Do We Need Youth Ministry? Not If.......Part Two

Do We Need Youth Ministry?

Not if the youth leader and the group is in constant comparison to the one down the street.

Not if it's sole purpose is to be a marketing tool and not a viable ministy.

Not if it is sipmy to placate to the parents of the teenagers in our church.

Keeping Up With The (insert your rival church here)

We suffer from the disease of comparison. We hear about a new idea, a new program that is gaining results for such and such and quickly adopt said program with the hopes that it will pay the same dividends. We usurp the creativity of our youth leaders, our students and trade our prayer time for social and spiritual cloning. God has specific plans for our youth ministries in our communities and one size does not fit all. There is no guarantee that the program you adopt will work. We fail to take into consideration things like the personality of the leaders who run them, their demographics, their church make up, and in some cases their doctrine that drives it. The time we spend in prayer and The Word will lead to God given ideas to us that will work where we are. God will gladly implant in us the strategies and programs that will work where we are. Our youth group may be small but compared to the church, which has no youth group we’re huge. It’s not about how we compare to the church down the street but are we are fulfilling out God given purpose and destiny in our town.

Paul Turner
www.thediscipleproject.net