I would just like to share my reflection (then) on the Purpose Driven Youth Ministry Conference held on the 13-15 May 2004, which was based on the Purpose Driven Youth Ministry (PDYM) book (part of the Purpose Driven family). I had attended the conference while I was still ignorant of the entire Purpose Driven paradigm, and while I was still a youth cell leader then at my former church. Also, I would later like to analyze the materials used in that conference, which I still have in my possession.
This conference was organized by the CAC Board of Youth Ministries, Bukit Panjang Methodist and Paya Lebar Methodist Church, and was held at the premises of Paya Lebar Methodist Church. At that time, at least some of the Methodist churches had started to adopt the Purpose Driven (PD) paradigm into their churches, and word was that it was successful in reviving dead congregations, thus the PDYM conference was held to enable other churches to have vibrant youth ministries. To make it even more attractive and better run, staff from Calvary Baptist Church in Bellflower, CA, USA, where the PDYM concept was successfully introduced, came over to conduct the conference.
As someone who at that time has just recently embraced the doctrines of grace and didn't know a lot about the things of God, I had little discernment to discern correct teaching from wrong teaching, and definitely not any possible twisting of Scripture. Also, I didn't know much about the PD paradigm then, except by reputation. Therefore, I found nothing wrong with whatever they were teaching the few of us youth cell leaders during that time. However, the Holy Spirit convicted me there was something amiss, but I couldn't put a finger as to what was the exact problem. The only thing I managed to figure out was that the whole process seemed to be utilitarian; where people are treated not as people but as 'goals', 'objectives', 'statistics'. There also doesn't seem to be that there was anything there beyond just bringing people into church by any means, build them up and teach them to bring more people into the church (their idea of evangelism), without proper bible study whatsoever. And the whole process sounds so mechanical and program centered to me then too.
During the last day of the conference, I decided to pose a question to one of the American staff regarding the way the entire process (the baseball diamond process of building people up in the '5 purposes' and for ministry, via Class 101, 201, 301, 401) was done, regarding whether she thinks that the end justifies the means (utilitarianism). I asked that question since various things the team was introducing (like catering to the 'unchurched') etc doesn't sound right but were promoted as the means whereby we can do evangelism (the ends) effectively. Her response was surprising, as she didn't understand what I was asking, and when I clarified with her, she sidestepped the question entirely, and I didn't press the point further out of politeness. Anyway, sharing from their experiences, we came to know that they had a problem keeping quite a fair number of their 'converts', who decided after they had gone to college/university that they have 'graduated' from youth ministry and church. By their own admission, therefore, their model doesn't seem to be producing true followers of Jesus Christ, only producing lots of artificial statistical growth in their youth ministry. This disturbs me greatly, although I didn't pursue it further then, as there definitely is something amiss with a youth ministry that promotes itself as being THE way to do youth ministry, having lots of numerical converts, but not being able to translate those 'converts' into true followers of Jesus Christ.
With that said, I would like to go on to the next part: the analysis of the PDYM conference material.
[to be continued]
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