Read part 1.

What I find most interesting about Tony Jones’ thesis is the way it can explain far more than just the Emerging Church Movement. I think contemporary youth ministry may also help us understand the rise of the megachurch movement in the late 1970s and 80s (and probably other movements as well). The number of megachurches exploded in that time from just 10 in 1970 to over 500 by 1990…most started by baby-boomers with youth ministry backgrounds.

Remember that the whole notion of a youth culture really emerged after World War II. Television, rock ‘n roll, and the economic boom after the war resulted in a generation of young people with disposable income and the opportunity to express themselves in ways foreign to their Depression-generation parents.…

Did the modern youth ministry movement create the Emerging Church? That’s the question Tony Jones addresses in a recent blog post. While presenting a paper at an academic conference, Jones fielded questions from professors of youth ministry primarily from evangelical colleges and seminaries.

Jones said to them, “You all have strong feelings about the emerging church movement, most of them negative.  Well, you are directly responsible for the emerging church movement.”

He went on to describe how contemporary youth ministry shuns the “accoutrements of power (vestments, titles, special roles and rites). Instead, youth are encouraged to engage all of the practices of the community equally.” In other words, the rejection of structural authority and the focus on a flat structure of relational authority which has marked the…

Our gospel arsenal is a lot bigger than it used to be. We can choose to preach the Good News from a number of different angles, according to the audience we’ve been given.