Life Teen Impacts Teens This Holy Week
This Holy Week, Life Teen is gearing up its mostly teenaged audience by helping them meditate on the suffering and eventual glory of Christ, through its website www.lifeteen.com.
This Holy Week, Life Teen is gearing up its mostly teenaged audience by helping them meditate on the suffering and eventual glory of Christ, through its website www.lifeteen.com.
According to a report released this month by the Barna Research Group, the Internet is the only mass medium whose audience share has grown during the past decade, and the younger a person is, the more likely they are to visit faith-oriented sites.
People use Christian media to provide elements of ministry that are not adequately provided to them by their local church, states Barna. For some, a combination of these media forms a significant portion of their faith experience, resulting in a greater number of people who use Christian media than attend church.
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Ministries like Life Teen, are jumping on this wave of Internet usage to reach out to youths.
"Holy Week is upon us. It's so easy to let this week zip by as if it did not happen," states the official feature on their website. "Holy week is upon us. Make it the best week of your life."
Rick Bond of Youth E.E. says, that the youth today are more Internet savvy, multitaskers, and are likely to be more impacted by the web than by print.
To prevent that, they have written a guide for meditation for each day of this week, beginning with Monday, March 21st and ending on Sunday, March 27th. In addition, plenty of resources are available to teens to aid them in their understanding of the Gospel and the resurrection and ascension.
Titles, such as "Easter Triduum," and "Why Don’t the Resurrection Stories Agree in the Gospels?" give youths both rational reasons and personal stories for why a youth should agree with the Gospels as well.
For example, for Monday's meditation, Life Teen tells audience that "Lent is a journey" with the Lord, and though this journey is incredibly difficult for those who have chosen to abstain or fast from certain material items - and even more difficult for those who are truly suffering from a faith problem with God or other relationships - they must remember that Christ is the "light to help you pass through this time."
"We go through this time 'in the desert' with the Lord, looking forward to that Easter morning, when we celebrate his incredible resurrection," because in order to understand the glory, one must first understanding the suffering.
Written in a language suited for this generation, which Bond says is very important for effective communication, Tuesday's Gospel message is taken from John 13; "Jesus telling the apostles that one will betray him and Peter will deny him." The author personalizes the message by inserting his own reaction into the dialogue.
The author states, "I find myself reading it saying 'I can't believe those guys would betray or deny him. If I would have been there, I wouldn't have done that' ... The truth is, if I just look at my daily life, I fall short and deny him a lot."
In this case, teaching is done by relating to the Gospel and relating teens to him. The end message is to seek Christ and "cling" to Him.
Asked about the response to the Feature on Holy Week, Mark Smith, spokesperson for Life Teen responded that it has been particularly good.
"The activity and the message board and emails and just people on the street coming up to me - have been very thankful. A lot of time, people go to Easter service, but they forget about the whole week before," which is "a time to prepare for the resurrection."
Agreeing with the Barna research findings, he said, "First and general, the response for ministry and outreach on the Internet is huge."
"The passion did a very good job with Christians last year to think about Lent in a new way, and I hope that our website could be even a percent of that movie."
The feature moves a youth through Jesus' suffering and seeking Christ for their own sufferings on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, Life Teen asks youth to seek God's forgiveness, and by Holy Thursday and Good Friday, teens are understanding the gift of Christ and realizing the love that Jesus had in order to die. Holy Saturday meditates on the three days before the Resurrection, and for Easter Sunday, Life Teen shifts the focus completely to "the greatest victory of all-time!"
Using humor and the language of the youth subculture, he captures teens' attention.
"Did you look at the newspaper today? Did you see the good news? Oops. Wrong place to look for the Good News. The real Good News is in today's Gospel" (Life Teen).
