the    sides

As much as I wanted to delete and ignore this, avoidance has hardly every produced something valuable…

So, for your reading pleasure and critiques….my response.

Dear X,

I read the manuscript. I do have some thoughts that I will try to communicate via email. But email has its limits so I’ll not be as thorough as I want and hopefully you can understand my tone as well.

Let me first say this - I do not wish to enter a debate over the role of student ministry at Grace Church. We - elders and pastors - have decided it is biblical, practical, needed and good. We believe the WAY we are doing student ministry now - lifewalking discipling relationships with adults and teens - is precisely the call of God on us as a body.

I think the WAY most youth ministries are run should be questioned - not necessarily the ministry itself. Therein lies the rub with the document you sent - not only did it question the legitimacy of student ministry, but it used highly charged and emotive statements to do it.

There are so many things I disagree with the author just from a biblical perspective, let alone a practical one. I disagree with how he handles scripture. It is unwise to pull one or two verses out of context, completely ignore the biblical cultural setting, then apply what he thinks it means to today’s context.

One example - 2 Kings 2. He claims that the result of youth groups is atrocious based on the actions of 42 youths. What about the company of 50 prophets just before those verses? How did there come to be a company of prophets? Jewish culture would disciple groups of youths, ages 12-14, and teach them scripture AND military tactics for the purpose of these men to be prophets, leaders of men. So you have a group of teenagers coming together to study the scripture…that’s a youth group.

The Jews functioned like this for centuries. Rabbis would call to them followers to learn more of God. Jesus functioned like this. How old does he think the first disciples were? The common age for disciples to follow a Rabbi was 13-18 years old. A basic understanding of Jewish culture undermines most of what he writes.

Secondly, according to his hermenuetical principle, only things that are explicitly in scripture are allowed. That would mean the church should abandon children’s ministry, men’s ministry, finance teams, prayer teams, women’s ministry, men’s bible study because they too are NOT in scripture. We should also stop educating our girls and women because the scriptures plainly say fathers to sons.

The third point I’d make is the teaching practices of the Bible itself.

Jesus used agriculture stories to teach because that was the culture he was in. In John’s gospel, miracles and signs were used because the Greek culture it was written too valued signs and miracles. Matthew’s gospel was written with lots of OT quotations because it was sent to Jews to prove Jesus was the Christ. Luke was written to an outsider - a Greek doctor - to show how Jesus loves and saves outsiders. Paul uses philosophy and poetry to communicate the truth of God to the Greek cultures he was speaking to.

If I want to reach a culture with the story of Jesus, I need to know their language, customs, traditions, and values. Not all of those things will be God-honoring but not all of them will be sin either. My job then is to incarnate Christ into that culture.

One last thing, I think the author gives away his bias in one line in the document. He says “I am confident that God is able to use these kinds of ministries, but it is clear from simple observation, that in the midst of the feverish activity of the church, much of the apostolic model has been lost.”

I would gently point out that maybe what needs to be questioned is the apostolic model of leadership in the church. Every church planted in scripture had a plurality of leaders, not one man calling the shots. Timothy and Titus and Paul were church planters who established a community of qualified leaders to lead the church in that local setting. Those men taught spiritual leadership and guidelines, then would leave to plant a church in a different city.

These are my thoughts, limited they may be.

Lifewalking with Him,
Grant