Be that as it may, the most thought-provoking movie I ever saw on child rearing was the George C. Scott vehicle Hard Core. A control-freak calvinist father learns, the hard way, that it is God’s grace that redeems, not his controlling spirit.

Sending kids to public school is irresponsible. So, too, is inhospitable isolationism. When done right, home schooling opens doors for outreach around the dinner table. It’s a real eye-opener for a six year old to realize that the sweet young muslim couple is on the road to Hell. The couple you know personally, love dearly, and have had over for dinner.

Frankly, I’m not that enamoured with “youth ministry.” A normal Christian family, I suspect, is engaged in “family minstry” — ministry as a family.

He laid into me, saying that he had grown weary of Christian parents using their kids as excuses. Our job, he said, was not to protect our children, but to raise in the admonition of Christ. And, the pattern of the cross should compel us to take risks.

I still think he was more than a little self-righteous in the way he responded, but much of what he said is true.
The problem with Austin’s acceptance of the status quo is that most of the kids in the big youth group grow up with little appreciation for what it means to suffer in Christ.

How can parents call themselves disciples of Jesus when they are not willing to lose their children. They have not ‘counted their cost’ in following Jesus (lk 14:28). Jesus said, “those who save their lives will lose it, those who lose their lives will save it.” By saving/protecting our chilren we only end up losing them.

One of the hardest part in doing youth ministry is dealing with parents who are not willing to, “deny themselves, pick up their cross, and follow Jesus.” The bulk of Jesus ministries took place outside the ‘churh’. It’s clear that His followers are not going where He went and is.

Skip felt restless with all the emphasis on “program” but didn’t see that running a coffeehouse was also a program. Maybe it wasn’t purchased from Group Publishing and maybe it didn’t have a denominational stamp on it, but it was still a Great Big Important Work the church was going to do.

See, I think that Skip was so thoroughly wired for “program” that he didn’t even recognize program in a less-familiar form. If his heart was purely and surely all about ministry to the guys who wanted to hang out in a coffee house, he didn’t need to be the guy in CHARGE of the coffee house.

Nobody was stopping Skip from finding a likely, local coffeeshop and making that his hangout. The problem was that Skip didn’t REALLY want to _just_ hang out with the down and out. He was still a youth pastor who NEEDED to run things. He needed that coffeehouse ministry to BE a program….or, well, he would be out of a job. Because anyone can go sit at the local Starbucks and talk to people.

I think the change needs to be deeper than simply changing venues from the church youth center to a more neutral setting. Maybe Skip has the seeds of a dream that he needs to pursue, but I would guess that a real life Skip would need to first figure out that he can, in fact, just go do the relational, organic thing at the local Starbucks! It doesn’t need to be a Big Thing that HE is in charge of.

That’s how I read Skip…good heart, good intentions, possibly with great potential…still more of a koolaid drinker than he knows.

Think about the millions of foreign students in our country, only a small percentage of whom will ever be invited into an American home.

A church that takes hospitality seriously don’t need no stinkin’ coffee house. Nor no stinkin’ “youth ministry” neither.

But how can we transform the culture, to make family-friendly ministry happen?