NYWC Memphis

Back in the era of colonization, “evangelism” largely meant converting pre-Christian cultures into Western Christian cultures. When this happened, the dominant culture lost the theologically rich insights of the non-dominant cultures. Similarly, when we merely want to make youth into little adults, we lose their theologically rich insights. What if we instead saw youth as inhabiting their own culture filled with unique perspectives and meanings? What if we considered adolescents as people the Holy Spirit already interacts with? In this way, youth ministry becomes a project of contextual theology called “eutheology” or “new” theology. Youth have unique theological insights the rest of the church needs. For instance, youth can playfully imagine new realities and point out cultural barnacles, youth can remind us of the centrality of identity to discipleship, and youth can lead us back toward childlike faith.