youth

Here’s a video response to Billy Graham Association’s “I Believe.com” campaign. It’s all over the net and Facebook (and being pushed by Christianity.com). They’re calling for us to “take a stand!”

Really? Do we need to take yet another stand?

Up for another round up of great Christian signs?

Here are 5 keys to making a great Christian sign:

1) Try to be clever, but make sure to reference death or sin

[HT: Brian Buchanan]

2) It doesn’t matter if you make any sense as long as you mention Jesus

3) Try to be culturally relevant, but you error, make sure you end up being pervy and creepy

[HT: SaintSimeon]

4) Try to make sure you miss the point entirely

[HT: Lifesigns]

5) If all else fails, ruin your attempted wit by misspelling key words

[HT: CrummyChurchSigns]

[HT: YS]

I think that Craig is on to something here.

Think of this. How much of your youth ministry is “fun and games” and how much of it is discipling teenagers in their faith? Are we just entertaining in the hopes of slipping the Gospel in? Is this the “bait and switch” Gospel? Or simply put… is your youth ministry contributing to the stupidity of teenagers?

I noticed this a few years back. We’d promo a trip by saying it was a snowboarding weekend, but fail to mention that our real [subversive] purpose was to share Christ. Once I realized how we were packaging our faith (90% fun and 10% Jesus) I repented and changed my ways. Do we still have fun? Absolutely. But am I clear about the focus of what we do? You bettcha.

Ministry for us has changed to something more about pursuing life change and less about events and entertainment. Is it an easy switch? No. Are we still refining the process with? Uh huh. Is it a necessary one? Yes it completely is.

What are your thoughts?

It’s fixed. It’s ready. It’s up!

Once you’ve got the sign up, you’re official right?

To all the people watching, I can never thank you enough for your kindness to me and I’ll think about it for the rest of my life. All I ask of you is one thing: Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism- it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.

-Conan O’Brien - in his Tonight Show farewell

This Kids in the Hall sketch is a good reminder to us all. Two guys going door-to-door sharing the Lord, but they’re so consumed by their own agenda, they’re unable to see the needs in front of them.

Sometimes we can let evangelism (sharing Christ with others) become either a scripted cardboard pitch or a steamroller shove-it-down-your-throat assault.  Either way these approaches become all about us. It becomes a missions for “us” to save “them.” The key element we forget about in evangelism is the purpose of evangelism. We’re not spreading religion. We’re not out to prove a point. We’re offering help and healing to those in need. Jesus wasn’t about a speech or a forced system or conformity. He offered hope, healing and change. If we don’t offer that, then we’re missing the point and might as well be selling Amway.

I was having a converstaion with a few youth workers the other day. And after listening for a while, I had this question:

When is “Youth Ministry” a dirty word?

I tend to see it as a dirty word when “ministry” becomes another word for “entertainment.”

Do you have thoughts, input or ideas?