Are we more comfortable with singing about God’s love or God’s justice; with raising our hands in church or reaching our hands out to the poor and oppressed? Whether we’re uncomfortable or not, the Old Testament prophets and the example of Christ point us to a radical both/and type of worship justice. This article challenges us to think carefully about how we teach and model worship to students.
How do the kids in your church know when they have become adolescents? How do they know when they have become adults? As we re-think the value and necessity of rites of passage in our ministries, we may help bring clarity to these life stages and help students through the zones of identity confusion.
Whether we notice it or not (and most of us don’t), what we sing, pray, read from Scripture, and enact together in corporate worship will, over time, contribute to the formation of the identity of individuals and a community of worshipers. So when it comes to the worship in our youth groups, are we cheating our kids?
