The title is a quote from Scott T. Brown. I’m glad someone is finally saying it! I hope this starts a movement in evangelicalism that centers around parents ministering to their children, instead of professional youth ministers being expected to fulfill the 24/7 jobs of parents in just a few hours per week. An article at the Christian Post points to a documentary titled “Divided: Is Age-Segregated Ministry Multiplying or Dividing the Church?” Here are some quotes from director Scott T. Brown:
“The whole point of ‘Divided’ is that God has spoken clearly about the discipleship of youth in the Bible. Scripture is sufficient. It’s time to get beyond the age of modern, systematic age-segregated youth ministry. We need to put it aside.
…You never see Moses, or Nehemiah, or Jesus, or the apostle Paul, or anyone ever segregating people by age. On the contrary, integrated discipleship is really an un-disputable pattern of Scripture.
Here’s a quote by former youth pastor Boyd Dellinger, lead pastor of Heritage Bible Fellowship in Fayetteville, N.C., who is interviewed in the film:
God has appointed fathers to lead their children; not for someone else to do it just because they have a college degree or some seminary training. That does not qualify someone to all of a sudden become the spiritual leader of your family.
I’ve included the trailer for the movie below; and you can watch the full movie here for free until September 15.
Divided Trailer from NCFIC on Vimeo.
I don’t agree entirely with the FI movement; however, I agree with their premise in that we must not hand our children over to someone else to raise them, whether it be the local church or the public school system. This does not mean that parents should not attend a church that has a different youth ministry model or send their children to a public school system, so long as they’re teaching or re-teaching their children when they return home. Some families have no choice concerning school or church. We however still have a responsibility to teach our children how all truth is grounded in the Incarnated Word Jesus Christ (Col. 1:16-17). We are to be their primary teachers; not someone else. Can other people help us? Yes, of course! But, they cannot replace us; and we cannot farm out our responsibility before the Lord.
What are your thoughts?
Chris Roberts (63)
Dave Miller (61)
Bob Hadley (48)
Debbie Kaufman (45)
dr. james willingham (44)
Les (30)
cb scott (29)
Rick Patrick (27)
Bill Mac (26)
Christiane (26)
There is much about youth ministry that I do not like, as it is done today, but I would hesitate to use the extreme words of condemnation you have used here.
I know quite a few young people who have been led to Christ and discipled in youth ministries. It can be done badly, but it can also be done well.
Something about a baby and bathwater comes to mind.
Ministry lives in the intersection of the ideal and the real. In solid Christian homes like I grew up in, perhaps the value of the youth ministry is lessened. But most kids don’t grow up in those kinds of homes today. Youth ministries can have a powerful impact in the lives of kids from difficult homes.
I think the statement goes way beyond what is warranted.
Dave, I assume you’re talking about the title? That’s a quote from the director of the film.
My concern is with Christian parents that lean too heavily on youth pastors that can “relate” to their children. Of course with youth whose parents are unbelievers, we have to minister to them; but, I think we need to go after parents. We must assume that their parents are still the primary teachers in their homes; and that God has still given them this responsibility. We cannot replace parents; we must reach them.
What we’ve been doing the past 50 years has largely not been working.
*I do agree though with what you’ve said previously on Voices that we tend to use statistics to bolster our opinions. The FI movement however has no statistics to back up their assumptions. I do agree though with them that we still must try to see how the NT church ministered to teens.
what do you tell the 16 year old whose dad is in jail and mom is living with her third boyfriend this year?
Unless you exclude people from broken and dysfunctional homes and isolate the church into a healthy-families-only enclave, the practical reality here doesn’t work.
Paul instructed the older men to teach the younger men and older women to teach the younger women. I think this gives biblical warrant for discipleship-based youth ministry.
Again, there is a lot wrong with youth ministry as it is often done, but the problem is not youth ministry as a theory, but how it is practiced.
Dave, as I mentioned below, I think Christian families should “adopt” these children, while intentionally seeking to reach their parents.
You are right about the older men and older women teaching the younger men and younger women (I argued something similar below). This should take place; but, parents are still the primary teachers. When parents don’t attend, we still have a responsibility to teach their children; but, it shouldn’t be the goal… to teach children what parents aren’t teaching them. Our goal should be to reach their parents so that they can teach them. What youth pastors and pastors do should be an overflow of what is already taking place in the home.
The main concern in my article above is with Christian parents forfeiting their responsibility. And, many, many Christian parents don’t crack the Bible with their children on a weekly basis. They expect the church to do it. I think this is mainly what’s wrong with youth ministry: we have sought to replace parents instead of coming alongside them and encouraging them to raise up their children according to the Word.
It doesn’t work with people who don’t understand the Gospel and discipleship. Whether you go to a FIC church or a Church with all the programs available. The Gospel must be central! This straw man you use as an argument is what plagues our pragmatic Christian culture. “what do you tell the 16 year old whose dad is in jail and mom is living with her third boyfriend this year?” First, of all you start with the Gospel and make sure you weep with him pray and read the scriptures with him. Then you involve him in your family. You teach him responsibility. You try by God’s Grace to sort out his brokenness. Then you let him see what a whole family look like. By disciplining him according to Deut. 6. if that means you invite him to live with you so be it. You do what it takes because that is what the GOSPEL demands of you. Programs and youth groups are not the answer. Putting them with other kids that come from homes that are just as bad if not worse is not the answer. Mr. Miller the reality is that people have been deceived into thinking that programs and youth groups have done the job when the REAL reality is that Christians aren’t willing to take in that 16 yr. into True discipleship. So they farm them out!!! Oh yeah!, I go to a FIC church and if you came and visited you could see the prostitutes, crackheads, and homosexuals these families are taking in and disciplining for yourself. I’m sure your opinion would change. By the way my offer stands! You could stay in my home in the room next to a seventeen year old who fits your description. Many Blessing TH.
And I realize that the extremist title was from someone else – but you endorsed it, so I accepted it as an expression of your sentiment.
Dave, I largely agree with the title. We must rethink how we carry out youth ministry. I think when near 80% of the people we’ve “reached” through these youth ministries leave the church and don’t return, that we’re not really reaching these teens. We need something somewhere between modern youth ministry and the FI movement.
Jared,
It is worth pointing out that the 80% statistic is largely anecdotal and is untenable.
