In the city of Southampton where I live, the Titanic is part of the city’s history. We have a memorial to the string quartet who played until the unsinkable went beneath the waves.
The crew of the liner knew they had a finite time to communicate with the world before the inevitable. Somebody once challenged me to say what would be the last message I would send given that time was running out.
Last message
If that last message were to be about youth ministry (and I hope this won’t be my last) I would probably not address it to youth leaders. I have a deep respect for the people who turn up week by week to minister to young people, but my final (and, by implication, most important) message would be to church leaders. And given that one message opportunity what would one say. I think it would be fair to say that it would sound a bit like ‘They’re a part of you’. Or, to put it another way — every child who is born of Christian parents should have a reasonable chance of getting to 18 and still be following Christ. But the statistics don’t lie — we are losing many young people a week. Numbers are important, but I wonder if we do lose them long before 18 when their minds are being bombarded with many worldviews.
Taking responsibility
My last message to ministers would be that from the moment a child is born they are part of our fellowship. I don’t believe this is fundamentally a theological issue (the nature of the children in the kingdom) — it is a sociological issue. These newborn children are offspring of committed believers in the church and need provision for that age group. But that age gets one more each year. We have to be sure that at every stage, the child’s learning and discipling is happening. Over the years I have written down various solutions to these issues but one fundamental change of heart needs to be heard. The church needs to take the major responsibility for the children born within its community — they belong there. Whether they do it by creating groups for those children with complete continuity from 0 to 18 or whether those children end up in groups in larger churches, there has to be continuity for the student from 0 to 18 — ‘They’re a part of you’.
Gaps in provision
I have seen too many churches where there are gaps in provision. Maybe that’s because there is a lack of resources, but, most probably, it is due to a shortage of gifted staff. There are probably only two ways out of that. Send your children at 11 to another church or put into place a series of events designed to grow leaders. Whatever you do, have something in place that leads children on in their walk with God.
This may mean that when you only have under 3s meeting at the back of church, you set up a prayer meeting for what will happen when those same children get to Pathfinder age at 11 — because they will. Could you set aside some budget for training so that you are ready when it comes? There may be a need for national Christ booklets which gets us back where we belong. Whatever you do don’t be caught out like the Titanic.
