The world of youth ministry is flattening.

By flattening I mean that youth ministry is leveling out.* I’m not speaking about ways that for-profit and non-profit organizations may be changing, whether they’re old or new.

Nor am I merely suggesting that youth ministry is leveling out in a competitive way, as if somehow certain churches or organizations have the upper hand and therefore drive the direction that youth ministry moves (although I think that may be the case sometimes). I believe that the greater truth of the status of youth ministry has more often been about Kingdom impact than the construction of personal or commercial empires.

So I presuppose, I guess, that when I refer to youth ministry, I’m referring to the organizations, companies, churches, and ministries designed to help adolescents find and follow Jesus. And it’s in that sense that I suggest that youth ministry is flattening in a collaborative way, among several others.

I find in my travels, conversations, and my own intuition, that the “inner circle” of youth ministry experts is enlarging—and therefore the influential voices of youth ministry are growing in number, too. And at the same time, the factors of rank, authority, aptitude, and opinion are leveling out. These empowering characteristics are creating a more collaborative environment and mutual spirit.

And I like it.

Youth workers are seeking to minister together at greater levels of commitment and deeper levels of shared experiences of mission. This is causing not only a flattening out of youth ministry, but also an expansion—adopting a greater and broader capacity and range for the task of transforming lives.

For instance, the experimentation and implementation of technologies is enabling youth workers to learn, work, and develop together in new and more helpful ways. Couple that with a growing understanding and acceptance of new kinds of ministry perspectives emerging largely from the changing disposition of ecclesiology as a whole, and you have youth workers enthusiastically and inspiringly coming together to further flatten and expand the world of youth ministry.

There are several noticeable outcomes of this suggested flattening. (The next few articles dedicated to this column will describe such outcomes.) As it relates to this particular article, however, no one outcome is more noticeable than the efforts local church and parachurch youth workers are making to reach out beyond the foundational, key dynamics of healthy, church-based youth ministry and into other fields of study and activity.

I’m discovering that a growing number of youth workers not only are collaborating with each other within their own fields, but also they’re collaborating with other professionals who’re working with adolescents—i.e., teachers, coaches, sociologists, designers, advertisers, ecologists, psychologists, doctors, etc.

It seems to me that church-based youth workers in past years (at least during the past 13 years that I’ve been involved in church-based youth ministry) were afraid to seek help outside of the margins of church-based youth ministry. Maybe that’s because prevailing perspectives dictated that ideas beyond the realm of the church aren’t useful—or worse yet, aren’t safe. But as I see it today, youth workers are realizing that adolescent experts come from all over—not only from the church.

This flattening characteristic can only help us! We absolutely need the advice and knowledge of experts inside and outside the walls of the church. And the idea that youth ministry is flattening only makes it more acceptable to seek answers for our questions in other areas and from more people who care about kids.

Some of my friends who’ve been involved in youth ministry twice as long as I have are saying that back in the day the term “youth work” was an umbrella term that covered varieties of “work” with adolescents—e.g., church-based youth ministry, social work, community-based recreational activities, summer camping methods and paradigms, extracurricular activities, etc. I wonder if, as the youth ministry world continues to flatten, the church will adopt the phrase “youth work” for what it does? Perhaps this newfound commitment to collaboration among youth workers inside and outside the church will open up our collective mental capacity to digest all the good that various adolescent-based vocations can generate.

Perhaps, as the world of youth ministry continues to flatten, the church might even lead the way in the efforts to connect and engage with a multiplicity of disciplines—collaborating with them to help God restore this world to a greater extent.

I like that youth ministry is flattening. I like that there are new voices of significance emerging in unexpected areas providing thoughtful ideas that move us toward a greater potential for impact.

I like that collaboration is bringing together people from many walks of life and adolescent-based vocations for the greater good of youth.

I like that local church- and parachurch-based youth workers have dropped from their mindsets the idea that we’re the only experts when it comes to youth work.

And most of all I like the idea that the church might really lead the way in gathering people together for the sole purpose of revealing the Kingdom of God—and in the process join divergent segments in the activity of God’s mission.

*Friedman, Thomas. The World Is Flat. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York, 2005