Sincerely,
Fahim Qaiser ( Pakistan ).

This post was chosen as newsworthy at Sensus Divinitatis News….

Reservations i have about youth group are the same as my reservations about institutional church. Does it somehow claim to replace a real relationship with Jesus? I grew up in pentecostal church and for SURE if you came to youth every week and were involved in the extra credit cheer squad you were a Christian. If it didn’t speak to you, any of it – you weren’t. Well, i loved Jesus, i loved His Word. I wanted to be a Christian, but nothing about youth appealed to me after the age of about 14. (Until then, i liked the fun activities and trips …)I was hardcore into jazz, science fiction, philosophy, and i hated the soft logic and appeals to emotion that ruled that particular brand of youth group… I knew that God was not only good, and loved me, but that HE was powerful and the source of all knowledge and logic. So why was the church all about pastel colored guilt trips?

I don’t want my children to define their spiritual journey by mandatory attendance in a building. I also am not hugely comfortable with the leadership (they say 30% of men in church have a porn addiction) – nuff said.

What i would like to do is find a way to both cultivate friendships for my children with other children from Christian families, and also to cultivate relationships with people who are not Christian yet. And i would like my children to consider the spiritual component of any friendship they have… i think service is a good way to do this… I feel like missions trips are just fun times for rich folk sometimes – but i know that for some people, it can be a life changing thing, and i don’t want to say no to anything that might be a way my children finally *see* who God is, and what they are made for…

When we go there we have to go to where we don’t watch any movies or TV. It is very hard to find any “media” where a character hasn’t done similar or worse in their personal life.

This is what bugs me about most of these types of “boycotts”. They are selectively blind.

I like the Youth Pastor who heads the children’s ministries where the kids go every week. I really do. His heart is in the right place, I think, and his door is open to all sorts of kids (youth) wherever they are in their journeys. But I really don’t want my kids to be taking a sledge hammer to their CDs that the other kids say are evil, especially after their parents (my wife and I) have approved of their choices.

I agree there is a time for freedom and choices. But these should be about finding life and truth. Not because some album is by some midriff-and-navel-piercing baring young woman who is also trying to find her place in the big scheme of things.

Who knows how I’ll feel when my kids get beyond High School Musical and Harry Potter? But to tell my kids that HSM is bad because the star sent some nudie pictures to her friends…? We all do and have done stuff we’re not proud of. And I can give her the same grace I’d give my kids if they thought of doing something like that.

I don’t know. I just see a youth program as another attempt to cloister and protect our kids from the real world, instead of actually parenting them through failures and hurts.

Can we not use crowd-attracting events for outreach and then have deeper-discipleship training for the more committed, core kids?

I wonder what all of your thoughts are on Saddleback’s concentric circles of different target audiences? They have different ministry “programs” geared to move teens over time from being a mere spectator to sold out disciples of Christ. They have various events/programs to minster to COMMUNITY, CROWDS, CONGREGATION, COMMITTED and CORE kids.

With that said, I agree that we should put most of our good time and effort into the few, committed students who are serious about growing in discipleship to Christ.

1) Nearly every aspect of American popular culture sets young adults against their parents (and the older generations in general) rather than encouraging understanding, cooperation, and continuity. Most teenagers shaped by our culture want all the freedoms that bona fide adults have but absolutely none of the responsibilities that come with those freedoms. When I told a Chinese friend of the parent/teenager conflict that is so ubiquitous to our culture, she was flabberghasted. (This same Chinese friend told me she could not think of a single Chinese couple she knew that had gotten a divorce; talk about a stark contrast.)

2) Far too many Christian parents operate in “Do As I Say, Not As I Do” mode, and young adults are disgusted by the hypocrisy they see on a daily basis. How many teenagers have seen their parents act all nice to people at the service and then badmouth those same people all the way home or over Sunday dinner? Or how many teenagers have seen their parents “clean up” the house, hiding anything possibly “incriminating,” before the pastor comes over to visit? If that kind of two-faced behavior is what Christianity (or church membership) is about, who needs it?

3) Many congregations, especially ones that lean towards the older demographics, either do not know what to do with young adults or frankly do not care. They really are not interested in these people until they get married and start having kids. Once again, this might just be a symptom of the intergenerational disconnect. Youth ministers are hired in order to keep those rowdy “youth” entertained and out of the hair of the rest of the church. The “youth” are like the black sheep of the church family to be tolerated until they grow out of it. How many churches have the designated teenager corner in the auditorium where they all talk, pass notes (or send text messages), and cut up throughout every service? I know because I was one of them.

4) Most young adults these days find their role models outside of the church (entertainers, athletes, etc.) rather than in it, so leaving the church once they reach a certain age is a given if they are to pursue those aspirations. How many young adults do you know who aspire to be a deacon, an elder, or a Sunday School teacher when they grow up?

5) Most teenagers do not see any kind of connection between what they learn in church classes and the way the “real world” works. That is, the Bible is not presented in its historical context in such a way that they learn that these “stories” are historical accounts of real people living in real countries under real governments and experiencing real events influenced by a real God. When I took Greek Mythology in junior high, the otherworldy tales featured did not seem much more outlandish than what I had been taught in Sunday School, since little or no historical context had been provided. In their minds, every biblical account starts with, “Once upon a time.” It is like Gould’s proposed NOMA: Teenagers learn about the “real world” on school days and learn about the “religious world” on Sundays. Eventually, they decide the moral imperatives associated with the latter cramp their style, so they jettison it at first chance.

I could probably think of more factors, but those are the ones that immediately come to mind.

It only lasts a few years. Only so much can come from a great youth ministry but when our kids have great high school experiences that don’t have staying power, we have failed to help them establish godly roots. Ultimately we have failed at youth ministry.

Too many youth ministers are evaluated by the numbers this week and not by the outcomes, five and ten years on.

Either or thinking and static models are doomed by their nature.