Dale Partridge - Real Christianity #69： Is Youth Ministry Biblical？

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Real Christianity, a weekly show designed to help Christians know their Bible,

00:00:04.940 defend their faith, and truly understand what it means to follow Jesus.

00:00:08.980 The premise is simple. The culture is getting louder. The church is getting flashier,

00:00:13.860 but few pastors are teaching on how to live a biblical life.

00:00:17.780 My name is Dale Partridge, along with my incredible wife, Veronica.

00:00:21.160 Join us as we start an important conversation about what it really means to be a Christian.

00:00:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:01:00.000 Welcome to Real Christianity. Today we are talking about, is youth ministry biblical?

00:01:07.500 And guys, today I'm doing this show solo again. I promise it's not our intention that Veronica is missing from these episodes,

00:01:14.840 but she got sick and she wasn't able to record today. So I'm going to do this show solo and then we'll get back on track together.

00:01:24.000 Big conversation around youth ministry.

00:01:27.480 Important discussion.

00:01:28.520 I think a lot of people ask us this question.

00:01:30.580 What do we think about youth ministry?

00:01:32.820 So we're going to dive into that in a second.

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00:02:07.720 But let's start this conversation about youth ministry.

00:02:10.800 and I'm going to talk a little bit from my just experience in the institutional church

00:02:16.880 and what I've seen and what I've read in the Bible and then kind of contrast the two.

00:02:22.720 So, you know, coming up this Sunday, you guys have seen this picture that I'm going to paint

00:02:27.900 right here. There's these Christian families that park their cars. They get the kids out of the car.

00:02:32.980 They unpack the strollers, grab all the stuff, and they start walking towards the church building.

00:02:37.640 But then something just kind of strange actually starts to happen, almost kind of like there's a fork in the road, I guess, depending on the age of the kids here.

00:02:47.000 But the kids kind of go to the right and the adults kind of go to the left.

00:02:51.760 And most parents, I think, are oblivious to the kind of spiritual reality of what's happening right here, this detour.

00:02:59.200 and something's being taught to these children and to these adults that happens every Sunday

00:03:07.460 when this occurs, right? To the children, it's kind of this indoctrinating journey that tells

00:03:14.220 them something, and it tells them three things. One, it says, my church is here and my parents'

00:03:20.620 church is there. It says, my church is fun and my parents' church is boring. It tells them,

00:03:28.480 my church leader is my pastor and not my father, right?

00:03:32.740 So there's a couple messages that are being kind of sent without even realizing them.

00:03:38.580 But I actually don't want to talk about as much about the kids as how really the parents' issues today.

00:03:43.960 And so the parents also get some subliminal messages that are a part of this kind of Sunday morning ritual.

00:03:52.440 What it says to them is, my children aren't ready for, quote, real church yet.

00:04:00.280 I'm not qualified to teach and disciple my children toward biblical understanding.

00:04:07.240 It's not mine, but the church's responsibility to develop my child's spiritual growth.

00:04:17.640 I, unlike my youth pastor, am incapable of relating to and understanding the spiritual journey of my child.

00:04:28.240 These are some of the messages that are being sent.

00:04:31.760 I'm trying to think of another one.

00:04:34.800 It's acceptable for me to not grow in my role as the primary spiritual teacher for my child because the church is going to do it for me.

00:04:44.100 So there's a lot of things that are being taught in this fork-in-the-road divide when it happens over and over and over every single Sunday.

00:04:54.980 And if I can be frank, I think the church has really embraced a system where parents can outsource their responsibility for the spiritual leadership of their children to the youth pastor, to the youth program, to the youth camp.

00:05:09.260 But again, what if the modern Sunday school was more harmful than it was helpful for the spiritual development of your child?

00:05:19.680 What if this kind of cultural church tradition really had nothing to do with the Bible?

00:05:26.900 And I asked another question.

00:05:28.400 What if the Bible's instruction for teaching your children spiritual stuff was actually in conflict with what's being practiced at most churches?

