mgpcpastor's blog

David Fitch takes an ax handle to the homogeneous unit principle inspired modern church youth group ministry:

I think youth groups often do things that work against the formation of our youth into life with Christ and His Mission. They also soak up huge time and resources in ways that are a detriment to the community life of the church. I think it would be good for parents seeking churches to think through these issues.
Prototype youth groups are built on the worst of modernist assumptions concerning the way human beings develop as cultural beings. They play into the worse impulses of parents who don’t get what is happening right before their very eyes when their children start to take on the moral formation of the ubiquitous culture at large. (Parents want young hip experts to save their kids – UH THAT DON’T WORK!!). They think the answer is to somehow get their children to a place where the youth culture attracts them and somehow makes Christianity attractive to their age group. All these things, I argue, work against the child growing up into a vital and real relationship with the living God and what He has done in Christ for the world.

Fitch unpacks three points: (click through to read his reasoning)
1.) Youth groups foster peer orientation.
2.) Youth groups undercut wholistic community from which a child can learn faith in Christ as a way of life/relationship, not just information slickly delivered.
3.) Youth groups too often try to attract youth playing to their worst interests.

However HUP inspired groupings serve as gateways to hearing the Gospel, they are poor models of living the Gospel and counterproductive to the Gospel affirmation that the Gospel breaks down barriers.

HT: Darryl Dash.