It’s not popular to talk about homosexuality, but we rob our students, family members, and ministries when we wait to have conversations. I’ve learned that we can’t ignore the needs of a developing adolescent just because it’s uncomfortable for us.

It’s not about fixing gay or lesbian teenagers. We have to start by getting to know them, caring for them, and loving them with the same unconditional love that Jesus did. I am thankful that someone loved me as I was, in those tumultuous years of uncertainty, when I based my worth on my physical closeness with guys. The love of Christ, as it was offered to me without judgment, revealed another way, where the filling of the Holy Spirit could set me free and give me new hope and purpose.

We are called, as a people once marginalized and forgotten, to hear the cries of the now marginalized and forgotten. We are to reach out with neighborly love. As we offer love, we know that love never leaves us as we are, but it shapes us and molds us into the image of God.

There are some things we can do to help teenagers who struggle, not just with issues of homosexuality but also with any issue that deems them outcast.

We pray. We ask God to give us hearts able to love boldly.

We try to make a youth ministry gathering that is safe and welcoming to any person.

We talk about bullying. We are working on a more intentional plan to respond to it, both inside our youth group and in the places where we live.

We don’t ignore suicidal language (both verbal and nonverbal), and we offer help to students who speak this language.

We consider the moments when teenagers come to us about their struggles to be sacred moments. Our response is telling. We represent Jesus as we respond, and we have to know that it isn’t about us (what we feel, think, or want to do). It is about their hearts, lives, and knowledge of God’s work in their lives. We help them have difficult conversations with their parents and friends. We remind them that they are not alone.

We talk with parents who are concerned. We listen with the same love and compassion that we try to have when we listen to their children.

We have a long way to go, but we aren’t discouraged. God gives us what we need—an ability to love and to see (without judgment) the image of God in each and every person. As we see this image, we can’t help but respond and seek restoration for every human we meet.

Do the theological homework. Make no assumptions that you understand the texts, have read them clearly in the past, or that you can glaze over this issue by quoting a few commonly cited verses. If you do, you’ll likely do more harm than good. If you’re going to speak with authority and respond with certainty, humility, and wisdom, then you’re going to have to have done your homework. Read the Bible, dig into some books that address the issues in the original language, and even read what those who disagree with you say about this topic. Here’s a quick list of theological questions I encourage you to wrestle with if you have not already:

Why does Jesus never address this in his teaching, or why do the gospel writers not record it? Does this change things? How do you decide what Old Testament codes of conduct are archaic and can be ignored? Should all sin be addressed with equal weight? What scriptural evidence do you have for or against that idea? What is the context of the verse you’re quoting to support your view? What if sexuality is genetic? How does this affect or not affect your answers to how one deals with or lives with this issue?

Don’t joke. If you want your youth ministry to address this issue and for it to be a safe place for students to address it, then avoid all joking about it. Don’t call things gay or use homosexuality as a punch line. “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” is cheap and not funny or helpful to anyone who actually feels attracted to the same gender. Rigorously defend your youth ministry space and community as one where it is safe to confess or wrestle with any issue, regardless of its social consequences elsewhere.

Avoid comparisons. Don’t compare homosexuality to other issues. You’ll either end up minimizing or over-dramatizing this issue. You either can identify with this struggle because you’ve experienced it yourself, or you can’t. Be a good listener and avoid trying to find comparisons that work. They don’t.

Think layers and long term The honest truth is that this issue is never the issue. Work to help students understand that the primary issue is their connection with Jesus, which is also my primary long-term goal. When their identity is in Jesus, we can address other incongruent layers of their lives. We know this, right? Just because students are heterosexual does not make them more connected with Jesus. So be okay with students struggling with all kinds of issues as they strive for Jesus.

Admit failures. We cannot address this issue without admitting that many have actually sinned in how they address this sin. We also must admit that heterosexuality has not produced healthy sexuality by default either. Ignoring sources of doubt won’t help this conversation. When we do, we just look ignorant.

Don’t oversimplify. A student’s sexual identity and struggles are a maze of ideas, feelings, experiences, and pressures. Let it be messy. It is, and it will take a lot of time and patience to get it healthy, especially if it’s already messed up.

