The reason you keep wishing you could integrate your high schoolers into adult discipleship ministries.

If you're like me, for a while you've had a nagging sense that it would be good for your high school age girls and guys to participate in adult small groups, retreats, and activities. But you haven't really gotten very far in making it happen, perhaps because you're not sure if it would really be a good thing. After all, some of them might end up in the same group with their parents! Isn't the whole purpose of youth ministry to separate adults from their kids so that both can grow in their faith away from the other's critical eye?

Um, no. The purpose is discipleship. Total separation is a tool we've been using. And it isn't working that well.

Today I ran across this link for an excerpt from a real book written by people who know what they're talking about who say what our guts have been telling us all along - older teens do need some degree of integration in adult ministries to help mentor them into adult faith. It's not just our imagination.

So now that we know there's a book out there to back us up, maybe we'll have the courage to try it. And yes that includes me.

(Thanks to Rob at the Youth Pastors Only Facebook group for the link)