Youth Ministry as Truth Telling

In the book Resident Aliens, Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon give an assessment of the Christ and Culture problem. From their perspective, the church tends to fall off on either side. We either withdraw from the world content to let it all "go to hell", or we accommodate ourselves so much to the prevailing cultural winds, the gospel is no longer recognizable. Resident Aliens calls us to a different way - the way of being the Christian community. A community within which our identity is formed by the Christ event, and the Biblical testimony concerning that event. But this community does not exist for itself...it must never become an inwardly turned community. The Christian community exists for the world...to remind the world who it really is, and who it will one day once again will be. This is what it means to proclaim the Kingdom of God.

I am using this book with Youth Ministry students, trying to help them grapple with the essence of Christian Youth Ministry. So many youth ministry programs want to meet the needs of young people - emotional, relational, sometimes even physical needs. What else can we expect from a consumer culture? EVERYTHING is about meeting my needs. Maybe we are asking the wrong things from our youth leaders. The last thing young people need is another person to give them strokes, to tell them how great they are, to tell them they can and should do anything they want to. Maybe what they need are people who will tell them the truth. People who will help them question, discern, and probe the culture that is coming at them. People who are more interested in helping them remember who they are; leaders who are more interested in helping them form a Christian identity rooted in the scriptures and born out in Christian community. After all, isn't this what Christian ministry is about? Prophetically proclaiming the new reality that has come upon us because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ...not the affirmation of the way things are.

Is this easier said then done? Of course...but most things worth doing are.