Youth Ministry in Postmodern Culture: Its Crisis and Opportunity

With the rise of easily accessible information and the pressure to conform, churches today are slowly losing youths and young adults to the values and pleasures of the world. However, these young people are, at the same time, the next generation that carries the world.

Dubbed "Millenials", this demographic gives us both the crisis and opportunity of youth ministry. Why target them? This is because they are influential, and they can be influenced - by both good and bad forces.

Adolescence includes "years of unprecedented opportunity...these are the years of penetrating questions, the years of wonderful discussions never before possible. These are the years of failure and struggle that put the teen's true heart on the table. These are the years of daily ministry and of great opportunity," Paul David Tripp observed in "Age of Opportunity."

At the same time, "The world for young adults is changing in significant ways, such as their remarkable access to the world and worldviews via technology, their alienation from various institutions, and their skepticism toward external sources of authority, including Christianity and the Bible," opined David Kinnaman, president of Barna Group.

In today's postmodern culture, the crises facing the young people are rather easier to identify:

Isolation
Despite the excessive level of access to every information and knowledge, the digital world has crippled young people from creating vibrant, engaging communities.

Emptiness
Today's youths exhibit hunger and thirst for significance and acceptance like never before.

Relativism
Young people are over-skeptic of the existence of THE truth. The norm is that there is no moral standard nor objective truth, and we should celebrate tolerance toward all religious and moral beliefs.

Each crisis is also accompanied by opportunity:

Isolation
-> Community experience

Through experiencing the shared life of early church, one can discover the joy of community. In the digital era, it is life-changing to be part of communities through firsthand and real-time communication and fellowship with God and His people.

Emptiness
-> Hand-crafted, not factory-produced, discipleship

Christian communities can help discover and mobilize the gifts in each person, in order to reach full potential through faithful stewardship of God-given talents. Additionally, Jesus' model was to offer spiritual guidance through close mentorship to a limited number of followers.

Relativism
-> Biblical worldview and lifestyle - Offering integrity and spiritual freedom

The postmodern trend of pluralism results in increased depression and growing confusion. Only the truth of Christ's love can fully set free the wandering souls. Youth ministers are called to offer the absolute, timeless values in the Bible, invite the youth to experience true freedom of their souls, to and further guide them to live holy lives with faith and integrity.

Youth ministers are to grow to understand the crisis as well as opportunity in reaching out to the next generation, and effectively shine the light of the Gospel into their hearts and lives.