It seems that the current fad in the world of work is outcome and the process we have to go through to achieve that outcome. There are some aspects of management theory that I have encountered recently which seem to talk more of man’s almost superhuman ability to achieve while the idea of dependence on a holy God for wisdom and guidance gets shoved into the background.
It prompted me to ask what kind of people should be the end product of Christian youth ministry? Any youth group I have led has contained a rich variety of personalities; so we need to look at the characteristics of those young people who have been through our youth ministries and think about the aspects of their character which we have tried, with God’s help, to fashion. Much of the world young people live in is a world of self-sufficiency where achievement of performance is everything. There is nothing wrong with being proud of achievements — a beautiful painting or scoring a brilliant goal. But if that is seen as something which makes us look good and about which we boast we’ve missed the point.
Who to value?
Sometimes youth groups seem to value those young people who are obviously gifted and talented. A group full of extroverts can sometimes swamp the quieter people who feel inferior to their more noisy peers. It is easy to give more attention to the very gifted and, by doing so, encourage that behaviour as being distinctly Christian. We are to ‘seek first the Kingdom of God’, so we must encourage devotion to Jesus as being the highest aim in the lives of our young people.
