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reThink

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Over Christmas I was able to finish reading reThink by Steve Wright (with Chris Graves). Wright has served as a student pastor for more than twenty years. In the introduction, Wright explains:

"This book was born out of deciding to rethink student ministry. We started by asking some tough questions, searching the Bible for its framework for ministry, looking at the latest research and being honest about the problems of student ministry."

Though the book is written primarily for other student pastors, I found the book helpful as a young father, a college professor and an involved church member. It probably helps that I've given some thought to the extended adolescence problem and have reflected a bit on the youth ministry issue (thanks in part to books like Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham).

It is beyond dispute that much of student ministry today, over the long haul, bears little fruit. Wright cites numerous sources in painting a bleak picture: 58-84% of children from evangelical families are leaving the church as they enter adulthood (in their college years). The Southern Baptist Convention has seen a 6.5% reduction in baptisms from 1976-1990 to 1991-2005. Over the same period to time, the SBC saw a 35-40% reduction in baptisms among teens aged 12-17. With regard to biblical literacy, the data are equally perplexing: In a study of teenagers of which 70% were active in church youth groups, and 82% identified themselves as Christians, Barna found that 63% believe Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Jews and all other people pray to the same god. While 87% believe Jesus was a real person who came to earth and 78% believe He was born of a virgin, 46% believe He committed sins and 51% believe He did not rise from the dead. 58% believe that all religious faiths teach equally valid truth.

Why the lack of biblical clarity? Wright notes,

"Student ministry in many cases has become the local YMCA or teen amusement park; students check in and out, but mostly out. After all, once they have experienced years of fun-and-games, all-you-can-eat, no-responsibility, free-from-parents amusement, then we have helped train their appetites for pleasure to find more alluring fulfillment in the adult world."

Yet students hunger for strong teaching. The Barna Group found the most common reason students gave for attending church was "to better understand what I believe."

In response to these results, Wright laments the fact that some parents see spiritual formation as the exclusive job of the youth pastor, who in turn too quickly accept the responsibility. Instead, Wright argues (from Deuteronomy 6 and elsewhere) that parents have a primary responsibility for the discipleship of their children, both prior to and during the pivotal teen years. He calls upon youth pastors to come alongside parents in this venture, equipping both the students and their parents.

Here, Steve Wright voices a respectful disagreement with Voddie Baucham, whose organization (Vision Forum Ministries) calls for teaching children through the engagement of fathers and through the preaching of the Word, without a role for age-graded ministries. Wright notes that in biblical times rabbis would teach in the synagogues in Talmud and Mishnah schooling, which was age-graded. In short, Wright's message is:

"Both the church and its student ministries have biblically assigned purposes: namely, exaltation, edification, and evangelism. It is interesting in passages concerning the early church...we see these three purposes functioning in perfect unison. These purposes of the church are different than the purposes of the family, which is why God ordained two institutions rather than one. We cannot listen to the extremists who are attempting to push us to one or the other institution. It's time for the two institutions to step closer together and become partners to rescue this generation."

Wright notes that churches (and their student ministries) are needed to reach out and model Christianity to teens without Christian parents, to reinforce a biblical worldview to teens, to serve as an impartial advisor to parents and teens, to connect young people with other Christian teens for support, encouragement and accountability, and to provide opportunities for corporate service to the body of Christ.

All in all, I think Wright does a good job at valuing the roles of both nuclear families (parents being the primary disciple-makers of their children) and church-based student ministries which come alongside parents. He avoids the pitfalls of an entertainment-oriented youth ministry approach (which tends to value "fun" over biblical training and serious worldview formation) and the call for abolishing youth ministry altogether. Many churches that once approached youth ministry with the former model are coming to the realization that while God genuinely converts some teenagers in this context, many (if not the majority) are not being equipped for the challenges presented in the college and post-college years, with disastrous consequences. Yet youth ministry can (and should) be a part of a healthy local church's equipping of both Christian parents and their teens, and for the advancement of the gospel among unbelieving teens. It really can be a both/and. I highly commend this book to youth pastors and parents alike. I believe it will help many churches establish fruitful high school ministries with a view toward multi-generational faithfulness.

PARENTS: This is a must read for all of us, not just our youth pastors.

I had heard Steve Wright speak about student ministries' partnering with parents before, so I thought that I'd just give his book a glance and stick it on the resource shelf in our study at home. Certainly there wouldn't be anything I hadn't heard. Oh boy!!!

