YPT Podcast Episode 46: Resources for Youth Workers (John Perritt)
In this shared episode, Mike and John Perritt (from Reformed Youth Ministries) take turns asking each other questions and sharing about their respective ministries and discuss resources for youth workers to know about.
Excerpt from the Conversation
Mike: You recently came out with a devotional (Social Media Pressure: Finding Peace Alongside Jesus) for students. Can you tell us a little bit about what prompted you to write a book about social media?
John: This past summer New Growth Press released Social Media Pressure, whose subtitle is “finding peace alongside Jesus.” They had released another book in this series, “Alongside Jesus,” by Drew Hill.
They kind of from that developed a devotional alongside Jesus. And so this book, social media pressure is the second in that series. Um, and it's some devotionals that, you know, well, hopefully, uh, again, written for teenagers that, that hopefully will just help them be more thoughtful in their engagement with social media, uh, we know
social media is here to stay. Yes, there are, there's legislation and other kind of conversations taking place where stricter restrictions and boundaries might be put in place to kind of make it less accessible to teenagers. But until then, I mean, we as youth workers, as parents, need to be discipling our students on how to utilize social media in a way that can be God honoring. And yeah, it's
It was challenging, you know, writing a devotional, um, to just, uh, yeah, try to guide students in this. Um, but, but yeah, it's, it's my hope that at least, uh, some of it's going to introduce them to a biblical worldview and just more thoughtful engagement of how they pick up their devices and interact with various social media platforms.
Mike (42:36.633)
Yeah. All right. So let us hear a little bit more about that. So how does a gospel shaped worldview inform the way we engage with social media and from a teenager's perspective?
So much with social media, we talk about anxiety and we talk about depression and it’s on the rise because of these devices. And so really with this devotional, there's kind of a thread of fear that runs through each chapter, because that's such a common emotion and aspect, from fear of missing out and all sorts of other things.
It's a four-week devotional and there are four entries every week. And so there are some grace days that are woven throughout each week. So if students are busy, they get behind it's okay if they miss some days, but the first section of that first week is trying to establish the fear of the Lord. So the hope is to begin with God.
Thinking with social media, okay, instead of just diving into various platforms and issues, we've got to start with God. And so trying to get students to see how a fear of the Lord will shape how they pick up their device, what they say on various platforms.
I share a story from my childhood of how I was talking badly about one of my friends. And I was just kind of speaking openly in the classroom and was not kind at all. Then his mom walked into the room right as I was saying that, and I knew I was speaking loud enough to where she heard from outside the classroom and I was just absolutely mortified. And so kind of taking that illustration for students to see our God is looking at everything we say on social media, everything we like. He's looking at all of that. How can just a fear of God shape how we interact on social media? And so that's kind of the first introductory one is the fear of the Lord.
More About This Episode
Reformed Youth Ministries exists to serve the Church in its efforts to reach and equip youth for Christ. Through its three avenues of ministry (Conferences, Training, Resources), everything RYM does is oriented to help churches as they seek to raise up the next generation of the Church with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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YPT has published an ebook that's a free download for subscribers. Youth Ministry is Theological Ministry collects ten articles from the YPT archives to help new readers catch the heartbeat of Youth Pastor Theologian is written by six different contributors from across America, Mexico, and the UK.