Address the father factor. Not necessarily as a cause but as a common thread. Students and sexuality are intimately tied to connection with parents, especially with Dad. Both girls and boys who have no healthy connection or source of love from their dads often go looking for hope in other places sexually. Help students address this, and you’ll by default help them address their sexual desires and needs to feel loved.

Teach students how to think. The end goal is not to address every possible scenario sexually so a student knows how to respond. Our goal is to help students think about why they would or would not choose to do XYZ. Knowing what the Bible says on this issue is almost void if you don’t know why it says it. Failure for students to know how to think about this will always result in short-term solutions, not long-haul faith convictions.

Now, if the question were how do I address sexuality in my youth ministry, I would have a different response. In all my years of ministry, I think talking openly with students and young adults about sexuality is something that is still a growing edge for me. And it's frustrating because clearly youth are getting this information from friends, from school, from the internet (in some pretty unhealthy ways, I'm sure), and many other sources. But this is something we need to be talking about in the church. And in those conversations with students and their parents at the church, we also need to encourage families to have these conversations at home.

When I've had conversations about sexuality with youth at the church, I've done my best to treat both homosexuality and heterosexuality as equal expressions of God's gift of sexuality to us. Sometimes, there have been students who were gay or questioning, and some students whose parents were gay. To present homosexuality as a sinful expression of sexuality would have closed the door to any conversations with those students or their parents and not something that would have been helpful for my ministry.

I obviously can't tell you how to address homosexuality in your ministry. That will be determined by your context, the people you're ministering to, and the other staff you work with. If you're a youth minister or volunteer, I highly recommend you figure out where your head of staff is when it comes to the whole issue because you do not want that to be a surprise when they hear about some youth group discussion from an angry parent.

But overall, I don't think you need to separate homosexuality from the overall conversation about sexuality that is crucial to your ministry and work with youth. They need to see the church as a safe place where they can have those important conversations. Especially if you have youth who are questioning their sexuality, you want the church to be that safe place for them, where they can be open and honest about their struggles and questions. We've all heard too many stories about churches who excluded youth from programs because of issues related to sexuality, and many don't return to the church—any church—after a situation like that. As always, it's better to err on the side of love, grace, and inclusion because I have a sense that's what Jesus would do.

We had a profound moment when we began to realize that more than 75% of the group had already been interacting with the children in our church and community over the last year. Practically speaking, they have helped with our children’s classes that meet during part of our worship service every week, serving in the nursery, leading at camps during the summer, filming and photographing events with children throughout the year, inviting them into their worlds (e.g., a trip to the firehouse to visit one of our high school students who is a volunteer), playing music for special events, participating in dramas together, meals with rising middle schoolers, and serving at community organizations helping the poor.

Ultimately, all of the things listed above, and there are certainly more, speak to the growing movement toward creating a more integrated church, where not only do adults help walk through life with our adolescents, but our adolescents have an opportunity to help children walk through life as well.

When I invite adults to pour their lives into the lives of students, I ask them to imagine how they could help share their experiences, wisdom, and perspectives with students to help them follow God and love others in such a way that the students they mentor and disciple will begin to recognize that they too can one day use the gifts God has poured into them to be fantastic worship leaders, elementary school principals, photographers, teachers, business owners, artists, bakers, friends, pastors, moms, dads, sisters, brothers, and more.

I ask the same things of our students. How can they help the children coming after them to feel included and know they have people in their corner, helping them imagine that one day the gifts and strengths God has poured into them can be poured out into the world? As leaders, we have to help recognize our students’ gifts and connect them into facets of the children’s ministry that allow their contributions to make sense.

Some of our children’s ministry classes or events literally couldn’t have happened without the support of our students. Sometimes they outnumber the adults! And I think it comes back to students’ desire to include others, and they recognize that inclusion has to start from the very beginning.

There are students at my church who are really busy, hardly make it to many youth activities, small groups, etc., but never miss when it is their chance to help with a children’s ministry class. I don’t think it is because they like the snack they get with the kids, but rather, they have recognized the importance of being inclusive and intentional about creating opportunities for relationships to happen. I think they have discovered the beautiful simplicity and joy that is ushered into the kingdom of God from the little ones Jesus so readily welcomed and included.

It can’t be any more practical than simply being as intentional and willing as possible to seek out opportunities where students and children can explore hope, faith, doubt, God, and community together in your context. Don’t feel compelled to do anything new. Just find ways to allow your students to partner with what is already going on, and odds are, they will be a great help and usually some relief to the adults already serving, and it will be life altering for the students as they pour their lives into the lives of the children coming after them.

