For the purpose of discipleship

Chuck on February 3rd, 2009

I recently had a healthy discussion with someone over email.   I really appreciated the heart of the person I was interacting with.  We can never have enough people trying to protect the hearts and minds of college-age people.

We talked about how college-age people are very open minded when it comes to belief and they can so easily be influenced by wrong theology/thinking.  Our conversation was really in the context of reading books by authors teaching different doctrine than we would personally hold to. 

I’ve had many students reading books I disagreed with the conclusions of.  This is typical of college-age people.  I actually even think it can be healthy.  They are formulating their own belief system and a part of that is reading other people’s thoughts.  And there is little more appealing than other views that expand their thinking!

We can step back and “boo-hoo” the idea that our students are reading certain books…or, we can read the book with a shepherds heart that wants to guide our people toward biblically mature conclusions.  I personally choose the latter.

In the college ministry world I’d say that reading what they’re reading, knowing what it says FOR YOURSELF, and then helping them think through it is a great way to guide thinking.  The fact is they’re going to read it whether we agree or not!  Standing back and arrogantly pointing our finger at people, I think, teaches them something just as or even more dangerous.

Related posts:

  1. “Discipleship Model”
  2. CollegeLeader Training
  3. Behavior Management
  4. 5 Adjustments When Teaching College-age People (1)
  5. 5 Questions to ask college-age people

Liz at 9:06am February 4

this is a good post. thanks for sharing.