Youth Ministry Quotes

GenerationS are Not Replacements. GenerationS are Reinforcements.

Youth are leaders TODAY, not just tomorrow!

Youth are leaders TODAY, not just tomorrow!

If you BABYSIT the youths, you will get BABIES. If you LEAD the youths, you will have LEADERS!

Don’t just think local or global, think generational. Think GenerationS!

A youth church is built by youths, for youths, to reach youths!

Traditionally: Believe → Become → Belong This Generation: Belong → Believe → Become

Don’t just invite youths to the party, give them a seat at the table.

Empower the youths, Don’t Entertain them!

Going beyond “Every nation in my generation” to “Every Generation in my nation

Strong GenerationS Churches do not fight tomorrow’s war with yesterday’s strategies.

Don’t just invite youths to the party, give them a seat at the table.

Don’t use people to build the church. Use the church to build people.

Don’t use people to build the church. Use the church to build people.

Do the Important, Not the Impressive.

From your generation onwards, it will be different.

Fathers don’t just reproduce sons. Fathers reproduce fathers.

The young generation is not here to push you OUT but to push you UP!

GenerationS is not just reaching My Generation or even the Next Generation. But it is reaching many GenerationS.

GenerationS is having layers and layers of leaders at the same time.

Be a Kingmaker, Not Just a King.

Instead of laying a red carpet for yourself to walk on, lay a bridge and let the young people walk over to you.

There are Miracles in the Mundane, Beauty in the Banal and Riches in the Routine!

Our next generation leaders should walk in our footsteps, not in our shadow.

Youths need to be invited, included, involved, before they can be influenced and impacted.

Moving from “I belong to HOGC” to “HOGC belongs to me

HOGC is the place where friends become family and family become friends.

Church is not ‘Where’ but ‘Who’. Church is not about the Place but the People. Church is our HOME. Church is about the People & Relationships.

Empowered Youths become Producers. Entertained Youths become Consumers.

If you don’t captivate youths now for Christ, something else will come in to carry them captive!

We have created youth ministry that confuses extroversion with faithfulness. We have effectively communicated to young people that sincerely following Jesus is synonymous with being 'fired up' for Jesus, with being excited for Jesus, as if discipleship were synonymous with fostering an exuberant, perky, cheerful, hurray-for-Jesus disposition like what we might find in the glee club or at a pep rally.

Once youths are awakened by Christ, they will be ‘woke’ to the cause of Christ.

Home is not ‘WHERE’ but ‘WHO’.

Though no one can backtrack and create a brand new start, Everyone is capable of taking their life in a brand new direction.

If your ministry can't work without you, then it is no longer Christ-centered. Minister toward Jesus, not yourself.

Mentoring is the cultivation of young adults, the tender caring for and nurturing of them so that they will grow, flourish, and be fruitful.

Serving my generation with excellence will in turn mean my generation can lead with excellence.

God knew He had to create you in a way that would suit your story.

The students in your youth ministry don’t need your clever ideas and great programming skills. They need a living model—a man or woman of God who is passionate about his or her faith.

Ministry, then, is not about "using" relationships to get individuals to accept a "third thing," whether that be conservative politics, moral behaviors or even the gospel message. Rather, ministry is about connection, one to another, about sharing in suffering and joy, about persons meeting persons with no pretense or secret motives. It is about shared life, confessing Christ not outside the relationship but within it. This, I learned, was living the gospel. I

When you try to be someone else, you’re not only neglecting your true self; you’re also sacrificing the potential God has planted within you. The potential to rise to your calling, reach others through your gifts, and make a difference.

Yes, it's important to inspire the next generation but let's not forget to inspire the now generation too.

that simply teaching doctrine or preaching on a matter does not equate to actual ministry. Further engagement is required.

Serving my generation with excellence will mean in turn, my generation can lead with excellence.

People often joke about how they’re unable to make conversation until they’ve had their morning cup of coffee. What if we treated our daily quiet time with the same importance? What if we decided not to speak to anyone until we spend time with our Creator and allow Him to fill us with His Spirit first thing in the morning?

The gangs filled a void in society, and the void was the absence of family life. The gang became a family. For some of those guys in the gang that was the only family they knew, because when their mothers had them they were too busy having children for other men. Some of them never knew their daddies. Their daddies never look back after they got their mothers pregnant, and those guys just grew up and they couldn’t relate to nobody. When they had their problems, who could they have talked to? Nobody would listen, so they gravitated together and form a gang. George Mackey, the former representative for the historic Fox Hill community in The Bahamas.

