Phil Johnson tweeted a comment on this article, and I went whoa….

I generally don’t like to judge another Christians faith practices, nor approach to ministry, as I do fully believe we are all on the same team. About the only time I get really concerned is when abuse, toxic soteriology, or other such issues present themselves where individuals are or potentially are being hurt or damaged.

In this case, short of the inherrant dangers of decision theology, if appropriate safety precautions are taken, there really isn’t much danger, other than perhaps folks throwing up, or a few folks being offended. Kids are smart, they are not going to go out and do stupid stuff like this on their own. Same deal with adult/youth interaction, ie as soon as a line is crossed from gross to seedy, such will be called out in a heartbeat. Granted, if this were a lone ranger or even small church ministry, I’d be a whole lot more concerned with the potential for crossing that line.

That being said, there are bigger issues here, and they transcend nearly all of ministry, not just youth ministry trying to go viral.

The first issue: Why on earth do we try to be relevant by going exclusively contemporary? Egads, you want fear factor, look to the Bible and John the Baptist. You want sex in the city on steroids, look to Esther, or Songs of Solomon. You want crazy animals, look at the bear eating youth in Elijah. You want an action adventure story, look to Moses. The old testament mirrors just about every crazy crowd attraction in todays society. Even Burning Man is in the OT, albeit one does need to add in a bit of later history, but its a pretty clear connection in scripture. The problem of course, is not a lack of material, but more so I think the ability to draw the connection to it. Perhaps even an element of “what will they think?” if we mention some of the more intense, violent, or sexual stories in scripture, especially is ones church tends to downplay those parts of scripture.

The second issue: Why the numbers game? Why open the door for the possibility of boasting? I think one can be absolutely positively on fire for God, and yet stay far away from worldly promotion techniques. I’m not saying we can’t learn from the world, nor that we should put talents under a cover… but take the high road.

Look at the latest Ipod… do they span, do they use bots, do they promote Steve Job’s over the product, do they use for the lack of a better term, booth bimbos? No, Apple takes the high road… only the seedier products lend themselves to low road promotion. Should we take what is holy, and promote it in a low road fashion? Should we take Jesus, and market Him like porn, spam, or get rich quick schemes? I don’t think so…

None of the above is to suggest relevance, or creative promotion of ministry is to be avoided. Its merely to suggest much relevance is already laid out in scripture, and if there is a choice when it comes to promotion, consider how it may come across to those you are trying to reach. Associating Jesus with Viagra spam is not cool.