“Ministry is God’s work; we only participate in it. And as God’s work, it can neither be forced nor be prevented with absolute certainty. The wheat will grow right alongside the weeds. So the church’s obsession with human activity and the exertion of energy toward development and maturity turns out to be a scam.”
Source: Youth Beyond the Developmental Lens: Being over Becoming
“We are watching as human beings are being encountered by God in unexpected ways, and we are waiting to discover how we might be able to join that drama by saying yes to God.”
Source: Youth Beyond the Developmental Lens: Being over Becoming
“GenerationS are Not Replacements.
GenerationS are Reinforcements.”
Source: How to Grow Your Church Younger and Stronger: The Story of the Kids who Built a World-Class Church
“Youth are leaders TODAY, not just tomorrow!”
Source: How to Grow Your Church Younger and Stronger: The Story of the Kids who Built a World-Class Church
“We have created youth ministry that confuses extroversion with faithfulness. We have effectively communicated to young people that sincerely following Jesus is synonymous with being 'fired up' for Jesus, with being excited for Jesus, as if discipleship were synonymous with fostering an exuberant, perky, cheerful, hurray-for-Jesus disposition like what we might find in the glee club or at a pep rally.”
Source: You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit | Examining How Culture Shapes Us | Deepening Discipleship through Christian Practices
“A youth church is built by youths, for youths, to reach youths!”
Source: How to Grow Your Church Younger and Stronger: The Story of the Kids who Built a World-Class Church
“Don’t just think local or global, think generational.
Think GenerationS!”
Source: How to Grow Your Church Younger and Stronger: The Story of the Kids who Built a World-Class Church
“The definition of God as infinite Love was a particularly important theme for [John Duns] Scotus. He disagreed with Anselm, who understood the Incarnation as a necessary payment for sin. He also disagreed with Thomas [Aquinas], who argued that the Incarnation, though willed by God from eternity, was made necessary by the existence of sin. For Scotus the Incarnation was willed through eternity as an expression of God's love, and hence God's desire for consummated union with creation. Our redemption by the cross, though caused by sin, was likewise an expression of God's love and compassion, rather than as an appeasement of God's anger or a form of compensation for God's injured majesty. Scotus believed that...knowledge of God's love should evoke a loving response on the part of humanity. 'I am of the opinion that God wished to redeem us in this fashion principally in order to draw us to his love.' Through our own loving self-gift, he argued, we join with Christ 'in becoming co-lovers of the Holy Trinity.”
“This conference on religious education seems to your humble servant the last word in absurdity. We are told by a delightful 'expert' that we ought not really teach our children about God lest we rob them of the opportunity of making their own discovery of God, and lest we corrupt their young minds by our own superstitions. If we continue along these lines the day will come when some expert will advise us not to teach our children the English language, since we rob them thereby of the possibility of choosing the German, French or Japanese languages as possible alternatives. Don't these good people realize that they are reducing the principle of freedom to an absurdity?”
Source: Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic
“If your ministry can't work without you, then it is no longer Christ-centered. Minister toward Jesus, not yourself.”