Style vs Substance: a youthwork showdown

“Don’t bother with the style – just get on with the substance.”

“Stop trying to make it relevant, and just preach the Bible.”

“If you’re teaching the Gospel, the ascetics won’t matter.”

“If you’re showing authentic love, then style won’t be a factor.”

Heard phrases like this before? Me too! In fact I’ve been slammed in meetings before now for trying to make my youth groups fun and relevant to the detriment of (at least in the meeting’s view) depth and authenticity.

Since posting “youth work is 10 years out of date” I’ve had several comments that effectively said the things above. I could reduce these down to folk only reading the first half or even just the title of a post, however there still is a genuine concern behind them.

It sounds right too doesn’t it? ‘Just be authentic and Gospel-centered and you won’t need to worry about style.’ It sounds right, and wise, and Godly. It sounds like a driven passion for young people and truth. It’s a shame through, that it’s load of crap.

You see when it comes to relevancy and style you’ve only got two options: 1. Think about it and 2. Don’t think about it.

  1. Think about it
    Think about it properly, lay it before God and make ‘take-it-captive-for-Christ’ decisions. Talk to Godly people and decide how to carefully implement a style and how to enforce the right boundaries within it.
  2. Don’t think about it
    Neglect the discussion. Neglect to respect the world that young people live in. Don’t talk to God or Godly people. Crack on with content and simply see what style develops on its own – because it will!

Active vs Passive Style Development
There is no ‘style-free’ option. You always, always make style decisions, either actively with God and Godly people, or passively through negligence.

Think about it. How you present any content in your youth group is a style decision. Do you give talks, have small group studies? Who leads and how? Where do you meet and when? How do you advertise? How do you make first contact with young people? What books do you buy them? How do you choose themes and teaching material? Do you have music, food, games? What kind of chairs do they sit on? What rules do you have? What do you let them wear? What do you wear?

Everything you do in your youth group creates some kind of style rightly or wrongly. You simply cannot have a ‘don’t bother with style’ approach – that will always end up with negligence and a style developing passively.

This means either the young people themselves will dictate the style, or you will unknowingly dictate it for them. The former usually results in polarised spirituality; a group that’s Christian in situ but with no clue how to act it out in real life. The later often creates a group that you fight with and that only takes in a minuscule amount of substance and content anyway.

This high-minded approach is one of the reasons youth groups either die out or get overrun. Enforcing our style over theirs is irrelevant and letting theirs overtake the group is anarchy.

Why Is This Neglect?
You have a responsibility to give these young people the best respect, care, love, teaching and mentoring possible. This often means meeting them where they are at, rather than waiting for them to catch up.

If you don’t approach style like this actively you will:

– Neglect the young people’s world that they have to deal with and live in – so your content will prove irrelevant.
– Neglect the places and times un-churched young people connect – so you will be missionally ineffective.
– Neglect the real differences between you and them – so you will be leader-centric.
– Neglect the desperate needs they have that are missing in their world – so will program driven rather than community driven.
– Neglect Godly decisions needed to keep them feeling safe and secure – so will be just another stress in their lives.

Style Is Important!
Style Is Important. Find me one place in the Bible where teaching happened out of context of people? We are called to create a space where young people have the absolute best chance of hearing the Gospel, experiencing God’s love, and learning how to take those things applicably into real life! We also have a responsibility to lead them in 1 Cor. 12 Body-Of-Christ style community. Creating these spaces require intentional style conversations and discussions!

Some Rules Of Thumb
When you start asking what style you should create to make your teaching and community welcoming and relevant there are a few rules of thumb to consider:

  1. Gospel Should Drive Style
    Rather than Gospel instead of style – Gospel should dictate style. You should not create a space that contradicts the Gospel or limits its reach. Allowing a relevant style doesn’t mean you can let just anything from the world infiltrate your group.
  2. Authenticity Should Drive Style
    Too much style in youth work is copied from / or set to compete with secular consumer culture. Your style should be driven by a sense of reality, human depth, community substance, participation and timeless reality.
  3. Personality Should Drive Style
    Many youth groups cater to one personality type or people group. Often small group driven projects cater to the introvert and middle class – often concert driven projects cater to the extrovert and working class. Who are the young people you know and does your space allow for varied personality types and backgrounds?
  4. Purpose Should Drive Style
    What and who is your group or project for? If you’re aiming at first contact then you simply cannot impose a totally full-on Christian-driven morality on their space. Style should create a context where your aims and content are going to be most effective.
  5. Context Should Drive Style
    You could meet in an Inner-City School, or a rural chapel. The young people could be primarily churched, un-churched, working or middle class. Think hard about where you are and who you pool from and bring that into the conversation.
  6. Relevancy Should Drive Style
    This was the heart behind my ‘youthwork is 10 years out of date’ post. We should seek to create a style which is relevant and applicable to them today so that our teaching can be more clearly received.
  7. Resources Should Drive Style
    If you don’t have lighting rigs, rock bands, a massive hall and dozens of able leaders then the modern music concert approach probably isn’t for you! Try to match what you want to create realistically with what God has given you to work with as good stewards.
  8. Young People Should Drive Style
    Have young people themselves give ideas on, feed into and participate in the creation and implementation of your style. They frankly get it better than we do anyway.
  9. Applicable Content Should Drive Style
    When you have thought carefully about style you are able to craft the delivery method for your content that will be most heard, understood and applied for your group. ‘We have a two hour Bible Study’ is not impressive if the young people switch off after the first five minutes. I’d rather have a five minute talk where the group took in every word and tried to apply it to their lives than a one hour completely ignored Bible study any day!

Summary
Please don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater by poo pooing style! It’s Godly, respectful and loving to consider the best ways to interact with and present truth to young people. Style will always be there, the big question is are you with God’s help going to be in control of it – or will it be in control of you.

Frankly sometimes a bit of style is just what’s needed to make the content go in!

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