If you are looking for something between youth ministry and the FI movement I’d suggest Family-Equipping Ministry. Check out Perspectives (3 Views) and also Dr. Jones’ book Family Ministry Field Guide. I’ve found this very helpful!
Yeah, that statistic is proof of the scientific fact that 93% of statistics are made up or twisted to buttress a point.
The statistics seem to say either 70% or 88%. I believe those are through Lifeway research, Christian Smith’s study, and Barna.
I guess you could dismiss them as “made up” but then you’d have to dismiss all stats anywhere and everywhere.
Of course, I have to note that 100% of stats are dismissed by people that don’t like what they say.
Right, guys?
(I think Jared’s “80%” was probably a splitting of the difference between those two well-known stats. But I could be wrong.)
Brother Dave, I appreciate your position but I don’t feel like the baby and bathwater analogy applies simply because there has been some -SOME pragmatic fruit in a ministry that cannot be defended methodologically from scripture.
My counter analogy to yours, would be, does the exception make the rule? As to difficult homes, though the argument for youth ministry is more emotionally appealing, it does not jive with scripture. Furthermore, FIC families in those contexts can and are, committing to take those types of children under their wings and mentoring and discipling in a family context, preferable relationally, to the distance inherent with youth pastors and struggling and often way-ward teen peers.
I look at it from two ways and have yet to resolve how to reconcile it. First, we say we want to bring families to our churches. And what’s the first thing we do when a family walks through the door? Send mom to the lady’s Sunday School class, Dad to the men’s class, little Bubba to the kids’ department, Sally to youth group and baby Jake to the nursery. That’s how we edify the family?
However, a more holistic ministry effort is challenging. Have you ever preached with a screaming infant in the sanctuary? Have you ever tried to prepare a message that makes sense to a 6 year old and a 66 year old? I’m not saying it’s impossible, just challenging.
I’ve worked more in various youth ministry capacities than any other area although I’ve never had the big challenge of being a youth pastor. Right now I work with youth in our local Juvenile Detention Center. I often feel more comfortable speaking to youth than I do adults. I’m not sure if that is some special gifting from God or indicative of a mid-life crisis.
What I have found is that youth have particular interests, challenges and issues that are best addressed in a youth only context. However, other issues are best addressed in a family context. It’s all about balance.
I’m not ready to call youth ministry a “failed experiment” yet.
Randy, my concern is more with the worship emphasis; segregating worship based on age. Some churches have youth worship services, children worship services, etc. I don’t think separate Bible studies are so horrible. God afterall has gifted the church for the edification of all. There are other people in the church that can edify my children, including teachers.
I think I am in total agreement with you here Jared. What element are we depriving ourselves of when we segregate worship time by age group? Then we create a culture this culture of one day you’ll graduate to youth worship, then one day to adult worship. That’s manmade boundaries. Let’s break them down!
I admit that I have not read all the comments yet, nor have I watched the trailer (sound does not work on my computer at church), though I did read the article linked. But like Dave, I must somewhat disagree with the premise and much of the conclusion. The presupposition of this movement seems to be that the youth in youth ministry are either the children of churched parents, or children whose parents are open to church themselves. Maybe that is the case in some places, but not here in the Maryland suburbs of Washington. While we do have some youth who are the children of our churched families, most are not. They are “neighborhood kids,” and most if not all from single-parent homes. In every instance, their custodial parent has no interest in church–believe me, we have tried. (That does not mean we have given up; perhaps their optimum openess is simply not yet, God’s time.) For the moment, however, we have kids who attend youth group, whose custodial parent has no interest in church, and if left to them, would neither attend with their children nor send them to church, and certainly do not address spiritual and eternal matters with them. Furthermore, most of these kids stay with the non-custodial parent either every weekend or every other weekend, making their attendance in worship on Sunday somewhere between problematic and unrealistic. Were it not for age-segregated youth activities and worship, these kids would have absolutely NO Christian/church influence in their lives.
Our youth minister has achieved some considerable success. Our group attracts youth who are not only from broken homes–the “standard” for our society–but also a very diverse group of youth. We not not follow the “homogenous church growth principle.” Like our church, they are racially diverse as well as economically and ethnicly diverse. At the same time, I do not disagree at least that some things about the sterrotyped “youth ministry” needs to be changed. Our emphasis is not on having fun, but rather is geared to Christian service, which requires both a Christian presence (evangelism within the youth themselves), and a core base of knowledge and commitment (discipleship). The most visible emphasis is a camp which targets an economically depressed area of the county, which the youth themselves staff (along with our youth minister and various parents from the church), but there are quite a few other tghings they do. Yes, they sometimes meet with the youth minister at Mickey D’s or IHOP, and occasionally even play games, but that is not the emphasis and even then, there is a discipleship and learning element within the “fun” activities. Pardon me for blowing our own horn, but I think this is youth ministry “done right.”
John
I do agree with yall about separate, age directed, worship services….being separate from each other….that’s not really a good thing, IMHO. Although, our youth do meet separate from us on Wed. nights for their own worship and Bible Study. But, on Sunday mornings, we all meet together….on Sunday nights, we all meet together, except the children have Awana during school year…so, they are separate on Sunday nights…..
Anyway, I do agree that we should all worship together on Sunday mornings…I’ve seen a church that has separate worship services on Sunday am for all the different age groups…and I’ve often wondered what a youth felt about it, when he became too old for the youth worship, and had to move up?
I really like to see 80 yr olds worshipping with 10 yr olds….I think we all learn a lot from each other, and we should be challenged to get along with each other….and enjoy each other….
David
Jared and Randy, you hit on a big issue here from the context of worship.
You (Randy) seem to have proplerly concluded that indeed, the idea of worship segregation is significant. Why wouldn’t that be the case as importantnly in teaching and discipleship?
What was and remains the biblical pattern and practice? In Deut, Ezra and Nehemiah, through the teaching of Christ on the Sermon on hte Mount, we see the expectation and necessity of children, youth and even the ‘aliens’ or strangers or guests, all gathered together to take-in the preaching and teaching of the word.
What makes us think we know better today than they did as to the matter or form in which children should be raised and discipled? Do pop-music, IPods, Pads and the internet dictate new extra if not unbiblical methods and standards of discipleship?
Bernie, how does the FI movement answer Dave’s argument, and I agree, that the older ladies and older men are to minister to the younger? Titus 2:4 for example?
