What if Youth Ministry Healed

We know that our teens are hurting, so why is our focus still on anything other than Christ healing their broken hearts and broken worlds?

One of the themes that comes up over and over again in youth ministry is how broken our teens are. They come from broken homes, with divorce still happening at a high rate and myriad family issues present in all communities. They are personally broken, so overcome with stress and anxiety that they medicate with drugs, or alcohol, or Netflix. They are spiritually broken, with no mentors or prophets to turn to to guide them in the right paths and left to fend for themselves in a broken world which wants to claim them like its ruined so many before.

Its a bleak picture to paint, and a dramatic one, all the more so because it is true. Sure, there are teens that come from happy homes, teens who cope better than others, teens who manage to strike a balance and find good examples by which to navigate the turbulent waters of adolescence. But the norm is an entire generation hurting and with nowhere to turn to discover there true identity, lost on a stormy sea of idealogical nonsense tacitly willing them to drown because "that's life."

And yet so many of our ministries fail to address this reality at all. We cling to lessons which implore teens to be countercultural, go against the grain, and lead others against the flow of society. We love to teach about chastity, making Catholic friends, even evangelization and spreading the Word of God. And while each of these lessons is, in its own way, perfectly fine, each of them fails to address each teen as a person and bring them into radical contact with God who heals every wound.

What a powerful ministry would exist if we had connections with Alcoholics Anonymous, Strive or similar programs for overcoming pornography addiction, referrals for counseling pastoral and clinical for teens struggling with their parents' divorce or who have unchecked anxiety from school and their social lives, regular confession to help them grow deeper in virtue. If we structured retreats not just around fun skits and inspirational talks, but gave moments for real conversion and healing, inviting God into their wounds right then and there, rather than prescribing remedies to be taken at home, alone, when the community of support and love was a memory instead of a reality.

Our teens our hurting. The world in which they live sees orphans and wants to make them slaves. We need to help them understand that they are sons and daughters - that God has a plan and a purpose for them right now, and not in some distant future yet conceived. We need to share that that plan includes but isn't exhausted in their vocation, but encompasses healing and wholeness, joy and conviction, relationship and support and confidence. It isn't about a temporal prosperity, but a hundredfold joys in this world and life everlasting in the next.

I am constantly evaluating and changing my ministry - trying to get with the times while preaching eternal and unchanging truths. It is a moving target and is an ever unfinished process. But I know that no matter what curriculum I purchase or design, what graphics I use and in what media, what lessons I teach or conversations I have, if I am not preaching God's healing and leading teens to that fountain of life, than I am not ministering to them at all. To minister to teens is to help lead them to God's healing.