Getting Cultured - Part 3

The reason student ministry is not mentioned in the Bible is because there was no youth culture to reach. Let’s not forget that it wasn’t until the era of Constantine the Great that official church buildings began to be constructed. Before this time, Christianity was considered to be illegal. Because of this, the idea of different ministries within a single church made absolutely no sense. Christians met in homes, private places, or even underground burial sites!

When Paul wrote to the church of Corinth, for instance, he was not referring to one congregation meeting in a single church building. He was writing to all Christians meeting in house churches or other places in the city of Corinth. He would refer to them as one church, but his writings would be circulated from meeting place to meeting place until everybody had a chance to hear his message.

The goal of the early church was to meet together often, encourage one another, pray, meditate on the Holy Scriptures and the Apostles teachings, worship the Lord, and spread the good news. They met as families. The congregants were few because the locations were small. There were no preschool and children's wings. There was no separate youth building to contain the wild, minion-like middle schoolers. There were no middle schoolers…..#lucky

The point I am trying to make is that the early church, who happened to be the ones to pen the scriptures, never had a youth culture to reach. Therefore, they never told us how to do student ministry. That wasn’t their focus at the time. But, they did have competing cultures that required uniquely different methods for spreading the Gospel.

The Apostle Paul spoke differently to the Jews than he did to the gentiles. Why? Because these two people groups were distinctly different cultures with contrasting worldviews. Paul could start the Gospel conversations with a Jew by explaining the Messiah from the Old Testament scripture. However, he would have to start in a different place in human history for a gentile to understand they even needed a savior. This is why Paul said:

“So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.” ~ 1 Corinthians 1:23 (NLT)

Paul knew that the two cultures needed the Gospel explained to them in different ways and with different starting points. So, when he went about doing ministry work he had one mantra in mind:

“Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some. I do everything to spread the Good News and share in its blessings.” ~ 1 Corinthians 9:22b-23

When Paul was in Athens at the meeting of the Areopagus, he recognized the audience he was speaking to. In Acts 17:18-20 we read:

A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.” (emphasis added)

Clearly, Paul was not talking to a group of Jews. He recognized this and decided to start, not with Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament Messianic prophecies, but with the creation story in order to help frame their perspective of a creator God to whom they would be held accountable to. For a people group who had no Biblical worldview, Christ being crucified was nonsense. They didn’t understand the need for a Messiah, so they thought the whole story was foolishness. The Jews, however, stumbled over the crucified Lord because, though they believed in a Messianic figure, they just had a different Messiah in mind.

Even though the New Testament never mentions teenagers or student ministry, you don’t have to look far before you see the tension between cultures and the struggle, as well as transferable principles, the early church had as they strived to be faithful ministers of the message of Jesus Christ to every tribe and nation. I believe that if the Apostle Paul were alive today he would be on the front lines of student ministry because he would recognize the cultural differences, as well as the extreme potential, of this new tribe of people.

From the moment our country began requiring students to attend formal education and through the development of the public educational system our society has developed this sub-culture called adolescence. What happened as a result of this cultural shift has been one generation after another, for the first time in history, hanging out with age-segregated individuals for the bulk of the day. The American landscape changed from having children and adults only to having children, teenagers, and adults. And the world began to view teenagers as “not-quite” adults.

The new accessibility of college for more teenagers also extended the adolescent time frame from high school graduation to college graduation. And because of this new phase that forced students to hang out with other students their age, the youth culture was born. And it is in full swing to this day.

Now, we can fight against the culture and say, “This is not the Biblical way!” But remember this: You can’t blame a lost person for acting lost. Andy Stanley once said about the church culture,

“We need to stop expecting outsiders to act like insiders while insiders act like outsiders.”

In other words, why are we surprised that our culture doesn’t reflect Biblical principles? Most of our society might call themselves “Christians”, but wouldn’t claim true allegiance to Christ anyways. Don’t expect them to adhere to His teachings. Plus, I believe culture only reflects the hearts of the people in that culture. By the way, what we are talking about here is not a moral issue. It is an organizational issue. It is neither secular or sacred. It is “amoral”, unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something.

The way society structures itself changes with every generation. So we have to stop blaming society and start understanding it. Once we have a better understanding of our cultural context we will be much more effective in reaching students within that context with the Good News of Jesus Christ. Now, THAT’S the ultimate goal! Remember? Helping students follow Jesus together!

Our current society has chosen to structure itself by requiring students to attend buildings, called public schools, that segregate them by age. They spend, on average, 8 hours per day/180 days per year in this new environment. They do this for at least 13 years of their lives. And this does not factor in extra-curricular activities. This means they spend 18,720 hours engulfed in age-segregated, big group and small group settings before they even graduate high school. This continues through college, although I didn’t worry with including those numbers at this time.

Compare these numbers to the amount of time we spend with them. Let’s say you have 6th through 12th graders included in your ministry. BTW...most middle schools today have 6th graders with 7th and 8th graders. If you haven’t made the transition to welcoming 6th graders in your ministry you might look at your local schools and mimic the age-segregation they choose to use. It will make integration into your church more natural for 6th graders and their families. I am sure you are aware that many would disagree, due to the developmental stage of 6th graders….you might address this, suggesting that if 6th graders are in student ministry, they might have t heir own SS dept or have some learning events just for them. Or, you can just stick to your opinion. Just be aware that educators can quote lots of stats that would counter your opinions. Of course, we know many things work well when they are done properly :)

If we have 6th through 12th grades representing our ministries, this means a student we aim to reach spends 8 hours per day, 180 days per year, for 7 years, in school alone, before graduating your ministry. This equals 10,080 hours in the age-segregated environment. On the contrary, we will have the same student spend, at best, 2 hours per week, 45 weeks per year, for 7 years in our student ministry. BTW...these are generous numbers for the average student. The amount of time we have to influence them is around 630 hours. I’m not a math whiz, but 630 is a far cry from 10,080! Even if you are a super pastor with fully dedicated teenagers spending twice as much time at church than the normal student, you still can’t even get close to the influence the society has on our teenagers!

What can we learn from these numbers? STOP WASTING TIME ON THINGS THAT DON’T MATTER! Sorry….I don’t normally have random outbursts like that! But the point is, we spend a lot of time on stupid stuff when we should really be focusing on helping build relationships that move students towards faith. In the next chapter we will be looking at how to maximize our limited time with teenagers to help foster these types of faith-building relationships.

So let’s recap: Understanding teenagers as a sub-culture helps us to frame the chapters that follow. Teens live in a different culture and require culturally distinct methods in order to reach them with the Gospel. They spend most of their time in age-segregated, technology-saturated, big group and small group environments. Even though the early church didn’t tell us how to do student ministry, they did give us transferable principles on how to be the church and how to reach different cultures with the message of Jesus. It is our job, as student missionaries, to contextualize the Gospel for a new generation in order to make the timeless truths of scripture culturally relevant for a new, and largely unreached, people group.