00:05:39.260 Now, again, I'm not saying that youth ministry is unbiblical, but I am saying that it's extra

00:05:45.440 biblical. And there isn't one lick of scripture that talks about parents sending their children

00:05:52.620 to someone else to be discipled. And if, again, if we just use the Bible as our blueprint to

00:06:00.440 establish the practices at a local church, we probably wouldn't end up with what most of us

00:06:06.580 do today. So as believers, we've kind of become enamored of like this good intention, let's

00:06:15.360 innovate and renovate great ideas for quote, doing church. And, and, you know, the only question

00:06:22.440 that's really being asked by church leadership is how can we do this better? That's the question,

00:06:28.460 like bigger and better. But when it, you know, comes to extra biblical stuff, I think we need

00:06:35.060 to start asking the question, should we be doing this at all? You know, just because we can do

00:06:40.540 something doesn't mean we should do something. And I'm going to say another one, just because

00:06:44.580 something seems smart doesn't mean it's right or biblical. You know, but again, you know,

00:06:52.760 much the same way that we expect a door to have a doorknob, we absolutely expect a church to have

00:06:59.580 youth program. And you can ask any kind of church shopping couple at the top of their list, you know,

00:07:07.360 or at least the top three points of their list they're looking for is this, you know, gold-foiled

00:07:13.260 youth ministry or Sunday school or midweek youth group or, you know, weekend youth programs or

00:07:19.540 children's church or young adults group, you know, whatever, you know, they want to call them. It'd

00:07:23.880 be very weird if a church didn't have those things, you know, because they're just so

00:07:29.420 critical for the modern church today. But the big question is, how did something that isn't

00:07:37.180 found in the Bible become so central to what the church does? And so I'm going to give you guys a

00:07:42.920 little, I guess, historical journey. We're going to go back to 1760 to 1840. We're going to go back

00:07:49.880 to the Industrial Revolution, Great Britain. And this is actually the birth era and the birthplace

00:07:55.840 of the now Universal Sunday School. And so, at this time, you had lots of homeless,

00:08:04.720 poor children, or children of the poor. You know, again, mostly orphans. And at the time,

00:08:15.500 they provided the cheapest labor that could be found in the factories.

00:08:19.700 And so they started exploiting these children, the industry did.

00:08:26.240 And you can actually read about this.

00:08:28.080 This is like Charles Dickens writes Oliver Twist, David Copperfield.

00:08:33.420 They actually cover this, I guess, taking advantage of these orphans.

00:08:40.320 And the immorality of exploiting these kids, it's just vile.

00:08:48.600 And it actually really frustrated the Christian philanthropists of the day.

00:08:52.140 And they tried to figure out what needed to be done.

00:08:54.840 And the solving of that problem was the birth of the Sunday school movement.

00:08:58.240 It was really a missionary movement that was really narrowed down to three initiatives.

00:09:04.900 These children needed the gospel.

00:09:06.700 They needed a moral education.

00:09:08.080 and they needed the ability to read.

00:09:10.920 That was easier said than done

00:09:12.420 because in 1802,

00:09:14.840 there was the Factories Act of 1844,

00:09:19.540 this gap right there.

00:09:20.580 The only restriction to child labor at the time

00:09:23.840 was that they couldn't work more than six days a week

00:09:27.080 and 12 hours a day.

00:09:29.080 And as a result,

00:09:30.300 Sunday was the only available day

00:09:33.480 to instruct them in spiritual and moral matters. 0.92

00:09:36.300 And so you have this need, right, which is thousands of illiterate, homeless, immoral orphans.

00:09:42.460 And the answer was, for the missionaries of the day, was the gospel, moral education, and instruction in reading by learning how to read the King James Bible on Sunday.

00:09:55.560 And so Sunday school was literally a school.

00:09:57.880 It was a place where illiterate, poor children would be educated and evangelized through the reading of the Bible.

00:10:07.140 And so the creation of Sunday School was, again, just a missionary effort to evangelize the working class orphans of London.