Part of our skittishness about Christian perfection is linguistic confusion. The English word "perfect" has absorbed the Greek notion of "teleos". When the Greeks looked at a building's blueprint, they pictured the building whole and complete. They envisioned the blueprint finished down to the bathroom tile and announced, "Ah, this is perfect." The problem is that "teleos" suggests that perfection is something we can build or achieve. The Hebrews looked at the same blueprint more practically. They envisioned the process of building from hard hats to hammers, from scaffolding to skylights. "Ah," the Hebrews said. "This is perfect." The Hebrews and the early Christians understood perfection as a process, not a product. Our identity as Christians depends upon life lived in relationship with God, not upon the quality of our achievements.

This conference on religious education seems to your humble servant the last word in absurdity. We are told by a delightful 'expert' that we ought not really teach our children about God lest we rob them of the opportunity of making their own discovery of God, and lest we corrupt their young minds by our own superstitions. If we continue along these lines the day will come when some expert will advise us not to teach our children the English language, since we rob them thereby of the possibility of choosing the German, French or Japanese languages as possible alternatives. Don't these good people realize that they are reducing the principle of freedom to an absurdity?

If God’s grace and blessing only rest on Christians, we have a problem because there is no statistical difference between Christians and non-Christians in terms of fertility.

Apathy sets in when our passion for the future is miscarried.

Ministry is about joining God where God can be found.

Friendship means we are obligated to one another, but obligated in a way that doesn't destroy our freedom.

All truth is from God and belongs to him. And since we belong to God, all truth is ours.

We encouraged volunteers to think of themselves not as people who run errands to keep a program going but as spiritual directors in the lives of students. Chris Folmsbee

When the one is sacrificed, the many are also deprived!

Let’s strive to become as protective over our time with God as we are with our daily cup of brew. Let’s become addicted to our “spiritual caffeine fix.

We don’t have to wait for the sunshine of spring to splash color into our days when our relationship with Jesus illuminates brightness to every day.

C. S. Lewis said it this way: “In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. . . . I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.”12

Wesley cast a vision of the world that was unlike anything before or since. It was a world where God actually cared about everyone, not just the chosen few who believed the right thing.

One day a young fugitive, trying to hide himself from the enemy, entered a small village. The people were kind to him and offered him a place to stay. But when the soldiers who sought the fugitive asked where he was hiding, everyone became very fearful. The soldiers threatened to burn the village and kill every man in it unless the young man were handed over to them before dawn. The people went to the minister and asked him what to do. The minister, torn between handing over the boy to the enemy or having his people killed, withdrew to his room and read his Bible, hoping to find an answer before dawn. After many hours, in the early morning his eyes fell on these words: “It is better that one man dies than that the whole people be lost.” Then the minister closed the Bible, called the soldiers and told them where the boy was hidden. And after the soldiers led the fugitive away to be killed, there was a feast in the village because the minister had saved the lives of the people. But the minister did not celebrate. Overcome with a deep sadness, he remained in his room. That night an angel came to him, and asked, “What have you done?” He said: “I handed over the fugitive to the enemy.” Then the angel said: “But don’t you know that you have handed over the Messiah?” “How could I know?” the minister replied anxiously. Then the angel said: “If, instead of reading your Bible, you had visited this young man just once and looked into his eyes, you would have known.” While versions of this story are very old, it seems the most modern of tales. Like that minister, who might have recognized the Messiah if he had raised his eyes from his Bible to look into the youth’s eyes, we are challenged to look into the eyes of the young men and women of today, who are running away from our cruel ways. Perhaps that will be enough to prevent us from handing them over to the enemy and enable us to lead them out of their hidden places into the middle of their people where they can redeem us from our fears.

we have faith to sit in a chair, and continue to believe in its foundation that holds us up. If we have faith in God, the foundation will hold us both up, so its our decision to take the seat and trust him.

Jesus didn’t pay such a huge sacrifice so I could say the prayer of salvation, attend church, and get into heaven. He paid this sacrifice so I could receive the abundant life that comes through knowing Him personally.

Ministry is not about helping these kids be better Christians; it is about helping them be what God created them to be-human. And it is the degradation of their humanity, brought about by broken and abusive families, violent neighborhoods, failing schools and poverty, that caused them to lash out so forcefully. Ministry is about suffering with them in their dehumanization, celebrating their human endeavors and in all things pointing to the true human, Jesus Christ our Lord. Having

Grace is costly because it calls us through our person to the person of Jesus Christ. And when we follow the person of Jesus Christ, when we follow his call through our person, we're sent to act for the concrete person of our neighbor in the world.

