In the city of Southampton where I live, the Titanic is part of the city’s history. We have a memorial to the string quartet who played until the unsinkable went beneath the waves.
The crew of the liner knew they had a finite time to communicate with the world before the inevitable. Somebody once challenged me to say what would be the last message I would send given that time was running out.
Last message
If that last message were to be about youth ministry (and I hope this won’t be my last) I would probably not address it to youth leaders. I have a deep respect for the people who turn up week by week to minister to young people, but my final (and, by implication, most important) message would be to church leaders. And given that one message opportunity what would one say. I think it would be fair to say that it would sound a bit like ‘They’re a part of you’. Or, to put it another way — every child who is born of Christian parents should have a reasonable chance of getting to 18 and still be following Christ. But the statistics don’t lie — we are losing many young people a week. Numbers are important, but I wonder if we do lose them long before 18 when their minds are being bombarded with many worldviews.
