The last two weeks have been exhilarating! They have also been very exhausting — all of us who work with youth this time of year (or any other time of year really) find ourselves quickly consumed by the work and we are left tired hoping to recover sometime before the fall.

Two weeks ago we hosted Merge at our South camp and this past week we hosted about 250 high school students from Lee’s Summit, MO, a suburb of Kansas City. In an effort to accomplish their vision to bring restoration to their community, about half a dozen youth pastors from Lee’s Summit bought out a week at our camp to strategically inspire, equip and challenge their students to live deeper and lean further into God’s story. It was amazing…

At Youthfront we are longing for more of these types of relationships with youth pastors. We love to see students gathering at our camps from the same community, brought by a network of concerned and committed youth workers. We love knowing that students are coming from the same geographical area to experience God together and that they’ll go ‘home’ with one another as well.

There is no scientific data to prove that this is a stronger use of our camp and a more effective outcome of the environments of spiritual transformation we yield to the spirit to create and sustain — but I believe it is. It just has to be.

As a result of that belief, at Youthfront we are becoming more intentional about linking up with youth workers in our region first — and ultimately throughout North America. We do this through our training initiatives, our camps and other events — all of which are most effective when connected to a youth worker and their faith community.

We are passionately positioning ourselves as an organization that’s using it’s camp(s) as a gathering place for thousands of youth workers and students from the same area and faith community to come together to experience God is new and amazing ways — a place of expedition and experience where communities come from and go back to the place where they can be most effective extending God’s love and restoration to their worlds.

While marketing our camps directly to students might prove to be better financially, we don’t believe it is necessarily better for the Kingdom. In the coming months and years, we’ll continue to be intentional about serving and working directly with youth workers to bring youth into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

Similarly to allowing students to doubt (part 2 of this series), we ought also to allow students to discover truth on their own. I am not saying that we allow them to discover their own truth. Rather, I am saying that we allow them to come into truth via their own understanding and practice. I contend we are far better off in the shepherding of our students if we allow them to believe that something is true in their own time and through their own unearthing and articulation of the particular truth.

Truth is not something that can be understood and practiced simply by passing on what we have come to know through words alone. I mean, how have we ‘come to know’ what we do? Was it simply because someone told us that a particular thought or concept IS true and so we believed them? C’mon. There is no way have you come to the place you are with God right now in this present moment because someone convinced you that something was true simply by using words. Language (words that give meaning) is very important in the process of discovering truth but it is not THE process. The process of practice, reflection, observation making, abstract correlating and tested experience all come together to help students ‘come to know’ what is true. (i.e. Kolb, Experiential Learning).

Therefore, the environments that we create and sustain become essential. Without an effective environment or a collection of various environments we are simply left to assume that just words that define ideas and concepts about God help students ‘come to know’ what is true. So, as youth workers, we are not solely the passer on of truths as we are environmentalists that help create a culture where truths can be unearthed and applied. We, as youth workers (parents, coaches, teachers, etc), are key to the entire unearthing truth process but our role ought not to be the carrier of what is “right” as much as it ought to be the designer in which the truth that we have come to know might also come to be known by others.

The inevitable question I get asked when I talk about this is always something like… “So… then… what constitutes an effective environment?” My answer is usually something like this… “I think there are three critical elements of an effective environment. The three elements are time, space and content.”

Time — moments to discover God and instances to punctuate the time.
Space — freedom and breathing room to discover God in the time the individual feels is exact.
Content – the substance or the material used to help the individual do the things I have already stated are important. Things like practice, reflection observation making, abstract correlating and testing by experience.

(BTW- I am not sure where I got those three elements. I can’t remember if it was one particular author or seminar speaker or who but they are something I have been using as a template for a while now.)

My premise (for those of you who are confused by these ramblings on) is quite simple. Here it is… Don’t tell students what is true and expect them to just live it (truth) out. On the contrary, guide or shepherd your students into environments comprised of time, space and content that allow them to ‘come to know’ what is true through their own understanding and practice. Be and environmentalist as much as you are an evangelist.

