If the church doesn’t listen, the church can’t understand
Powerful statement found in Walt Mueller’s book on youth culture (Engaging the Soul of Youth Culture: Bridging Teen Worldviews and Christian Truth. IVP 2006).
I found this blog post by Graham Stanton at the youthworkcollge site. Graham has just finished this book and these are his thoughts and insights.
My favourite quote is on p.20, which isn’t actually from Mueller but from Tyler Durden:
Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. We’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.
For those who missed the sub-cultural reference you probably ought to read Mueller’s book… and you ought to go out and hire the DVD of Fight Club before you read any further!
and this ~
My other favourite quote seems to sum up Mueller’s thesis:
If the church doesn’t listen, the church can’t understand. When young people realize they aren’t understood, church becomes a place where they don’t belong. Then, as they try other places in their efforts to satisfy the spiritual hunger, the unmet groans for redemption (Rom 8:22) grow louder and more intense with the passing of time. As part of the creation subjected to “frustration” because of sin, the lost and unredeemed suffer “emptiness, futility, purposelessness, and transitoriness.” (p.25).
The entire post is a good one and I encourage you to read it all … I leave you with this quote from the post and yet another link to get there. As Graham encourages … read the book and get a copy of Fight Club to watch.
source: http://youthworkscollege.blogspot.com/2009/12/some-thoughts-on-culture-in.html
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