This world and everything in it will pass away in the blink of an eye. Yet as long as we’re still here, and as long as we’re living for God, we have a reason for being alive. And that’s to fulfill our mission as believers—to love God and love others.

Over the years I've found it much more helpful to follow the advice of Sister Liebert and seek to treat each young person as a teacher from God, someone God has placed in my life in order to help me grow in faith. When I encounter a young person, I find it much more helpful to think that she (or he) may be the only Jesus I'll ever know. Perhaps by seeking to encounter the presence of Christ in young people, we'll find ourselves better able to see them, hear them, feel compassion for them, and respond in kindness.

The resurrection is the promise that death will not prevail, that nothingness does not have the last word. God promises to overcome it with life... We can trust that God will overcome death because Jesus is the resurrection, because on the third day Jesus rose again, as the first of many.

There is a certain embarrassment about being a storyteller in these times when stories are considered not quite as satisfying as statements and statements not quite as satisfying as statistics; but in the long run, a people is known, not by its statements or its statistics, but by the stories it tells. —FLANNERY O’CONNOR9

Universal Blessing: You do not do elements that focus on negative feelings of shame or embarrassment. • General Revelation: You do not do elements that require some prior knowledge of God or the Bible (Bible drills, etc.). • Imago Dei: You do not do elements that require students to utilize the ungodly attributes within themselves (Yo’ mamma joke contest).

Hope trusts in the promises of God. Hope seeks the action of God that brings forth a new reality. Optimism stands in the current reality, wishing to make the best of each individual experience. But hope stands knee deep in the history of this reality by yearning for the action of God to bring forth a new reality in which everything in this reality is reconciled and redeemed.

If you give the average teenager a choice to go to the Amazon to build a mud hut for the poor while fighting off hungry pythons or going to their school cafeteria and dropping the “J Bomb” on a group of their friends, most teenagers would pick the pythons. Why? Because the average teenager would rather risk getting choked by a giant snake than getting choked out of their social circle!

The ministry was the profession that suffered most—and still suffers, though there has been great improvement—on account of not only ignorant but in many cases immoral men who claimed that they were “called to preach.” In the earlier days of freedom almost every coloured man who learned to read would receive “a call to preach” within a few days after he began reading. At my home in West Virginia the process of being called to the ministry was a very interesting one. Usually the “call” came when the individual was sitting in church. Without warning the one called would fall upon the floor as if struck by a bullet, and would lie there for hours, speechless and motionless. Then the news would spread all through the neighbourhood that this individual had received a “call.” If he were inclined to resist the summons, he would fall or be made to fall a second or third time. In the end he always yielded to the call. While I wanted an education badly, I confess that in my youth I had a fear that when I had learned to read and write well I would receive one of these “calls”; but, for some reason, my call never came.

We decided to attend to our community instead of asking our community to attend the church.” His staff started showing up at local community events such as sports contests and town hall meetings. They entered a float in the local Christmas parade. They rented a football field and inaugurated a Free Movie Night on summer Fridays, complete with popcorn machines and a giant screen. They opened a burger joint, which soon became a hangout for local youth; it gives free meals to those who can’t afford to pay. When they found out how difficult it was for immigrants to get a driver’s license, they formed a drivers school and set their fees at half the going rate. My own church in Colorado started a ministry called Hands of the Carpenter, recruiting volunteers to do painting, carpentry, and house repairs for widows and single mothers. Soon they learned of another need and opened Hands Automotive to offer free oil changes, inspections, and car washes to the same constituency. They fund the work by charging normal rates to those who can afford it. I heard from a church in Minneapolis that monitors parking meters. Volunteers patrol the streets, add money to the meters with expired time, and put cards on the windshields that read, “Your meter looked hungry so we fed it. If we can help you in any other way, please give us a call.” In Cincinnati, college students sign up every Christmas to wrap presents at a local mall — ​no charge. “People just could not understand why I would want to wrap their presents,” one wrote me. “I tell them, ‘We just want to show God’s love in a practical way.’ ” In one of the boldest ventures in creative grace, a pastor started a community called Miracle Village in which half the residents are registered sex offenders. Florida’s state laws require sex offenders to live more than a thousand feet from a school, day care center, park, or playground, and some municipalities have lengthened the distance to half a mile and added swimming pools, bus stops, and libraries to the list. As a result, sex offenders, one of the most despised categories of criminals, are pushed out of cities and have few places to live. A pastor named Dick Witherow opened Miracle Village as part of his Matthew 25 Ministries. Staff members closely supervise the residents, many of them on parole, and conduct services in the church at the heart of Miracle Village. The ministry also provides anger-management and Bible study classes.

