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How do you get your church/youth to move away from conusmer culture
Lately I've been studying a lot about church consumer culture and I've been seeing a lot of its effects in both our youth ministry and our church as a whole.
How do you get people to move away from the "I'm just here to get entertainment/feel good sermon/friends" mentality and to the "I'm here to have a deeper relationship with God and serve the body of Christ" mentality?
EDIT: My Sr is totally on board, he's been the driving force behind getting me to research and study this stuff. We don't feel called to plant a new church though.
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- BtheYou...
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- 1 year ago
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We reap what we sow. If our planning involves lots of playing to consumer tendencies, we will end up with those kinds of sheep in our flock.
Something I've noticed about our youth group is that most teens who aren't curious about a relationship with Jesus don't tend to stick around very long. Because that's all we're about, we don't really attract students looking for "the next big thing." The culture takes care of itself.
I am often tempted to work on attracting more students, but going down the road of getting people in the door is a dangerous journey.
The most important ingredient? Prayer, prayer, prayer, prayer, prayer. It isn't sexy, flashy, or easy. It's hard and confusing. But it also produces much more mature followers.
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It seems to be a church wide problem all denominations included. |
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I think we need to do both. We have to be relevant to the culture we are in, and that is a consumer culture for sure. But we use those things to draw them to Christ. |
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I agree that the pastor ought to be driving people deeper rather than just entertaining, but what about leading by example. What about doing the stuff that isn't fun. We will be building a wheelchair ramp later this month, then doing a 30 hour famine in April. I'm with Luke--outreach? yes. draw a crowd? no. Getting out and helping widows and orphans won't draw a huge crowd, but it will change lives. I'm afraid sometimes we've become too dependent on our Sr. Pastors. Yes, we should be on board with their vision, but who says that a SP has to be the only one in the church who is innovating and making things happen? |
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Like Jacob said it starts with the senior pastor. Sounds like he is on board though. Is your ministry team committed to teaching about biblical worship of Christ? What I mean is, do you teach your people that true worship gives? Worship that gives truly receives. I remind our people that if Christ really has a hold on our hearts, like we say He does, we will be giving driven instead of consumer driven. Teach you kids that pleasing self is contrary to what Christ. God 1st, others 2nd, us last. Eash person must begin to prepare his or herself to come to church to worship Jesus Christ. Rev. 5. We are to mirror worship in Heaven while here on earth. This experience causes us to serve.. |
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Starts with the Senior leadership. If the pastor wont get on board forget it... or like pastor e said.. "start a new church" Link Details: 1 year ago
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Start a new church. Seriously. Something like 80% of new christians come from new churches. They're fresh, it's personal, it's relational, etc. Outside of that, who knows. That's why Jesus said "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!" We're a rich country and normally when you're rich it's all about you. |
