Greetings from Pastor Khader:
In Bethlehem, Palestine, where I grew up, my entire high school class would gather at the Arab Orthodox Club to watch soccer matches. Nearly every day after school, my friends and I spent hours volunteering for the local Lutheran scouts. Our social occasions and even our economy were defined by the holidays we celebrated. In other words, church was a central—perhaps the central—structure of our teenage lives.
Seeing that this is not the case for the youth around Grace Lutheran Church, I’ll admit feeling frustrated and sometimes confused. But I’ve also realized that we are far from the only church that struggles with youth ministry—it’s actually a formally noted fact today that all across the country, teens fall away from church after confirmation and on average don’t return until their mid-thirties (often when they have their own kids). Yet, while this has led many to call today’s teens a “lost” or “misguided” generation, I simply cannot accept this analysis.
Why not? Because after getting to know many amazing youth at Grace these past few years, I’ve realized that, rather than complain and condemn, we as church leaders need simply to invite our youth to be part of the conversation.
We need only to ask: Why? We need to ask: Why should teens want to stay involved in their church communities? And: What significant and unique purpose can we—churches and spiritual leaders—serve in the lives of our youth?
While I haven’t directly asked the youth these questions (yet), I’ve realized by listening to them that the spiritual needs of youth in New York are in many ways quite different from the needs of my former classmates in Bethlehem. In Bethlehem, we needed things to speed up the monotony of our lives. There, church gave us necessary structure and provided us positive authority by simply organizing fun activities like bowling, marching, and music. Here in New York, kids have the opposite problem—constantly rushing from AP classes to band practices to soccer games to school clubs to SAT tutoring sessions. They do not need more structure, nor do they need more activity. It seems to me (and youth should correct me if I’m wrong!) that what our youth need most is a space and a time to slow their lives down—a time for spiritual reflection and a place where they can explore their identities and value systems without distraction—time and space to integrate all the diverse components of their busy lives into a coherent whole of their own making.
So how can we create this space?
We are open to ideas—always. Last year, Lauren and the Confirmation youth did an amazing job leading Sunday school for the first communion kids. Kirsten started a youth choir from all those who attended. In September, my hope is that we can continue this choir and continue the wonderful Sunday school classes that were developed last year. Many ideas have been raised already, and my hope is that this approach will bring renewed vitality to our youth program at Grace Lutheran Church.