Also, what about God gifting each individual Christian with at least one spiritual gift for the upbuilding of the entire body? Since our children are included in the local body, once they trust Christ, shouldn’t we allow others to teach them.
Must we be present for it to be God-glorifying? Whether I’m sitting there or not, someone other than me is teaching my child.
“Ministry lives in the intersection of the ideal and the real.”
Love that line. While it would be ideal for youth ministry to simply be a suppliment to the parents teaching their kids at home, in reality most kids don’t get solid biblical teaching at home.
It would probably be just as fair to say that the specialization/segregation method of doing church as a whole is the problem, not just youth ministry. Youth ministry is a single facet of the issue. There were responses pushing back against this 15-20 years ago with the idea of “family-based” youth ministry and such. There are more churches who are trying to integrate whole family ministry without separating families out by ages during services in particular, or perhaps during weekly small groups and those types of things.
The main problem I have found is that it is harder to do. I just dealt with the problem of a screaming, squirming, roaming kid yesterday morning in fact. It presented a definite challenge during the sermon, but I think we handled it well as a congregation even if it was hard. After all, I never saw anything in Scripture that suggested this discipleship thing was supposed to be easy either.
But family-based ministry only works if you limit your church to intact, Christian families. When some kid shows up at our church from a broken, non-Christian family, you cannot tell him to go hom and let his dad disciple him.
I know churches (there’s one near us) that pretty much only welcome other committed home-school families. They are isolated from any “negative” influences. But they do not really reach the broken, sinful world.
You know DAVID, I was thinking about the ‘isolated’ children, that the problem isn’t of course that they are in immediate ‘danger’,
but that, in their ‘isolation’, they may not be learning how to responsibly ‘interact’ with the outside world in a way that preserves their own integrity as Christian people, and still makes them an effective witness for their faith.
The ‘jolt’ of carefully sheltered children exposed to the outside culture has been recorded and documented among two sets of teenagers:
1. the Amish offer a time for the young to engage the world and then decide for themselves if they want to commit to their faith community and return to be baptized. Some who do not return to stay with their Amish communities remain ‘in the world’ and have many troubles adapting, although their work-ethic is so strong, that training is a plus for them.
2. Sadly, there are young men in some of the splinter cults of Mormonism that practice polygamy. They grow to marriageable age, and are turned out into the world on their own, because the young women of the cult are chosen by the older men to become ‘sister’ wives in their polygamous system. These young men fair very poorly and are tremendously vulnerable alone in the world.
Just a thought that somehow, it might be good for ‘home-schooled’ sheltered young Christian people to be offered ways to serve in the community early in their teen years:
maybe in hospitals, or as volunteer tutors in a public school setting, or working in a home for the aged, or maybe a group home for mentally-challenged people.
That would really them to grow BOTH ways: strengthened by their parents’ careful supervision; and given experience of making a difference in their wider communities, which they someday hope to serve in as Christian people.
Just some thoughts.
Dave, what if these Christian families “adopted” these children whose parents aren’t attending, and intentionally sought to reach their “adopted” children and their parents?
This is what I think would be beneficial: families reaching families.
If a church wants to do it that way, they are free to try. But there is no more biblical warrant for that than for discipleship based youth ministry.
Jared,
I love your “what if” question. I really do. But as a homeschooling parent, with many years of experience of participating in homeschooling networks, I can tell you that happens 1 out of 100 times. Highly disciplined and structured families (read: families with their act together) simply do not have a pressing desire to disciple messed up kids from messed up families. I know that sounds presumptuous, harsh and unloving, but it is what I see.
I am blessed to be the parent of 15% of our youth group and serve as the part-time youth pastor. I get to do what you suggest. It has allowed me to have some insight into the shortcomings of some youth ministry philosophies.
In my view, the number one shortcoming is the failure to disciple families as a whole. Again, as an elder, I get to speak the gospel into families and not just students. If you fail to exhort the parents to live out the gospel in their home, you are really handicapping your work in discipling the students.
I have another insight that will probably get me flamed.
The reason why some in youth ministry do not speak the gospel into families is that they do not have the spiritual, emotional, and yes, chronological maturity to do so.
So, the knee jerk response of some when deconstructing youth ministry is to throw it all out. I find that as short sighted as Ignatius the Relevant Youth Pastor (look it up).
Family involvement in youth ministry? YES!
Wholesale removal of all age segregated ministry? NO!
The Ignatius thing is just wrong. I had seen that many years ago and forgotten just how bad that was. I agree with your last two statements. There is obviously a time for separation of ages and teaching things at appropriate levels. I do think we have sometimes carried it too far in the modern church era to be sure.
I’m a tolerant man, but I will not put up with people dissing Ignatius – that great man!
“In the Bible it says that you judge a teacher by his fruit. But what do you do if the teacher IS a fruit?”
Best.line.ever. (from Ignatius the Ultimate Youth Pastor)
Dave,
That is so typical for a Yankees fan. Showing way too much love for a high-priced free agent.
Dave,
I think you are taking the “family-based” thing a little too literally. I know that there are some who attempt and have attempted what you are speaking of, and it is what the beginning of the movement was about in many ways; but it isn’t what I was trying to suggest as a model.
Admittedly, I didn’t elaborate so the fault is my own. I am speaking of the church as a family in and of itself. Such a church family can still incorporate youth and children from families that don’t come to church as a whole family unit. I am trying to point to the idea of the church as a larger family unit than just the families that attend.
A church family can act as godly parents for young people who don’t otherwise have parents that live lives worth patterning after. Maybe, they also can find ways to try and minister to and reach the rest of those families that don’t go to church through less “traditionally churchy” means. Every small group doesn’t have to be a Bible study every week.
What I speak of is happening in a church less than two miles from mine and other churches that I have known of in the family-based church movement (essentially, homeschool families who form churches with like-minded people).
I realize that my experience is not a scientific sampling.
And I really wasn’t reacting, Jeff, to what you were saying but to the general “Divided” and FIC condemnation of any ministry that does not look like theirs.
Not a problem, I just figured I would try and clarify what I was trying to say a little better. I would venture to say that we have a lot of that going on in church these days. As to the examples you cited, I can only hope and pray that they will at least be successful in helping the families that they do reach.
I would recommend checking out Tim Challies’ review of the “documentary”. It should help put the movie in proper perspective.
http://www.challies.com/dvd-reviews/divided-the-movie
A quote from Challies:
Dave, could you lay out what you mean by “discipleship-based” youth ministry?
