The percentage of Americans who call themselves Christians has dropped dramatically over the past two decades, and those who do are increasingly identifying themselves without traditional denomination labels.

The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist. The Rust Belt is less Catholic. And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers—or falling off the faith map completely.

The third largest “faith” group now are the “Nones,” those who do not affiliate with a denomination.  And, as the culture becomes to more hostile to religious beliefs, we seem to be “losing our home court advantage.” 

Ed Stetzer, who is a major player with the Southern Baptist and is featured in this report from Knoxville’s  WKRN News 2 recently shared this news report.  It’s 11minutes but worth the view.

I know that this is the second day in a row of less than uplifting news, but . . .

Not so much news today.  More like editorial.

In this week’s edition of Newsweek, the cover stories take on the state of education.  And, we in youth ministry must be attuned to what is being said.  As a profession, we are “lumped in” to the education field, so much so that often our salary base guidelines are the equivalents of local teachers’ salaries.

So, it is worth both reading Why We Must Fire Bad Teachers as well as reading between the lines as well: “Yet in recent years researchers have discovered something that may seem obvious, but for many reasons was overlooked or denied. What really makes a difference, what matters more than the class size or the textbook, the teaching method or the technology, or even the curriculum, is the quality of the teacher.” 

It is entirely possible that soon as a church that we are about to begin to question the quality of our pastoral ministers serving young people.  And, we will potentially default into a defensive position, such as “The problem is not the teachers, went the thinking—it’s the parents (or absence of parents); it’s society with all its distractions and pathologies; it’s the kids themselves. Not much can be done, really, except to keep the assembly line moving through “social promotion,” regardless of academic performance, and hope the students graduate.” Really, we who share in the responsibility “to empower young people to live as disciples of Jesus Christ in our world today” can neither pass the buck on our responsibilities nor settle for processing kids through their high school years and/or sacramental preparation.

And, then, you’ve got to wonder about our own preparation for ministry.  In a related article, Blackboard Jungle, this comes under examination: “Now when you talk to new teachers. . . their biggest complaint is that no one teaches them how to control a classroom. For the small fortune they spend to get a teaching degree, they get plenty of pedagogy (‘Reflections on Learning’ is a typical course name), which they generally don’t use. But their professors never seem to get around to teaching ‘Keeping Kids Under Control 101.’” And so, we need to take a look around… (and just sticking with the goals of Catholic youth ministry) How well do we equip ourselves as well as parents and adults to care for, love and disciple our young people?  How we do we empower and equip parish communities (not isolated youth groups or teen masses) to be settings for young people to fully and freely participate as they aspire towards the adventure of faith? Are we directing our efforts to a common denominator making everything comfy and safe for the kids (and ourselves) or are we fostering, promoting, demanding total personal and spiritual growth of each young person? 

If Newsweek did a cover story on us today, how would we fare?

In light of our own local activity regarding the state of education, these are the things that have been on my mind recently… and, perhaps, should be on yours as well.

I’ve been into a few books lately, trying to read them all at once.

This list includes a contribution from one of my daily blog reads, Seth Godin, who wrote Linchpin.

A linchpin is somebody in an organization who is indispensable, who cannot be replaced—her role is just far too unique and valuable. Seth, who writes for the business and management crowd, contends that to not be a linchpin these days is economic and career suicide.

Look around, youth ministry crowd.  This is our moment.  We need to be linchpins for the church… right now!

At the beginning of the month, there were quite a few comments when we pondered if we were all doing youth ministry all wrong. Kara Powell, of the Fuller Theological Seminary, suggests that our “mistake” might even go a few generations back… 

She suggests that “We realized in the 1940s that we were not offering teens enough focused attention. So what did we do? We started offering them too much. All of a sudden churches had adult pastors and youth pastors, adult worship teams and youth worship teams, adult mission trips and youth mission trips. And there’s a place for that. But we’ve ended up segregating—and I use that word intentionally—our kids from the rest of the church.

Powell goes on to theorize that “the future of youth ministry is intergenerational youth ministry. . . One thing churches can do that really makes a difference is getting kids actively involved in the life of the church before they graduate. There is a strong link between kids staying in church after they graduate and their involvement in intergenerational relationships and worship.

Read the whole Leadership Journal interview.  It’s worth it.

Recently, on YouthWorker.com, Annie Lockhart wrote about her concept of a kinship model for youth ministry.  While starting with concern regarding the almost cliched tension between the youth worker and parent (and I say cliched because I believe we do a lot to perpetuate it), she wonders why we find ourselves separating young people from the whole of the church and therefore denying youth ministry partnerships in mentoring young people.

Lockhart’s key quote: “The missionary to youth’s job is to make sure teens of the congregation continue to be seen as current members of the congregation, not just future members. The youth worker keeps teen and adult members of the community dependent on each other.”

Tim Schmoyer over in his Life in Student Ministry blog pondered that he has been thinking that he’s doing youth ministry all wrong.  I’m re-posting a significant portion here because this is where my heart has been for the last few weeks and Tim was able to put it all into words faster than I could…

Despite knowing otherwise in my head, the way I actually lead my church’s youth ministry is mostly from the mentality that our youth ministry is a program or service we provide to families. It’s almost like I’m unintentionally feeding the consumeristic perspective by sometimes using language like, “We offer small groups…” and, “We provide connection points for your teens…” Since when was ministry ever supposed to be about what a paid staff member and a couple adult volunteers are expected to spiritually provide for teens and families?

