AP

Biblical Wisdom for Youth Ministry.

Review of Ruth Lukabyo (ed), Australian Evangelical Perspectives on Youth Ministry, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2024.

Living wisely as a teenager is difficult. This has been the case for every generation. No doubt, parents are entrusted by God with the primary responsibility of discipling their children to know what it looks like to live for Christ in youth. Youth ministries seek to supplement the work of parents. Thus, important questions are raised for such ministries:

• How can our youth ministries equip young people to live wisely?
• How can our rich, Reformed theology drive our youth ministry practices in an ever-changing cultural landscape?

In a recent book, Australian Evangelical Perspectives on Youth Ministry, edited by Ruth Lukabyo, 13 scholars attempt to answer these critical questions. Written in an Australian context, no other book rivals it in relevance and application to the current situation. It is a beautiful blend of theological principles and effective practices. The more I read it, the more my own thinking is refined as I think about how to do youth ministry biblically. Two truths stood out to me in particular: the difference between biblical wisdom and modern wisdom, and how we understand the nature of the church.

1. Biblical wisdom contrasted with modern wisdom

Modern wisdom is all about autonomous exploration: the belief that I discover my own path that fulfils my own desires. It’s an outworking of what sociologists call expressive individualism: identity and purpose come from within, not from anything outside of us. It’s entirely inward focused. This is in contrast to the wisdom portrayed in Proverbs, which focuses on listening to Wisdom who calls out in the streets and markets (Proverbs 1:20-33).

Over a week, I read Proverbs 1-9 and highlighted every instance of the words “hear”, “listen” – or their equivalents. There were 15 instances. I was confronted with the need to listen to wisdom in these chapters. Biblical wisdom comes from outside of us as we listen, meditate, pray, and apply God’s Word. Christian identity is received as a gift by adoption to sonship, not by extrapolating a path from inside our hearts. Our purpose is crafted by God, who saved us by grace that we may do the good works that He has prepared for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

Put another way: modern wisdom is transactional (“what can I gain to bolster my individual identity and purpose?”) while biblical wisdom is relational (“the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”). It’s easy for our young people to take the true doctrines of the Bible and filter them through a transactional lens.

Andrew Spalding, in the final chapter, highlights this phenomenon:

‘As an example, think of how youth groups have often taught adolescents about sexuality, persuading them to reserve sexual activity for marriage because of the negative consequences of STIs and unwanted pregnancies, and because married people typically have the most satisfying sex lives. Notice, however, that this uses the framework of expressive individualism to appeal to the young person’s desire for a personally satisfying life.’

Spalding continues:

‘The situation is analogous to trying to run apps (Christian beliefs and behaviours) on an incompatible operating system (expressive individualism). The operating system itself needs to be upgraded for the apps to work properly.’

I think of how often I taught biblically true doctrines without challenging the unbiblical framework of my listeners. This book has helped me detect how modern wisdom has unconsciously seeped into my ministry practices. But it has also prompted me to think of teaching God’s Word to youth in a way that challenges the lens of expressive individualism.

• Emphasis on the doctrine of the church.

Youth ministry is done best in the context of the wider body of Christ. But how should it fit within the ministries of a local church? How do our convictions of the nature of church shape our youth ministry? Four chapters are dedicated in this book to navigate the relationship between church and youth/children’s ministry.

Chase Kuhn, in his chapter entitled, “The Doctrine of the Church and Age-Specific Ministries” seeks to answer the question: What is church? He takes the reader through a linguistic analysis of key words relating to “church” in both the Old and the New Testament. Kuhn pays attention to the centrality of God’s Word in the gathering of God’s people as the essence of church. He concludes that ‘the church is nothing more than a gathering nor is it any less than an aggregate of its representative images [e.g. bride of Christ]’. He then applies this principle to age-specific ministries (like youth and children’s ministry) and says, ‘These ministries are churches. Therefore, they must be pastored accordingly.’

I appreciate the care of Kuhn in considering the nature of the church. However, I wonder if age-specific ministries should be seen as part of, and a partial reflection of church–not church itself. If a youth group is church, Kuhn has correctly deduced that it ought to be “pastored accordingly” as a church. This raises a host of questions.

First, it raises the question of governance. If youth and children’s ministries are to be pastored as a church, this would mean that a plurality of elders should lead youth groups and children’s ministries. Second, it raises the question of where the sacraments fit in. If youth ministry should be pastored as a church, the elders should regularly administer the sacraments. With these questions in mind, we can either accept the conclusion that youth ministry is church–and therefore structure the leadership and place of the sacraments to reflect it. Or, we can graciously challenge the premise with a slightly broader doctrine of the church and drive our youth ministries accordingly. My initial thought is that youth ministry is not church, but I raise these questions as an invitation to think through how our doctrine of church drives our youth ministry practices.

Furthermore, Kuhn highlights the validity of age-specific ministries by likening children’s and youth ministry to church services for an alternative language. The purpose of children’s ministry is not simply to keep them from distracting adults during the sermon, but an intentional aim to disciple these children in an intelligible way. It’s a recognition that children and youth are part of our covenant community, while also maintaining that there are legitimate developmental reasons for having separate ministries.

How might our church reflect the legitimacy of age-specific ministries without siloing youth and children’s ministries as completely separate? We can do this by acknowledging that only having age-specific ministries is detrimental. Youth ministry does not reflect the full experience of the family of God. We need both age-specific ministries and intergenerational ministries for the flourishing of our church. Kuhn makes the point that ‘the need for intergenerational ministry is not just for the sake of the maturation of the younger, but equally for the maturation of the elder.’ Youth ministries thrive when they are done intentionally within the context of the wider body of Christ.

Conclusion

Living wisely as a teenager isn’t easy, and there are no silver-bullet proof resources for youth ministry. This said, those who wish to gain a solid foundation will do well to read Australian Evangelical Perspectives on Youth Ministry. Anyone who oversees and plans a youth ministry – whether paid or not – should read this book. It provides a thoughtful theological and practical foundation for how we can best love and care for our youth in a complex and hostile world.

– Koh Saito