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Brendon McRae: Passion in our youth ministries

Hi, my name is Brendon and I am a funaholic. I provide fun for everyone, young people, youth groups, schools, leaders meetings, and church staff. It all happened so subtly. I had a passion for young people. I discovered quickly that the best way to reach young people was to entertain and provide fun for them.

Fun is easy - there are plenty of books, web sites and props to tell you how - so it was easy to gain momentum and I developed creditability fast. Banana Bash, Captains Coming, Skate comps, big prizes, big budgets, the latest technology. I even brought a beanie to look the part. I drew large crowds. Schools invited me to come on camps to do the fun stuff, ministers smiled as numbers increased, the community was impressed with the lack of kids on the street.

But after a while I soon discovered I couldn't manage large crowds, I was forgetting kid’s names and I was running out of ideas. I was feeding kids addiction to fun, they wanted more - more games, different games, better games and they got sick of Bananas. I couldn't satisfy their addictive hunger for fun, I was getting tired... and I wanted to stop.

There will always be kids lining up to have fun. But what are the side effects of an entertainment-based youth ministry? I look back at the fun-based programmes I have coordinated and I fear that I have failed young people, I have seen few young people become Christians, and few grow in Jesus – although I have grown many exhausted leaders. I lived in fear of kids saying this is boring, I worried about losing touch with the latest technology, I panicked when numbers start to drop…

I got to the point where I couldn’t get past the fact that my youth ministry needed Jesus, young people need Jesus, I need Jesus…

I think we need a youth ministry in New Zealand that thinks smarter. We get caught within the addiction of pleasing, but I reckon we’d do better to create a ministry that honestly presents the Passion of Christ, the claims of Jesus. We don't need more fun; the young people will tell you that, we need more youth workers who are passionate about young people and their need for meaning, challenge, friendships, community and belonging. Fun may assist that, but it shouldn’t drive us.

I used to think passion was best understood by observing the outward expression of ones giftings, or charisma, the colourful clothes one wore, the great clichés or the ability to captivate a group of young people with wise and persuasive words. Passion was reflected in the successful cutting edge youth programmes. I tried all that - unsuccessfully - and soon discovered that passion went a little deeper than that.

Passion for me is something on the inside, mysterious and hard to articulate. It’s like I look into the mess of own life and youth ministry and see glimpses of hope. I am discovering that in brutal honesty, vulnerability and in weakness there is in fact strength and passion for life. Passion embraces failure, it struggles with the tough questions, it embraces pain. Passion embraces the many tears you spill, the misunderstandings, the disrespect and your inadequacies. Passion says, I would rather this cup be taken from me, but not my will, Your will be done.

Passion is being willing to share your faith with young people, even if you fear that they won’t get it. Passion is being willing to walk through the school yard only to see a group of young people you wanted to connect with run in the opposite direction. Passion is going to your Trust, church leadership and sharing with them your vision, your passion for ministry, your doubts and fears only to be misunderstood.

Passion has perseverance. It comes with a cost. But it hangs in there anyway.