Well, not exactly, but here is a great post from David Fitch about the dangers of contemporary youth ministry. With kids in junior high and high school youth group, I often worry about the things Fitch mentions here. I’m grateful that my church’s youth ministries focus on some of the things Fitch mentions, particularly missions. But I do worry about the kind of spirituality a large youth ministry imparts in virtue of its being large. In fact, I worry sometimes even about the emphasis on missions. Is there a model for what most of these kids will eventually do in life — work at “ordinary” jobs and raise “ordinary” families somewhere in the U.S.? Or is the message that “real” Christians are “super-Christians”: missionaries and pastors? There’s lots of emotion, but is there enough depth to help kids move into the challenges of college and adult life?
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One reply on “Youth Groups Ruin Kids' Lives”
Interesting post! Wrt missions trips I see them mainly as orienting young people to the fact that all the world is not like North America. I do not see them as particularly setting a career goal. One of my concerns is that such trips might overload the receiving missionaries and that their effort to host a group might be larger than the net benefit to the national community. IMO visiting the same location rather than visiting different missionaries each trip has benefits. The missionaries know what to expect and how to use the abilities of the visitors. Likewise the youth leaders know better how to prepare.
We attend a suburban church but live in the down town core where there are lots of street people and homeless ministries. It bothers me that I rarely see or hear of a youth group being trained to minister locally to the homeless and street people.
Looking back, a long time ago, to when I was in a high school youth group, I mainly viewed it as a place and time to see my friends. The program was mainly something to put up with. One day a week, at school we had small group bible studies and for me at least this was much more helpful and beneficial in the long run. I think that having the youth group spend a fair amount of their time in social and sports activities has considerable benefit as that is a much safer environment that many of the other activities that are available.
Dave W