I was recently reading a great blog post entitled “Teens Want More than Pizza.” The post was written by a high-school pastor from Chicago, but it just as easily could have been written by my husband! (Their philosophy of youth ministry is essentially the same.)

The author’s three main points are:

• I cannot compete with my students’ culture in the area of entertainment.
• I can offer high school students the real gospel of Jesus Christ—and they can handle it.
• Growth happens not by entertaining, but by equipping.

He states:

Some youth pastors can keep up much better than I can. Still, even the savviest, coolest, most-in-touch youth pastor around will find himself unable to entertain students in a way that will keep them coming to his youth group. The competition is simply too stiff.
The gospel—the objective reality that “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,” which is received by faith alone—is what high school students really crave. The amazing (and constantly humbling) thing about continually offering the gospel to students is the response it brings. The response is not: “Wow, Jon, you’re cool,” or “That music was off the hook!” It’s actually a much more biblical response: repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. High school students crave the real, true, life-changing, not-watered-down gospel of Jesus Christ. Woe to us if we give them anything less. (Emphasis added.)

Read the rest of the post here!

image source: sxc.hu