What I learned from launching a regional youth ministry during COVID

A partnership in youth ministry between three neighbouring parishes opens the way for further collaboration

Last year, amid all the upheaval of COVID, we launched a regional youth ministry.

Instead of two or three youth groups meeting across four suburbs in a distant corner of Sydney, we combined into one youth group. It is an expression of gospel partnership between three Anglican churches: Barrenjoey, Newport and Mona Vale.

This was in response to an opportunity, and a problem, caused by the pandemic. The opportunity was that now everyone was suddenly open to change and to try something new. We had all gone through a great deal of change in the preceding six months, and so the prospect of combining the youth groups from three churches didn’t seem as daunting.

The problem was that COVID had negatively impacted our youth ministries in terms of numbers and engagement. When we came out of lockdown and back to physical gatherings, we weren’t in the same position as we were before. There was a sense in which we needed to reset the ministry—and so we did! Here are my reflections on the experience.

It is an incredible expression of church partnership
Just as Paul described his partnership with the Philippian church as something which caused him to pray with joy (Philippian 1:4-5), I too have experienced the joy of gospel partnership in the launching of this regional youth ministry.

I cannot underestimate the value and the privilege of getting to know my brothers and sisters in Christ from neighbouring churches: including the youth, their families, ministry staff, parish councillors, and more. In my last parish, which was much larger, I knew almost no one from the neighbouring Anglican churches. The Senior Ministers knew each other, but beyond that, there seemed to be little relational connection or ministry partnership of any value.

This partnership in youth ministry we have formed is now opening the way for further and deeper partnership between our parishes which is very exciting.

It did not immediately solve all our problems

One of the drivers of this partnership was that each group had gaps in certain age and gender groups. We thought that combining our three groups together would quickly fill the gaps and create a group that had even representation across the age and gender groups. This did not happen.

Throwing a whole bunch of people together and just expecting it to work...I see now how naïve that was.

The reality was that different youth came on different nights with the result that they felt that there was no one in their age and stage and therefore they quickly gave up on the group. It was like ‘ships passing in the night’. We ended up with a larger, but still uneven, youth ministry.

It takes time to build relationships

The reason we were left with an unequal distribution of youth, is simply because we all didn’t know each other very well. I didn’t really know who the families were from the other churches, which youth were the more mature, committed ones, and which ones weren’t. This all made it a little difficult to do the nitty-gritty work of follow up. Now we are several months in, the relational bonds are deepening and we’re starting to plug those gaps again.

Our plan was too complicated

In retrospect, I can see that it would’ve been better to make everything as simple and straightforward as possible. The reason is that bringing three groups from three churches together at short notice in response to an opportunity and a problem presented by COVID is already a chaotic thing. It’s better to make decisions that don’t add to the sense of craziness.

A regional youth ministry has more opportunity for regional impact. Our youth group now has youth from around 20 different schools which is just incredible. The possibilities for reaching the youth in our area are now bigger than ever. May it indeed be so!

Moving forward, we are focusing on strengthening relationships

We want to strengthen the relations between the youth themselves, as well as between the leaders and the youth. This requires time together, so we are hoping that we can get a good crew up the mountains for KYCK this year, as well as find some other spaces in the week to be together beyond the regular Friday night program. We are expecting that stronger relationships will create more and better opportunities for discipleship to happen. This is the model that Jesus himself demonstrated.

It is our prayer that this group grows from strength to strength and will become more and more effective at evangelising and discipling the youth of our area in the way of Jesus.

Zac Miles is Assistant Minister (Youth and Young Adults) at Barrenjoey Anglican Churches.