Conservative Christian groups have been on a mission for the past decade to get teenagers to make pledges to sexual abstinence. The Bush Government made foreign aid partly dependent on developing nations promoting abstinence as the way to deal with AIDS (and not allowing abortions either). The most famous are the True Love Waits and Silver Ring Thing campaigns.

While I understand the desire to teach sexual purity, I have long been concerned about the unintended consequences of these campaigns. One very real consequence is a rise in teen pregnancies in the USA – read a report here.

This is a tough issue to deal with. I am not going to try and deal with the intricacies now.

What I do want to comment on is the danger of teaching abstinence through naivete. Abstinence is one thing, but lack of understanding of sexual desire and naivete about the use of contraception and protection against STD’s is something else. It’s a really tough balance to maintain, but the empirical evidence is overwhelming – it’s not working as it is! There are MORE pregnancies and STDs, and more sexual activity, among those who have signed up to abstinence campaigns.

I am not sure what the solution is, but what we’re doing now needs to change. I still maintain that the church is very bad at dealing with pretty much every issue related to sex. We need to sort ourselves out.

Church, Future trends, General, Generations, Global issues, Missional

The Challenge of An Aging Population

2010/07/15 Graeme Leave a comment

In 2001, I was editing a magazine on the future of church ministry. I approached respected author, academic and church consultant, Richard Kew to write about what he thought was a critical future trend the church needed to be aware of. This is what he wrote. Now, nearly a decade later, it’s still important, and his advice should still be heeded.

Last weekend I was invited to speak at, and participate in, a consultation on ministry among the aging. It was a fascinating weekend. I learned a lot, met some interesting people, and (I hope) was able to make a small contribution to the process. This weekend I sat down with the November 3, 2001, issue of The Economist, and found a major survey of the near future by Peter Drucker that has me questioning — as well as building upon — some of the things that I said last Saturday!

Drucker is venerable in every sense of that word. Now 92, his mind is still as clear as a bell, and for someone who is highly unlikely to live long enough to see some of the things he is talking about, he is obviously very engaged with what tomorrow might look like. At the heart of some of his projections is his recognition that the developed world’s population is aging to such an extent, that the social safety nets all western democracies have put in place are utterly inadequate.

Here’s a nugget to ponder: “By 2030, people over 65 in Germany, the world’s third-largest economy, will account for almost half the adult population, compared with one-fifth now. And unless the country’s birth rate recovers from its present low of 1.3 per woman, over the same period its population of under-35s will shrink about twice as fast as the older population will grow. The net result will be that the total population, now 82m, will decline to 70m-73m. The number of people of working age will fall by a full quarter, from 40m to 30m.”

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Church, Future trends, General

A bit of fun: Why New Ideas around the church WON’T WORK

2010/07/15 Graeme Leave a comment

Quick reference List…

for Why New Ideas around the church WON’T WORK

Somebody’s always suggesting new ideas around the church, like adding on to the building, or switching Sunday school to after worship, or changing the times of services. No sooner than such ideas surface, objections swarm up like spring mosquitoes. In order to proceed in a more orderly and organised manner, why don’t we all begin expressing our reasons for why these new ideas won’t work by simply citing the objections by number, as in, “I’m against it because of 11, 26, and 44”.

