Have you ever had a DSL line put in your house or business? We did it a few months ago at church. It was a process to get it all done. That would be a topic for a different post.
What did catch my attention during the installation process was something that happened in order to get the DSL to work in our building. The phone guy had to filter the DSL line outside of the building before it could enter. Originally the thought was to filter it once it was in the building, but that didn't work.
This filtering got me thinking about something. What do we filter before it gets into the church? Do we need to filter ourselves before we enter the building? Do we filter the "secular world" before it comes in?
And does our filtering help us or hurt us?
I don't have answers, just questions/thoughts right now. I'd love to hear what you think about filtering "anything" before it enters the church building. Please share, but make sure you filter your comments first...
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
DSL filtering & the church
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I think this is a tough issue, especially in youth ministry. When a student comes through our doors, we are responsible for the content entering their lives during that time. So in some sense we need to filter what we're serving up.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, excessive filtering may be a part of making church very inaccessible to many teens (and adults). It's like that line in a Casting Crowns song about the church not recognizing that Jesus needs to "change her heart before he changes her shirt."
If we let the "secular world" in, will we (our students) become tainted in some way? But if we keep the "secular world" out, how are we ever going to light up the dark corners? I don't have any answers either, but this is a good question to think about. Thanks for bringing it up.
I had a related discussion with my former youth pastor. Does a church want/expect the students in your ministry to be sanctified before they enter the ministry? Simply put, do you want your youth group filled with Christians or non-Christians?
ReplyDeleteThere are many churches that desire a youth group filled with saints, and if any "miscreants" show up, they are filtered out of the program. Meanwhile, there are other churches that have a heart for these students, and their primary form of ministry is outreach.