This month, Senior Connector Barrie Voyce, is thinking about bridging the gap between Children and Youth Ministry.
As someone who has worked with children and youth for most of my adult life, it doesn’t seem at all weird for me to operate in academic years. It’s only when I’m around people from other industries, and particularly those without children, that the oddness of this becomes apparent. They query when I start thinking about new starts in September, “exam season” or other such anomalies.
Of course, allowing our ministry (and life) to follow the natural ebb and flow of school life is incredibly important – it helps us be culturally relevant and understand the way in which so many children, youth and families structure themselves. But I do reflect often that it really doesn’t have to be this way. The academic year is pretty arbitrary – obviously Christmas and Easter dictate some things, although in many counties, the shifting date of Easter has become less influential on the positioning of the end of term break – a man-made construct suited to farming and agriculture and therefore much less relevant in the modern world.
Should we, then, be tied so fully to the shape of academia? In some ways it is sensible and practical: there is little point in arranging something during the school holidays if everyone is going to be away, or planning something intensive with year 11s during exam season. However there are ways in which breaking away might be worthwhile.
One of the most significant is around the transition point from primary to secondary school. Traditionally the church has followed suit, in seeing children’s ministry as up to the end of Year 6, and youth ministry starting in Year 7. Whilst this makes logical sense, it does proliferate the “chasm” that we see developing between the two ministries, as transition from one to the other gets caught up within so many other changes happening in the child’s (and family’s) life.
The summer between year 6 and year 7 is a season where pretty much everything changes. The often nurturing, family-like experience of primary school gets ripped off like a band-aid. These children have known nothing other than the culture of their school, and then suddenly they are thrust into a whole new world and culture. The changes are multiple, and will include how they get to school, what they wear, who their friends are, moving from classroom to classroom, a whole army of teachers to get to know, new rules, new discipline structures, homework, new subjects, different lunch options, after-school activities, and on and on.
Is it wise, then, for us to include “moving from children’s group to youth group” into that mix? Yet another anxiety fuelling, disorientating, stress-inducing change? Do we have to follow the academic cycle here?
I think we can act smart. What if, rather than being another change, we as church can offer one beacon of consistency in a world that is morphing around them? By shifting our transition point earlier, we can build on the great work we’re often doing with primary-aged children and launch them into our youth ministry before they move school. This does a number of things
- it makes the rite of passage separate from everything else
- it builds relationships between established youth and newbies who can support them as familiar friends when they move school
- they become established in the youth ministry before they scatter across various schools and other things change therefore are more likely to stick around
- it gives them experience of transition in a safe space to explore how they cope with change before the bigger changes come
- it helps the youth ministry team build relationships, and youth ministers can become one of the few consistent people during the time of change.
Some youth ministers have a practice of moving up at the start of year 6, whilst others open up their youth groups to year 6s mid-year (January or after Easter) to act as a ramp. If this is combined with intentional transition work within a school setting, this can create a really strong year of investment in year 6s which is a great building block for the future of youth ministry, whilst honouring the work of the children’s ministry.
Check out our Connect Resource – TRANSITION PRAYER BAG
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