When I sat down to read the book, I got hooked in the first chapter. reThink gives radical clarification of the relationship between student ministries and biblical parenting. It made me ask myself: OK, what are we doing as youth workers vs. what are we doing as parents? Are the sixth graders in our Sunday school class getting more of God's Word from us than the three kids living under our roof? Why? What do we need to do differently at home? How can we be more deliberate about discipling our own children, instead of just relying on those "teachable moments"? Those serendipitous points of connection with our kids are awesome, but the Lord hasn't left us to seize upon rare moments of revelation alone. His plan is undeniably deliberate and faithful. What do we need to do as a family to grow together in the Lord, earnestly and consistently?

Our family is taking a different course as a result of reThink. Lines of communication are opening up. Our kids are talking to us more honestly and freely than ever before. We are able to encourage other parents as we pursue a clearly articulated vision for growing our kids in Christ. We are rolling up our sleeves to get involved in student ministries beyond Sunday morning and the occasional ski trip or bowling party. What a blessing it has been to "reThink" our ministry in our own family as well as in the larger Body of Christ!

I have read many books about student ministry. Most of the ones out there raise questions but never really delineate exactly the problems youth ministry professionals face. This revolutionary, book by Steve Wright, tackles the heart of the matter: the need for parent led discipleship. In his research, Steve Wright demonstrates that the thing that many student pastors dread, i.e. partnering with parents, is the only thing that will keep students from "Graduating from God". I highly recommend this invaluable resource.

In this book Steve challanges both youth leaders and parents alike. One of the things I personally appreciate about Steve's book is his humble, honest admission of his own struggles. In reThink Steve Wright challanges us as parents and youth leaders to look past business and get to the heart of the matter which is raising the next generation of godly youth. Thank you Steve for "locking arms" with us and coming alongside and equipping us parents who didn't have godly role models growing up. reThink is biblically-based and puts parents God-given role of discipling their kids in perspective. Thanks Steve for the wake-up call!

Because of our moving around over the years, our children have been involved in a variety of youth ministries. While most of the time our children have found them fun, my husband and I have questioned where the focus was in some of the groups. It seemed to be more on games, social outings and improving outreach attendance than on sharing the gospel and discipling teens.

At the same time, it's been easy to pick out the children whose parents have emphasized the importance of God and discipleship in His truths at home. Their conduct is often in stark contrast to those whose parents have dropped theirs off, looking for wholesome religious activities and perhaps a babysitting service for their potentially wayward son or daughter.

So when someone recommended I read the book reThink by Steve Wright, I wondered what light this youth pastor could shed on the observations my husband and I had already made. After all, the book is addressed to other youth pastors, encouraging them to reevaluate the model their ministry is based on.
Turns out, reThink is a darn good read for parents of students of all ages. It does a great job of laying a biblical foundation that parents are the ones with the primary responsibility of teaching their children about God, His salvation message, and living the life of a devoted Christ follower. The church, with its youth pastors, student ministries and culturally relevant activities, needs to work toward bringing parents on board by equipping them with how to carry out their God-ordained mission.

The book first sounds the alarm, quoting both secular and Christian-based research showing just how many children are leaving the faith after graduating high school or college. The numbers are scary. Scarier yet is the conflict many churches feel between being culturally relevant and biblically faithful. The question is put point-blank: has it become more important to be trendy than to present the Word?

This is not a book that presents a problem and then walks away from it. I love the way reThink champions the family and provides a model for the church to partner with parents. Steve Wright discusses how to plan, organize and navigate the transitions necessary for reshaping both student ministry and parental discipleship.

reThink is an enjoyable book, written from a youth pastor's perspective but capturing a much wider audience. If you want to know what you should be collaborating on with your church, this is it.

"I often wonder if perhaps we have moved so far away from the biblical ideal (for youth ministry) that we may not recognize it any longer."

This is the title of the latest book that I have read. reThink, written by Steve Wright and Chris Graves. There are a plethora of books on the subject of youth ministry, why should anyone care about yet another book? The reason why this book IS different, is because it is not yet another model. At least not in the sense most of you may be thinking. Wright does an excellent job of pulling out the common themes/characteristics of typical modern day youth ministry models (YMM) and treating it as just one model. He then evaluates that model in light of scripture. What this book seeks to do, is to take a hard look at the current YMM and ask, "Is it Biblical?" If it isn't, then how fast can we get rid of it and replace it with one that is Biblical?