The good part about these areas that we were taking over, was that all of them had parks where a lot of guys were just hanging out playing basketball. So I used those parks to make a good first impression with my gun, then I followed up with a speech presentation. At the end of the day, we were able to win over the entire park, and eventually their community….. It was as if these fellas from different areas were just waiting for this, because no one else was going around to them. No one else was telling them that they were needed, only us. Scrooge, former leader of the Rebellion Raiders street gang that once boasted of having some ten thousand members

I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable robustness entered; immediately as the storm-pelted door flew back upon admitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by all the congregation, sufficiently attested that this fine old man was the chaplain. Yes, it was the famous Father Mapple, so called by the whalemen, among whom he was a very great favorite. He had been a sailor and a harpooneer in his youth, but for many years past had dedicated his life to the ministry. At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging into a second flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone certain mild gleams of a newly developing bloom— the spring verdure peeping forth even beneath February's snow.

The cane is just not going to cut it. I shared with some of my colleagues that these brothers live in neighborhoods where they are getting whapped with a piece of stick all night, stabbed with knives, and pegged with screwdrivers that have been sharpened down, and they are leaking blood. When you come to a fella without even interviewing him, without sitting him down to find out why you did what you did, your only interest is caning him, because you are burned out and frustrated yourself. You say to him, ‘Bend over, you are getting six.’ And the boy grits his teeth, skin up his face, takes those six cuts, and he is gone. But have you really been effective? Caning him is no big deal, because he’s probably ducking bullets at night. He has a lot more things on his mind than that. On the other hand, we can further send our delinquent students into damnation by telling them they are no body and all we want to do is punish, punish, punish. Here at R.M. Bailey, we have been trying a lot of different things. But at the end of the day, nothing that we do is better than the voice itself. Nothing is better than talking to the child, listening, developing trust, developing a friendship. Feel free to come to me anytime if something is bothering you, because I was your age once before. Charles chuck Mackey, former vice principal and coach of the R. M. Bailey Pacers school.

MY PROCESS I got bullied quite a bit as a kid, so I learned how to take a punch and how to put up a good fight. God used that. I am not afraid of spiritual “violence” or of facing spiritual fights. My Dad was drafted during Vietnam and I grew up an Army brat, moving around frequently. God used that. I am very spiritually mobile, adaptable, and flexible. My parents used to hand me a Bible and make me go look up what I did wrong. God used that, as well. I knew the Word before I knew the Lord, so studying Scripture is not intimidating to me. I was admitted into a learning enrichment program in junior high. They taught me critical thinking skills, logic, and Greek Mythology. God used that, too. In seventh grade I was in school band and choir. God used that. At 14, before I even got saved, a youth pastor at my parents’ church taught me to play guitar. God used that. My best buddies in school were a druggie, a Jewish kid, and an Irish soccer player. God used that. I broke my back my senior year and had to take theatre instead of wrestling. God used that. I used to sleep on the couch outside of the Dean’s office between classes. God used that. My parents sent me to a Christian college for a semester in hopes of getting me saved. God used that. I majored in art, advertising, astronomy, pre-med, and finally English. God used all of that. I made a woman I loved get an abortion. God used (and redeemed) that. I got my teaching certification. I got plugged into a group of sincere Christian young adults. I took courses for ministry credentials. I worked as an autism therapist. I taught emotionally disabled kids. And God used each of those things. I married a pastor’s daughter. God really used that. Are you getting the picture? San Antonio led me to Houston, Houston led me to El Paso, El Paso led me to Fort Leonard Wood, Fort Leonard Wood led me back to San Antonio, which led me to Austin, then to Kentucky, then to Belton, then to Maryland, to Pennsylvania, to Dallas, to Alabama, which led me to Fort Worth. With thousands of smaller journeys in between. The reason that I am able to do the things that I do today is because of the process that God walked me through yesterday. Our lives are cumulative. No day stands alone. Each builds upon the foundation of the last—just like a stairway, each layer bringing us closer to Him. God uses each experience, each lesson, each relationship, even our traumas and tragedies as steps in the process of becoming the people He made us to be. They are steps in the process of achieving the destinies that He has encoded into the weave of each of our lives. We are journeymen, finding the way home. What is the value of the journey? If the journey makes us who we are, then the journey is priceless.