Youth ministry focused on the spiritual growth of the kids, not just on attracting a big crowd.
The generalized failure of youth ministry over recent years is a microcosm of the failure of many churches: more is better, happiness is the point, and better a highly-watered-down truth than no truth at all.
There are churches with strong youth programs that are effective for the Kingdom. Where you find those are, as far as I can tell, in churches that are also strong on: Biblical teaching, commitment, and any of the other things we criticize youth ministry for not having.
When, across the board, 10 million people that Southern Baptist churches claim as members are not in church—keeping in mind that to be claimed as a member they should have professed faith in Christ and commitment to Him and His church (in some form)—what do we expect our youth ministries to teach teenagers to be like? The reason youth ministry fails in many places is because it generates teenagers that are just like the majority of the adults in the church.
Then we turn around and throw it back as “well, it’s the parent’s fault.” Actually, it’s a long-standing fault of our churches: show up, give a little money, and that’s good enough. We’ve taught it too well and now have a great many churches devoid of disciples. Plenty of people to “take ownership” or to “fellowship” but not many disciples. Plenty to count on the ACP or to hit up for Together We Build….
Anyway, I think there’s a lot broken in the general youth ministry model, but most of those problems are echoes of what is broken about our institutionalized corporate mindset in the whole church.
I’m stealing a lot of quotes from others, but your statement:
“Actually, it’s a long-standing fault of our churches: show up, give a little money, and that’s good enough.”
Really hits home. A friend of mine came up with a parody hymn called ‘Take My Tithe and Leave Me Be’.
Scary accurate.
Let me stoke the fire a bit.
I have seen a lot about how the “system” is busted. I’d tend to agree with that, but I’m looking at a different system – you know, the one whereby as soon as we hear that a child has professed faith, we rush to get her baptized and give her a “welcome to the family” card that she can sign to commemorate the day she was saved. No questions asked.
Then we teach them as if they are Christian when they may well not be. Then they get frustrated, and the parents get exasperated because they were told that their kid was a new creation and can’t understand why there is no fruit. And God forbid they question whether or not their child is truly a believer!
In the experiences I have had, “easy believe-ism” seems to be the system that’s broken and is leading to all sorts of problems everywhere. I have seen small and large churches do small and large youth programs well. I have seen small and large churches do small and large youth programs poorly. But the thing that links them in my experience is not how they do the youth program, but how they discern the spiritual state of the youth in the program. The good ones actually disciple the sheep and evangelize the lost. The bad ones try to make it a social event that might get to the gospel sometime.
The issue as far as I have been exposed to is not ‘FIC’ vs ‘non-FIC’, it’s more of a case of discipleship and discernment.
Does that sound like what you all are seeing?
Don’t know about anyone else, but I would certainly agree that failing to clarify what it means to be a Christian to children before baptizing them is a serious issue.
Well Dave,
Our children’s pastor came under serious fire after only one profession of faith in the summer of 2010. He almost lost his job over it. Seriously.
Now, this past summer, I got the feeling that many children were being asked, “Are you SURE?” and viola, we had about twenty professions and now our children’s pastor is being heavily praised on all sides.
Pure numbers.
And its not only my church, it’s almost systemic…
That’s sick.
Given the current atmosphere of growth and what not, I wonder what a committee would have said after Jesus turned away multitudes of people? I can see it now: “Well, Jesus, you are a nice guy and all, but you just aren’t getting the numbers we are looking for. You need to step it up a bit or we’ll be looking for another savior.”
This problem would largely disappear if people understood that the purpose of ministry is not “get people saved” it is “preach the word and let the Spirit work.” It’s almost like people expect pastors and other ministry leaders to be the Holy Spirit.
If the “Youth Ministry” deal is a failed experiment because too many parents are trying to escape their responsibility in raising their children, then I’d have to say it’s the “parenting” that’s a failure.
Of course, any church’s youth discipleship can fall short, too, but if the parents are ruthless in their pursuit of their children’s welfare, then the discipleship program’s shortcomings won’t hurt the kids.
I heard one parent, well known and respected, say in a business meeting that was discussing a new potential youth minister: “The youth program in our church is the last hope for our children”. I wanted to throw up.
Seems that our public school system has similar charges against it . . . but what people have not acknowledged is that, in many cases, children in public schools do not have a strong parental support system, and teachers are left with trying to work alone to help the children . . ..
of course, parental support is important in any sort of education and there IS NO SUBSTITUTE for it. There are no ‘professionals’ who can do the work of a parent (although teachers try desperately to help).
I’m not the biggest fan of modern day youth groups either, but I don’t think FIC’s provide the only answer (it’s more of an extreme opposite reaction).
Discipleship in the Bible is simple: the older (not so much age I think but, more spiritually mature, which would hopefully come with age and following Jesus) teach the younger about Jesus and his lordship over life (i.e. obey all that he commanded). But outside of this the Bible doesn’t give us much in terms of methodology.
In both the Old Testament and the New Testament fathers of families are responsible for the spiritual upbringing of their children (Deuteronomy 6 and Ephesians 6), but this doesn’t mean they are the only responsible parties.
In 2 Timothy Paul expresses a love for Timothy as a father does for his son. Paul obviously had a lot of influence on Timothy’s spiritual growth. He built upon some aspects of the home life–Timothy’s mother and grandmother, but the only reference we have to Timothy’s father is that he was a Greek. This seems to indicate Timothy’s father was not a believer, and when Timothy was somewhat older Paul instead played that role as a “spiritual father.”
And Jesus’ ministry w/ the twelve was anything but family integrated. He focused his time on twelve men, and actually tore at least two of them (James and John) away from spending time with their father.
The bigger picture, I think, is found in 1 Timothy 5, etc. Is the relationship within the family important? You bet. Should fathers and mothers be discipling their own children and not “out source”? Absolutely. But, all the older men and women in the church should be viewed as mother and father figures to the younger men and women. Discipleship involves the family, but is ultimately more about the greater family–the spiritual family, and thus is more community oriented.
A youth group is fine as is age-graded Sunday School to use as part of our methodology (assuming they are actually helping a particular church’s discipleship process and not impeeding it). But the question is: are the youth and children receiving interaction with other adults in the church who don’t wear the title “youth director/pastor.”
