Here is a link to the video: http://vimeo.com/26098320
The arguments made by the video are in bold my response to each statement is beneath the bolded arguments:
2/3 of young people
are going to leave the church – Research by George Barna
The Barna group also says that 2/3rds of all Christians
accept Christ before the age of 18.
The statistics given are skewed at best, and in some places
wrong. The video makes the claim that the certain percent of people who leave
the church never come back. The Fuller Youth Institute did an intense and
expansive study on the subject and their statistics on the same subject matter
have differing results (for more see the studies done by Dr. Clark Chapman and
Dr. Kara Powell)
The NCFIC Produced the video. The group’s overall goal is to
eliminate all children’s, youth , and college programs. The groups is made up
of mostly hyper-Calvinist, primitive, and fundamental Baptist churches. The
NCFIC used the video as a promotional video for integrating their program into
churches. Several of the churches who make up the NCFIC are also
anti-missional. A trait that often presents with hyper-Calvinism. Their only
purpose is discipleship, completely ignoring evangelism.
Christian Concert
“Kids are being told that the fun music of the world can bring them closer to
God.”
When did Christian music (rock, punk, hip-hop, country, or
otherwise) ever make that claim…in fact because of the fact that it is
“Christian” music doesn’t it mean that the music is not the fun music of the
world?
Teenagers listen to many different kinds of music. Is any
music that sounds similar to any other type of music ever played on
non-Christian radio bad?
The documenter uses an example of what seems to be a
singular Christian rock concert to refute any Christian music
I think we all know
that my generation needs to abandon the world and flee to Christ. And yet here
I see no distinction between the worldliness and calling it Christian.
My initial thoughts
of this statement take me to 1 Corinthians 9 where Paul says he will become all
things to all people. What specifically makes this generation more in need of
Christ. We all have sinned and fallen short. When the Bible was written people
struggled with “being in the world” it is not a new development.
Young Old Earth
Argument – “If we can’t answer that question it shows the world that we just
have this blind faith and we don’t really believe this book and it is not real
history any way”
Not everyone is going to interpret the Bible in the exact
same way. He is basically saying that if anyone struggles with interpreting any
scripture then they are do not know God. That faith is a side note to grasping
with, wrestling with and trying to truly understand scripture and the
revelation of the Gospel. The viewpoint that is put forward is not one of blind
faith but total acceptance because the our pastor or parents said so instead of
teaching our children to have their own faith.
It also seems that they are making the argument that if a
person does not believe in a literal six day creation then they are not
Christians.
The video makes the
assumption that most youth ministries in the US just do big events to attract
the masses.
This pays no attention to the massive success and breadth of
the small group movement.
Youth Ministries are
not Biblical
Teenagers are also a demographic that did not exist when the
text was written. The Hebrew family went from child to man at the age of 13.
This argument gives no credence to the development or changes is sociological
and psychological study. The argument made is that since scripture says nothing
about youth ministries they should not exist. The verbiage that churches have
used to describe this concept is “Where the scripture speaks we speak. Where
the scripture is silent we are silent.” This is a major part of the foundation
of the Church of Christ (and the reason they exclude any kind of instrument in
their worship). This is also one of the foundations of the fundamentalist
movement in the early 20th century, which would explain why so many
NCFIC churches are Primitive and Fundamentalist churched. Generally these
churches practice “my way or the highway” when it comes to cooperating with other
churches, denominations, associations, or Christian groups.
The argument that youth ministries are not Biblical is as
ridiculous as saying plastic communion cups, Bible covers, felt boards,
computers, projectors, Bass guitars, DVD curriculum, Christian Conferences, or
inspirations Christian literature are not Biblical. They are all tools for the
use of the Church to point people to Jesus. Again 1 Corinthians 9.
Churches aren’t
authentic because when people are told to be themselves they don’t see truth
Truth isn’t found in self-reflection. Truth is through the
revelation of Jesus.
Youth Ministries
Cannot Over reach the influence of Parents
This is a good point and the documenter is correct but you
can see in the interviews that his agenda to abolish youth ministries in favor
of the NCFIC platform is contradictory to what the Youth Pastors he is
interviewing are saying. He makes the comment “I think we can all see there has been a problem with youth ministries
in the last few years.” They are saying that youth pastors and ministries
have to work with parents and that Youth pastors have the responsibility to
help parents as well.
The Sunday School
Movement that was fathered by Raiks is opposed by many including a Reverend
Thomas Burns
I could sum it up but the argument made here
is a very good one and is already articulated well.
The segregation of
youth into their own culture and grade system is rooted in pagan principles
The argument
presented by the video is this:
Plato (427BC) argued that children must be separated from their parents à Rousseau (18th Century) said “The education of Children is more important to the state than it was to their fathers.” à Robert Raiks (18th Century) promoted social reform called Sunday School àG. Stanley Hall (19th and 20th Centuries and an atheist) Applied Darwinian evolution to child development theory and co defined the modern concept of adolescence àJohn Dewey (19th and 20th Century) Institutionalized the age segregated classroom environmentIt is then suggested that theses are “Pagan seeds planted over thousands of years that are now bearing fruit in our churches”
Argument summary:
Modern Youth ministry is a derivative of Sunday School which was begun by
Robert Raiks. Sunday School is usually segregated by school grade. Segregated
School grades came about as a result of thousands of years of philosophical
thinking that was pagan. Therefore Youth Ministry is bad because it is the
result of Paganism.
