Discover Top Posts Tagged with #youth2015

𝑴𝒂𝒅𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒂 𝑫𝒊𝒂𝒏𝒂 𝑮𝒉𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒂, “𝒀𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒉” (𝑷𝒂𝒐𝒍𝒐 𝑺𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒐, 2015).

#madalina ghenea #youth2015 #lingerie

🇧🇪🇧🇪🇧🇪🇧🇪🇧🇪🇧🇪🇧🇪🇧🇪 REPOST: Grand-Place, Brussels, Belgium #grandplace #grand-place #Brussels #belgium #Europe #europeanyouthweek #ireland #youth2015 #history #fairytale #architecture #2015 #irishmanabroad #capitalcity #eurovision #evs #erasmus #leargas #youth2015 #youthwork #traveljournal #travel #instatravel #instalike #likeforlike #followforfollow #irishinbelgium #prideweek #pride #brusselspride (at Grand Place)

Go On?

By: Daniel Jolly

I should start by saying that I’m biased. Well, aren’t we all? Of course we are. But I am definitely biased against a certain type of youth ministry. I grew up in the church, attending an excessive amount of youth functions that often provided more Mountain Dew than theology and more lights, loud music, and fog machines than worshipful experiences. I have the blessing of hindsight as I look back on those years and question the effectiveness of high-energy youth ministry. I also spent 3.5 years as a youth pastor where I tried to go to as few events as I could. So yes, I am biased, but I think we can do much better for our teens than to send them away to a youth conference. It’s not to say that it’s all bad and worthless, but it’s often times shallow, misleading, and serves as a “Hey look we are just about as cool as the rest of the world except we don’t have sex (which we probably do), we don’t drink (which we probably do) and we don’t swear (which we probably do)” kinda thing.

So given that bias, let’s roll into a review of Youth 2015 in Orlando, FL. Youth 2015 is a once every 4 years United Methodist Youth Conference, and this year’s theme was “Go On”. To “Go On” meant to mature in one’s Christian faith, which is ironic given the nature of these events. Youth events by nature are immature. There are a great deal of frivolous activities (songs in which you are supposed to tickle other people around you do not count as worship…sorry) and hype (making loud noises and yelling are you ready to “Go On” might be exciting but does that actually help us grow spiritually?). Often times it feels like we are getting pumped up for a sporting event rather than worshipping our Lord and Savior. Perhaps the first thing to help a teen mature is to realize that going away on youth conferences is not how the Christian life works. You can’t go away to Orlando every weekend to keep your “Jesus high” going sorry…

The topic itself of “going on” is great, really. They focused on John Wesley’s discussion of works of piety and works of mercy. Works of piety are prayer, Bible study, fasting, etc. They are designed to make us holier and more in tune with God. These are great and should be practiced by all mature Christians. Works of mercy are visiting the sick, giving to the needy, doing nice things for your neighbors, etc. These are equally important, as they are the fruits of the faith. Christians should be known for love rather than hate (I know it sounds crazy but it’s true). These things are absolutely imperative if Christians are going to grow up. I applaud the organizers for highlighting these aspects of the faith; I’m just questioning the effectiveness of the execution. You can draw up a great play on the drawing board, but if you can’t execute it it’s a waste.

I want to start with questioning the mixed messages that were being sent. The event rightly focused on works of mercy. We learned about a teen who sponsors the digging of wells in Africa, we participated in a Stop Hunger Now event which is fantastic, and there were other areas of mission highlighted at the event. All of that is great, but it becomes problematic when you consider where the event took place and how much money it costs to do such a thing. The event was held in the Orlando World Center Marriot, a massive resort. Logistically this makes sense since there were roughly 4,500 teenagers present, but goodness it was extravagant. We spent four nights there (as well as two nights at another hotel in Georgia while we enjoyed a theme park that wasn’t as expensive as Disney) and I don’t even want to know how much each room cost. I’m sure that we got an event discount, but it couldn’t have been cheap. It would seem that we could better spend our money. There is nothing wrong with having fun as a group, but that was a lot of money spent on something that may or may not be that impactful (I’ll touch on that in a second).

So there we were enjoying a life of excess talking about helping those less fortunate than us. Something just felt off. There was a certain disconnect for me, where I could be untouched by actual pain in the world, while still feeling better about myself because I could donate X dollars to one of the many charities. It is a very clean and neat form of charity that remains untouched by the messiness of helping people.

It is much easier to talk about helping people while sitting in an air-conditioned resort than it is to actually go out and…well help people. So while I hope it inspired many people to go out and impact the world, it all felt a little off.

That may be a bit nit picky, I understand, so let’s touch on my big issue with these events.

I think events such as these give the teens a wrong impression about the Christian faith. What they presented as worship music may have had moments of worshipfulness, but ultimately it was a bunch of concerts. I’ve played in a band and I’ve led worship, there is a big different between the two. I could riff on this for a while but the only thing I’ll say is that flashy and blinding lights don’t add to the worshipping experience in my opinion, rather it distracts and leads the participants away from the true object of our worship: God.

Also for anyone who has sustained a relationship with God beyond a weekend of excitement, you know that the Christian faith is hard. The conference most likely was a great mountain top experience for some, and while those experiences are nice, they are often few and far between. A great deal of the Christian life is living in the valleys. We have to deal with people who think differently that we do, we have to love those who hate us, we have to set aside time in our busy lives to pray and read the Bible, we have to learn to put aside our greed and sacrifice for others. The Christian life is difficult (and sometimes just monotonous) and more often than not God speaks to us in the silence not in the loud music, flashy lights, or emotional preachers. Can God speak to us in those other ways? Of course. But if teenagers get the idea that Christian life looks like a conference then they will most likely opt out of what they see in the day-to-day walk. They will believe the lie that their feelings are tied to their spiritual life. They will feel that God is only present on the mountain, not in the valley. They will keep looking for that high. It’s a portrayal of faith that is a mile wide and an inch deep.

The last big issue here is that Christianity become a reactive force in society not a proactive one. We play crappier but similar music, we throw around social media lingo like “Would Jesus have posted the Last Supper on Instagram?”, and we try to convince ourselves that we can have just as much fun as the “worldly teens”. We turn Jesus into a commodity, by making T-shirts, bracelets, and other trinkets with his name on them. We advertise for different missions organizations and try to sell people on what the church is selling. This is Christianity the product. Ultimately the message that we send is that instead of Jesus and Christianity being counter-cultural, they are simply another spoke in the wheel. That is the worst impression of the faith. If we turn Jesus into a product that will function as a genie in a bottle, people will eventually get bored and throw that product away when it stops working for them, like they do with every other commodity in this world.

So where do we go from here? I think if you do want to take your teens to a big event like this then you must be diligent to follow up with them. If we are supposed to “Go On”, then we must meet regularly to talk about how to go on and to support each other as we go on individually and corporately. If we don’t, teenagers will burnout, and when they hit low spots, they will think its because God has left them or they are doing something wrong. The faith is not a feeling and it’s not a product; it’s not a weekend getaway from the world and it’s not imitation of what’s popular; it’s an ongoing participation in a new way of life. If we teach anything less, then we are selling each other short.

#Dan #Orlando #youth2015 #youthministry #go on

Grand-Place, Brussels, Belgium #grandplace #grand-place #Brussels #belgium #Europe #europeanyouthweek #ireland #youth2015 #history #fairytale #architecture #2015 #irishmanabroad #capitalcity #eurovision #evs #erasmus #leargas #youth2015 #youthwork #traveljournal #travel #instatravel #instalike #likeforlike #followforfollow #irishinbelgium (at Grand Place)