Christianity Today's 50th Anniversary Edition is out. One of the features of this special edition is a series of articles projecting what the next 50 years might look like in various ministry contexts. One of the articles focused on youth ministry. Here is the article. My good friend Mark Oestreicher, President of Youth Specialties has asked several youth workers to weigh in on thoughts about the future of youth ministry. So here goes...
For an 60,000 plus word answer get this. OK, that was a shameless plug. I also thought about this post in light of the present weakness of youth ministry and a hoped for correction. Here is another post I think is relevant to this topic.
That is my quick response to Marko's request at the end of a long day and within the context of a "too busy" schedule. I will give it more thought and perhaps post more later. In closing I will list some issues that I feel will be a significant part of the evolution of youth ministry in the years ahead.
* More thoughtful and intentional catechesis of youth.
* An integration of the practics of a creation theology within the disciple-making of youth.
* A soteriology that moves away from propositional decisionism.
* An ecclesiology that moves dramatically away from an individual mindset to a communal context.
* A renewed theology that departs from dichotomous categories of sacred / spiritual and embraces a holistic spirituality.
* A rethinking of theological issues and doctrine in light of quantum physics.
* A passionate resurgence of Christology within youth ministry.
* A vigorous emphasis on the cultural contextualization of the radical message of Jesus.
* A move to embrace the work of justice and a practical implementation of youth ministry efforts to consider ministry to "the least of these" (Matthew 25)
* A paradigm shift that results in engaging youth in the compelling vision of God's work of renewal and restoration of creation instead of trying to motivate youth through sin management and the "it's all about going to heaven when you die" mindset.
* A proper integration of youth into the intergenerational life of the church community.
OK... you say, "wow, you are very optimistic." My response - "This is my Prophetic Imagination." (Brueggemann) May it be so...
The reality is that in 50 years the church in North America will be so distant from a Constantinian context and may be striving to live in the extreme margins of whatever society exists at that time. Some of the issues the North American Church may be dealing with are - living in a non-western culture; Islam; China as the new Empire, militarily and economically; persecution, etc. I know, this is not as delightful as the list above.
WHAT DO YOU THINK???
What do I think? I think that on about half of those bullet points I just don't know what you're talking about. I may just have to go with the 60,000 plus word shameless plug.
Posted by: Robert | October 05, 2006 at 01:05 PM
Ha... The book is in english.
Posted by: Mike | October 06, 2006 at 05:13 PM