A 21st Century Youth Conference
Photo by David P. Young
I hope my previous post about the recent Presbyterian Youth Triennium didn’t come across as overly critical. It obviously was critical, but my criticism was really only about one aspect of the event. For the most part, I really enjoyed the experience. I’m glad I went and brought some of our youth. I will definitely plan on attending again in three years and I’m even working on plans to bring a group to Montreat next summer for a similar experience.
I should also say that I am incredibly impressed at the organization of this huge event. During the week, someone noted on Twitter that this is the largest Presbyterian gathering that exists. When I mentioned this to Linda Valentine, she noted that the entire Office of the General Assembly plus others were devoted to staging the General Assembly while only one staff person and an assistant were responsible for PYT. The rest was done on a volunteer basis. That is pretty remarkable. All of those people that contributed to this daunting task deserve the deepest gratitude of our church.
I will say, though, that I still have some persistent questions about this whole enterprise. So far, my experience with mass gatherings of Presbyterian youth have been two presbytery senior high retreats, a presbytery confirmation retreat, and this Triennium. Our presbytery retreats, which I have helped plan and lead, are essentially based on the same model as Triennium: worship/keynotes, small groups, organized recreation, and free time. At all of these events, including Triennium, I find that the small groups—along with unstructured time for meeting new people and relationship building—are the most successful parts of the experience. I’m just not sure that our youth (or many of our adults) have the attention span for one to two hour worships or keynote addresses each day, no matter how many energizers and upbeat songs you cram in there.
In a comment to my previous post on Triennium, my friend and colleague Teri noted that this is essentially a 1970s parachurch youth ministry model. In fact, following the analysis of Mark Oestreicher in his excellent book Youth Ministry 3.0, I would say that this model has more in common with strategies of the 1950s and 1960s (what Mark calls Youth Ministry 1.0). Like Teri, I tend to prefer running my own youth retreats, which are based more on small group discussion and minimal times for me (or someone else) to talk at them in sermon or keynote style. I just think youth respond better to this kind of discipleship.
So I wonder if it would be possible to run a smaller gathering like a presbytery retreat (100-150 participants) or a larger gathering like Triennium (5000 participants) based on a similar model? I’m not saying we need to completely do away with large gatherings for keynote addresses or worship. But could we trim those down a bit and focus instead on small group experiences? I realize, of course, that this takes a lot more work and requires a good deal of preparation and consistency across the small groups. An unprepared or ill-suited small group leader will ruin the entire experience. But I think that small groups done well are our most effective tools and will greatly increase the impact of the large gatherings and worship times.
Really good thoughts. I also believe small groups are enormously more successful than stadium worship events. Two things come to mind though. How do we minister to youth who connect with God more through music and drama? Would a sense of awe and solidarity be minimized without these mega gatherings?
the SG experience was superb, no doubt, and a great deal of life was springing up everywhere when participants were allowed to connect on their own. i think the huge spectacle of the two hour worship had an important role, though, too. The enormity of the worship gatherings are pastorally valuable, I think. Especially for kids whose faith experience isolates them from school peers or who come from small churches in rural settings. the sense of communion in the worship was valuable, even if it came through the media of energizers and feaux-grunge rock music
Our small group became a safe place to talk about difficult subjects. The youth talked about thinking there were too many energizers, and to much rock music. Each of them seemed to relate to a different preacher. Each one got something different out of the worship service. It does tell you something that they were waiting in line for over an hour to get in to worship to get good seats.
I can’t find in your post how much time was given to small groups at this year’s event.
Yes, some seem to think one must go “x” long for such a worship time to “count” and sometimes it is as simple a reason as those who are leading the worship (sometimes the musicians) are never in front of such a large group so they are pumped up and want to “make the most of it”. It is a great experience for many youth who are from smallish churches and never go to such events to find themselves in this huge crowd of peers singing praise to God.
Many orthodox evangelicals (like myself)—not all but many of us—-no longer even consider sending the youth from the church where we serve to the Triennium or most other youth events sponsored by our denomination (as some others in the previous post mentioned) as we have had youth being taught things contrary to orthodox faith—and sometimes things contrary to our own denomination’s stance. As long as we do not have a bare bones statement of basic beliefs that leaders of such events must affirm, this will remain so. It may well be some of the orthodox evangelical churches in Chicago presbytery (where you are) do not send their youth to presbytery sponsored youth events for that very reason.
John, I am basically right there with you on all of this. Except that I know I have a higher Christology that you do. Which is fine. I think God’s loves us both and I’m glad to be in a denomination where its OK for there to be some variety. (Also, on a lighter note, that picture in the last post, those are MY KIDS!!! holding up the “That’s what Jesus said” sign. I think they thought it was ironic!)
So here’s my two cents:
First, the sheer size of the worship gatherings was worth something, I think. It helps us know that we are not alone, even we don’t agree with everybody in the room. And maybe that’s the most valuable part of the experience, that we don’t agree with everyone in the room. My church polity professor at the very Reformed but not Presbyterian seminary where I went used to say: “The church, like an airplane, needs both its left and right wings to fly.”
Second, I worry most of all that we can’t replicate the sort of bass-thumping, 500o person excitement in those worship services. What does that mean when you go home? So we have to find other ways that youth meet God. At the risk of getting roped into doing more at Presbytery retreats, I agree that we need to do a better job of trying to teach spiritual practices than making people sit through long lectures and worship. I don’t have the attention span for that, either. (Although, interesting side note: in my small group, the youth said that one thing they were taking away from triennium was a desire to go to church more often when they got home. I challenged them, pointing that I was pretty sure their churches didn’t do worship like we were doing it that week. It seemed that the style of worship wasn’t the point…it was connecting with God’s people and worshipping with them. As if to prove this point, almost everyone of my youth group who went to triennium, none of whom were in my small group, showed up at worship on Sunday morning. And did energizers in the back before worship began…)
Finally, I’m annoyed with some of the critical comments that were leveled against you because there ARE conservative, thoughtful, and THOROUGHLY Reformed folks who really do agree with the majority of what you are saying. My John Calvin bobble head is knodding “yes!” as I write this. To set up what you are saying as a particularly liberal statement and then dismiss it because of that is simple theologically lazy.
Thank you for saying this…it helps me clarify much of what I’ve been thinking as well. I probably sit more in the middle of the airplane, but I’m more than thrilled that you are balancing us out on the left wing!
@Erica: Thanks. I love the airplane metaphor. I totally agree that we need all perspectives in the church in order to be healthy and productive.