At one point during each of our Real World Parents seminars, I ask the question, “Are things better or worse at this point in our culture than they were 100 years ago?” It’s a trick question, because the answer is, in general, neither. Compared with any point in history, our culture is not better or worse, it’s just different. We have different challenges, possibilities, influences, and technologies, but, in general, we cannot say that our culture is better or worse than it ever has been. Of course, our preferences and our ideas of the ideal society play a large role in our perception of culture.
It seems like every time I talk with the older members of our church about what we do in our student ministry I hear the words, “Things are just more difficult/different/harder than when I was a kid.” This seems to me to be an odd statement, because I grew up in the an era of rapid change in youth culture, and the rate of change increases by the day. Of course things are different today. But for those who were born in the United States during the first half of the 20th century, however, it’s not so strange. We were a primarily agricultural society in the early 1900s, the average family size was larger, communication slower, cities smaller, and, with the exception of the 1920s, our culture was less materialistic than it is today. All of these together made for a less volatile culture, though every generation experiences upheavals of new wars, new technologies, and political strife.
Family life was also more stable than it is today. Children were perceived as assets rather than a drain on the budget. Television and other media were not the distraction they are today, and family meals were the norm rather than the exception. Walt Mueller, the foremost scholar of Youth Culture in the church, gives a list of six of the primary changes that affect our families today:
- The increase and acceptance of divorce
- The rise of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock births
- The crisis of the fatherless
- The increasing number of mothers who work outside the home
- The decreasing amount of time parents are spending with their kids
- More teenagers are the victims of family violence
This is not to say that things were easy or better in the early 20th century, but we are certainly facing some significant challenges as we continue our discussion of ministry to students in our particular context. We look around and we can see, almost overwhelmingly, each of these factors affecting students and families all around us. No one seems immune.
Often we turn to the staff and volunteers in our church to help us know what in the world we can do to help our kids navigate these social pressures. But Youth ministry as we have come to understand it did not exist 100 years ago. These issues were addressed in the family context and the need for a specialized church ministry for adolescents was non-existent. Next we will trace Youth ministry as it has evolved to address the various and changing challenges of our culture.
