Youth Trilogy- Fr. Jonathan Tobias
Best article I read this past week...
Check out all three articles in the order they're written. I've been pondering these issues this Summer as I prepare to get more involved with our own Diocese's department of Campus Ministry.
"Youth ministry should have been the business of making Christian adults. In Orthodox terminology, Orthodox youth minstry is all about making saints. This is because of an arrestingly simple fact in Holy Tradition: sainthood and Christian adulthood are the same. This means that there are many Christian children who are adults, because they are saints. This also means that there are many older people who remain children, because they are not saints.
What we should have said, in our decades of youth ministry, is something like this: “No, everywhere else is a sandbox and a Romper Room. But Christianity is a higher thing. Christianity is simple, but it is deep. It is free, but it is hard. It is eternal, and for that, you need to be a child at heart, and you must also grow up, and be a man.”
“So no, we won’t have rock music or encounter groups. Not because they’re evil, but because they’re childish and vulgar. We’re off to do bigger things, and better.”
After all, youth ministry, and churches, are all about making adults. For the very long term."
I'm not saying that Christian popular music is necessarily a bad thing. There are some very good and edifying "Christianizations" of popular media ("The Passion," "The Chronicles of Narnia, etc) out there, as well. By all means, if you're the impressionable sort, put a Christian-inspired CD in your car stereo instead of the Brittney Spears/50-cent/Ludacris bottom-of-the-barrel insipid non-musical noise we've gotten used to. Having said that, I'm of the thinking that Christ ordained a Church as well as a particular order of worship which we follow in continuity with our Tradition...traditions..and which doesn't, and mustn't try to, compete with pop culture.
If there is a youth/college ministry in the Orthodox Church, it must be focused on engaging said students in serious, yet wholly fulfilling, consideration of Christ-centered Apostolic worship. Otherwise, we're just putting on a grand circus sideshow to get a few more seats filled on Sunday.
Now read this from Touchstone...
Check out all three articles in the order they're written. I've been pondering these issues this Summer as I prepare to get more involved with our own Diocese's department of Campus Ministry.
"Youth ministry should have been the business of making Christian adults. In Orthodox terminology, Orthodox youth minstry is all about making saints. This is because of an arrestingly simple fact in Holy Tradition: sainthood and Christian adulthood are the same. This means that there are many Christian children who are adults, because they are saints. This also means that there are many older people who remain children, because they are not saints.
What we should have said, in our decades of youth ministry, is something like this: “No, everywhere else is a sandbox and a Romper Room. But Christianity is a higher thing. Christianity is simple, but it is deep. It is free, but it is hard. It is eternal, and for that, you need to be a child at heart, and you must also grow up, and be a man.”
“So no, we won’t have rock music or encounter groups. Not because they’re evil, but because they’re childish and vulgar. We’re off to do bigger things, and better.”
After all, youth ministry, and churches, are all about making adults. For the very long term."
I'm not saying that Christian popular music is necessarily a bad thing. There are some very good and edifying "Christianizations" of popular media ("The Passion," "The Chronicles of Narnia, etc) out there, as well. By all means, if you're the impressionable sort, put a Christian-inspired CD in your car stereo instead of the Brittney Spears/50-cent/Ludacris bottom-of-the-barrel insipid non-musical noise we've gotten used to. Having said that, I'm of the thinking that Christ ordained a Church as well as a particular order of worship which we follow in continuity with our Tradition...traditions..and which doesn't, and mustn't try to, compete with pop culture.
If there is a youth/college ministry in the Orthodox Church, it must be focused on engaging said students in serious, yet wholly fulfilling, consideration of Christ-centered Apostolic worship. Otherwise, we're just putting on a grand circus sideshow to get a few more seats filled on Sunday.
Now read this from Touchstone...
posted by street theologian @ 11:01 PM
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