You may need a new model…
One story that I find most intriguing relates to our successful America’s Cup campaign back in 1983 with Australia II. You know, the winged keel and all that, it’s folklore. For me, the really interesting thing is that before they spent tens of millions building the boat, before they put Ben Lexcen’s now-famous keel on the bottom of that boat, they tested small-scale prototypes in a narrow 25-metre long pool. They replicated the conditions their research showed they were going to face in the waters off New York, in the pool, and worked out which keel worked best. They tried a few different designs. The rest is history. The thing is, they didn’t go straight from the drawing board to the boat, and they built and tested a model.
The point I am making is that most people spend so much time in the practice of youth ministry and youth group, they rarely stop to work out…
- what model they currently working with
- whether the model they are working within serves well, and
- whether there are any other models than the one they are working within.
Whether you like it or not, you are working within a model of youth ministry. There are many different ways of understanding youth ministry through models, and most are helpful n some way or another. There is no intention here to give you a full and comprehensive list of all the different models that have ever been devised, the reality is most writers in this area of youth ministry theory have their own way of explaining and contrasting. My own experience is that most writers have models that are philosophically based, others that are practice based. Philosophical models attempt to explore the social contexts, faith contexts and individual contexts that are at play. Practice based models are more about showing what can be achieved through the activities that are or could be operating.
Following are some of these different types of models. The warning that goes with this is that they are very simplistic in order to differentiate the contrasts easily. In reality, the model you work with in will have some characteristics of one model and a few of another. The following models are meant to be a guide that may help you identify where most of your ministry is based. There are no right or wrongs, just reality (or your perceptions of it).
Instruction Manual: