A Look at The State of Next Gen Ministry In America in 2026
I am encouraged by the direction of Next Gen Ministry in America.
If the Church is in the hands of the young people that I see across our nation, the Church is in great hands.
From my perspective and experience there is great optimism. Each month I am in a different city and a different Church. From the urban center, to the rural setting, in the suburban space, and from small Churches to large Churches, I have the advantage of seeing the many approaches at work in Next Gen Ministry.
And it is as broad as it is deep!
Here are 5 positive movements that I see in youth ministry in America:
A Leadership Movement
Watching Next Gen Leaders across the country is encouraging. There is a major lean to leadership development and delegation.
Because the Church is the largest volunteer organization on the planet, we must create a culture of training and core competency improvement of our volunteers. If we do not train these volunteers, we are going to fail. The sustainability of the Church is critically dependent upon the Children’s and Youth Ministry departments of the Church.
One of the things that I share most often is the percentage of volunteers who are running Youth Ministry. Most of the statistics prove that around 75 to 80% of Youth Ministry in America is run by non-paid staff. With that in mind, we must address leadership development.
We cannot continue to haul water to the sea by focusing solely upon paid Youth Ministry staff in the larger Church. But, we must include our focus of leadership development toward the unpaid volunteer Youth Leaders and Student Leaders in the Church.
There are three levels of leadership development that must be addressed in Youth Ministry:
THE PERSONAL LIFE OF THE YOUTH LEADER
THE ADULT VOLUNTEER
THE STUDENT LEADER
Each of these levels of leadership require a concentration on the spiritual and the natural qualities of each leader. The spiritual focus would be upon the disciplines and integrity of the leaders. The natural focus would be upon the skillsets and gifts of the leaders.
If we do not raise the level of volunteer leadership in Youth Ministry, we do not raise the level of Youth Ministry in America.
Here are a few practical ways to raise the level of leadership in Youth Ministry:
Veteran paid youth leadership must take responsibility for the volunteer youth leadership in their area. By spending time with them and sharing resources, we can impact youth ministry much quicker than by isolating the paid and volunteer leaders.
Another key way to increase volunteer leadership development is to have a greater emphasis and priority of training the local youth team (at least monthly), of reading a book together, or of developing the specific core competencies of each youth leader and the volunteers. This would include group and team meetings and also mentoring/1-on-1’s with leaders.
A Theology Movement
TA second encouraging movement under in Next Gen Ministry in America is discipleship.
Teenagers are under-challenged by the Church. I hear this on a regular basis. There is a greater expectation of teenagers in the school system than we have in the Church. It’s almost as if the Church is treating young people 2-3 grades younger than they really are.
But, have you seen their homework? Do you realize that they are expected to be on time, turn in completed homework assignments, and respect each other in class? They are challenged to focus and to think in school.
The biblical world view in Gen Z has dropped to 4%. A stunning loss of the biblical world view from their grandparents who had an 65% biblical worldview. (BARNA)
Are we doing the same in Youth Ministry? Are we starting on time? Do we expect our students to come to Youth Group with their bibles? Is our content challenging students to think about theology?
Theology is simply the study of God. Looking at the biblical literacy in the Millennial and Gen Z sets, maybe the reason these statistics are so low is because we have left the bible and theology out of Youth Ministry. Students are not serving God because students do not know God. Because we have focused more upon MEOLOGY than we have THEOLOGY.
Here’s a pop term being spun the last 2 decades:
Juvenialization is the retaining by adults of the traits from a previous generation or set.
Is that really a bad thing? Maybe we should be concentrating on childlike traits of the younger generation. I’m not talking about retaining childishness. See, even Jesus called the disciples to learn from the characteristic traits of the children playing around them.
With the growing Bible reading that is taking place in America, the Church has focused lately on raising its children around the excitement of a systematic theology of God. After all, the people who do not serve God are the people who do not know God.
Here are a few practical ways to raise the level of theology in YTH Ministry:
•We need to capitalize on the educational achievement and competitiveness of the Millennial and GenZ set. They are focused upon scholarship because of the high cost of education.
•Every Youth Leader should be challenging students with greater content.
•Some of the elementary content that should be essential for teenagers includes, The Ten Commandments, key bible stories throughout the Old and New Testaments, the Sermon on the Mount material, Pauline Theology from the Epistles, The Fruit and Gifts of the Spirit, and a clear grasp of End-Times and Apocalyptic theology. This can be done through the following practical approaches:
•Using the Bible as a Youth Leaders in our preaching and teaching
•Asking students to bring their bibles or to get the YouVersion Bible App
•Training students to study the bible on their own
•Breaking co-dependency of the Youth Ministry and the student by teaching students to serve God in their context and not just the Church
•Making sure that our Small group settings are charged with biblical content
•Using Social Media to promote message series and theology through memes and posts of scriptural content that helps students redeem their Social platforms
Here is a third encouraging movement.
A Worship Movement
Teens are raised in a mystical culture. We don’t have to teach students how to worship. They already worship stuff, icons, materialism, others, and self.
