However, no matter how much the paid leadership knows and believes these things, there are still many people in our congregations who aren’t there yet. It wasn’t six months ago that I was chastised by a parent (a faithful, regular participant in the life of our congregation) about adding more programming so that her child would be grounded in faith.

I think you’re right that the next question is how we put these things into practice ~ but we still have to keep saying these things, because as much as we’re on board, many in our congregations aren’t there yet.

My sense is that it would be more difficult to implement these changes in larger youth groups because numbers bolster the assumption that what they’re doing is working. I think it would be much easier to implement changes in smaller youth groups or maybe even smaller segments of larger groups as opposed to a complete overhaul of a large, “successful” program. I work with a single-digit youth group, and I believe that our church would support most anything I did if it would help us reach more teens.

One of the problems is that our youth ministry structures are such sacred cows that we’ve talked ourselves blue about how youth ministry needs to be different and then try to fit all of that into our old structures. It doesn’t work.