Here are at least six practical ways we have decided to partner.

Parent training. Years ago we started doing a parenting-teens training day. It usually was a half day on Saturday and broken up into three segments: (1) casting a shared vision for our ministry alongside parents; (2) training for everyone in attendance on a keynote subject; and (3) training in small groups according to an affinity need. Early on, we started to realize that parenting teens and developing a shared mindset with families could not start with middle school parents but actually needed to start much earlier. If we truly wanted to develop a different parenting culture, then we needed to offer parenting-teens classes to those who were five to ten years away from having teens.

As a result, we now have several parent training days that consist of a few hours where we offer a variety of seminars that apply across the board. We offer everything from discipline to understanding social media to raising boys or girls to marriage classes to even parenting when your kids are now adults. It’s become a great training staple in our ministry.

Volunteer celebration and training. Twice a year, once toward the end of the summer and once in January, we gather our whole team of volunteers together. These days are traditionally right after church and last about two hours. We provide lunch, share some laughter, celebrate stories of how God has been using the volunteers to change lives of kids and young adults, and then do a brief interactive training that sets the stage for the next season of ministry ahead of us. This helps us all see how God is using us as a team to accomplish our shared mission: “inviting a generation to understand, own, and live out a life-changing faith in Jesus.”

Shared family data. Initially, we had several databases where information was used exclusively by individual ministries. Some used online systems, some used spreadsheets… It was a mess, really. We now partner with our entire church and use one online system to share information about families, keep phone numbers consistent, and make sure people know the issues at hand. This makes everything from graduation dates to contacting parents and volunteers much more seamless.

Graduation weekend. Every year we pick a date that works and move all of our students up a grade. We plan parties and celebrate new seasons. For some, this is a significant move out of kids’ ministry and into youth ministry. For others, it’s more subtle and just requires a room shift. But regardless, it happens across our campus all at once.

Shared events. We do some shared events too that target the whole family. We do a Sunday afternoon that we call Family Fun Day, and it is a celebration for all ages. It has inflatable games, a video game truck, food, a dunk booth etc. We share the planning and work as a team to make this a great day for everyone. We also do a fundraising day called Help Us, Help You, where we raffle off gifts and services people donate and do yard work in homes to help raise money for our mutual summer camp expenses. We also do a week of camp for kids we call Summer Fun Camp, where K-5 students come to day camp on campus and around town, and we use middle and high school students as counselors, which is a great team effort.

Junior helpers. We also encourage our kids ages ten and up to serve in another area of kids’ ministry as junior helpers. They often co-lead music, do puppets, play with kids, pass out supplies, and even teach—depending on age and readiness factors.

And to be honest, I'm not sure if that's really such a problem. Obviously, children and youth are at vastly different stages in their development, so it makes sense that their activities and programming be separate and different. But I think one of the problems with this segregation is that there may not be any sense of cohesion between the two programs.

When I arrived at the church where I served last, our youth ministry was for youth in grades 6-12. We had a group for 4th and 5th graders, but there wasn't a real sense of consistency to when it met, so those children weren't really prepared for youth group when they entered 6th grade. We also began to notice, more and more, the vast developmental difference even between our 6th and 8th graders. So we decided to make a few changes.

Like many other churches have done, we started a Club 56 youth group, which was exclusively for our 5th and 6th graders. This was meant to be our bridge ministry to help prepare our children for our youth ministry. We had some high school youth who helped lead it and were able to serve as mentors to these younger children. Because we observed the large developmental differences between 6th and 8th graders, our youth ministry then began once a youth entered 7th grade. Coincidentally, this immediately helped with some of the behavioral issues we had with some of the younger students.

When starting up something like this, it's key to have the children's ministry and youth ministry staff on the same page with the vision and mission of such a group and how they can work together to make the transition from one group to the other easier for our youth.

As I mentioned above, we had some of our high schoolers helping out with Club 56. We also had many of our middle and high school youth serve as volunteers and teachers for the summer VBS program. This helps solidify relationships between the younger children and older youth, and given the right youth, they can develop some wonderful mentoring relationships.

