what is youth ministry?

I was a Lutheran youth a few years ago.  My congregation had a small youth group. We did stuff together. We had a youth room with old couches in it.  We went to youth events.  We played games and occasionally read the bible and prayed.  We had fun.  As a youth, I taught Sunday school and vacation bible school to younger kids. Congregational youth ministry formed me as a Lutheran Christian and influenced my calling to become a pastor.  I do not write this today to disparage the good youth ministry that congregations are doing.  I write to encourage congregations that do not think they have youth or youth ministry anymore.
As an adult, I have led youth groups.  I have been a youth camp counselor. In my first call as a pastor, I served a large Lutheran congregation in youth ministry. We had fun.  What I discovered, though, was a problem. Congregation-based youth ministry is costly.  It can be exhausting and frustrating.  You plan an event only to have it overshadowed by several other local youth activities; sports, dances, band, etc...You try to get spiritual with kids and they mentally check out. When you're together, the fellowship is fun. But consistency and the constant need to "entertain" in order to garner attention and commitment can make a youth worker feel like their spinning their wheels.  Congregational youth ministry can be amazing.  I know some outstanding youth ministers doing bold formation work with kids.  But the stakes are getting higher as we realize how alienated emerging generation of youth are from church culture. So few teens and twenty-somethings are connected/committed to churches; some polls say less than 20% consider themselves affiliated with a religious group. We all know that the fastest growing religious category in the U.S. is the "nones". So what do we do?

In my current congregation, we have no youth group.  We have no Sunday school.  We have no vacation bible school.  Those formative experiences that I had as a child we do not provide for my own kids.  This seems troubling.  Families that are searching to be part of a church look for programs for their kids.  There are plenty of congregations, Lutheran and others, that provide youth programming.  If you do not, chances are you will struggle to attract and connect with those families. Then again, so many families and kids are over-committed to the demanding American lifestyle that they cannot squeeze another thing onto the overbooked calendar.  Should we, as Christians, be encouraging more of that by adding another night outside of the home?  If not, what can we offer?  
There is another way to think about youth ministry.  Two of the adult men in my congregation coach the varsity football team for our school district.  Is that youth ministry?  I coach two sports and lead a cub scout den in a local pack to which my sons belong.  I am raising three young sons to be faithful. Is that youth ministry?  We have been taught to think of youth ministry as a program of a congregation, rather than the daily service that adult volunteers, teachers, mentors, and coaches give to kids in our communities.  We don't think of Christian parenting as youth ministry.  But I wonder what an evolution in our thinking might do?  Maybe if we empowered Christians to be gospel bearers to children and youth in our schools and neighborhoods, we might experience a revival in youth ministry.  I don't mean that we make every encounter an opportunity for evangelical proclamation.  I suggest that real public service: caring for youth and their parents, concern for our schools that leads to volunteering, stepping up to help out at local youth functions; real public service can be the future orientation of youth ministry.  What if people in our congregations undertook youth ministry by offering to tutor kids or coach or chaperone a dance or support a team?  What if the orientation for youth ministry was not to get them to come to church, but to get church to go to them?  Could a congregation adopt a soccer team or provide scholarships for kids to attend a summer camp?
And my little, aging Lutheran congregation has begun to offer an after school club for boys in our local elementary school.  One of the teachers in the school is connected to the congregation.  She and I started the project last year.  We served ten families; ten boys. This year we are serving 15 boys every week.  They come after school for 2 hours of games, stories, crafts, field trips, healthy snacks, and positive adult interactions outside of home and school.  The environment is informal, but structured.  The time is spent giving the boys a lot of personal attention. We hope to take some of these boys to our Lutheran church camp this summer, too. I doubt if any of them will become traditional members of my congregation.  But what if we thought of them as children of God who belong to us anyway? What if we saw as our mission a sense of responsibility to offer whatever we can to them in the name of Jesus?  Jesus did say, if you offer a cup of cold water to a child in his name you do God's work.
I'm curious to hear from some of my youth worker friends...what do you think?  I suspect many of them would love to see their congregations take a more active role in the lives of the youth they care about.