That’s not to say every adult is going to interact with every youth or child on an equal basis, but do we have adults who are engaged in mentoring? Do we have other adults who will sit down with a youth and talk to them about things going on in their lives? Do we have older parents or grandparents who will come alongside the younger parents and grandparents to help them figure out how to raise their children in the Lord.
We need to treat the church as one big family.
And then indivdiually with each church: if youth groups help with our discipleship then have them, if they don’t then ditch them.
So explain to me the failures…
How are today’s youth ministries failing?
Too often, the goal of the youth group becomes to attract the highest number of kids. So, the focus becomes pizza and parties and games, with a devotional thought thrown in someplace so we can call it Christian.
I used to get “Bible Studies” sent to me from different youth organizations when I was a youth pastor. I was amazed at the paucity of actual Bible content in these “Bible” studies. Some popular song was analyzed or a movie discussed, then some relevant point was made backed up by a verse of scripture lifted out of context.
I talked to someone from the most immoral youth group I had ever heard of. I asked him, “Did anyone ever tell you guys this stuff was wrong?” “Nope,” he said. “We just did musicals and went on mission trips.
I have yet to see a youth minister whose ministry isn’t predicated by numbers as deemed acceptable by the church.
In fact, I’ve seen “decline in numbers” cited on more than one occasion as churches dismissed their youth ministers.
And how is attracting large numbers of youth on a Wednesday night a bad thing? After all, where would you rather them be?
Here’s my question for the devotees of FIC: If the family is the basis of everything, why did God establish the church? Just have Dad preach to the wife and kids on Sunday.
Obviously, while in no way denigrating the family, God saw the need for a Body that went beyond the family. These two divinely ordained institutions can work together and support each other, but neither nullifies the other.
It seems to me that some in the FIC almost nullify the value of the church as an institution separate from the family.
Also, why did Jesus go through such pains to establish that his followers had higher priorities than family connections? (“Hate his father, mother, brother…” “The ones who do the will of God are my brothers, sisters…” “Leave the dead to bury the dead.”)
I think the FIC movement make a legitimate critique of church where ages are segrated all or most of the time. However, they deliberately overlook churches that are more balanced, and often discount any positive youth group experiences while playing up the experience of those who had a “Coke-and-joke” youth ministry.
I don’t know of any youth ministries that distribute Coke…oh, you meant coca-cola. Sorry. My bad.
cokebiber
I used to snort a lot of coke in my younger days. But I stopped cold turkey. The ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
Lots of straw-man argumentation in this video as well as in the FIC movement. Sure, you can point to error and silly games and say that is all that youth ministry is – and then promote your own structural change. But, what if the whole problem isn’t the structure but the heart of it all?
The premise here seems to be that if you change the model, then everything will be okay. That’s pretty much what got us into this mess to being with. I am all for family-based ministry and parents having the main influence, but that can be done while still having kids/adults gather together for worship, teaching, small groups, and ministry if Christ is the focus.
We can go too far in segregating youth. Often a young person gets out of High School and decides the church no longer has anything for them. Some of the most influential times in my teenage years was at church services when there were few if any other teenagers. There is great value in youth becoming a part of all the regular worship services and getting to know those younger and older folks. A teenager does not have to just be around other youth to truly worship God. Soon he’ll be an adult; he can learn much from being around them, and worshiping with them.
Someone said several years ago of Jesus being single – If Jesus would come to most of our churches we would have nothing for Him. The point was that few churches have singles ministry. I strongly disagree. My church would have something for Him, and any single, every Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. Segregating by age (or marital status) is fine to a point, but that is not the way it is in real life. We also need to be integrated into the entire life of the church.
I agree about the importance of families. For those who come from broken families – church cannot replace mom and dad, but it can help, and point them in the right direction.
David R. Brumbelow
I liken the Family Integrated Church Movement to the Tea Party Movement — to the extent that the Tea Party Movement has helped focus America and the political culture on the need to get our fiscal house in order, then they are to be commended. But, when folks within the Tea Party Movement are unreasonable, inflexible, and rabidly dogmatic in their approach, then they should not be commended.
To the extent that the FI Church Movement has helped churches, pastors, and families focus on family discipleship and the important role that parents play in the spiritual development of their children, then the FI Movement should be applauded. However, when they try to force their veiw on churches as the only “correct” Biblical view of ministry, then I think they should be ignored.
When one of those interviewed in the trailer that Jared linked to said “there’s not a shred of evidence — from Genesis to Revelation — that age-segregated progrommatic youth ministry ever existed,” he belied an agenda that reminds one of the fundamentalist nature of the David Barton Christian Nation movement. He sure makes a lot of money from that movement. An argument from silence is one of the weakest arguments that one could make. There’s also not a shred of evidence in the Bible — written in a Middle Eastern culture over 2000 years ago — that cameras and film ever existed. Probably shouldn’t allow yourself to be filmed for a documentary, then.
Can churches partner with parents to have an effective, Biblical youth ministry that does have some age-segregation? I think so. May be I’m biased because we just had a group of 53 students return from Falls Creek Youth Camp in Oklahoma on Saturday. On Sunday morning, about 40 of them were in attendance at worship. Five young men came forward during the invitation (I mean response time
) to share publicly their spiritual decisions made during the week. If we follow the FI model, then youth camps such as Falls Creek are probably right out. As Dave mentioned earlier, I’m not for throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I’m glad that Southern Baptist churches are autonomous. We can learn from others like the FI church movement, but we don’t have to take everything that they say as the Gospel. Thanks and God bless,
Howell
What a bunch of silliness.
First, it is huge stretch to try and take the scriptures about the obligations of parents and families to disciple children and then take that as support for the destruction of specialized age group ministries. Those scriptures do not teach that. Heck, if it all belongs on the parents, why should the Christian child or teen listen to a preacher or a Sunday School teacher. His/her dad should just preach at home.
Second, this is contrary to my, and I believe many people’s, experiences.
Think of all the great youth ministries, Young Life, FCA, Campus Crusade, Navigators, InterVarsity, Youth for Christ etc. I know that some of these are college ministries, and many of these are parachurch organizations, but the lesson is still the same. A great deal of good, solid, in depth discipleship is done in these groups.
