"Youth Group is the perfect place for young people when their schedules permit,
and when nothing else more important is going on."
and when nothing else more important is going on."
How do you feel reading that quote?
As a youth leader I tend to agree - in some cases it's a generalization - but in most i think it's dead on!
Most adults want young people to be conformed to the comfortable instead of transformed by the uncomfortable. Church is a great place, to teach young people about Jesus. But what about encountering Jesus?
Causing young people to meet Jesus face-to-face could do irreparable damage to parents' plans for their children.
What would happen if parents and adults alike in the church stopped "planing" every moment of our young peoples lives? What would happen if we let Jesus ruin their lives like we should have allowed Him to do to us? What if their lives were placed in His hands and not in ours? How would your life be impacted - can you give up control and give it back to the One who is supposed to have it in the first place?
To borrow another quote from Mike Yaconelli:
"Unfortunately, too many adults are more concerned about young people ruining the carpet than they are about Jesus ruining their lives. More worried about peer pressure than parental pressure, more upset by unpredictability than predictability, and more fearful of the loss of future income than the loss of creativity and imagination."
Ouch!
Where are YOU in all of this?
Are you willing to let our young people put youth group (God) back at the top of their list (ahead of school, work, sports, music, dance, other extra-curricular, and even ahead of YOU?) Are you willing to let our young people become ruined by Jesus?
I hope so,
His,
~C
8 comments:
Chris, Holly and I just got done reading your blog. We LOVE IT! Preach on preacha'!
Tomorrow, I plan to put a link from my blog to yours-to this very article which hits the nail on the head concerning youth ministry.
Way to hit this one outta the park brotha'!
I don't know how I can 'one up' you ever. You have awesome blogs too ya know. You have some wonderful and powerful insights.
So don't ever sell yourself short my friend. There's no contest between friends.
I just wish we had more people who actually checked out our blogs.
totally agree with the top statement! what is more important than learning about and getting along further in your relationship with God? hah. what is REALLY more important, instead of what we THINK is more important more like.. o.. html! hurrah! i will start using that now..
what do you mean about encountering Jesus? hah TEC? somehow i think you mean something else..
mmmm irreparable damage.. should there be an 'i' in there? but still, it sounds interesting.
what would happen...hah, 'if we let Jesus ruin their lives like we should have allowed Him to do to us?' that makes me.. idk lqtm i suppose. or scoff. one of the two. scoffing at the 'ruining' part, because would it really be ruined, or just lived as it should be???(John 10:10 :P) but indeed, can we give up control and give it back to Him?
i dont think i fully understand the second quote.
see! thats what i see TEC as; like youth group (God). i want Him to be at the top, not school or band or whatever else.. we talked about this. and i am not exactly sure how to serve Him while i am at a band competition, but i do know how to serve Him at TEC, that is by doing what i am told. which is a lot easier. for me anyway.
haha its been fun seeing you at lunch, hope you are having a great December, and i really hope i can make it to the lunch on tuesday... i am scheduled to work right now so ya :/
oh! and another thing! i just read your boat blitz that i think you wrote around the time before the auction, and i want to say that i am sorry. sorry for being part of what made you frustrated(and continues to do so today? i dont know.). i guess i kinda feel like.. i am not ... well i was going to say 'in' or 'connected' with wave, but i do not think that is entirely true. so i am unmotivated, in a lot of things i think. haha so feel free to just tell me what i need to do, like i said above, that usually seems to work well for me..
yup. have a good night :)
hahaha i think i may have commented as much as you blogged.. or more.. haha or less, im not sure. hahaha wow... if you want me to talk/type less, just say ;)
Please describe how you could take the peel off an apple all in one go:
like a fox...duh!
that made me giggle... quite ferociously :D
sorry to spam your comments.. but i thought about the first quote some more, and is youth group really the perfect place for youth? idk... for some it may be, but i dont know if we can really define/imagine or even conceptualize(is that a word?) the idea or whatever of perfect... its kind of hard for something(someone) who is imperfect to know what true 'Perfect' is i guesss... like someone who is blind cant really know what 'sight' is.. or something. anyway, just saying.
oh, and i am a follower now.
Jeff - thanks for the comments, glad you loved it...don't feel like you have to one-up me, we're a team here on all this stuff! :-) Did you see I have 6 followers now - I'm sure they're all "good salt" though!
pitcher12k - encountering = as in really experiencing, not just the typical "sunday-school" learning about...that's just too easy to 'forget.' When someone really experiences something (encounters) they are more likely to truly follow in this case Christ.
to best understand "ruin" you've got to understand the person most often quoted for using that phrase - Mike Yaconelli. He really does help you to understand how Jesus is in the ruining business. Compare our lives in society to what they should be in following Jesus... making any more sense?
as far as "serving Him" you've got to learn to do it in all areas of your life - even when it's not as easy as doing what you're told (at TEC)
"perfect" is a concept
hmm.. cool. it sounds nice. and it makes sense... there is a definite difference between 'typical sunday school' and really 'encountering Jesus'... it reminds me of a leaders meeting we had at Berean once, well the one that i went to, and it was really neat... just time to sit and pray and sing.. i really really liked it.
i dont really know who that is... so ... i guess i dont understand? idk. but is it like, ruin, as in, social suicide? to use a .. idk movie term or something.. because if we truly followed Him and did what we know He wants us to, we would be total outsiders(i would think, haha i could be totally and completely wrong) and i think others would find us to be really weird.. not so much in a good way, but ya.. in a way like, they want to avoid someone. so maybe? idk.
hmm.. yes, i suppose so! and that will be something i can continually work on.. cool beans :)
ok....? i guess that doesnt really help me/i dont know what you are trying to say by that. but from the quote, i am thinking something along the lines of: perfect means there is nothing better, so if youth group is perfect, there is nothing better, but is there something better than youth group? maybe not for some people, but i dont know.
Post a Comment