The Five Lies of Youth Ministry: Part One--“Come Down to Their Level”

Youth ministry has been around the block a few times in the last fifty years. Walk into your average Catholic Church these days and you can get a pretty quick feel for their brand of spirituality, and the diversity of brands on the market. Some take the therapeutic approach, sporting the motto “Healing” and “Justice” around a Christ-less stone “Serenity Prayer” cross while encouraging mission trip upon mission trip at the expense of the ever foreign phrase “Eucharistic adoration.” Others seek personal and authentic relationships with young people through skits, songs, and the ever-precious goofy youth minister. Still others have hopped onto the latest train of the New Evangelization, coasting through Steubenville, Ohio, and Denver, Colorado, holding tight to their papal crucifix’s. Yet whatever the modus operandi, all are subject to the good, the bad, and the ugly (the latter unfortunately most evident in the “California Jesus” and the cover of your most recent Gather hymnal). Perhaps most startling are the lies that continue to pervade even the best youth ministry programs in the Church. The following five are only an outline, the beginning, a sort of “Five Deadly Faults” from which all others stem from. Yet these have appeared time and again in all of the aforementioned youth ministries. Enjoy, or perhaps, beware.

The First Lie: Come Down to Their Level

The freshest phrase in youth ministry, “We need to come down to their level.” Or, better yet, “We need to be incarnational.” And that means we need to dress like them, speak like them, dance like them, have fun like them. We should be one of them, and in doing so lead them to Christ. They will not respond to someone who is different, standoffish, or too pious. They need someone who is one of them, like Christ became one of us. Then they can be led to God.

Sounds convincing. Very convincing. Especially the bit about being “incarnational.” After all, is that not the goal of the whole human life, the general vocation of all the faithful, to make Christ incarnate in one’s being? Yes, it is, but the manner in which this is done has done far more to hurt youth ministry than to help it. The reality is, young people do not want someone who dresses and talks like them. They want someone who is different, who stands apart, who is constant. They want someone who doesn’t blow with every light cultural breeze, but someone who speaks with the confidence of a Dominican preacher and acts with the decisiveness of a martyr. That is what young people want. They don’t care if you wear name brands or funny Jesus-T’s or ripped jeans. In fact, the people they respond to the most wear Roman collars and full habits. We do not need to come down. We need to be constant. That is the virtue of magnanimity. It is not pride, but rather confidence in the work of Christ in your soul. They do not want someone who is down with them, but rather they want someone who is up on the mountain, and who inspires them to climb to meet them. They want someone on Calvary. And even though they may shout at you “Come down to our level,” it is not because that will help them, but rather because they are afraid of the difficulty in doing the good. After all, was that not the challenge of the bystanders on Good Friday—“If you are God, come down…” We hear it again today, “If you are holy, come down…” Yet we must not come down, but instead call upon the young people to “Come higher, friend.” For Christ did not save the world in coming down from the cross. He saved it by inviting us to be crucified with him.