Re-Thinking Your Sunday Best: Why Student Ministry Needs to Reclaim the Centrality of Imputed Righteousness

Growing up, my parents made sure I wore my “Sunday best” to church—coat, tie, slacks, and on special occasions, suspenders!  After all, we were going to meet with the living God. A whole generation (or two) regularly used this phrase to communicate the reverence and awe of worship and to make sure our outward appearance reflected something of the cleaned-up heart we all embraced. Ironically, I didn’t spend a lick preparing my heart for worship.

Most of the time—during my early years—I only heard one side of the gospel. I heard that Jesus died on the cross as a payment for my sin, but I never heard that he lived for me. While I heard that Jesus died the death I should have died, I never heard that he lived the life I should have lived.

The point: Jesus has accomplished for us what God has required of us. He lived a perfect, sinless life, obeying all of God’s commands. That we are declared “righteous” by God (the doctrine of justification) is a declaration made on the basis that our sin has been credited to Christ and his righteousness has been credited to us.  We, therefore, stand accepted by God because of an alien righteousness, received by faith alone.

In reality, Jesus is our Sunday best. He is our righteousness. God is pleased, not with the fancy tie I received for Christmas, but with the righteous robes of his own Son, which I have received by faith alone—a “righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Phil. 3:9).

Why does this matter for student ministry?  Because the imputed righteousness of Christ stands as the foundation for the good news of our being justified by God.  In other words, without justification sola fide we don’t have the gospel. If you, like many who have loved the recent “gospel movement”—The Gospel Coalition, T4G, the GospelProject, among others—want to lead a gospel-driven student ministry, the imputed righteousness of Christ must take a central place in your teaching and ministry to students.

Nothing will free your students from the cyclical shame of sin like knowing and believing that all of our sin—past, present, and future—has been cast as far as the east is from the west (Ps. 103:12). Similarly, nothing will spur them on to holiness and sanctification like knowing and believing that they are simply living out what they have already been declared: “righteous.” They are not striving to earn God’s favor; rather, they are striving to please the One who earned God’s favor for them.  The law of God, then, comes alongside, not to condemn, but as a friend, showing him or her how he or she can please God.

Nothing will give your students joy like knowing and believing that their righteousness isn’t found in being a good student, a good son or daughter, or a good soccer player.  Their righteousness is found in Christ alone.  Indeed, their hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.  Or, in the words of the hymn “Before the Throne of God Above”

Behold him there the risen Lamb

My perfect spotless righteousness

The great unchangeable I AM

The King of glory and of grace

One with himself I cannot die

My soul is purchased by his blood

My life is hid with Christ on high

With Christ my Savior and my God

With Christ my Savior and my God

May student ministries across our land embrace and love the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and may it free youth pastors and parents from the success-oriented, entertainment-driven models of ministry that undercut the very message they are seeking to communicate.

 

If you are involved in the discipleship of students, reclaim the centrality of the imputed righteousness of Christ as you teach and equip them.  May that, not self-help sola-boot-strapia, provide the true “gospel” focus of your ministry to students.

Brian H. Cosby is pastor of Wayside Presbyterian Church in Signal Mountain, TN and author of Giving Up Gimmicks: Reclaiming Youth Ministry from an Entertainment Culture (P&R, 2012) and Rebels Rescued: A Student’s Guide to Reformed Theology (Christian Focus, 2012).

The World's Half-Truths for Teens Pt.4: God Wants You to Be Happy

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Right in the middle of my talk on the exclusivity of Christ, a hand went up in the back of the room.  “Yes?” I asked.  The young man cleared his throat.  “How can you say that Jesus is the only way to heaven?  I mean, what about all the other billions of people around the world—are they going to hell simply because they don’t believe what you believe?

I started to answer his question when I realized that he had lots of questions.  I asked him if he could stay after the meeting.  He agreed.  As the other youth were filing out of the back door, I made a beeline for my examiner.  Among the many topics we covered during that conversation, one struck me.  I asked him, “What’s your ultimate goal in life?”  His answer (like most Americans would probably respond): “To be happy.”

As I reflected on his answer, I have come to realize that it’s a half-truth.  God does want me to be happy—in him.  It sounds like something from John Piper…and the Bible.  As Piper quips, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”  Many students see happiness and church-life as exclusive realities; happiness comes as a result of entertainment, not God, right?

