Recently I was asked to describe our high school to college transition strategy and practices. Since this is one of my life’s passions I thought I’d give it a shot. I hope you find it helpful and I’d love to hear your ideas and strategies.
Culture
What keeps me awake at night is the thought of our students walking away from Jesus and the church in life beyond our student ministry. I believe that our ministry has not been successful unless our students are continuing to pursue Jesus in college and beyond.
I think the mistake many youth workers make is jumping to practices that help students transition before stopping to consider the influence of church and student ministry cultures. What students feel and experience is more powerful than what we say from the stage, especially for those who are involved in our churches from a young age. Here are the culture pieces that I believe are crucial to healthy transition.
1. A Culture of Community
I tend to believe that students walk away from churches where they never actually belonged. Belonging is something that is felt and experienced not taught or preached. We begin placing kids in small groups as soon as they can walk around. We fight for a culture of community from the earliest days of involvement in our children’s ministry. This is crucially important because kids learn:
- Adults in my church care about me and my faith development
- My story is important and valuable.
- Faith is meant to be lived out in relationships.
Everything else that we do in our transition ministry is built around these values.
2. A Culture of Mentoring
For years in student ministry we’ve talked about the importance of small groups in student ministry. I believe that small groups are crucial but only when they are the right kind of small groups. You see, more than anything the students of this generation need mentors. On the whole, our culture no longer invests in the next generation. It exploits them.
We must become ministries and churches that pour into students. We must walk alongside them and demonstrate the way of Jesus. In our ministry, we pair a mentor with 5 or 6 students for 4 years. We use the model of small groups to achieve this. However, we are clear that the “win” is not small group discussions. The “win” is mentoring. Small groups are the spring board into a mentoring relationship. This long term mentoring relationship is key to our transition strategy.
3. A Culture of Honesty
Many students who walk away from faith in college were silently drifting long before they formally walked away. These students never spoke their doubts because they weren’t welcome to do so. Left in the dark these doubts became stronger and eventually overpowered their faith.
Our student ministries must become places where doubts are acknowledged, appreciated and talked about openly. Our student ministry cultures must communicate that doubts are normal. We need to stop providing quick and flimsy answers to deeply disorienting questions. Faith isn’t the absence of doubt. Rather, it is faith in the midst of doubt. Doubts pulled out into the light of community lose their power over us.
4. A Culture of Integration
Some youth workers may disagree with me but I believe that one of the biggest obstacles to students transitioning well is student leadership or ministry teams. Hold on. Let me explain.
Many students walk away from church as emerging adults because they never felt like they belonged to their church in the first place. They felt a fierce belonging to their youth group but after graduating high school they never connected with the larger church body. Leadership and ministry teams are often counterproductive because they foster intense attachment to the student ministry and not the church as a whole.
Our strategy is to encourage our students to serve within the larger church body rather than within our student ministry. We want them to become attached to Ada Bible Church, not LifeLine. We believe that the best place for a student to serve is in our children’s ministry. There they can use their talents to serve kids and perhaps more importantly, they serve alongside and develop stronger relationships with more adults from the church community. This way they can also continue to serve after graduating high school. Integration is the friend of transition.
Helping students pursue Jesus after leaving our student ministries begins with culture. It requires a culture of community, mentoring, honesty and integration. Tomorrow I’ll outline the specific strategies we employ to promote long-term faith development.
