"Helping Students 'Get it'" by John Stonestreet from Summit Ministries
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In my previous article,
I argued that a major project for those of us who work with students is
to help them "get" Christianity.
While a significant number of
Christian students reject Christianity during their university years,
far more struggle to embrace a faith that is not really authentic or
orthodox.
Theirs is a 'moralistic therapeutic Deism' as Christian Smith
put it; a tame faith that is privatized and perhaps personally
meaningful but which is not publicly
true, culturally significant, or
fundamentally informative to the rest of their lives.
Rather than trying to make Christianity as attractive and
entertaining as possible, we ought instead to be sure that what we are
communicating to them is actually Christianity.
As I noted,
this is very challenging in a culture of information overload, where
students are bombarded daily with a multitude of messages, most of
which, encourage them toward a mentality of adolescence.
Still, there is good news. Adolescently minded cultures like ours
inevitably have a leadership vacuum. So, there remains a terrific
opportunity for influence for those who produce the leaders, especially
if they produce networks of leaders who can think deeply and contribute
broadly to a wide variety of cultural institutions.
How can we do this?
Read more here.
http://www.summit.org/resources/essays/2009/02/helping_students_get_it.php
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