The “I’m-bored” phenomenon plastered all over Facebook and Twitter suggests that teens are often living between one pleasure-high to the next.  In between Justin Bieber’s swoosh and the latest iPhone game lays the black hole of boredom.  The joy of serving others is lost in the sea of narcissism, which has led to a culture of depressed, self-centered, and unhappy teens.

Ironically, the endless stream of entertainment has not brought happiness or joy to the ever-wandering heart of the American teen.  Instead, it’s led to loneliness, disillusionment, and a sense of being let down.  As Ravi Zacharias has said, “The loneliest moment in life is when you have just experienced that which you thought would deliver the ultimate, and it has let you down.”

But in God’s presence there is fullness of joy; in his right hand are pleasures forevermore (Ps. 16:11).  God wants his children to be happy, joy-filled disciples of Jesus.  But make no mistake: the gospel of Jesus Christ provides the foundation and fuel for happiness in him.  That reality that you are chosen in Christ, born again by the power of the Spirit, justified in the sight of God, and adopted into his covenant family, ushers the unhappy to see the majesty of our gracious God.  That God is self-sufficient—complete in himself from all eternity—and therefore without need of you or me or any celebrity, draws the unhappy, self-centered teen, again, to see the majesty of our gracious God.  Such majesty cannot but make the redeemed heart long for his fame and glory—bringing with it a sense of satisfaction; indeed, happiness.

As St. Augustine once taught about the dangers of dis-ordered love, the same can be said of dis-ordered happiness.  If we seek first the happiness in the creature, we will never know that happiness which we seek.  But if we seek first the happiness in the Creator, we will know the fullness of joy.

While the young man I talked with wanted “to be happy,” his quest for happiness was too small.  He was, as C. S. Lewis said, “like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”  God is supremely happy in Himself and, by grace, offers the teenage soul happiness in Him through Christ our Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit.  The black hole of boredom explodes with “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).  It is there that the self-centered, unhappy heart vanishes.  God wants you happy; don’t pursue lesser loves. 

Brian H. Cosby is pastor of Wayside Presbyterian Church in Signal Mountain, TN and author of Giving Up Gimmicks: Reclaiming Youth Ministry from an Entertainment Culture (P&R, 2012) and Rebels Rescued: A Student’s Guide to Reformed Theology (Christian Focus, 2012).

Remembering What's Important: Part 1- Student Ministry and the Sovereignty of God

Some youth ministers labor for years on end without ever seeing a conversion or they see very little spiritual growth.  Others, however, seem to have it all together—big crowds, mass baptisms, teens singing Ke$ha to the tune of Kumbaya.

How much of the success of student ministry is up to you?  Where does your ministry and God’s sovereignty connect?  And if God is completely sovereign (which He is), does it affect your daily approach to working with youth?

Sovereignty “Displayed”

The sovereignty of God is one of his holy attributes.  It means that His divine will is omnipotent and supreme over all (Eph. 1:11).  God’s sovereignty is displayed or expressed in two distinct ways.  First, God’s sovereignty is displayed in his eternal decrees—God has decreed the end from the beginning (Isa. 46:10).  All things come to pass according to his eternal purpose and plan.

Second, His sovereignty is displayed in his temporal providences—his eternal decrees executed in time and space.  For example, God has decreed salvation for his elect (“predestined”), but it comes to pass when the Spirit of God performs divine heart transplant and causes His beloved to be born again (1Pet. 1:3).  That is the sovereignty of God displayed and nothing—not even the tiniest molecule, as R. C. Sproul would say—falls outside of the sovereign control and plan of God.

So where do you fit in?  How does this relate to student ministry?

Your Part: The Means of Grace

God has not only ordained (“decreed”) the ends, but the means by which He would accomplish those ends.  This can be illustrated in both evangelism and prayer.  While God elects His people by sheer sovereign mercy, He sees fit that those people come to faith in Christ through the hearing of the gospel message.  Thus, He has ordained both the means and the ends.

A similar theme can be found with prayer.  I sometimes get asked, “Does prayer change things?”  My answer:  No, God changes things, but He uses your prayers to do it!  Both the outcome in time and space as well as the means to accomplish that outcome are wrapped up in His eternal purpose and the “secret things [that] belong to the LORD” (Deut. 29:29).

