Book Review: The End of Youth Ministry

 

The End of Youth Ministry, Andrew Root, (Baker Academic) 2020

Note:  I don't write this review to critique Dr. Root.  His work is great.  I wrote it so that I can look back years later and remember the structure of his argument and the most memorable quotes.  I put it on my blog (in addition to printing a copy I placed in the book) to spur conversation and encourage others to read it.

Root takes on THE question of youth ministry, at least within Suburban contexts:  Why do parents and kids choose other activities over youth group?  It is not because youth group isn’t fun!  Root argues that kids choose other activities than youth group because of massive shifts in how people parent today.  Parents today operate out of this basic logic: 

a) Their child’s happiness is paramount. 

b) Happiness comes as a child finds ‘their thing.’

c) The thing allows for both recognition and development of an authentic and unique identity.

d) Children find their thing by participating in heavily structured adult activities. 

To summarize, today’s parents are “coaches, managers, and financers who work to turn up the signal of their children’s broadcast identities…[they] hover or bulldoze to make sure their children get all the recognition they deserve.  And many young people appreciate this, calling mom their best friend, sensing that they need all the help they can to win recognition and therefore be happy with their self-definition. (84)  Rather than acknowledge these changes, most youth ministry exhausts itself trying to provide the need of the previous generation –a fun and safe place for youth growing up too fast with their free time.  (See Goonies or just about any 1980s movie for examples of youth with almost no activities and no adult supervision).

Root presents a theologically grounded vision for what youth ministry could look like within our current situation.  Instead of trying to offer youth a competing means to happiness, we should draw them into the joy God intends.  He offers compellingly, that opposed to happiness that is fleeting, “joy, then, is the communal experience of life coming out of death, which produces union with God and neighbor.  It can be an individual experience, but it always takes us into something beyond us.” (146)   He explains that Youth Ministry should enable us communally to share and learn to re-tell our own story within the story of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection. 

Overall, Root does a fine job of making his argument through fictional dialogues with people.  This makes it and his other works more enjoyable to read; for those interested, the footnotes point to further research and analysis.  Nonetheless, his sociological and theological arguments may be too much for people.  But he clearly makes his point that parenting today is very differently.  Can you imagine this sentence being written in 1988:  “Because so many young people are waiting longer to get a driver’s license, mom or dad becomes wingman and friend with whom to debrief it all (72).”   

While compelling, Root’s vision for how youth ministry could emerge is both radical and abstract.  Root doesn’t claim this book is a handbook on how to move forward, but I think the nuts and bolts youth worker, who loves youth and planning activities for them, may have trouble using it.  For example, one of his deepest insights is about identity and ‘open takes.’  Our identity is discovered neither in activities nor in ourselves.  It is fundamentally an ‘open take’, open to God’s agency, given to us by Jesus.  As he beautifully writes, “Youth Ministry, then, is for Jesus Christ, because through open takes it invites young people to find their identity exchanged for Christ.” (183)  Powerful!  But it may leave the average youth worker puzzled with next steps.

What might have provided some more connection for youth workers (and potentially strengthened his argument) would have been reflection on how some of what he hopes for is already happening.   Pre-pandemic, youth ministry has been moving away from youth group based models.  Furthermore, many churches are grounding youth ministry within an inter-generational community of service, learning and worship that either was or would allow for the interweaving of Biblical story, congregational story and the story of the youth’s lives.  Lastly, the pandemic certainly forced our youth ministry into a reflective space, focused not on programs, but life seen through the prism of death, resurrection and joy.

I found it worth reading on three levels.  First, I found it helpful as a church professional who cares for youth.  What does ministry look like for a bunch of hyper-scheduled kids?   They don't need an activity, they need a space to find their their true identity in Jesus and discover this joy!  Second, I found it helpful as a theologian.  We aren't like the Lion King where we understand ourselves to have an inherited identity.  We perceive that we create our own identity.  What does faith look like in this context?  Lastly, I found it helpful as a parent to laugh at myself and observe how I parent vs how I was raised.

Last great quote in which Root stitches together faith, Luther and identity:  Faith is not trust in propositions or commitment to participate, but the identification with personhood in and through stories.  Faith is the gift of Jesus Christ, as Luther told us, making faith not data but a person.  And a person can only be known and more importantly, shared in through narrative discourse, through prayer, preaching and confession." (166)