Justin started off with a picture from the Sunday Times which was going along the "All truth is relative" path. Picture of a kid in a garden, and all of the animals and insects which looked at him only saw a piece of them - "their truth." The snake saw his arm ("Look, a branch!") the bird saw his hair (a birds nest) etc etc. Question: what right does the bird have to tell the snake what the truth is? Or for another human (who sees the whole of the boy) to tell the snake what to believe? (Yes, we've just jumped into religion/truth/modernism vs postmodernism).

One of Justin's key points is that no matter how you decide to "reach" a non-Christian (i.e. friendship/service evangelism, seeker-sensitive services, etc etc) at some point you're going to have to say, "Buddy, this is the truth - Jesus is God, and if you believe that you need to know that He said he's the only way to heaven."

A good question he asked was, "Why do you do youth ministry? What do you hope happens with your young people? What do you want your youth ministry to do?" A core question - but I wonder how often we really think about that?!? For me the answer is transformation through meeting God. A ministry needs to bring people to God and help them see Him - both where he wants to work in their lives (especially in pain/suffering/loneliness/giving - and becoming who they've been created to be i.e. freedom) and where he is already at work in their lives (much of what Frederick Beuchner and Anthony De Mello speak about when they talk about being aware of God - Brother Lawrence's thing of "Practicing the presence of God"). Plus then there's an outflow of that - when James talks about the tension between faith and works - they cannot each exist on their own, they need the other.

He also spoke much about "what is the solution for growing a Biblically healthy youth ministry?" Here are his thoughts:

- love of Scripture

- fellowship

- joyous intense worship - not just fluff

- prayer meetings

- reaching out into the community

- numerical growth

- intergenerational mentorship (that's my own add-on - generations can mentor each other).

Justin handed out a bunch of articles, including his own one (with notes) called "The subtle seduction of relevance: What are the dangers in how the church is responding to Post-Modernism and the Generational Theories." I don't know if you have an electronic copy of that, Justin - or if you just want us to sit on that for a while? I'll post something on that soonish, whatever you decide...

He also gave us "Permanent Relevance - from the elders of Christ Baptist Church and the faculty of Christ Seminary, Polokwane, South Africa, November 2004."

I guess to sum up Justin's talk, it would be to say he's calling us back to Biblically-based youth ministry - the Acts 2 church. Prayer, scripture and community are NB - your job is to get teens to fall in love with God and then to get on with it. Thanks, Justin :)

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