Last night I was telling several students how I am so blessed and have gotten to do so many cool things with my life. Jordan's response was a sarcastic, "yeah, and now your stuck here." To which I said, "it is good to be here and now I get to live through you guys. You are my glory(somewhat jokingly)." Danny said, "I am going to have a t-shirt made that says 'Cory's Glory.'" ... That would be funny but please don't do that. I will be struck down in my arrogance. Here is the concept behind this though... what you guys do with your lives shows how well I did my job as a pastor. If after high school all of the students go to college and forget their convictions and beliefs and fall away, then I suck. I did a bad job at shepherding you to respond to the voice of the King. But, on the other hand, I can live through each of you with how well you follow Christ for the rest of your lives. You are my glory. Even writing that makes me smile. It is such a funny way of thinking. But, you are my spiritual sons and daughters and my goal is to raise you in righteousness. I need to use every thing I possibly can to help you to become a mature believer and the way I do it might be different than other youth pastors. In fact some might say, "He has a demon (vs. 33)" and others might even say, "Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and 'sinners' (vs. 34)."
This is a concept that I have been wrestling with lately. I feel like the trend with youth ministry is to provide a fun program to get people into the church (as if a building can save?!?). I believe this is the strategy that a pharisee from verse 30 would buy into. However, my strategy is to simply get students to Christ, to disciple them, to help them walk with Him, and to even put them in situations that will stretch their faith and prove their commitment. And, it might be frowned upon. Here is my argument though... "wisdom is proved right by all her children." This may not seem like the most logical strategy in the eyes of men, but I am OK with that because I am focused on ..."the things of God (Matthew 16: 23)." My wisdom will be shown by a small amount of students that actually live their lives for God. Some will be missionaries, some will be pastors, some will be worship leaders, and a bunch of them will actually change whole companies because of their faith. They will be passionate Christ followers and they are my glory! And to make my argument a little more pointed I firmly believe the current American youth ministry system is broke. If 80 percent of students after finishing youth ministry fall away from their "faith" (quotations added to emphasize that it is an illusion of faith), then what is the point of groveling to provide fun activities for the 80 out of 100 students that will stand at the gates and hear the words, "I never knew you?"
Here is my proposal... let's focus on discipleship and make sure that we are making passionate followers of Christ. When someone totally gets that Christ is the greatest treasure ever, they can't help but to share that with others! I have done evangelism ministry for the past 5 years and I totally see the value in it... God desires that none should perish and we need to be telling others all about Him and His benefits. But, as a ministry we are committed to making disciples and not just having a fun program. I am not the first to feel this way; check out what Oswald Chambers, a minister of Christ from the early 1900's, has to say on April 24th.
http://www.myutmost.org/04/0424.html
and if you want to read more his book is available for online viewing
http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php
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