Relational Changes

This morning I went out to Libertytown (originally I thought it was Hagerstown, so ignore that tweet to those who follow me) to a Vocations Summit put on by the Division of Youth and Young Adult Ministry. The keynote speaker raised some good points regarding the need to better promote vocations. It doesn’t start with asking a young man or a teenager if he wants to be a priest it starts with raising disiciples of Jesus Christ.
As he continued to speak the only thing that was racing in my head was the question, “How are we raising disciples at Nativity?” I know some of that is through the purposes and with those purposes developing habits in their lives. Then the question became, “So, are we doing that?” In some ways yes and in some ways no.
Before we can ask students to consider the religious life, before we can ask people to consider lay ministry as a full time ordeal, we need to break the idea that a relationship with God is a religion and start emphasizing that it’s a relationship. I’m not a fan of the term relational ministry because I think it can get misused; however, that’s the way I believe youth ministry, children’s ministry, church ministry needs to function. If we are going to make changes in youth ministry this summer it’s going to be because we are trying to make what we do more relational, because those are what last.