Posts Tagged ‘Parenting’

Why are youth pastors blamed for every bad thing any young person ever does in church?

And why do some parents put so much pressure on youth pastors to disciple their students, while taking little responsibility for their own kids’ spiritual lives?

These questions will probably continue to haunt us for a while, but it’s interesting to see study after study demonstrate just how influential parents can be (like this one, this one and this one).

Here’s the kicker. In spite of the incredible influence parents have on teens, they don’t use it. “The majority of children in America have less than 10 minutes of significant and meaningful conversation with their parents each week. If you remove the mother, you can measure this statistic in seconds.“ (It came from this article, although they did not mention a source.)

Youth pastors are not and cannot be replacement parents. In fact, instead of traditional “youth ministry stuff,” we might find that some of our time is best spent helping parents be better spiritual leaders in their own homes. What do you think?

Some say America walked away from Christianity decades ago when church turned into habit and Christ became a religion.

For many, being a “Christian” is the family they were born into and simply why they try to live a “good life.”

The reality is that reaching this generation is more complex than trying to “get them back into youth group.” Teens are falling away from the saving knowledge of God’s love, and this trend has been happening for years, so we must be well equipped in our response.

So what can we do?

I believe that there are several principles that we need to follow in this rescue operation:

• Direction: Finding guidence and strength in the Lord
• Understanding: Knowing what makes this generation completely unique
• Relationships: Why we cannot rely on “programs”
• Turning points: Creating meaningful moments with teens

I’ll be addressing each of these in future blog posts. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to subscribe so you won’t miss a thing.

Update: All of the follow-up posts are now available–see links above.

I’ve seen something happen in literally hundreds of families. Parents have all the best intentions for their children. They want to raise them well and give them a great future.

But kids are hard to please. They whine, cry and complain–and above all that makes good parents feel guilty. So what do we do? We give them what they want.

By the time they’re teenagers, all they know is getting what they want from their parents. They’re experts at entertaining themselves and doing whatever it takes to be happy. They don’t get it all, of course, but they sure do get plenty of it. Most of their life so far has been centered around getting what they want. And they obviously don’t know much about sacrifice–suffering for the sake of others.

I’m curious for your feedback. Have you seen this same trend? How does this affect your youth ministry?