Posted by Brian Eberly on Thursday, October 27, 2005

Think On This

"The risk facing contemporary teenagers bear solemn testimony to the church's ineffectiveness at addressing adolescence. Youth look to the church to show them something - Someone - capable of turning their lives inside out and the world upside down. Most of the time we have offered them pizza."

-Kenda Creasy Dean, in the Godbearing Life: The Art of Soul Tending for Youth Ministry

6 comments:

Brian Vinson said...

Dean's quote (with which I agree) demonstrates what's wrong with the whole concept of "youth group" and the "entertainment" philosophy and the "bigger is better" mentality that pervade many youth groups.

Instead of having someone walk alongside them and mentor them and (gasp) disciple them, they play Fear Factor...

9:34 AM
Anonymous said...

well why would some newcomer want to go to a youth group? not for the lesson. FOR THE FUN GAMES. i have to admit that i get bored a lot of the times when listening to the lesson. i mean it just gets kinda boring in my opinion.i think that the highschool should have games every wed night so that way more people would come.

-kelly

4:28 PM
Anonymous said...

and to think of the thousands of dollars I've spent on pizza...I hear Dean...on the flip side when it comes to those spirit filled times...it was the pizza pie that made it happen...

8:12 PM
Anonymous said...

well if its the pizza pie that made it happen then keep the pizza pie and use it as a way to draw non christians in!

-kelly

9:32 PM
Brian Eberly said...

Agree! Bring on the pizza. Then bring with it a ministry that truly reflects Jesus and challenges students to fully embrace Him and live like Him.

It starts with us as leaders. We must "be Jesus" to them.

9:36 AM
Brian Vinson said...

I think Kelly hit a home run when she said, "i get bored a lot of times when listening to the lesson." Yeah, sometimes Jesus sat down with his disciples and taught them "lessons" -- but usually they were out doing life together and the "lessons" weren't just about talking at them and hoping they would absorb it and follow it.

There is, of course, a tension between doing fun things just for the sake of doing fun things and having using fun things to point to Jesus. It doesn't have to be "either/or" with fun/boredom or games/lesson, though.

The "messy" night seems to me to be a good example of both/and. Of course, I wasn't there, but it seems that I would have learned something were I to have participated...

7:49 AM

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