Just read a really good and helpful booklet—Critique of Modern Youth Ministry by Christopher Schlect. As i’ve been struggling and thinking much about “modern youth ministry” i’ve realized that there is so much that is assumed and not actually biblical. Here are a few of my favorite miscellanies from the essay. If you’d like to read it, which i would strongly urge, you can find it here.
“I am convinced that young people have a far greater capacity for spiritual and social maturity than we tend to give them credit for, and parents have been given the responsibility to see that this capacity is realized.”
“Effective youth ministry is the father’s task; he has the responsibility to establish a godly atmosphere in the home. Fathers must be leaders in worship, prayer, reading and studying the Bible, and in fellowship with other saints. Moses demanded that fathers in Israel rear their children in such an environment that the majesty of God was plainly manifest to them everywhere they turned (Deut. 6:6-9). This standard remains, and fathers today must meet it. If children do not come face to face with Almighty God in every aspect of their lives, their fathers,through abdication, are bringing them up in practical atheism.
Where does this leave the modern church youth ministry? It has no place where fathers live up to God’s demands. Where fathers have abandoned their responsibility, churches should not focus on the abandoned children, but rather on the fathers.”
Interesting isn’t it? Yes, i’m a youth pastor but i desperately wish that i wasn’t needed in that capacity. There are many discussions that need to transpire on this subject and i’ll see to it they begin soon. My longterm goal: work myself out of a job.
Or here…