Obsessed with cool. Trendy. Impulsive. Self-focused. Caught up in the moment. Probably sounds like a description of some of the kids in your youth group.
Actually, um...well...this is not an article about youth culture or the world of today's teenagers. This is an article about us—those of us in the youth ministry culture, those of us who work with teenagers—and how we seem to be sliding into an adolescent approach to our faith and mission. Look at our must-read books, listen to our conversations, go to our seminars and measure our values. Even a quick survey of the current youth ministry culture tells the story: We're not just working with teenagers; we're starting to think like them.
Adolescent-Driven Youth MinistryTrendyLet's face it. The youth ministry culture is extremely susceptible to fads. Those of us in youth ministry are in love with the new. Add the adjectives
newest or
latest to stuff, and we're interested. For example, I heard a youth worker recently defend a new book by saying it's really
edgy. OK, but what does that mean? Shouldn't the question be, not whether something is
edgy but whether it's
constructive, whether it's
helpful and (pardon me for not being
edgy here, but) whether it's
true (
Acts 17:11)?
Some of the rhetoric about a "new kind of Christian" or "post-evangelical" theology reminds me of a comment made by Duke University Divinity School professors Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, that the "roller coaster of clever new theologies has subjected clergy to one fad after another...We have no stake in saying something new. That is...of little use to a church more interested in saying something true than something new."
Please understand: No one is denying that it's possible for something to be new and true. We need to be aware of the new and changing trends in youth culture, and we need continually to rethink how we might more effectively communicate the unchanging gospel of Christ in that rapidly changing culture.
I'm concerned that in our efforts to make the gospel more relevant, we're in danger of dressing up and dumbing down a message that Paul described as inherently foolish to those who are perishing (1 Cor 1:18). I suspect that what's sometimes labeled in the youth ministry world as edgy might more accurately be described as an attempt to round off the jagged edges of a gospel that is scandalous (cf. skandalon, Greek, 1 Cor. 1:23).
C.S. Lewis, whose writings have had a profound impact on Western culture, wrote in his prologue to The Problem of Pain, "I have believed myself re-stating ancient and orthodox doctrines. If any parts of the book are 'original' in the sense of being novel or unorthodox, they are against my will and as a result of my ignorance."