And YES, all the other youth ministry books claim theirs is the most Biblical, too. The question then is, "What are the fruits of the `typical' modern day YMM?" The entire first chapter of the book deals just with raw data/statistics. And, let me tell you, the evidence is overwhelmingly against the current youth ministry model. Nobody needs statistics to argue for a Biblical YMM (all you DO need is good hermenutics), but when the stats are on your side, it makes your argument that much more potent.

For example: the lowest number cited in regards to student drop-out rate for church membership after high school graduation was 61%; the highest was 88%. In regards to the tenure of youth pastors, the stat cited was 3.1 years at a given church. If you were looking at just the bottom line, which I am glad the author does much more than that, then this would be seen as a miserable failure. Even at the low end, 61%... if a college basketball coach averaged a 61% win record every year over the past 10 years, he would no longer have a job. Youth ministries have had this model for over 50 years.

So, what is the typical youth ministry model that Wright rails against? It is hard to describe it in just a few words, but let me try to sum up what Wright thinks are the basic characteristics of a typical youth ministry:

1. There is little to no parental involvement.

2. Parents are seen as competition for the youth pastor.

3. Youth are won over by the youth pastor's charismatic personality, gimmicks, and entertainment instead of being won over to Christ and to authentic Christian relationships.

4. Pragmatism, rather than the Bible, is the default method of evaluating ministry effectiveness.

5. Numbers are the prime indicator of success.

6. The youth group is at best weakly connected with the rest of the church and at worst totally severed.

7. Because of the above mentioned characteristics, far too many youth (presumably even the ones that are truly saved- I'll get back to this later.) not only graduate from the church when the graduate high school, but they graduate from God.

(I would say that my youth group can be described like this, but it's difficult for me to do so. That's because my youth pastor that discipled me in high school endorsed this book. Needless to say, I'm going to have a very interesting phone conversation with him some time in the near future.)

After lambasting this current YMM, he evaluates the only two other choices: Total Family Intergration and what Wright calls a hybrid model; a model that takes the Biblical elements of both family ministry and student ministry and "co-championing" them both together. This hybrid model takes seriously the charge to parents that's made in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 for parents to view themselves as the primary disciplers of their own children. This is the primary principle behind Wright's argument. If it is true that the parents are the primary discipler of their children, then everything else needs to fall in line behind it. We can see what this looks like by basically flipping the above-mentioned list on its head:

1. Parents are to be challenged and encouraged to be involved in all aspects of student ministry.

2. Parents are considered as the primary disciplers of their children and partners with the youth pastor.

3. Youth are won over by a gospel-saturated family life (or won over by the friend who comes from a gospel-saturated family life) and, not surprisingly...

4. ...by the preaching of God's word (here's a great quote from the book about preaching God's word: "Does the church have the courage to become relevant by becoming Biblical?").

5. High attendance numbers do not matter nearly as much as retention numbers.

6. The point of the youth ministry is to teach the youth how to operate within the life of the church as a whole, therefore the youth are purposefully trained to operate with other ministries in the church.

7. When these principles are implemented (with a high dose of prayer), then you will see far greater and more lasting fruit as a result.

What worked:

Co-championing both the parents and the youth ministry. I love the thought of "co-championing"! Since this is the thesis of the book, this is where Wright shines. On the one hand, he spends half the time discussing why the parents are the primary discipler of their children. On the other hand, he spends the other half discussing the importance of peer ministry and why parents can't be the ONLY disciplers.

His sense of honesty and vulnerability. Wright tells a story about the time he bloodied the nose of one of his youth. Obviously, this happened when he was a young youth pastor, but it still takes guts to talk about such an embarrassing ministry faux paux. Because, in this day and age of religious posturing, inflated membership rolls, thick skin, and shallow relationships, his vulnerability and honesty is refreshing to say the least.

Practical application. After laying enough convincing groundwork, Wright gives us a glimpse of how his church implements this vision. Great ideas like a Parent Leadership Team show us newbies how to get started.

The number of awesome quotes. Wright uses good word economy in this book and has also done his homework in providing some of the most insightful comments by other Christian writers.

What didn't work:

Before I give a negative critique, I must say that some of these missing links may be left out purposefully for a second book.