But won’t political involvement distract us from the main task of preaching the Gospel? At this point someone may object that while political involvement may have some benefits and may do some good, it can so easily distract us, turn unbelievers away from the church, and cause us to neglect the main task of pointing people toward personal trust in Christ. John MacArthur writes, “When the church takes a stance that emphasizes political activism and social moralizing, it always diverts energy and resources away from evangelization.”83 Yet the proper question is not, “Does political influence take resources away from evangelism?” but, “Is political influence something God has called us to do?” If God has called some of us to some political influence, then those resources would not be blessed if we diverted them to evangelism—or to the choir, or to teaching Sunday School to children, or to any other use. In this matter, as in everything else the church does, it would be healthy for Christians to realize that God may call individual Christians to different emphases in their lives. This is because God has placed in the church “varieties of gifts” (1 Cor. 12:4) and the church is an entity that has “many members” but is still “one body” (v. 12). Therefore God might call someone to devote almost all of his or her time to the choir, someone else to youth work, someone else to evangelism, someone else to preparing refreshments to welcome visitors, and someone else to work with lighting and sound systems. “But if Jim places all his attention on the sound system, won’t that distract the church from the main task of preaching the Gospel?” No, not at all. That is not what God has called Jim to emphasize (though he will certainly share the Gospel with others as he has opportunity). Jim’s exclusive focus on the church’s sound system means he is just being a faithful steward in the responsibility God has given him. In the same way, I think it is entirely possible that God called Billy Graham to emphasize evangelism and say nothing about politics and also called James Dobson to emphasize a radio ministry to families and to influencing the political world for good. Aren’t there enough Christians in the world for us to focus on more than one task? And does God not call us to thousands of different emphases, all in obedience to him? But the whole ministry of the church will include both emphases. And the teaching ministry from the pulpit should do nothing less than proclaim “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). It should teach, over the course of time, on all areas of life and all areas of Bible knowledge. That certainly must include, to some extent, what the Bible says about the purposes of civil government and how that teaching should apply to our situations today. This means that in a healthy church we will find that some people emphasize influencing the government and politics, others emphasize influencing the business world, others emphasize influencing the educational system, others entertainment and the media, others marriage and the family, and so forth. When that happens, it seems to me that we should encourage, not discourage, one another. We should adopt the attitude toward each other that Paul encouraged in the church at Rome: Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God…. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother (Rom. 14:10–13). For several different reasons, then, I think the view that says the church should just “do evangelism, not politics” is incorrect.

Until structures are in place for great ideas to be implemented, even the best of them will wind up on a treadmill that may speed up or slow down but will go nowhere.

More seeds of ministry are sown in youth between the ages of twelve and eighteen, more relationships forged that affect their future, more choices made with long-term implications, than arguably any other period in life.'I'hese are the years when young adults begin to think about issues that will influence the rest of their lives.

Ministry, then, is not about "using" relationships to get individuals to accept a "third thing," whether that be conservative politics, moral behaviors or even the gospel message. Rather, ministry is about connection, one to another, about sharing in suffering and joy, about persons meeting persons with no pretense or secret motives. It is about shared life, confessing Christ not outside the relationship but within it. This, I learned, was living the gospel.

Beware of any work for God which enables you to avoid concentration on Him. A great many Christian workers worship their work. Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us do rejoice. One life wholly devoted to God is of more value to God than one hundred lives simply awakened by His Spirit…. So often we mar God’s designed influence through us by our self-conscious effort to be consistent and useful. Jesus says there is only one way to develop spiritually, and that is by concentration on God.

A kingdom church is a society of individuals who are expressing their Christianity through their lifestyles. This means that it is theoretically possible to be an amazing church without a single ‘program’ or ministry. Of course, that sounds very counterintuitive. After all, most churches are scrambling to have the best youth/singles/children’s ministries in town. But it is possible. As God’s people continue to be validated as priests and as ‘kingdomizers’ in whatever sphere of influence they find themselves, then the ministry of the church will return to the hands of the people. Again, this isn’t anarchy. This is empowerment, ownership, and responsibility.

