I have known Doug Jones over at Perigrinatio (www.perigrinatio.com) for a bunch of years. We first met when we were both serving on a Sonlife event team we held in Baltimore at The Johns Hopkins University.

We have become very close friends since that time we first met. I can honestly say that Doug is a friend. You know how it goes… there are friends and then there are friends — the ones who support you, advocate for you, love you enough to call you out, tell you the truth no matter what — yeah, that is the kind of friend that Doug is.

Doug was a youth pastor for a bunch of years. Now he volunteers at his church near Pittsburgh and is one of our facilitators for our Enroute experience. He also speaks at retreats a bunch and does some consulting with churches and youth ministry organizations. I am not sure why I am telling you all of the above — other than I want Doug to know how much I love him back!

Anyway, Doug has a very cool resource that you might find helpful available on his blog called Journey with Jesus. Here is the link: http://www.perigrinatio.com/downloads/

The resource won’t WOW you by its design — but look over it closely.  Get beyond the simple design and read the outline of what Doug has put together.  I think you will find it to be really helpful as you lead your students toward learning more about Jesus and lead them toward experiencing Holy Week.

I am reading a book called, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative by Christopher Wright. Dave Rahn a friend and mentor was the first person to recommend this to me nearly a year ago. I have finally have gotten around to making it a priority.

I have read a lot on the mission of God the last few years. I haven’t grown tired of the subject by any means but I have grown tired in this respect; most of the books on the mission of God (just the ones that I have read) have been more about how to live out God’s mission via the teachings of the NT, almost completely neglecting the importance and significance of the OT. Wright’s book is different.

Wright is helping the reader see the theological priority of God’s mission through the readings and teachings of both the OT and the NT. Wright says,

“My approach has been rather different. I have tried to identify some of the underlying themes that are woven all through the Bible’s grand narrative–themes that are foundational pillars of the biblical worldview and therefore also of biblical theology; monotheism, creation, humanity, election, redemption, covenant, ethics, future hope. In each case I have then tried to pay full attention to their Old Testament roots before moving through to see the New Testament development, fulfillment or extension in each case. Most of the chapters therefore include reflections drawn from both Testaments, sometimes moving backward and forward between them.” (from the Introduction)

Wright’s book is over 500 pages. That is a lot for me — maybe for most. I am, however, committed to reading the entire thing as I hope it will accurately inform the book I am currently writing. Also, I am hoping to post what I am learning every now and again too. What would be very cool is if others of you wanted to read the book along with me (or those of you who have already read it) and make comments to my posts or I’ll make comments to your posts. Whatever…

One more quote from Wright:

“Fundamentally, our mission (if it is biblically informed and validated) means our committed participation as God’s people, at God’s invitation and command, in God’s own mission within the history of God’s world for the redemption of God’s creation.” (pg.22-23)

I am in the Smokey Mountains (Gatlinburg) of TN this weekend speaking at a retreat called Encounter. There are a bunch of students and youth workers here, mostly from Northern Alabama as the retreat is a gathering of churches from The Northern Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church.

I am speaking about my book, A New Kind of Youth Ministry, and also around some ideas I have been working on for my next book called, Story, Signs and Sacred Rhythms.

It feels nice to be out of the sub-10 degree weather. It is probably around 50 degrees but it feels like a heat wave.

I had lunch with Steve Case. I met Steve a few years ago at one of the YS conventions and so it was good to reconnect and share what has been happening in our lives as of late. Steve is a fellow author with YS. You may have come across some of his writing — The Book of Uncommon Prayer, Everything Counts, and Road Rules are a few I know off the top of my head.

Anyway, looking forward to being home with my family later tonight!

I have been doing consulting with churches and organizations on and off for a couple of years now. I have come to love consulting as much as anything else I do these days. In some ways, I think that consulting with churches and organizations might be my greatest contribution to the Kingdom. It isn’t easy work, but it is truly motivating and stretching.

I had my own firm for a while called, The Trek Project but when I began to re-culture Sonlife a few years ago, I set it aside in order to integrate much of what I was doing into the streams of influence at Sonlife.

I am thrilled to be on a new team of consultants that Youth Specialties has gathered. Honestly, I am honored and humbled to be on a team with such great people. You can see the team here: http://www.ysconsults.com/consultants/

You can check out the YS Consults website and get more information here: http://www.ysconsults.com/

On Monday and Tuesday of this past week I was in Boise, ID. Mike and I were meeting with Allelon and also with Mike Kipp from NNU. Great times…

While in Boise I met a new friend named Rickard. Rickard serves on the research team of Allelon and also cooperates with God and a few other folks to direct the Teen Center in a town outside of Boise called Eagle. The Landing Community Center is a wonderful project serving children, teens and adults through the arts, social action, giving trees, etc.
At first glance it might appear that Rickard is running an ordinary teen center. But this teen center is different. Rickard and his team go beyond the ordinary and have been able to explore missional youth ministry.

I had to ‘look again’ in order to move beyond my own presuppositions — but after a bit of time I realized that Rickard and the others are living amidst the needs of the teens and their families in Eagle. They are meeting needs for sure, but they are finding their way into the life of students in a real way.

It is one thing — a good thing, of course — to meet needs. I think it is completely another thing to consistently remove your own desires and take up residence within the suffering, pain, confusion, hurt, sickness, etc. of others. Out of a love that overflows from their love of God, Rickard and his team have been able to help students encounter and engage with God  — in not so ordinary ways.

Believing that God is continuously at work around them and that by cooperating with his activity he can help transform the lives of many teens, Rickard faithfully serves the teens of Eagle.

