Christian's of VGChartz, are you Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant or Non-Denominational? (Edit:Poll fixed)

[Joelcool7]

sapphi_snake said:

mrstickball said:

The purpose of a youth group is to disciple and train youth to become Christians, and continue doing so through adulthood. Many churches have youth groups because the issues youth face are different than that of adults. Because of the differentiation, youth can learn in a different environment and be ministered to at a different level and in a different way. The way you conduct a service for a 60 year old person is generally a lot different than that of a 15 year old.

The purpose of organizing activities to help the poor/needy is to follow the commands of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, the book of Acts shows that the disciples were heavily involved in caring for the needs of their community - the rich sold what they have and gave to the poor, the farmers gave their food to the hungry, and so on. Much of this ministry can be summed up in Matthew 25 in the parable of the sheep & goats.

The fun activities are there merely for social purposes. Having events where Christians can get together and have fun build up their relationship(s) with other believers and ensure that they have strong bonds with those of the faith, thus building themselves up. Alternatively, it ensures that they have activities once in awhile that are designed to show that you can have a lot of fun as a Christian.

How does heavy metal/rock praise & worship go?

Well, here's how it works:

Instead of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7vZ-hPc-B0

We play this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hG9z-Z3szc

 

Do people do drugs at mini-golf courses? Actually, yes. In my town they do. My town is rather small - about 13,000 people. We have 1 movie theater, a Wal-Mart and a bowling alley or two. If you are young, you hang out at one of the three places, and the bowling alley is pretty big on drugs and other activities that are illegal. My goal would be to provide them an atmosphere that they can be at free of such things.

I do not get paid anything for my position. It is 100% voluntary. At the church I go to, the senior pastor also refuses a salary. He only gets a small stipend a month for living expenses. 90% of every dollar that the church gets is distributed to their bills, and our ministries. We house a clothing shelter, a food pantry, and a homeless shelter.

Protestant churches in the US aren't viewed with the distain in your country, and ours are (generally speaking) flourishing, which is why we have much higher church attendance rates than in Europe. Furthermore, I don't know how one could view feeding the poor as a 'corrupting activity'.

It's quite interesting that you have such activities. I guess they probably increase attendence. Have these social activities always existed, or are they a recent practice? I can ask the same way about the different services you guys have. Have people of your religion always made special religious services for younger people? This whole ideea seems devised by a PR team to be honest.

The difference between those two types od services is striking. You did mention that you only have those metal/rock praises once a month though, right?

WOW, your town is really small. How can people even manage to get drugs over there? You'd think that it would be impossible to deal drugs without everybody finding out.

If you guys don't get paid, then how do your survive exactly? Do you have other jobs?

And feeding the poor can be viewed as a corrupting activity, in the sense of 'look, they're feeding poor and taking advantage of their desperation to get them to convert'. I was talking more about the youth activities though ('look, these cultists are luring our children with sports activites and rock music, trying to corrupt their impressionable minds and get them to worship the devil' - and I'm not kidding, peopel actually believe this).

Well I know here in Canada in my city youth services have been around since the mennonites came to the town fleeing WWII. My grandma was part of one. Now of course over the years they have changed because culture has changed you didn't have rock music in the 20's but their has been groups of young people meeting as far back as I can trace my family in Canada.

Infact at my school (One of them) groups of us youth formed our own Bible Study and sort of youth group ourselves without any pastor or youth leader influencing us. Christian rock music and rap and such exists and since our generation prefers that type of music to that of hyms and such we would listen and sing those songs.

Is it's only purpose conversion? lol actually thats a benefit but when we created our Bible study that wasn't our goal at all. My youth groups and such also didn't exist for the primary goal of converting people. They were created to give Christian youth a safe place to come learn about their faith, practice and enjoy it.

My youth group met every week, we did similiar things to that the pastor mentioned. These were not us trying to take advantage of poor people or try to convert other teens. Helping those less fortunate and loving your neighbour are core to the belief in Christ as that is what he taught. So we followed what was taught.

It seems alot of Athiests have this evil notion that every single good thing a Christian does is for the soul purpose of taking advantage of the person and changing their beliefs. But that is very far from true.

Alot of pastors refuse pay or don't get paid. Some that do belong to mega churchs. My church of 4,000 people has pastors who work second jobs because they don't make a living preaching. Most pastors infact every single pastor I know does the job out of love for the people and Christ. Not to make money.

As for drugs, In Canada small towns are covered in drugs. Policing in towns of 10,000 people is usually small. Meaning illegal activities often go un-punished. I know that some smaller towns in British Columbia lack police altogether, the RCMP has an out post in a city and they dispatch officers to cover several towns. So I can easily see how a small town could easily have drugs. Not to mention where theirs a will theirs a way. Young adults and such will find a way to get drugs and such whether its harder or not. Even in a small town.

Hence why youth groups are important as they offer youth places to go where drugs aren't involved or crime isn't involved. Places where youth can just enjoy life , hang out with other youth.

These groups benefit society a great deal as they prevent crime and keep youth off the streets. Whether your Christian or not the existance of these groups are very beneficial to society.

In my city theirs a shelter (Youth Group) for homeless, drug addicted or at risk youth. It has councillors , food, beds , showers and such. Heck most of the teens their aren't Christian's at all. They do hear about Christ but the primary goal is to help those youth. Many youth groups I know send their congregations to the center. Where these neglected teens are now able to not only live but they get support from the youth groups. Meet church attendees who will befriend them and help them in school, good examples to help them with their drug or sex or other addictions.

Youth groups are very beneficial to society. Its important to the church and all Christian's that youth are taken care of. By offering these services they aren't PR campaigns they are simply caring for and helping people of all ages to grow in Christ and/or live healthy happy lives.