From “Is the Era of Age Segregation Over?” an interview with Kara Powell in the current issue ofLeadership.
“[The church] realized in the 1940s that we were not offering teens enough focused attention. So what did we do? We started offering them too much. All of a sudden churches had adult pastors and youth pastors, adult worship teams and youth worship teams, adult mission trips and youth mission trips. And there’s a place for that. But we’ve ended up segregating–and I use that word intentionally–our kids from the rest of the church. Now we tend to think that we can outsource the care of our kids to designated experts, the youth and children’s workers…. I think the future of youth ministry is intergenerational.”
Kara Powell is the executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute at Fuller Theological Seminary and a former youth pastor. To read the rest of her interview in context, pick up the Summer 09 issue of Leadership journal or subscribe by clicking on the cover in the left column.
