May 11
27
Recently, because of much talk about the biblical truths of Calvinism, there have been questions regarding our approach to these doctrines in the Youth Ministry at both the junior high and high school levels. Our approach is to rightly handle the word of God by teaching the biblical truths revealed in scripture while respecting the age and emotional state of our students. It is not, nor has it ever been, our intention to systematically teach our students the five points of Calvinism. Our junior high and high school ministries are centered on teaching God’s word exegetically, verse by verse, book by book; therefore, these topics arise and have to be addressed, to a certain extent. When this occurs, we must use wisdom and discernment on how to clearly and honestly present God’s truth while respecting the age and spiritual level of the believer, especially the junior high students. We believe that the junior high students should be taught the doctrine of totally depravity (sin has made man completely spiritually dead) while graciously and gently handling the other points, should they arise in a passage of study. With the increase in age and maturity, we believe these doctrines can be handled a little differently for the high school students. While remaining sensitive and respectful of their age, we believe that students should be exposed to these doctrines as they come up in our weekly study of scripture. Though these truths may be difficult to understand, we believe that respectfully and lovingly discussing these issues is an extremely healthy activity for our high school students. We want to have a youth ministry that spurs students on to thinking, asking questions, and learning how to come to their own conclusions through the combination of personal study of scripture and consideration of insights from other believers. Our desire for our students is that, upon their graduations, they leave our ministry having been thoroughly taught the word of God, having established a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and ready to be ambassadors for Christ at their colleges, in their places of work, and to their friends and families.