A prayer for today’s youth…

“…Be present especially with the young who must choose between many voices, Help them to know how much an old world needs their youth and gladness. Help them to know that there are words of truth and healing that will never be spoken unless they speak them, and deeds of compassion and courage that will never be done unless they do them. Help them never to mistake success for victory or failure for defeat. Grant that they may never be entirely content with whatever bounty the world my bestow upon them, but that they may know at last that they were created not for happiness but for joy, and that joy is to him alone who, sometimes with tears in his eyes, commits himself in love to thee and his brothers. Lead them and all thy world ever deeper into the knowledge that finally all men are one and that there can never really be joy for any until there is joy for all. In Christ’s name we ask it and for his sake. Amen.” (from The Hungering Dark by Frederick Buechner)

My good friend Doug Jones is blogging again!  I love Doug’s blog!  He has very thoughtful, inspiring, challenging and relevant posts.  You can check out his blog here:

http://www.perigrinatio.com/ 

Enjoy!

You may or may not already know that Mike King and I are hosting a gathering we are calling Prelude in April. I am excited to be with those of you who have already registered.
Today, I got word from our office that we have someone coming all the way from the Philippines! I am totally stoked by that…

You can learn more about Prelude at our website and blog. We would love to have you join us and other youth workers!

As some of you know, the last few months I have been commuting from the greater Chicago area to Kansas City. Our home is on the market and along with so many others around the country, we sit watching the current economic reality scare people — making them more hesitant to buy — and I can’t say I blame them.

I have been on dozens of flights, driven my car to KC a few times and last week I decided I needed a change so I took Amtrak. I gotta say, the train is a very nice way to go! The train only took me a little over 6 hours (I can’t make it that fast in my car) and I was able to work — using my phone and computer nearly the whole trip.

I meet very interesting people each time I make the trip to KC. As you can imagine and might expect, the mode of travel tends to dictate which of my trips will allow me to meet the most interesting people.

Last night, I met a guy named Steve Angrisano. Steve is a fascinating and brilliant guy who has been involved in youth work for nearly 20 years. Steve is a singer, songwriter and storyteller. He speaks nearly every weekend to thousands of students and hundreds of parishes around the country.

I almost didn’t have the chance to meet Steve. Fortunately for me, and not so much for several hundred youth waiting for him to show up, his plane was delayed out of O’Hare (surprise!) en route to Kansas City so he ended up on my flight.

Thinking I had an empty seat next to me I began to get real comfortable. Suddenly Steve rushed on the plane, just seconds before the door was closed, and plopped down right beside me. He was on the phone praying with his wife when he sat down and as soon as he hung up he took his Bible out and began to read. I couldn’t help it. Normally I stay very quiet on the plane, but this time I just had to ask…

My question, “Where are you headed?” was the beginning of an absolutely terrific one hour conversation that involved a variety of topics including the absolute necessity for adult/parent engagement in spiritual development of their children, how to best help students experience their faith, the mystery of God, the similarities between our faith traditions, our families, our travel schedules and a bunch more.

I was deeply inspired by Steve’s passion for students and his love for God. I pray that this week you too will bump into someone who inspires you. Sometimes it is in the passion of others that our own passion is reignited. Blessings friends!

In the last chapter of my book, A New Kind of Youth Ministry, I make an attempt at trying to help the reader get a start on the process of re-culturing their ministry or leading change. Some have wished I would have done more to outline the components of the re-culturing process and others have expressed a desire for me to have been a little more prescriptive. At that point in the conversation I usually push back hard trying to communicate the difference between being prescriptive and being descriptive.

Truthfully, I think the gap between those two ways of passing on ideas (prescriptive vs. descriptive) is where a fair bit of tension in youth work lies today. I contend that most youth workers don’t want a formula for what will work or a prescription given to them. Rather, most youth workers want to create their own environments for spiritual transformation. Youth workers want to create an environment that is contextual and customizable.

I also contend that out of fear of being seen as or considered formulaic and prescriptive the pendulum has swung from people passing on ideas that are ‘right’ to passing on ideas that are really quite ‘ambiguous’. I know I am guilty of that. In the ambiguity of the ideas lies a tendency then to only deconstruct former or old ideas. Therefore, one never really gets around to reconstructing anything new or different. We eagerly say, “It isn’t that!” and then others around us ask, “Well, then, if it isn’t that — then what is it?”

So, rather than trying to prescribe new ideas that only push people away I would rather try to describe new ideas. Describing new ideas seems to keep people engaged. Describing ideas then, also attempts to give others a framework in which to being reconstructing something new or different unique to who they are — not in the way of another.

I confess that a lot of my thinking as it relates to managing transition and leading change has come from John Kotter. Kotter’s book Leading Change and then later The Heart of Change truly influenced my thinking around how to effectively lead a change process that ultmately allows for the construction of something new. Kotter describes 8 essential aspects to leading effective change that you must know. Since it his content, I will forgo naming the 8 aspect here.

Kotter wrote a fable (along with another guy named Rathgeber) called, Our Iceberg is Melting. It is a fantastic story of a colony of penguins forced to change. Re-teaching the essential aspects to leading effective change from his previous book, Kotter creatively gives the reader a humorous and yet profound description of what leading change looks like.

We all manage change. Within the scope of our churches and youth ministries (organizations, etc.), we are called to lead change. We are called on to continuously put forth the effort to create the best possible environment(s) for students and leaders to engage more deeply with God and his mission. We are environmentalists! We owe it to our students, volunteers and parents (employees, etc.) to begin constructing something new or different — something that attempts to achieve the highest degree of spiritual impact. It can’t always be about deconstructing or naming what it isn’t … at some point we must begin growing something new.

As we cultivate the new, embracing the chaos and uncertainties of change along the way, we must have some sort of a plan. Kotter’s litte book, Our Iceberg is Melting, gives us a descriptive plan and can help us begin or continue to describe to our students, volunteers and parents the path in which we are guiding our students down.