This was all at the former church I served, where I was the minister for youth, and we had a separate staff person for our children's ministry. At the church where I currently serve, I'm the associate pastor, and I have direct responsibility to oversee both the children's and youth ministries. Since we are in a rebuilding phase, I'm still not sure what the collaboration between the two looks like yet.

But I think those who are working toward a cohesive family ministry are on the right track. We have to view our ministry to our children and youth as happening on a continuum, that we are all working together for their spiritual formation from the moment they are born, to their baptism as infants in our churches (for those of you who are down with infant baptism), to their Sunday school classes as 2nd graders, through confirmation, youth ministry, and beyond.

In order to provide the best support possible, we must work together, children's ministries, youth ministries, college and young adult ministries, and beyond. In the words of one of the most famous doctors of our time, "Live together, or die alone." (That, of course, was a LOST reference I hope all of you got.)

Some friendship seeds were planted but ended when people left to start church plants or moved away for new jobs. Others sprouted up quickly but were later revealed to be shallow and hurtful, destroyed by gossip and insecurity. Still others were choked out by the frantic busyness of life. Between jobs, kids, responsibilities, and ministry, friendships were relegated to the background of life.

Slowly but surely, a few friendships took root, and the roots sank deep. Some of these were fellow youth ministers at other churches. Some were fellow pastors in my own church community. Some of the deepest were the very people I was called to lead and disciple—my volunteer team and interns. It surprised me to find that my best friends at my church were those I served alongside.

With relationship comes risk, however, and there are a few that stand out to me:

A deeper level of hurt. The deeper you go in a relationship, the deeper you can wound and be wounded. When we initially arrived at our church, another couple seemed excited to be friends with us, quickly inviting us into the deep end of the friendship pool. We eventually learned that the motives behind this friendship were impure, and what appeared like the seed of friendship sprouted a root of bitterness. The couple eventually left the youth ministry. It wasn’t just a lost friendship; it was a lost ministry partnership, and students experienced the painful ripple effects.

A potential lack of respect. When you’re buddies with the team you’re leading, one’s sense of authority can quickly dissipate. A friend of mine recently had to confront his best friends and roommates about their attitudes as volunteers in his ministry. They were operating with a sense of entitlement, showing up late to meetings or not respecting some of the boundaries because he was viewed as their friend first and their leader second.

A closed community. I’ve seen plenty of volunteer teams who really like hanging out. They love each other so much so that they forget to spend time with the teens they’re called to disciple. The mingling before a worship gathering finds itself filled with cliques, only these are now divided between student and staff. Others may interpret “we’re close” as “we’re closed.” Without a sense of awareness, a team can become self-involved.

The risks in these friendships are weighty, but so are the rewards.

A shared mission. C.S. Lewis writes in The Four Loves that friendship stems from a common interest or insight, that friends must journey together toward something for their friendship to blossom. There is a clear common interest between pastors and volunteers: We all want to see young people grow closer to Jesus. That mission binds us together, gives us something to spark passionate conversations, and allows us to support and encourage one another in our endeavors.

A team camaraderie. When your team genuinely loves each other, it makes ministry fun; really fun. Some of my favorite moments in recent memory are the times I spent laughing and sharing life with members of my ministry team. Like any family, we have our dysfunction and quirks, yet we transcend these as we emphasize one another’s gifts and strengths. The love we share spills into our students, who see our deep friendships and strive for a similar sense of community with those around them.

An expression of the love of Christ. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes this about Christ in The Cost of Discipleship: “He is the Mediator, not only between God and man, but between man and man, between man and reality... Between father and son, husband and wife, the individual and the nation, stands Christ the Mediator, whether they are able to recognize him or not. We cannot establish direct contact outside ourselves except through him, through his word, and through our following of him. To think otherwise is to deceive ourselves.”

If Jesus is our mediator, what better place to find true friendship than with those who are also pursuing him? He is the source of all healthy relationship, and thus our partners in the gospel should become our dearest of friends.

Joel graduated from Multnomah University with a B.S. in Bible & theology and youth ministry. He is currently the high school pastor at Red Mountain Community Church in Mesa, Arizona. He and his wife, Katie, live in Gilbert, Arizona, with their two children, Copeland and Eloise. He blogs at http://joelmayward.blogspot.com/.

