Youth Workers as Cross-Cultural Missionaries

In a recent article, Connie Neal describes what it's like crossing cultural boundaries to reach kids for Christ.

That’s our job as youth workers and volunteers, being cross-cultural missionaries to teens. There’s no way we can adequately do that without going beyond the church walls physically, but we must also understand and use their culture in order to make the gospel relevant. That requires us to go beyond the philosophical walls the church often builds in a sincere attempt to keep Christian kids safe from the world. Case in point: Harry Potter.

We must find useful inroads to kids’ hearts and minds, then build bridges from their culture, back into the Bible, and ultimately into a personal relationship with God. In these endeavors, consider the possibility that Harry Potter could be a godsend!

You may be ready to toss this aside if you’ve already set up camp in anti-Harry territory. I know you’ll get flak, but I urge you to think this through. Here isn’t the place to get into the debate over whether or not Christian kids should read Harry Potter.

As cross-cultural missionaries, we cannot afford to be out of touch with the most influential body of literature to impact any generation of youth in the history of publishing.

We must know why these books have captured the hearts and minds of this generation (as well as many members of older generations). We must know what the Harry Potter phenomenon reveals about the heart-hunger kids today have for the supernatural. We must know how to use the emotional response kids have to these stories so we can connect with them. Lastly, and most importantly, we must know if there are any redemptive analogies in Harry Potter that can be used to do God’s bidding. Indeed, there are and they are rich.

Read the full article here...