The future can seem like a scary place. On a global scale, seismic developments are changing the landscape of societies, economies and technologies at an alarming pace. Futurist Patrick Dixon explores what the world may look like in a few decades time and how youth work – more than ever – has a key part to play.
I am often called a futurist, helping very large corporations to take hold of their future. I say this: ‘Take hold of the future or the future will take hold of you.’ It is true that our world is changing very fast – and in some ways, youth leaders need to adapt very fast. However the fundamental calling and role of youth workers will remain the same. Youth workers have never been needed more urgently than now.
Jesus criticised the leaders of the day for not knowing how to interpret ‘the signs of the times’ (Matt 16:2-3). Here are five of many signs of the times we live in – and then we will look at the biggest trend of all and the drivers of all successful youth work.
Euro-chaos and the ‘lost generation’ Life for young people in the UK is going to be really tough in the next three years, with more chaos in Europe, and an ongoing risk of euro meltdown.
We hear loud voices of national leaders, promoting national interests, but the voices of those who lead Europe as a whole are almost silent. ‘Without vision the people perish’ (Prov. 29:18) and without common vision for a powerful Eurozone, the Eurozone will remain very vulnerable.
To give you an idea of the scale of what is happening in a couple of mouse clicks: the government created enough digital cash to buy a third of our one trillion national debt. And is about to create more. Socalled ‘quantitative easing’ is just a form of printing money.
People talk about a ‘lost generation’ in countries like Spain where unemployment is over 40% among young people. In the UK there will be large numbers of young people with a lot of time, few ideas about how to get a job, feelings of demoralisation, frustration, anger and even despair. The boomerang generation leave home and return, maybe with partners and children, mainly for economic reasons.
There is a huge opportunity for church youth workers to help young people find purpose and meaning, to get going in life (advice on getting a job, help with interview skills, advice starting a business), and to galvanise spare energy into really useful things. History shows that in a crisis it is often easier to have conversations about things that really matter.
IMPACT: High RESULT: Demoralisation, lack of money, lots of time.
Next-generation digital and the search for experience Many millions of words have been written about the impact of the digital revolution, with one trillion page views every month on Facebook and so on. But we are only in the first hour of the first day of the digital age. In 100 years time, historians will record that the digital age did not really get going until 2040, with the fusion of brain and the web.
Experiments have already been completed in mice and rats – brain cells grow into implanted chips. The same is starting to happen in humans who are paralysed – some are now controlling their limbs or their environment by thinking alone. We see primitive versions of all this in gaming headsets which detect brainwaves.
You may feel disturbed by this trend – along with many millions of others. How widely such innovations are adopted will depend on what people want - or perhaps in some cases on what may be imposed upon them - but the possibilities are already before us.
In the meantime, research shows that intense digital activity – for example playing computer games – is altering the structure of our brains. This should not surprise us: every time we think, we lay down new circuits. If you analyse the brains of London taxi drivers, you will find that part of their brain which is used for memory and mapping is physically larger than in brains of other people.
What we do not know is the longer term impact on young children who are growing up in a hyper-intense digital world. A world where most family meals may be in front of the TV, where most social interaction at home is virtual, with digital machines or with people who are physically ‘not there’.
The more virtual our lives, the more physical we want to be. Just look at the explosive growth of music festivals, the huge popularity of open-air rock concerts, football matches, the vast crowds for the Queen’s Jubilee.
It’s all about shared experience, breathing the same air, being present. Look also at the growth of events like Soul Survivor and other largescale Christian gatherings at places like Wembley Stadium, or the Royal Albert Hall, or other huge venues across the UK. Size matters. Church is about community: very large down to very small physical gatherings (an Old Testament pattern that Jesus was also brought up in). Youth workers have a vital role in using digital networks to stay in touch and to reach out, and then to gather people together, to encourage and to influence. Digital is really important but cannot be an end in itself.
IMPACT: High RESULT: Hunger for real attention from a human being who is physically present.
Outsourced or absent parenting As economic pressures have grown, more parents are working to pay the bills. Parenting is being outsourced on a vast scale to complex rotas of people from child-care centres, nannies, grannies, neighbours and friends to grown up children.
We have a generation of lightly-parented or non-parented young people – and that is before the impact of family break-up, with a biological parent moving out, possibly with a new step-parent moving in, permanent or short term. In my book The Rising Price of Love I describe the huge amount of research that shows how children’s long term well-being is often damaged by these things.
Many young people are growing up with siblings to whom they are related by only one parent, with challenges for them in dynamics of day to day life. Many have missed out on basic lessons – for example how to handle money, how to manage stable relationships, how to resolve disagreements.
IMPACT: High RESULT: Deep need for adult support and advice, from someone the person can really trust and confide in, such as a youth worker who is part of the local church.
Worries about sustainability In these early years of the Third Millennium, the global community is asking big questions about what state our world will be in by the beginning of the next one. How will our world cope with nine billion citizens, each wanting to have an average income similar to those in the UK, France or America?
Sustainability applies not just to environment and use of resources, but also to family and personal sustainability. In developed nations the levels of stress and mental illness have been rising, particularly among young people, many of whom reach a serious personal crisis at some point in teenage or early adult years.
IMPACT: High RESULT: Need for people with vision for a better kind of world, people with practical answers. People who can help in a personal crisis.
Ageing population In many European countries the number of people over 65 is increasing dramatically, as a percentage of the general population, as well as in absolute numbers.
At present in Germany and Italy you need eight great grandparents to produce a single great grandchild because the average couple is having 1.4-1.6 children. In Italy there will be a million people over the age of 90 by 2026. These are huge changes which are also affecting life in every village, town and city across the UK.
