Chris' prayer: Kirk Franklin's "Why"

We're building churches but are we building people?

This line stuck out to me each time I listened to this song tonight. I think that it relates well to what I'm doing in youth ministry at my church.

It is difficult to judge the success of a program, or a retreat, or a semester. It is very easy to fall into the trap of counting numbers, as it is impressive to say, "We had 35 kids last week." In fact, when I went on a diocesan wide youth ministers' retreat a few years ago, "How many kids do you usually get?" was a very popular question. It seems we are always trying to build a church, or in this case, fill one.

But where does filling the people come in? And how do we measure that? How do we measure how deep someone goes in an exercise, or how close their relationship is with God, or how they are growing as a man or woman of God? I'm having a bit of trouble at the moment figuring that out.


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