In ministry it is important to note that the different people involved in your ministry will be at different stages of their spiritual growth. Having an awareness of your own personal theology will be important for how you go about teaching the students who are involved in your youth ministry. One part of personal theology is spiritual formation. Duffy Robbins states that spiritual formation is, “the growing into the likeness of Jesus” (448). Another main part of personal theology is community. Understanding and having an idea of both spiritual formation and community helps with the formation of personal theology of ministry. This paper will share five areas of theology and how they relate to practical theology in youth ministry. The five areas of theology include view of God, view of people, view of sin, view of redemption, and view of scripture.
God:
There are many different characteristics that could be used to describe God. I think one of the important characteristics of God is the Trinity. God is three persons in one, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Grudem states that there are three statements that summarize the Trinity, “God is three persons, each person is fully God, and there is one God” (231). The smaller understanding of God means the less that we know about Him. I think that this is a true statement because we tend to only know a little bit about God, yet there is so much more to him then what we actually know. You may have grown up in a Christian home your whole life and know all the “church knowledge” about God, but the likelihood that we know everything is not likely true.
An implication of this is that we let the students know that there is more to God than what we really know. I think that we should teach s...
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... into our lives and into the lives of the youth that we minister to. Hopefully with an understanding of these areas of theology we will be able to help our students grow in spiritual formation.
Works Cited
Anderson, Gary A. "What Is A Sin?" Sin A History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. 3-14. Print.
Campbell, Wes. "Art, Sin and Salvation: The Aesthetics of Salvation." Task of Theology Today. Ed.
Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. Leicester: Inter-varsity Press, 1994. Print.
Reid, Duncan and Mark Worthing. Hindsmarsh: ATF Press, 2003. 55-66. Print. Vol. 3 of Sin and Salvation. 3 vols.
Root, Andrew. "Talking About Sin with Young People." The Theological Turn in Youth Ministry. Andrew Root and Kenda Dean. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press Books, 2011. N. pag. Digital file.
Silva, Moisés. The Essential Bible Dictionary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011. Print.
Hanser, Matthew. “Killing,Letting Die And Preventing People From Being Saved.” Utilitas 11.3 (1999): 277. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 April 2014
I spent every spring and summer in middle school doing mission work and community service. I loved the opportunity that it gave me to build relationships and share my beliefs with people I didn’t know. Little did I know that this would pave the way for a life-changing experience that I would encounter one day. Each spring my church would host a missionary event called “The Ignite Project.” I felt an urge to join the group, recognizing that it was a calling to profess my faith in Jesus. These mission trips helped me to go out
Wolf, Susan. "Moral Saints." Gendler, Tamar Szabo, Susanna Siegel and Steven M. Cahn. The Elements of Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. 220-232.
When most people hear the label Generation –X they think of a hopeless generation of youth that have given into the pressures of the world. I would like you to think of the X as the Greek symbol for “Chi” which is used as a symbol for Christ. In this decade the youth involved in the Christianity has grown significantly. Youth are responding to the church in ways that the past generation did not. Where mom and dad embraced the tumultuous sixties their children have taken hold of Christianity. The youth organizations that promote the Protestant doctrine have seen the youth membership grow by 50% since 1990. Catholic Churches have witnessed their youth involvement double in the last decade. The youth are coming from all walks of life, backgrounds and income levels. Although the majority seems to be whites, the number of young blacks involved in Christianity has become notable.
Philosophy of Ministry: God's desires come first, I must always live my ministry God's way. I must live as a Christian (1 Corinthians 9:27) I must have a proper relationship of surrender to the Leader. In my personal life or in the Church I must understand that Christ is Head and Chief Shepherd (Ephesians 1:22, Hebrews 13:20). The “management” of Church is about relationships with God and Man, not just maintaining a social organization.
Richardson, William E., and Dave Kidd. “Articles.” Pentecostal Evangel. General Council of the Assemblies of God. Web. 13 Nov. 2011.
...that makes them believe beyond all doubt that God does exist. Others may say that the evidence of God’s existence is all around us everywhere, space, life, the Earth.
Boyd, Gregory A., and Paul R. Eddy. Across the Spectrum: Understanding Issues in Evangelical Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009.
Molloy, Michael. "Christianity." Experiencing the World's Religions. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. 333-401. Print.
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ” (New International Version). Werdel, Dy-liacco, Ciarrochi, Wicks, & Breslford (2014) state that “religiosity and spirituality are multidimensional variables that incorporate cognitions, sentiments, and behaviors including both positive and negative aspects of an individual’s relationship with the Divine”. One’s spiritual journey is not likened to a one dimensional flat line, but a line that has peaks and valleys along the way. Majerus and Sandage (2010) believe that “maturity is a developmental and teleological theme in Christian spirituality and is described throughout Scripture”. To understand spiritual maturity one needs to look toward Scripture and to investigate what God has planned for His children. Spiritual maturity is a process with the end goal of becoming likened to the
Maddix, M. A., & Thompson, R. P. (2012). Scripture as formation: the role of Scripture in Christian Formation. Christian Education Journal, S79-S93.
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