Priorities: Church.-- from our prospective

  Many of us are weak in our institutional loyalty, but, without a long discussion of the place of the institutional church in the reality of the Body of Christ, for most of us we would not have a ministry except for the institutional church. The faith would not have come down through the centuries without the institutional church. The best hope for youth to have a rich spiritual life and the support of a community in the future is through an institutional church. Yes, we need to critique and reform the institutional church – but in the meantime we need to connect our youth to it. It is one of the most important things we can give them. It needs to very high in our priorities in the design and execution of our youth ministry.

• Avoid including our youth in our personal struggles with the institutional church
  • Our fights with church staff has nothing to do with our kids. Leave them out of it.
  • In our attempts to reform the church, avoid constantly criticizing the church in the presence of the youth. This can sour the youth rather than reform the church
  • Highlight the things the church does right