I found a few videos that are pertinent to several questions that have been raised in the comment sections of previous posts. Specifically, the questions refer to the responsibility of parents in discipling their children on a regular basis through teaching the Bible and being committed to daily family worship. For this issue, Dr. Voddie Baucham is a great voice in American evangelicalism. While I disagree with him on issues related to student ministry within the local church, I strongly agree with him in regards to the importance and methods of family worship and discipleship. Enjoy these short clips:
The Importance of Family Worship
The Purpose of Family Worship
Family Discipleship
Filed under: discipleship, family, parents, worship
Nick,
Great clips man…and short too! Awesome. Couldn’t agree more with what Voddie is saying here. But I agree with you in that I disagree with his absolute comndemnation of youth ministry. Good stuff.
RJ
Nick,
Those are great video clips. Thanks for putting them on the site. Baucham is dead-on with what he is saying about the need for family worship and discipleship.
On a related topic, what do you think the typical local church can do for parents who don’t know their bibles, and thus are intimidated by the idea of leading their kids in bible study?
@RJ: I know we’ve talked about this before — it’s interesting to me that Voddie has such a solid position on the family, yet sees absolutely no value in student ministry. Interesting.
@Eric: Fantastic question — that’s worth several articles, so I’m going to hold off on my ideas and post them within the next couple of days… Certainly a valid concern and a necessity to be addressed.
Voddie is right on concerning family practices. If these things are practiced in the home then I could only imagine the level of understanding among the children and youth in a given church. I don’t think that good familiy fellowship voids the need for student ministry but I wonder if VB has put so much emphasis on the family oriented aspect of teaching our children that he sees no need for a form of corporate student ministry. Polarization on some issues can become costly.
Thanx for the clips. Quite penetrating and convicting.
I keep hearing a common thread. Yeah, Voddie is dead on about family discipleship and worship, BUT…..
If you are striving to have consistency in family worship and strong family discipleship wouldn’t that naturally carry over in the way we do church? Wouldn’t our children then enjoy worshiping and studying with their parents in a corporate setting? Not meaning they HAVE to, not meaning they can’t fellowship together with the children of the church, but that they will ultimitely desire to be with their parents and not separated from them 90% of the time they are at church. I don’t see what’s so polarizing about strong Christian families. Youth groups have too long been used as a crutch for families who don’t disciple their children. Take it away then there may be incentive for those parents to start learning more about the Bible. I am not trying to demean your ministry, Nick. I support any effort to transform the way youth ministry is done. I just know the way we have been doing it isn’t working.(by “we” I mean our American churches in general)
@Bobby: Voddie’s position is that student ministry is something that is not prescribed in the Bible while parental discipleship is. I follow his line of thinking, but I just don’t agree with it — the Bible gives a certain amount of freedom in defining our approach to various people. When Paul speaks of being all things to all men, I don’t think he is excluding a variation on ministry approaches based on ages.
@Dax: I don’t think there is anything polarizing about strong Christian families. I think ministry of all types ought to be as integrated as possible, but see 1) the need and 2) the permission from Scripture to have specific student ministry. Unfortunately, some churches in American evangelicalism have taken this to mean that students do everything completely separate from the rest of the body of believers, to include corporate worship.
I absolutely agree that student ministries have become a crutch — a replacement for families that have no desire to disciple their children. But the problem is not the existence of the ministry, it’s the lack of parental responsibility and the lack of pastoral exhortation in the lives of parents. I believe that many parents simply do not understand or know their role as Christian parents is to not only be responsible in making sure their kids are in church, but that they are actively worshiping at home with them and discipling them as they grow. So I would propose not only student ministry, but that pastors to students are also very active in pastoring parents of the students, helping them to develop a theology of family worship. Student ministry is not a replacement, but simply a supplement to what is happening in the home.
I should write an article on this topic — it’s important, and a very valid question/concern. We must realize too (and I have seen this in my own preaching ministry) that aptitude levels are an important consideration when teaching the Bible. Now, while you will hear me say often that our expectations for young people are far too low and that they are much more capable of understanding than we give them credit for, we must also realize that age and education are always going to be factors in communicating. I can communicate with students in a way that is not particularly applicable to adult (especially single or retired) life. Likewise, I can wax eloquent for hours in the pulpit in ways that speak directly to the Gen-X – Builder (retired) generations, yet have very little significance in the here and now of student life. I think students need to hear this stuff, and I think parents need to hear a student pastor teach so they can apply those practices at home, BUT what I’m saying is that we must consider our audience and take advantage of opportunities and resources to be most effective in ministering to students.
I think it is crucial to have family integrated corporate worship on a regular basis. I think it is equally as important to have pastors and ministries devoted to specific cross-sections of a congregation to ensure that teaching remains as full and thick as possible. I think the bottom line is that we need to view student ministry as a partnership with families and with the rest of the church, not separate from everything else. I wish I had every parent of my students in my teaching/worship time with them. Hopefully then parents would begin to see the value of family worship, corporate worship, and church/family partnerships in discipleship.
I rambled — sorry. I hope that is helpful. Ask more questions if I wasn’t clear!
