Hmm - should I argue or just not bother?
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I have just read a post entitled Church Reform - Youth Ministry and it kind of made me mad. I got mad on 2 main counts but I am not sure whether I should be a polite Christian, smile sweetly and move on OR to take the post [and by implication] the writer to task. Maybe if I do it in the interest of debate and open discussion - would that be OK?
Eric basically is saying that youth ministry isn’t Biblical and even when it is done it isn’t done very effectively or biblically.
My ‘beef’ number 1 is that an obvious point seems to be unobvious - and that is the Bible was written primarily for a 1st century group of people. There is no mention of youth ministry because adolescence hadn’t been created back then. The word teenager was created by marketers in the 1950’s so it won’t appear in a KJV concordance. The world is a totally different place now than it was in A.D. 100.
I agree the primary place a child should be taught is in the home - but what of those inquiring students who’s parents aren’t believers?
My second ‘beef’ is that Eric seems to believe that youth ministry, world wide, is based on pizza and not the Bible. Maybe he needs to get out more and visit other youth ministries. Sure we have pizza but there is a lot more to it than that.
</rant> Sits down in quiet corner - deep breaths.
Personal note to Eric: I didn’t mean to offend and apologise if I did so - your comments just got me going.
Wow, I came across reading Eric’s post in a completely different light. I don’t think he was so much saying that modern youth ministry is unbiblical, but that the focus of youth ministries today is off target and I 100% agree with him.
If we modeled our youth ministries the way the Bible lays it out, and I believe Eric is close, we would have a lot more of an impact. Scripture is quite specific in that parents are to be the primary disciplers of their children. Scripture declares that on several levels.
I think a good majority of youth ministries are pizza and games and no real depth. I say that because that is our ministry here at our church and it bugs the junk out of me. The reason it is like this is because this is what parents accept youth ministry to be: Christian baby sitting. It is our job as youth workers to change that mindset and to show that no, it is in fact the parents who are responsible for training up their children.
We are only with these teenagers 2 or 3 hours a week. But their parents are with them on a regular basis and if we could enable parents to work with their teenagers, we would be much better off.
I think the only time that us youth workers become primary disciplers is when we come into contact with teenagers who have no believing parents.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:34 amIn the interest of debate ….
To follow the argument through - if it is the parent’s responsibility to teach the kids [and I don't agree with that] - the surely it is more acceptable that the youth ministry becomes the pizza baby-sitting model. To carry it to the next level - if the parents were doing their job then why have youth ministry at all?
Alternatively, the pragmatic view might say - hey these kids have needs that are not being met anywhere else: physical, spiritual etc … let’s us, as a church, create a ministry that serves them, meets their needs and encourages them to be more like Christ; and, while we are doing it, let’s us [as a church] encourage parents to step up to the mark required of them.
March 1st, 2008 at 4:10 pm