No, we don’t need to teach teens how to worship - what we need to do is teach teens how to worship God. To switch their worship to their creator.
The strength of worship in a generation is really about idolatry - removing anything that is placed before God. Whether we are talking about Hollywood, athletes, the sexual revolution, meism, or even social media, today's teens are being raised in a sensual culture that has added to their idolatry. The idol of self.
I am watching the worship emphasis in the youth ministry of the Church create a presence-based youth ministry like we saw decades ago. Many youth ministries are shifting back from a solely small group (non youth rally or service) setting to a presence-based experiential setting.
Why is a presence-based approach so important right now? Mostly because of the lack of the presence of God, the moving of the Spirit and His gifts, and the reality that students are already in a classroom setting 35 hours a week in school.
We do not have to fear that production or presence is evil or shallow. Just read the worship scenes in heaven. Pretty spectacular. Musical worship, poems and spoken words, short story, or artistic expressions have added to the mystical or spiritual part of the culture in youth ministry settings.
The fine arts gifts and talents of students is at an all-time high. Maybe a little because of competition shows like Idol or Dancing With The Stars, or America’s Got Talent. But mostly because of the dynamics of the manifest presence of God and students seeing that they actually have gifts and talents they can use for Christ in their Youth Ministry.
Here are some things that I have seen help the worship movement:
•Planning series on worship to increase knowledge and remove lids
•Create acoustic worship nights
•Use of tracking on worship teams that add more excellence on worship teams that have fewer musicians
•An evening with stations in worship like writing or quietness, sand tables, communion, and confession
•Work on enhanced settings that remove distractions of games, priority time set aside for elongated worship sets
•Setting up neutral-site settings where youth ministry takes students off the Church grounds for worship in the community somewhere.
Next Gen Ministry can ignite the setting when students use their gifts and bring ownership to the Youth ministry!
A final movement that I see in Next Gen Ministry in America is going to change the makeup of our country.
A Diversity Movement
This isn't something that most people would admit. But it is undeniable.
Just listening to the pop news and the proliferation of disunity and racism and violence and anger, you would think that diversity would NOT be a significant trend in our culture … and much less the Church.
But, one of the growing traits of this generation has become an emerging force in our culture today.
With the prevailing racism and dissension in America, this younger generation is going to have a say in the future landscape of America as it relates to unity and respect for all.
This is not just about the ETHNIC part of the problem. It is about the ETHICAL part of the problem.
To watch youth ministry across America with its broad diversity and inclusion is very encouraging. I truly believe that Youth Ministry today in the Gen Z and Alpha Gen sets has the solution to the problems we are facing. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to see a panel of students interviewed by the media and to hear their stories of inclusion and respect and love? The way that I have watched young people work together could be a wind of reconciliation to our nation.
•There are so many settings in our country where gracism is exercised over racism.
•Where unity is more important than punity.
•And where love is more important than hatred.
I do not believe that people are born racist. As a matter of fact, when you see the younger generation and how they exercise play, neighborhood relationships, athletic team participation, working jobs together, and honor among race, you have to wonder when does racism begin. And who is teaching people to hate?
If the media and the angry and hurt adults in our nation could visit the younger generation in their pursuit of ethnical unity and ethical valuation of each other nation-wide, they would be encouraged. It is a diversity movement we must allow to be celebrated so that it can silence the sins of our past!
I know that we have a history of racism and prejudice in our nation. I know that history is still being repeated by too many. And I know that our white privilege is arrogant and sinful. That is clear and without argument.
But, could it be that we do not recognize the growing gracism and acceptance and reconciliation in our young people that is crying out to be heard - but quieted by the voices crying racism in our nation?
This racism is being taught in our homes and in our culture by an older generation who simply will not let the past go. And when we are fixated on the hurt and the sins of our past, we all are doomed to repeat them.
After all, we are going to get what we celebrate in our homes and in our culture. Why not take the small steps to celebrate the beautiful diversity of our young people and teenagers?
Why not become the fulfillment to Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have A Dream speech and all of this present day generation be the ‘someday’?
Here are some practical ways to increase diversity in your setting:
•Social media - Simply look at the diversity of our young people. My social media has become a clear depiction of the growing diversity in the Church.
•Promote their respect for each other.
•Celebrate the joy, hear the laughter, tell the stories of the love.
•Make sure that the make-up of your leadership team reflects your diversity valuation.
•We must also open our circles or tribes or squads and be more inclusive in our friendships. I am watching an intentional and tensional effort about our language and programming that is sensitive to minority groups that exist in the community of your reach.
•Foremost in this effort of diversity is for all people to repent of prejudice. And witnessing this several times this Summer was emotionally moving and deeply healing for everyone.
Finally
So many other trends in Youth Ministry have been noticeable in my travels. Some of the other things that I see would include Outreach/Evangelism, Campus Access, and Social Media strategy approaches.
The breadth of healthy Youth Ministry in our nation is encouraging. But these movements of Worship, Diversity, Leadership, and Theology would be a great place to start the assessment and evaluation of your Next Gen Ministry practices.