Are we failing our young people?

The revelations that doping seems to be rampant amongst rugby boys in South African schools has dominated our news headlines for the last few days.  Young people are good thermometers – they take our temperature. We know that when the body temperature rises things are not good, we are sick. Our young people suggest that all is not well in our society – they have suggested this for a while now (remember the slaying of one pupil by another in Krugersdorp in 2008?) but it seems as if we are not able or unwilling to hear them. The steroid usage headlines are not simply a “problem at our (elite?) schools”. The problem is much larger – it is a societal problem and hence also a problem in the Church. Are we failing our young people?

Most inevitably, at any Church meeting, the “youth” are always on the agenda. Most times it is to ask how we can keep them interested, get them involved or attract them back. Other times it is to bemoan their lack of interest or commitment. We frequently hear that the youth are the future of the country and the Church – indeed they are. For the most part we are “out of touch and out of tune”.

I detect more and more worrying trends amongst the young people I work with – a rampant dissatisfaction with themselves and their peers, alienation from self, lack of self-acceptance, confusion, a growing culture of entitlement, an unwillingness to buckle down and work hard, alcohol and drug abuse, casual attitudes towards sexuality, disinterest in world affairs, the lack of commitment (to the smallest of things), an abiding suspicion of authority (political or religious), rampant materialism (and all sorts of other “isms”), depression and an alarmingly deep seated anger (which we have seen manifest on so many schools/campuses around the country). I am sure steroid use is yet another symptom of these. The list could go on. Then, on the other hand, I meet young people searching for meaning, searching for purpose, trying to make sense of the world and their place in it, asking searching questions, looking for ways to use their energy and enthusiasm to really make a difference. They find it very hard, and it is sad to hear many of them say that there are few places they feel they can do their searching and asking. It is worrying to hear this but also a sad reflection on us all – we are failing them.

For many years I have thought and been concerned about the state of youth ministry in the Church. There are good things happening but for the most part there is little to no sense of strategy and direction when it comes to ministering to the young. Many people working with youth are hell-bent on insisting that we must teach them “sexual morality” – that’s so often THE central topic. Its part of life but not the whole of life; aren’t we short changing them and missing out on so much more?

Unfortunately many youth ministers are ploughing their own furrows (because there is no coordinated strategy or direction) which makes things ineffective, under-resourced or, at worst, sets up a competition between people and groups. In South Africa we often hear people speak about a “skills shortage”. The Church is also desperately short of skilled youth workers – people who have been adequately trained to listen to what young people are saying and then respond to and work with them. Should we not, if we are serious about the future of the Church, use our very best resources to ensure that people are adequately trained for this task?

This means that we will have to re-think things. Structures for youth are often set-up in the Church – we have not shortage of them! Many of these structures require endless maintenance and seem to require maximum input for minimum output. Skilled accompaniment demands adequately trained ministers. Generous people might be teaching faith classes or catechism but this is not enough if we are going to be effective and really respond to the growing needs (and urgency) of young people. We need more. We need specialised youth workers who are in touch and in tune.

Many young people in our country come from broken homes. The Church has done a lot of work to try and promote family life. But we have to acknowledge that there is a whole generation (or two) that have grown up in the most dire of contexts and have therefore been deprived of family life. This is fertile ground for well trained youth ministers and the Church seems to be one of few institutions that has the capacity to step into the gap and be a real agent of healing.

Young people across our country are warning us that things are not well with us – murders, drugs and other delinquent behaviour are symptoms of a bad temperature. There are other voices in our country that have also pointed to this time bomb and have attempted a wake-up call – people like Prof Jonathan Jansen rector of the University of the Free State. These voices (and actions in attempting, for example, to  reconcile racial tensions at UFS) are examples to us and should help us discern our role as Church and then give us the courage to take the bull by the horns.  If we are serious about youth being the future of the Church we ought to listen carefully and have an urgent conversation about where we are and what we can do. We then need to make a concerted effort to order our priorities accordingly – this means some other “priorities” will need to move down the list. This might be painful and not popular and would certainly mean a re-organising of our resources. I appeal to those who have the power and the influence to make crucial decisions about ministry to young people so that we can do just that.

The future of our society and Church is indeed dependant on our youth. Being out of touch and out of tune will have disastrous consequences – the crisis will simply deepen.