I recently heard Josh McDowell speak at my church. I’ve read enough of his materials and other materials that there wasn’t a lot he said that was new to me. However, it was still a great event. One of the most important things he talked about was how differently the current generation thinks.

I believe that very few people really understand the extent and impact of this ideological shift. This generation approaches truth in a fundamentally different way than previous generations. As a result, the much of old “tried and true” methods of teaching truth to children simply don’t work anymore.

In previous generations, kids were primarily taught truth through propositional teaching. By “propositional teaching” I mean simply telling kids what is true and the reasons why. It is nearly impossible the current generation to learn through propositional teaching.

I’m not saying that kids today are rebellious or won’t listen. It’s not simply that the culture around them has changed. It’s also not just a “decline” from one generation to the next. It is a fundamental shift in the way the current generation thinks. They do not accept truth as an absolute. Everything gets filtered through this pluralistic worldview.

The implications of this on children’s and youth ministry are huge. You can’t effectively communicate truth to children unless you understand how they process it.

Real ministry to today’s kids must be relational. It isn’t enough to just tell them about the truth. They have to see it lived out within the context of a loving relationship.

I generally don’t post about the numbers of people who make professions of faith at my programs. That’s because I don’t measure the success of a program based on the number of people coming forward. I’m not called to produce numbers, I’m called to be faithful. Getting people to respond is the Holy Spirit’s job, not mine.

I recently returned from doing a series of programs for Fellowship Community Church in Norwalk, Iowa. We decided to conclude each of the VBS programs with an alter call. The first day, I didn’t do much of a Gospel presentation. I just spoke in a very general sense about putting God in charge of your life. I would build on that idea during the rest of the week, dealing more specifically with our sin and Jesus sacrifice and resurrection. I expected to have very few, if any, responses the first day. However, God had other plans. At the end of that first program, a large percentage of the kids came forward.

I was afraid that they didn’t understand. Perhaps they were just coming to join the crowd, or thought they were volunteering to participate in the program. The church had volunteers ready to speak with the kids who came forward in small groups immediately following the alter call. It turns out that the majority of the kids who came forward really did understand and wanted to begin a relationship with Jesus.

I certainly can’t take credit for the results. I didn’t do a particularly powerful or persuasive presentation. It just serves as a reminder that it’s not me who produces results. It’s God.

I’m in the middle of summer camp season. Some of the camps directors wrote letters to go over schedules and expectations. Two of them explicitly said that I was expected to mingle with the kids outside of my performances. I was somewhat surprised by this, as I would have expected that to go without saying. Apparently that is not the case. I’m guessing that these camps have had problems with previous speakers who just wanted to do their performance and not have any interaction beyond that.

Honestly, it would never have even occurred to me that was an option. I believe the heart of ministry is relationship, and the deeper the relationship, the deeper the ministry. This is the model that the New Testament shows Jesus using. He didn’t just preach to the “sinners.” He ate with them, drank with them, spent time with them. Jesus didn’t just shout up the tree to Zacceaus that he needed to repent. He spent time with him–began a relationship with him–and Zacceaus life was changed.

Yes, ministry can happen based on the rather superficial relationship that exists between a performer and an audience, but there can be so much more if the kids know the performer really cares about them. To a kid, love means spending time with them on their level. It’s eating together, having fooz-ball battles and water-gun wars. Even when I’m just doing a single performance, I feel that some of the most important ministry time is when I mingle with people before or after the performance.

I’m certainly not advocating going to the other extreme of just showing love but never actually telling them about the source of that love. I’m also not talking about building a relationship to use as leverage to get people to respond to God. That would be manipulation, and would be wrong.

People need to be given the facts about God so they can decide for themselves how to live their lives. They’re more likely to listen and seriously consider it when it comes from someone who has demonstrated love for them as they are.