It seems as though almost everyone associated with youth ministry is talking about the use of story – including myself. And why not, who doesn’t love a good story? I love that we (the world of youth ministry) are talking about story — especially as it relates to helping students engage with God’s story and ultimately his mission. In my opinion, there isn’t a better method of communicating than through the powerful use of story or parable.

I first became intrigued with the use of “story” as a learning method when I read my friend Mark Miller’s book called, “Experiential Storytelling” like 4 years or so ago. Then as a part of my master’s degree I went to a week long seminar in Dallas lead by a guy named J. O. Terry and some others. I was introduced to the Chronological Bible Storying (CBS) method that at the time seemed revolutionary to me. Later I learned that CBS had been around for several decades and utilized by a number of mission agencies like, New Tribes Mission, the Navigators, International Mission Board, etc., mostly in illiterate contexts and for the purpose of sharing the gospel.

I became more deeply intrigued and much more familiar with CBS after working with my friend Mike Novelli. Mike has done extensive research and work in storying (as it is commonly called by those who use story as a learning method) and was really the first person I had met that used the CBS method effectively in his youth ministry.

While at Sonlife, Mike and a team of others created and developed two new events for students that use storying as the chief learning method. One event is called “Merge” and is for high school students and the other is called “Awake” and is for middle school students. Both of these events have been tremendously helpful. Almost weekly I get emails from youth workers and students from all over North America that are filled with stories of life transformation. Currently, Mike is training youth workers in the art of bible storying through his organization called Echo. If you haven’t heard of what he is doing, you should look him up at www.echothestory.com.

In the last few days I have received a few emails from youth workers who are experimenting with the use of storying within their ministry context. Some are creating film shorts and others are writing their own narratives from Scripture that bring together God’s epic story in a way that helps their students understand God more deeply. One of the youth workers that I have been in conversation with is writing a musical for her youth ministry to perform at their annual year-end church-wide fund raiser. She is basing the musical on seven episodes of God’s story that we teach in our Enroute Youth Worker training.

Of course if you were at YS’s NYWC you know the theme was “storyline”. Student Life did a seminar on story called BLUR that I heard didn’t really go over that well and I taught my Story, Signs and Sacred Rhythms seminar (which I also heard, from a few, didn’t go over very well either) J. I just came across a blog post by someone named Drew over at http://collectionofcrumbs.wordpress.com/ who is one post into a five post series called, The Power of Story in Youth Ministry. There is a new book out (that I haven’t read yet but have on order) called, The God-Hungry Imagination: The Art of Storytelling for Postmodern Youth Ministry by Sarah Arthur. Story is everywhere in youth ministry – and I love that it is!

I am concerned about one thing, however. I am concerned that we as youth workers will stop at the use of the method. I know youth workers and I am convinced that our uses of story as a learning/teaching method will be creative and compelling as youth workers are some of the most imaginative people I know. However, I am concerned that we might stop at the “newness” of the approach or technique and therefore fall short of helping our students encounter and develop a narrative theology.

Even if our use of story is powerful and it provides a fresh way of communicating who God is to our students, until we allow narrative theology to inform our way of life, we’ll be discussing the same issues we are today 5, 10, 15, 20 (you get the point) years from now. What will change us? It isn’t leapfrogging from the story of God and the methods we use to introduce our students to it to the systematization of theology as we have come to know it. I am wondering if one of the biggest challenges we face in youth ministry today isn’t the relocation away from a systematic, informational approach to youth ministry (as a starting point) and a movement toward a narrative, informational approach to youth ministry (as a starting point).

More on this in future posts…your thoughts to this point? I would love to hear what you are thinking about as it relates to the use of story, God’s story (and mission) and narrative theology.

I was at a coffee shop today waiting for my friend Frank to join me for a long overdue conversation. I was a bit early so I opened Scot McKnight’s latest book (I think it is his latest — it is hard to keep up with him) called, “A Community Called Atonement” and began where I left off a few days ago.

