Youth Specialties this weekend… AMAZING! Any youth ministry training event that I go to is always great. We get a chance to get refreshed and reenergized for ministry, learn new trends, worship our hearts out, and have lots of fun and laughs. But one of the best parts of youth ministry conferences is the affirmation that we are doing a lot of things “right” in our own youth ministries and any struggles we have are very common from one church to the next.
This year’s conference had a resounding theme throughout. And that was the theme of change. Many of the speakers talked about ways to know are “stuck in a rut”, how to navigate change, and why God calls us to change. And the ‘God thing’ is that they don’t collabroate their messages. The teachers come from all walks of church leadership. There were Denominational and Non-Denoms. Young guys (one looked like one of my 9th graders!) and old guys (one was my prof from school and he was old ten years ago!). There were professional church and youth ministry consultants and some were staff at small churches. And it was very clear that across the country and across all walks of church life, we are all dealing (or not dealing) with this thing called change.
There were statistics and quotes….
“We change when the pain associated with the status quo becomes greater than the pain associated with change”
“Change for the sake of the mission.”
“Most of the time change is too slow and not radical enough”
Make a change over 6 months time, you’ll lose %30 (people, income, etc). Make the change over 2 years time and you’ll lose… %30. Except your teams, leaders and congregation will be burned out and tired.
“Characteristics of churches that are stuck include… the thinking that we “just” need any number of things… new programs, a new building, more money, etc and then everything will be fine. Churches think that hiring, firing, or “seminaring” away the problems will fix everything. And churches just think they need more “ideas.”
When in reality we need system changes cause you can’t just fix the church by fixing a little area like a program, finanaces, or space. We don’t need new ideas, we need to apply the ones we have and do it well for the context in which we live. And when we change we need to ask the question “why?”
But otherall, and this was the clincher for me… we need to understand what is “core” and what is “cultural”. In that, I mean we need to come to a good understanding of what is core to the Christian Faith and what the scripture says. And then anything outside of this core is cultural. And Reggie Joiner summed up this core for us by quoting the scripture “Love God, Love Neightbor” And all other scripture falls in under these two of the greatest commandments… including worship (not how we do church), prayer, service, and outreach, etc.
What churches do, is they try to interpret how to follow through with the core of the scriptures. And we do that in a cultural way. Having church on Sunday morning is cultural. Using the instruments we use, the color schemes, the programs and the litergy is cultural. Using movie clips, and skits, and modern music; it’s cultural. Traditions are developed when we use culture to interpret the “core”. What we have to ask ourselves at all times is this, “Is the culture in which we do church acccomplishing the goals of the core, of Love God, Love Neighbor.” And we know that culture is constantly changing. So we need to evaluate what we do, on the basis of whether or not we are achieving “the core”.
So here are my initial thoughts on what is core to our faith. But first a little John Wesley… he believed that the “living core of the Christian Faith was revealed in scripture, illuminated by tradtion, vivified in personal experience and confirmed by reason.”
I believe in a triune God consisting of the Creator, the Christ and the Holy Spirit. I believe God has a redemptive plan for all of mankind. I believe Christ lived, died and was risen to atone for our sin. I believe those who call on Christ’s salvation will join all believers in heaven. The body of believers is called the church and Christ loves the church as his bridegroom. The church, enabled by the work of the Holy Spirit, is called to love God and to love neighbor.
Now this is just a piece of what I consider to be our core. I don’t want to give it all up or anything. I want to hear what you have to say!
What would you define as core? What would you define as cultural? How do we accomplish the mission of “the core” within our cultural context.
