Deserted Evie Youth

[IainH]

Evie is my abbreviation for an Evangelical christian, get used to it. 
  Because Western Christianity is based on reason, that same reason can be used to deconstruct it. This occurs regularly in institutions of higher learning. In my travels, I have encountered many a disillusioned Evie kid that, in spite of being raised Evangelical, now harbors doubts about their faith or, has given up on it altogether. I say, who can blame them. They were fed bullscat from childhood.
These 18-24+ year olds are my mission field, with an emphasis on shepherding young men. It is possible to work with young ladies but, it would be challenging because I make a point of never being alone with a female I'm not related to by blood or covenant and privacy is important when teaching. Pointing them towards our venerable lady bloggers would likely be the best thing I could do for them.
  I've spoken with many a young dude who is troubled over their faith after having it dissected by cynical Academicians.
  I believe God will guide them in my direction and that is my prayer. I ask that you join me in that prayer. Pray as your heart leads you.
   We need to be preparing those who are to follow us. I am fully convinced that the Lord will send us people of His choosing when they are ready to receive our message. The message is pure, Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. He heals and restores broken hearts. He is rebuilding His true Church and is gifting us the unspeakable Joy of being part of His work. It's humbling and exciting knowing we are chosen to be living stones in His great work. God Bless You for taking in this dirty, raggity, snaggle toothed old Hillbilly biker.
  May our work be acceptable in His sight and bring Him eternal glory, in the blessed name of Jesus Amen.

[Ed Hurst]

Amen to that, Bro! I'll stand with you in this prayer.

[IainH]

Amen to that, Bro! I'll stand with you in this prayer.

  Thanks my brother, it's been a issue dear to my heart for a long time. Seeing formerly "on fire!" Kids come back from college and sense their inner conflict was truly heartbreaking. This was before I abandoned Western Christianity. I've always, literally for as long as I can remember, had empathy for others, which in itself, shows that God had his hand on me. Being conditioned in Westernism, I kept it in a securely locked internal box but, it was the conduit God used to lead me into our covenant and it was a lonnng process breaking the shackles of Westernism. Now, I'm ready to pass it on.
  Disciplining or Discipling (not sure which one is correct) the next generation is crucial. If we pass on the lessons hard earned to young folks, they will be able to exceed our accomplishments as will the generation that follows them.
  How we keep our beliefs true to our covenant, I seriously don't know. Ultimately, it's in God's hand as to the fidelity of those who carry the banner after we're gone.

[Ed Hurst]

The word "discipline" carries connotations we may not want young folks to associate with what we do. However, the word "discipling" is a made-up word coming out of the Evies' culture. The word "disciple" is properly only a noun, not a verb, so we make disciples. Of course, you are free to make up any new words you like, but I'd rather not echo the Evies when it's not necessary.

[IainH]

The word "discipline" carries connotations we may not want young folks to associate with what we do. However, the word "discipling" is a made-up word coming out of the Evies' culture. The word "disciple" is properly only a noun, not a verb, so we make disciples. Of course, you are free to make up any new words you like, but I'd rather not echo the Evies when it's not necessary.

Well, okay. I didn't really think that much about it. So...a better word, I don't want to do ANYTHING that even remotely connects to Evies. If that means new vocabulary so be it. I shall have an apprentice "snatch the leaf from my hand, Grasshopper" mmm... Let's see  acolyte, retainer, assistant, henchman, lickspittle, lackey, liegeman, squire, janissary. I think apprentice or just dude, that's what I call men anyway, unless they're much older. They get "Hey, old timer". How about nothing, no titles, they inevitably lead to defined hierarchies which will definitely destroy. Let's say a young buck I work with is turned off of the teachings he got as a kid in church. He sees through the bs, still believes in God but, is disillusioned. I tell "kid" that I don't believe what he was taught either because I found something better. If the kid is interested I can teach until he gets it or he moves on to another job.

[jaybreak]

I've seen this plenty in my life so far, when I was involved in the music scene. We were around Evie (hehe) circles a whole lot, and . It goes back to my idea (not totally mine, but I hold to it) that Evie religious culture is simply a replacement or imitation of secular entertainment culture, but using religious terminology.