1. It’s not in the budget.
2. I need more time to think and pray about it.
3. What we’re doing now is working just fine.
4. I know a church who tried it and it didn’t work.
5. They never had to do that in Bible times.
6. We don’t have the power to act on that.
7. Let’s assign it to a study committee.
8. Some of our best givers would oppose that.
9. It’s a good idea, but several years ahead of its time.
10. This sort of thing could cause a reaction.
11. It might work in America, but not here.
12. The older people would never accept it.
13. It would never produce any tithers.
14. We’ve done OK all these years without it.
15. We couldn’t do it until we have a new building.
16. It is too expensive.
17. It could ruin our carpet.
18. The timing’s just not right.
19. Let’s not be the first to try it.
20. Let’s put it on hold for a while.
21. I need to see more details before I can vote on I.
22. It’s too charismatic, [and/or] liberal [and/or]
social [and/or] _______ (add your label here)
23. It doesn’t fit in with our long range plan (see 51).
24. Some of our newer people won’t like it (see 52).
25. I don’t see any long term value in it.
26. That’s what we hire the pastor for.
27. We’ll lose people; why I know several…
28. It doesn’t fit the culture of the people around here.
29. Good idea, but we’re just not ready for it yet.
30. Our people are already overworked.
31. It doesn’t jive with our mission statement.
32. That would be too radical a change at one time.
33. Our church is too small to try that.
32. Our church is too big to try that now.
33. It is a worthy goal, but quite frankly it’s impossible.
34. Jesus didn’t have to do that to minister.
35. There are people who will stop tithing if we do it.
36. There’s just not enough time.
37. In a larger city that might work.
38. Perhaps it would work in a rural area, but not here.
39. Our facilities just couldn’t handle it.
40. It’s too much change too fast.
41. I think all we need is to do what we’re doing better.
42. It needs done, but we’re not the ones to do it.
43. Let’s let it marinate for a few months.
44. The trend right now is exactly the opposite way.
45. Something just doesn’t feel right to me.
44. Everybody’s not on board yet.
45. Bill Gothard teaches against it.
46. Our people are stretched too thin.
47. Our people have been asked to give too often.
48. The woman’s group would be against it.
49. This could be divisive. We could get sued.
51. Do we have a long range plan for this sort of thing?
52. Some of our older people won’t like it (see 24).

From an anonymous email

Church, General, Generations, Theology, Youth

Five Things Every Adult Christian Should Know About Youth Ministry

2010/07/13 Graeme 3 Comments

It is God’s design that His Gospel, the Good News of salvation for all who believe in Christ, should be passed down throughout history by each generation reaching and teaching the next. This was clearly spelt out in Deut. 6:6-12, repeated in Deut. 32:45-47 and in Joshua 24. Yet, one of the saddest verses in Scripture is the indictment in Judges 2:10, “After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel” (NIV). The indictment is not against the wayward youth, but actually against the older generation who failed to correctly nurture them. It appears as if this indictment may be repeated in our own day. Today, the church is on the brink of a major crisis as many young people are rejecting it as irrelevant, boring and superficial.

The church is always only one generation away from extinction. If Satan can win the soul of just one generation, then he wins the souls of all that follow. The role of youth ministry in a local church is therefore one of the most vital aspects of that church’s existence, and certainly the key to its continued survival. With this in mind, there are a number of critical areas in which churches appear to be failing the generation of young people at the beginning of a new millennium. These can be characterised by five serious misconceptions regarding the role of youth ministry in the local church:

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General, Sermons, Youth

Talk: Famous Last Words

2010/07/12 Graeme Leave a comment

This is a talk I gave at a youth group a number of years ago.

I have in my hand a chocolate bar, which I will give to the first person to give me the answer to a quick quiz I am about to give you. I will give you the famous last words of this person, and you must tell me who he was.

Et tu, Brute.

ANSWER: Julius Caesar

On the 15th of March, 44BC, Julius Caesar, the Emperor of Rome walked into his government to conduct business as usual. As he stood to speak, Senators rushed forward and stabbed him. Legend tells us that over 50 senators were involved. Caesar had been expecting this – it was part of the way things were done in those days. I must admit, that it sometimes seems a pity that we have to vote some of our bad politicians out of office, rather than get rid of them the way the Romans did.

It wasn’t so much the fact that Caesar had been killed, but rather that it was one of his closest friends and advisors that was also involved. If William Shakespeare can be trusted on this point, Brutus was the last to put his knife in. It was the fact that his closest friend had shafted him that really hurt Caesar. It was his dying thought. I wonder how many of you have had a good friend let you down badly – maybe talk behind your back or do something that really hurt you. Maybe you haven’t ever forgiven that person. The problem is: Friends let you down. They hurt you.

It’s not only friends that let you down, though, but family as well. You know, three years ago, my brother and sister and I arranged a wonderful party for my parents. It was their 25th wedding anniversary. Last year, they were divorced. Three weeks ago, my father married a woman just a few years older than me. That hurts. Some of you know how much it hurts. Et tu, my friend?. You, too? People let you down.

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Church, General, Missional, Theology, Youth

Being Incarnational in Youth Ministry – a theology

2010/07/11 Graeme Leave a comment

An assignment completed in 1998, as part fulfillment of the requirements of the Youth Ministry Major at Baptist Theological College, South Africa.