I know that in my own life that I learned a great deal from my youth pastor. We saw many kids from non-Christian families come to Christ during their high school years. I can think of a dozen young men who are in the ministry today who came through that youth ministry, most of whom came from outside the church. Their families did not go to church. One is the chaplain for the Clemson Football team, one is the great nephew of Albert Schweitzer.
If our church had had the model propounded in this film and post, I would not have been discipled by a great youth pastor. My family was not a church family.
And to suggest that some family in the church was going to adopt me is laughable. I had lots of families, and singles, adopt me. The whole church adopted me. My parents became professing believers 15 years after I left the youth group. They were always grateful to the church for what it did for me. If some family in the church had tried to unofficially adopt me, my family would not have taken it well, and would have seen it as competition. But since the entire church loved me, they were never threatened by that.
But, again, the basic problem with this post is that is it trying to take a position that is really not supported in scripture.
We have a full time, Student Pastor in our church. He works with children, youth, and college age people. He works hard. He does a fine job, and his ministry is a blessing to our church. In fact, he started Awana here a couple of years ago…one of the best things our church has done in years.
So, I like having a Student Pastor. I see the benefit and the blessing of this ministry. I see the families we’ve reached thru this ministry. I see the children that have gotten saved thru this ministry.
So, put me down as one, who thinks its a very good thing.
David
Jared, thanks for pointing out this documentary for folks. I watched it a few weeks and thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought it was exceptionally well done as far as editing and cinematography and all that. Its points were clear and well supported too.
I’d say it’s about as much of a documentary as anything produced by Michael Moore.
I’m not a big fan of youth ministry, especially when it takes older children out of the worship service.
I also agree with David Brumbelow’s statements about the blessings of fellowship with those who aren’t in one’s “age group,” etc. Fellowship with “seasoned saints” is something that I think is probably neglected by the current youth ministry model. That can be a very helpful aspect of discipleship, particularly with those youth who for one reason or another may not have that relationship with those of similar age in their own families. In larger churches, the whole Sunday School program often has all or almost all classes segregated by age, sex, or marital status.
Superficial and entertainment driven youth ministry is a big problem. But we don’t want to swing to the other extreme and make a golden calf out of the family either. (I’m not thinking of anyone in particular with that statement, but if the shoe fits…) As one wise DOM told me a few years ago, “The only thing we want to go to seed on is Jesus.”
I tend to agree with Dave Miller on the issue of the evangelization and discipleship of unchurched youth and those from broken homes. It’s basically the one reason why I would hesitate to say that all youth ministry whatsoever must go. That was the original impetus behind the development of Sunday Schools in Britain. Reaching out to unchurched youth seems to me to be something that is sometimes neglected by the anti age segregation and family church folks.
Jared’s response about the “adoption” by families of unchurched youth and those from broken homes strikes me as being a very helpful idea, albeit somewhat unrealistic in this discussion in particular. (I’d think that depending on the circumstances that the parents of the child or youth would sometimes be more likely to object to that sort of thing than they would to a youth group in general.) I’d be happy to be proven wrong, but I suspect that such “adoption” largely exists in the noumenal realm at this point.
Hospitality in general on the part of Christians is a definite need, especially in an era in which many of us aren’t even acquainted with our neighbors. Other’s mileage may vary, but in my experience, FIC types are often the last people to open up their homes to children and others who are from a troubled background. The tendency is to associate with those who are already of like mind and to avoid dirtying one’s hands in ministering to those who have obvious problems. (I think we all fail at times at the latter and it’s a failure generally among evangelicals, one that in general probably gets worse the higher up the income and social status ladder one climbs.)
One big problem, whether there’s a big youth ministry or not, is the lack of having the faith modeled Mon-Sat., with many evangelical families having no regular family devotions or worship, among other examples that could be named.
I’ve heard too many youth pastors say that’s a huge problem, with the parents dumping the kids off at church for various activities and hoping the youth pastor will get ‘em saved. Programmatic youth ministry or not, parental engagement and parents having an obvious authentic faith and establishing a distinctively Christian household is key. If the parents live worldly lives, many kids will get the idea that Christianity is just traditionalism and superstition, if not bigotry, in the face of a culture that is increasingly hostile to Biblical Christianity.
Consider all of the parents who think nothing of missing worship on the Lord’s Day because their kid has a soccer or baseball game or whatever. What kind of message does that send?
I have seen the movie and it does make a rather compelling arguement for the abolition of youth ministry, or at the very least transitionally, of the drastic reformation if it.
I am a current church planter (3 yrs in) of an FIC (Family-Integrated Church) in South Florida, but came from having served as an AP at an Independent Baptist, neo-traditional and evangelical ministry that featured and pushed children’s and youth ministry and saw up close and personal, the inherent dangers and problems associated therein, which only confirmed the massive amounts of data – ancedotal and research I found, pointing to the serious nature of this issue.
This is not about mere preferences people, but as ‘Divided” persuasively argues, about the sufficiency of scripture and who is primarily responsible for the evangelism and discipleship of children- the parents in Christ, or the paid-professionals who though well-meaning imply by the nature of their ministry, ‘parents, don’t try this at home?’
For me, my conversion to this age-old paradigm of discipleship was motivated by the dysfunctionality I found as pervasive if not inherent, in modern youth-ministry, as well as looking at the relative recent history of it in the history of the church, and asking what is the rather clear pattern, practice and therefore principle of youth and children’s discipleship in scripture– Old Testament through New (Deu. 6:4-9; Eph. 6.1-4, etc.)?
Conclusion? FIC, as was the case in the Jewish and Christian congregational experience and church history, more specifically for her (the church’s) 1st 1,900 years and change. Again, I challenge my ministry brothers and partners, don’t take my word for it, but be willing to have your presuppositions and neo-traditional college and seminary training challenged, and simply look at the all-authoritative and sufficient word, juxtapose that with church history and prayerfully consider why do we have youth ministry at all and what does it do to the idea of family and multi-generational discipleship?
BD
I did not find the video persuasive at all, unless I was supposed to be persuaded that the director liked seeing himself on the camera as he travelled across America on some type of “investigation.” Of course, as he says himself, he was raised in this perspective and I doubt he learned very much that he didn’t already know. So, it comes off as fairly disingenous.
The youth pastor who is speaking anonymously, like he is in fear for his life if he disagrees with age-based youth ministry? So, I guess that he is trying to keep his job in a ministry that he doesn’t agree with, but he still wants to complain about in the video. Maybe that is part of the problem.
