Comments on: youth ministry’s achilles heel

By: Catholic Youth Ministry Blog » September 2006

Catholic Youth Ministry Blog » September 2006 — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:19:41 +0000

[...] but more than all of these, I’ve seen a fear of culture become a motivating force. Read more here. [youth [...]

By: The Plight of Youth Ministry «

The Plight of Youth Ministry « — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 03:46:25 +0000

[...] Today I found two posts (here and here) that touch on this topic both from youth workers more experienced than I. Believe me, the book that Marko says needs to be written has run through my head a few times. Unfortunately, I have neither the experience, education, nor the time to pursue that at this time. But I will continue to reflect on our churches theology and ecclesiology and determine if there are things we can do to help make lifelong followers of Jesus of the youth that we serve. [...]

By: ysmarko

ysmarko — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 14:22:01 +0000

[...] there’s an article in the new york times today about youth ministry. i suppose i could post a long bit here about what frustrates me about it, but i don’t have the time or energy. but it does tie in with the ‘culture of fear’ i posted about a week or two ago, that i said was youth ministry’s achilles’ heel these days. No Comments so far Leave a comment RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI Leave a comment Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:

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By: Jesus Creed » Weekly Meanderings Jesus Creed » Weekly Meanderings — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 15:26:19 +0000 [...] 1. Stephen Shields has a good post about distinguishing “emergent” and “emerging.” 2. David Crowder with a problem, beside that fancy emergence at the bottom of his face, I’ve never had. 3. Bob Robinson has finished his excellent series on Greg Boyd’s book. Thanks to Bob for leading us through it. Our prayers are with Bob. 4. Very nice article in Christian Century about Jacob’s Well in Kansas City. (HT: Adam Cleaveland.) 5. Marko’s got a nice, thoughtful post on the Achilles’ heel of youth ministry. Drop him a line, asking him if he’s afraid of the upper case letters! 6. John Frye’s got some reports up about his ministry in the Ukraine. 7. Andrew Perriman has revisited the sense of “wrath” in the NT (here Rom 3:21-26) and he contends that it has to be understood historically (against Jerusalem, against Rome/Greece/enemies) and narrativally, rather than simply an ontic reaction to sin against humans as a whole. His site is not all that easy to use, but it is definitely worth looking at. 8. Erika Carney Haub’s story – must read. 9. Margaret Spellings, American czar of education, has a new, good idea: making college easier for families. 10. Do you think the Trinity is to be mirrored in husband-wife relations? Check out Susan Arnold’s post. [...] By: David Mackey David Mackey — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 23:54:02 +0000 Good thoughts. Fear is a paralyzing factor in our nation, something I remember becoming aware of in my own life as I watched Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine. Might not have been entirely his point, but I realized how afraid I was of something that was unlikely to happen. By: Friar_Tuck Friar_Tuck — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 05:57:40 +0000 I am hoping to hear this in an expanded version as your talk in anaheim By: Lars Rood Lars Rood — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 01:22:05 +0000 Marko- The problem of fear pervades the Church in all areas but with youth ministry you are right it is pervasive. I have been fighting a losing battle for a long time with my church trying to get them to see the importance of students being involved in the whole church and not just involved in youth ministry. Strangely enough I lost the battle (and the war today) I’m going to need to meet you for lunch soon and I know you’re in your busy season but after today I have lots of free time. By: James James — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 18:43:49 +0000 the big problem seems to be about how hard it is to be a ministry of hope, when the the particular church is built on fear. So, our church leadership uses fear motivation on our lives, which makes a youth ministry of hope increasingly threatened. As the Mike Yaconelli quote that’s up on the back of my office door says, “When you strip away the power from those who have power over you, you risk threatening the power structure. When you refuse to measure, you anger the meeasurers. When you knock the props out of the institution [fear], the institution will eliminate you as quickly as it can. The gospel has always been counter-cultural. It was counter-cultural 2,000 years ago. It was counter-cultural 500 years ago. And 100 years ago and 50 years ago and today. Genuine youth ministry always causes trouble.” I’d love to see a late-night option on this – just to get a chance to hear some wisdom, and discuss. Please!! (Especially Anaheim, because that’s the one I am attending..lol) J By: Scott Scott — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 17:38:45 +0000 I so agree that we are being controlled by fear…I know I am. My church has been around for 20 years and at its’ inception, it was kinda the revolutionary church on the block. Now, our church culture is dominated by legalism. You know, good Christians will get all of the rules right. This issue is one of extreme discomfort for me. I teach my students about living the Jesus Creed (great book, btw) on Wednesdays and then on Sundays we here about all of the rules of how to be a Christian. It has gotten so bad that my myspace page has absolutely nothing on it because I’m tired of getting blasted by parents for setting a “bad example”. One parent got mad b/c my page said I enjoyed the David Crowder Band and Van Halen (particularly JUMP). Of course, she didn’t complain to me, just those in charge of me. I try to live a genuine life in front of my students, but I seem to always get blasted for it. I wish the church would learn what it really means to be free in Christ. I feel called to help free people from the chains of legalism, but there are some HUGE probelms…(1) they already think they are free, so there’s no telling them that they aren’t and (2) some people don’t want to be free…they like all of the rules…the rules make them feel safe and somehow they gain assurance of an entry to heaven by following them. For them, no rules to follow = no assurance of getting to heaven. I guess it doesn’t matter that the Bible says it’s not about works. In Scot McKnight’s book, The Jesus Creed, he says that sometimes answering the call of Christ will cause us to be persecuted in the public square. I pray that Christ will give all of us in youth ministry the grace to put aside our fears and step into that square. Right now, I’m just looking at the square from the crowd…would anyone else like to take a step towards it with me? By: marko marko — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 17:04:33 +0000 not that i’m aware of, jeff