Thanks for the comments, one and all. The only piping I need to do is dare to say that one model of a church module could be revised to follow a Biblical model more closely. If churches would plan out their ministry by examining the worldview expressed in the Bible, I believe we would find that our chasm between faith and practice would be reduced, and perhaps disappear altogether.

I am saddened that Glenn has not taken my words in the spirit that I wrote them, but I cannot feign complete surprise. Glenn, If you read this, know that I do love you as a brother in Christ and only offer a concept meant to enhance your ministry. it is good that your church now has a bus, and I hope those church members who had gone out to gather the kids are not upset that they are no longer given that opportunity to show them the love that God has placed in their hearts.

As far as this conversation goes, I am done with it for now. To write on this again would not be valuable to the one whom I was debating. I may discuss evangelism, but not in a way directed to a youth ministry. There should be no divide in a church based on any age, gender or skin color, and if I were to beat this dead horse I would only offer further reasons to acknowledge such modules as being anything less than the local body of Christ. (1 Corinthians 1:10-17)

I respect you for who you are and I respect you for what you do. The fact that I believe that the typical youth ministry denies a Biblical worldview by its actions does not discount the fact that you obviously work hard with the kids and care about them very much. I do not respect anyone solely on the basis of what some internet program thinks about them.

And just because my response is getting a bit wordy, I’ll ask you to wait until I publish it as my next post.

I noticed in somebody’s comment a very limited representation of “the great commission”.

God called us to be instruments in preaching the Gospel to the lost, period

May I suggest that it is not “period”? Indeed His commission was:

Therefore go, and make talmidim of all nations, immersing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amein.
(Matthew 28:19-20 HNV)

The point being that I have never heard anyone ever include verse 20 when talking about the “great commission”. So much so that when I looked up the “commission verse(s)”, I was shocked that it was there. Imagine that… obedience as part of being a talmidim (disciple)!

Shalom.

I stand with each of you on this matter. Each for different portions of your arguments.

I work with a youth group made up of 9-12 grades.
Small group. I have been doing this for 5 years now and have seen mixed results with the polls. I don’t use polls to judge how I am doing in the ministry, BTW. I know God sees their hearts before and after I preach to them and knows before and after I preach to them, who will follow HIM in their hearts and who will follow HIM on the surface. Polls are for politicians.

We as Youth pastors are commissioned to Preach the Truth to the students. Disfuncional, “normal” and all. We are not thier parents in any fashion, nor should we try to be their parents. We can honor God by being the best parent to our own children as we can, in front of the youth groups. I do not see where it tells us to be their parents in Scripture. For those that have unbelieving parents, praise the Lord for Him calling the youth from the unbelieving household and help them understand how they can honor their parents even though they are absent from their spiritual life. I know it is not always easy to see how to honor parents that are deadbeats. We are not commanded to only obey and honor our parents when we think it suits us. Nor are we suppose to divorce ourselves from the families God ordained for us to live with. This is one of my points I deal with having an absent father.

Dan, your last comments on the page make it look like you are a Nah-sayer. I have read a little of your site and don’t think you are one. The greatest lie of Satan over the past 25-30 years has been that “The youth of the church are the future of the church”.
NO!!! they are not the future, they are here and now and we are not training them up as we should be.

How do we deal with this? Preach the Word to them and glorify HIM and prayer.

I apologize for the rant.

Keep up the good fight and rely on Him for all wisdom and knowledge of how we are to lead the young adults.

Thanks so much for the inspired extension of the thoughts and ideas in my series.

I was a leader in youth ministry in various forms for more than fifteen years. I know of what I speak. I was involved in youth ministry with at least five very different churches, a few mainline and Evangelical camps, and a few parachurch youth organizations.

A few words in my defense of my views on the issue of youth ministry.

One study that tracked Christian youth who were “committed to Christ” found that 4 out of 5 had abandoned the Faith by the time they graduated from college. If that isn’t a wake up call highlighting the utter failure of youth ministry, I don’t know what is.

George Barna just put out a survey on teens that showed that 2 out of 3 youth group attenders had experimented with witchcraft or the psychic. (Now he doesn’t say if this is before or during youth group involvement, my own experience says that during is highly probable.)

As to the whole issue of kids from non-Christian households in the youth group, I have three simple questions:
1. Why do you need a youth pastor to specifically minister to these kids?
2. Why do assume that the church at large cannot sufficiently minister to these kids?
3. Why is the church at large so lackadaisical about leading the parents of these kids to Christ and restoring them to their proper role in their teen’s lives?
Answer those question with Christ-like answers and you’ll see how little most churches need a youth-oriented pastor.

Youth ministry DOES NOT ACHIEVE LASTING RESULTS in the majority of kids. The system is broken and must repaired with what worked for 2000 years before youth ministry was conceived.

That’s quite a lengthy treatment of my comments, I must say. I’m flattered. (Especially in seeing that you are a Large Mammal in the TTLB Ecosystem while I am merely a Multicellular Microorganism!)

Let me clarify one statement and then ask some questions:

In saying that our people pick up 70 – 85% of the youth in our youth program I am saying that most of the young people come from unbelieving households and that the church people are their only means of transportation to the church.

Now let me put all that I have been trying to express in the form of a question:

How would you “pastor” a parent who is (1) an unbeliever, (2) disinterested in church/Jesus, and (3) manifests a consistent neglect to his or her child or children in the basic aspects of life, let alone the spiritual?

You see, this is what we’re truly up against in our ministry context. (I’m not saying this to exaggerate or hyperbolize my point!) It’s actually pretty hardcore, but God has called us to it and through Him we are making a difference. We love these kids–God loves these kids–and we’re doing the best we can with what we’ve got. As far is supporting, spiritual families are concerned, we ain’t got much.

Maybe this is hard to visualize coming from your church/ministry context. I wonder: what is the socio-economic and ethnic make-up of your youth group?

Again, it’s probably hard to understand this considering the fact that you have not walked in our shoes of ministering to our community. You’re speaking from the context you live in; I’m speaking from the context I live in: perhaps we could both learn something from each other!

I’m not one to believe that all theories (what I previously called “ideals”) will properly flesh themselves out in all contexts. Please try to understand where I’m going with this: I’m not discrediting the Biblical principles of familial instruction, I’m simply dealing with what’s real and in front of our ministry today. My earnest hope for these kids who don’t have the spiritual support of their parents is to break the cycle and become the kind of parents they didn’t have.

I’m glad you feel so passionately about your position. I respect and agree with you upon several points. However, perhaps for your church, the suggestion to “fire the youth pastor” would work just fine; but for our church, it’s the ministry of being a youth pastor that has and is bringing many young people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and to the instruction of His ways.

Peace.