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rejecting "youth group" : those who have chime in
- This topic has 22 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 9 months ago by
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I’m not writing to debate the youth group as a concept. I made my decision a long time ago and my children have always been with me; not a part of the various age-segregated classes, but still participating with their peers and within the greater congregation. For example, they (my dd and ds) didn’t participate in the “pre-teen” classes, but did go on outings, participate in charitable drives, and other social excursions.
My post is to seek assistance in the wording of my email to the youth group leader, whom I respect, to inform her that my son will not be a part of the youth group. However, that doesn’t mean he’s not a ‘youth’ or a member of our congregation as whole. I also want to leave open that when they have activities outside of religious training (i.e.social) or do charitable good works for the rest of the congregation and/or community, that I would like for him to have the option of being included a la carte, even though he doesn’t do the other stuff. Though, frankly, I don’t know if that will be allowed if it’s “youth-sponsored” event.
Does that make sense?
So, of those who have had this conversation with a “youth leader” already with their young adults, I would appreciate some advice on wording. It’s possible I may be questioned personally on this, but I don’t know. We’ve been there 15 years, so you’d think they’d know by now. However, it’s so “expected” that a young person do this that it’s a little daunting to be the only ones to ‘buck the system’ in this big area.
BTW, before anyone asks, my husband cannot handle this, I am essentially a single mom in many ways due to his mental illness. He supports me, but he can’t take charge of this uncomfortable conversation. It’s hard to be a salmon up stream -culturally and intellectually- when you generally don’t care for confrontation or being disagreeable. My husband handled those things before, but now he cannot.
My son doesn’t want to be a part of the mid-week gatherings, either.
Thanks for any experienced advice you can give.
I think it’s fair enough to say to the leader that you have found that family integrated worship is best for your children and family, so they’ll be remaining with you during church service, etc. And while we like having family integrated worship, you would love it if they can be involved in extracurricular youth activities such as xyz and so when those come up, you’d appreciate him contacting you so you can put it on your calendar.
Honestly, you don’t owe anyone an explanation as to why you’re doing something (obviously as long as it’s not harmful, of course). They are your children and you are raising them how you deem fit. It’s between you, your husband, and God.
I feel exactly the same way. My kids are young still, but I am not a fan of youth groups after being a youth leader when I was younger. I’m interested in what others say.
Why do you have to send an email? I only ask because, in my experience, it would better dealt with in person, casually and low-key, with a big smile on your face. 🙂 Our 17yo hasn’t done much with our youth. He hasn’t attended youth Sunday school since he was 12. He’s been with us, and we’ve enjoyed it. We’ve always been open about it, but never really had to have a confrontation at all.
I’d just smile and say that you prefer to worship and serve as a family, and that you’d love to know about events that your family could do together. All with a smile. Lol. 🙂
We’ve handled children’s church and youth group as Mrs. B suggests above. We simply tell people that we choose to worship together as a family and they smile (in a very forced manner) and walk away. 🙂
I did end up allowing my son attend youth group when he was a senior in high school because he was so desperate to meet other kids. It was a huge mistake. Nothing horrible happened but no good came out of it either. I won’t make that mistake with my daughter!
Thanks everybody. It’s always comforting to know you’re not alone. I don’t plan on going into the ‘why’s’ of our decision, but I do want to be clear.
Mrs.B-I received the “Freshman Orientation” flyer in the mail on Monday, directed to my son, of the meeting. I haven’t seen her(the youth director) since receiving it and won’t see her till after the orientation meeting, so email is best for me. I could call her, but to be honest, I word things better in the written form than the spoken. Just trying to strike the right balance.
Amazingly, no one in leadership has asked me in all these years-they’ve questioned my children (which has annoyed me – they told them I disapproved of the curriculum, which I did but that’s wasn’t the whole story), but I have only been asked by a couple of friends in the congregation.
I don’t know the dynamics of your church but I wouldn’t think one would need to respond or offer any sort of explanation. But on the other hand, I think it is not bad to give one if you feel up to doing so. For us it is about having our kids be part of worship. IMO they are God’s people too and the command is just as much for them to worship on the Sabbath as anyone else. Interacting with and learning from people of all ages is an added bonus.
Regardless of why you’ve made the decision you have, it seems to me that church leadership should not be questioning the authority of you as parents to decide what’s best for your family. They should not be questioning your kids outside of your hearing about something on which you’ve clearly already made a decision. I’m curious whether your pastor knows that your youth leader is doing this, and whether the pastor supports your decision. If so, perhaps it’s time for the pastor to talk with the youth leader. If the pastor himself doesn’t support your decision, that says something important about the church.
