Part of the training we have at the seminary is that the youth ministry students are supposed to work at an “approved site church.” Basically, it’s a church that has a youth pastor and is running a youth ministry with a similar philosophy to what the students are learning in class. This balances the academic learning with the experience they need to be successful.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many churches that would even come close to qualifying to be an approved site. Most of the youth ministry students work at their church as THE person working with youth. They don’t get the mentoring relationship we are looking for with a youth worker at the church. After having spent a lot of time with the new youth pastor at PIB Satelite, I can begin to see a great opportunity for a partnership. I am beginning to see the makings of our first possible “approved site church.” We’ll see how it turns out.
I was speaking at MCCA today, and the main topic of my “talk” was that we need to be disciplined in our spiritual life in order to become who God wants us to be. I was thinking on the way there that being a teenager is mostly going from having discipline imposed on you to coming to a point in your life where you can discipline yourself.
I think that we have failed in youth ministry many times because we have not allowed them to grow into this auto-discipline (spiritually) that is necessary. We have spoon-fed answers to people instead of sharing with them how to nourish themselves. We have continued to teach what to think to people who need to understand how to think for themselves. We have done their laundry for them and cooked them their meals (spiritually speaking). Then, when they go off to college, they don’t know how to do those things for themselves and walk around starving and wearing in dirty clothes.
Maybe we should focus more on teaching them how to become self-disciplined and not impose as much discipline on them. Obviously, this has a lot to do with their level of maturity, but it has to take place sometime. We will not always be there.
A new study by George Barna tells us about what Americans look forward to and what they dread. It’s an interesting read. Here are some things that stood out to me and what I think they mean about American culture:
A good night’s sleep, hanging out with friends, and listening to music were the only positive responses by the majority of adults. To me, this means that the American fast paced culture is catching up to us. I’ve said this before, but for some reason, we think that being busy is a good thing. If we have time to rest, hang out with friends, or listen to music, this usually means we are not working hard enough or being “successful”. The majority of us would look forward to a good night’s sleep or time to spend with our friends.
Those from 18-22 years old were very motivated by social networking. They would rather spend time with friends, shop for clothes, eat at restaurants, participate in sporting activities, or discuss religion with friends. Community comes to mind when I think about these ages.
Those ages 23-41 were the least likely to want to discuss religion with others. This sort of implies that religion is a personal matter for this age group.
Read the rest of the study. It is very interesting. The thoughts by the researchers are interesting, too. They aren’t much different than what I’ve mentioned here.