00:10:15.900 Now, within a few decades, the missionary movement became, it's pretty fascinating.

00:10:22.420 we don't have time to go into it, but really became like the modus operandi of generally

00:10:27.620 every church in the developing West. And not just for the less fortunate or the orphans who didn't

00:10:34.920 have parents to teach them these things, but for like every Christian family that existed.

00:10:40.900 And I was reading some stuff from J.C. Ryle, who's a 19th century pastor writer. You guys

00:10:48.320 heard me talk about him on the show before. I really love his books. And he actually has a

00:10:53.680 great quote. He says, experience supplies painful proof that traditions once called into being are

00:11:02.300 first called useful. Then they become necessary. At last, they are too often made idols and all

00:11:10.520 must bow down to them or be punished. I think we can almost look at youth ministry like that.

00:11:17.160 it was a useful thing. Then it somehow became a necessary thing. Now it's become like a protected

00:11:23.380 idol of the church. And anybody that wants to tear it down or question its existence or anything

00:11:30.120 is going to be, you know, punished or yelled at. And so again, you know, youth ministry isn't

00:11:37.240 unbiblical, it's just extra-biblical. And, you know, I also want to say that I'm not anti-youth

00:11:47.620 ministry in terms of its existence in some formats, but we'll get to that later.

00:11:53.960 Hey, Dale Partridge here. We hope this podcast has been a blessing to your walk with God.

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00:12:37.080 get God's truth out, to strengthen the body of Christ, and to further the gospel. If you feel

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00:12:48.900 relearnchurch.org forward slash donate. Thank you so much for your consideration.

00:13:00.160 But I do think that youth ministry is actually, at least the way that we see it here in the West,

00:13:06.140 is actually at odds with how the Bible calls parents to disciple their kids.

00:13:11.240 So I want to talk about that.

00:13:12.740 What does the Bible say about this?

00:13:14.960 And first, who does the Bible identify as the responsible party for teaching children and young people about God?

00:13:23.400 Is it just, you know, a generous and willing Sunday school person who passed a background check

00:13:31.220 or some unmarried 20-something who is really cool looking and has a great haircut and, you know, holes in his jeans?

00:13:40.460 Or is it someone that can, quote, relate with today's youth?

00:13:44.900 Does the Bible have anything to say about this?

00:13:48.200 And so we're going to just kind of pull way back to the Old Testament,

00:13:51.500 which I think is a really great place to start.

00:13:54.420 We're going to look at Deuteronomy 6, 5 through 7.

00:13:57.020 If you're a parent, you need to know this verse.

00:13:59.780 This is God speaking his mind on how a family is to learn the principles,

00:14:04.200 practices, and moral laws of his kingdom.

00:14:07.180 And I'm going to read you.

00:14:08.500 It says, quote,

00:14:09.960 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,

00:14:13.480 and with all your strength.

00:14:14.460 And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart.

00:14:20.140 You shall teach them diligently to your children

00:14:22.900 and shall talk of them when you sit in your house,

00:14:26.520 when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.

00:14:31.280 Okay, so this is first speaking to the parent.

00:14:34.320 It's telling them to be diligent.

00:14:36.000 This is a work of training your children that happens over and over again.

00:14:40.120 Think of like sharpening, like grinding and friction constantly.

00:14:44.460 over and over and over again.

00:14:47.840 And again, I think that this is a parent's most important work.

00:14:52.900 It's not anything else but this.

00:14:56.320 The text is saying that spiritual training needs to be done everywhere all the time.

00:15:05.280 And that was then, I mean, you know,

00:15:08.480 we're going into a world that's far more hostile than the one that we grew up in.

00:15:15.300 And this is something that, you know, we can't also think that parents can't do this either.

00:15:21.400 Parents can do this.

00:15:22.700 They spend so much time in sports.

00:15:24.620 They spend so much time in hobbies.

00:15:26.420 They spend so much time in movies and watching TV.

00:15:28.920 They spend so much time doing homework in school with their kids.