There are good things that can be learned from the FIC movement. We try to incorporate much of it. But, to say that is the ONLY way to do church and that everything else is rooted in paganism is silly. It is like saying that House Church is the ONLY way to do church. We are mistaken if we think that we can go to a certain structure/form and it will save us. I am not a huge fan of the Megachurch movement, but it would be ridiculous for me to say that all large gatherings of believers in church are automatically unbiblical or sinful. There are always better ways that we can do things and we should learn and listen to one another.
But, setting up youth ministries as the enemy of the church and the reason for the slide in America is ridiculous.
I was involved in a conversation two years ago with several ministers from several churches. One of those mentioned a problem-situation that has arisen in their church. This church is very large and ALL of you would know it should I name it. At any rate, this church has a very large and impressive youth building. You cannot imagine how large and impressive. The youth conduct all of their activities in this building. In fact, they never even step foot into the worship building in which their parents worship. Never. The church has a massive youth group. So what is the problem?
When these youth reach the age when they need to either find their own church or transition into the adult area of their home church, they are perplexed. It is almost impossible to find any adult worship service that compares to what they experienced in youth group (side note, this may be one reason the church in America is so anxious to be “contemporary” in its flavor, but that is another blog for another day).
In my opinion, there is a great correlation between the problem mentioned above and the epidemic of young people leaving the church nationwide – somewhere between 70-85% of students are leaving the church (at least temporarily, if not longer) after leaving high school. Most churches are not wealthy enough to afford an entire youth building and most churches do not employ a strategy where students never worship at all with their parents. However, I have, over the years, come to see more harm than good from the youth group SYSTEM.
I am talking about the system, not the well-intentioned believers in the system. My youth minister was a dear man, strong believer, and was even my best-man in my wedding. I was a youth minister myself. Some of the greatest Christians I know are in youth ministry. So please hear me, I am doubting the system, not the people.
As I look back at my years as a youth minister, I am saddened at the number of young people who are not walking with the Lord today. The majority of the youth who were in my youth ministries who are still walking with the Lord today have one thing in common, their parents were involved in their spiritual lives.
The youth who go through youth group and stay with God commonly fall into one of two categories: either they make it because their parents actively disciple them at home, or their home lives are bad and some youth minister or youth sponsor takes up this role of discipling them. In both cases, the “answer” was being hooked up with adults, not with other teens. Are there exceptions to the above? Yes, and praise the Lord. But there also a ton of examples of teens from godly homes who were strung out on the fishing line as “bait” to draw in other teens, only to see the churched teens go the way of the worldly teen rather than the worldly teen go the way of the churched teen. I would much rather see my whole family trying to reach another whole family than send my children out as ambassadors alone.
Of course there are those young people who came to Christ through youth ministry and are still walking with the Lord. Praise the Lord. But there are also numerous young people who were raised by Christian parents and then were exposed to all sorts of temptations and worldliness in the youth group itself. When I was a youth minister, in an attempt to reach the unsaved youth, we used lots of rock music and so on. How many of those youth were damaged rather than blessed? As one said well, “Sometimes in the church we do more entertaining the wolves than feeding the lambs.”
The church I serve as pastor does not have a youth group. What? No youth group? “I guess you don’t care about young people?” Nothing could be further from the truth. We have a great percentage of young people in our church (between 50%-60% of our attenders are children/young people). Our youth are not a separate group. They are part of the church as a whole. Any youth attending Sunday School is a part of a “multi-generational” class. These multi-generational classes have attendees from babies to adults. If a youth were to show up by himself, where would he go? To one of the family classes mentioned above. What will he find? A group of teenagers studying the Bible with adults (and children). This hypothetical youth who shows up alone needs more than anything to see and be a part of family. Do we have youth events? Yes and No. They are called church events. We have about 100 church attenders aged 10 days – 21 years. When they are all together at an event where all these ages are mixed in with all the adults, too, I never hear the teens saying, “Oh, I wish these little kids weren’t here,” or, “Why are there adults here?” Instead, I usually hear my teens coming home saying, “Mr. So and So is so funny!” and, “All of us teen girls were fighting over who got to hold the new baby,” etc.
It seems to me that we are reaching and keeping just as many unchurched people as we were before making this transition. The only wonderful difference is that we are doing a better job of reaching and keeping our own children than before. In the recent history of the church in America, it appears to me that we have a pattern of losing our current young people while reaching out to new ones. So we repeat the process every generation. I believe the youth group system affects this cycle.
How many times does some hypothetical youth actually show up at church by himself? People invite other people. The lost youth is not so shocked at our not having a youth group. The rebellious “Christian” young person who has the fast potential to take other youth down the drain with them is the one who is usually put out that we don’t have a youth group (and that we use traditional music). But you bring a lost young person in and they hear the Gospel through the pulpit ministry and from others verbally, and they feel loved and welcomed by other youth and adults, and your chances of reaching them and connecting them to the whole body of the church are as good or better than the youth group system (in my opinion, with which you may disagree).
You might be interested to read of another Southern Baptist church which experienced a similar metamorphosis as the change our church has undergone: http://www.texanonline.net/default.asp?action=article&aid=6169&issue=3/23/2009
I could go on and on and I still might not help you understand, but if you will listen to the message linked below, you will gain more understanding. Dr. Voddie Baucham says it better than most. I hope you will take the time to listen.
“The Centrality of the Home” by Dr. Voddie Baucham – http://www.sermonaudio.com/playpopup.asp?SID=5209234630
Also, you can listen to Dr. Baucham on the subject, “Answering Objections to the Family-Integrated Church,” by clicking here – http://www.ncfic.org/mediaorganizermodule/view_mediaorganizer/id/10/src/@random4a1fff0b0c23b/
I would be glad to answer any questions you might have about church without youth group. We are still learning, but I can tell you this – our church loves youth and we get to be with them and I think the youth may just love our church, too. We don’t think we have figured it all out and we don’t bash other churches who don’t see it the same way we do, but I can tell you that it has been a wonderful blessing. Malachi 4:6 – “He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.”
I won’t be able to answer rebuttals – we leave tomorrow morning for our church campout – yes, with all ages :>)
As a recent graduate from a SBC seminary with a degree in Student ministry and currently working in the trenches as a youth minister and working on my PhD in the field I feel that I need to weigh in on this discussion. The argument presented by the FI movement is nothing new we have heard them off and on for years. For the most part I agree with some of their arguments but I have yet to hear a great argument on how to minister to the students who come to our churches who’s parents could care less what they do.
