the intersection of life and grace

General Session 3 features David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock on the theme of engaging culture for effective ministry.

Mark Matlock is the VP of Events and Content at Youth Specialties, author of a number of YS titles, and the heart behind Real World Parents. David Kinnaman of Barna Research and is the author of UnChristian. They are presenting together.

Mark is talking about the various books and movies that have been recently published regarding post-Christian America, including the most recent Newsweek cover article.  They are representing Christian America, self-reported, about 81%.  They are describing the different defining questions Barna uses to drill down into the results that go to what is meant by the “decline of Christian America”.  This shift about a post-Christian America is happening among about 75% of the self-reported Christian group.

Mark to David: did your research really say that 2/3rds of young people are leaving the faith when they graduate from high school.  David: Let me set the record straight, our data has been abused on that subject.  Some students do leave. But what those 2/3rd are largely saying is that the faith doesn’t make a difference, it doesn’t make sense for therm.  They are rejecting Christianity because it doesn’t make them a better doctor or teach them to better engage the world’s issues.  They aren’t necessarily rejecting Jesus, they are rejecting organized religion.

Mark asks, what do we need to be teaching to help them better engage culture (or abstain from it), and be like Joseph, Esther and see tangible results of faith in their lives.  David: we’re studying this generation, we call them Globals, and seeing them wanting to engage in different places, different cultures. We see the Gospel “busting out of the usual containers” and America is no longer, if it ever was, the center of spiritual change.  This means that people who are non-Christians, and non-American Christians, are refining us, and sensing something much bigger in a move of God.  At the heart of this is the next generation.

Mark asks, could we as Americans, miss out on this new thing that God is doing because we can’t see it? (like the Pharisees missed who Jesus was when he was right there among them)  David responds that if kids are missing it, whose responsibility is that considering we are their leaders, pastors, parents? 

What are some ways we can shift the mentality of the mission trip – could we, Mark proposes, shift the “we’re bringing something” to another country on a mission trip, to “we’re here to see what God is doing here” – an entirely different posture.

David is talking about fatherlessness – it is 4x as likely today than in 1960 – in terms of how we minister to this generation.  Our goal is for them to see God as Father, and that God is in the business, still, of restoring people.  What is different is the path to understanding that realization, and becoming part of the solution and participating in restoring what’s broken.

Note – because this conversation is pretty rapid fire, these really are just notes, and not necessarily direct quotes.

David is back to the idea of helping students understand how their faith affects who they are supposed to be – he calls this vocational discipleship.  (my thought, is this like what Bob Briner’s book Roaring Lambs proposed, a whole life faith that lets your faith infiltrate every part of life, in a non-compartmentalized way.)

Mark is talking about moving away from youth ministry as a commodity, and getting back to the roots of pioneers who went to the dark places to be about transforming culture.  Recapture the essence of what God has called us to, it’s not about a box of curriculum, but being truly missional and sharing the transformational power of Jesus Christ.”

I’ll be posting live notes here from Shift session 2, featuring Mark Holmen and  Bubba Thurman on the theme of Connecting the Church and Home.  Make sure you refresh to see the most current additions.

Mark Holmen is the author of Faith Begins at Home.

Satan has been attacking families by making it easy to outsource everything we want our kids to be taught. We live in a land of plenty, of more, and we’ve forgotten God.  It’s a treadmill.

Hypocrisy is driving young people away from the church.  Specifically, they’re at church, in programs, but they’re not getting the same message at home.  Speaking from Deut. 6 – impress these things on your children… (not drop them off at church).

This seemed like a win-win situation – kids get dropped off, we had great success. Participated in a national survey, Significant Religious Influences, designed to reveal why the kids in the youth program have the faith they do.  The number one reason why teenagers have faith was mom. Two was, dad.  Three, pastor. Grandparents, Sunday School, Youth Group, Church Camp, Retreats… Parents are 2-3 times more influential than any church program.

As a youth pastor, he was spending all his time and energy on the bottom of the influence list.

Two approaches to the problem.

Typical churches program for nursery, children’s ministry, youth ministry, move onto men’s/women’s and senior adults ministry.  Then, when they decide to “do something for families” we make a new box. This approach, at best, gets about 40% of parents to turn out.

By being a “faith at home focused church” – weaving ministry to families through everything the church does – equips families to minister to their children and reaches all of your families. Ministering to families becomes about how you do church. It runs across how you “do” (or make choices about) each area of ministry.

In youth ministry, he calls it “both-and-and” ministry. Youth pastors need to do everything they can to reach students for Christ, know him and follow him.  And, they need to be faith at home focused students – by equipping them to live out their faith 24/7 at home (and wherever else they go). And, youth pastors need to find ways to engage parents.

Describes a retreat where there was a session for the parents.  Everything the students were taught was shared with the parents, there was a joint session for parents and students following the students’ retreat, and discussion questions went home with them for further discussion apart from the youth ministry.

This faith at home focus is a long-term vision for a church, an intentional part of every ministry at all age levels.

Bubba Thurman – homepointemodel.com

He’s talking about the church-home connection from the youth minister’s perspective. Their church’s home-family ministry is called Home Point.

Faith at home, or family ministry, doesn’t mean the elimination of youth ministry or youth pastors. It does mean the inclusion of church-supported, intentional equipping for parents so that the most effective people (parents) are best able to disciple their children.

Three hurdles for the youth pastor to overcome – between youth ministry and the home ministry.

1. Pride – the inability to admit that there’s something wrong with what we’re doing.

2. Assumptions – what comes to mind when you hear family ministry? “I hear a van pulling up in the church parking lot, 9 kids pile out all wearing uniforms, ready to play bible trivia.”

3. Fear – can keep us from doing something we know is right. What are we afraid of about family ministry (inspiring and equipping parents to disciple their kids)? Inadequacy and measures are the most common answers.

Suggestions for getting started on considering parents when planning youth ministry. Tell parents, by website or print out, what you’re teaching ahead of time. Share the lessons, share the talks from events or retreats. Invite parents to your team trainings, teach them to lead bible studies, be relational, anything you would train a volunteer leader to do. Most parents want the opportunity to lead their kids, they just don’t know how.