00:15:31.740 I actually did a post.

00:15:33.340 You guys might have seen it, I don't know, maybe a year ago, about the idea that, you know, the chances of your child becoming famous are like one in so many hundred thousand.

00:15:44.460 You know, the chances of, you know, your kids becoming, you know, a certain level of athlete, you know, a certain level of professional athlete, the chance of your child becoming, you know, a musician or becoming a celebrity, you know, are so rare, right?

00:16:05.980 But the chance of standing before Jesus Christ is 100%.

00:16:11.420 And there's a guy that kind of wrote this original, this post.

00:16:16.620 His name is Dustin Bend.

00:16:17.540 You can find him on Instagram and Twitter.

00:16:21.080 But he kind of really opened up this concept.

00:16:23.220 I continued on this, and I wrote, you know, parents, what I really want you to figure out is,

00:16:28.820 are you spending as much time preparing your child for what will happen as you are for what likely won't happen?

00:16:37.080 We spend a lot of times investing kids on sports or on some sort of training or some

00:16:42.860 sort of preparation for something.

00:16:45.060 But again, those are like maybes where standing before Jesus Christ is an absolutely.

00:16:51.060 Like this is a fact.

00:16:53.300 And the spiritual training, again, that we received as children is not sufficient for

00:16:57.840 the world that they're about to inherit.

00:17:00.180 Okay.

00:17:00.560 I mean, I just want to say, like, think about the millions of Muslim parents in the Middle

00:17:04.620 East.

00:17:04.860 I don't know if you've looked into this, but they're putting their children through like 40 plus hours a week of training in the Quran. 0.99

00:17:11.680 And Christians, you know, parents expect that, you know, 50 minutes of coloring Noah's Ark on Sunday is going to be a sufficient thing for them to, you know, how to deal with all the, you know, ridiculous things that they're growing up in. 0.99

00:17:27.780 And, you know, when I was a little kid, I didn't have to think about which bathroom I had to use 0.99

00:17:33.440 or which gender I was or worry about my fourth grade teacher showing me how to masturbate. 0.94

00:17:38.620 Okay, there's a lot going on here. 0.94

00:17:42.220 And again, I'm not saying this isn't necessarily a numbers game.

00:17:44.920 It's an intentionality game.

00:17:47.600 You know, the next verse we're going to talk about is Ephesians 6, 4.

00:17:53.060 It says, raise up, it says, and you fathers, don't provoke your children to anger, but

00:17:58.600 bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

00:18:04.040 Proverbs says, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he gets older, he will

00:18:07.180 not depart from it.

00:18:09.000 I mean, fathers, if you're listening here, are you training your children?

00:18:14.820 Like, are you not just disciplining, reactive discipline, I'm talking spiritually training

00:18:19.220 them.

00:18:19.500 Are you training them in the word of God?

00:18:21.380 the battle for your child's heart in this world is fierce man and I'll tell you what the enemy's

00:18:27.640 playing for keeps the preparation for sports and music and hobbies that's all good but again just

00:18:34.440 make sure that these pursuits never overshadow their preparation for eternity okay it's again

00:18:43.380 scripturally speaking the fathers right it's clear that the God intends for the parents and

00:18:49.020 explicitly the fathers, to take direct and active responsibility in teaching the children about God.

00:18:56.340 Now, obviously, that's also the moms too, but I'm just saying is that the scripture happens to say

00:18:59.940 fathers there. Now, are there exceptions? You know, of course. We live in a sinful society

00:19:09.120 with fractured families and divorces and single moms and parents, kids that need to go somewhere

00:19:18.400 with parents who aren't saved and orphans.

00:19:20.680 And so we do have this stuff.

00:19:23.680 There is a need for youth programs is what I'm saying.

00:19:27.340 The standard, however, like the norm, according to the Bible,

00:19:31.620 is that God has given the primary responsibility of teaching children about him

00:19:37.160 to that guy called dad.

00:19:41.560 Not to the K-12 Sunday school program

00:19:44.280 and not to the cool single youth leader a few years older than the high school kids.

