Dinosaurs stand up
On occasions, those of us who have stayed with youth ministry in advancing years are the subject of ageist banter from our younger colleagues. But I wonder if the oldies should fight back a little on an area of ministry where, just maybe, our younger partners in the gospel have lost the plot.
I was recently involved in a university mission and the inevitable question arose about how friends are to be invited to the mission events. Different people recounted their successes and failures and one student came out with the statement: ‘I have texted and emailed all my course mates’, and then, as an afterthought, he said: ‘Oh yes, I spoke to one person face to face’, and it almost came out as an expression of failure that he had to forsake technology and speak to a human being. His case is probably extreme but I wonder if inter-personal skills are going out of fashion or, at the very least, conversation fashions are changing.
