The failure primarily is not in the schools but in the homes and in the churches. The schools can not undue the solid foundation if it has been set in place. The gov't schools provided my senior son a classic example of reinforcing my teaching when a teacher took him out in the hallway last year and chewed him out for writing on his psychology paper that he would not want his son to be gay. Hawkeye was threatened with being sent to the office for a hate crime!! After listening to me as a father and a pastor warn of this kind of perversion, propaganda and persecution he came home with first hand experience that strengthened his own personal resolve to fight the good fight of faith and continue to proclaim the truth to his generation. . . . Don't even ask me how completely worthless most youth groups are . . .
Galyn Wiemers
http://www.generationword.com
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Gaylyn, beside the Sunday School answer, "when you rise up and when you sit down..." and since you have the pulpit to teach from, could you give an example of how and when you have taught your son your beliefs?
Thank you
At the supper table, as he listened to conversations I had with friends, my own lifestyle and attitude. Sometimes it is best not to talk about it until one day he is shocked to hear the "unnatural" things done in "darkness" and easily forms his own opinions. Paul spoke of this when he tells us to be ignorant of evil.
It is amazing how many things kids pick up by just hanging around and being in the mix of things with their parents. I can not say I ever sat down and told my sons, "Listen, there are somethings I need to tell you about the world." Nor, did I have a study series I picked up at the Christian bookstore to help me explain what I thought. But, there are many times, and they will agree, that I went off on some sermonette criticizing the headlines of the Des Moines Register or some ungodly, liberal editorial during breakfast or on the way out the door to get to work. There were times they honestly challenged me in order to discover the logic or defense of what I believed. This always happens when they came home from college or some other secular, humanistic situation.
Ultimately, the boys all make their own choices and decisions in life. No one should think otherwise since Adam proved that he didn't need to follow God's advice himself. There have been times I have told my boys that "I don't care what you do because I have already made my choices. Your choices effect you and I will only have to answer for my own. Good luck." (This was, of course, never spoken to a 12 year old, but to each of them as they moved through the 17-20 year old range.
Agreed whether it is education or discipleship the parents are to be the ones who are ultimately responsible.
I wouldn't quite go as far to say "most" youth groups are worthless, but I do understand where you are coming from.
I think we're seeing a shift back with a focus on discipleship. Again families need to understand that it's a supplement to what they are to be doing. Also, I don't like this trend that I'm seeing in churches with teens having their own worship service, children going off to their own and then families aren't worshiping together. Not good.
I would agree with Shane's belief about the "siloing" of our generations in our ministries. I learned to pray by being with God's saints in prayer meetings on Wednesday nights... We have little interaction between the generations from our homes to our ministries and have lost hearing the insights, wisdom or even watching them react to life around them.
Besides "most" youth groups, I would like to include "most" Christian schools, also. I spent 8 years in 3 different Christian schools over the last 20 years. If I could go back and do things different as a parent I would do these two things differently:
1) Not send my kids to any youth group or any youth camp or any youth services. In a simple summary, words like "shallow", "unbiblical", and "emotional" really sum it up what I have seen in youth groups over the last 30 years.
2) I would never put my sons in any Christian school again. Some of the most intensely reversionistic lifestyles, doctrines, and attitudes are found in Christian schools. I told one of the schools before I left (as they wanted to stop offending people with talk about Jesus as the only way, wanted to stop talk about hell, they encouraged salvation by baptism if people wanted, and changed doctrines so as not to offend the parents with $$, etc.), I told them, just because you slap the word "Christian" on your school name doesn't mean you are "Christian". It takes a little more effort and study and discipline than just coming up with a school name.
I know I am not alone in this insight. There is a generation of Christian youth group members and Christian school kids trying to recover from their disillusionment and fake Christian experiences.
This message is not popular, but much of Jesus' message wasn't received as popular, especially by the religious leaders.
My observation...ministry is about giving people what they need, not what they want. The people wanted a king, Jesus knew they needed a Savior. The people wanted to go back to the leeks and onions, God told them to go into the promised land.
In our many Christian ministries, we poll the people, form focus groups...to find out what the people want. Which in our opinion will bring in more people to our various ministries. It becomes a popularity contest and in the end we give up the foundations of our faith and truth to appease a crowd, have greater numbers, meet the financial needs...
Two books which I'm in the middle of at the same time which may address this topic, Already Gone by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer and Transforming Children Into Spiritual Champions by George Barna. We will see.
Good point Roger. The Bible already tells us what we are to do and what people need. We must continue to combine faithfulness and productivity.
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