Dana and I had this conversation in the car several days ago and, after reading this blog entry, I must confess that she is right and I am wrong. (I think she likes it when I say that.) ;)

Apparently I’ve been using the term “hooked up” much differently than how society defines it, which would explain the rumors that started when I used it in front of a church congregation in Virginia Beach several years ago. I was introducing a young new female youth worker to the church and said something about us having attended the same college at the same time but never met until we “hooked up” there in Virginia. lol! No wonder people jumped to weird conclusions.

But more importantly, the article really made me evaluate just how well the Sr. High in my youth ministry are being prepared for life after high school. Will they be ones to stand up against low sexual standards or will they fall into the statistics like most everyone else? Sometimes it’s easy to feel so overwhelmed with just how much work needs to be done and how little time we have to accomplish it between 6th and 12th grades.

Right now I’m doing my best to prepare them for intellectual objections to Christianity by spending several Sundays discussing issues of apologetics. We’re spending several weeks on each of the following issues by using sources outside scripture for defense:
— How do we know God exists?
— Is the Bible really true?
— Was Jesus really God?
— Did Jesus come back to life?
— Is Jesus really the only way to God?
— What about all the other intellectual objections?
— Conclusion: the verdict

I might have to speed it up a little, though, in order to fit in lessons preparing students for the movie, Da Vinci Code, releasing May 19. These lessons will eventually be available here on my blog, too, in case anyone else can make use of them.

Anyone else feel that much of what we do in youth ministry is a reaction to society rather than defining it for the future? Why are we always on the defensive, addressing cultural issues and problems rather than setting our own issues for society to deal with instead? That’s probably a topic for a future blog entry…

Posted on February 1, 2006