You don’t have to be cool
I am 36 years old. I just bought my first PS3 and I don’t play it very well. I don’t skate. I don’t watch Twilight, MTV or any reality TV. I don’t know the latest Lady gaga song, the latest Kanye or the latest Beiber. I walked into a Holister store once and got looked at like I was looking for my daughter! However, somehow teenagers still want to talk to me. They still listen when I bring the word and they still come up and talk to me when I visit them on campus.
Somewhere in youth ministry we thought to be relevant to their lives meant we had to blend in with their lives. I stay in touch with trends dealing with teen suicide, abuse, cutting and families. My knowledge of culture doesn’t require me to become immersed in it. You know why? Because you look ridiculous as a grown man dressed like you are 14. Teenagers don’t think that a 30 year old man holding a skateboard and covering his male pattern baldness with a USC cap is cool…usually they think it is lame. By the way when their families fall apart it is going to be hard for the parents to take you as a pastor seriously and then you have the audacity to complain about how the parents always bypass you for the senior pastor. Maybe, just maybe if we concentrated on the ink in God’s word as much as we did on the ink going on our skin we would find a way to be relevant to their hearts not their style.
I once had a youth worker that so desperately wanted to be cool and part of the group that one day went out with some students and spent the entire time ranting and spilling f bombs and s bombs and d bombs to the point where the students felt they needed to counsel her. She went on and on about how she partied and selling her cool card and in so doing completely destroyed any effectiveness for the kingdom of God.
My best youth workers are in their upper 30’s to their 60’s. Rusty is in his 50’s and every student in our ministry (over 300) loves him. He knows most of their names (can you flippin believe that!?) He writes their names in his bibles along with something about them and studies and prays over them. The kids feel that care and they love him for it. Barbara and Al are in their 60’s and the youth call them grandma and grandpa. They get calls at all hours from kids needing counsel and advice. I can’t imagine Rusty, Al or Barbara in skinny jeans and messy hair.
Now, if you have been blessed with the gift of cool then by all means use what your daddy gave ya. However, if you feel you need to use cool to leverage the love of Jesus to students. Allow me to give you the freedom to dork it up. They already think you are anyway…run with it.
Sean Rheaume 
This is why I intern.