When I was in high school, the church I attended wanted the youth to be involved in worship. Getting involved usually meant putting on a choir robe and singing songs that meant a lot to older people but to which I had no real connection. Sermons were long and theological. When I said they were boring, what I really meant was, I didn’t get them. I remember several of us timing one of the deacons in his long closing prayer. (I think his longest was about 4 minutes.)

Some churches have given up trying to engage youth in corporate worship with adults. They develop a model some have called the one-eared Mickey Mouse, where the smaller circle of the youth group barely touches the larger circle of the church. When youth have their own worship, the experience can be tailored directly to them. That is hard to do in a small church, but I think the practice is a bad idea anyway. I think students need to be involved in worship with adults and children. They need to connect with people who are older than they are . . . and younger than they are.

However, we shouldn’t just expect youth to worship in an experience that has no connection to them. Imagine a group of deaf people coming into our worship service week to week. We would make some attempt to translate the service to them. I once sat in a Ukrainian worship service; a Ukrainian student sat near me and quietly explained in English what was happening. I think teenagers need someone to translate the worship experiences of most small churches into things they can connect with and understand.

As youth leaders, we may not be involved in worship planning. But we can be culture translators. It happens in two ways. First, we listen to students . . . what they think is boring, irrelevant, and unintelligible . . . and help worship planners to think about what they do with teenagers (and other groups in the church) in mind. Second, we translate for our students what is so meaningful about the worship experiences for our students. (I used to sit in the back of the room during “business meetings” and explain to the students around me what was happening. I was amazed at what they didn’t understand.)

Helping teenagers connect with worship services in small churches may not be as difficult as it seems. I was in a church Sunday that played mostly old hymns. However, the congregation sang with a guitar. The youth in the room were completely engaged.