Excerpts from Playing Games with God: How to Avoid Shallow Youth Ministries and Find a Biblical Group for Your Kids. Print version is available here. About The Book Just like all schools are not the same, all youth groups are not the same. But how can parents know that their kids are going…

The Long View — Spiritual, Not Physical — Magnifying God, Not Kids — Church, Not Youth Group — A Biblical Group, Not a Perfect Group — God-Called Preacher — The Temptation to Leave — Harmony between Youth Pastor and Pastor — Getting Kids Interested — Fighting the Good Fight Taking The Long View: When They Are Old Proverbs…

Young Adult Exodus — Lukewarm Christians — Good Without God — Wrong Relationship — Constant Change — Counterfeit Success — Church as an Organization — Youth Group as a Machine — Modernizing the Church As we reach the end of this book, I feel the need to pause for a…

Youth Leader Training — Parachurch Plague — Worldly Philosophies — Cultural Relativity — Youth Ministry as a Business — Postmodernism — Experientialism — Pragmatism — Driven by Trends In the past few sections, we’ve discussed some day-to-day activities of modern youth ministries. But why are these churches doing this? Is…

Conforming to the World — Entertainment — Social Clubs — Lack of Bible Preaching — Bad Doctrine — Overemphasis on Music — Emotionalism — Community Service — Inappropriate Topics — Small Groups Transforming or Conforming? What kinds of activities do modern youth ministries include? What are they emphasizing? What are they teaching and…

Differences in Youth Groups — Methods and Messages — Danger in Searching for a Church “I’m happy just to get my kids in any church!” Growing up, I remember this call by my parents ringing through the house: “Kids, let’s go! It’s time for church!” On any given Sunday, kids across the country will be woken from their groggy teenage…

Worship, Walk, Work — Teaching the Bible Stories — Learning Foundational Doctrines — Setting a Proper Understanding of Church — Integrating with the Church — Preparing Youth to War on Their Own Modern Christianity has been influenced so much by American ideals that it’s difficult to separate Biblical values from…

Preaching the Bible — Doctrinal Teaching — Exhortation — Activities — Standing Behind Parents Preaching the Bible Preaching must be the center point or focus of a Bible-believing work. If we want God to be pleased with what we are doing, preaching must be the focus. (Peacock, Kindle Locations 436–437) The main thing…

What do you have for the youth? When we look at modern churches that staff full-time youth pastors, with programs every night of the week in multi-million dollar facilities, we might be tempted to think that youth ministry needs to be a sophisticated and significant focus of the church. This…