After 16 years as the youth pastor at my church, I am now in the midst of an interesting phenomenon. I am both the youth pastor and parent of two students in the youth group. This has led to a most interesting outlook for me. For example, when it comes to how our youth ministry staff and volunteer considers what we want to teach through our small-group ministries, my approach has been considerably different. I have gone from thinking What do I want our students to learn? to What do I want my children to learn?
I suppose, then, that while all of us try to work with parents and consider families in our ministries, when your own children are part of your group, a different type of appreciation for the importance of this has come to light. For example, I get firsthand accounts of what my children have learned at Sunday school or midweek small group from their adult leaders.
Ultimately, this has led me to be convinced once again of the pedagogical importance of Sunday school and small-group ministries. Moreover, the significance of the content of what we teach still holds important value. This is not to lessen the importance of how we interpret what we learn.
I was part of a cohort with fellow .slant33 writer Steve Argue recently where he discussed the pedagogical importance of context in learning (finding meaning in what we learn) as well as the content of what we are taught. After spending intentional but random time with my boys and asking them about what they “learned at church,” I realized that the content of what my volunteers are teaching may need some reinforcement, at the very least. Hence, this is one area where I think discussing theology can improve in my ministry and perhaps in youth ministry in general.
An area in which our youth ministry had to reshape itself a few years was our emphasis on having a solid account of what are the theological foundations of our volunteers and to equip them accordingly. Sure, all of our volunteers go to the same church, listen to the same preacher, and have opportunities to go to the same Sunday school classes. However, the lenses through which they interpret these teachings may shape their theologies differently. We certainly need to help our volunteers focus on small-group strategies, how to ask the right questions, and how to love our students. Nevertheless, equipping them for the important and ultimate task of teaching students about God should not be neglected.
I myself have found in our volunteer staff meetings that we talk about forgotten students, disgruntled parents, how to make small groups more inviting. Yet the discussions on what the volunteers are teaching are often not emphasized enough. Hence, our staff and volunteers have taken great steps in recent years to take more time to understand our personal and deep-rooted theological convictions and how that manifests itself in how and what we teach our students. Similarly, equipping our volunteers theologically has been an important value in our ministry.
Ultimately, depending on a church’s theological traditions and what theological teachings a youth ministry may want to teach and convey to students, considering and discussing theology with one’s volunteers and having a unified understanding of it is important. So when a student asks perplexing or imaginative questions like what is your perspective on predestination, abortion, drinking, hell, or suicide, our volunteers would have a theological basis from which to discuss these questions. Similarly, this helps our volunteers to realize that one of our ultimate goals is to teach the content so the context—or finding personal meaning and value in what each student learns—would subsequently be an ongoing process for our students. However, if we did not emphasize the theological foundations first as a youth ministry (staff and volunteers), then this process could easily become an afterthought.
Discussing theology with our volunteers and staff has also played another significant role. In having a deeper understanding of who God is and how he functions, and applying personal meaning to it, our volunteers have become more joyful servants and in turn have a deeper love for our students. For example, one of the theological values we emphasize and discuss among our volunteers is that we believe God changes people. That means volunteers don’t change people. Therefore, being equipped with this truth, our volunteers are more apt to trust God and have more compassion on those students who don’t seem like they are changing. In other words, our volunteers can understand that God has his own timing to change students’ lives, and they need not become discouraged or frustrated when students are not changing “fast enough.” Ultimately, in valuing, embracing, and discussing even such simple theological truths such as this one, our volunteers become greater and more effective servants.
Helpful Resources for Students:
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There are times when we could take great strides of improvement by not talking about theology in youth ministry. Of course, this possibility is itself a result of some theological reflection.
A number of years ago, while I was still a full-time professor, I noticed a disquieting gap in the preparation of our undergrad youth ministry students. They had taken required courses in systematic theology. Many had earned excellent grades in those courses. But I saw little evidence in my own classes that their exposure to theological knowledge resulted in any ability to think theologically about their youth ministry practices. Like too many youth ministers today, their answers to why they did what they did with young people ultimately defaulted to a vague positive assessment of their own personal experiences. They liked what they went through when they were in student ministry, and it seemed to work okay.
So the grandest suggestion I have for improving how we discuss theology in youth ministry is that we refrain from talking about anything in the abstract. If we fail to locate our conversations in the messy realities of our existence, then what we are doing is a theoretical exercise, one that may or may not bear any traceable or valuable fruit in our lives.
How fun to engage in some theological reflection about theological discussions! Notice how Paul coaches Timothy:
As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God’s work—which is by faith. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. (1 Timothy 1:3-7, NIV)
Titus received a similar admonition (Titus 3:9-11). Clearly there are arenas of titillating conversation that should, as a matter of faithfulness to the Lord, be avoided. Why? Because they feed our egos, not the faith that subjugates our egos to the rule of Jesus. Knowledge is a Puff Daddy. It’s rendered useful if it can be linked to right living; otherwise, it is so much vapor in God’s values schema.
