When I heard that experienced youth ministry leader Graham Stanton had written Welcome to Youth Ministry: The Why and How of Serving Young People with the Word of God, I knew I had to read it.
At the time I was standing in the corridor of a dormitory attempting to corral 40 rowdy teenage boys into their beds. It’s moments like that which reveal just how rubbish even the most experienced youth leader is at youth ministry. Unfortunately, this book doesn’t have a lot of advice for managing a dorm full of teens. But this book does something better. Instead of advice it gives us truth. Advice is good but truth is better because advice tells you what to do, but truth shows you why you do it—and the how inevitably flows from that truth. Stanton’s book is full of truth.
This is a must read for anyone in youth ministry. An incredible amount of ground is covered succinctly and clearly. “The why and how of serving young people” is explained clearly and this is exactly what we need. Too often we want to know what to do but the ‘what’ is always downstream from the ‘why’ and the ‘how.’
Welcome to Youth Ministry: The Why and How of Serving Young People with the Word of God
Graham Stanton
Purchase from WanderingWelcome to Youth Ministry: The Why and How of Serving Young People with the Word of God
Graham Stanton
This book isn’t teaching anything new but instead lays down the foundations that perhaps have been assumed or forgotten. It’s a return to the basics which even the most seasoned gospel workers need to be reminded of from time to time. This is precisely what makes this book a must read for anyone in youth ministry.
How and Why
Chapters 1 and 2 are the lobby of the book and therefore, I think, the most important. Here Stanton shows us that youth ministry is about faithfully passing on the gospel to the next generation so that they too can pass it on faithfully. As he says, “The goal is not just that young people have an upright morality but that they know God and find life in him” (p. 6). This statement is the substance of the whole book: we do youth ministry so that young people would come to find life in God through the gospel of Jesus as taught to us in the Scriptures. And from that beginning the rest of the book spells out the how of that why.
In chapters 3 and 4 the discussion turns to considering ourselves as youth leaders and to understanding teenagers. I particularly found chapter 4 helpful because it sought to explain what we see in our teens but can’t always put into words. The summary description of our teens is that they are living in an in-between stage of life: “They’re no longer children, and they’re not yet adults” (p. 40). The rest of the chapter really helpfully spells out what this means for us in youth ministry. For those of us who are starting to forget what it’s like to be a teenager this chapter provides a helpful refresher course. This chapter is particularly helpful for an older person who wants to do youth ministry but feels out of their depth.
In the next section of the book, chapters 5–6, Stanton speaks about the different groups of people who have skin in the game when it comes to the spiritual life of our teens. This is the section that I had the most quibbles with. I didn’t disagree with anything that Stanton said, but I think there was more that needed to be covered.
Firstly, he only covers families and the church. Both are important in the spiritual growth of teens but I also wanted a chapter about school. Whatever school or home school our teens go to has a massive impact on them whether for good or evil. I realise that this is a book written primarily for youth leaders, so I wouldn’t expect them to have direct involvement with schools and the school environment like a youth pastor perhaps would. That said, youth leaders still regularly have conversations and discussions with teens about school. Some pointers for youth leaders on school-related conversations would have been helpful. Further comments on the relationship that a church’s youth ministry should aim to have with a school would also have been helpful.
Secondly, while the chapter on church was good and helpful, I don’t think that it explained the relationship between youth ministry (which happens outside of the church gathering) and the church clearly. Youth ministry does happen (and needs to happen) when the church gathers and Stanton rightly covers this in a later chapter. But he doesn’t speak about the relationship and role of something like the Friday night youth group to the church (pp. 118–119). The closest he comes to discussing this is in chapter 11 where he says that, “Just as the youth ministry is an experience of life shaped by the gospel, participating in the church gathering is the same” and he says, “For young people who have made a personal commitment to following Jesus, being part of the wider church community and congregational life is an important way for them to grow as a disciple” (p. 118). But that still doesn’t explain the relationship between a youth group that meets apart from the Sunday gathering.
Many of us in Perth describe the relationship this way: Youth group exists to be a bridge between home and church. Youth group exists to support the church, not the other way around. Youth group ends after school graduation, but church is God’s gift to us for the rest of our lives. So, we want to make sure our youth are connected to church so that when youth ends, their faith doesn’t end too. Again, let me say that what Stanton says is true and good and very helpful but if we don’t understand the relationship between youth group and the church then we’re in danger of overstating the importance of youth group (that we think youth group is church) or understating its purpose (that it’s a babysitting service). Neither option is advocated in this book; I just wish there was more clarity on that relationship.
The biggest section of the book is chapters 7–10 where Stanton covers a range of skills needed in youth ministry. I particularly liked the chapter on Keeping Ministry Safe. I really appreciated his encouragement to keep safe ministry practices central and to be careful how we speak about it. For example:
“Safe ministry is not an obstacle to effective discipleship. Safe ministry is not a distraction from what’s important in ministry. Safe ministry is not a hurdle to clear before we can get on with our mission. Safe ministry is central to faithful and effective gospel ministry” (p. 109).
The final two chapters of the book is all about empowering our teens for service. Again, I really appreciated that Stanton expects teens to play a vital part in the church and in the world. Teens are not “strangers,” “spectators,” or “visitors” but “members” who need to be empowered so they can “take their part in the mission of the church in the world” (p. 114). And so,
“Effective youth ministry will empower young people to recognise all that God has given them to do and to be, and how most of what God has given them is there to be released in serving others” (p. 114).
The TLDR version
Minor quibbles aside, this is a brilliant book that brings much-needed clarity and guidance to the realm of youth ministry. Youth ministry does a lot of heavy lifting in the church—perhaps more than some might realise. It’s not an area that should be relegated to a footnote in a church’s budget or given the scraps of the senior pastor’s time or written off as just “something for the teens to do.” This book cuts across that strong current bringing much needed truth and guidance as we seek to minister to our teens.
This book still won’t help me get 40 rowdy teenage boys into their beds, but it shows me that those challenges are worth it because we get to serve “young people with the word of God, centred on and shaped by the gospel, so that young people believe the gospel and become disciple-making disciples of Jesus” (p. 24).
