February 2010 Academic Response: Integrative Ministry in a Fragmented Church

By Mark Hayse

What is family ministry?  Is it something to add to youth ministry, or is it something that should replace youth ministry?  Should family ministry place its focus upon the individual households of youth, or upon the congregational household of faith?  Is family ministry a program, a principle, or an attitude?

What is mission?  Is it a part of the church’s activity, or is it the whole of the church’s life together?  Should mission place its focus only upon those outside of the community of faith, or also upon those already inside the church?  Is mission a program, a principle, or an attitude?

Questions such as these ran through my mind as I’ve read the last two issues of the Academy Today.  For example, in January’s issue on family ministry, Monte Cyr voices a concern that program-driven youth ministries often tend to separate youth from adults.  In February’s issue on service, Jimmy De Gouveia and Joel Tooley argue persuasively for the importance of service and mission.

To be honest, I’m swamped with youth ministry TMI—too much information.  Good information, but so much information.  So many youth ministry books line the shelves of my office that no single youth ministry could implement all of the activities and ideas contained in them.  Every time that I attend a new youth ministry seminar or conference, I come away with more new knowledge than I could ever put to use.

I love books and conferences.  They fill me with creative energy and hopeful vision.  Yet, they tempt me to keep adding, adding, adding new programs and activities in order to follow the latest youth ministry trends.

When I adopt this way of youth ministry, then I risk fragmentation instead of integration.  For example, fragmentation overtakes youth ministry when we try to schedule family ministry activities… and service projects… and Sunday School… and retreats… and recreational events… and mission trips… and discipleship groups… and leadership training… and fund-raisers… and evangelism events… and worship services… and summer camps… and…

You get the point.

What’s worse, I’ve often felt even more overwhelmed in youth ministry when the children’s ministry leaders were trying to do the same things!  And the choir director, and the Sunday School superintendent, and the Nazarene Missions International president, and the steward committee, and...

Ministry felt so fragmented.  The church felt so fragmented.  I felt so fragmented.

In their thought provoking article, “Congregations: Unexamined Crucibles for Spiritual Development,” Eugene Roehlkepartain and Eboo Patel (2006) argue that it is a shared life together that has the deepest impact on the spiritual development of youth.  For example, when intergenerational ministry is combined with the practice of service and mission, the results tend to be very rich.  When youth serve others alongside those who warmly care for them, then these “dynamics of participation” positively shape their spiritual development as much as the task at hand.  In this way, ministry becomes both/and—a “two for one” proposition.  Ministry becomes integrated.

In other words, the way that we do youth ministry matters as much as what we do in youth ministry!  When youth pastors integrate ministry activities, programs, and purposes among age-levels, then ministry may become a healthy environment as well as a successful event.

When we redesign ministry as an integrated environment instead of as fragmented level events alone, the power of the whole church comes into play.  Please don’t mishear me.  Environments and events both matter, both are important.  However, neither one can remain healthy for long without the other.  Nevertheless, I suspect that, more often than not, we favor isolated, age-level programs and activities more than integrated relationships and environments.

Do you sense that your congregation needs to move from a fragmented calendar of events to an integrated ministry environment?  Often, the seasons of the Christian year give us an excuse to come together, as do the rhythms of school life for our youth.

As a starting point, try asking these questions at your next leadership meeting:

• What activities do we currently do separately that we could do just as well together?
• What would we gain by coming together? What would we lose?
• Is it worth the risk?
• How should we begin?

We shouldn’t try to replace our entire age-level ministries.  Instead, we should set modest goals, taking one step at a time.  And across the years, we shouldn’t be surprised if instead of “graduating out of the church,” our high school graduates feel ready and able to assume their place among an adult congregation where they already belong.

Source cited:

Roehlkepartain, Eugene C. and Eboo Patel. 2006. Congregations: Unexamined Crucibles for Spiritual Development. In The Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence. Edited by Eugene C. Roehlkepartain, Pamela Ebstyne King, Linda Wagener, Peter L. Benson, 324-336. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.