enroute

Last night was the start of something that I haven’t had the privilege of doing in a long while. My wife and I are volunteering at our church and youth group started last night. I have a small group (or what appears to be a youth group) of 16 grade 7 boys. I had to use all my strategies that I have learned (and taught) over the years to try and keep these very energetic boys on track.

Leaving from the church last night, a wealth of questions were running through my mind. In no way, do I feel like I have the answers to these questions but none-the-less these questions are things that I am going to try and get some clarity on in the next few weeks. I would love your “help” and wisdom in trying to work through these questions I have in regards to current ministry practices…

- Do middle school students engage with the Jesus that we create rather than the personal Jesus that they need to discover and find? Are we scared to let them try and discover this because of what they might find?

- A major issue facing the church is the quantity of young adults who are leaving the church - in reality, are middle school students “leaving” the church too but are forced to stay because their parents aren’t allowing them to make their own choice?

- Is our “discipleship” programming (worship, education, etc) designed in such a way that we don’t allow students to experience learning in such a way that speaks to them specifically?

- Are we creating middle school students that know how to “play” church because we have told them how to do that in our prorgamming?

- What would a middle school discipleship program look like that is created by middle school students for middle school students?

I would love to hear your thoughts —

Matt