Youth Groups and Ecclesial Imagination
Is a ‘youth group’ operating outside the borders of the main church a ‘church’? And who decides whether such a youth group is a church or not? What questions do these and other youth ministry practices raise for ecclesiology?
Youth groups outside 'institutional church'
In this episode of Faith in Youth you can listen to a conversation with dr. Mark Scanlan. He is a lecturer, tutor and researcher at St. Melittus in London, with a long history of youth ministry in the context of mission. His youth ministry practices brought him in the context of youth groups operating outside the ‘main church’ or ‘institutional church’. Are these youth groups considered as ‘church’ by the ‘main church’ and by young people themselves? What makes a church ‘church’ and who has a say in that?
Youth groups and the ecclesiological questions
In his research dr. Scanlan explores the practices of youth groups outside the borders of ‘official church’ and brings them into a dynamic relation with ecclesiology and the ecclesiological questions that need to asked in the shaping of church in the 21st century. In this podcast you can listen to a conversation about this process; a dynamic process of researching practices, listening to and engaging with young people, and challenging theology, especially ecclesiology, missiology and Christology. Or as a young person called it: interweaving ecclesiology.