A good friend of mine who was a youth pastor at his church for more than four years was seriously burned by one of his closest friends who was a member of the youth staff. Because of their close friendship, the lines that separated youth pastor from volunteer started to become blurry. This volunteer started to make major decisions without consulting the youth pastor, which ultimately resulted in great division among the students. It wasn’t long before the volunteer left the church, along with about twenty of their students, and started attending another church up the road. My friend told me that their close friendship made confronting his volunteer that much more difficult and awkward.

Another caution I would offer to the youth pastor is in the area of accountability. I am not saying anything new when I say that ministers need to have relationships in their lives where they can be brutally honest and open with a trusted friend. They need to have relationships where they don’t have to be on and are able to hang out with people who are not parishioners in their church. My heart aches for pastors who do not have one or two relationships in their lives where they don’t have to worry about being judged or thrown out of their congregations because they shared something they thought or felt.

It becomes muddy and messy when youth pastors confide all their thoughts and feelings with someone within the church or a member of the youth staff. Even though youth pastors may feel as though they trust someone completely, when you share intimate details of your life with someone in the church, you are giving that person potential ammo to use against you at a later time. There have been times I thought I was sharing something in confidence, only to find my vulnerability used against me later. I know that sounds overly cautious, but pastors need to watch their own backs. I’m sure you have your own or have heard stories.

Finally, the last word of caution I would offer regards the gender issue. The work of ministry naturally causes people to draw closer to one another. We must be aware of how close we allow ourselves to get with members of the opposite sex. It only takes a few years in ministry to hear stories of pastors or youth pastors who do not create healthy and safe boundaries with the opposite sex and end up falling into sin.

So, while there is not a black or white answer to the question, any and all youth pastors must use some level of caution and wisdom when it comes to initiating and sustaining friendships with their volunteer youth staff.

Jason is an associate pastor in Independence, Missouri, where he primarily works with youth and young adults. He thoroughly enjoys speaking and teaching God's Word and has done so at a handful of camps and retreats over the years. Jason always keeps his disc golf discs in the trunk of his car just in case the opportunity to play should suddenly arise. He occasionally jots down some of his thoughts at www.JayMcPherson.blogspot.com. Jason is married to Rachel, and they are expecting their first child in June 2012.

Part of this is for the simple reason of needing to keep your sanity. Ministry is an amazing privilege, and it can be life giving and a joy to be able to walk alongside people on their spiritual journeys. But it can also be hard. And draining. And frustrating. And there will be days when you hate it. On those days, you need friends and people outside your faith community with whom you can relax, be yourself, vent, and not worry about the repercussions. If you don't have those people in your life, it's going to drive you crazy, and you'll probably internalize a lot of stress, frustration, and anger, and that's not healthy or sustainable.

It's also healthy to have plenty of friends and acquaintances who aren't connected to your faith community or to any faith community. These are the people who will keep you honest, who will help give you a reality check every once in a while and provide much-needed perspectives that you wouldn't get from those in your churches and ministries.

There can be some real rewards of having close friends work as volunteers of your ministries. For one, it's a gift for our youth today when you can model what authentic Christian friendships and relationships look like. Serving in ministry with your close friends is one way to do that.

It's also an added gift to enjoy the people you're serving with; being in ministry with people who know you well can make it more fun and can help you get through those times when ministry gets hard.

But there are risks in having those close friends work with you in ministry. Your friends aren't perfect people (nor should you expect them to be!), and sometimes they'll do things that you disagree with. They'll be late to youth group, forget to show up, plan a game that isn't the smartest, or share things with students that may be inappropriate or that don't fit with where you'd like to see the ministry be theologically.

Having to discuss those types of things with volunteers is never easy; you don't want to offend, and you certainly don't want to lose them as volunteers. But it's even harder when the conversation has to happen with your best friend. I think there is the potential to want to let things slide or not have the important conversations that need to be had when these situations arise.

On the other hand, hopefully you have the type of relationships with your friends where you can be frank and to the point, and they'll totally get where you're coming from. That'd be great. But the reality is that those types of conversations have the potential to be pretty awkward and can hurt friendships. And when you're doing the tough work of ministry, you need all the friends and support you can get.

Being able to minister with your friends can be a real blessing, both to you and to the students in your ministry. But I encourage you to choose wisely which of your friends you ask to help out; depending on the strength and personality of your relationship, it could be a real blessing or a real frustration to your ministry.

