Christ / Christology

"OK, so what does this have to do with me?" you might be asking. It's hard, as a teenager, to look past right now and see the future, let alone see eternity ahead of you. However, eternity stands before you whether you see it or not. One day, everyone will bow before King Jesus. Some will bow in joy....

Ten Young Life employees in North Carolina either were fired or resigned late last year, apparent casualties of an effort by the organization to promote theological uniformity. The youth ministry workers, serving in the Durham-Chapel Hill region, apparently were forced out after they took issue with...

How should youth ministry workers present the Gospel to kids? That question has caused controversy for Young Life in North Carolina.

Whenever tragedy strikes, it is always a wake-up call. In my last parish, Danielle, a popular high-school junior, committed suicide. Her friends attended the funeral Mass; but over time, many in the youth ministry stopped coming to church. I asked why. They told me it was too painful; it was the last...

I remember as a youth ministry leader seeing one of my high school kids who two weeks earlier “gave his life to Jesus” get busted for bringing acid to school. I asked him, “What happened, bro? What went wrong?” He just shrugged his shoulders and said, “I got bored.” Bored? God forgive us for all those...

Hey, remember Buddy Christ? The celeb spokes-deity in the 1999 Kevin Smith comedy Dogma offended a lot of people. But remaking Jesus in our own image is a popular pastime among Christians — and it has been for centuries. The beardless, toga-wearing, chariot-driving Christ in the...

Jesus isn’t white. Shocking, isn’t it? But you could’ve fooled me. You see, as a teenager and weekly youth ministry group devotee, I was certain of three things: Jesus was Republican, He was Baptist, and He most certainly was white. Haven’t you seen the paintings? The Bible says we are created in God’s...

When Brandon arrived on campus with a full-ride scholarship, he made the top 10 of the smartest freshmen I’d ever met. Take my SAT scores, multiply them by two, and my score would be lower than his first and only attempt. Because he loved learning from history, he decided to major in it. His love for...

This summer I was the guest speaker at a youth ministry Bible camp in Northern California. The week’s theme was Matthew 22:37 — loving God with all our heart, soul, and mind. I taught from 1 Samuel 16:7, which shows God judges the heart, not the appearance. I challenged the students to consider Jesus’...