00:19:50.460 Okay, whether or not it's intended, the typical church, I would say,

00:19:58.380 strongly discourages parents from discipling their own children

00:20:01.520 by creating these endless programs that are designed for them

00:20:07.680 so that someone else can disciple their children.

00:20:12.020 And again, any church that doesn't regularly remind dads and moms that the theological and

00:20:20.880 moral education of their children is the responsibility that God placed directly on

00:20:25.420 them, not on the church, is again, it's teaching and encouraging a lifestyle and a culture 0.67

00:20:33.480 that's contrary to the Bible. It's at odds with it. It's not just extra biblical, it's at odds 0.56

00:20:39.120 with it. And so I want to, like, just for a second, I want you guys to take a moment and I want you to

00:20:44.440 ask yourself, is your current church gathering, like, are you regularly encouraged to be the

00:20:51.480 principal teacher and spiritual guide of your children? Are you challenged to embrace the

00:20:59.800 responsibility of imparting the knowledge of God to your children? Does the pastor admonish

00:21:06.520 the congregation to understand that God will hold you as the parent accountable for how you have led

00:21:14.920 your family and how you have taught and modeled the truths of scripture in your home. And sadly,

00:21:22.500 most of you guys are probably going to answer no to that question because instead they're actually

00:21:27.340 just encouraging you to go send your children somewhere else. And again, that's not what the

00:21:34.200 Bible would tell you. And so the extra biblical approach of outsourcing the discipleship

00:21:40.260 is not right. Now, are there positive results from church youth programs? Again, absolutely.

00:21:49.720 I went to a church youth program when I was a kid. Yeah, great stuff. You know, but again,

00:21:57.140 it's not the norm. It's a tragic day when Christian parents, I'm talking Christian 1.00

00:22:06.560 parents, I'm not talking anybody else. If you're a Christian parent, when Christian parents are so 1.00

00:22:12.280 ill-equipped, so poorly taught, so badly led that they have to rely on others to do what the Bible 0.73

00:22:21.500 has directly stated for them to do as mom and dad.

00:22:28.120 And so a church that's led by mature biblical leadership

00:22:33.560 is going to teach moms and dads how to walk in their responsibility

00:22:39.700 that God has given them in leading their families

00:22:42.820 and not constantly encourage them to outsource their children

00:22:48.600 or usurp the father's role and the mother's role

00:22:51.580 and responsibility by making the discipleship

00:22:54.540 of the children unnecessary

00:22:56.660 because we've just offered all these things

00:22:59.180 that you get to do because you're not qualified

00:23:01.200 and these other people are so much more qualified,

00:23:04.360 so much more trained.

00:23:05.600 Again, it's just don't buy it.

00:23:07.660 That's not in scripture.

00:23:09.500 It's your responsibility

00:23:10.780 and you should be at a church that encourages that

00:23:13.580 and you should bring your kids.

00:23:15.240 If they're noisy, you know what you get to do?

00:23:17.240 You get to train them at home to learn how to sit quietly in church next to you.

00:23:23.220 Take them back into the meeting.

00:23:24.900 Have them sit with you.

00:23:25.980 I know lots of families that work really hard to make sure that they can keep their kids next to them at church.

00:23:33.540 Again, I just would be so hesitant to outsource.

00:23:37.960 Like, we would never do that personally.

00:23:39.720 And so, are you caught in an extra-biblical church culture that sidelines, you know, dad and mom?

00:23:50.100 Or are you being encouraged to be a warrior that's trained and encouraged to kind of enter into this battle that every parent faces,

00:23:58.640 which is discipling your children to know God and His truths?

00:24:05.320 And so, it's not a massive conversation.

00:24:08.540 I want to just do that as a quick encouragement, just to at least kind of put a little question

00:24:13.520 in your heart and mind about, is youth ministry biblical?

