by Tim | Jan 12, 2011 | God, The Church World, Youth Ministry |
I remember several years ago having a conversation with a youth pastor when I was helping out in his youth ministry. The church was in a very rural setting and had a van that would go out each week to pick kids up for youth group. Most of the kids who came to youth group came from very broken homes and were the victims of poverty. These kids were not stable, and trying to keep control during youth group was often a struggle. During this conversation, we talked about how we wished we could have a youth group like other churches in the city, where the majority of kids who showed up came from strong, Christian homes. Those youth groups had kids heavily involved in Bible Quiz, mission trips, small groups, etc. Things were happening in those other youth ministries! Those kids had it together, and as a result a more vibrant youth ministry was possible in their settings. In our setting, just getting kids to show up w/out body odor and to keep quiet for five minutes would literally have been a divine miracle. We had a feeling that this was going nowhere, because we didn’t have those solid, Christian youth in the group. I remember thinking during that conversation that perhaps we are doing more “real” ministry than the other churches. I may have even vocalized this–I can’t remember. The reason I’m not sure is because at that time part of me questioned the validity of that statement. If you were to compare our youth ministry with a more “normal” youth ministry, it would be hard to...
