The Theory Of Youth Ministry

The church’s ministry on teaching and learning is simultaneously a simple and complex ministry. It is a ministry that is potentially misunderstood more often than it is understood in the life of a congregation. As the congregation struggles to combine secular life with spiritual practice, the vision for the teaching and learning ministry of the church can fall out of focus for those who feel called to this ministry’s vocations. To begin, I will define the teaching and learning ministry of the church as I understand it followed by an elaboration of its definition. Lastly, I will discuss a few implications of this ministry as it applies to a congregation.

In reading a book it is typical to make notes and highlight passages. However, with Mike King’s Presence Centered Youth Ministry, what started with highlighters, turned to pencil, then sticky notes. Finally, read now and then read again later became the mantra. It is infrequently that books resonate with our own theology and our own transformational journeys, but that is the situation with Presence Centered Youth Ministry.

Dean has written a disturbing yet thought-provoking book on the current religious state of America’s teenagers. The background research for this book was the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR). This was one of the largest studies ever of the religious views of teenagers. Dean says more American teenagers are embracing what she calls “moralistic therapeutic deism.” In other words, it’s a watered-down faith that depicts God as a “divine therapist” whose primary objective is to boost people’s self-esteem.

According to the English dictionary, the word incapable is defined as, "not having the necessary ability, qualification, or strength to perform some specified act or function." For a number of months, I believed the lie that I was incapable, and allowed this lie to be a source of my negativity. When my family decided to move from one town to another, I became riddled with an enormous amount of fear. As any change or transition that life presents, I only could fathom the possibility of appearing incapable and undesirable to the people I would meet. Throughout changes and hardships in life, we grow deeper as individuals, and we learn that incapability is a mere lie that we accept for ourselves.

The purpose of this learning agreement paper is to reveal how the student will approach the goals set out for observation, consultation, and evaluation on what the student desire to achieve to make the spiritual and moral growth of the congregants as well as the student to be useful for kingdom building.

In OMG: A Youth Ministry Handbook, Kendra Creasy Dean goes over several different ways on how to do youth ministry in today’s world. Through reading this book and evaluating Grace United Methodist Church, I have noticed several things that need to be fixed. One of the main things is the youth group lesson focus and the way the youth relate to one another.

Clark was able to connect with the audience through emotions of motivation, shame, and embarrassment. Language and imagery are two strategies used by Clark to appeal to listeners emotions. On the first day, Clark had nearly 300 students stand on the stage in the auditorium. This created confusion until Clark began his speech in which he explains “These people have done absolutely nothing. These people are drug dealers and drug users...They have harassed your teachers, and they have intimidated you.” He paints an image of all that is wrong with the school through the students onstage. Then he proceeds to expurgate the students on stage. This generates many emotions that all manage to work in his favor. First, students not expelled feel safe and trust that Mr. Clark will protect them and enhance their school environment. Also, the students on stage are embarrassed and pissed, leaving students off stage motivation to say out of their position. Mr. Clark takes a different approach with the teachers by use of careful diction. Statements such as, “You people(teachers) represent the 70% of our students who just failed the practice exam,” and “I don’t blame them. The failure is yours.” The intense word choice fills the teachers with a sense of hopelessness and shame for failing to prepare the students to face the world. The unkind words spoken by Clark may be upsetting initially, but as it sinks in the teachers gain a sense of motivation and purpose for teaching. Through

It’s very difficult when we are in school to find the time to do what we love as disciples, which is to lead others to Christ. After working a full-time job I come home to do work for my company, Unique Expressions which is a promotional company. I met with a customer about four weeks about to do some flyers for his restaurant, once I completed them. He asked me a few weeks later to do a second flyer for his ministry called “Empowerment” he begin to tell me how he goes around the community and invite them in for a short message in the word, prayer and koinonia . This is not the nicest community but one where most of the lower working class resides.

Young Life is an organization that is very near and dear to my heart and one that I believe has had a huge impact on my life personally. So, what is it? Young Life is “a non-denominational Christian ministry group that reaches out to young kids through volunteers, staff, club meetings, and camps by building meaningful relationships” (Younglife.org). There are multiple branches of ministry that includes everything from college students through middle school, all the way to ones in other countries. They are accepting of absolutely every walk of life, through Young Lives which helps young girls that are pregnant raising their own children, to Capernaum which helps youths with mental or physical disabilities. The idea behind it is to have a ministry

Greg Stier is the executive director, president, and originator of Dare 2 Share Ministries International as of 1991. Stier has instructed over 30,000 Christian adolescents around North America in how to live out their faith in confidence and with boldness. In 1997 he was the guest speaker at the Youth for Christ’s DC/LA events, and he revisited that speakership at Y2K the Fellowship of Christian Athletes forum. “Youth ministry became his full-time focus on April 20, 1999, due to the Columbine High School massacre.” Stier has written such published works as ‘You're Next!’ and ‘Dare 2 Share: A Guide to Sharing the Faith (Focus on the Family)’ as well as several curricula on evangelism preparation. According to Stier, “[he doesn’t] come from

Even though Kansas City didn't start out racially segregated, it did play a role in segregating cities in America, in fact, Kansas City still to remains to be a very segregated city today. The Progressive Youth Organization (PYO-KC) is an organization that is taking a stance on capitalism and segregation because they want students to join the act in order to earn a more self-governing education system. They want schools to inform students about a system that misuses and tyrannizes them. One of the many issues that they focus on is about replacing the conservative and racist academic system that occurs today with a more self-governing and systematic educational system. They want an education system that informs enslaved students about our past

theology (Nouwen, 12). Meanwhile, Root asserts that “because influence in relational youth ministry runs the risk of being more about cultural conflict than the concrete presence of God, this rethinking…must be constructed theologically” (Root, 788). However, these writers have caused me to question exactly what a theological approach would look like in my youth ministry. It would be quite inappropriate to minister to adolescents by inserting seminary-level theology into a causal conversation with a teenager about her cats, or crisis counseling setting with my at-risk adolescent concerning her rape case. When I limit myself to the main focus of youth ministry being to lead others to salvation, I lose sight of how Christ is present within those conversations about cats and

I am not a great orator, but I am a good conversationalist. By making myself available to serve others I put myself in the position of having conversations with unbelievers.

In Experiencing the Lifespan (2016), Belsky quotes a person as a teenager and they said "at about age 15, I decided the best way to keep myself off the streets was to get involved in my church youth group. It was my best time of life." In order for Victor to become success he need to become involved in something he is passionate about. Many teens of his age turn to extracurricular activities such as musics or sports. Extracurricular activities are important for teens Victors age because it helps them develop working skills, people skills, and much more. He should Victor should also engage himself in cliques and crowds. Typically when we think of cliques and crowds we think of them in a negative way. These groups are actually beneficial in helping

I have learned a lot I did not know about evangelism from this class. I think that this will be a great opportunity to use what I have learn and see if I can put it into action. Evangelism can be scary and difficult, but starting with someone who is a friends will make it less frightening. I think that it will go well and I have the confidence and faith that God will help me in this talk. I want to keep this talk focused on God and all the greatness that comes with Him. I will go in with a plan of how I can talk to this friend of mine, but I can also be flexible and see where this talk can lead.