So goes this provocative posting by David Fitch. Fitch does admit that he is stirring the pot by being provocative but hey, Jesus too was known to use hyperbole from time to time.

A brief summary of the three points he makes:

1) YOUTH GROUPS FOSTER PEER ORIENTATION

Youth groups segregate the youth from the adults creating programing geared towards them as a separate culture. This creates a gap between the youth and the adults culturally. This then leads the youth to look to their peers for orientation into life. This I contend works against the discipleship of youth into Christ. I contend this peer orientation is disastrous for the lives of our children.

2) YOUTH GROUPS UNDERCUT WHOLISTIC COMMUNITY from which a child can learn faith in Christ as a way of life/relationship, not just information slickly delivered... children learn about the living God by being in living relationships within a community where God is present. Once Jesus becomes infotainment, once it becomes a program, detached from real relationships, it loses its reality. It takes on the character of a learning experience in competition with other learning experiences.

3) YOUTH GROUPS TOO OFTEN TRY TO ATTRACT YOUTH PLAYING TO THEIR WORST INTERESTS.

It’s a mistake to try to “attract” youth to discipleship with either social occasions that play on their sexual insecurities or music entertainment that plays on their desire to be “cool.” There will be times I am sure to attend the occasional rock concert or have the occasional social time together. But what the church should do for its youth most of all is foster spaces for meeting God where they can be trained to listen for God and commune with Him in silence, in prayer.

Fitch concludes the post with this:

In closing, I believe the youth ministry of a church is vitally important. But we must discern carefully what we are doing. Whether we have three youth or fifty, we need youth leaders to do things to foster authentic adult relationships with the youth. Let us make the community aware that we ARE A COMMUNITY and we have to treat our youth as among us and indeed take responsibility to love them, pray for them, watch over them, initiate them and model Christ before them and with them. Let us foster safe spaces for them to ask all their questions and learn how to listen for God in their lives. Let us do mission trips and bring them with us in all the ways we participate in Christ’s Mission in the world.

If you can, take time to read the whole post. There is some good back and forth in the comments, so make sure to read those too.

As our kids get older, we'll have to start talking about how to deal with this kind of stuff. Personally, I think that there is room for youth groups, as I can point to many positives from the one that I was involved with. Looking back, there was a lot of parental and adult involvement, which undoubtedly helped shape the experience in a positive way. And I would also say that my parents helped foster a parent-orientation for me (vs. a peer orientation). However, I can certainly hear the critiques that Fitch mentions. In particular, the stuff about peer orientation is very relevant and should not be taken lightly (Fitch mentions that he gets this from Gordon Neufeld's book "Hold on to Your Kids"). Good stuff to think about.