By Pastor Neal Cannon, Woodlake Lutheran Church, Richfield
Pastor Neal is co-pastor with Pastor Micah Pearson, who is the Dean of the Crosstown Conference
These days, it’s hard for many churches to do youth ministry on their own. Most of us see it in our pews, as fewer and fewer families regularly attend worship. If you have a small-to-medium-sized church it’s not uncommon to have only two or three families you can count on to be in attendance most Sundays, if any. Maybe you’ve tried to host a “pizza and game night” for teens, but only a few kids show up. You’re excited for those kids to be there, but it’s hard to create and sustain energy for a program this size. You might feel frustrated and the kids might lose interest because there aren’t enough other kids there. It’s a lose-lose situation.
Woodlake and House of Prayer were two churches struggling to do youth ministry on our own until one day we asked, what if we did this together? The result of this wondering was RALY (Richfield Area Lutheran Youth). RALY is a shared youth group between our two churches that has created meaningful vitality for our youth and congregations. On our own, we couldn’t sustain Wednesday evening activities, do high school youth group, or host a lock-in. But together we are able sustain and grow programs and activities. Together, we were able to create an environment where kids wanted to come and invite their friends. After combining our programs, we went from lose-lose to win-win very quickly.
The Bible is not shy about encouraging collaboration. Be it Matthew 18:20 (where two or more are gathered in my name…) or Mark 6:7 (He called them twelve and began to send them out two by two…) or Genesis 2:18 (It is not good that the man should be alone…) we are often encouraged to do life and ministry together. These lessons are often applied to the individual, but why shouldn’t it be applied to our churches as well? As the cultural landscape continues to evolve, our best chance at doing meaningful youth ministry might be by doing it together.
Who could you collaborate with? Is there another church in your area in a similar situation with similar struggles? Could you work together and dream about building something bigger than you could have dreamed up on your own? If you can find a partner to do ministry together, I encourage you to try it! Or, if you’re in the Richfield area, come talk to us about RALY. We’d love to share ministry with you!
You can learn even more about RALY by watching this video.
