ABC News: For More Teens, Jesus Is Way Cool

Check out this article at ABC.

In case you weren't sure:
Jesus becoming cool isn't necessarily the best thing in the world.

Excerpts:

Since when did being a Christian teen become so cool?
"The day of the Christian kid being viewed as a nerd are long gone," said Bill Graening, the director of the Alive Festival, a three-day Christian music festival held each summer in Ohio that draws up to 20,000 people a day
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"A lot of those lines are really blurred between Christian and non-Christian," she said, especially when it comes to music. Machlan says she and her group of friends are open to all sorts of people.

Wendy Schuman, an editor at Beliefnet.com, says that faith is a lot more nuanced for many teens than it is for their elders, especially when it comes to hot-button topics like abortion and homosexuality. "They don't always tow the party line," she said. "They can't see Christian faith quite as monolithic as it might seem. There's a huge middle ground."

But Machlan admits that some teens "latch on to Christianity … like it's a fad."
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That push — to make Christianity and religion more appealing by introducing games and music — has some youth ministers worried.

Chanon Ross is a youth minister in Naperville, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, who recently wrote an article called "Jesus Is Not Cool." He says that all the focus on fun and games waters down the real message — and hard work — of following a faith
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This seems to be an area of constant tension in student ministry (or perhaps all ministry). Some might describe this as incarnational vs. attractional ministry. If that question interests you, check out this post. (Thanks to Steve at Missional Baptist Blog for pointing out this last link)