I am a meteorologist and a former youth leader at church…I have a lot to say on both subjects…and then some
Thought I would pass this one along. We all struggle with this. I do. The problem is that we begin to see the people we despise as not human, so we think we can treat them as something other than what they are…a child of God.
Coming from a youth ministry background (almost 10 years as a volunteer in some form or another), it is easy for me to say that this post if off base. However, as I thought about it, what is the main complaint in youth ministry, or from youth pastors? Parental/adult involvement in the ministry of the youth/kids. I agree that maybe even my focus on the kids shouldn’t the be primary focus, but discipling the adults to do the youth ministry.
A first reason to focus on adults is that parents have the primary responsibility to disciple their kids. Sure, it’s rare for parents to do that. We’ll teach them to hunt, fish, cook, drive, and other things of life. But do we teach them them to pray? To read and understand the bible? To share their faith with others? To interpret their lives and encounters with the world in terms of the Kingdom of God? Usually not. At least in many UM churches, many of the adults are too spiritually introverted to feel “comfortable” doing these things. Better leave these really important things to the professionals, i.e., the Sunday School teachers and church staff.
I come from a United Methodist background, but in my experience outside of the UM, I see the same thing. Usually, the successfully run youth ministries have a lot of adult help and a lot of parental support.
Read the whole thing here.—>Bandits No More » Success in ministry.
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Cross posted on Big Ticket Festival Ministers’ Connection.
Someone directed me to the Facebook page to stop Michael Vick from getting into the NFL. I joined. Then another friend chastised me for it. I reconsidered. Deleted the post and un-joined. Then this article came out. Here’s what really got me about this article.
Who knows if Vick will get on the straight and narrow and become a powerful testimony of God’s grace, as Dungy hopes. The question for us is, do we hope so?
I guess that is the question. If we call ourselves Christians, do we extend grace to those who don’t deserve it?
Read the whole article.
Tony Dungy, Michael Vick, and the Grace of God – Real World Parents.
I often feel that the extreme right and extreme left pull us into this kind of discourse. Not because they have any new ideas, but they just can’t bring themselves to agree at all with the other side.
I usually read this stuff through XXXChurch.com, but I ran into this through another blog site. This secular view of the trends is what we have been saying has been happening. This is a secular site so I’ll give a warning for some of the language in the article.
HOW INTERNET PORN IS CHANGING TEEN SEX: DETAILS Article on men.style.com.
Watching My First Abortion | Newsweek Health | Newsweek.com.
Hmm…I wonder why they had a negative reaction to the procedure? Could it be that there is a law written on our hearts (Romans 2:15)?
I saw this recently. Hmmm…someone pushing an agenda and sending out a retraction that most nobody hears about?
Usually, when I read something about climate change from Discovery Channel, it usually goes out and talks about man-made global warming. Sorry, but with my background in atmospheric science, there are too many things that the climate models lack to attribute things all to man’s disregard to taking care of the planet. However, this article surprised me. A good read for most laypeople.
