Are you longing to connect with youth in relevant and faithful ways? In this episode we speak with Jen Bradbury about fresh approaches to youth ministry and how to conduct youth mission trips with integrity and purpose.

Transcript

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Are you longing to connect with youth in relevant and faithful ways? In this episode we speak with Jen Bradbury about fresh approaches to youth ministry and how to conduct youth mission trips with integrity and purpose.

Ann Michel: I’m Ann Michel, Associate Director of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership of Wesley Theological Seminary and I’m pleased to be hosting this episode of Leading Ideas Talks. I’m talking today with Jen Bradbury, who I have come to know by reading her latest book, A Mission That Matters: How to Do Short-Term Mission Trips Without Long-Term Harm. Jen is a career youth worker in the Chicago area and she’s written widely on the subject of youth ministry. So, to kick things off, Jen, I wondered if you could say a bit more to introduce yourself to me and our listeners and tell us a bit about your ministry and your work.

Jen Bradbury: Absolutely, thanks for having me on the show today, Ann, I really appreciate that. So, like Ann said, my name is Jen Bradbury and I have been in youth ministry for the last 18 years at four different congregations in the Chicago suburbs. I kind of got into youth ministry accidentally. But I have absolutely loved it. It uses all of my gifts. I think it’s such an important ministry of the church. And because I think the youth are the leaders of now, not tomorrow, but now. And so pouring into and discipling and investing in them is super important and something that I think every church needs to focus on, whether or not you have a paid youth worker. So I have largely been in mainline congregations. So I’ve spent the bulk of my career in the ELCA at three of the four churches that I’ve served. And then was also, for five years, at a multi-site, multi-ethnic non-denominational congregation. So I’ve been around for a while in a variety of different settings.

Ann Michel: Yeah, I’m really happy to hear your enthusiasm for youth ministry because, I think as I look around the church, broadly, youth ministry really is a tremendous need and concern. There are so many churches that no longer have enough families or youth to sustain a viable youth group or, in a lot of churches where they still do have a youth group, their approach to youth ministry hasn’t changed very much from the way people were doing youth ministry many decades ago when I was in high school — they got the kids together in the church basement on Sunday afternoon or Sunday evening. And so, where do you see new hope and new possibilities for how churches can be in ministry with youth?

Jen Bradbury: Oh, what a great question, Ann! So I see a ton of hope and possibilities for youth ministry ranging from the idea that I don’t think youth ministries have to be big in order to be effective.  I think you need to have adults who care deeply about youth and who love God and want to follow Jesus and are willing to invest in teens in creative ways. And so, I don’t think that’s necessarily coming together in playing an hour of games and then talking about scripture for 15 minutes. I think it can be much more of a small group format where scripture and discipleship really is the center of what you’re doing. I