NOTE, July 2010: This article could probably do with updated references to popular culture. If you’re going to use it, please make the effort to replace references to TV shows, movies and music with more up to date references. For example, if Jesus were around today, I’m sure he’d have a Facebook account, and would be happy for any and everybody to be his friend.

1. Introduction

In his book, The Purpose Driven Church, Rick Warren devotes a chapter to Jesus’ model of ministry that attracted crowds. His purpose is to show that a strategy that aims at large numbers is Biblical. In doing so, however, he also makes some important general comments regarding the nature of Jesus’ ministry. Towards the end of His ministry, Jesus instructed His disciples, saying “As the Father sent me into the world, I am sending you” (John 17:18; 20:21). Jesus is our model of operating in the world. But Jesus was God – so how exactly can He be our model?

It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss the exact nature of the incarnation (becoming man) of Christ. However, the basis of this paper is that the incarnation involved Christ, who is God, becoming fully human, yet without compromising his full divinity (John 1:14, Phil. 2:6f.). This being the case, let us examine some implications of Christ’s example for youth ministry.

2. Implications of the Incarnation

All of the implications of the incarnation are beyond enumeration or expression. The fact that God Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, the Sustainer of all life, should reduce Himself to a foetus in a virgin peasant girl is beyond understanding. That the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob should subject Himself to human care as a helpless baby, grow up in Roman-controlled Palestine, and walk from one end of Israel to another, followed by a rag-tag team of social outcasts, eventually submitting to the cruel nails of crucifixion, simply to identify with me, is too great a thought to grasp. Yet, it is possible to glean some principles from Jesus’ earthly life, that can be applied to youth ministry. Just as Jesus took on Himself the form of a human being, we must take on the “form” of a young person. The following sections work towards a theology of Incarnational Ministry, which will explain how this can be achieved.

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General, Missional, Theology

Methods of Evangelistic Contact

2010/07/09 Graeme 1 Comment

This article was first written in 1997 as part of my academic studies in Youth Ministry

Possible models of evangelism, to be implemented for children, teenage and young adult ministries, including a discussion of the similarities and unique features of each age level ministry with specific evangelism guidelines for each age level.

1. Introduction

1.1. Assumptions

The scope of the issue of the evangelism of young people through the local church is enormous. This paper assumes that the reader: (i) is convinced of the absolute importance of evangelism; (ii) is aware that evangelism as it has been (and is being) done is not as effective as we would like it to be; (iii) understands some of the dynamics involved in “Generation X” (also known as “slackers”, “busters” or the 13^th generation) and “Generation Y” (also known as the “Millennial generation”); (iv) accepts that, although God can change someone’s life instantaneously (e.g. the apostle Paul on the road to Damascus), he most often chooses to work over a longer period of time in someone’s life (e.g. Jesus and his disciples over a three year period) – there is “a process of evangelising, not just an evangelistic event” (Ford 1996:196); (v) accepts that although all evangelism is linked to a local church in some way, not all evangelism must be centred on the local church. There is a combination of “Go and tell” and “Come and see” approaches (cf. Warren 1995:234f.); and (vi) accepts that no single programme or method can effectively reach out to every type of person. In order to evangelise our modern communities, a multiplicity of methods is needed. The key to utilising multiple methods is to be aware of how these methods interact with each other, and an integrated and co-ordination of an overall evangelism strategy for a local church or group of churches.

1.2. Method

Petersen contends that all evangelistic methods have essentially two steps: Proclamation – “an action through which the nonChristian receives a clear statement of the essential message”, and Affirmation – “a process of modeling and explaining the Christian message” (1989:14, emphasis in the original). These two occur in different orders in different situations, but both must be present for true evangelism to occur. Traditional methods rely almost totally on proclamation, virtually ignoring the affirmation content of evangelism. Generation X rebels against proclamation, but warms to affirmation.

This assignment aims to introduce the reader to some possible approaches to evangelism that include both of these elements. Under each section, there is a discussion of how this would impact children, teenagers and young adults. Where appropriate, comparisons and contrasts are highlighted. In addition, some practical pointers are given as to how some of these methods may be implemented, and what sort of framework would be required within the local church.

