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Exerpts from my philosophy of ministry

This comes from my students ministries training manual. I created a 30 day devotional training manual to introduce staff to the ministry and equip them to succeed.

The Deadly Trend: Cherching
In many churches, the all-consuming passion has become an all too common past time. Christianity becomes a culture and that culture becomes the thing sought for. We live in a time where Christianity is exalted far higher than Christ. In this, our culture has told our students that they do not matter to Christ and modern churches have led the retreat. In most churches, it is more important that the student dress nice and sit still than she knows the depth of her bible, or that she loves her brother and neighbor. The enculturation has become the goal. This is christianization not the pursuit of Christ. I call this “Cherching.” Strikingly, most churches do not care if their youth group lives up to the standards of scripture –although, you might not be shocked because very few Churches expect maturity from their students. They’ve created a category where students aren’t fully accountable because “they aren’t really adults.” Adolescence is license for stupidity. In effect, what they communicate (albeit unintentional) is that successful Christianity for a teenager is to not do drugs, not have sex, have a quiet time, and show up regularly to church without making a scene. What kind of goal is that? We must strive for more. We must to live in a manner worthy of the gospel.
A definition of churching is using cultural means to achieve cultural goals. The goal of ‘churching’ is to make the students fit into the cultural mold of their parents’ generation. This dangerous impersonator of discipleship sounds good when it is masked in Christian words. It can look like the discipleship; but, the goal of “cherching” is completely different than the upward call of God in Christ and we must not downplay the difference. Cherching is not a lower standard or a lesser goal. It is an altogether different goal because the means to achieve it is altogether different.
There is a link between the goal and how we pursue it. You can’t drive to the moon and you can’t sail to the grocery store. Before endeavoring to a distant location, we must know the destination and then in light of it, choose a method to travel. When John F Kennedy gave the challenge for America to go to the moon, the reason the challenge was so high was because of the vehicle needed. The purpose of understanding our goal in youth ministry is to design the right vehicle to travel there. Our goal is not found only in our culture, but ultimately in the person of God. This is our goal:

"And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your might.”
Deuteronomy 6:5

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