At a recent youth conference workshop I listened to a speaker from a large church describe with great pride one of the small groups at his church. The students get together by playing World of Warcraft. They are not in the same room, they play over the internet. Once a month they get together to play in the same room and pray at the end. The speaker told the audience that this is just the way it is these days and we need to learn to roll with it, in fact embrace it. He implied that this is the new way to disciple students.
Why do we need new ways to disciple? Who is in charge? When I was a kid we didn’t have the internet and smart phones, but if you let us dictate how youth group would go we would play football and then watch football on TV with one channel. We lived in a football age not the digital age, but honestly how is it different?
Didn’t we learn anything from the 90’s and the entertainment era of youth ministry? Do we need to read the Reveal Study again? Is the goal of youth ministry happy students who come to church or making disciples of Christ, who make other disciples? I get the feeling that no matter what the new technology is youth workers will always struggle with this question.
