The Biggest Warning from Jesus that Youth Workers need to Remember
In my late teens, I attended a conference that was meant to equip youth in evangelism. They put on a big skit towards the end of their first night. The skit showed a Christian woman grieving over the loss of a non Christian friend. She comes home and finds a random tape in her house. She plays it, and the content is shocking.
The tape footage is portrayed like a found-footage horror film, and shows her deceased friend in hell, addressing her personally. He talks about how horrible it is down there, and shames her for not preaching the Gospel enough to him. He said that it didn’t matter if he rejected her beliefs, because if she really believed in hell and truly cared for his well being then she should’ve just kept pushing him to accept Jesus until he finally relented.
When he’s done giving his monologue, he’s taken away forever. And that’s how the first night of this conference ended. It was meant to give this heavy conviction that we as young Christians should do whatever it takes for our non Christian peers to know the Gospel. We shouldn’t shy away from our faith. If we really believe the Gospel, why aren’t we constantly preaching to them every moment so they don’t go to hell?
This skit certainly impacted many in the audience at the time. For many, including myself, it wasn’t a positive impact, and it would take years for me to really articulate how manipulative and cruel it felt. It’s one thing to challenge Christian teens to take their salvation and the Kingdom of God more seriously. It’s one thing to encourage youth groups to share their faith openly with their friends.
But this was another level of placing unfair burdens on teenagers, a majority of whom were probably insecure in their own eternal security (I was), and now being told that they’re responsible (to some extent) for the eternal security of their friends.
I can talk about the skit now with friends who were there and joke about how it was kind of messed up to present that to vulnerable teenagers, but stuff like this can be normalized in youth ministry, and that’s a problem.
What are we doing in Youth Ministry and why?
When youth ministry slowly formed in different circles around a century ago, there were two primary purposes: to evangelize to the next generation, and to equip the next generation in discipleship.
Those purposes remain today. Youth workers all around the world take time out of their schedules to meet teenagers where they are, come alongside their struggles, listen with empathy, patiently endure, and point to Jesus as their hope.
As discussed previously, we want our youth to know the Savior. Imitating Paul’s method of being all things to all people (1st Corinthians 9:19-23), we sometimes have to think creatively for different generations and cultures to understand the Gospel. Having conviction for your youth to taste and see that the Lord is good is a noble desire.
But the ends don’t always justify the means.
I’ve already discussed the issue of embarrassing games and high level entertainment being used in youth ministry to draw more teens. For this blog, we’ll focus more on the issue of using scare tactics in preaching.
Some evangelists (both youth and adult) will take drastic measures in their preaching. Some use theatrics, guilt tripping, or fear to get the results they want. The justification for these things can be simple: if we really believe hell is real, then we will do whatever it takes for someone to be saved.
That sounds like a reasonable argument, and at face value I would agree with it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to have the conviction that you want others to be saved and not perish. The main problem with this logic is that it can misunderstand what being saved is. The Gospel is ultimately not about avoiding hell and going to heaven. The Gospel is that Jesus is Lord, and has restored our communion with our Creator through the incarnation, cross, resurrection, and ascension. At the end of the day, true conversion is not only supernatural, but requires sincere faith from the one converting.
To put it simply, Jesus the King is the focus, and if we claim to be preaching the Gospel of King Jesus, then we need to do it on the King’s terms. So in our own discipleship, we should take very seriously the warnings our King has given us. This would also apply to how we evangelize and train others to evangelize.
In regards to the evangelism example, one might object they are doing exactly that. They’re taking hell seriously, so if they have to scare their youth a bit to understand the gravity of what’s at stake, then so be it. But parents, children’s ministers, and youth workers must remember one of the biggest warnings Jesus gives in His entire ministry:
“Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child—this one is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one child like this in my name welcomes me.
But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall away—it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea.”
The Lord cares deeply for His children, and recognizes how sensitive and fragile of a state they are in. For those who claim to follow God, there is a great responsibility for them to help children grow in faith and integrity. That faith and integrity is far more than making a decision at an altar call, praying a certain prayer, and refraining from doing certain bad things.
A parent or youth worker who teaches a child to know the Lord through manipulation, cruelty, or harshness does not follow the way of the Holy Spirit. Sadly, many young adults fall away from the faith because of the harsh upbringing or traumatic experiences they had at youth groups.
It’s not just the evangelism side of this, it’s also the lack of deep discipleship. Youth ministry that focuses so much on “eternal decision making” tend to give pretty superficial discipleship: read your Bible, go to church on Sunday, go to youth group, preach a 4-step Gospel model to your friends. These aren’t bad things, but the discipleship Jesus calls for in Matthew 28 is much deeper. It’s a discipleship that transforms a person and frankly takes a lot of time and investment.
To my fellow youth workers, we need to take this warning from Jesus seriously. There’s an appropriate time to preach hard truths, and we shouldn’t water down the warnings of future judgment Jesus gives. But faith, hope, and love is what must drive all things. Otherwise, not only will our efforts be in vain, but we may unintentionally lead youth away from Christ.
Our youth need to be safe when we minister to them, and not just physically. Challenging youth to think deeper and spiritually is good, and gently confronting sin in their lives is necessary in discipleship. But if our evangelism and disciple making causes emotional or mental harm, we’re doing it very wrong. Their safety and well being must come first. Once again, the ends don’t justify the means.
When we work in youth ministry, we must humbly check ourselves before the Lord, because He desires “integrity in the inner self”. (Psalm 51:6) If needed, we must take the plank out of our own eye before preaching against certain sins, approach our youth in a spirit of humility and gentleness, and love them as Christ loved us.
Who saves Who?
If we truly believe the Gospel, then we must recognize it is not our catch phrases, emotions, or speaking abilities that bring true conversion. It is the Holy Spirit who convicts and transforms. It can be very tempting to measure our success in youth ministry by attendance and conversions/baptisms, but this isn’t the measure the Lord uses. The Lord measures our work and accomplishments by our faithfulness to Him and to our youth.
The Prophets were everything a celebrity pastor isn’t: unpopular, disliked, often not taken seriously, and unappreciated. If we measured them by the measure we often give ourselves, then the Prophets were failures in ministry. But they weren’t failures because they were faithful to what God assigned them to do. May we also be faithful in loving, evangelizing, and teaching our youth, even if it takes time and doesn’t go the way we often want it to. But may we not let fear or manipulation guide us in our witness, and may the stress of “success” not take priority over their safety.