http://www.collegeministrythoughts.com/featured/rumspringa/ College ministry thoughts is a blog with resources and information involving college outreach and college ministries. Fri, 23 Jul 2010 05:39:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://www.collegeministrythoughts.com/featured/rumspringa/#comment-892 Timotheos Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:05:40 +0000 http://www.collegeministrythoughts.com/?p=1253#comment-892 Interestingly, I was just talking with someone recently about freshman from my particular denomination who seem to do the Rumspringa thing; they seem to just want to experience what life is like outside the church and/or to take a break from it all for awhile. The difference is that most do not come back, unlike the Amish. It seems to me the reason for this is that, whereas the Amish youth see that their community is essential to their lives, our college-age people find out that the church was really not all that important to their lives to start with - they can live without it. So, it seems to me that being intentional about mentoring youth and including them in the fabric of the church early on is necessary to keeping them in the young adult years. Interestingly, I was just talking with someone recently about freshman from my particular denomination who seem to do the Rumspringa thing; they seem to just want to experience what life is like outside the church and/or to take a break from it all for awhile. The difference is that most do not come back, unlike the Amish. It seems to me the reason for this is that, whereas the Amish youth see that their community is essential to their lives, our college-age people find out that the church was really not all that important to their lives to start with – they can live without it. So, it seems to me that being intentional about mentoring youth and including them in the fabric of the church early on is necessary to keeping them in the young adult years.

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