While there are many spontaneous moments in youth ministry, much of the design of our program is based on a detailed outline of what we’ve deemed important for each of our kids to get before they graduate out of the youth group. I learned a long time ago that knowing why you do something is as important as, if not more important than, what it is you actually do. Begin with the mission and let it inform the program. Programming not rooted in mission is like chaperoning recess. There might be benefits to it, but it’s really just a break from the regular class, and heaven forbid we let the place our kids learn how to navigate life be anywhere other than one that teaches kingdom principles.

Of course, to carry out any mission there need to be regular, all-community events like weekly Bible studies, camps, mission trips, informal and formal outings and conferences, but I’ve learned that it is the smaller, less magnified activities that allow the real-life application to happen. Things like, we require the youth to keep the youth room clean, give offerings to help fund special projects, cook their own contributions to the missions dinners, find scriptures in the Bible rather than depending on the screen projections, practice conflict resolution, and discuss current events in light of scripture. Why? 1. Because they can. 2. Because we have to provide them with ample opportunities to do and become what they are being taught.

Throughout the years, I’ve had run-ins with young adults who were part of the ministry, and they enthusiastically recall episodes and occasions when we did this or that. Some of the remembrances are around Bible study and high spiritual moments, but just as many are not. Inevitably, these funny and reflective moments turn the corner, and former students standing before me start to tell how it was in one of those moments that they truly discovered something that impacted and shaped their faith foundation. Something organic and in the moment that made all the difference despite all the programs set in place to accomplish that same resolve. Little did they know that things like “develop faith in community” and “create opportunities for life application” are written in the program’s mission.

As a young woman in ministry, I asked veteran youth pastors if I could see their ministry outlines. For whatever reason, many treated it like it was some highly guarded secret. Maybe it is, but I don’t mind sharing. Here’s the Roadside short outline.
Purpose/Mission: To nurture and release righteous, respectable, and responsible citizens of the kingdom into the world.
Projects & Programs: Weekly group, campus outreach, special events, service and mission works, cross-generational mentoring.
Points of Focus: Salvation, discipleship, worship, service, and community.
Plan: Consistent and transformingly good programs, activities, relationships, and teaching.
If you have more questions, I’d love to discuss it with you.

3) Our programming is about people. Programs are only as effective as they are devoted to the people they involve. Programs are merely portals into the hearts of students. Sunday school, small group, retreats, special events, etc., are about nothing more than connecting with people and guiding them into spiritual formation for the sake of the world.

So, to our question, how do mission statements and programs inform each other? First, your mission is the purpose for your programming and the kind of programing you shepherd. Therefore, the mission informs why you would program anything in the first place.

Second, your mission is what keeps your programs from drifting off into irrelevance and insignificance. It keeps you on track and informs your programs with measurable tools.

Third, your mission provides your team, whether volunteer or paid, with a reason to engage through the hard and challenging times of working with teens. When volunteers ask, “Why am I doing this” or, “Am I even making a difference?” or, “Why do I do this to myself?” they’ll have a reason that brings them back to sanity and courage.

Fourth, mission statements allow you to recruit fellow ministers to a purpose or vision rather than a glaring hole or gap in your ministry. Many youth workers recruit by making people feel guilty for not helping to meet the needs of the church. This does not last. Mission informs vision, and vision informs programming.

Finally, mission statements—to be frank—keep your boss off your back. Seriously, committing to a shared mission with your supervisor provides an opportunity for you and your team of ministers to keep your conversations on the things that really matter—people. Also, mission informs the budget for your programs, which can also be a reason for conflict at times, as I am sure you are already well aware of.

Mission statements are critical but only if they emerge out of God’s mission. God’s mission, to say it one way, is to make the world whole again. God invites us into God’s mission as agents of God’s love and restoration. As youth workers, one way we do this is through meaningful and relevant programs that are concerned with people. Programs embedded with God’s mission give us a reason to gather and guide students into spiritual formation for the sake of the world.

That church was similar to many out there: We had a mission statement and a vision statement, and while they both looked great on paper, that was about it. If you asked any of our church members, they probably wouldn't have been able to tell you much about the content of either statements, and our ministries were not necessarily connected to them.

