The next several posts will be clips from papers presented at the conference I am attending at the moment. Much of it is academic, presented by professors who teach youth ministry or related subjects. I am only posting what caught my attention and not entire articles. If any intrigue you enough to want to read the rest, email me and I will send them to you.
“Over the past seventy years teenagers and youth ministers have made the churches in America more adolescent in their beliefs and practices. This juvenilization of American Christianity has both revitalized the church and fostered spiritual immaturity. The need to appeal to young people by adapting the faith to their preferences opens up the possibility that Christians will stay stuck in adolescent modes of relating to God. It doesn’t help that most new youth ministers are emerging adults who are groping their way through an ambivalent transition to adulthood. Meanwhile, the very nature of adulthood is changing in ways that make the adult journey more similar to the adolescent search for identity, belonging, and emotional comfort. As a result of these factors, Christians of all ages are tempted to engage in life-long, individualistic self-definition projects in which the church is just one more product to consume and spiritual maturity is optional.”
From “Developing Youth Ministry Leaders Who Can Help the Church Grow Up”
By Thomas E. Bergler, Associate Professor of Ministry and Missions at Huntington University.
Bergler goes on to suggest that youth ministers need to teach a stronger value of the church itself and to work against an adolescent spirituality among adults. He covers some fascinating history of youth ministry from the mid 1900’s and shows how the old notion of youth being ‘the future of the church’ is true from the perspective that what we do with teenagers will be the norm with adults in the future. The perspective he shares needs to be seen more in a 50 year shift than in any or our lifetimes though to appreciate.
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