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Are we going wrong?

Posted on 5 January 2009 | This blog has 455 views and has 4 Comments

Some of the conversations I had over Christmas with people surprised me, I heard things about young people I used to work with in a church youth group that surprised me and it’s got me thinking.

Just before Christmas I read a book called ‘Practicing Passion’ by Kenda Creasy Dean and she suggests that the church has watered down the message of Jesus we no longer have anything to offer young people. She suggests that young people are looking for something to be passionate about, something worth dying for and that Jesus should fit that criteria but more often than not in churches He doesn’t.

This has led me to thinking about my own youth work and youth work in general. Is church youth work watered down to the point where we tread carefully so we don’t scare off young people rather than it being something immensly challenging?

Is the reason for the church being so apathetic and inactive because for generations we’ve presented a simple, risk-free Christianity rather than the demmanding, challenging Christianity that we are presented with by the bible?

I wonder if all too often we under estimate young people, perhaps we forget how passionate they can become about things, perhaps the actions of young people I heard about over Christmas were because they wanted a way to express passion and the church just didn’t provide that.

If gun, knife and gang crime can teach us anything perhaps it teaches us that young people have passion, a passion for something worth dying for. For them this passion is their friends or other gang members or even family members and is channelled in a fairly negative way through crime but what if the church actually presented a gospel that required that passion rather than a hymn book?

Maybe we’d see young people turning to Jesus rather than gangs, maybe we’d see young people being passionate about Jesus rather than drink, drugs or sex.

So where does this all start?

I think in order for us to present a gospel like this we need a church and its leaders/deacons & youth workers to have that passion and the confidence to preach a challenging gospel over a nice fluffy ‘Jesus can be your girlfriend’ style gospel.

The challenge for Christian youth workers and church volunteers is to think again about the way we explain things to young people and the Jesus we present them with.

Comments and thoughts would be apreciated

4 Comments »

happyclapper said:

Couldn’t agree more Mark.
Spot on.

Best thing that could happen to ‘the church in England’ would be for it to become illegal, then we’d see if we have a radical church that people would live and die for, it would give the church a much needed edge…

The only other thing that I can see truely knocking the church out of it’s sleep (except God sending some Wesley/Whitfield esq revival)would be if people were killed for their faith (i.e blood of the martyrs seed of the gospel stuff). Not saying i’d want that to happen, but i can’t see anything much else really waking people up to the fact we are not in some club that exists for us to all have a nice life and feel good about ourselves…

its just all so bland. Can’t see God being bland.

# 5 January 2009 at 8:33 pm

Mark Tiddy (author) said:

I think it would be interesting to see how our church would cope with persecution however I wouldn’t wish it upon our church, I do think though we’re afraid to say what we mean sometimes and end up wishy washy as ‘not to offend’

# 5 January 2009 at 9:52 pm

topi said:

“I think in order for us to present a gospel like this we need a church and it’s leaders/deacons & youth workers”

Do we?

Do we really NEED a church and leaders etc, to meet with the youth?

Maybe outside the church is the place to be?

(And PS, in what I quoted of yours, you should not have used “it’s”, it should have been “its” !!)

# 6 January 2009 at 10:32 pm

Mark Tiddy (author) said:

Thanks again for correcting my errors!!!

I think we need a blend of church-based staff and ones who reach out. As a youth worker I think it’s good to be affiliated with a church at the same time it’s important to make sure you are outside of that place too, whether that be doing detached youth work, working in schools or whatever that may entail.

# 6 January 2009 at 10:45 pm