A New Kind of Youth Ministry

I had a conference call this morning with the senior leadership team and youth pastor (not on the senior lead. team) of a new but rapidly growing church here in the greater Chicago area. Very nice people. Great hearts and an obvious passion to see people live, love and lead in the way of Jesus.

I was first introduced to this church when they attended our Enroute Learning Experience over a year ago. I have had the privilege of sharing in their journey from a distance as they update my with emails and phone calls. I would name the church (because I think it is such a cool place!) but the senior leader asked me not too, which is also very cool…

The church is only a couple years old but has grown from 50 people to about 350 people in less than two years. They are not trying to build a huge church and they do not see numbers as important — other than the fact that they need to move forward with expanding their staff in order to best serve the people. So, numbers are important to them but only in the context of being sure they are laying the foundation and basis for a staff community that can truly serve people. I get a very cool vibe from these folks…

It is an innovative church really seeking to discover ways to (these are my words to follow) help people belong to a community, recognize and experience God in the journey of life and join the others in the community as they seek to join God in his mission to restore the world.

The main issue they wanted me to help them think through was specifically related to their growing youth ministry. Here is the question they asked, “What do you think about us hiring a mature adult, maybe a man or women in their late 40’s to early 50’s, who has raised teens to come along side our youth pastor for mentoring? This person would give the bulk of their time to investing into the parents of the children and teens in our church, helping them to realize the importance of their active role in their kids’ formation. What do you think about that?”

Wow! What a great question! I was speechless — truly a momentary loss of words. I was totally expecting the normal next hire staff positions to be thrown out. You know, the worship person, the outreach person, the programming person, the creative arts person, the administrative person, etc. But no! One of only a few times in my consulting experience this church came to me with the very idea I was going recommend to them. Very fun. Once I shook out the absence of words in my head, I said, “Great idea! Let me know if you need help finding this person.” And then we talked more about what this person would do, the advantages to the position and the disadvantages, etc…

I was deeply encouraged by this phone call. (I know my friend, Mark Riddle would be too. Mark, I wish you would have been on the line with me!) What a great move — hiring a person who has raised teens to mentor the youth pastor and invest their time primarily in inspiring and equipping parents in order to see themselves as (and be effective at being) the critical piece to helping their own children grow spiritually.

So, this made me curious. Are any of you thinking along these lines? Would this be your next hire? Has it already been your “next” strategic hire?

Whatever comes to your heart and mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you.

AW Tozer

I read a very interesting article that puts forth a “catechises” that Pope Benedict XVI gave to more than 25,000 youth that gathered in the square of Santa Maria degli Angeli (St. Mary of the Angels), a basilica at the foot of the hill of Assisi, Italy. It is here that as a young man, Francis of Assisi understood his vocation and renounced the world in order to live in poverty among the poor that would eventually start the Franciscan movement.

Here is a link to the full article: http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=9578&size=A

Pope Benedict XVI closed with this exhortation…

“The time has come for young people, like Francis, to commit themselves and learn how to enter into a personal relationship with Christ. The time has come for us to look upon the history of this third millennium which has just begun, a history that needs more than ever to be lifted by the Good News of the Gospel……You, my dear young people, are my joy”.

I wandered through a very artistic expression of the Stations of the Cross on a mountainside in Radium, British Columbia, Canada a few days ago. The bronze depictions of Jesus’ journey to death and his glorious resurrection were a great reminder of his love and sacrifice for me — for us.

The Stations of the Cross are extremely helpful. They assist the faithful follower of Jesus on a spiritual pilgrimage of prayer though the major scenes of Jesus’ final hours. This pilgrimage helps me to enter into the suffering of Jesus’ death and the joy of his resurrection in different way than the when I read the accounts in the Scriptures.

I first encountered the Stations at Colonial Church in Edina, MN. Tony Jones was on staff at Colonial at the time and each season of Lent he would set up the Stations in the fellowship hall and people from all over the Twin Cities would journey through them. Since that experience I try to experience the Stations at least 3 or 4 times a year.