The usual and ordinary means by which God saves and sanctifies His people—including teenagers—are the Word of God, prayer, and the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  Historically, these have been called the “means of grace.”[1]  However, God also uses other means to save and grow His people, including gospel-motivated service, grace-centered community, and worship.

While God remains sovereign, He calls you to plant and water the gospel of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3:7).   But how do we faithfully plant and water the gospel?  Through the means of grace that God has already provided His church.  We don't have to invent new foundational paradigms and strategies for saving and sanctifying teenagers.  We have a role and responsibility:  to simply be faithful to the various means—the six listed above—that God uses to grow his people.  In fact, the early disciples “devoted” themselves to such a ministry (Acts 2:42-47).

Two Common Pitfalls

As youth pastors and those working with teenagers, it is easy to fall into one of two theological and pastoral pitfalls, when considering the sovereignty of God and ministry.  One is to think that—because God is sovereign—it really doesn’t matter what I do; the ends all turn out the same.  While it is true that “faithfulness” is always more important than “success” in ministry, we should heed Timothy Keller’s plea for an emphasis on fruitfulness as well.[2]  As noted above, God uses our ministries of the Word, prayer, sacraments, etc. to accomplish His eternal decrees, in time and space.  We have, therefore, a great responsibility in our ministry to students.

The other pitfall is to think that the “success” of my student ministry is really determined by my programs, special events, or my cool soul patch.  This, I’m sad to say, is the default ministry paradigm in student ministry in the American church.  There is so much emphasis on creating the greatest show on earth, that we have lost the centrality of the sovereign grace of God in saving sinners.  Instead, we gimmick and game students to the point that the youth themselves are left confused by the essential character of the gospel.  In the end, what’s missing is God himself!

Some Practical Suggestions

Let’s put this together.  Let me give you three practical suggestions for leading a student ministry in light of the sovereignty of God:

1.    Study the attribute of God’s sovereignty.  Yes, study!  Scripture is replete with references to the sovereignty of God and many books have been written to help us explore, discover, and take delight in this holy attribute.[3]  Such a study and focus will undoubtedly lead to a greater daily reminder and awareness of the truth that we serve a God whose sovereign will reigns supreme from all eternity.  My failings in ministry, therefore, will not thwart His plan.  Rather, my failings and weakness are used by God as part of His sovereign plan—often pointing to the reality that God’s grace is sufficient and that His power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).

2.    Evaluate your student ministry by the means of grace.  These include the Word of God, prayer, sacraments, gospel-motivated service, grace-centered community, and worship.  Do these provide the backbone of your current ministry?  If not, the pitfall of self-reliance might be lurking up ahead.  But a faithful and fruitful ministry will seek to plant and water the gospel of Jesus Christ through these divinely ordained and established means.

3.    Don’t Apologize for God.  I hear this all the time: “I’m sure God wouldn’t let that happen.”  There is a temptation to apologize for God when bad things happen, or when things happen that we don’t understand.  No, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job. 1:21).  Just because we don’t understand why something happened doesn’t suddenly render God impotent.  Just because all of your event planning and financial resources didn’t provide the desired effects, we must not say, “If only God could give a little help here!”  Nothing is sweeter and more comforting than serving in student ministry for a God who is, at once, good and sovereign.  Let God be God and praise Him for His sovereignty!

Brian H. Cosby is pastor of WaysidePresbyterian Church in Signal Mountain, TN and author of Giving Up Gimmicks: Reclaiming Youth Ministry from an Entertainment Culture (P&R, 2012) and Rebels Rescued: AStudent’s Guide to Reformed Theology (Christian Focus, 2012).

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[1] See The Westminster Larger Catechism, Q. 154.

[2] Timothy Keller, Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 13.

[3] For a true classic, see A. W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1976).

Reforming Youth Ministry

Check out this two-part interview with Brian Cosby, Rooted contributor and author of Giving up Gimmicks: Reclaiming Youth Ministry from an Entertainment Culture, on the White Horse Inn radio show!

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Reforming Youth Ministry, Part 1

Reforming Youth Ministry, Part 2

MTD: Not Just a Problem with Youth Ministry

Rooted is excited to continue our partnership with The Gospel Coalition blog for a series on the state of youth ministry during the month of April.  Thanks to Brian Cosby for the following article, reprinted with permission below (originally posted here).  Check out the first article in this series here.

That a youth ministry "teaches the Bible" does not necessarily mean it teaches the gospel. Many mistake the gospel with moralism---being a good person, reading your Bible, or opening the door for the elderly in order to earn God's favor. But the gospel is altogether different.

