Bottom-Up and Top-Down Approaches to Y&C Ministry, Part 1: Outlining a New Way of Analysing Approaches to Youth and Children’s Mission and Ministry

Given the rise and importance of the agency of the self and more immanent approaches to theology, the landscape of youth and children’s mission and ministry can now be usefully analysed in terms of ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approaches – rather than (or at least alongside) using ‘inside-out’ and ‘outside-in’ as the main analytical categories. Top-down approaches look to do ministry ‘to’ youth and children and are commensurate with more transcendent approaches to theology and Durkheimian structural-functionalist school of thought within sociology – these approaches risk under-emphasising agency and immanence. Bottom-up approaches are more concerned with doing ministry ‘with’ youth and children and are commensurate with more immanent approaches to theology and Weberian social interactionist and conflict theory models of society – these approaches risk over-emphasising agency and immanence.