Here is a couple of pics from the Stations in Radium…

Station # 1: Jesus is condemned to death

Station # 7: Jesus is helped by Simon of Cyrene

Station # 12: Jesus dies on a cross

If you would like to help your students on their way to encountering or experiencing more deeply the Stations of the Cross (you can do this anytime, it doesn’t have to be Lent!), I would encourage you to download this FREE guide written by Faith Bosland called Journey to the Cross (a Stations of the Cross adaptation) on the Youth Specialties website.

I am up late these nights. Mostly flipping through the channels as I am to worn out to think straight enough to write well or read well, but not worn out enough to have my mind become inactive enough to fall asleep. I know, this is something that doctor’s can fix. I am on it, believe me…

Last night (actually early this morning) I happened to see a commercial putting forth identity theft prevention techhiques around 1:30am. This commercial brought me back to a not so fond memory of when my wife and I had our identity taken. We spent months, almost an entire year, working with the banks and creditors to fix the problem. I can’t remember all of what the lady who borrowed our identity spent our money on but it was random things like, Dell computers (which brought unspeakable disgust since I have only owned Apple computers for some time now), a TV, some groceries, Aerosmith concert tickets, etc. I confess it feels funny when someone robs your identity and then uses your life to amplify or elevate their life.

I think there are times when we do this to Jesus. I think we may be guilty every now and then (or perhaps even more often than that) of using Jesus to amplify our life. We have behaved or currently behave fraudulently and we misappropriate Jesus in order to create a phony persona that we stand behind in order to be right, relevant, etc. There might be good reason for us to be classified as identity takers.

I realize that the teachings, miracles, deeds, etc, of Jesus that we have recorded for us in the Gospels were illustrations for us to replicate and imitate — to make our own or to live out … so that we might reveal to all of humanity that God is working to restore the world back to its original intent and condition. However, this is not be done fraudulently or even in order to amplify our own personal life. This imitation of Jesus is not to allow us to live a better life, to make us feel good about ourselves, to help us rest in what is right and true in a world that is wrong and false, etc. To the contrary, to illustrate Jesus is to bring amplification to who he is, not who we think we are or even what we think others should be.

We steal the Identity of Jesus when…

• We use His teaching and claims where we see fit and where it helps us not necessarily where he intended them to be used therefore making them out of context.
• We make theological assertions of what we know in order to hide behind what we don’t know.
• We put Him in our pocket and “bring him along for the ride” instead of surrendering and disciplining ourselves to be led by him.
• We tag Him as our friend and forget or intentionally ignore that he is our King. So we end up doing life with him instead of to honor him.
• We become so familiar with who he is “after all these years of study” that we spend more time telling people who the “real” Jesus is instead of seeking to become like the real Jesus.
• We put our phony persona forward as opposed to our real self and consequently can never really be who we are or who He wants us to become.
• We state that working for him is our undeniable calling when really it might be just an undeniable convenience.
• We seek to build into His Kingdom our own pet preferences and opinions rather than seeking to reveal or expose it for what it is fully capable of being about on its own.
• We read His red letters like it is some kind of collection of self-help slogans instead of fundamental precepts fit to come only from a King.
• We play “the Jesus card” on someone to excuse our bad behavior or real but impure motives.

In what other areas of life might we be convicted of stealing the identity of Jesus?

I think it is of utmost importance that as we shepherd our students and leaders amidst the daily priorities of our individual youth ministry’s that we work hard to help people understand that stealing the identity of Jesus is a dereliction of our role as agents of God’s restoration and love. We don’t shepherd well when the people around us find it appropriate to misuse and abuse Jesus for the sake of amplifying or enhancing their own lives — regardless of how tempting it may be to make Jesus fit or work for the times.

To that end, we ought to seek to find ways to more effectively help our students die to self by taking up their cross and subsequently living out the identity (characteristics, virtues, etc.) of Jesus instead of stealing it. The goal of this Christian life isn’t to enhance our own lives but to join in the activity of God by revealing who Jesus is through our life in order that others might recognize who we belong to and who we are loved by.

Are we inspiring, challenging and equipping a generation of students to steal the identity of Jesus or reveal the identity of Jesus?