This is a problem across the youth ministry landscape. It's not because teenagers and youth leaders have misunderstood the church's teaching of historical-confessional, gospel-infused Christianity. It's a problem in youth ministry wherever the American church has not preached Christ crucified and has catered to a pragmatic, entertainment-driven, and numbers-oriented model of church growth.

According to sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton, most American teenagers believe in something dubbed "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" (MTD). [1] Within this MTD "religion," God is a cosmic therapist and divine butler, ready to help out when needed. He exists but really isn't a part of our lives. We are supposed to be "good people," but each person must find what's right for him or her. Good people will go to heaven, and we shouldn't be stifled by organized religion where somebody tells us what we should do or what we should believe. [2]

MTD isn't a religion like Islam or Buddhism, but rather a melting-pot belief among American teenagers. Historic distinctions between denominations like Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists are not as important to teens because they see their Christian faith as just one aspect of their lives like anything else---be it sports, friends, school, or family. Its preacher is American entitlement and its sermon is a me-centered message about a distant, therapeutic god who wants teens to be good and happy.

Alternative to Entertainment

I sat in a Waffle House one early morning, talking with a dad who had caught his son looking at pornography. His family had just transferred from a nearby church that spent through the roof creating the most spectacular show in church---complete with fog machines, strobe lights, and professional musicians writing Christian lyrics to Lady Gaga songs. In between the dueling DJs, this family was starved for the Bread of Life. But despite their burnout over endless entertainment, they didn't know an alternative.

"I just think you need more games," the dad told me across a very syrupy waffle. "If you had more games and funny skits, then my son would have been at church, not looking at porn." I was shocked! Here was a man who had left a church over too much entertainment and now wanted it back. I realized that MTD wasn't just a problem in the culture of American teenagers, but in the culture of the American church. The larger influence of a success-over-faithfulness model of American Christianity is having devastating effects on youth ministry.

Kenda Creasy Dean, in Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church, argues that American teenagers have bought into MTD, not because they have misunderstood what the church has taught them, but precisely because it is what the church has taught them. She writes,

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism has little to do with God or a sense of divine mission in the world. It offers comfort, bolsters self-esteem, helps solve problems, and lubricates interpersonal relationships by encouraging people to do good, feel good, and keep God at arm's length. [3]

When this self-help theology is combined with a sola-boot-strapia sermon from TBN, we start having teens singing, "God Is Watching Us from a Distance" while---at the same time---wondering why Jesus isn't fixing their parents' marriage or their problems with cutting.

MTD isn't just the problem of youth ministry; it's the problem of the church. And American Christianity has become a "generous host" to this low-commitment, entertainment-driven model of youth ministry.

Counter to the Gospel

Think about those three words, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. They run counter to the gospel of Jesus Christ in every way. We are not saved by earning our way up the good-works ladder, nor is God the divine genie dispensing wishes at command. He's not a distant "clock-maker," sitting back to watch it all play out, but the personal Immanuel who became man to seek and save his bride. The gospel says that Jesus has accomplished for you---through his life, death, and resurrection---everything that God has required of you; thereby, securing eternal life for all God's people, and received by faith alone.

This is where the importance of method comes to the forefront, which (unfortunately) is often disassociated with theology. While our theology of the gospel should inform our method, the American church---to a large extent---has practiced just the reverse. The question on many youth leaders' minds is, "How do we get bored teenagers into the church?" The question should be, "How are we to faithfully plant and water the gospel of Jesus Christ for his glory and our joy in him?"

Many youth ministries have engaged in direct competition with the world to woo and attract students by all sorts of gimmicks and giveaways. In fact, a large church in the Atlanta area recently gave away iPods to the first 100 youth at a lock-in! But is that the methodGod has given us to draw young people into a deeper, richer, more meaningful relationship with Christ?

There Is Hope

There is hope, however, because Jesus will build his church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. There is hope because God is in the business of saving and sanctifying teenagers through the ministry of Word, prayer, and sacrament. God has given us means of grace---not just to reap the benefits of their content and application---but as the way in which we plant and water the gospel, looking to God to provide the growth. These means of grace should inform how young men and women are drawn into the church---youth who are disillusioned by the gimmicks and fog of an entertainment-driven world of empty pleasure.

Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias has said, "The loneliest moment in life is when you have just experienced the ultimate, and it has let you down." Like a political pendulum, the experienced "high" from self-centered experience and rampant consumerism fails to provide rest for the restless soul. Only the gospel of Jesus Christ can call the prodigal out of the trough and satisfy his longing heart.

MTD remains a problem in youth ministry because it remains a problem in the American church. It channels the method of ministry from gospel to gimmick. But the later English Puritan John Flavel points to God's far better plan: "The intent of the Redeemer's undertaking was not to purchase for his people riches, ease, and pleasures on earth; but to mortify their lusts, heal their natures, and spiritualize their affections; and thereby to fit them for the eternal fruition of God." [4]

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[1] Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 163.

[2] Ibid., 163-71.

[3] Kenda Creasy Dean, Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 29.

[4] John Flavel, The Works of John Flavel, 6 vols. (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1968), 6:84.

Brian H. Cosby, the Rooted blog's newest contributor, is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America, Associate Pastor of Youth and Families at Carriage Lane Presbyterian Church in Peachtree City, Georgia, and author of Giving Up Gimmicks: Reclaiming Youth Ministry from an Entertainment Culture (P&R Publishing, 2012).

Family Discipleship As Law

Christopher Schlect, Critique of Modern Youth Ministry (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 1995). 21 pgs., paperback.

Christopher Schlect has written—what many would undoubtedly argue—a “timeless” critique of youth ministry by shifting the burden of training youth in the faith back to the family, especially to the fathers.

Schlect begins by giving various reasons why there exists an age-segregated youth ministry within the church today:  (1) the intentional age segregation of public education in the early-to-mid twentieth century and (2) the rise of para-church ministries that have targeted teenagers, such as Youth for Christ and Young Life.  Churches, to meet the challenges of these “competitors,” developed their own age-segregated and anti-family youth ministries.

He points out, rightly, that youth ministries today communicate an unhealthy message when they entertain teenagers instead of engaging them in biblical discipleship or modeling the importance of family.  Schlect also, rightly, argues for cross-generational ministry, one that places the responsibility of training younger members in the faith primarily on older people, especially parents.

He is also right in saying that parents, and especially fathers, are largely abdicating their responsibilities of raising their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.  He maintains that youth ministers should seek to point students back to their families for godly instruction.

While the above points are helpful, I have four critiques of the book: 

First—and most disappointing—the book is law-driven and offers mere behavior modification as the solution.  There is no gospel.  He offers nothing about the role of justification, imputed righteousness, or the atoning work of Christ that would encourage families and youth ministers to adopt his thesis.  Thus it lacks the proper motivation for family-based youth ministry.

Second, Schlect advocates a Christ-against-culture model of ministry that is foreign to the Christ revealed in the Gospels.  Our task should be about the transformation of culture by the power of the gospel, not complete avoidance of culture—being in the world, but not of it (John 17:11-16).

Third, Schlect offers very little advice (he touches on it briefly on the last couple of pages) for youth ministry with regard to the overwhelming trend of children being raised in non-Christian homes.  Obviously, we should reach out to those families, but are we to wait until those families are saved before “biblical” youth ministry can take place?  I agree that parents have the primary responsibility to train their children in the instruction of the Lord.  But the fact that children are raised in truly non-Christian homes is now the majority report in America rather than the minority one.  The book is nearly 17 years old, which might explain why this element is not drawn out a little more.

Fourth, he seems to de-value the role of the church body.  While he doesn’t explicitly say this, it is implicit in the pages.  Rather than advocating an either-or approach (family or church), it would be better to advocate a both-and approach—one that emphasizes the importance of both the church body and the family in instructing youth in the faith.

Schlect does a fine job at helping us understand the misguided and unhealthy state of youth ministries today.  And his solution is also helpful:  godly parenting.  But the absence of the gospel makes such a call an impotent, moralistic plea.  We are to trust in the merits of Christ on our behalf.  He took the penalty for our parenting failures and gave us his righteousness so that we now, with grateful hearts, are enabled to strive for student ministry and parenting that pleases God.

Brian H. Cosby, the Rooted blog's newest contributor, is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America, Associate Pastor of Youth and Families at Carriage Lane Presbyterian Church in Peachtree City, Georgia, and author of Giving Up Gimmicks: Reclaiming Youth Ministry from an Entertainment Culture (P&R Publishing, 2012).