“Facts and reason alone do not stand a chance against a story because both depend on story for their power. It is naive to think one has arrived at one’s views and values solely through unbiased consideration of objective data. Data are never objective because they are always gathered by story-breathing human subjects. All facts are inert and useless until they have been interpreted, integrated into this narrative or that.”

From Daniel Taylor’s “Tell Me a Story: The Life-Shaping Power of Our Stories” (Bog Walk Press, Page 80)

I am a fan of Gever Tulley. Gever is a brilliant guy. He is a computer scientist by trade but is the founder of The Tinkering School, a summer program that helps kids build the things that they think about and dream up.

I first learned about Gever Tulley through TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. If you are not familiar with TED you should go HERE and intake as much as you possibly can.

Gever has a about a 10 minute presentation called, 5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do. You can watch it HERE.

The 5 dangerous things that Gever puts forward (he is actually writing a book of 50) are to let our kids:

1. Play with fire
2. Own a pocket knife
3. Throw a spear
4. Deconstruct appliances
5. Break the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)
5.5 Drive a car

Despite the provocative title, the talk is really about safety. Essentially, Gever is saying that if we eliminate everything “dangerous” from the life of our kids then the first time they come into contact with dangerous things they will undoubtedly hurt themselves.

If we are walking with our kids, however, through the experience of such dangerous things then we can help them be creative, confident and aware of and adapt to the environment around them.

I contend that the same is true for those of us helping students grow into a deeper relationship with Jesus. I think we can take Gever’s assertions and draw principles to the spiritual formation of adolescents. That being, if we don’t ever let our students (and our own children) do “dangerous” things within the realm(s) of faith, we aren’t helping them with a real sense of “know-a-bility” — what they come to know through shared experience.
So, here are five dangerous things I suggest we should let our students do (feel free to comment and add to the list!) Like Gever, I really have 6 but I think that 4 and 4.5 go hand in hand…

1. Dance with doubt
2. Discover truth for themselves
3. Disengage from reality every now and then
4. Dispatch their story, not someone elses
4.5 Determine their own future
5. Deconstruct what they are told, see and come to “know”

Over the next few days I will be breaking down each of these 5 ‘dangerous’ things we should let our kids do. In the meantime, I would encourage you to join TED and, at the least, watch the presentation by Gever Tulley. You can view it HERE.

Walter Rauschenbusch was a theologian and baptist minister. His theology, specifically around the subjects of biblical literalism and atonement, have always concerned some folks and have been held in question by many. Whose theology isn’t in in question by someone somewhere?

Never-the-less, Rauschenbusch is most remembered for his outspokenness against a word-based sharing of the gospel. Instead, Rauschenbusch and many of his friends (known as the Brotherhood of the Kingdom) preached a gospel filled with words but built upon Christlike actions of compassion and justice.

In his book entitled, Christianity and the Social Crises (1907), Rauschenbusch says,

“…no man shares his life with God whose religion does not flow out, naturally and without effort, into all relations of his life and reconstructs everything that it touches. Whoever uncouples the religious and the social life has not understood Jesus. Whoever sets any bounds for the reconstructive power of the religious life over the social relations and institutions of men, to that extent denies the faith of the Master.”

In doing some reading/research for my current book project I came across one of Rauschenbusch’s prayers. I thought I would share it with you all as I found it very inspirational and compelling.

“O God, we thank you for this universe, our home; and for its vastness and richness, the exuberance of life which fills it and of which we are part. We praise you for the vault of heaven and for the winds, pregnant with blessings, for the clouds which navigate and for the constellations, there so high. We praise you for the oceans and for the fresh streams, for the endless mountains, the trees, the grass under our feet. We praise you for our senses, to be able to see the moving splendour, to hear the songs of lovers, to smell the beautiful fragrance of the spring flowers.

Give us, we pray you, a heart that is open to all this joy and all this beauty, and free our souls of the blindness that comes from preoccupation with the things of life, and of the shadows of passions, to the point that we no longer see nor hear, not even when the bush at the roadside is afire with the glory of God. Give us a broader sense of communion with all living things, our sisters, to whom you gave this world as a home along with us.

