There seems to be a lot of talk lately on the blogs I have read about growing students (and adults!) in their walk with Christ.
This became a hot item when Bill Hybels shared what I referred to as The Willow Creek Confession at the Summit this year. Willow, by their own admission, made a statement that they weren't teaching people to be self-feeders.
This started some incredible discussion among churches nationwide and now it seems to be a hot topic for ministers of students. Tim Schmoyer, who I frequently read, shared about this in his blog. I thought he provided some good conversation and the comments that follow his article shows that many youth pastors around the country are engaged in this topic.
I am really enjoying this discussion and simultaneously I am glad that we are doing a series called CREED in our student ministry. I know, first hand, that a series will not solve a problem. But I recognized a couple of problems quite a while back with students. One: Many students aren't feeding themselves. Two: Many students don't even know what they believe. I'm currently trying to tackle these two. If I can help students know what they believe then we can begin to help them in their walk with the Lord. Quite honestly, if they don't know who Jesus is and are not grounded in their faith why should they be concerned with feeding themselves?
I started developing a series called CREED where I plan to help students wrestle through what they believe and why they believe it. It is perhaps the most exciting, envigorating series I have ever done. It is VITAL that we make this a priority in our student ministries! I say this because we know that the current statistic of students who leave our churches once they graduate out of the youth ministry is 85% or better. If we help them to wrestle through what they believe, why they believe it, teach them how to defend their faith and teach them how to feed themselves we will be hitting the bulls-eye.
I ran across a sobering statistic a few weeks ago. 60% of students today in our ministries believe that there are many paths that lead to God in heaven. Statistics like this show me that there is some confusion among our students in what they believe and why they believe it. I thought I would dig a little deeper and poll my students, talk to other students outside my ministry and see where people stand. I plan to share the results in future blogs as we continue to dialogue about students and their faith.
Feel free to drop some comments and lets talk about this further.
Links to more ...
Click here to hear the message from Bill Hybels titled "The Wake Up Call of My Adult Life." Click here to watch Greg Hawkins from Willow Creek unpack the research and share his heart.
Click here to go to my blog on the Willow Creek Confession.
Click here to visit Tim Schmoyer's blog on this topic.
Labels: Hot Topics, Issues, Students Only, Youth Pastors
Check the stuff Sonlife is putting out... very much geared to help kids engage the Bible. www.sonlife.com
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