In a few weeks I am speaking at a youth event on the subject of prayer. I have taught on prayer a number of times over the years, of course — most youth pastors do at some point.

Lately, in preparation for my talk, I have been reading some books on the subject. I really don’t want to present to teens the same old thing about prayer. So, I have been reading and I have been deeply challenged by some of what I have learned about prayer in recent days. For example, today I read a little (barely 100 pages) but hugely significant book written by Henri Nouwen called, The Way of the Heart: Connecting with God through Prayer, Wisdom and Silence.

I learned that prayer, according to Nouwen and many of the Desert Fathers he quotes from, comes out of silence. Silence comes out of solitude. So, when we talk about prayer, we must talk about silence and solitude — for it is out of these two disciplines that prayer can truly help us “come to rest” with God.

Here is a part of Nouwen’s work on the subject of solitude… (that can lead to silence, that can lead to ceaseless prayer)

“In order to understand the meaning of solitude, we must first unmask the ways in which the idea of solitude has been distorted by our world. We say to each other that we need some solitude in our lives. What we really are thinking of, however, is a time and a place for ourselves in which we are not bothered by other people, can think our own thoughts, express our own complaints, and do our own thing, whatever it may be. For us, solitude most often means privacy. We have come to the dubious conviction that we all have a right to privacy. Solitude becomes like a spiritual property for which we can compete on the free market of spiritual goods. But there is more. We also think of solitude as a station where we can recharge our batteries, or as the corner of the boxing ring where our wounds are oiled, our muscles massaged, and our courage restored by fitting slogans. In short, we think of solitude as a place where we gather new strength to continue the ongoing competition in life…”

Nouwen goes on to say…

“…solitude is not a private therapeutic place. Rather, it is the place of conversion, the place where the old self dies and the new self is born, the place where the new man and the new women occurs.”

As you think about how to teach and model to your students what prayer is, I would encourage you to take a few hours and read this book. I think you will discover some new ideas on what prayer is and how we can help our students and volunteers encounter God in fresh ways.

Tomorrow I am off to Nicaragua for five days with Compassion. I am looking forward to seeing some of what they are up to there. For almost 10 years now my wife and I have been sponsoring a few children in partnership with Compassion and are experience has been amazing. I have wanted to go on what they refer to as a “vision trip” for some time…

We’ll be staying in Managua which is the capital city of Nicaragua. March and April are traditionally the hottest months so I expect it to be nearly 100 degrees each day. I have been to Central America a number of times but never to Nicaragua. Have any of you ever been?

I am really looking forward to engaging with the people, serving in whatever way we end up serving, enjoying some good conversation, food and fun with my good friends Matt Wilks and Ben Rough — and just seeing another part of God’s earth. I fully expect to be deeply moved and challenged when I see some of the conditions that the children are living in — as well as their stations in life.

I am hoping to learn from the people of Managua as much as give. I used to think when I would go on short-term trips like this that I was somehow going to take the poor “out of their misery” just by showing up, smiling and saying “Jesus loves you” or “God bless you”. The truth is I will probably see Jesus resembled more in the faces of the poor children in the outskirts of Managua then I did in the faces of the people at church this morning…

Last Friday night I was watching the NBC Nightly News with my friend Jim Newberry. At the end of the program they did a short but very rich story on a guy named Bill Austin. Bill has given out more than 200,000 hearing aids to people all over the world… He seems like a very cool guy and the story is incredibly inspiring and deeply moving.

Check out the article and video here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18096548/

Perhaps you might find a way to merge this with your upcoming teaching to your students regarding compassion and justice. Actually, this story can fit into a lot of different teaching themes — calling, missional living, sacrifice, restoration, hope, etc…

I am intensely fascinated with creative people. I have never really seen myself as a creative type so being around creative people always inspires and challenges me. Even more than that — it gives me the permission to generate new ideas, imagine, innovate and invent.

I have been reading a short book called, Interactive Excellence: Defining and Developing New Standards for the 21st Century by Edwin Schlossberg. Schlossberg is the founder of ESI Design, one of the world’s foremost experiential design firms that is known for creating physical and virtual spaces for people to interact, exchange ideas and learn from each other.

