[Ryan Akers]

For the old-schoolers, you know me fairly well.

For those who don't, I'm almost 21 years old (in October), and I am attending Free Will Baptist Bible College in Nashville, TN. I am a youth ministry major and I am ready for these next two years to fly by so I can go ahead and begin ministry.

This summer I travelled for FWBBC doing recruitment at different church camps. I saw thousands of teenagers come and go. I was able to see 81 young people give their lives to the Lord for a first-time decision. It was overall, a wonderful, blessed summer.

My problem is in this: Most kids are ignorant when it comes to the Bible. It appears to me the average Christian teenager comes to church their whole life, and they get fed the traditional Sunday School lessons about Jacob, Noah, Moses, etc. All of the familiar stories people know. They can tell you what happened in it, but there is no depth, no implication from it.

When it comes to just knowing the Bible, I have found most kids can't recite the books of the Bible. When it comes time to turn to a passage in the Bible, they can't find the passage without help from an educated adult.

Sunday School, which I believe most churches have forgotten the school part of it, seems to be so dumbed down to me. It is such a light and fluffy, feel good lesson, where most kids leave unchanged and probably couldn't even tell you what has been said.

I type this rant for 1.) to get it off my chest. I am frustrated. and 2.) To see if this is common in all churches, or at least most. I don't know if it is just my denomination, or if other youth pastors and leaders experience this.

Also, if you have ideas and things that have worked to get kids off the couch and into the Word would be great. It might be because it's 2am that I am having a hard time with this, but I think it's just by surveying not only the average Christian teenager, but also the average Christian as a whole, including all age brackets. There are too many uneducated Christians in this world.

[/end rant]

Opinions, thoughts, etc.?

[adamkaboom]

Well, I'm 17, and I attend a First Baptist Church in Kansas. I'm plannig on majoring in youth ministry next year myself. So this is something I've thought about and talked over with my YM. For the most part I think many churches are as you say. The sunday school lessons are dumbed down and don't push us in our faith. One of the problems I see, is that some teachers don't want to get too "deep" because it might scare off those new to the faith. I somewhat agree to a small extent, but I don't think they can effectively do that because it hinders others in the class. My sunday school classes have ranged to both extremes. Dumbed down to the point that I didn't care to go anymore, and so much theology that I couldn't stand it because my teacher was very aggressive about and told us we were dumb and...[/rant] We have just got a new youth pastor as of February, and he pretty much rocks my face off. The guy has it together. We started with a youth group of 15...high school and middle school combined. Now we have a group (mind you only 6 months time) of almost 60! and growing. Our sunday school and youth group lessons are deep but not over bearing. If you don't get something out of his lesson it's because you weren't listening. As for getting them off the couch and into the word...games. But not like ring-around-the-rosie or duck-duck goose. Games that after you get done, have a GOD meaning to it...i.e. we did a chicken hunt. There was a chicken of some form, (whether stuffed, paper, a little hard to find toy...ect) of many sizes large to tiny, hidden in every room and hallway of the church. We had to find all of the chickens before the other teams. The lesson was that the chickens represent God, and the church was the "world". No matter where we went in the church/world, God/chickens was there. Sometimes he is easy to find, others we have to look for him. That is one of many games... you know, my pastor would be an awesome person for you to talk to. His goal is getting the kids more involved and get back to the word. If you want, I can give you his email address and he could help you out a lot more than I can.

[jengoesup]

Ryan, I agree with you...I know people who won't read the Bible because they feel it is "boring" and they will "get nothing out of it" and they haven't gotten anything out of it when they read it before. I think a large part of the reason that youth don't read the Bible is because they don't quite know the value of it, or maybe they don't know the right way to approach it or maybe they just don't have a translation that is readable for them. Perhaps putting youth through a Bible studies program that took up 10 to 20 minutes of their Sunday services every week would help change that?

[Nate]

AWANA.

Or, at least, it used to be.

I'm not familiar with their new material. Ask Bill, maybe.