Thursday, July 07, 2011

Does your wording alienate newcomers?


Imagine you know nothing about Christianity. Imagine your child has been invited along to a 'youth group' (whatever that is). You want to find out a little more about this group. You do a quick Google search for the youth group, find the website, and read this:

"X [name removed] Youth Group aims to raise steadfast disciples of Jesus who are equipped to correctly handle the word of God and reach out to their peers with God’s life transforming message of grace. We want to see young people built up to raise other disciples who can make other disciples. We want to see young people raised up with a passion to reach the lost and a focus that reaches across the world."

If I read this description, any number of questions might come to mind. For example:

•Does it cost money?
•Are you welcome to go if you don't want to be/aren't already a disciple of Jesus?
•What is a disciple of Jesus?!

To read more, click here.

1 comment:

ericfromnewyork said...

Um. Maybe not.
I agree that there could be a more explicit welcome to any interested person, but I think that this is not such a bad attempt at being honest.
This hypothetical youth group is admitting, up front, that your child will not be protected from meeting Jesus if he or she attends.
By comparison - I would not feel very safe sending my child to the other hypothetical youth group: the one that promises fun and nice people, but no hint about their agenda. And there is always an agenda.