Ragamuffin Soul - Latest Comments in Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

Herstorygirl — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:58:10 -0000

Well, Petey and Vince,

I just have to say that I feel kind of sorry for you.

It's apparent from your comments that you are genuinely frustrated with the nature of YOUR Church youth programs.
Your error is in assuming that ALL churches are this ineffective with their youth ministries.

MY CHURCH has an awesome youth ministry where our youth not only learns the word and experiences great worship, but they are:
*working in the inner city: painting houses, mowing lawns, handing out groceries, picking up trash.

*traveling to foreign countries to work as missionaries for 1-2 weeks at a time.

*Handing out bottled water on the hot streets of Baton Rouge to drivers who are wary from sitting in traffic

*Witnessing to students on the college campus

*Working in our Dream Center warehouse, sorting groceries and paper goods to give to the homeless and poor

*Participating in our homeless breakfast outreach each Thursday morning

OUR Youth ministry (Pathfinders & Refuge) are anything BUT a "babysitting" service!
We ARE teaching these kids to become the ministers and servants of tomorrow.
In a world that is so self-serving, I think that is pretty awesome and definitely money well-spent.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

Kenia — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 03:10:27 -0000

Petey and Duane ,

Thanks for explaining :) I really do appreciate it .

You are all more than welcome to come and see what God is doing with the youth in New York City.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

Rob — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 01:46:50 -0000

This is getting interesting!

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

Marvin Nelson — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:26:17 -0000

No problem guys, just sharing my heart and passion. Petey, it's all good. and Duane, thanks for the prod to flesh out...it's important!

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

petey*crowder — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:59:18 -0000

yeah, and I really don't mean to be so snarky. Sorry. It's the result of the nature of short comments. I think youth ministry is valuable when it's mode is good.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

Duane — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:45:34 -0000

Marvin

I appreciate you fleshing out your disagreement...

Just to clear up...
I did not mean to imply that I have a problem with youth ministry or a problem with any church having age specific ministries...
I simply wanted to make sure that we fleshed out our arguments and disagreements with more than..."they are the future so therefore it is ridiculous for someone to think that youth ministry should be axed..."

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

petey*crowder — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:41:45 -0000

Or, maybe it has nothing to do with my church. Maybe I think the church should be helping youth become ministers rather than hiring a bunch of people to "minister" to the youth. But it's not just youth ministry, it's the entire church. Youth ministry just seems to be the most common area of churches where it's the polar opposite of that...

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

Marvin Nelson — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:39:11 -0000

Petey and Duane: Maybe you have very poor ideas or models of what youth ministry is. What it should be is a ministry that reaches youth, but is ALSO involved with the larger church, to be a large part of the body. Sitting in church may achieve the same end for your "churched" student but try and get a non-Christian teen to go to that...sorry to tell you it won;t happen for your average teen. Youth Ministry Duane is very Biblical...there are different models. I currently work in an Outreach, service model. Where we get kids in, introduce them to Christ, disciple them, and then allow them to serve along side the adults.
Petey, the babysitting sucking down resources sounds like you re pigeon holing your own church and honestly I think you're bitter. Maybe (not meaning to be a jerk or anything) but maybe you should pray and seek why you're so bitter.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

rick — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 09:45:55 -0000

ANYTHING THAT BEGINS WITH "40 DAYS OF____"

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

Valtool — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 07:23:09 -0000

I can sacrifice the bulletin easily. When I attended a traditional UMC it was useful for knowing how many more things there were to do before the watch alarms started going off at noon. At my current church it's like others have said. Same stuff, different week and anything THAT important is on the video screen.

Second, do we really need the miniature mission control, sound/light/dopler weather neighborhood skytrack 2,000,000 set up in the "sanctuary" AND the "theater" (which is not even being used for the Summer?

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

Scott Mills — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:52:24 -0000

I'll go with the bulletin.

and VBS? really? I had the opportunity to lead a 7 year old kid as he accepted Christ first time (along with 40 others) at our VBS this year. about 600 kids there.. so ill stick with the bulletin.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

Rachel — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:28:21 -0000

Inefficient, territorial ministry committees, without a doubt.

Seriously - if you MUST have a Chess Outreach Ministry or a Dairy Farmers Ministry, find a person with a passion for it and let them flow with it. They'll generate excitement and vision if you give them the chance. Really.

Just don't block their productivity by creating committees so that every Joe Smith can say that he's 'over a ministry'.

Teamwork? Yes, please. Bureaucracy? Negative.

/rant. ;)

Oh, and definitely ditto, ditto, ditto on the paper waste we print and pass out each Sunday!

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

petey*crowder — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:59:49 -0000

thanks Duane....

_maybe a glorified babysitting service sucking down crazy resources may not be the same as the church in Acts including younger people...

