A New Kind of Youth Ministry

I typically read/purchase two types of books—theology books and business books. It’s just where I am living right now. One day I hope to get back to some fiction.

When I read most theology books, I am impressed by the intricacy, abstractness, and hidden thought and meaning…so I read more of them. I read more of them in order to be brought into a concept or idea that I am not altogether familiar with so my imagination might be fired to understand it (or at least explore it) more deeply.

When I read a book on business (strategic thinking, marketing, social media) I am often merely whelmed—not overwhelmed or underwhelmed, just whelmed. I am taught new things, no doubt; but most business books don’t inspire me with the same force as a theology book. That realism probably says more about me than the books or their authors. The people who write business books are usually nothing short of brilliant.

I read books on business because I need to learn, grow, and be stretched. The practical nature of most business books clearly helps me organize my ideas, evaluate current practices, and think about future sustainable practices. I am, however, merely whelmed by the majority of the ones I read.

I was reminded in reading Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd (a book I am totally digging) that the reason I am whelmed is simple. “Most business books are written for easy digestion. They are reductive in the same way that subway maps are reductive; the elimination of unnecessary information creates a kind of conceptual isolation that is functionally efficient to the extreme.”

Then I got to thinking about one of my main areas of life foci—youth ministry training (I’ve been working on my workshops for the National Youth Worker Conventions the last few days, so it’s on my mind, and we are launching the fall season of our $5 training this weekend in Chicago).

Youth ministry training is often like this— reductive. It can provide you with a map of sorts, a way to easily read/understand the map, and it might even provide you with a clear way to get from here to there. However, it often does so by eliminating the non-essential information. I contend, however, that what is often perceived as the non-essential information is where various layers or meaning, richness, texture, and context of a more robust understanding of a subject matter lies. Eliminating these essentials renders the training itself limiting and uninspiring, leaving its participants, in many ways, conceptually isolated.

This year, stretch yourself (and your team) and look for and participate in the types of youth ministry training offerings that go beyond the reductive, subway-map approach. Take in a training seminar or workshop that begins and leads to conversations that aren’t “functionally efficient to the extreme” and that pushes you to discover new things in a new way.