1.
Please describe the context in which you minister
(geographically, ethnically, socio-economically, etc.)
I am a proud, life-long New Englander. I attended college and seminary a
little over an hour away from home, and now I serve in a church only thirty
minutes from where I grew up. I
serve in a church of 250 that's about half an hour south-west of Boston. New Englanders are generally
well-educated, brutally honest, and traditional people.
The suburban towns Emmanuel Baptist Church pulls from are largely upper-middle class, mostly white communities
where many commute daily into Boston to work (most commuters work in the
financial world or in one of Boston's many hospitals or universities). In New England, it is simply assumed
that not only will you go to college after high school, much of your teenage
life after freshman year revolves around getting high enough grades and
excelling in enough extra-curricular activities to get into a good college with a scholarship.
There are two general assumptions most New Englanders make
(especially in my area around Boston): You will go to college and you're Roman
Catholic.
2. How do teenagers in
your region feel about the Church and Christianity as a whole?
My wife teaches eighth grade in our town's public school and
frequently gets questions about being married to a priest. A few weeks back, something about
church came up in one of her classes and since she's not Catholic she was asked
what religion she was, as if being a Baptist is like being a Buddhist. She had to explain what
"Protestant" and "Baptist" meant, since
"Christian" and "Church" simply means "Roman
Catholic" to most unchurched teenagers. It's simply assumed that if you're religious, you're
Catholic. Many parents have a difficult time agreeing to let their teen attend
anything a Protestant church is doing - in some ways the changes of Vatican II
are still being worked out.
Even though many will identify themselves as Catholic, they
rarely attend Mass and dread attending CCD. The Roman Catholic Church is viewed
with skepticism because of the clergy sex-abuse scandals, and all other
Churches are untrustworthy because they aren't Catholic. Religion simply isn't
something that should affect real life. In many ways, it wouldn't be unfair to
make the observation that the universities (which were ironically founded by
the Church to train up the next generations of pastors and missionaries) have
taken on the authority the Church used to hold in public life.
3. What perceptions and
reactions do teenagers in your area have to Christian morality?
When I was a teenager, I remember classmates getting drunk
and partying hard on Friday and then going to confession on Saturday. Religion is thought of as something
peripheral and pretty insignificant.
Disappointingly, "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" is a very
accurate description of teen spirituality - God exists but doesn't impose
himself on you, he's just there to help you when you need him to and help you
do good things for others.
In a culture so dominated by both secularism and Roman
Catholicism, the Gospel of Grace is not easily understood and is often under
attack from both groups of people.
The Gospel is either stupid and unnecessary because God, sin, and
judgment aren't real anyway, or the Gospel is a New Law declaring what we ought
to do without giving us the ability to do it.
Practically speaking, most teenagers around here don't seem
to think too much about moral decisions.
It's not that they're more thoughtless than other teens, but they're
simply postmodern and think with their feelings and impulses. As the Ben and Jerry's Bumper Sticker
says, "If it doesn't feel good, why do it?"
4. What approaches have
you found helpful in dealing with the aforementioned stumbling blocks such that
you effectively can share the Gospel with students in your area and bring them
in to the life of the Church?
One
of the most effective things you can do is to invest your time to gain the
trust of parents. Evangelical
churches (especially Baptist churches like mine!) are often viewed with
suspicion and distrust. This makes
earning the trust of parents both difficult and essential. I've had a number of students get
plugged into the youth ministry who wanted to attend our Sunday morning worship
services; but they have been told they aren't allowed to come "because
we're Catholic" (even though they rarely attend Mass). I've had students drop off the map for
a season because they had to attend CCD in order to receive their first
communion. It's becoming a bit
"trendy" to emphasize parents today, but I'm increasingly convinced
that we need to minister to the whole student, and that means we need to reach
out to the whole family... parents included.
I
often hear youth pastors from around the country talk about the importance of
plugging into the local schools, and I agree that's really important, but in
New England it's extremely difficult to do. I'm not allowed to eat lunch with students, and even if I
was, I'm not sure how many students would be willing to put such a huge target
on their back by allowing me to sit with them and their friends. I've been a volunteer coach for one of
the local high school's Track & Field teams and that's been a great blessing
and a great challenge. A few years
ago one of the students I had already coached for a whole season was surprised
to find out I'm a pastor (I have no idea how she didn't know, since it comes up
quite a bit) and proceeded to ignore me for the rest of the week because she
was so weirded out that one of her coaches was a priest.
5. What encouragement
would you give to other youth pastors in your area trying to reach teenagers?
Don't
give up, and stay somewhere long enough to make a difference! We've all heard the statistics about
how short most youth pastors stay at a church before moving on... I want to
encourage you to try breaking the record as the longest-tenured pastor in your
church's history. I've been
serving at my church for seven and a half years, and it wasn't until year four
that I felt that I really had gained significant trust from the parents at
church (so how much more of a challenge will it be to gain the trust of parents
from the unchurched community!).
You
will see mini-revivals break out among families, churches, schools, and
communities through your ministry the longer you stay, the more consistently
you model the servant-love of Christ, and as you continually proclaim that
amazing grace of the Good News.
Don't set out trying to be Jonathan Edwards or George Whitefield or
whoever else... set out to be faithful in your calling to serve the students
and families God has given you and trust Him to bear the fruit as you scatter
the seed.
Besides,
we all know New England is the American Church's best-kept-secret... God is
doing a mighty work here! Friends,
stay faithful.
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