Re: Getting In to the calling of the Spirit!
Submitted by GraceComesFirst on November 30 2000 01:59:39
In reply to Getting In to the calling of the Spirit! submitted by Huck Finn on November 29 2000 11:22:14
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I've had some experience volunteering as a youth minister. One thing that I have learned, is that it is easier to show people how things work, than to tell them. Boys (and girls, too, I suppose) have very concrete minds until they get to the age of puberty. Young children don't thrive on abstract reasoning. So they really need worship experiences that are based in experiences, sounds, images, and stories, rather than adult concepts of theology. Teenagers, on the other hand, usually tend to be just the opposite. They are usually even more into abstractions and "reasoning things out" than adults are! (Just try to have an argument with a teenage boy, and see if it is even POSSIBLE to win! Everybody knows, that teenboys know everything about everything! [At least they think they do!]) So they also need to be shown concrete things in worship, because otherwise they could get totally lost going off on tangents in their thinking process. I was recently discussing this with a fellow youth worker at my church. She said, You can't really explain the Christian faith to someone intellectually, in a way that will convince them, if they are not already a believer--it's better to demonstrate it for them by modeling Christian values in relationships, and then let them explore the intellectual aspects of the faith on their own. That is how the youth ministries at my church are structured. There is less "teaching", and much more just people getting together to have fun and support each other. |
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