Theology of Youth Ministry

In ministry it is important to note that the different people involved in your ministry will be at different stages of their spiritual growth. Having an awareness of your own personal theology will be important for how you go about teaching the students who are involved in your youth ministry. One part of personal theology is spiritual formation. Duffy Robbins states that spiritual formation is, “the growing into the likeness of Jesus” (448). Another main part of personal theology is community. Understanding and having an idea of both spiritual formation and community helps with the formation of personal theology of ministry. This paper will share five areas of theology and how they relate to practical theology in youth ministry. The five areas of theology include view of God, view of people, view of sin, view of redemption, and view of scripture.

God:

There are many different characteristics that could be used to describe God. I think one of the important characteristics of God is the Trinity. God is three persons in one, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Grudem states that there are three statements that summarize the Trinity, “God is three persons, each person is fully God, and there is one God” (231). The smaller understanding of God means the less that we know about Him. I think that this is a true statement because we tend to only know a little bit about God, yet there is so much more to him then what we actually know. You may have grown up in a Christian home your whole life and know all the “church knowledge” about God, but the likelihood that we know everything is not likely true.

An implication of this is that we let the students know that there is more to God than what we really know. I think that we should teach s...

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... into our lives and into the lives of the youth that we minister to. Hopefully with an understanding of these areas of theology we will be able to help our students grow in spiritual formation.

Works Cited

Anderson, Gary A. "What Is A Sin?" Sin A History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. 3-14. Print.

Campbell, Wes. "Art, Sin and Salvation: The Aesthetics of Salvation." Task of Theology Today. Ed.

Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. Leicester: Inter-varsity Press, 1994. Print.

Reid, Duncan and Mark Worthing. Hindsmarsh: ATF Press, 2003. 55-66. Print. Vol. 3 of Sin and Salvation. 3 vols.

Root, Andrew. "Talking About Sin with Young People." The Theological Turn in Youth Ministry. Andrew Root and Kenda Dean. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press Books, 2011. N. pag. Digital file.

Silva, Moisés. The Essential Bible Dictionary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011. Print.