Talk:Protestant youth ministry

message: I did what I could to clean this up and make it into a suitable stub...I think it's a valid topic in its own right, but I'm not sure if the title is the best for the subject.  Postdlf  4:04 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I modified this page for a class assignment; youth ministry was a good stub, so I incorporated chunks of it into my article. Now, the page is detailed enough to do the subject justice. So that everyone knows, I wanted to go beyond basic definitions of youth ministry-- I thought it was appropriate to discuss its history, its nature and its impact on society. 
In addition, to make this article a good learning tool, someone should add an image to it to appeal to visual learners; if anyone can do a better job of finding an image than I did, then feel free to stick it on in there somewhere. Arkman87 22:28, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: [Untitled]

message: A youth ministry is a Christian evangelical ministry intended to instruct and disciple teenagers in what it means to be a Christian, how to mature as a Christian and how to encourage others to claim Jesus as their Savior. This is accomplished through teaching, relationship building and mentoring. Youth ministries may vary widely depending on their denomination, size, liberal or conservative outlook and geographic location. The ministries themselves are almost always built on relationships between the youth minister and the student and their shared perception of their relationship to God. Youth ministries have existed for many years, starting with educationally based Sunday school classes, evolving into the complex, student-oriented organizations that they are today. Youth have become an integral part of nearly every church’s ministry programming, and youth ministries continue to have a profound impact on the societies in which they exist.
"teenagers" - is incorrect, youth ministry deals with children from middle school age (10 or so) until such an age where most people are grounded in a vocation and family of their own (as old as 24), the term teenagers does not reflect this, i suggest it be changed to "youths".
"Youth ministries have existed for many years" - this is incorrect and conflicts with the history section below it. "many years" should be refined to (depending on the definition of youth minstry) either "nearly 150 years" going by my next protest below or "nearly 300" if we trace youth minstry back to 1724 when the colonial paster Cotton Mather organized societies to sustain the faith of young people. this also only reflects america, im not familiar with the history of youth ministry in other nations should anywhere else preceed the US.
"starting with educationally based Sunday school classes" - this is also incorrect, and conflicts with the history section below it. youth ministry began formally as a weekly bible study for youths between 12 and 22 at Brooklyn's Lafayette Avenu Presbyterian Church.
the entire history section itself is in shambles but im not going to edit it this late at night perhaps later, and i dont know how to edit the stub since there is no edit button by it.
:In many churches the Youth Minister teaches a Sunday School class, usually the high school class because in many cases a lay person would not have enough training to engage in the higher level discussion and bible study done at this levelTjb891 19:11, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Tjb891, please provide sources for these claims. HellaNorCal 01:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The main stub is very innacurate 

message: This article is openly pro-youth-ministry.  It violates the rules of neutrality by arguing adamantly the economic and social benefits of youth ministry without adding much in the way of criticism.  Could youth ministry be instilling unnecessary guilt in young people's lives?  Is it even moral to teach young children about religion in a biased manner?  Does it pressure young people into religious belief against their will?
I'm not particularly against youth ministry; it just seemed like the article was quite one-sided.
I agree, and non-sensical topics like "improving the economy" should be edited
:It needs to be remembered that most youth activities are not during Sunday school hours and are optional in most churches. I would also like to mention most mandatory youth events would be related to confirmation or baptism and both of these events are voluntary in nature and church leaders would probably look down upon a parent forcing someone to do these things because this would defeat their purpose.Tjb891 19:17, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bias? 

message: I am removing the boy scouts of America from this list because it is not listed as a parachurch organization in the parachurch organization article or the Boy Scouts of America article. Also it should be noted the Boy Scouts of America only specifies a scout believe in a higher power and includes non Christian scouts as its member under the same status as Christian Scouts. Tjb891 19:21, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Parachurch Organizations 

message: There is already a page on Christian youth ministry. What is the purpose of this page? To discuss Protestant youth ministries, as though they are not Christian or something? I believe that Protestant youth ministry and youth ministry should be merged as one, or at least have a direct link on the youth ministry page to this page, so that if people stumble across the youth ministry article, they can read something about Protestant youth ministries and vice versa. 65.24.105.132 (talk) 23:35, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The Youth ministry article covers youth ministries of a variety of sects.  If there were notable Buddhist or Islamic youth ministries, it'd be appropriate to include those in the Youth Ministry article.  The difference is sort of like the difference between the article Religion and Protestantism.  The difference in no way implies that Protestantism is not Christian or is not religious, but is a type of Christianity and so a type of religion.  If we merged this article with Youth ministry, it would create undue weight on Protestantism.  Why did you not also suggest merging Catholic youth work with the youth ministry article?  Ian.thomson (talk) 21:45, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  This page should be merged. 

message: I have removed the section on Doug Fields and placed it below. It's content is overly-promotional and it is not well-sourced; two of the three references are dead links to promotional sites that I could not fix and the third lives only in archive. I don't feel that this person is notable enough to have his own section.
 Leschnei (talk) 20:38, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed Doug Fields section 

message: There are three books in the further reading section that could possible be used for inline citations. I don't have access to these books, so I can't be too sure. Leschnei (talk) 20:42, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needs inline citations