Bears, Springs, Golf & the Future of YM Org.’s
May 30th, 2007
I have taken a few days to get away and talk through a decision I need to make with my good friend and co-worker, Matt Wilks. We are in Radium, British Columbia. I am smack dab in the midst of what I believe is some of the most beautiful landscape on planet earth. On the way up from Calgary, AB we stopped for a few minutes and gazed at a bear who was looking for food along the highway. Very cool. We were less than 10 feet away when I took this pic on my phone. He didn’t even care to know we were there…
Last night around 10PM Matt and I went down to the hot springs to relax and talk. Very nice. They collect the water that runs of the mountains, heat it up to about 104 degrees and make you lay in it until you are so relaxed you can’t get out — but then they close the place at 11PM. It is quite nice but quite unfair if you ask me…
This morning we went over to the golf course and hit a few balls at the range. We are looking forward to a 5PM tee time tonight! I haven’t been golfing in nearly three years, so we’ll see how it goes. Here is a pic I took this morning from the tee box…
The entire flight up to Calgary from Chicago, most of yesterday and nearly the entire day today I have been consumed with thoughts surrounding the life expectancy of the national youth ministry organization as a whole such as the one I lead, Sonlife. I can’t help to think that as postmodern thought and practice continues to emerge and change the way we “do youth ministry” the national youth ministry training and resourcing organization will have to rethink the way that it serves the church.
I don’t mean cosmetically or even structurally. We have been already doing that for years. What I think I mean (thinking out loud here) is that the complete ethos of the organizations will have to change. I am thinking that the day of the 3 or 4 major youth ministry organizations leading the way might be over but is most definitely dying. How will the “national” youth ministry organization position itself to inspire, empower, serve and support the emergence of more local or regional voices?
I am thinking that in the end, the more glocal (local ministry with comprehensive impact over time is how I am choosing to define this word), contextualized voices we can cultivate and sustain the greater hope we instill and the greater the impact might be. In other words (and in the words of Seth Godin), I think that Small is the New Big“. More on this later…
May 31st, 2007 at 12:06 am
very interesting thoughts. since my resignation from my current post as youth pastor in southern Alberta, i have been wondering about the idea of doing, what i have called “youth ministry consulting”. Basically the concept as i see it would be to offer youth ministries my resources as an expereinces youth worker in analyzing specific contextual ministries and help them impliment strategies and system to take advantage of both the resources available and their own local context.
And don’t get me wrong it’s not that i see myself as some kind of guru for youth ministry even in a local context but…
I have seen far too many local youth ministries burn up in flames as they seek to impliment pre-fabricated systems and methodologies that do not suit thier context.
I guess my idea is that each context needs a tailor made solution/cocktail of ministry systems/strategies and programming ideas in order to be effective.
the rationale behind marketing these methodologies has often been the desire to help local youth ministries to avoid having to ‘reinvent the wheel”. Well just to day, driving home from golf course (following jr. highs around) I was thinking that it might not be such a bad thing for local ministries to go through a grassroots strategy building experience that helps them own and develop a ministry model that fits thier context. And what couldbe an even greater advantage is if they had a ‘personal trainer’ so to speak, who could help guide them through that process using the established paradigms and models that exist from great resource centers like Sonlife, Willow, and Saddleback.
Feels like maybe some of the same thoughts might have been creeping around our cerebral cortex hmmmmm…