Isn’t youth group also a place where students can hang out with kids their own age and not feel odd man out to be a christian? and a place where they can have fun and relax and meet a nice christian young person and be able to get to know them with out jumping right into the dateing stage. Isn’t it a supposed to be an atmosphire that gives them oppertunity to just be normal when the “outside” world constantly tells them they are abnormal if they are *gasp* a CHRISTIAN. I know ya’ll are going to eat me a alive on this but as a mom of two boys I want a place for them to go and not only be challeged farther in their walk but if we are doing or job I want them to be able to hang out woth kids of “like minds” (yes I used the phrase) and feel comfortable. I want them to be able to hang out with a girl that I would approve of with out the pressure to hook up, make out, or get into any other compromising situation. Some of my closest friends growing up were formed in youth group and if I didn’t have them I would have gotten a LOT wilder and a lot more “friendly” then I did. I didn’t feel like TD (theology debator) when I was with them I felt like me. If you over look that vital part and dismiss it as trivial I think that they lose something very much needed. I think that the fear I have is “throwing the baby out with the bath water” ok I’m done…
Jessica: You’re right — I don’t take any issue with what you’ve said. Those certainly are very important elements of student ministry — secondary, but important nonetheless. Unfortunately for most people, this is all that student ministry is seen as. I hear all the time how people want a place where their kids can have “fellowship” with other teens. Well, first they don’t understand the true meaning of fellowship and second, what they are actually saying is they want their kids to go bowling with the church instead of with their other friends so they can ease their conscience about allowing their kids to go hang out without them. I don’t have a problem, and often have fun events for students to take part in — BUT, I play it down and try to keep it on the back burner, or it takes center stage and becomes the entire focus.
I don’t think strong Christian families are polarizing, and if they are it is in a good way.
What is polarizing is my way or the highway attitudes without explicit Biblical warrant. If the BUT fits sit on it!
Russ, I don’t think Voddie Baucham has a my way or highway attitude. He just takes a different approach to ministry than what is considered the norm. Unless that comment was directed at me.:)
my comment seems to have made waves … allow me to clarify
the polarization I had in mind happens at the extremes.
extreme #1 children and youth stay with their families at all times and have no place or opportunity to fellowhip with peers their age in order to preserve the importance of family responsibilities.
extreme #2 children and youth are given liberal opportunities to spend time with friends and are in fact encouraged to do so to give their parents “adult time”.
Either of these extremes would be costly. Extreme #2 is the reason we are having this discussion now. Putting emphasis on enriching the time spent as a family and building spiritual relationships is very important. Still yet, so is student ministries. Right now we have so much emphasis on student ministries that it takes alot of effort and discipline to engage with our families in a biblical fashion rather than pawning them off to the “youth guy” on Sundays and Wednesdays. There is a lack of parental involvement with our children in spiritual matters. Much emphasis should be placed on breaking this cycle without neglecting the importance of the student ministries. The complete/extreme neglect of student ministries would be costly in its own, very different way.
Nice comments guys…and gals!
I think I will weigh in now….(gaspin the background)
Nick,
I think I can appreciate your “new” approach to what you call student ministry. Unfortunantly, I suspect that no matter what you will always be known as the “Youth Dude.” We are stuck in a strange period in Chruch history when it is all said and done with. I think an interesting study would be researching what role youth ministry played in churches prior to the mid to late 20th century.
Russ,
As usual you fail to acknowledge your commitment to your own polarization, that being polarizing yourself from those who prefer the “my way or the highway” approach. Also, I would suggest getting over the whole “explicit Biblical command” thingy. We all know we hold to certain things without such a criteria, BUT I think I know what you are saying. I just wanted to mess with you seeing as how You Tards will sweep us again this year. BTW, where is my RON PAUL sticker?
Here is some food for thought.
Do the children of home schooled or Christian education backgrounds require a Student minister? If not, why not?
Also, are we not missing the BIG picture here? Nick made mention of his GunShot wound analogy, but the gun shot wound mght be different for me, I think. We all just have to Buck Up and confuss that the Pubwick Sckoolz are the reason for “All” of this talk. I suspect that if you go back far enough, about 50 years tops, you will begin to see the trend of youth ministry being born. And why shouldn’t it? Chrisitan parents let their children be bused away to a school surrounded by barb-wired fences for a steady diet of Godlessness, and the Church now has to waste precious time combating an illness it could simply weed out if men would stand up. Thats the gunshot wound, and it was givn to Godly men right in the head a long time ago, and the church has not recovered yet. Why? Because youth groups were suppose to fix all that goverment training. You guys can label me a Nazi Christian education freak, or anything else, but until we stand up and cleanse the Church from this ungodliness behavior from its members Nick will always have a job. May God hav mercy on His Chruch for allowing Satanic forces to set up camp in our midst.
BJ,
You’re RP sticker will be delivered tomorrow. Please wear it with pride.
RJ
[...] of student ministry. Most recently, the question arose when I stated my hearty support for Voddie Baucham’s teaching on family worship and discipleship, while disagreeing with him on the issue of whether or not local churches should even have student [...]
BJ: Perhaps it is my experience both as one from a non-Christian family who was greatly shaped by student ministries, and as a pastor that gives me greater optimism than some (perhaps, most). I will be outlining the “why” of student ministry over the next several weeks, so will reserve most of my comments for those articles. When we are dealing in areas of which the Bible does not give clear guidance, we must be careful to take all things into consideration. The difficulty that rests within all ministry is the fact that we are dealing with imperfect people, and to do so often takes more time and effort than a simple yes or no answer.
As far as Christian education/homeschooling is concerned — I agree that it is what is best for Christian families to pursue if possible, while realizing that not all families are able to do so (again, I am somewhat optimistic as one who is a product of public school — there are many parts of the country that provide very good public education aside from scientific and some political issues).
We cannot talk about student ministry, Christian education, etc. as though everyone within the church is a mature, discerning Christian. We all need help finding our way, so to condemn student ministry and public school is unhelpful, and does not address the complete picture. Hopefully we can hit more on those issues in the days to come.