Three Streams

The following is an essay which I wrote in my first year of a Christian Youth Ministry Degree. This was back in 2003. Were I to re-write it today I would do so differently but the essence of the message would be the same. This is essay demonstrates in a very raw manner the problem of contemporary Christian Youthwork and ministry.

Many Christian youthwork courses are springing up all over the place today and most if not all of these courses are a joining of secular values and methods with Christianity. Of course Christianity does not bolt on to secular philosophy easily therefore inorder to do this effectively Christian youthwork has to flourish within the context of liberal theology. This essay is controversal, it was controversal at the time I wrote it however the current climate of Christian youthwork demmands that these issues be engaged with.

Identify the core proffessional values of informal/community education and discuss their relevance within a Christian youthwork context

In This assessment I am going to be looking at the values of community education and looking at their relevance in a Christian youth work setting. Some of these core values are respect for the person, the promotion of wellbeing, Truth’ Democracy, Fairness and equality[1]

Concerning these values it has been said, “ Informal education is built on certain values and ideas of ‘the good’; a belief in democracy and dialogue; a respect for persons; and a commitment to fairness and equality and critical thinking[2]

And “ If Christian youth work is not inherently contrary to these then a Christian interpretation of ‘the good’ is not problematic. The problem arises where dialogue proves difficult because Christians recognise that theirs is the only truth.” [3]

Community education seems to be saying that Christian youth work is ok as long as it is in submission to their values. But there is a problem because as Christians it is our commission to proclaim that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation and this does not sit comfortably with community education value.

From reading this we can see that there is some tension between community education values and the message of the cross. Community education has a big problem with this message although they do not seem to have a problem with certain Christian values. They are happy to embrace the “love your neighbour as yourself”[4] but not the “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved”.[5] There is a problem here in that you cannot separate the Christian values from the message and if you do you no longer have true Christianity.

This leaves Christian youth workers with a dilemma as to who they will serve either Christ or Community education. An informal educator has commented on conflicts of values in this way, “On what basis do we make choices about our practice…? On the one hand are found what we can call ‘core values’ – a set of beliefs that are shared and debated among informal educators. On the other, are our personal commitments and values. At times these will coincide and at others they will clash. We have to make choices around each of these sets of values and live with and by them.

What is it about community education values that conflict with Christianity when on the surface of things they would appear to be very good values? How can values that promote ‘fairness and equality’, ‘respect for persons’, and ‘the promotion of well-being’ etc, etc conflict with a ‘religion’ that proclaims a righteous God of love and mercy? Is this God unjust? I think not.

It has been said, “Christian youth work is often accused of being pre-occupied with the conversion, rather than the building of self -reliance and maturity”. [7] In response to this Ashton and Moon comment “Christ does not teach us to support the personal development of young people so that they may realise their full potential. We are instead to call them to repentance and faith, because only in that way can they realise their full potential”.[8] If we take Milsons statement, particularly the bit, about “building self reliance” for development and maturity and compare it with the Christian message, which promotes getting our eyes away from self to dependency upon God which will result in the individual truly achieving their full potential. . We can see there seem to be two contrary teachings that are opposed to each other.

The trouble is people cannot achieve their full potential outside of a relationship with God and the only thing that can restore people to this relationship is obedience through faith to the offer of Gods forgiveness in the cross of his Son. Community education values and principles are centred on man while Christian values and principles are centred in Christ. As Christians we are taught to hold to the teachings of Christ, which say “whoever finds his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it”. [9]

In the philosophy and values of community education class we where asked to go into groups and write down what values Christian youth work should be based on. This was broken down to mean beliefs and ideas that are important to us, out of all the answers the group came up with, two values mentioned by individuals in the group stood out from among them all. They where “God is ultimate authority” [10]and that our values must be “bible based”. As we have already seen if these values are to be used as a basis for ‘Christian youthwork’ they will clash with the philosophy and values of informal and community education unless there is a compromise by one party. And as soon as Christianity submits to humanistic philosophy it ceases to be true biblical Christianity. John Stott Once expressed it this way, “If the cross is not central to in our thinking, it is safe to say that our faith, whatever it may be, is not the Christian faith, and our creed whatever it may be, is not the Apostles’ Creed.’

Another core value is truth “Perhaps the first duty of the educator is truth. This means that we must not teach or embrace something that we know or believe to be false. We must search for truth and be open dialogue to what others say. However, we should not be fearful of confronting falsehood where we find it.” This means that truth is more important than all their other philosophies and values, such as democracy, respect for person’s etc etc as important as they might be to them. We have already seen that for Christianity to work alongside community education values it has to compromise the truth. This itself goes against community education’s own value as well as the word of God. Truth is also very much a Christian value and the bible has much to say about it, I think the most important thing that Jesus said about truth was this statement, “ I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me”.[13] We have already seen that Informal education’s values do not accept the fact that one group can claim that theirs is the only way to God

This is due to the post-modern society in which we live in which does not recognise absolute truth and also community education’s commitment to pluralism. [14]Because of this and their values of equality and non-discrimination it is impossible for them to embrace a movement such as Christianity that claims to be the only way to God. It seems that the only way for Christian youthwork to be true to Itself is to come out and be separate from the values of Informal education., “Barnet (1951) argues that Christian youthwork is and should remain different from ‘secular ‘ youth work, that it is a sacred Christian duty to meet the spiritual needs of young people[15] I agree with Barnet when he says that it should remain different from secular youth work because it is a sacred duty although I disagree that it is strictly to meet young peoples spiritual needs. As Jesus also instructed us look after the poor and heal the sick. But not at the expense of losing the gospel message, which is the case if, we seek to adopt informal education values into our Christian youth work. As Jeffs and Smith commented earlier one of the values has to give way. And to stay true to the word of God it has to be informal education’s values.

As a Christian youth worker who is working in a community education setting that was once a major Christian movement (until their mission statement moved away from the word of God to informal education values and principles) I have experienced these tensions in practice as well as the classroom. And in my experience the relevance of these professional values is that not only are they not relevant for Christian youth work (evangelism and discipleship) but they are a danger to the truth of the gospel.