Not enough on childhood/teenage conversion. There is an unspoken controversy regarding conversion. Parents want to believe their kids are saved. Youth pastors want to believe they are leading youth into a genuine relationship with Christ. Yet, the best methods, the most biblical YMM cannot substitute for the regenerate power of the Holy Spirit. This book assumes the salvation of the youth in question and that's fine for its purposes. It also at least exposes SOME faulty evangelism methods. But, a whole chapter should have been devoted to this issue.

Arguments against total family intergration model of youth discipleship were weak overall. I am very happy Wright at least addressed the `other model'. The other model is the one that sees any expression of youth ministry as unbiblical. But, when it comes to reacting against total family intergration, Wright only gives one argument (albeit, a good one) against that other model of ministry. He says we should avoid both extremes (typical YMM and total family intergration), but 90% of the counter-arguments are against the typical YMM. I can think of at least 4 more arguments against total family intergration.

More practical application and troubleshooting. Yes, he poured a lot into unpacking the "parent leadership team" concept, but it would have been nice to have something written about youth who do not have Christian, involved, caring parents. It would have been nice to see MORE of how his youth group does evangelism.

Again, these are all things that can easily be covered in the next book, so my complaints are ultimately only minor.

Thank God this book was written! My hope is that this enters into the church growth circles as an alternative to what's currently out there. The more exposure this book gets can only mean good things.

Outstanding! Great Biblical theology of youth ministry. I really appreciated the thorough use of scripture and source information. My only problem that is unresolved with the family ministry/parent-led discipleship philosophy, which is becoming increasingly popular, is that there are never satisfactory answers to the questions about youth with unbelieving and uninterested parents. Despite the claims of this, and other, books, many parents are not willing to disciple their children. Many are not even believers, and there is no way to get around that fact. I find that the authors of ReThink never really deal with this. The best they have to say other than "it's in the Bible so you really don't have a choice but to do it this way" is that these students should be paired with families who do participate in the process. With that concern noted, this book really did help me think through some things, and I look forward to applying many of the concepts in the future. I highly recommend it to all church youth workers, even though it seemed a bit idealistic to me.

If you are surfing the net looking for a quick fix to your youth ministry, do not buy this book.

The author uses the results of extensive research, combined with his own experience, to reveal a new model for youth ministy with the end goal of retaining people in church life following their leaving the youth ministry nest. Nationwide, statistics demonstrate that church retention of young adults is horrible and even as people age, the church regains only a small percentage of those she once had.

Graves' model calls for educating parents that they are the primary spiritual nuturers of their children and because of this "spiritual drop off" as the accepted model of youth ministry must end. The model also brings a fresh approach to including parents in youth ministry.

What I like about the book:
--Several years ago the author implemented the model he proposes and speaks from experience, trials, and successes. This is not just a book of untried ideas or something a youth worker did once and then wrote a book about it. (We have enough of that in youth ministry.)
--The author is careful to teach principles that are transferable to churches without insisting specific things have to be done in certain ways.

What I would like to see in a future edition of the book:
--A timeline of the Graves Model as it has evolved and been implemented in his church. He clearly says he started with his incoming youth and worked from there; it would be good to visualize it in terms of what happened year one, two, three, etc until it was fully realized. Plus I'd like to see a current monthly schedule of when his leadership teams meet...it's a bit overwhelming as I read; I visualize an idyllic setting of multiple teams of educated, enthusiastic parents who prioritize regular meetings--a pipe dream for most most of us.

If you are interested in the book for your own ministry, read the book in its entirety before recommending it to your people. It's all to easy to be captivated by the first or second chapters only and then launch out with your own meetings before grasping the whole book. I read it four months ago and have asked three others to read it to help me decide the best way to contextualize it to our setting.

This book capsilizes the need in our churches for real Biblical discipleship. The authors make a strong case for rethinking the way we do student ministry. I hope this, and others like it, start a revolution in the church.

If you are looking for a great biblical philosophy on student ministry, look no further. It is filled with great pastoral insight and tone. This book flows from a father's heart. You will love his testimonies, stats, and solutions. Whether or not you believe in "student ministry", you should read this book. Wright gives a good balance of wisdom and humility in this approach to ministry; while at the same time maintains biblical integrity.

Steve- Thanks for writing this book. I will refer to it often in the future. My favorite parts were the testimonies at the end- very compelling.