This summer I've been blessed to have lots more hours at church. Most of these hours have gone into spending time with students and hashing through my thoughts on youth ministry and setting up some short and long term goals and objectives for our youth program.
I've really been wrestling with what I see as a basic dichotomy between the need to provide a youth environment that is cool, exciting, engaging, etc. in order to attract students vs. the desire to be real, genuine, and avoid the pitfalls of feeding youth self-centered entertainment all the time.
On the one hand, I've seen from personal experience that one has a hard time growing a youth program without answering the question, "why would 16-year old so-and-so come here tonight instead of going out with his friends?" This leads me to believe that part of reaching students with the Gospel really does mean catering to their desire for entertainment, coolness, and excitement.
On the other hand, I look at "successful" youth programs at large churches in this country and all I see are glorified video arcades with a little bit of Jesus sprinkled on top. I do not believe it is good for youth to spend their lives plugged in to games, and I do not believe it is good for youth to believe that the world should cater to their desire for entertainment and amusement.
I also do not believe that unchurched youth are liable to attend a "boring" youth program and hear the Gospel.
Somewhere between these two extremes I think is a youth ministry model that offers students the life-changing Gospel of Jesus Christ, manages to excite their interest, and avoids teaching them that their entertainment is the chief pursuit in life.