Spunky Homeschool

Rethinking Teen Ministry

Oct. 30, 2006 at 6:17 PM

family

TIME Magazine takes a look at the changing attitude in youth ministry.

Youth ministers have been on a long and frustrating quest of their own over the past two decades or so. Believing that a message wrapped in pop-culture packaging was the way to attract teens to their flocks, pastors watered down the religious content and boosted the entertainment. But in recent years churches have begun offering their young people a style of religious instruction grounded in Bible study and teachings about the doctrines of their denomination. Their conversion has been sparked by the recognition that sugarcoated Christianity, popular in the 1980s and early '90s, has caused growing numbers of kids to turn away not just from attending youth-fellowship activities but also from practicing their faith at all.

As the exodus has increased, churches are trying to reverse the flow by focusing less on amusement and more on Scripture.

Our family has chosen a more family integrated approach to discipling our children. I shared our thoughts on youth ministry here.

I also like the way Voddie Baucham says it,

God has given us a mechanism for multi-generational faithfulness and that mechanism is the family. And so one of the things the Church must do is to rediscover and re-emphasize the importance of the family as that discipling
agent and build up the family because that is what's crumbling.
Taking "multi-generational faitfulness" to heart, these grandparents have taken on the task of homeschooling their grandchildren. "
When someone in the fourth grade asked my grandson Justin if he wanted drugs, I said, 'You've got to stop, I'm pulling you out and teaching you at home,'" He said
I'm sure some folks are thinking that these seniors are off their rocker to take this on. And they'd literally be right. Why just sit around in some retirement village all day?   My hats off to them, for showing that it doesn't take a village, but a family to educate children. Mary Nix has a few more links to other grandparent homeschool stories.

(HT: Al Mohler for the TIME article.)

Speaking of teens, this teen e-zine looks at apathy in our culture.

2 Comments and Trackbacks

posted by AcceptanceWithJoy on Oct. 30, 2006 at 6:43 PM

Oh, the Youth Group question... I struggle with this issue. At this time, Marissa is allowed limited participation in Youth Group. We first went through the questions "Is the church youth group for me?" We limited her involvement to the Wednesday evening youth meeting that has a 45 minute structured game time and a brief message. She is not allowed to attend other events or conferences. I am still praying about this issue and wish we attended a more family integrated church, but in our small town, there are not many denominations to choose from.

Have you read Education the Lost Key to Discipleship? Voddie Baucham addresses the question of homeschooling in light of our command to be salt and light. Quite a nice blog entry.

posted by spunkyhomeschool on Nov. 1, 2006 at 7:10 PM

Thank you! You'll probably be seeing that in a blog post soon.

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