Some great insightful words from Mark Yaconelli

[ht:Rethinking Youth Ministry]

One of my more popular posts has been my review of Acquire the Fire. I continue to get feedback arguing with my opinion of the event. So instead of continuing to defend my stance that youth ministry should be more pursing Christ than a wicked-awesome (pronounce with thick Bostonian accent) entertainment extravaganza, I’ll let Mr. Mike Yaconelli speak for me:

“If I witness one more Jesus cheer, if I hear one more “let’s have a hand/round of applause/praise offering Jesus,” if I have to endure one more pep rally for Jesus, I’m returning my youth ministry I.D. card. Because as much as we criticize and complain about our media-ravaged society, as much as we rant about the evils of MTV and pop culture, we’ve imitated them by rushing to create the world’s biggest youth event.

At these events we parade around and glorify all things “beautiful” - the dazzling musicians, the laser shows, the foxes and studs for Jesus. At these events we mesmerize young people with how “cool” Jesus is. These pep rallies give teens the illusion that God is cool, that God is winning, that God is the majority - and that their ministries and youth leaders are cool, too. But what these don’t dare say that the even cool, dazzling, “beautiful” youth workers are screwed up, broken and consistently in need of God’s grace.

So rather than cheering our young people into the kingdom, maybe we should point them to the broken, inconsistent, uncool followers of Jesus found in the Bible. Maybe we need to stop pressuring our young people to cheer long enough to prepare them for a world in which the real heroes are powerless, tiny, and considered insignificant. - Mike Yaconelli

Amen.