Dan Boone on youth ministry

Dan Boone, president of Trevecca Nazarene University, joined the Pastor's Circle today to talk about youth ministry - and what makes a good one.


Modern youth ministry hasn't worked...do you agree with that premise?

Well, there would certainly be youth programs I would look at, and say, that 's more about fun than discipleship.

I even think there has been a turn back towards more of a service-oriented youth group.

I'm really concerned about the theological depth of what young people are getting from the youth ministries out there.

Is part of the problem that we think "who is the coolest young guy," not "who is the person who will disciple our kids the best?"

In some ways I don't just fault teenagers for that.

I've got a great friend named Greg who's a youth pastor in Memphis.

He has such a clear discipleship track from the time a young person hits 6th grade until they graduate.

They truly engage in that

It's a thoughtful attempt to form students in Christian thinking and Christian action.

He wouldn't win anybody's contest for cool, but those students love him.

I think you mentioned something good...have a discipleship program. What would you put on a list of discipleship characteristics?

The first one would be, just a deep-souled passion to be like Jesus.

The second one, I think, would be someone who knows how to feed themself as well as to appreciate the corporate process as a feeding.

I think journals are a great practice for a teen.

Third one would be, they are becoming a pretty good exegete of the culture they live in.

By the time they graduate from high school, they can look at some kind of movement or person and think, everyone might be going along with this, but I think there may be some kind of wrong here.

I would hope they would also have the beginning of a sense of vocation, that God had placed them in this world to do particular kinds of work to the glory of God and the good of others.

That would be my off-the-top-of-my-head list.

Dave Kinneman says that 85% of youth leave the church after high school....what does that tell us?

One, a lot of the youth pastors aren't thinking beyond high school.

The statistics just make me weep when I think about.

I think our Christian colleges and universities are a pivotal discipleship choice.

I think parents sometimes are sometimes missing it. I know the cost factor...but when you get to the end of that four years, and that person's married to a non-believer, and they've walked away from the church, I want to say, is that worth the savings?

When we look at youth ministry, are we expecting too much of youth ministry?

Well, I don't know if we expect too much of youth ministry; I think we expect too little of parents.

I've always said to youth pastors, you are pastors to the entire family.

I think it takes a great parent and a great youth pastor to disciple a family.

Pastor's Circle - Dan Boone, Trevecca Nazarene University

Anger in biblical discourse?

The places where I find that Jesus condemns in scripture are the people who...have closed the door on access to God for the people.

Holy love/ getting along

I want to go a whole lot past tolerance; I want to love these people (I disagree with).

The ability to look these people in the eye whom I couldn't disagree with more and love these people.
That's a tough thing.

It's almost like Christians have to fight with a hand behind their back. We don't have some of the demeaning, depersonalizing tactics non-Christians have.

It's a tough balancing act, but it's one that I think Christian maturity calls us to.

We don't want to take the pages out of the Jihadists..just to condemn someone, so we can justify destroying them.

What the Church owes Rep. Gabby Giffords

You'd think I'd jump on the bandwagon to tone down the political rhetoric. And I'm certainly not opposed to that.

There is no organization in the world who's more evenly distributed and has proximity to people like Jared Lee Loughner that we could bring him into a community and get him help.

That the church would keep on doing it's unapplauded work in the trenches with the lonely, frightened people.

If the body of Christ would take on those whom the world has rejected...I think we would have become the people who are doing what Christ would do.

Looking back on it, there's the great joy of tending to these. I think it is the call of the church that we like no other body in the world would have our arms open to bring these people into a loving community.