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General, Theology, Youth

Towards A Theology of YOUTH Ministry

2010/07/08 Graeme Leave a comment

An assignment completed in April 1996, as part fulfillment of the requirements of the Youth Ministry Major at Baptist Theological College, South Africa.

Ephesians 4:11-16

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
(NIV)

There are many ways in which a theology of youth ministry can be formulated. One of these is in terms of the verses quoted above. In fact, Ephesians 4:11 – 16 could be the vision statement of any church. In order to formulate a specifically youth theology, however, we must apply the various aspects of this verse to the particular focus of young people.

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Church, Future trends, General, Missional, Theology

Living in an age of transition

2010/07/03 Graeme 2 Comments

First posted in 1999, and updated in 2005

Sometime between 1960 and 1980, an old, inadequately conceived world ended, and a fresh, new world began.
Hauerwas and Willimon 1989:15 (see bibliography at end for details)

The world of today is caught in the crack between what was and what is emerging. This crack began opening in the 1960s and will close sometime around the year [2020]. Trusted values held for centuries are falling into this crack, never to be seen again. Ideas and methodologies that once worked no longer achieve the desired results. This crack in our history is so enormous that it is causing a metamorphosis in every area of life. Today, the fastest way to fail is to improve on yesterday’s successes.
For many churches, the most disruptive discovery of recent years has been that few of today’s teenagers were born back in the 1950s or 1960s. A new generation of teenagers arrived with the babies born in the post-1969 era. What worked well in youth ministries in the 1960s or 1970s or early 1980s no longer works. Why? One reason is those approaches to youth ministries were designed by adults for an adult dominated world in which most teenagers looked to adults for wisdom, knowledge, leadership, affirmation, expertise, authority, and guidance. That world has almost disappeared and today largely in the heads of people age twenty-eight and over.
Schowalter 1995:8

An age of transition

My grandmother was born in 1914, in East London, South Africa. When she was born she had a reasonable expectation of growing up, getting married, working, living and dieing in a world that remained largely unchanged. After all, although there had been changes in the decades before her birth, most of these took more than one person’s lifetime to work their way into society. But not now! Since about 1950, the pace of change has exponentially increased. So, to help us understand the rate of change,consider that my grandmother was born before inter-continental air flights, jet-aircraft, space travel and moon walking, before individual telephone lines, before computers, before the first commercial motor vehicle in South Africa and tarred roads, before Johannesburg got electricity, before calculators, before “the pill”, before radar, before Elvis, before calculators and ballpoint pens, before faxes, PC’s and cell phones, before photocopiers, before miniskirts and bikinis, before television, before video machines, CDs and DVDs, before satellites and before the Internet. (Yet, every Monday morning, she sends an email to her children and grandchildren, spread around the world).

Yet, it is not just these things, and the speed at which they have arrived, that separates the young from the old in the world at the beginning of the third millennium – today’s young people are separated from their elders by incredible, fundamental shifts in thinking. There is a yawning chasm between todays adults (over 30) and youth (under 30) – in virtually every country in the world. In the last 10 to 30 years major shifts in every sphere of life have fundamentally changed the world: in South Africa it is largely defined by before and after apartheid (and earlier, before and after June 16, 1976), in Germany by the fall of the wall (9 Nov 1989), in America by Vietnam and Watergate, in Britain by trade unions and the Iron Lady, in Iran by the Islamic Revolution (1979), in Portugal by the Carnation Revolution (April 1974), in Estonia by the Singing Revolution (June 1988), in Czechoslovakia the Velvet Revolution (November 1989), in New Zealand by the end of socialism (and by the Eden Park Springbok test match that sparked Maori resurgence), in China by Tianamen Square (June 1989), and everywhere by PCs and the Internet.

We are living in an age of transition, between what was (the Industrial Age) and what will be (as we work through the Information Age into the Biotechnology era we are only beginning to discover the new socio-polital-economic geography of the world). The older generations are frustrated because the young don’t seem to listen to their advice or follow their footsteps. The young are frustrated because they see no guiding light or words of wisdom applicable to the path they’re on. We are in a dangerous place at this moment of history. So, does the Bible have any assistance to give us in such an age?

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FutureChurchNow by Graeme Codrington

Unintended consequences: teen pregnancy and abstinence campaigns