[Ed Hurst]

On the one hand, I can see why the Christian music scene is like that, Jay. So very much of what churches do follows the shape of secular culture, and it's often pretty subtle how that influence seizes control. What we get from that is just a different flavor of the secular stuff. There is apparently no real biblical moral model for them to use, so this puts a burden on us to dig in and find the better answer. Some elements are simply the nature of the thing and can't be changed, but I'm convinced there is plenty that is purely a cultural adaptation and we can do it better. The problem is that I don't have any solutions because I'm not that close to it. Maybe it waits for someone who has that calling from God to reconstruct the various elements of our faith future, to come up with a genuine biblical cultural frame of reference for the arts in religion.

But I'm definitely on board with Iain's drive to reconstruct the apprenticeship path for building better men of faith. That's sadly missing from mainstream church life.

[jaybreak]

On the one hand, I can see why the Christian music scene is like that, Jay. So very much of what churches do follows the shape of secular culture, and it's often pretty subtle how that influence seizes control. What we get from that is just a different flavor of the secular stuff. There is apparently no real biblical moral model for them to use, so this puts a burden on us to dig in and find the better answer. Some elements are simply the nature of the thing and can't be changed, but I'm convinced there is plenty that is purely a cultural adaptation and we can do it better. The problem is that I don't have any solutions because I'm not that close to it. Maybe it waits for someone who has that calling from God to reconstruct the various elements of our faith future, to come up with a genuine biblical cultural frame of reference for the arts in religion.

But I'm definitely on board with Iain's drive to reconstruct the apprenticeship path for building better men of faith. That's sadly missing from mainstream church life.

The scene might've been a little different for me. There was a clash of worlds: basically kids who started bands because they liked the music vs. churches who mostly weren't sure how to handle it. A lot of the Christian bands we played with also played heavily in secular venues...sometimes more the latter than the former. There often wasn't a lot of support for the metal bands on the religious side because of the stigma and the general unmarketableness of the music, when compared to the general worship genre. Some of the metal stuff could be downright repulsive to some folks. Here and there, personally, I've come across a few pastors that genuinely "got" what we were doing, and would at least give us a blessing. There were literally maybe 1 or 2 (i.e., not a lot) youth pastors, out of the many that we come across, that actively supported what we were doing. Most of the time, the bands maybe had support from a home church, and that's it. Until they got more popular, they were stuck with getting into the secular venues.

[Ed Hurst]

Which takes us back to Iain's original push here. Most church leadership want things narrowly defined based on what is nothing more than conforming to one channel in the mainstream culture in the first place. They keep going back to the necessity of being attractive to the world, to draw them in. It's the original compromise made by the Early Church Fathers who ended up in bed with Constantine, who himself remained firmly pagan until his death. Once they took that path of wanting those outside to take them seriously, the mission was gone. That hasn't changed much since then.

What you describe is a reflection of the dominant culture instead of one that distinctly pulls away. There will always be some overlap, if for no other reason than we speak the same language, but what passes for "Christian culture" in the mainstream isn't Christian. It's just a part of what the world is doing already. Jesus and the Apostles made it clear that following Christ always would put us at odds with the mainstream. No matter how far the world seems to bend to accommodate genuine faith, it can never be enough, because Satan has a vested interest in keeping hearts dead. There's always room for us to move farther.

[jaybreak]

Which takes us back to Iain's original push here. Most church leadership want things narrowly defined based on what is nothing more than conforming to one channel in the mainstream culture in the first place. They keep going back to the necessity of being attractive to the world, to draw them in. It's the original compromise made by the Early Church Fathers who ended up in bed with Constantine, who himself remained firmly pagan until his death. Once they took that path of wanting those outside to take them seriously, the mission was gone. That hasn't changed much since then.

What you describe is a reflection of the dominant culture instead of one that distinctly pulls away. There will always be some overlap, if for no other reason than we speak the same language, but what passes for "Christian culture" in the mainstream isn't Christian. It's just a part of what the world is doing already. Jesus and the Apostles made it clear that following Christ always would put us at odds with the mainstream. No matter how far the world seems to bend to accommodate genuine faith, it can never be enough, because Satan has a vested interest in keeping hearts dead. There's always room for us to move farther.

I get that. That's been my general experience as well, in all of what I described. In reality, what I was involved with, with bands, was very "organic": we were just kids who wanted to play music we liked and spread a message. There wasn't a ministry plan except for what we came up with ourselves, no backing or funding from churches really. We came across a few church that really tried to shoehorn in on what we were doing to make it something it wasn't supposed to be. When you're young you can detect that stuff easily.