In our age of trying to connect with students where they are, we at times can miss the point that we must also move them to where they aren’t. I was reading the latest Breakpoint email and Colson presented a book that might help youth ministers with this. Sure you won’t have all of your kids wanting to dig into the Hermeneutical implications of Reformed vs Armenian theology (however, they do subscribe to one or the other or a conglomeration of the two), but they do have real questions that go oft unanswered by cool, relevant youth ministers. Our job is to help our students prepare for the next stage… that is called adult discipleship. We cannot just leave them in their naturally narcissistic, small perspective of the world. We must expose them. If they aren’t asking the questions, then get them to ask the questions by creating the disequilibrium. Don’t allow their simplified, pat answers go unchallenged.
Here is that Breakpoint article in part:
“The Reason for God Culturally Relevant Christianity – October 25, 2010
You probably couldn’t find a more secular place than Manhattan. And yet, in the midst of Manhattan’s worldly, sophisticated streets is a thriving Christian congregation. Nearly 6,000 people jam five services every Sunday.
Any pastor worth his salt should be asking, “What is this church doing right?” The answer can be found in a recent book by Tim Keller, the pastor of Manhattan’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church.
The book, titled The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, describes the kinds of questions newcomers-mostly highly-educated twenty-somethings–fire at Keller: Why would a good God allow suffering? Hasn’t science disproved Christianity? Why would a loving God send people to hell? And isn’t it arrogant for Christians to claim that their faith is the only route to God?
Keller’s answers jolt his cosmopolitan audience into thinking about the implications of their assumptions. Answers that point to Christianity as a rational choice for explaining the world.“
You better believe that your kids will be facing these issues. My guess most won’t be staying around the Mayberry type towns they grew up. They will be moving to the Metropolitan areas where these questions are the norm… unless there aren’t any answers.
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