At recent National Youth Workers Conventions by Youth Specialties, InWord has posed a question about obstacles to good Bible study in youth ministry. As a Bible ministry we are obsessed with minimizing obstacles and creating helpful access points into God’s Word. It helps to hear from a variety of youth workers about the different obstacles they work to overcome. We’ve posted results below from two conventions for your perusal and evaluation. Plus, if you haven’t taken the survey, you can take it here. It’s a simple click-through survey that will take less than a minute.
But first, a couple thoughts. It could be argued that the most important component of teen discipleship is meaningful Bible study. This is likely why, as youth workers, we often have to navigate a phalanx of obstacles to achieve deep experiences in Scripture. Our Enemy is prowling around, throwing everything at us to knock us off course: busyness, distractions, questions of our own Bible confidence, lack of parental support, increasing Bible skepticism, and so on.
The Barna Group recently released two important reports with regard to The Bible and teens (The State of Youth Ministry/2016, commissioned by Youth Specialties, and The State of the Bible 2016: Teens, commissioned by the American Bible Society). Writing his conclusion to The State of Youth Minsitry/2016, Barna president David Kinnaman made an alarming observation.
Barna’s work on behalf of American Bible Society, published in The Bible in America, shows the degree to which Millennials and teens are increasingly skeptical of the Bible. There is growing consensus, especially among young non-Christians, that the Bible is not just irrelevant but that it’s actually a dangerous book of dogma used to oppress people. How can youth ministry equip teens to place greater confidence in the authority of the Bible?
Our ears pricked up at Kinnaman’s challenging question:
How can youth ministry equip teens to place greater confidence in the authority of the Bible?
Equipping teens (and youth workers!) with God’s Word is a task InWord has been pursuing for 20 years and will continue to pursue as long as we sense God’s call in this direction. Our survey results are noted below, but we’d love for you to add to the conversation. Please comment on the results below, tabulated from two recent surveys taken at the National Youth Workers Convention in Cincinnati (2016) and Nashville (2014). And we’d love for you to take a minute (literally a minute, maybe less) to take our simple, click-through survey here?
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Youth Worker Opinion Survey: In your humble opinion, what are the top three obstacles to the Bible’s effectiveness in youth ministry? |
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| RANK | % | RESPONSE |
| 1 | 24% | Busyness of teens. |
| 2 | 18% | Lack of parental support of the Christian faith at home. |
| 3 | 14% | Lack of parental support of Bible study in youth ministry. |
| 4 | 13% | Declining attention spans in teens (the “Twitter” impact). |
| 5 | 10% | Increasing media options for teens. |
| 6 | 9% | Lack of Bible competence and confidence in youth workers. |
| 7 | 4% | Busyness of youth workers. |
| 8 | 4% | Youth workers are unsettled on the authority of Scripture. |
| 9 | 3% | Other priorities in youth ministry. |
| 10 | 1% | Other: |