Hugh Halter

Hi, ?I just wanted to email you because I started reading The Tangible Kingdom this summer as part of my internship in Youth Ministry. I’ve had an incredible Spiritual journey this summer; moving into God’s Kingdom. I’ve been rethinking ministry recently, and I love what I’ve been reading in The Tangible Kingdom. One of the things I’m trying to figure out though (as I am currently studying youth ministry) is the whole concept of how youth ministry fits the larger picture rather than being a separate entity within the church. I don’t know if that makes much sense. ?So I’m wondering how you minister to the 6th through 12th grade crowd at Adullam. Do you have many teens? The book doesn’t really address age specific ministry (although I am confident that the same concepts are essential for any youth ministry). Do you think there’s even a need to have age specific ministry? Any thoughts would be much appreciated

Hi Amanda, probably the most important adjustment to youth ministry would be to move from program/presentation- based to a more mentor-based community structure where the kids also learn to integrate the three circles in the back of the book. (Community/Communion/Mission) We’ve actually seen a mega-church turn their ministry toward this. At Adullam, we provide a normal children’s church structure up to 5th grade, but we prefer to call our Junior High and High School students toward more integration with our larger community. My two teen-age girls have grown up the last four years feeling very much a part of our adult community and they also have some mid-twenty something gals that personally mentor them. They are deeply connected relationally to our incarnational community structure and seem to enjoy it. Both of them have said, they’d never want to be a part of a youth group. (I swear I didn’t prompt that attitude!)

I’m a youth for christ guy and I do find that many youth para-church ministries operate pretty close to this incarnational structure. They just don’t call it church. Overall, I do think church youth groups tend to mirror the presentation, program based ministry that their parents endure, and most youth groups won’t be able to change until the adult community changes. If you provide consumer-oriented adult ministry, the parents will assume that they should look for the same ministry to their kids. If we train parents to get on mission, I find the kids happily follow.

Hope that helps.
What city are you in??
hugh