00:24:18.440 Again, I'm not saying that it's, we should just get rid of them all. 1.00

00:24:21.080 I'm just saying is if you're a Christian parent and you're constantly outsourcing your kids, 1.00

00:24:25.880 you know, I just, I don't see that in scripture.

00:24:28.180 I think it's your responsibility.

00:24:29.760 And I think you'll find that when you train your children diligently, I'm talking, you

00:24:35.460 talk about God every single day as often as you possibly can with them, that they will find and

00:24:43.200 you will find youth ministry is unnecessary, especially if they're surrounded by other

00:24:50.320 children who have parents that are doing the same thing. It's great for kids to get together,

00:24:54.980 and that's what it's become. It's become a social club. It has nothing to even do with, you know,

00:24:59.760 sure, we're going to go hear a message about God, but it's really about me hanging out with all my

00:25:04.220 friends. And again, you know, if that's what you're interested in, then it's your call as a

00:25:09.500 parent. But just evaluate, are you training your children? And I'll leave you guys with that.

00:25:19.140 There's a really great documentary that you should watch. It's free to watch on YouTube.

00:25:23.840 It's called Divided. It was made like 15 years ago. It's actually really well done on this topic,

00:25:31.000 Is Youth Ministry Biblical?

00:25:32.940 And they make a very compelling case

00:25:35.840 of why we should be skeptical about it

00:25:39.740 and why interviews all these youth pastors

00:25:43.360 that actually stepped down from their position

00:25:45.220 once they realized what the Bible truly said about this matter,

00:25:49.020 that they were actually walking into a role

00:25:52.180 and doing something that they were taking

00:25:56.040 the authority of the father and the mother and the family.

00:25:59.720 It's a really powerful video.

00:26:01.760 So that's divided.

00:26:02.620 You can watch that on YouTube.

00:26:03.540 I'll link that in the show notes for this episode.

00:26:07.160 But again, thanks guys for taking a listen.

00:26:10.700 Again, if you guys could leave a review,

00:26:12.180 it'd be really helpful.

00:26:13.820 Ultimatemarriage.com.

00:26:14.720 We were talking about that in the beginning.

00:26:15.860 If you want to join for our six-week marriage mentor program,

00:26:19.040 man, we would absolutely love to have you.

00:26:21.460 On that note, we will see you guys next week

00:26:24.460 and Veronica will hopefully be back.

00:26:27.100 Take care, guys.

00:26:29.200 Hey, Dale Partridge here.

00:26:31.800 I recently heard a disturbing statistic.

00:26:34.860 Only 11% of Christians have read the entire Bible. 0.99

00:26:39.040 Now, we can't wonder why the church is being influenced by the culture

00:26:42.940 more than the culture is being influenced by the church.

00:26:46.460 The vast majority of Christians don't know God's Word because they've never read it. 0.87

00:26:51.960 We cannot live out what we do not understand.

00:26:55.480 So Veronica and I want to challenge you right now

00:26:58.160 to read the Bible in one year.

00:27:00.860 We've put together a basic 365-day reading plan

00:27:04.820 that'll take you no longer than 20 minutes per day,

00:27:07.820 and you can download it for free

00:27:10.080 at relearnchurch.org forward slash Bible.

00:27:13.900 Again, that's relearnchurch.org forward slash Bible.

00:27:22.640 Thank you for joining us on this episode of Real Christianity.

00:27:25.900 Real Christianity is an audio ministry of relearnchurch.org.

00:27:30.380 If you'd like more information on how to live out a biblical life, relearnchurch.org hosts a variety of articles, podcasts, sermons, and videos to support your journey.

00:27:40.540 Real Christianity is a 100% listener-supported ministry.

00:27:44.040 And if you'd like to support our efforts, simply click the Donate tab at relearnchurch.org.

00:27:48.860 You can also connect with both Veronica and I on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for daily lessons and Bible teachings.

00:27:55.900 Thank you for being with us today.

00:27:57.460 We hope to see you next Wednesday for another episode of Real Christianity.

Dale Partridge - October 30, 2019

Real Christianity #69： Is Youth Ministry Biblical？

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