We remember with shame that in the past we took advantage of our greater power and used it with unlimited cruelty, so much so that the voice of the earth, which should have arisen to you as a song was turned into a moan of suffering.

May we learn that living things do not live just for us, that they live for themselves and for you, and that they love the sweetness of life as much as we do, and serve you, in their place, better than we do in ours. When our end arrives and we can no longer make use of this world, and when we have to give way to others, may we leave nothing destroyed by our ambition or deformed by our ignorance, but may we pass along our common heritage more beautiful and more sweet, without having removed from it any of its fertility and joy, and so may our bodies return in peace to the womb of the great mother who nourished us and our spirits enjoy perfect life in you.”

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918)

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.

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!

We have all been in meetings we didn’t like. Some weeks it seems as though that is just what we are supposed to do — sit in meetings. While some meetings can be very helpful and energetic others can be quite the opposite. Over the past two days I have sat in meetings from 8am-6pm with virtually no breaks and very limited discussion or interaction of any kind. These meetings have been the “other” kind of meeting… one of the kind that isn’t all that helpful and doesn’t bring all that much energy.

Henri Nouwen (1932-1996)

As I reflected on the last two days, I was reminded of this wonderful bit of wisdom, inspiration and challenge from Henri Nouwen. A statement that Nouwen made after many years in ministry…

“More and more, the desire grows in me to simply walk around, greet people, enter into homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice the simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems. My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be a part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets.

It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them but truly love them.”

So… I am a little further along in The God-Hungry Imagination by Sarah Arthur. The book went from being one I was resonating with to one that I think is a must read for any youth worker. Especially youth workers exploring and experimenting with story and the use of it the spiritual formation of adolescents.

Chapter 3, Imagination and Spiritual Formation is worth the price of the book. Arthur does a very good job giving some helpful and creative language that does two things. First, it helps one understand how important of a role imagination has in the spiritual development of people. Secondly, the language Arthur uses is helpful for youth workers to use as we might explain it to others — parents, peers, volunteers, supervisor’s, etc.

Here is a quote that I thought was helpful…

“Remember how I said the imagination is what helps us put things together, which in turn helps us discover meaning? Consequently, a vital role of the imagination in spiritual formation is to help a young person make meaningful connections between the church, the world and her life.” (page 58)

Arthur also does a nice job distinguishing between an actively unhealthy and an actively healthy imagination which I think is important since many of our parents, peers, volunteers, supervisors, etc. are most likely more afraid where an active imagination might lead a teen that they are encouraged by it.

Arthur also provides 5 key areas that are crucial to nurturing a healthy imagination. I’ll hold off on giving them to you since I think you should buy the book and give it a good read anyway…

Although only part-way through the book, (I am maybe a little more than half-way. It is an easy read — I am also writing a book these days so my reading is limited to a few pages per day) I am encouraged how we at YouthFront & Sonlife have and are using story in our ministry initiatives to help aid in the spiritual formation of students and youth workers.

Again, I think you should consider picking up a copy of this book… I will have another post in a day or so. When I am done sharing Arthur’s insight from this book, I will post my own thoughts/questions/concerns/ideas as it relates to the book Maybe by then you’ll have a copy and we can interact around it.

“Being a peacemaker is part of being surrendered to God, for God brings peace. We abandon the effort to get our needs met through the destruction of enemies. God comes to us in Christ to make peace with us; and we participate in God’s grace as we go to our enemies to make peace.”

(Glen H. Stassen and David Gushee, Kingdom Ethics)

“The peace intended is not merely that of political and economic stability, as in the Greco-Roman world, but peace in the Old Testament inclusive sense of wholeness, all that constitutes well being … The ‘peacemakers,’ therefore, are not simply those who bring peace between two conflicting parties, but those who actively at work making peace, bringing about wholeness and well-being among the alienated.”

(Robert Guelich, Sermon on the Mount: A Foundation For Understanding)