You saw it here first

Tonight, just for giggles, I googled the term “missional teen.” I couldn't find those two words next to each other on a Google, Yahoo, Windows, nor on a Blogger search.

You will find the term “missional youth” on a Google & Blogger search, and I found a few vision statements and a list of what missional youth was not, but I found nothing on “how to get there from here.” (Maybe I didn't look hard enough.)

If I remember correctly, I was introduced to the term “missional” in my ecclesiology class with Brian McLaren at George Fox Seminary. The book I read that especially articulated that term for me was Darrel Guder’s Missional Church.

Anyway, “missional” is a term that gets heavy rotation in the emergent world, and for a few months at least, I have been wondering what it might look like to have a missional youth group. And related to that, what would it look like to be a missional teen?

I haven’t figured this out yet, and if anyone has experience in taking youth from non- to missional, they haven‘t posted the step-by-step illustrations on it. Right now I have a lot of questions like, can you even have a missional teen? Considering where they are developmentally, is it even possible? I think you can, because teens can certainly be “missional” about volleyball scholarships, customizing their vehicles, or even adding to their handbag collection.

But assuming a teen can be missional about their Christian faith, what would that look like, say, in sophomore biology class, or in calculus, or on the football team? What would it look like on their My Space page? I’m not sure it looks like the kid in the Christian t-shirt who shows up every year for “See You At the Pole,” but I don’t think it excludes that kid, either.

And then, what does it take to create a missional teen? What kind of rocket fuel do you need to empower a kid to escape the pervasive gravitational pull of our self-centered, consumeristic, even toxic pop culture? Can you provide that fuel if you can’t immerse the kid in a consciously missional community? (Perhaps your youth group is part of a congregation without a missional identity.) Can you provide that fuel in one contact hour a week (which isn‘t fully devoted to “teaching,”) and if not, what kind of contact hours does it take?

Why would a kid want to be missional, anyway? What would be the catalyst for that desire? How do you get the parents/session (church board)/rank-and-file membership on board?

Would you want to have a heavy emphasis on healthy relationship skills? You can’t really be missional while being a jerk. What else would you have to emphasize? Assuming you have a limited time per week, what do you cut out of your youth program?

I’d love to hear from someone who has moved in the missional direction with their youth group, and what that has looked like, and what steps were involved.