Before long I found myself weeping. I cry a lot at movies (you should have seen me, Mike King and Eric Venable crying a while back over a movie with Adam Sandler — Reign Over Me — I think it was called) and it doesn’t take much for me to cry at home with my family either. Today, as a matter of fact, my son Drew and I went out to run an errand and for a stopover at one of his favorite playgrounds. When we got home he said, “Daddy, this is the best day ever.” My nose is still a little drippy. I can usually keep it together over a theology book though…

Today, the words from “A Community Called Atonement” pierced through my thick false self and found its way right into my tender zone. I love McKnight’s works for a bunch of reasons. I find his writing to be bold, constructive, precise, rooted, absorbing, determined and incredibly teachable. Some of my friends find his writing to be mechanical and choppy — they are freaking crazy. The biggest reason I might love his writing, however, is there is usually a few dozen pages in each of his works that God uses to mold me a bit more into who he wants me to be… today was one of those days.

Anyway, here is what I read…

“Here is a statement by Jesus that few can contest (referring to Matthew 6:14-15). Jesus connects our forgiveness from God and our forgiveness of others — and they are so connected that if we don’t forgive others, God won’t forgive us. However one wants to clarify this text, and it begs for some clarification, the connection of God’s work and our work is unavoidable. The atoning God creates a community of atonement.” (pg. 29)

He goes on to say…

“To be forgiven, to be atoned for, to be reconciled — synonymous expressions — is to be granted a mission to become a reciprocal performer of the same: to forgive, to work atonement, and to be an agent of reconciliation. Thus, atonement is not just something done to us and for us, it is something we participate in — in this world, in the here and now. It is not just something done, but something that is being done and something we do as we join God in the missio Dei.”
(pg. 30-31)

Thank you Scot. Your words deeply connected my heart with God’s intended will and way for my life!

There is a brief review of my book, “A New Kind of Youth Ministry” over at Youth Ministry Exchange (by Matt Cleaver). I think Matt is right — I could have taken more intentional steps to help people through the “reculturing” process. I only designated one chapter to the potential path one might take to begin and navigate through the process. (Good thoughts Matt — thanks.)

Here is the link: http://www.ymexchange.com/Resource-Reviews/Review-
A-New-Kind-of-Youth-Ministry-by-Chris-Folmsbee.html

I try to begin each day by reading from the Scriptures or from another source that I know will direct me to reflect and meditate throughout the day. I try to keep the reading to a verse or a paragraph simply because I find it a bit more productive. Otherwise, I am all over the map trying to think on the reading. This morning I read from New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton. I couldn’t keep it just to one paragraph — I found his words too consuming.

Here is a bit of it…

“We read the Gospels not merely to get a picture or an idea of Christ but to enter in and pass through the words of revelation to establish, by faith, a vital contact with the Christ Who dwells in our souls as God.

The problem of forming Christ in us is not to be solved merely by our own efforts. It is not a matter of studying the Gospels and then working to put our ideas into practice, although we should try and do that too, but always under the guidance of grace, in complete subjection to the Holy Spirit.

For if we depend on our own ideas, our own judgments and our own efforts to reproduce the life of Christ, we will only act out some kind of pious charade which will ultimately scare everybody we meet because it will be so stiff and artificial and so dead.

It is the Spirit of God that must teach us Who is Christ and form Christ in us and transform us into other Christs. After all, transformation into Christ is not just an individual affair: there is only one Christ, not many. He is not divided. And for me to become Christ is to enter into the Life of the Whole Christ, the Mystical Body made up of the Head and the members, Christ and all who are incorporated in Him by His Spirit.”

Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation (page 159-160)

I am privileged to have had the opportunity to share a day in ministry with my friends from Cultivation Ministries and The National Association of Catholic Youth Ministry Leaders this past week. Frank Mercadante, Director of Cultivation Ministries, led the Institute for New Youth Ministry Leaders here in greater Chicago.