Expect increasing immigration (as governments have allowed over the last few years) to balance the gaps and help provide all the care needed, much of which will be for older people living at home.
This trend is exaggerated in many churches because their own young people have opted out of church activities. Youth work is a fundamental plank in the future survival of these congregations.
IMPACT: High RESULT: Young people will increasingly grow up with both grandparents still alive, and with growing numbers of them needing practical help.
Trends link to trends – using one challenge to solve another All trends link in some way to all other trends in our joined-up, globalised world. And challenges from one trend provide opportunities in another.
Take for example youth unemployment: here we have a large number of young people with time on their hands. We may not be able to solve their financial needs, but we can certainly help them find a sense of purpose and destiny.
Back in 1988 I started an AIDS charity called ACET in our own family home. It grew rapidly, using volunteers, many of whom had no paid job. We trained them to look after people who were sick, frail and in need at home, and to go into schools with a life-saving message. The movement spread rapidly all over the world and today ACET programmes are in over 20 nations including Uganda, Russia and India.
Many of those volunteers learned new skills, discovered a new passion to help people, went on later to train as social workers, or as care assistants, or as nurses, or as probation workers, or went on to start voluntary community groups of their own. It is a tragedy that at a time when the government is having to cut services, and at a time of massive needs, that we have a generation of young people who are out of work and may feel they have no place, no purpose, no contribution to make.
There is a huge opportunity here that is being missed, and youth workers have a central role to play.
So what happens when we map all this onto the fundamental roles of a church youth worker?
The future of youth work is ‘tribal’: six principles that will still be true in 1,000 years Tribalism, humanly speaking, is the most powerful force on Earth today. Tribalism is about belonging, common language, culture, traditions. Every team is a tribe and every brand creates one. Every large organisation is a tribe of tribes. Every family is a tribe. Every local community may contain many tribes. Every denomination is a tribe, every home group in a church is a tribe.
The biblical narrative from Genesis onwards is dominated by tribal themes: the descendants of Abraham, the tribes of Israel, the Jewish nation, and, through Jesus, we as non-descendants of Abraham becoming grafted into God’s family. A vision that every tribe under heaven will one day be united in Christ.
We all have a God-given need to belong, written deep into our genetic code. Humans are social creatures. And one of the greatest emotional needs for any young person is to know who they belong to. Tribalism is a positive and negative force. It drives community but also can lead to sectarianism. As Christians leading young people, our aim is to harness tribalism in the most positive way.
T – TRUST In a world where there is a crisis of trust, trust is fundamental to all successful youth work. That means being a point of consistent care and support in a rapidly changing and uncertain time. Keeping our word, respecting confidence. Trusted youth workers always have huge influence. (1 Cor 4:2, Luke 16:12, 1 Tim 3:11-16).
R – RESPECT As every youth worker knows, the fastest way to win trust is to respect the person you are with as an individual, treat them as an adult, take them seriously and believe in their future. Jesus demonstrated deep respect for people who had little selfrespect or were despised by others, whether they had leprosy, had committed adultery, or were stooges for a foreign empire (tax collectors). Respect is usually mutual: those you treat with respect are more likely to do the same to you.
I – INSIGHT Youth trends come and go in a flash – just look at what is ranking high today for tweeting or YouTube views. As in every previous generation, youth workers need to be where the people are that they want to work with. Right now that may mean on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, SMS or wherever. Tokenism is not enough. It means deep participation, engagement, making those worlds your own. That may take a lot of time, but there is absolutely no other way to maintain insight. It will also increase your scope of influence. In addition to this we pray for extra insight that God himself may provide, to understand complex situations, wisdom to know how to help and what to say (Prov 2:6). All effective youth workers rely on deep insight.
B – BELONGING Youth groups are really powerful things; they offer a chance for people at a similar stage of life to meet. The stronger the sense of belonging, the stronger the group will be and the greater the influence will be. Our greatest belonging is to Christ (Gal 5:24-26), and as we belong to him, we belong to each other (John 13:34-35).
A – ACCEPTANCE Our ethos is accepting, encouraging, welcoming and affirming each person as made in the image of God and deeply loved by him. That does not mean approval of every action, attitude or comment (Luke 5:32, John 8:1-11).
L – LEADERSHIP Leadership comes from common commitment to a shared vision: when others know where you are going and want to journey with you. When they trust you, respect you, feel a sense of connection, belonging, acceptance and that they matter.
However, spiritual leadership is more than that: our aim is always to draw people deeper into an understanding of who Jesus is, and into relationship with him; to make disciples, to encourage people to seize their God-given destiny and to serve him with their whole lives each day.
Here is a challenge: spiritual leadership comes from within, from our own relationship with God, from our own devotional life, from our own sense of closeness to Jesus, from our own character, own lifestyle and how we run our own household (1 Tim 3:1-16).
Personal example is the most powerful way to lead (2 Tim 3:10) and one of the most powerful ways to lead therefore is by offering hospitality, bringing people into your home and into your own extended ‘family’ tribe (1 Peter 4:9).
Signs of the times are many and changing. Our calling as leaders is to interpret what they mean to those we seek to influence. But our purpose is beyond today’s headlines or tomorrow’s trends: it’s to enable each person we are with to take hold of their own future and to seize the destiny God has prepared for them since the foundation of the world.
DR PATRICK DIXON is the author of 15 books including Futurewise. He has been ranked as one of the 20 most influential business thinkers alive today and is founder of the international AIDS agency ACET . See what he does at www.globalchange.com. Follow him @patrickdixon.