The Baptist Digest

Annual Strength For The Task Conference Focuses On Cultural Challenges Facing Today’s Teens

By Eva Wilson

November 2006

“Now more than ever, student ministry matters,” a former Kansas youth pastor said during the KNCSB Strength for the Task conference.

Grant English, who served in Emporia, Kan., in the past, was one of the conference leaders during the annual retreat for youth workers and parents. It was held Nov. 3-4 at Webster Conference Center, Salina, Kan. English is now serving at a church in the Denver area.

Churches are now dealing with a “post-Christian culture,” he said. “Post-Christian is where Christianity has lost its voice in the culture,” such as in Europe.

English recently spent some time in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, where he discovered, “There are honestly people who have never heard the story of Jesus.” But that also is true in the United States, he added.

The post-Christian culture presents vast challenges for the church. However, it may offer a “window of opportunity.”

Today’s students are “incredibly open to Jesus, but they have incredibly different values.” Such values include:

• Global issues over national issues
• Community over isolation
• Interaction over performance
• Risk over caution
• Questions more than answers
• Experience over observation
• Impact over incubation

“Each value statement is a `battle’ in how we’ve done student ministry over the last 50 years,” English said. “Most of us are hired to run polished, high-performance, event-driven, right-answer, isolation-from-adult-world, `safe’ kinds of youth ministry.”

Youth workers are “interpreters”—they interpret the first-century Jesus to 21st-century teens, he continued. The task may seem daunting, but students are eager to hear.

For help in ministering in a post-Christian culture, English recommended the following books:

• “Revolution,” by George Barna
• “Messy Spirituality,” by Mike Yaconelli
• “The Out of Bounds Church—Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a Culture of Change,” by Steve Taylor
• “Blue Like Jazz—Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality” and “Searching for God Knows What,” by Donald Miller.

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I thought you might like this article I read at baptistdigest.com. "Annual Strength For The Task Conference Focuses On Cultural Challenges Facing Today’s Teens" “Now more than ever, student ministry matters,” a former Kansas youth pastor said during the KNCSB Strength for the Task conference.  Grant English, who served in Emporia, Kan., in the past, was one of the conference leaders during the annual retreat for youth workers and parents. It was held Nov. 3-4 at Webster Conference Center, Salina, Kan. English is now serving at a church in the Denver area.  Churches are now dealing with a “post-Christian culture,” he said. “Post-Christian is where Christianity has lost its voice in the culture,” such as in Europe. You can read the rest here: http://www.baptistdigest.com/archive/article/annual_strength_for_the_task_conference_focuses_on_cultural_challenges_faci/