Frank and I have been freinds for a couple of years now. I can’t tell you how much I have learned from Frank about youth ministry, spiritual formation, Catholicism, etc. When he invited me to speak to the group, I just couldn’t say no for a couple of reasons. First, Frank has been such a good friend and mentor. Any additional opportunities to be around him is a bonus. Second, being the only presenter from the evangelical tradition I was anxious to discover more deeply the differences and similarities between protestant and catholic youth ministry philosophy and practice. Finally, any time I get to hang with a group of emerging youth workers, I feel compelled to do so.

Bob McCarty, the Executive Director of the National Federation of Catholic Youth Ministry presented a fantastic and very helpful couple of hours on “Thriving in Youth Ministry.” Bob is a guy with a ton of youth ministry experience, a great mind and a very compassionate heart. Here is the book he has developed his presentation from: Thriving in Youth Ministry. I strongly recommend that if you have a chance to speak to young, emerging leaders, have interns to shepherd or you yourself are in your first couple of years of youth ministry that you pick up a copy.

I just finished reading the book, Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement. Tic Long introduced me to the book a week or so ago. I hadn’t even heard about it until he mentioned it.

The author, Lauren Sandler, is a brilliant author. Sandler is the Life Editor for Salon and she has written on cultural politics and other areas of interest for some very credible publications — New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, LA times, etc. I found her writing very imaginative, a bit sarcastic at times and somewhat over the top at other times. I thoroughly enjoyed the read, however, and if nothing else it was a reminder of just how differently people define evangelical and just how different other choose to live the tenets of it out.

I found her to be a bit of an alarmist but others I have talked to regarding the book have found her quite the opposite. I found myself shaking my head in agreement at times and at other times squinting my eyes and tilting my head as I do when I am a bit frustrated with authors who write about something so important as our youth culture and its movements and then write from only (or mostly) one perspective.

While so much of what Sandler writes about is true (I have seen it with my own eyes and felt it with my own heart), so much of it is from a pocket of evangelicalism that is fighting to survive in the minds and hearts of its own adherents. I wish she would have had a few different experiences in which to view what I find to be a growing number of thinkers and practitioners who haven’t lost our connection to the evangelical tradition but are trying hard to assist in the emergence of a different kind of evangelicalism.

I buy a ton of books. My wife gets annoyed with me sometimes because I have more books than shelf space so most of them sit in boxes in closets and the garage. Most of the books that I buy I pick up in the sale bin for less than $5. My latest great find is a book called, Discovering Jesus by William Barclay.

Discovering Jesus isn’t particularly riveting or revolutionary. There are some great statements and the book is designed in a way that allows the reader to interact with maps, charts, pictures, lists, etc. and in that way I really like it. It is a great book to help one discover or re-discover again the life of Jesus. At Sonlife we love talking, thinking, wondering, conversing, etc. about Jesus. Within the context of the entire narrative of God, we find Jesus emerging at what we at Sonlife hold to as the model for our life and ministry.

Barclay uses the following six mini-episodes to walk the reader through an exploration and investigation of the major events of Jesus’ life:

1. Preparation
2. Conflict
3. Recognition
4. Tragedy
5. Triumph
6. His Body the Church

Barclay’s insights, background summary’s and thought provoking questions encourage the reader to skim through the life of Jesus in a reverent but “highlighted” fashion. His six episodes are a great way to teach through the life of Jesus in a large or small group setting — or even a one on one situation. If you are nearing upon a series on the life of Jesus, let this little 95 page book be your guide. I think it will really help you put forth an accurate, narrative based depiction of Jesus.

Here is an interesting excerpt from the Conflict episode:

“This story [the temptation of Jesus] might be called the most sacred story in the New Testament — for this reason, that there is only one possible origin and source for this story, and that is Jesus himself. No one was there; he was alone in the wilderness. Therefore this story must have been told by Jesus himself to his disciples on some occasion when he wished to help them.” (pg 19)

Have you ever thought about when and why Jesus would have felt the need to teach his disciples based on his personal experience of the temptation events? Clearly, Jesus must have told them of his experience in order to have it recorded for our discovery and growth today — and for centuries past. I wonder when and why Jesus chose to share this story with his disciples…