Then we went through another process to come up with a core values statement. Not surprisingly, some folks were a bit skeptical of all the time and effort going into the process because they assumed we would end up with another well-crafted statement that didn't have any impact on our ministries. However, we kept trusting the process, and after a few months, came up with our core values statement: Centered in Jesus Christ, we grow in faith, celebrate community, and serve others with love. Pretty simple. Pretty straightforward. And to be honest, it wasn't a lot different from one of the other statements we already had. But this time, almost all the congregation had been involved, and there was a great sense of ownership.

Then we decided to make it count, to really live into the values. We publicized it extensively. We repeated it over and over and over again. We incorporated it into our sermons. We also met with everyone who led the various groups and ministries of our church and decided that, from this point forward, any new events, any big projects that seemed like great ideas, would have to be filtered through the core values statement. If the idea didn't help us grow in faith, celebrate community, or serve others with love, it didn't make the cut.

And the difference with this approach was that every ministry began to own these core values. The youth ministry didn't need to come up with its own mission statement; we now had one because we were part of the greater church. This meant that we always found ways to incorporate the core values statement into our program and into the activities we did. When we met together prior to going on a mission trip, we were able to not only talk about how important it is to serve others but to connect the trip to all the specific elements of our statement.

This also helped communicate that what we were doing on mission trips wasn't just part of our youth ministry but was really a part of the ministry of the greater church. This aspect was really important to me because, after the youth graduate from our program, they know they can be a part of a faith community because they have that connection. Part of the problem of so many youth ministries is that they tend to be disconnected from the larger church, and the youth don't exactly know where to go after graduating from high school.

There are many ways that your programming can be directly connected to your mission statement, and it's important that the connection is made. It also makes you think a lot harder about the different events and activities that might get added to your program and helps give you a framework for deciding what's important, what's worth investing in, and what will contribute most to the spiritual formation of your youth.

I am a church mutt—or, for those needing a more dignified description, I am what you might call well rehearsed in navigating through different church cultures and traditions. While that might seem like a negative, for the most part, I believe I’m better for it. For the minor part, I’ve learned that many of the traditions we hold sacred are attributable to nothing more than personal or communal style, preference, or mere adaptations. Conversely, there are things we hold sacred in youth ministry that I’ve found to be not much more than an oftentimes feeble attempt at being trendy.

The kids in my youth group are by most accounts normal, but even so, they are an interesting bunch indeed. They regularly shoot bullets into many textbook youth ministry traditions. While they may like and appreciate the pizzas, games, and fun outings, they consistently remind me that those are not the reasons they come to youth group.

A few years ago, I decided to surprise the kids by converting one of our regular youth group gatherings to a game and movie night. My team and I worked hard to turn the youth room into a movie theater, complete with fresh popcorn, a candy bar, dim lighting, surround sound, and a larger-than-life projection. The night went well. Kids had fun. But as they left with an abundance of treats, one student turned to me and said, “This was cool, but I come to church for church.” I might have brushed that off as just one kid’s little opinion until a good number of them chimed in with agreement. It was agreement dripping from melting popsicles but agreement nonetheless.

Likewise was the time I skipped prayer in order to give a visiting artist more time to perform. The reminder was a smarmy yet again a clear, “Liked it, but…” I learned that while people appreciate keeping things interesting and current and relevant, they (even youth) “go to church for church;” to worship, pray, receive instruction, and be reminded of and connected to the one thing that is and forever will be bigger than themselves. Those traditions are sacred. But, as always, there’s another side.

Boys aren’t supposed to wear hats in church. That’s a big deal, particularly in the African American church because, to some degree, the act of wearing a hat represents clout and stature. To wear it in the “house of de Lawd” is an absolute offense because it makes your stature of greater importance than his. But see, for a millennial teenage boy, the hat is nothing more than a fashion accessory. To him, it means nothing and has no direct bearing whatsoever on his focus. Nor is it an indication of his lack of reverence for the Almighty. Removing of the hat is a tradition I’ve seen many a deacon and teenager squabble over, and while the Deacon usually wins it comes at the expense of the boy being so confused that he ends up completely checking out for the entire service over something that didn’t really matter.

But you know what modern accessory is clearly a threat to a young man’s reverence and focus? The cell phone; be it an iPhone or an Android. To the worship service, the smartphone is a handheld distraction just waiting to draw your attention and reverence away from the communal worship experience. Yeah, no matter how powerful and inspiring the worship service might be, it seems the urge to be connected to the outside world, even at the expense of being connected to God, is so alluring that we lose thousands of teens (and adults) to its intoxicating grips Sunday after Sunday. It matters, and every teenage boy and girl knows it.

