Courtney McGrailThe challenges facing youth ministry are the same challenges facing the wider Church says Brian McKee
My toes first dipped into the world of youth ministry back in 1980. Following some time as a student with the Passionists I was now back home in Belfast.
I got involved with the Lamb of God Community, a lay Christian community that had formed from the growing charismatic movement at that time. My task was to provide an outreach to the teenage children of that community. A partnership with the local Dominican Sisters saw the growth of the Little Flower Youth Fellowship, a strange title at the time.
Over a period of some seven years we witnessed up to 100 young people coming to the Little Flower School on the Somerton Road every Saturday night for a mixture of recreational activity, prayer and worship.
We were not alone. The Irish Church was witnessing an increasing commitment to youth events and specific initiatives aimed at young people. National conferences in Dublin; all-night vigils in Knock; pilgrimages to Taizé; oratories for young people; innovative school retreats – it was a time of growth and development. Large numbers; great music and a growing interest from Church authorities, youth ministry was characterised by creativity; imagination; enthusiasm; risk-taking and boundary-pushing. It seemed that the Irish Church had everything necessary for continued success in its outreach to young people. Along with some religious congregations, dioceses even went as far as employing people for developing their youth ministry initiatives.
With such a recent history, why in the life of the Irish Church today do I find so many people intuitively agreeing with the statement by the American theologian John Appleby that “no previous generation inherited so little of the content and sensibility of the faith from their parents as has today’s youth.”
I identified some of the components present in the Irish Church within the past 30 years that were needed for developing a long-term effective outreach to young people. One core component was missing though – a plan. We had no plan for bringing the various movements; congregations; dioceses and local initiatives together to implement a common goal and an agreed plan.
Connections were not made as we all ploughed largely a lone furrow in movements, congregations and dioceses.
The lack of planning was not the only issue that inhibited long-term development. We also had confusion over the terms that were being used to describe what we were doing with young people. In our different settings and contexts we talked about evangelisation; catechesis; religious education; faith formation; discipleship; youth ministry as if they meant the same thing, but are so obviously different and call for different approaches.
We also had confusion over the process that we were engaged in. There was little clarification about what we, as a Church, were trying to do with young people. Some focused on the personal and social development of young people with spirituality integral to their methodology; others promoted weekends that aimed to bring young people into an experience of a loving community; others again emphasised the call to social justice. Of course, these are not divergent themes, but they all suffered through the failure to build connections between each other and at times from the failure to see a broader approach to the one we’re promoting. Our success perhaps masked the growing problem. While significant numbers of young people were participating in our respective movements and initiatives, growing numbers of young people were losing any significant contact with the Church, or see it as giving them a meaning and a mission in the lives.
This brings me to a core point: too much youth ministry is done with young people!
Consistent
In my experience of working with young people, one thought has been consistent: there is nothing going in the faith life and lifestyle of young people that is not evident in the wider adult community. Listen to a group of adults talk about young people; “they are no longer going to Mass; a lack of commitment to the Church; questioning Church teaching, particularly the teaching on sex and sexuality; lower morals; taking too much alcohol and drugs; selfish and only interested in themselves…We never did that as young people.”
Maybe not, but look around your parish and community today and I challenge anyone to say that these same issues are not being played out in the adult community.
To become aware of this provides a clue to the core weakness of the Irish Church’s response to young people. We have focused on the young people in our community because it is much too difficult to admit that the same issues are evident in the wider community and to address the call for root and branch reform. If we only focus on our response to young people then the unhealthy culture within, and the systems operated by, the Irish Church remain unaltered.
For a number of years I was the representative for the Northern dioceses on a bishops’ commission in Maynooth. As I walked along the high corridors I took an interest in the many photographs of former students; identifying those I knew and recognised as priests in my diocese today. I was struck by a strange tradition. The wooden frames within which these photographs were displayed had not changed in over 100 years. Hence in the early frames we had literally several hundred small photographs crammed within the frame; straight rows and every bit of space used up. As the years moved on, the photographs became bigger; more spread out; icons began to be included; some women actually made an appearance (women religious of course, but women!). The only thing that did not change was the picture frame – unchanged in 100 years! Surely the point of a picture frame is to be at the service of the photographs, but here it was the photographs that had to fit within a given frame. What a powerful image for the Irish Church!
Energy
We spend so much time, energy and resources in messing around with what is inside the frame, instead of changing the frame to fit the reality of the lived experience. We introduce new initiatives (usually about 10 years after they are needed); we implement different strategies such as lay involvement; the diaconate; pastoral councils…but the real need is to have a serious look at the systems and culture within the wider Irish Church community.
To get back to youth ministry. The Irish Church has produced some much-needed direction and resources in recent years. Following a lengthy consultation process, Irish youth ministry finally got an agreed strategy in the form of the bishops’ framework document Called to Serve. It provided a vision for what is referred to as “comprehensive youth ministry”, one that stresses the need to address the head, heart and hands of young people when we engage in youth ministry. (In former days we talked about the need “to know, to love and to serve God”.) This would enable us to develop what are often well meaning but narrowly focused movements and initiatives currently prevalent in the Irish Church.
The Irish Redemptorists followed this up by putting resources into developing the Youth Ministry Studies Programme, specifically underpinned by and promoting the comprehensive approach of Called to Serve. This was a great gift to the Irish Church, that after an initial period of enthusiasm has seen a fall-off as dioceses no longer seem prepared to put the resources needed into implementing this programme.
I would conclude by suggesting that if we want youth ministry to develop in Ireland, then maybe we should not spend so much wasted time lamenting what is going on with young people, but should be implementing agreed pastoral plans for the wider Irish Church; that maybe instead of dedicated youth offices in dioceses, we should develop diocesan pastoral services/faith formation offices that would be inclusive of youth, but not isolate them into separate offices. Maybe instead of writing new documents we should start implementing recommendations of documents already written!
There is nothing new in the field of youth ministry today. I think the strategy of providing one experience after another for young people, no matter how worthy they may be, but that neglects the building of structures and connections between all who are dedicated to youth ministry will only lead to the same conclusion as previous days, namely, that when young people outlive the need to seek out religious experiences through movements and groups, then they disappear from the life of the Church altogether. Young people deserve better than this. The Irish Church needs better than this.
Brian McKee is Director of Seedlings, supporting pastoral renewal and faith development. www.seedlingsireland.com