In his incredibly winsome book, Schlossberg says this…

“…I am interested in the patterns and forces that shape and create culture. I am not interested in learning how to subvert the interest of an audience into things that are for sale or create methods for propaganda. What I am interested in is calling attention to the discipline of looking at the audience as part of the act of composition or design.” (pg. 5)

Schlossberg’s thoughts above have gently pressed me to reflect on how we treat culture, intermittently use the gospel as propaganda and avoid thinking about the “audience” as part of the creative work we call youth ministry. Here are some random thoughts about that…

Are we really interested in the “patterns and forces” that shape culture? Do we really care about what makes culture what it is? Unearthing the “patterns and forces” that make culture what it is can be very demanding work. It can surprise us. It can be messy. It can be frustrating. It can be scary. It can raise anxieties in us we thought we never had. It (the process if unearthing the realities of culture) can also, however, reveal insights to us that help us discover into the most effective way to engage in culture and live missionally. Why does the intellectual, physical, emotional, social and spiritual make-up of the context in which we do ministry surprise or even scare us? I think there are many of us that would rather not encourage our students to engage in culture and instead “subvert the interest” or “create methods for propaganda.” This undermining technique can tend to speak a gospel message of distance and divergence. Instead, I would think our gospel message would be one of intimacy and convergence.

“…anointed me to preach the “good news” to the poor…” (Luke 4:18ff)

I get the whole “in the world but not of the world” deal. And I get that there are some things about life outside the bubble of protection we sometimes hide under called, Christianity that are alarming, concerning and downright troublesome. What I don’t get is why we often spend more time in our ministries making sure that our students are not “of the world” and very little time helping them understand what it looks like to be equally concerned and passionate about “being in the world” or living missionally.

Understand me, I think spiritual transformation is vitally important and I am not choosing one over the other. I fully believe that we all should be working away from “conforming to the patterns of this world” (Romans 12:1-2). But why are we allowing the “patterns and forces” to scare us into an unwarranted way of thinking that can result in an ineffective and idle ministry?

Also, I often wonder why we are so afraid to let the “audience” participate in the life of the church. This confuses me. I cannot reconcile why many youth pastors try to make sure that their students are protected from the “patterns and forces” of life outside the bubble. And in doing so, leave the accessibility of and the association with a genuine community so hard to enter into. We invite and welcome people to follow Jesus but many of us are so nervous to allow culture and the “patterns and forces” that direct it into our community that it ultimately directs us away from our mission of blessing others through God’s love and restoration.

On another note, we talk like we love kids and that our student communities are ripe with acceptance and belonging. But how disingenuous is that “love” if our primary but often underlying goal is to “subvert the interest” or use the gospel message as “propaganda” rather than letting it stand for what it is — a plausible or sufficient story that can meet and/or fulfill all of one’s needs, hopes and dreams.

The Schlossberg quote above got me thinking that our creative methods to show and share the gospel can not be based out of a fear of the “patterns and forces” of culture and therefore turn the gospel into some “propaganda” based story. Rather our creative methods must be based on a trust in the gospel truths of incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and Pentecost.

Just rambling here … any thoughts?

This morning I read the following and thought I would share it with you all. It is from one of my favorite books, The Illumined Heart: The Ancient Christian Path of Transformation by one of my favorite authors, Frederica Mathewes-Green.

“We think of theology as an intellectual undertaking, an attempt to construct a systematic, comprehensive explanation using tools of ordinary reason. But for earlier Christians all theology, teaching and preaching, had the practical aim of assisting the believer toward theosis.” (pg. 27)

Mathewes-Green a bit earlier in the reading defines theosis this way…

“…one’s essential being is permeated and filled with the presence of God. It is something more than merely resembling Jesus, more then merely following. It is [total] transformation.”

Have your students ever heard of the word theosis? Have you?  I am not trying to be or to come across as demeaning or insult you if you have never heard of that term/concept.  I just hope you’ll investigate its deep, rich and life-changing meaning and share it with the students you are shepherding.