There are so many things wrong with this argument, I will
try to hit the big stuff:
- Modern Youth Ministry is not Sunday School.
- The Sunday School Movement was started by Raiks who was a Christian, not a pagan and did began a movement that resulted in hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of born again Christians. The video also ignores the work of DL Moody and other Sunday School pioneers who most people regard as heroes in church history.
- The argument that school is segregated by grade as a result of thousands of years of philosophy fails to paint the full picture or philosophical viewpoints. The culture in which the philosophers lived is significantly different than ours and cannot be superimposed onto our cultural morality. Furthermore there is no visible link between the men mentioned in the timeline. I can pick several guys out of history and say they all chopped down trees so they helped develop modern saw mills but in actuality the men have no connection with one another.
- G. Stanley Hall was an atheist but that does not mean that his work is useless. There is a single atheist in the philosophical chain presented so the video makes the assumption that the entire movement (which is not even a real movement) is invalid and paganistic. By this argument Christmas and Easter should also be banned because they have links to paganism as well (except their links to paganism are stronger, more document, and actually can be proven).
- Nowhere does the video mention developmental cycles published by Freud or Erickson. It chooses to ignore sociological and physiological studies completely.
Dr. Voddie Baachman
argues against age defined ministry by stating that it is a form of worship
that is not depicted in scripture. He goes on to retell the story of Uzza found
in 2 Sam 6 where a man dies when touching the Ark. – Bachmaan – Says that our
innovation becomes dangerous when we worship him in ways scripture that God has
not told us to worship him.
This argument is that is essentially the same as the one
earlier stated “When scripture speaks we speak. When Scripture is silent we are
silent.” The only problem with this argument for Dr. Baachman is that he is the
pastor of a church that they are a very multi-media friendly church utilizing
for worship things that did not exist in scripture including, websites,
podcasts, guitars, keyboards, and projectors. Is it wrong to use any of these
things as tools to aid people in worshiping God?
“Is it possible that
the crisis in the church is a form of God’s judgment on the church for reaching
out its hand, in a sense doing something completely against the command of God,
to solve a problem with the youth?”
I am not sure how to deal with this statement. At first I
just got angry at the kid for being so presumptuous to assume such knowledge of
the judgment of God. The suggestions of the action by God are not at al
congruent with the Biblical character f God, who wants to give good things to
his children. This again reflect the
underlining reform (Calvinistic) theology behind the group, who attribute many
things to the wrath of God.
All the meetings in
the Old and New Testament are age integrated
Scripture often segregates groups. Jesus himself segregated
among the apostles. Women were segregated because it was thought that they were
worth less and had less understanding of scripture. The Nation of Israel was
segregated, the book of Numbers is entirely about segregation.
The Second half of
the Movie presents the NCFIC church format: Churches without any ministries
other than congregational meetings.
I will restate:
The NCFIC Produced the video. The group’s overall goal is to
eliminate all children’s, youth , and college programs. The groups is made up
of mostly hyper-Calvinist, primitive, and fundamental Baptist churches. The
NCFIC used the video as a promotional video for integrating their program into
churches. Several of the churches who make up the NCFIC are also
anti-missional. A trait that often presents with hyper-Calvinism. Their only
purpose is discipleship, completely ignoring evangelism.
If you follow the path to the logical conclusion of the
argument that the video makes, then anyone who works in age emphasized
ministries may have good intentions but none of them has accurately heard God.
Not in a calling to ministry, not in prayer for vision casting or planning, not
an answered prayer to use the ministry to reach different children. Again this
is a very fundamental hyper-Calvinistic viewpoint to assume that only those who
agree with their view points accurately hears God.
What the NCFIC appears to do is fund a young film maker as
he travels the country speaking to different leaders within their organization
and make it seem that the young film maker is going on a spiritual journey.
The accurate point that the video makes is that Parents need
to be the ones who raise and disciple their children. But instead of
abandonment of ministries, the church and parents need to work together. ReThink Group is an organization lead by
Reggie Joiner who wrote the book and philosophy Think Orange. The premises
of both is that if parents can influence children, and the church can influence
children how much stronger is the influence when they work together.
There are several resources that deal with some of the
issues brought up in the video but deal with them without the abandonment of
ministries and can positively impact kids.
Think Orange
Slow Fade
Zombies, Football, and
The Gospel
Parenting Beyond Your
Capacity
--Reggie Joiner
Sticky Faith
--Kara Powell and Chap Clark
Daughters and Dads
Deep Ministry in a
Shallow World
From Father to Son
--Chap Clark
UnChrisian
You Lost Me
-- David Kinnaman
