I am taking a Youth Ministry course at the Puritan Reformed Seminary and a minister from the Heritage Reformed Churches is teaching. We have been discussing some of the things that youth groups do that are very far from being glorifying to God and how we want to avoid this as Reformed Christians. We have discussed things such as how all of our ministering needs to be done with the glory of God in mind and how we must keep our theological presuppositions in the forefront of our ministry. One thing that he (Rev. Kelderman) mentioned that is being done in the Netherlands (and also in Canada) is what is known as the Refobar. Of course I had no idea what he was talking about but he explained:
The Refobar (Slang for Reformed Bar) is when churches host underage drinking parties in their basement knowing that it will attract the youth and they will have the opportunity to minister to them.
Why can't the Presbyterians be so creative?
Hey, Young People's Society.....Scotch anyone?
9 comments:
Hennie was referring more to the community spirit (no pun intended) of a bar than the alcholoic content... she didn't touch the stuff herself. I can only imagine what the Dutton Bar would've been like had there been alcohol. Very interesting indeed. Ah, good times at the ol' Dutton Bar...
That being said, I think that this warrants at the very least a test run. You never know until you try, right?
Combining underage drinking with underage smoking? Well, why not? May as well go all-out, eh? I doubt the kids will mind, and really, it's all about the children.
We live in a litigation happy society here in America. A Ray-Lan-Bar would only end in tears...
Sweet fancy Moses! What is wrong with these freaks? First it's the crazy goldfish people now it's drinking with Jesus at the local reformed church. It's enough to make anyone vomit all over the place.
The only way we're going to make any headway with the youths of the world is to hold true to scriptural doctrines. The second we get away from that, focusing on all sorts of entertainment and wickedness is the second we've turned from Christ. Children don't need to be entertained in order to be brought to Christ, they need to be fed spiritually.
When I was in youth group, we used to T.P. people's houses and throw road kill on their door steps.
NL is right in the sense that children won't be saved by gimmicks. What they need is the work of the Holy Spirit in them. Then and only then can they have spirits in them to the glory of God.
And yes, I'm with Droll reg. lawbreaking - the laws may be dumb, but they're not the sort of laws that we can break Scripturally. Were they telling us to bow to a giant statue of Colonel Sanders, we could break that law just fine.
Wow. Is that for real? We had a grand time with various youth groups in our young teen years. Along with the 6 minutes of drivel and fluff, we had a romping 1 1/2 hours of games like "Wombat womp", "Eagle loves Beagle", "Honey, if you love me..", and "Under the blanket". You can only imagine how many young souls flocked to the Lord through these means. *rolls eyes just a little bit*
"you can only imagine how many young souls flocked to the Lord"
amen i say to that. having fun and playing games does not mean having to water the gospel down...
but I think those are 2 separate issues, 1)fun and games and 2) alcohol and dancing parties...
if people have been reconciled through Christ because they came to youth group to play Chubby Bunny, Amen.
Post a Comment