Throughout my years at seminary it was pounded into our heads that we are not called to be the primary discipler of the students that God has placed in out hands. That job falls onto the parents it they can. We were taught to be a minster to the parents as much as the children. To walk along side of them, to be a source of information on what is going on in their children’s culture, what is going on developmentally, how to reach them, and to be a shoulder to cry on.
Many of the comments here mention a modern youth ministry that I don’t think exist in many churches. The idea of packing in the numbers and keeping them too busy to sin is dying paradigm. Today’s youth ministry is more about relationships and pointing students to God in a way that is life changing. I am currently trying to do that in a church who has not had anyone trying to do that for over two years and it is working but it is a tough process.
I would love it that parent would disciple their children and I am working with the few parents I have access to get them into a position to do so but when out of a youth ministry of around 20 active students I have only one active pair of parents and roughly 80% of my students come form broken unchurched homes the role of discipler falls onto me and the other adults I have been able to recruit.
When it come to parents discipling their children I think we need to look at the several areas. Many of them are better described in the books I am going to mention but I’ll give it a try. In the early 2000′s Christian Smith conducted a nation wide survey on the religious beliefs of adolescents. In this research he found tow things that are important to the current discussion.
1. If you want to know how an adolescent will look spiritually as an adult you just need to look at where the parents are spiritually. Parents are the key influence in their children’s spirituality.
2. Among the devoted adolescents there view can best be described as Moral Therapeutic Deism (MTD). This can be described as
1. A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.
The results of this study are published in a book called Soul Searching and when it was published it rocked the youth ministry academic community. there were many calls that the MTD was the result of youth ministers more teaching a shallow faith. We might be responsible for part of that.
the next point comes from a book called Almost Christian by Kendra Dean who worked with Smith on the original survey. I her book she explored the cause of MTD and looking of the data that had been collected she came to the conclusion that MTD is not just limited to the youth in the church but they were taught it by their parents and the adults who they interacted with. This is not just a youth ministry problem but it is a church wide problem brought on by us pastors and adults who have for decades taught and believed a watered down faith that asks nothing of us. So when it comes to parents disciplining their own children I am finding it necessary for them to be taught what to teach their own children. We are commanded to make disciples and we have failed for the most part.
One more book that I want to mention is Hurt 2.0 by Chap Clark. in it he describes an aspect of youth culture that few adults see. From it he has found that adolescents today feel abandoned by the adults that are supposed to care for them. To most of them they live in two worlds one where they are themselves and one where the fit into whatever mold they need to gain approval of adults.
All three of these books are important for anyone who works with teens. They are not easy reads as the information and conclusions are not pleasant but they are needed. Youth ministry is needed not just for the youth in the church but also for the parents of our youth.
“The youth conduct all of their activities in this building. In fact, they never even step foot into the worship building in which their parents worship. Never. The church has a massive youth group. So what is the problem?”
I was in a church just like this and know what you mean. It is horrible in so many ways. Like a whole seperate church.
Then when I left that mega I looked real close at the FIC model and found a ton of problems there.
Then! I remember my youth and my brother’s ministry working with at risk youth in the inner cities. Yeah, try FIC with that population. All I know is they poured their heart and soul into not only reaching them but discipling them. This was many years ago but he still is in touch with many of them who are Born Again believers.
Now, my smaller SBC church has a youth ministry where they worship with us. But the best part is the teaming up they do with the seniors in our church for prayer, missions, etc. Great relationships are being formed across the generations. It is one reason I love it there.
I despise what I saw as the legalism in some FIC groups. Teaching that girls should not go to college, etc. I also was astounded with some thing Voddie taught such as, ‘Older men yearning for the attention of a younger woman and that is what their daughter’s are for”.
Older men “yearn” for the attention of younger women? Shouldn’t we surmise the older man then has a serious problem?
That is some sick stuff.
Christianne,
Don’t know what you are talking about with the Voddie quote. Sounds like a misquote to me. If you can give me a page number or a minute marker from an audio sermon I could respond. Glad your church is seeing bonds across the generations.
Sincerely,
Ronny
It is really interesting to read all of the different perspectives and experiences that people have on this topic.
Churches do not all have to be the same. They all have strengths and weaknesses. An FIC church is not going to reach a significant number of youths who are not already in in-tact families. A church with a huge youth ministry is often going to see some of that fall of as the youths move into adulthood.
This reminds me very much of the music and worship debates we have in church. Some churches prefer traditional music, and others prefer contemporary music. There are some principles regarding music that should be used in worship, but often people take their personal taste and try to take scriptures to support their personal preferences.
I am happy for any church to gather and operate its ministries the way that it sees fit. Not all churches are going to be for all people.
But I am against attempts to take one model of church and ministry organization and trying to make that “biblical” and all other methods illegitimate.
Again, I have seen very little scriptural argument on this. An appeal to ancient Jewish or Christian life is not a substitute for scriptural authority.
The argument against age specific ministry sounds very much to me like the Church of Christ argument against instrumentation in worship music. It’s not in the Bible, therefore, it is not to be allowed.
We all see that as an unpersuasive argument.
That is what is basically going on here. And to strengthen the argument, extreme cases are used – shallowness, extreme separation etc.
If there is someone out here who can make a really strong scriptural case for this, I’d like to hear it. But arguing from silence, ancient culture, broad based admonitions about the duties of parents and then daisy-chaining to reach some ridiculous conclusion is not going to be persuasive.
I agree with much of what you said here Louis. Our church has a lot of teens and young adults who were reached as teens that come whose parents do not belong to our church. My associate pastor was led to Christ at 13 years old and his parents have never attended faithfully. I myself was an outreach kid (bus kid) who was reached because someone reached out to youth. That being said, I do believe the church as a family must provide the father and mother role models that these kids lack in their lives. I had a young lady call me last night who is in college now who started coming to our church when she was 9 or 10, tell me that she looked at me like a father figure.
Also I don’t think that age graded method is always the greatest because it has two dangers: 1.) it has the potentional of creating an artificial barrier in the church, and 2.) some teens are grow past the spiritual level of the youth department and sometimes need more than what the youth pastor is providing.
Great points, John.
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