I agree. They should’ve wise enough to not question children. But our oldest has had youth pastors question him. At his age, I allow him to speak for himself, but with younger kids, I give them a pat answer, like “My parents like it this way.” I don’t want my middle schoolers or below engaging or becoming prideful by speaking in judgement about something like this. Older kids, I want them to be able to articulate our beliefs and adopt them, so we do lots of role playing and discussing. I do lots of discussing with middles too, but in a way that will not lead to pride or judgement, does that make sense? I don’t want them answering a question with,”Youth group is evil!!” Or something like that.
Ahh, I am finding this topic so interesting! I grew up sitting in church with my parents. Our church, like many, offer for children to be in their own program during service. For my own selfish desires, I enjoy the infants through PreK being out of service mostly and learning and worshipping with their peers. I feel like both my kids learned more basic biblical truths in those classes then I did sitting in a service at that age. However, I struggle with my now 8 year old in the K-6 class. I volunteer in her room to stay in tune with the lessons, and their worship time. She is definitely learning but I struggle with she could learn more in our service. This is where my question comes in for you…how do you encourage your child to want to sit with you? I know I can pull the parent card of her not having a choice. But she wants to be back in her class…how would you approach the topic of encouraging her to sit with us? Just curious of ideas. My husband is new in his faith and doesn’t see the difference of her NOt sitting in service spiritually. Thoughts?
As for approaching leadership, I think MelissaB answered wonderfully.
This is an interesting thread. I respect Rachel’s decision, as well as her choice to not go into her reasons for opting out of Youth Group, as well as not turning this into a debate, which I am sure it good under the right circumstances.
I would not feel that any formal response to the invite was needed, but I think you are trying to make sure that they don’t interpret a lack of interest in regular participation means that you don’t what your teen(s) to be excluded from all youth related activities.
Unless your church insists on some kind of yearly commitment from their youth (like enrolling in scouts or dance lessons, etc) I hardly think that your request should cause much issue. Most youth groups have a pretty open policy allowing kids to participate when they wish or when it is convenient. I simple, “thanks for the invite, Joe won’t be participating on a regular basis, but we’d really like for him to have opportunity to participate in x, y and z.” should suffice. The one thing about face-to-face is that you get an immediate response, where it can sometimes take a few days to respond to an email, or it could be accidentally overlooked.
From the sounds of it many of you have children and youth ministries happening during your service time. At our church children are with their families for worship and are dismissed right before the message, giving children birth to grade 8 about one hour of teaching at their own level. My younger son gets very little out of the adult’s message, and I get less out of it when he is sitting next to me fidgeting (every member of our family has some level of ADD, including me). Allowing him to participate in his Sunday morning Small Group during that final hour of our service provides us both with age appropriate spiritual nourishment, and it also provides an opportunity for other adults to speak truth into his life.
I am interested in the topic because I am skeptical about the value of our traditional Friday Night Youth Group for my son. He certainly enjoys the social aspect, and for our homeschoolers (about a 1/3 of our youth this year) it’s often their only social event all week. This past year it has really lacked leadership, as well as a focus on anything beyond fun and foolishness, and something needs to change.
I also wanted to point out that sending a invitation to join the youth shouldn’t automatically be seen as an attempt to pressure you or a judgment on your parenting. Most likely every freshman teen got the same invite. I often find myself becoming defensive about things, reading motives into the actions of others that are not there.
I can’t image that your son would be excluded from participating in only the events that you mentioned. I am not sure how your church is structured, but our youth group is a pretty much a participate in the things that you wish and leave the rest. For some, this means they only participate in the Friday Night Youth Group which is open to all the kids in the community, for others they may participate only in the Small Group Studies which are for kids who are serious about growing in their faith. Mission/service projects will occasionally be limited to the Small Group Youth if it is a question of space or security, but local events/project are generally open to anyone who wishes to participate.
Our church keeps the children and youth with their families during worship. Birth to 8th grade are dismissed for the message (about the last hour of our service), for which I am personally grateful. It is difficult enough for this ADD mom to focus on the message when my boys are fidgeting in the seat next to me. Instead they go to their own small group where they receive age appropriate instruction and the opportunity to engage with an additional adult role model.
Participating in these small groups on Sunday mornings is a blessing to me, but Youth — or at least Friday Night youth Group, is different. About a third of the children & youth in our rural church are homeschooled and that means that Friday Nights are often their only opportunity to socialize. But this past year the Friday Night Group has experienced a leadership issue — the volunteer leader lacked experience and maturity which has been a big disappointment to us parents. We know that our Pastors are making efforts to address this for the coming year, but it still leaves me with a few major concerns as to the value of Youth Group in general.
I hope it goes well however you handle it. We just had to leave a church because it was announced that morning worship was for adults to hear the word without distraction and even quiet babies are a distraction.
I thought that our quietly sitting together as a family wasn’t a problem, but apparently it was (we didn’t even keep the 2 year old with us because she really can’t be still and quiet like all the others.)
I don’t know why churches get so upset over these things. It really disturbs me and I hope that your church is more respectful of your family jurisdiction than ours was.
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