Guns & Youth Ministry
One of our paid youth leaders is leaving us to take employment in another town. That has forced us to consider how Cally's leaving will impact our youth ministry and what new steps need to be taken to keep things going great. We've talked about a number of different approaches, but I have to admit, we never thought about offer assault weapons as an incentive to get kids to come. I guess we're just not with it. After all, it apparently is working for Windsor Hills Baptist Church.
OKLAHOMA CITY, OKla. - After one of its organizers suffered an injury, a church was forced to cancel a gun giveaway at a weekend youth event.
The Windsor Hills Baptist Church planned the giveaway as a way to draw new participants to the church's annual youth conference.
The gun in question: an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle.
Windsor Hills canceled the giveaway Friday evening after announcing that Pastor Emeritus Jim Vineyard, who was running the event, had suffered a foot injury and would be unable to attend.
A video posted on the church's Web site contains a shooting competition from the 2007 conference, which also included a gun giveaway.
Church leaders defended the decision to hold the event.
"I don't want people thinking. 'My goodness, we're putting a weapon in the hand of somebody that doesn't respect it who are then going to go out and kill,'" said Bob Ross, the youth pastor at Windsor Hills. "That's not at all what we're trying to do."
Past attendees also defended the conference, stating the focus is on helping teens find faith, and not on firearms.
"You make a lot of new friends down here. You get to meet new people," said Vikki Goncharenko, who attended the conference. "There's a bunch of things going on."
Ross said the gun, which had already been purchased for the event, will be given away at next year's conference.
I don't get the opposition to this from the Christian community.
For one thing, "assault" is an act, not a descriptor. A baseball bat can be an "assault weapon" if it's used to...you know...assault someone.
A rifle that is used in competition to poke holes in pieces of paper is no more an "assault weapon" than that baseball bat being used to play baseball.
Guns are inanimate objects...they possess no inherent morality. Morality is a human trait. It is immoral to use a gun to harm others just as it is immoral to use a bat, knife, lawnmower or the spoken word to harm others. There is no inherent immorality in the object...only in the way the person employing the object puts it to use.
Posted by: Sailorcurt | July 15, 2008 at 07:55 PM
For another thing: The church was not just "giving away a gun" to some random kid who came to church. They were giving it away as a part of an organized shooting clinic and competition...a VERY normal thing to do at such activities.
The Department of Justice conducted a study in 1999 that found that youth who were exposed to firearms in a controlled, supervised, legal setting were significantly less likely to be involved in criminal activity and drug use than youth exposed to firearms surreptitiously. They were even slightly less likely to be involved in such activities than youth who had never been exposed to firearms at all.
I would think that Churches would embrace an activity that encourages kids to stay out of trouble.
Posted by: Sailorcurt | July 15, 2008 at 07:57 PM
Finally, The shooting sports require discipline, and concentration, promote responsibility and engender self-respect and self-worth. I do not see how that could ever, in any context, be considered a bad thing.
When I was growing up in the Wesleyan Church, dancing, watching movies, wearing shorts, excessive makeup etc were considered sins. Now days we have youth centers in our churches where dances are regularly held, video games are played, loud music is encouraged etc etc etc. If those things are valid tools to introduce young people to Christ, why is the use of the shooting sports...an activity enjoyed by millions of Americans every year and one of the safest sports in the country...such an outlandish proposition?
Posted by: Sailorcurt | July 15, 2008 at 07:58 PM