Evaluating Traditions in Youth Ministry
editor’s note: this article is a good addition to our series on leadership and vision in youth ministry. If you like this article, read that series, too.
"That's how we've always done it." Everyone in ministry hears those words at some point. In youth ministry, traditions can sometimes feel like the albatross around a youth leader’s neck, being hard to get rid of and difficult to navigate. This is because they are powerful shapers of culture: your students are shaped by the traditions they take part in. However, instead of getting bogged down by traditions, what if you could embrace them, improve them, and even start new ones that could help cultivate the youth ministry culture you want?
There are different kinds of traditions. For the sake of clarity, we will think of these in three categories: hallmarks, rites of passage, and rhythms.
Hallmarks happen regularly but not too often — for example, the annual trip to camp.
Rites of passage are events, activities, or rituals that delineate changes for the youth group as a whole or specific people in the youth group. If your church has a “Promotion Sunday” for the kids moving into student ministry or “Senior Sunday” to honor graduating seniors, those are both rites of passage.
Rhythms are traditions too, but they happen regularly. The youth ministry that meets on Wednesday nights during the school year practices a rhythm: what happens during their regular weekly gatherings.
Getting Students Excited
If you have stepped into a church with established traditions, then you know how they can help build excitement. In an entertainment-driven culture, it can seem daunting for a youth minister to get students to buy in to a particular initiative. This is where a good hallmark might help. Instead of using trends and novelty to get students excited, hallmarks shape them to look forward to something they know is beneficial, because they have experienced it before. It can provide a shortcut to excitement and commitment because, once established, students remember the past, anticipate the future, and tell the new students why it’s worth their time. For instance, they remember how at church camp, not only did they have fun, but since they didn't have cell service, they had more time to build deeper friendships and grow spiritually. For those who haven’t gone before, they’ll get excited about a new kind of opportunity, one that’s different from their norm, but proven to be worthwhile.
Growing in Maturity
An older church member once told me about a parenting principle that she called "priming the pump." Before she took her kids to do something, she would explain to them where they were going, what they were doing, and how to act when they got there. This prepared them to enjoy it and to behave properly. If a kid stepped out of line, she would remind them of the instructions they had received earlier.
I want to suggest that traditions like rites of passage "prime the pump." No youth leader wants the new sixth or seventh-graders acting like they're still in fifth grade. They don't want the juniors and seniors acting like middle schoolers either. Rites of passage can prepare students for how to assimilate into the group.
Additionally, rites of passage as students get older can be helpful ways to set a clear marker for a new level of maturity and leadership. You might partially achieve this by splitting the youth group up by age, grade, or Middle School/High School for your normal weekly gatherings. If you don't have enough students to do this, you can split up your small groups. Creating traditions for these transitions can become powerful culture shapers, as they help you set expectations for growth and maturity.
Giving Clarity to Values
Traditions may also serve to ground ministry priorities and spiritual disciplines so that students can see your focal point in ministry. If you want them to learn about service, regular service projects might make sense as an ongoing tradition. If you want to develop them as worshipers, you may host student worship nights or have a student-led worship service on Sunday mornings. Traditions like these help them learn about different parts of living the Christian life, like service or worship, not by telling them, “You should value these things”, but by demonstrating it in your rhythms.
This could also work when addressing specific spiritual disciplines. You may have an annual rhythm during Lent or Advent to emphasize fasting and prayer. During Wednesday night gatherings, you may make it a regular pattern to share testimonies through small groups, or provide dedicated times of encouragement or accountability on a regular basis. Every rhythm you establish tells your students something about what they ought to value.
Ending, Changing, and Adding Traditions
Traditions are powerful. That’s why every youth pastor should be intentional and discerning about what to do with the traditions that they inherit.
If a tradition actively goes against the youth ministry’s vision/mission, you may need to begin seeking the Lord for wisdom about how to end it. Even if it has lasted for decades, was started by a popular youth pastor, or is well-loved by current students, it may need to go away. Be patient, seek lots of counsel, have honest and humble conversations with church leadership, volunteers, and key parents as you discern the best way to honor this tradition while putting it to rest. This change could bring pushback no matter how well you lead through it, so be prepared and make sure you have communicated effectively throughout the process.
Before deciding to end a tradition, see if you could change it to align with the youth ministry's goals. Budget constraints, bad outcomes, and poor execution could lead you to see a tradition as hopeless. And sometimes, these traditions started out in a way that’s in line with your ministry vision but they’ve lost their way. In this case, you could make adjustments to address your concerns while honoring it’s legacy by restoring its purpose. Change is always hard and can sometimes hurt people as much as ending it. But if a beloved tradition can be salvaged, it is probably worth the effort to try.
Finally, you may want to add a tradition. Great! But remember: most traditions start with humble beginnings, not by force. I cringe when I see something promoted as the "First Annual" anything. Don't start something that you want to become a tradition by promoting it as a new tradition. I made this mistake before. It puts too much expectation on an event, more than most can handle. Do something once. Do it twice. If there is love and momentum for it, then keep it going. If it doesn't work and people aren't excited about it, it’s ok to move on. Pray that God will use it, and if it needs to end, trust that He has something else in mind.
Your youth ministry will be more than the sum of its traditions, but it will not be less than them. They can provide a stable backbone to the weekly grind of ministering to students. They build excitement among students, establish expectations of growth and maturity, and help facilitate students’ relationships with God and each other. Don’t fear them. Don’t force them. Use them to help your students see what matters, expect it, and find joy in it.