So, rather than focus on the dated, ineffectual tradition of removing the hat, I’ve elected to zoom in on what the tradition is really intended to achieve: respect, reverence, and focus on God. So go ahead and wear your hat, Mr. Millennial Teenage Boy, but texting, Tweeting, and status updating on your cell phone are a no-no because it steals from you the whole reason you come to church. And while we're at it, please stand for the reading of God's Word. But don’t worry, in a few years it won’t be your cell phone. It’ll probably be your hat.

There’s a story about why people cut off the end of the holiday ham. Lots of people speculate about the meaning and reason for such a long-held tradition. Many thought and accepted that it was because it cooked better by giving the ham juices room to flow. So one day, after many years of going to Grandma’s house, it became time for the daughter to prepare the big dinner. Over at the daughter’s house, Grandma conspicuously watched as the meal was prepared, and sure enough, the time came to prepare the holiday ham. The daughter, per the tradition, cut off the end, put it in the pan, and then put the pan in the oven. She turned around to catch Grandma’s gaze. Trying not to be critical, Grandma squirmed before asking, “Why did you cut off the end of that ham?” The daughter quickly and proudly responded, “Because that’s what you taught me to do. It’s the tradition!” Grandma chuckled, shook her head, and sweetly said, “I cut the end of the ham off because my pan was too small.”

Don’t neglect traditions for the sake of fleeting trends. But neither uphold them just to exercise ineffectual customs. Let the reason be the reason.

Four benefits to tradition:
Shared stories. If you do an event or have a ritual or keep a tradition over the long haul, then your ministry has a consistent shared journey. Students and staff can say, “Remember that time at summer camp…” and they all have an instant shared story. Sure, each year was different, but there’s camaraderie and unity and ownership in shared language and experience, all of which are like gold in youth ministry.

Calendaring and family planning are easy. If you always do a Christmas party the first weekend in December, or every year you go to summer camp the second week in July, you become a staple in a family’s planning. They know what to expect and when to expect it. They know how to budget and what you generally tend to do. You make it easy for a family to plan with you.

We can learn and improve based on experience. If you constantly are changing stuff, then you will constantly be trying to reinvent the wheel or guess about variables you can’t predict. In traditions, you’ve done it before and figured out what works and doesn’t work. Therefore, you know the best road to get there and where to stop for dinner, the best place to do small groups, the best format for a rite of passage, the best way to run your weekend service, the best way to do all kinds of things because you’ve also done them wrong and fixed them. Tradition lets you learn from your mistakes and improve.

The logistics can be done in your sleep. You already know the family that does the food. You know who plays the music and who your leaders will be. You just call them, confirm a couple of things, and move on because they already know what to do, what to expect, and how to help. The logistics are virtually done before you even start. Tweak the flyer, fix two things you learned last year, make some phone calls, put it up on Facebook. Done.

Four dangers of tradition:
We can get in a rut. I once had a mentor tell me that a “rut is nothing but a grave with the ends kicked out.” Ruts are dangerous and should be avoided. Instead of thinking about what is best or what could and should be, we just do what we’ve always done and hope it’s better this year. We start worshiping sacred cows instead of Jesus, and before we know it, the nonnegotiable thing in ministry is not following the leading of the Holy Spirit to advance the spiritual lives of students; now it’s, “Do whatever you want, as long as you do this thing, this way.”

We get predictable. Tradition can also lead to predictability in a bad way. Instead of keeping your students on the edge of their seats, wondering what will happen next, they start to ditch stuff because they’ve already done it. Even if it was amazing the first time, the second time was okay, and the third time was, um…predictable. When we do and say what everyone thinks we’ll do and say, we lose our leadership edge in the lives of students.

We start to tell a boring story. Tradition has a way of leading us into boredom. No one wants to be boring. No one wants to tell a boring story. But when tradition trumps risk and new adventures and uncharted ministry territory, we start to tell a boring story. That’s a danger worth avoiding.

We become modern-day Pharisees. There’s a fine line between respect for tradition and legalism. Whenever we create new or hold onto old traditions, we risk becoming the very people Jesus so sternly rebuked. We are called to honor the sacred. We are not called to worship the traditional.