:

I'm certain that many of the people engaged in youth ministry think regularly about the mission and work before them. Our unsettled culture and its itinerant nature require ongoing strategic thought and practice.

In order to avoid being characterized by what Nietzsche referred to as the "fundamental form of stupidity" (forgetting what you were trying to do in the first place), I am sure that many of today's youth ministers have a variety of mechanisms to keep the mission of their ministry somewhere on the dashboard in bold, bright font. They are reminding themselves just what they are meaning to accomplish.

I'm wondering, however, just what the thing we are "trying to do in the first place" is, exactly. What is our mission? It appears that the mission of most youth ministries just might be as unsettled and itinerant as the culture to which it is attempting to impart the great good news.

(bu to Jesus Creed)