Age and coming to faith
I've just read this:
"85% of all people who will ever come to Christ will do so before they reach their nineteenth birthday" (Tim Hawkins Leaders who will last. p12).

Many of us who are around youth ministry have heard and used sats like that before. I've seen it played out in
many churches when you ask people how old they were when they came to faith.
But what does it mean for churches?

I know it should (and does) inspire us to invest in youth and children's ministry.

But it also raises some other questions for me:
- If these stats are true is there a danger that we're exploiting young people? (See this post)
- Is this because we've invested heavily in youth (either for good motives or fear of the church dying out), but neglected other areas?
- Are we as churches just a bit rubbish at helping adults and older people come to faith?
- Is this a universal cultural phenomenon or just a Western thing?

Or is it just a God given opportunity that we should rejoice in?

Church Trends
Two questions in my mind today, which I have blogged about in passing before:
i) Has the trend for churches employing paid youth workers/ministers plateaued and is now declining?
ii) Has the trend for"youth church" and planting church in youth culture and among teenagers largely dwindled too (being replaced by "emerging church" and other emphasis)?

Both seem to be happening from a "gut feel", chatting to people perspective, but I've no empirical evidence. 5 years ago both things were definately on the agenda, I'm just not sure they are now...

Youth Church (2)
Following up the last post on the youth church thing.
Jonathan suggested that the shift in emphasis from "youth church" to "emerging church" was about a:
"discovery that the need for new ways of doing and being church was felt not just by young people but also by older generations. So the distinguishing factor ceased to be age, and became outlook, approach, style"
That kind of summarises how my personal thought process, from working with youth to asking bigger "church" questions. I hope that is the reality in terms of youth church, but the cynic in me wonders if it is still about trends and bandwaggons?

In terms of how I answered some of the questions I was asked, here are my quick thoughts:

• How would you define a youth church? What distinguishes it from a “normal” multi-generational church?

For me the definition of a youth church is an attempt to inculturate the Gospel and function as a church within the structures and paradigms of a particular localised youth culture.

I think it was Graham Cray who suggested something like that we think in terms of these being the first churches of a new generation rather than a single generation church.

They differ from multi-generational churches by being focused on the culture and patterns of young people and youth culture, although there may be older people who relate more to such an expression than they do existing “inherited” churches.

• From your experience and observation, are most youth churches in England youth groups of existing churches who want their own worship service or are they church plants into the youth culture?

At the moment most are congregations of existing churches. This is far more common than church planting.

There have been some attempts to plant, but usually out of strong relationship with the “mother” church

More for another post I think!

Youth Church
10 years ago the notion of "Youth Church" was very much the in thing. Since then we've gotten all "emerging" and "fresh expression"/"mission shaped".
So has the idea of youth church plateaued? Are people still intentionally doing this? And is this just about "trends" or the product of robust theological and missiological thinking?
I've been asked some questions to help some research, and a couple of other conversations have bought this up. Here are some of the questions - in case anyone has better answers than me:

• How would you define a youth church? What distinguishes it from a “normal” multi-generational church?
• Can you summarize quickly what is happening in this scene of youth churches globally?
• How have leaders in this movement handled the concept of youth church theologically and ecclesiologically?
• Are youth churches making the transition into multi-generational churches? If not, what happens to them?
• Are most youth churches in England youth groups of existing churches who want their own worship service or are they church plants into the youth culture?

I'll post my answers when I've formulated them a bit better!