Youth ministry should not be about how the church can serve the youth or even how we can provide programs that help them grow spiritually. That’s the parents’ responsibility. In fact, I don’t think youth ministry should even accidentally enable parents to outsource their God-given responsibility to us, something I know my ministry is all too guilty of. Support parents, yes, but enable them to outsource? No.

The Greek word for “church” is literally “ekklesia,” a community of believers who are “called out” to serve and edify each other and the people around them.

Instead of fueling the consumerism mentality of what a church “offers” or “provides” and which church in town does it best, youth ministry should probably be about helping teens use their God-given gifts to serve the body. It should teach families that youth ministry isn’t just about what the church does for them, but that they are “called out” to think beyond themselves with a servant’s heart. I bet teen church drop-outs would decrease if they actually served as a valuable and essential part of the local body of Christ.

Please read all of Tim’s post. It all comes down to the perspective of “Ask not what the church can do for young people, but ask what young people can do with and for the church.”  And, always remember that the church is the whole body of Christ not just the few adults with maybe a professional staffer off in an obscure corner of the church

Mark Cannister is Professor and Chair of Youth Ministries at Gordon College in Wenham, MA.  He recently wrote for YouthWorker.com on Growing Up Without Selling Out: The Professionalization of Youth Ministry.  In it he likens our growth as a profession from the technique and skills needed for soapbox racing to the technology and fine-tuning necessary for professional Full Throttle Drag Racing.

The money quote: The takeaway from all this isn’t the standardization of youth ministry, but the general raising of the bar for everyone in youth ministry—broadening our scope, our understanding and our resources. Leading a ministry based on a single personality or one person’s experience, or driven by the views of one seminar speaker or one author, one resource will be short-lived in our complex, multicultural society. Read the whole article.

Is social media a fad?

Or the biggest shift since the industrial revolution?

Beyond the obvious push for the Technology Procedural Recommendations (opps, snuck that one in there, didn’t I?), we all have to work harder as church about wrapping our ministry around the right side of this.

Over at Fast Company, they made some recommendations regarding Twitter, but it true as well for Facebook, blogging, and the rest. Here’s my take on ‘em:

1). Take it past a hobby. Make it more than the time-killer it can be and invest some strategy and effort into it.

2). Give more than thou receive: Seriously, everything you post does not have to be about you, does it?

3). Be undeniably genuine: Everyone can eventually detect a fake, even on-line.

4). When others show a little viral love, say thanks. It’s that easy, show a little virtual manners.

5). Keep it simple: It’s all there, just figure out what you already have available to you.  Forget the programs or the classes, invite “that kid” (you already know which one) who can help you figure it out.

Mark Batterson is one of my daily blog reads and pastor of a dynamic young adult friendly multiple site “mega-church” in Washington, DC that houses their services in movie theaters and a coffee shop…  And he ruined my December beach vacation to Florida.

While on vacation, I made the mistake of reading an advance copy of his third book Primal that his publishers had graciously sent to me in hopes of a blog posting.

In the book, Batterson works through Mark 12:30 which is Jesus’ response to “”Which is the first of all the commandments?”  The first, or primal, commandment is You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.  I had entered the vacation weary and tired from a busy year of “doing ministry” towards attempting to give my all towards loving God. I was weary with the uncertainty that my efforts were enough.

Throughout the book, Batterson examines  his understanding of the primal elements needed to love God with your all: compassion, wonder, curiosity, and energy. Our challenge becomes, not to love the ways we have chosen to manage our relationship with God but, to love God.  It is not our words, our actions, our vocation and ministry that makes a difference in our loves or our world, but it is God’s grace that is enough. If we can seek, discover, and attempt to reflect that grace with compassion, wonder, curiosity, and energy, then we might be flirting with fulfilling Jesus’ primal commandment.

It’s a great book – a good and easy read – but don’t take it on vacation with you unless you are open to a vacation becoming a spiritual renewal.

Hispanics are the largest and youngest minority group in the United States. One- in-five schoolchildren is Hispanic. One-in-four newborns is Hispanic.

The Pew Research Center has just released Between Two Worlds: How Young Latinos Come of Age in America, a report that takes an in-depth look at Hispanics who are ages 16 to 25, a phase of life when young people make choices that-for better and worse-set their path to adulthood.

Young Latinos are satisfied with their lives, optimistic about their futures and place a high value on education, hard work and career success. Yet they are much more likely than other American youths to drop out of school and to become teenage parents. They are more likely than white and Asian youths to live in poverty. And they have high levels of exposure to gangs.  View the news release and the report.

Meanwhile, the Alliance for Catholic Education out of the University of Notre Dame notes that despite the advantages of a Catholic school education, only 3% of Latinos send their children to Catholic schools. Therefore, they have launched a campaign to double the percentage of Latino children enrolled in Catholic schools in the next 10 years, raising the number of Latino children enrolled in Catholic schools to 1 Million.  View the release and the full report.