In Ephesians 4, Paul writes, “Some of you—the apostles, prophets and pastors among you—have been given special gifts to be like Jesus and continue His ministry on earth. The rest of you, your job is just to concentrate on being nice.” Actually, come to think of it, that’s not what Paul says at all. He writes that the whole role of leadership is to help equip and empower every believer to walk in the fullness of Christ’s ministry. He defines leaders this way: Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. Ephesians 4:11–13 NLT, emphasis added

Among book publishers, the largest number of evangelical feminist books are being published by InterVarsity Press4 and Baker Books. Among popular journals, both Charisma magazine under the editorship of J. Lee Grady and Christianity Today under the leadership of David Neff clearly favor an evangelical feminist position (though Christianity Today has made some attempts to represent both sides fairly). Among parachurch ministries, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship is strongly committed to an evangelical feminist position, as is Youth With A Mission.

How many students are sharing their faith? How many are volunteering at the school? How are students in your ministry cultivating relationships with unchurched youth? How are their families doing? How are they living for Christ after leaving the student ministry?

Evangelism and stewardship, women’s and men’ ministries, youth ministry, Sunday school, worship, social justice ministries, and even pastoral care must be held accountable to this one question: how does what we are doing encourage and enable others to live lives of active faith?

Satan whispers in our ears that it’s not the same, that Paul’s gospel was somehow infused with apostolic superpowers, and that our high-tech, Westernized teenagers are somehow immune to the power of the gospel. He tells us they’re too spoiled, too apathetic and too distracted for the gospel to get through to them.

I contend for this, that to gospelize a man is the greatest miracle in the world. All the other miracles are wrapped up in this one. To gospelize a man, or, in other words, to convert him, is a greater work than to open the eyes of the blind.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be firm, steadfast, always fully devoted to the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

As a result, the church has often adopted approaches to ministry that further domesticate and marginalize youth.

People move from church to church as if the churches in their community are nothing more than ecclesiastical department stores. They’re shopping for just the right preacher, women’s ministry, youth ministry, or worship style. These Christians’ relationship to the church mirrors my relationship to Macy’s.

Are we creating spectators of the kingdom or participators and servants for the kingdom?” (The Youth Builder, 2001, Gospel Light, page 136)

Kids expected adults to show up in this part of their world. Because they were comfortable with us, introductions to their friends seemed natural.

Society is in chaos when God-ordained jurisdictions are confused, such as when the state governs education, as the American government does; or the family wields the sword, as vigilantes do; or the church usurps fatherhood, as many evangelical churches do. This book affirms that many of the problems with families and churches, and specifically in youth ministry, can be traced to this confusion of jurisdictions.

Ps 127:3 Behold, 1achildren are the heritage of Jehovah, / The fruit of the womb a reward. Ps 127:4 Like arrows in the hand of a mighty man, / So are the children of one’s youth. Ps 127:5 Blessed is the man / Who fills his quiver with them. / 1He will not be put to shame / When 1he speaks with enemies in the gate.

This was fueled by a return to a cardinal tenet of the Protestant faith, Sola Scriptura, which argues that God’s Word alone is sufficient for faith and practice.[3] This principle makes the Bible the exclusive foundation for all that we do. It is rooted in the belief that man’s notions for how to live must be set aside for God’s clear directives as found in His inspired, written revelation, and that God’s people are to limit themselves to obedience to His revealed will.[4] I progressively realized that modern youth ministry had largely developed from traditions, cultural preferences, statistical surveys, and the opinions of creative leaders, rather than biblical principles. If All I Had Was Scripture It finally occurred to me that if I began with Scripture alone, I would have no reason for age-segregated Christianity. In other words, if all I had was the Bible, it would be difficult (if not impossible) to establish the credibility of this practice. I was humbled to learn that God’s vision for training young people is powerful, profound, and comprehensive, standing in sharp contrast to the man-centered, culture-bound model I once advocated.

For twenty-five years of ministry in the church, it did not occur to me that the only pattern in Scripture for youth ministry was an age-integrated pattern that was contrary to the age-segregated pattern I was practicing. I did not realize that age-segregated discipleship was absent from Scripture. I was clueless to the fact that not a single godly leader in Scripture ever practiced it. What is worse, it never even occurred to me to question the practice. I was caught in a culture that had rejected these biblical patterns.

I began to believe that the problem could be traced primarily to one fundamental issue, one that we will explore in the following pages of this book: our abandonment of the sufficiency of Scripture as it pertains to our philosophy and practice of youth ministry. As a result, we have built our approach to youth ministry on a novel, experimental, and sandy foundation – the wisdom of man.

Our students are growing up in a pluralistic society that’s much different than the world in which you and I grew up. And if you’re smack-dab in the midst of adolescence and your top goals are to fit in and not stand out, to be different by being just like everyone else, then the acceptance of all things is an important value to have. This is the world we’re living in, and it’s the collision of all things.