A New Kind of Youth Ministry

We have (Youthfront/Sonlife) been doing some work with Barefoot Publishing. Barefoot is what I (a non-expert in the pub world!) would call an emerging publisher. They have been around for a while but I think some of their most recent products have really helped them emerge from being viewed as an average publisher to a innovative, expanding publisher.

I really love their new series of products for students called, Undercurrent. HERE is a link. Most recently I read, “Living Justice” by Jamie Gates and Jon Middendorf. This is a great book to give to your students on the topic of justice. Along with the product they have a free download — a discussion guide for small groups, etc. — on their website.

The book is only about 80 pages and it covers a lot of ground in a very engaging way. I love how the book begins. Within the first two pages there is a lasting tension created using two, very to the point and relevant examples of divergent perspectives on God, justice, and our role in God’s mission. Very thought provoking…

I have become good friends with Jeff Edmondson, the publisher. We are working together on a couple projects — one in particular I am really excited about. We are launching a new weekend missional living training experience for students in 12 locations across North America in the Fall called, Reveal: Joining in the Activity of God. Good stuff. More on that later. Anyway, in the meantime, you might want to check out Barefoot’s line of products for your students.

On Saturday we hosted about 230 youth workers and students at Youthfront in cooperation with Youth Specialties for their CORE Training. It was great to connect with so many like-minded people!

Dave Ambrose was the presenter. Dave did a very good job. His flight was delayed a couple of hours so we began a couple hours later than the anticipated 9AM start time. It was all good… The youth workers in attendance, as you would expect, were very cool about the delay making the most of it by being flexible as only youth workers can by connecting with others in meaningful conversation and participating in a Lectio Divina experience that one of our staff (Jamie Roach) led from the gospel of Luke. It was very cool.

(Me, Dave Ambrose, Rivers Partin, Jamie Roach, Mike King)

I had heard from a few that the CORE: Generation Change content wasn’t that great this year. I disagree. I didn’t sit in on all of the training but the training I was in on was very good. I think the content was meaningful, helpful and very effective. If you haven’t already taken your volunteers or student leaders and you are in a part of the country where they haven’t yet been, you should consider taking them.

I was pleased to see how closely aligned (thematically) the Generation Change content is with what we are doing with Enroute, our one-day training experience. I love that so many of us are thinking similarly and that the thinking is working itself out into training that inspires and equips volunteers and students toward an aligned passion and cry for change.

Dan Webster is a friend, mentor and coach to me and countless others. There have been numerous occasions where I have found myself picking up the phone to get a word of advice from Dan. Dan’s words aren’t always what I want to hear, but they are always honest and what I have needed to hear.

Dan has been investing in leaders for more than 30 years. He founded a leadership development company called, Authentic Leadership in 1994 and since then has been passionately committed to train and inspire leaders to live authentic lives of great impact.

A few months ago I participated in an experience that Dan has aptly named, Pause. Pause is a a one day experience to gain clarity for your life and work. It was a fantastic experience on many levels. I experienced it with some friends — Mark Matlock, Tic Long, Nathan Vawser and Rick Lawrence. The venue was incredible too (see pic below). And — of course — the content was very helpful as well.

As you await the renewal of the earth for this spring, take a minute and ask yourself if you need to gain clarity on your life and work and renew your personal vision. It is always helpful for me to discover again and reflect upon just what it is I am to be, become and do.

You can get all the information you need at: http://pausenow.net/

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 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!

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.