On occasions, those of us who have stayed with youth ministry in advancing years are the subject of ageist banter from our younger colleagues. But I wonder if the oldies should fight back a little on an area of ministry where, just maybe, our younger partners in the gospel have lost the plot.
I was recently involved in a university mission and the inevitable question arose about how friends are to be invited to the mission events. Different people recounted their successes and failures and one student came out with the statement: ‘I have texted and emailed all my course mates’, and then, as an afterthought, he said: ‘Oh yes, I spoke to one person face to face’, and it almost came out as an expression of failure that he had to forsake technology and speak to a human being. His case is probably extreme but I wonder if inter-personal skills are going out of fashion or, at the very least, conversation fashions are changing.
Tyranny of the urgent
At this point, some of you may be saying, ‘This man operated in a bygone age and has failed to adapt to the modern world’. There may be truth in that and I do not like the pressure emails have put on us to make decisions in a minute which used to take hours or days. I have one person who, when she emails me, it’s always urgent and an answer is required that day. That is the tyranny of the urgent and should be resisted on any matter that needs thought and prayer. By all means respond to someone who has invited you out for coffee at 10.30 at Starbucks and you can either go or you can’t — that’s easy to respond to. But when a decision has many options and, whichever is chosen, will affect the lives of people, time should be taken.
