A parachurch ministry should exist for those kids who either have no connection to a church, or their church youth ministry is so anemic that they have to find an outside alternative. I was grieved, simply, because [our church’s] middle school ministry is one of the strongest in the church and there’s really no reason for Lucy to join an outside parachurch ministry that has the same goals and activities (small groups, missions, service, and so on). I want to invest myself as a parent in that ministry.
I live in Utah, and there aren't a whole lot of YoungLife-type (he didn't mention YoungLife or WyldLife by name, but those are the ones I'm familiar with) parachurch ministries geared toward youth here. When I lived in Colorado (in Lawrence's neck of the woods, in fact), there were more than a few, and pretty much every high school and most middle schools had a parachurch ministry associated with it. I knew some of the local leaders, and I really appreciated their work. One of the pluses was that sometimes students did not feel like they connected with the youth ministry at our church, but they really connected with the parachurch ministry.
I do agree with Rick that the ideal is for students to be plugged into their local church and its youth ministry. The YoungLife philosophy (and hence, the WyldLife philosophy) is for students to eventually be plugged into their local church. Of course, whether that gets played out in each local YoungLife chapter varies. I've seen it done really well, and I've seen YoungLife leaders consider themselves to be leading a distinct church of teenagers.
The point Rick makes really well: parachurch organizations are poised to do something that a lot of local churches don't do so well: to share the Gospel with teenagers who are not connected to a local church. In fact, YoungLife began because Jim Rayburn and others saw that most local churches were not interested in reaching that age group. So, I think that there is a need for healthy parachurch organizations. But what role exactly should they play in the life of the Church?
