Category Archives: Theology

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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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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Gender, General, Theology

Taking the Bible Literally

2010/06/17 Graeme 22 Comments

First posted on 15 Feb , 2008

Here’s something you might not hear in church this Sunday, but should: Stop worshiping the Bible.

On Sunday, the preacher at our church spoke of forgiveness, and used the wonderful interaction between Peter and Jesus recorded in Matthew 18:21-35. It was a good sermon, but it also sparked another thought about how we choose to interpret the Bible (and an afterthought about Scotland making it legal to marry your mother-in-law).

Because of the nature of what I say (and how I say it), I am often accused of abandoning the Christian faith altogther. Nothing could be further from the truth, but that doesn’t deter my detractors. Anyway, I am finding that the most common “root” concern that people seem to have with my approach comes down to one thing: how we treat the Bible.

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Book reviews, General, Theology

Some Thoughts on Hell

2010/06/15 Graeme 9 Comments

Originally posted on 15 August, 2008

Some time ago I skim-read Brian McLaren’s The Last Word and the Word After That (get it at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net). This past week, I have gone back to it, and am devouring it in depth. It is a story-based reflection on the issue of salvation, with specific reference to hell. It really has got me thinking, and has helped to clarify some questions (see previous post at this blog), if not entirely provide adequate answers. These are issues we should be dealing with in our churches, but are not.

I think a key part of the problem with our understanding of what it means to be saved, and the issue of hell, the life hereafter and “eternal life”, is that the historical church has created such strong camps/entrenched positions. I don’t find any of them convincing or coherent. And none of the traditional positions gives a “unifying theory of everything” – a consistent and coherent explanation of the whole of the Biblical witness. I find that I have sympathy (and concerns) with every position, from exclusivism (that everyone not personally, consciously, individually “born again” will be excluded from heaven), or inclusivism (that some will be saved through Jesus without ever knowing the name of Jesus), to conditionalism (that hell does not last forever – after a period of conscious punishment, the damned in hell are annihilated) or universalism (that everyone will ultimately be reconciled to God through Jesus, with hell ultimately being empty).

The key to understanding the importance of the issue of hell, is not actually the concept of hell itself, but rather the God to which that concept points. “God loves you – like the greatest father’s unconditional love – and has a wonderful plan for your life, and if you don’t love God back and cooperate with God’s plans in exactly the way He wants you to, God will torture you with unimaginable abuse, forever!” Yes?

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Church, General, Theology

Journalists, free speech, blogs and the church

2010/05/26 Graeme 1 Comment

Originally posted on 30 March 2005

Reading an editorial in BusinessWeek magazine from March 28, 2005, it struck me that the business world and the church may share a similar problem: redefinitions of the traditional roles of stakeholders.

The editorial was entitled, “The Apple Case Isn’t Just A Blow To Bloggers“, and referred to the recent Californian judicial ruling that web loggers (bloggers) must reveal their sources for confidential documents posted on their sites. The underlying issue is really about the definition of a journalist — who is one, and who isn’t, and what rights and privileges this status may bring.

If a blogger is actually acting as a journalist, then that blogger and the contents of his/her blog should be accorded first Amendment free speech rights. I sense a similar problem in the church today, where, at one level, we’re trying to work out who has the right to develop theology.

I was recently told of a conversation between a young person and an older theologically trained church leader. As the debate ensued, the older person stated something like this: “I will only be prepared to believe and accept this new type of thinking if someone like a modern-day Martin Luther spent his whole life studying the topic, and then writes down the fully developed, systematised version.” What this person really wanted was a bombproof faith, with no unanswered questions, and only one answer to each question asked. And they were only prepared to hear the answers if fully qualified people were giving them.

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Church, Future trends, General, Missional, Social Justice, Theology

More on “cheap grace”

2010/05/25 Graeme Leave a comment

This was originally posted on 29 March 2005

Here’s something you might not hear at church this week, but should.

Following on from my previous post, I wanted to add that this concept of “cheap grace” is one of the biggest problems facing the “established” church (by this I mean orthodox, traditional, and/or evangelical churches/denominations) is that many of them have a rotten image amongst non-Christians. I do not simply mean that they are not attractive to non-Christians (at one level, of course, the cross is an affront to non-Christians, and cannot be “attractive” in a simple sense). The problem goes a lot deeper.

In his excellent book, A Generous Orthodoxy, Brian McLaren writes a great introduction in which he addresses a number of different types of people who might be reading his book. Here is a short excerpt:

“You may not be a Christian and wondering why anyone would want to be. The religion that inspired the Crusades, launched witch trials, perpetuates religious broadcasting, present too-often boring and irrelevant church services with schmaltzy music – or else presents manic and overly aggressive church services with a different kind of schmaltzy music – baptises wars and other questionable political programs, promotes judgementalism, and ordains preachers was puffy haircuts… doesn’t make sense to you why anyone would want ‘in’ on that.

You may not yet be a Christian, and you’re thinking of becoming one, but you’re worried that if you do you’re become a worse person – judgemental, arrogant, narrowminded, bigoted, and brainwashed… Do I have to like organ music? Do I have to say ‘Praise the Lord!’ all the time? Do I have to vote Republican? Do I have to oppose civil rights for homosexuals?… you wonder if there is any way to follow Jesus without becoming a Christian.

You may already be a Christian, struggling, questioning, and looking for reasons to stay in. Or you may have officially left the Christian community, but part of your heart is still there, and you wonder if you might some day return. So many of us have come close to withdrawing from the Christian community. It’s not because of Jesus or his Good News, but because of frustrations with religious politics, dubious theological propositions, difficulties in interpreting passages of the Bible that are barbaric (especially to people sensitised by Jesus to the importance of compassion), and/or embarrassments from recent and not-so-recent church history. Or perhaps it’s simply boredom – dreary music, blase sermons, simple answers to tough questions, and other adventures in missing the point. Or perhaps it’s fatigue – a treadmill of meetings in books and programmes and squabbles that yield more duties, obligations, guilt trips, and stress.”

And that’s just the introductory page…

The point I want to make is quite simple: I believe that in an attempt to deal with the declining image and acceptance of the church in general society, and, paradoxically, in moves by the existing leadership of churches to entrench their positions of power over laypeople, we have created churches that firstly make it too easy to become Christians, and secondly give too easy answers to the tough questions that fill the lives of people inside and outside their congregations.

We are currently living with the awful consequences of decades of cheap grace. There are many churches beginning to attempt to deal with some of the problems this has caused. There are many ways of approaching this problem and looking for solutions. There are many practitioners experimenting with new practice, many authors are beginning to write about it, a few theologians are attempting to systematise it, and some philosophers are trying to fathom it.

I find myself wondering between these different categories, continuing to look for questions, answers and markers for the journey. This issue of cheap grace seems to me to be an important marker.

FutureChurchNow by Graeme Codrington