I am part-way through a book that I got for Christmas from my brother-in-law, Matt. It is called Gilead. It is a must read…

I am enjoying is mostly because it is one of those books that is easy to pick up and jump right back into after having to set it down for a bit. The author is a brilliant storyteller and paints such vivid pictures that you feel like you are looking on to the scene. Very few authors can do that for me.  Marilynne Robinson is the name of the author. She is a best-selling author of several other writings and Pulitzer Prize Winner.

So, if you have some down time over the Holidays and are looking for a book to read, try this one.  Let me know what you think…

This morning there was a very interesting article in one of the regional newspapers here in the greater Chicago area — The Daily Herald. I was intrigued mostly by the research from Barna found within as well as some of the comments from various staff at area mega-churches.

If this home church concept continues to emerge and becomes the primary model of faith communities gathering to worship as twenty somethings and those in their thirties age, what happens to the many modern youth ministry models out there? What does youth ministry look like within this ’simple church’ paradigm? Does youth ministry go away? What do we need to change now to be ready? What must we do to prepare ourselves for a new kind of church? I would love your thoughts…

DOWNLOAD THE ARTICLE HERE: daily-herald.pdf

Or go to: http://www.dailyherald.com/story.asp?id=263163

For quite some time I have been following some research on Youth Ministry that is being gathered and delivered by a very sharp group of people at www.exemplarym.com. I assumed that many youth workers already knew about this Study of Exemplary Congregations in Youth Ministry but as I have discovered in some recent seminars, conversations, etc… I assumed wrong. And we all know what happens when we do that.
Check out what the folks at Exemplarym.com have been up to. I think you will find it very helpful…

In order for a new kind of evangelism to emerge within youth ministry (or in the church for that matter) we must help our students have a fuller and more comprehensive idea of who Jesus is. In other words, rather than beginning with the gospels to understand who Jesus is, we need to provide a whole narrative perspective of Jesus. I believe that all of who Jesus is can best be understood through a theology of mission or missio dei (the mission of God). I also contend that one cannot accurately share who Jesus is or the “Good News” until they have an accurate context and meaning of his life, mission, etc.

So, to best inspire and equip students to ’share’ their faith I believe we must…

• help them see God’s plan and continuous pursuit of God to restore the world
• help them find and embrace their own identity and calling found from within the biblical narrative
• help them live out the narrative and act on their calling by being an agent of restoration (Scot McKnight — Jesus Creed) to the world around them
• help them articulate to others the major characteristics, attributes and movements of God found throughout the narrative
• and help them articulate that Jesus has accomplished the mission of God and that through him, we are invited and welcomed to experience both a new and eternal life

We must move away from a tidy yet incomplete perspective of Jesus found only from within the gospels and encourage students to see Jesus through the lens of God’s entire mission. I pray that through such an effort our students might gain a fuller context and meaning for Jesus and therefore reveal light to a darkened world with a greater sense of passion, commitment and generosity — in the same way God has revealed it to us.

I seldom take calls on Monday mornings from phone numbers that I do not recognize. Like many of you who are coming off a busy weekend, I typically take Monday morning to center myself and build a foundation for the rest of the week. Foolishly, knowing I was moving outside of my weekly rhythm, I took a call this morning and for the last hour I have been kicking myself…

What was the call about? Well, in a nutshell it was about youth ministry and evangelism. You see, last year the organizaton I lead (Sonlife) moved away from an event that it had been doing for nearly 20 years called SEMP. SEMP was an acronym for Students Equipped to Minister to their Peers. It was a good event and over the years thousands of youth workers and students had been impacted by the intensive week-long experience. The event was mainly designed to train high school students with the “why” and “how” of sharing their faith to their friends. All in all — it was a good event and for years it served it’s purpose.

When I came to Sonlife, I hired a guy named Mike Novelli and empowered him to lead the event through a season of change and into a new paradigm for equipping students to live missionally and he did (and I think very well). Last summer was our first season of the new event for high school students called, Merge. Merge is designed to help students merge with God’s story, merge with his way of life, and merge with his mission. Rather than giving the “tools” for evangelism to students, Merge is designed to help students understand a context and meaning for sharing Jesus and in that context then, join God where he is already at work. We still believe it is very much about equipping students and very much about sharing your faith — the starting point is just different.

Anyway, I take this call from a youth pastor in the mid-west and he is ticked at Sonlife because we are no longer doing SEMP. Because we aren’t leading SEMP anymore apparently we have ‘dismantled his entire youth ministry’ and now he has no more ‘purpose and direction’. I tried to help this guy see how I think we need a new kind of evangelism but in the end he wasn’t all that interested.

The conversation fueled my passion to help youth workers explore the idea of and experiment with a new kind of youth ministry. So, beginning tomorrow (or maybe later today) I will have a short series of posts dedicated to youth ministry and evangelism.

Check out this piece from CBS news on Youth Ministry — and the video interview of Mark Oestreicher, President of Youth Specialties.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/15/
eveningnews/main2273034.shtml

This morning I met with one of my mentors. As usual, he kicked my butt. I mean, he asked me the questions I feared he would ask me and he gave me the answers I feared he would give me… I feel like a chump during our conversation sometimes but in the end — every time — I love him for kicking my butt.

After my conversations with my mentors — some of which are face to face and others of which are over the phone — I am so thankful that there are some people in my life that care enough about me and my family to push me to be a better husband, father, employer, youth worker, etc.

This morning my mentor left me to ponder this… “When was the last time you told your wife you were thankful for all she does? I confess I couldn’t really remember the last time. Obviously that means it has been a while and that my appreciative comments need to be more frequent.

So when was the last time you said ‘thank you’ to your spouse or loved ones?

I have a friend in the Kansas City area named Alan Mercer. Alan is a middle school pastor who I have a deep amount of respect for. He is recommending Mark Oestreicher’s and Kurt Johnston’s new books for middle school students called My Faith and My Family. I have heard that these books are the first two in a series of seven…

I have not yet read the books (although I have ordered them!) but as I said– I really respect Alan’s opinion and his recommendations and I have been around Marko enough to know that there is a really good chance these books will be very helpful. Check them out…

I talked with a senior pastor from Kentucky today for about a 1/2 hour. I confess that I really feel for the guy. His church — a medium size, “but growing” church in a thriving suburb of Cincinnati, has been looking for a a youth pastor for nearly two years. He seemed a bit desperate and at a loss. His question to me was, “Where have all the top-notch youth pastors gone? We are looking for the guy that can come in here and lead a world class youth ministry. We’re poised for growth and major impact. It seems like they are all moving towards the emerging church movement.”

Interesting, huh? I am not sure if I can recall exactly how I responded to him but it was something like, “Well, I am not sure exactly what you mean by ‘top-notch’ and ‘world class’ but I think you are right, many youth pastors are interested in living their theology out in a way in which many of today’s churches are not.”

It is an interesting phenomenon. It seems as though the youth pastors that I bump into really are ready to find new ways to live out the theology that they are discovering or trying to practice. It also seems that in order to do that the youth pastor feels like she needs to move on to church planting, or working at a coffee shop or finding a job in the “real world” to live out their faith in an authentic way — or they will get fired anyway.

What is the cause of this and what do we do to reverse this trend? Should we reverse the trend? Do you feel like you can explore and experiment in your youth ministry? What are the trends you are noticing? I would love to hear your input. I get calls like the one I go today on a near regular basis. I would love to help out the callers with more informed data.