“David, I need some advice!” The call came on the first day of my 2008 research with the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI). After almost 20 years of experience in youth ministry practice and education, I came to study with FYI because I can’t shake this feeling that something is not right about how we teach and practice youth ministry. The evidence suggesting that 40-50% of our students leave Christianity after high school graduation heightens my concerns. So my wife and I loaded up our family, packed them into a Pasadena apartment and spent two months thinking deeply about youth ministry. Specifically, I was at Fuller to research intergenerational strategies for youth ministry (i.e., youth ministry practices designed to create opportunities for spiritual growth across generational lines).

cowritten by Brad Griffin

“You might have a lot of problems and distractions outside this room, but when you’re here, you are in a different world.”

How many of us say—or communicate without actually speaking—something like that to students about our youth ministries? Sometimes as youth workers we carry a false sense that we can create a youth ministry environment in which all of the stuff that happens “out there” doesn’t matter; instead, it’s “all about Jesus” in the youth room.