With all the caution cones I have tossed off my truck and onto the highway, I think I ought to confess that I teach an annual class that helps grad students think theologically in youth ministry. There is an entire world of possibilities when it comes to analyzing our youth ministry practices in the light of biblical truth. Take a quick spin through the second chapter of Paul’s letter to the Colossians to discover how many reflective bridges the apostle built between ministry activity and God’s Word. Far from not having anything to talk about, we who practice youth ministry ought to talk about the theological derivations, implications, and ramifications of everything we do. Here’s a sample, just to prime the pump:
• What role should parents play in your student ministry? What scriptural basis do you have for your position? Is that foundation applicable to all sorts of cases, or does it crumble when tested against the real-world realities of non-Christian or even abusive parents?
• Youth ministry is often known for its fun—have you worked out a theology of fun? What’s acceptable? What’s intolerable? What form of fun contributes to that which is most life giving and God honoring?
• Why do you meet as often or infrequently as you do? Are there any theological assumptions/commitments that are driving your meeting times, or are practical considerations your only real factor? And by the way, is there any theological warrant for challenging whether practical considerations should be the primary factor in our decision-making?
• How does your understanding of ecclesiology inform your youth ministry’s structure? Your student ministry’s connection with those who are older saints in the church? The way your young people engage their lost friends?
My greatest suggestion for theological discussions in youth ministry is that we talk more thoroughly and more candidly about all of our practices, seeking to discern biblical insights about them that can improve our faithfulness and please the Lord. I expect that such conversations can be as fruitful as the honesty and fidelity of our truth-searching allow.
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This is an extremely important question, not only for youth ministry and the spiritual formation of young people in our youth ministries; this is a critical question for the church and Christianity in North America.
The word theology combines two Greek words, theos (God) and logos (word, speech, or discourse). Theology, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is “the study of God and God's relation to the world.” Many Christians think theology is something that only seminary students engage in and what theologians do for a living.
Theology helps us understand what the Bible means. Theology shapes what we believe about God, about ourselves, about life, about death, and about the future. Theology is crucial to understanding prayer, why we pray, and what happens when we pray. Theology helps us wrestle with issues like evil and why bad things happen to good people. Theology is vital to discover the meaning and purpose of our lives.
In reality, every human being is a theologian. Unfortunately, most people—including those who profess faith in Jesus Christ—are not very good theologians. The reason we are not developing good theologians is the church’s lack of intentionality to develop good theologians.
The North American posture toward life and the meaning of “the good life” is dominated by pragmatism. Pragmatism is largely an American philosophy that holds the belief that “the meaning of conceptions is to be sought in their practical bearings, that the function of thought is to guide action, and that truth is preeminently to be tested by the practical consequences of belief.”
Pragmatism has a significant influence on theology in our culture. Pragmatism as an orientation toward life and meaning subverts theology and tends to focus primarily on human action. If divine action is acknowledged, it is mostly a formulaic response to human action. It is challenging to question the success of the Joel Osteens, T.D. Jakeses, and Rick Warrens of the church world. How dare we not acknowledge their accomplishments? Certainly they must be evidence of God’s favor, right?
Most youth workers have been wrestling with the findings of the National Study of Youth and Religion, a research project directed by Christian Smith, professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame, and Lisa Pearce, assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Smith uses the phrase moralistic therapeutic deism to describe the current religious mindset among young people today. Moralistic therapeutic deism is religious pragmatism writ large and is the result of very bad theology.
So what do we do to help young people become better theologians and engage in deeper theological reflection? We must become intentional about teaching young people to think theologically. We must create consistent opportunities for young people to participate in dialogue. We have to allow for dialectical tension. We must help young people embrace paradox. We must expose them to the great theological issues like election, sanctification, justification, atonement, sin, holiness, the nature of God, plus much more. We must deal with such questions as What does it mean to say God is triune, and why does it matter? If God is all powerful and good, why do bad things happen? Is the Bible from God or human beings, and is it inerrant, infallible, inspirational, or what? What really happened on the cross? and What does the resurrection of Jesus Christ mean for our future?
Theology helps us come to know what we think about God, and that shapes how we live. Theology will help young people form their identities and nurture their spirituality.
Most importantly, our theology should be Christocentric. Dietrich Bonhoeffer believed that theology begins in prayer and has Jesus Christ as the center of God’s revelation to human beings. Jesus Christ is God for us. Perhaps we should begin to improve our theological reflection in youth ministry by spending time answering slowly the three questions that form Bonhoeffer’s theology (as stated in Andy Root’s Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry: From A Strategy of Influence to a Theology of Incarnation).
1. Who is Jesus Christ?
2. Where is the living, active presence of Jesus Christ?
3. What then shall we do?
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pragmatism
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