_and I've been working in young adult and college ministry for a while and we've all heard the stats about kids who don't make the leap from these youth groups into college ministries or church-wide involvement...and I'm tired of all the "blame" being put on the multigenerational churches, college ministries, etc...perhaps the youth ministry which resembles nothing like the rest of the real world needs a reality check...

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

Duane — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:28:59 -0000

Why don't you guys explain to Vince and Petey why their answer is so crazy....
Explain why the current youth ministry model is effective or biblically appropriate....(I don't think that simply saying that "they are the future" constitutes them having their own deal at the other end of the building....implying that participating in corporate worship with their parents can't achieve the same end...)

Now don't get me wrong....The church i work for has a youth ministry and I am great friends with the directors....I am just very interested in keeping the conversation going...

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

billychia — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:21:14 -0000

I'm a big fan of youth ministry and have served as a youth pastor.

Perhaps those who would cut "Youth Ministry" are simply in favor of a more intergenerational approach that connects believers of all ages.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

Emily — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:21:19 -0000

I would say we would need to pick one type of worship style. Because we have the "classic" worship for first service. And for second service we have "contemporary" style. Its great to have both and yes you can just pick the one that best fits you, but i am a big believer that there should just be one. Know who your church is and who your reaching. We are for the most part a younger genereation church. We reach alot of people between the ages of 18-32 so i think we need to move in one accord towards one worship style. Preferably the contemporary style. I mean the pastor doesn't change his teaching style so why should i worship be different in the two services??

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

Jason — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:46:31 -0000

...and Vince for that matter.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

Jason — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:45:25 -0000

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Petey probably think he's a pretty funny guy.... :)

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

Jenni — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:50:09 -0000

VBS! (The obvious answer 1/2 way through summer) An unoffical core doctorine of the evangelical church. My advice - cut it and then expect to answer the question "why" for at least 5 years.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

Rob — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:54:25 -0000

Oh boy...where do I begin?

- The Traditional Service - Our Church has both traditional and contemporary and while I don't mind the traditional service, it makes our stage look so cluttered. We have a huge stage and we can't even walk on it because it is crammed with music stands, orchestra platforms, choir risers and my personal least favorite, a giant grand piano smack dab in front of the drum set.

- The Service Order - Ours is basically 2 or 3 songs announcements, 2 more songs, teaching. The person who does announcements is really cool and funny but he says the exact same thing every weekend...Literally! It's like he's following a script (I practically have it memorized)

- Making the stage look like a theme park - I agree with the anonymous comment above that decorating the stage differently for every series can be super distracting...especially for newcomers! As cool as it is to make your church auditorium look like a spaceship, a jungle or a pirate ship, is it really necessary? Will it really help the newcomers connect with God and the church? Sure, if your newcomers are Neil Armstrong, Tarzan and Jack Sparrow!

- POWERPOINT - Seriously people, there are many other programs out there that are much better (for both mac and PC).

- Using 300 different backgrounds per song - If your church has indeed made the switch from powerpoint to some sort of alternative and better program, volunteers sometimes have the tendancy of going nuts with it. I'm not sure if anyone else experiences this but the volunteers on the tech team at my church absolutely love seeing how many different video backgrounds they can play while projecting the words to the worship songs. Seriously people, it is very distracting to sing along to "How great is our God" while watching the matrix flashing numbers in the background, then that really fast camera shot that goes through new your city, then that space wormhole thing all in a matter of seconds. I must admit it is pretty cool to be able to play moving videos behind the words but you must be careful. In the words of the late Ben Parker, "With great power comes great responsibility!"

Well that's it for me!

Sorry, Carlos, for making my comment look like a SCL post.(seriously didn't mean to do that)

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

craig — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:19:25 -0000

hierarchical big-business leadership/organizational structure!!
i see let's all cut down that old tree...

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

CaroleTurner — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:05:17 -0000

the soft keyboard music at the beginning of the sermon. I absolutley hate it. So distracting, I keep wondering when that relic from the Swaggart years will be let go of.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

anon — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:50:13 -0000

sunday school - lets move to small groups.
the bulletin.
the order of service.
the choir.
heck, the whole traditional service.
the unspoken dress code.
our cheesy music minister (he goes if the traditional service goes.)
im sure there are many more. i just want to redo our entire church sometimes.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

anonomous — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:44:46 -0000

7:22

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Kill It

AuntieB — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:17:32 -0000

Since I'm a youth director, Vince and Petey, I'm with Kenia. I would also like more definition of the comments about cutting youth ministry.

When I met with our pastor before they voted us in as directors, I told him that I was there to help equip them to handle life - not to entertain them. Having fun is the by-product of us being together outside of regular youth meeting as well as during regular youth meeting. That's out stand. We're more concerned about their spiritual life than entertaining them. We have fun nights, but the focus is spiritual. There's already enough entertainment and too many kids committing suicide and cutting and living in depression. That's why our focus is totally spiritual.

So, I'm curious about why you would think that youth ministry would be the "program" to cut??

BTW, I agree with the bulletin thing.