Friday Review (3/22/24)

Each week we compile a list of helpful articles from other sites, in a variety of categories, for youth workers to read, reflect on, and/or discuss with parents and volunteers. If you have any articles you’d like to suggest, we’d love for you to share those in the Youth Pastor Theologian Facebook group. That’s a great way to bring them to our attention and to discuss them with like-minded youth workers! (Inclusion in this list does not imply complete agreement with the publishing source, but we have found these articles to be beneficial.)

Youth Ministry

Teaching Teenagers to Teach Themselves from the Bible, by Skyler Flowers (Rooted)

As youth ministers, it should be our goal to raise up students to teach themselves, just as we teach our children to walk for themselves. We should always commend students to learn from others and rely on their brothers and sisters in Christ. But beholding wonderful things in God’s Word from their own insight will strengthen their faith, soothe their weariness, loosen their tongue to praise, and quicken their lips to teach others.

How Does a Youth Pastor Sabbath?, by Ronald Long (Download Youth Ministry)

Youth pastors lead busy lives! We run from event to event and youth program to youth program! We have meetings to attend, volunteers to care for, students we want to check in on, and other duties as assigned that get delegated to us fairly regularly. On top of that, having kids and a spouse can make finding the time for Sabbath almost impossible! So, how does the Youth Pastor Sabbath?

Biblical & Theological Studies

Did Paul Preach a Different Gospel than Jesus?, by Donny Ray Mathis II (The Gospel Coalition)

In any conversation around these questions, building common ground can make navigating disagreements easier. Let’s be honest: evangelicals can unintentionally place a greater focus on Paul than on Jesus. The apostle’s letters usually make more direct, literal, and logical claims than what you find in narrative passages. We all have genres of Scripture that appeal to us and tempt us to develop a personal “canon within the canon.”

Let’s Not Give Up Meetings on the Church Calendar, by Elizabeth Woodson (Christianity Today)

Such spiritual habits are meant to remind us of our covenant relationship with God and our responsibility to each other as the body of Christ. And the church calendar—which orders our year around the Bible—is an important way Christians can practice these spiritual habits and resist the formational current of our culture.

Cultural Reflection & Contextualization

If a Millennial Is Born and No One Records It on Their Phone, Do They Really Exist?, by Samuel D. James (Digital Liturgies)

What really matters about “appearances” after all are the photographs and videos and articles they create. When those photographs and videos and articles don’t exist, the modern person’s very existence is called into question, because a technological age cannot conceptualize a person apart from the imprint they leave on technology.

One of the Most Urgent Biblical Commands for Our Day, by Tim Challies

To speak truth in love means taking the time to know other people and to understand them. It means taking the time to know where they are at in their lives and in their spiritual maturity. It means taking the time to ask good questions, to listen carefully, and to prayerfully consider the right truth for the right time.

Pastoral Ministry

Individualism and the Churches, by John Benton (London Seminary)

Now, obviously it is possible to over-emphasize the collective nature of the church, in a way that squashes the individual, so that it becomes unhealthy and cult-like – everyone must be the same, think the same. We don’t want that. But at present in conservative evangelical churches the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of individualism and many Christians need to rethink if they want to obey the Lord.

The Titanic Was the Safest Ship of Its Time, by A. W. Workman (Entrusted to the Dirt)

We shake our heads at the foolishness of shipping standards a century ago. But in likewise manner, heaven will shake its head at any one of us who seeks to justify ourselves by comparison to the sinfulness of others. If, when we think of the day of judgment, we seek comfort with thoughts of how others are really so much more sinful than us, then we make the same mistake the designers of the Titanic made. We use the completely wrong standard.

Family & Parents

Resist Pelagian Parenting, by John Shelton (The Gospel Coalition)

Our culture’s push for autonomy is a modern spin on an old heresy. Much like the Pelagianism that arose in the fifth century, the myth of autonomy misrepresents what it means to be human. It claims human beings can handle things on their own, that with enough muscle and gumption, we’re wholly self-sufficient to meet life’s greatest demands—whether something so grandiose as earning our salvation or mundane as keeping our children quiet for the full duration of the Sunday sermon.

Be Careful, Your Kids Are Emulating Your Works Righteousness, by Kristen Wetherell (Crossway)

I'm sure this list could go on. I'm sure we're not even aware of all the ways we communicate a works righteousness mentality to our children. But one thing I'm sure of is this: the gospel of Jesus Christ covers all our parenting sins, flaws, and mistakes—even all of these. And that is good news for parents whose hearts are in the process of being changed by grace through faith.

From YPT this week

YPT Podcast 63: Ministry to Single-Parent Families with Anna Meade Harris

With nearly 1/3 children in America being raised in a single-parent family, it’s important for churches to learn how to become a genuinely welcoming place.

Five Key Areas of Apologetics for Student Ministry, by Andrew Slay

These five areas of apologetics will help our students defend the faith and demonstrate the beauty of the grand story of redemption.