Did I ever tell you that I once was a youth pastor? I drive a truck now for a living and enjoy it though the hours are not desirable for prayer like I would want them to be. But I digress. One of the things that troubled me most about youth ministry and all the youth conferences I ever dragged our youth to were that they were so shallow. Yes Jesus was mentioned. Yes they had the typical “altar call” along with the “sinner’s prayer” and yes the music was kicking but the gospel of repentance and the message of holiness was oddly lost. Most of the youth I would take to these events would “get saved” again and again. We had one young lady in our youth group who probably was saved at least 10 times during the time she was in our youth group.
The youth pastors I knew where, for the most part, shallow themselves. Some of them are now full time pastors and out of the ones I knew, only one is still serious about God though he leans emergent in his “worship experience.” Most of them knew much about the culture, the songs, the movies, etc. but little about the Bible. In fact, not one of the youth pastors I knew were expositors of the Word. All of them were either topical teachers or they used a book to teach from. The Bible had little place in their youth ministries or even in their own lives. I remember youth camp and how I would plead with the youth pastors to pray and few would. I even started a prayer meeting for youth pastors and only one guy would come. The others were too busy watching movies I guess. Youth ministry was big on personal relationships with your teenagers but not big on staying close to the Father’s heart. Discipleship was not so much about holiness, being like Jesus, etc. but was big on helping teenagers become leaders.
Sadly, from what I can see, youth ministry has not changed much since I left it nearly 10 years ago. I keep up with one youth pastor through a blog he writes. What is amazing to me is to see the low view of the sovereignty of God among him and so many in the American church. The semi-Pelagian view of mankind (oops I meant to say humanity to keep it PC and adapt to the youth culture) means that we must use all types of gimmicks to try to get people to church. Forget the commitment part. Forget the repentance part. Forget the baptism part. It’s all about getting youth (or adults for that matter) to show up for the show. As long as a church can boast that they have X amount coming, that justifies the means no matter what.
Take my former friend above. On his blog he writes about movies, televisions shows, and books that he is reading. The books he reads are always focused on church growth or the like. None are theological in nature. None really deal with Scripture. Most of the authors he reads are emergents or lean seeker sensitive. A recent post of his was how the Church needs to be in the world using the unbiblical quote, “In the world but not of it” (which is not in the Bible I remind you). He talked about how people get so bored with Church. He wrote on how Easter is the most visited Sunday in America and he was wondering why most people never come back until Christmas. His answer: church is boring. Church offers nothing that they can relate to. His answer: church needs to be more culturally relevant. He suggests using more technology, avoid being so “Christianity” in our language, seek to connect with the culture and not run from it, and love the people of the world and not bash them with the Bible. He suggests that evangelism should be more about helping people reach their full potentials as people created in God’s image than just memorizing a bunch of Bible verses to show them that they are not “saved” (his emphasis on saved).
My answer is easy. First, the Church is not the world. The Church is to go and make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20) not get them to come to us and like us. I wrote on his blog, “What you win them with is what you win them to.” If we are seeking to bring people to the god of entertainment then we must keep them with this god.
Second, we have such a low view of God’s sovereignty. God is the Savior (Jonah 2:9) and not the Church. People can go to church all the time and still go to an eternal hell (Matthew 7:21-23). Jesus saves sinners and He draws them to Himself (John 6:44). The duty of the disciple is never to save anyone but to preach Christ and Him crucified and God will do the rest (1 Corinthians 1:18-25; 3:6-9). Ephesians 1:3-14 makes it clear that we are chosen in Christ Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit is to convict and save sinners (John 16:8-11). Salvation is not based on the music or the light show or the drama skit or the candles burning in your coffee shop. Salvation is the work of God that He does in the heart of the person who hears and believes the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus alone is able to save to the uttermost (Hebrews 7:25) and He does so by His grace alone and not by my hand or yours.
Third, by being holy we demonstrate the power of God to an unbelieving world. Jesus said in Matthew 5:11-16 that we were to be the salt and light of the earth. In Philippians 2:12-16 Paul speaks to the Church and he says that we are to be lights in the midst of darkness as we hold out the word of truth. 1 Peter 1:15-16 and 1 Peter 2:12 speak about God’s people being holy as He is holy and that pagans will see our holiness. Will we be persecuted for holiness? Yes (2 Timothy 3:12; 1 Peter 4:12-19) but we are to rejoice in that! Jesus never said the world will like us but He said that it would hate us (John 15:18-25). There is nothing in the New Testament that suggests that we are to be like the world so that they will find our God attractive and perhaps will come to Him. This is not just semi-Pelagian but is demonic.
I want to be different than the people I work with. I want them to see Jesus in me. I want them to know that I don’t watch ungodly movies or use profane language. I want them to see my passionate love for Jesus Christ for all that He has done for me in saving my soul. I want them to know that I am a citizen of heaven (Philippians 3:20-21) and that my focus is completely on pleasing Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:9; Colossians 3:1-4).
In the house church movement there is no emphasis that I am aware of on trying to be relevant so that people will come to our house church. We want to see souls saved by God’s power and we want to live for His glory and His kingdom. We are not interested in building up a name for ourselves nor are we interested in being on the front of Christianity Today
© 2011, Matt. All rights reserved.
