Category: Youth Ministry

A Reflection on Simone Biles

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Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka

I was listening to a youth ministry podcast that was supposed to talk about the clash between youth groups and youth sports.  The two typically compete for students’ time and youth groups usually lose.  I was hoping for some insight, to hear something I hadn’t thought of that would help me navigate a very real problem in youth ministry.  It was the most disappointing podcast I’ve ever heard.  The podcasters told me to remember the pressure coaches are under and to be more sympathetic to their situation and needs.  I learned that one of the podcasters played elite soccer when she was in high school and rarely went to church.  My takeaway?  I was supposed to support the coaches and hope that I could catch some of these kids after graduation.  It’s something you can get around to “later.”

Simone Biles showed us what “later” looks like.  At a time and place she didn’t choose, her mental and emotional health demanded she stop what she was doing and focus on it.  What drove her to it was the effect her interior life had on her athletic performance.  Most of my social media world supports Simone’s decision – and I do, too.  I think there are a lot of people out there who know exactly what Simone is going through, because they’ve been there.  We’re giving another look to Kerri Strug’s famous vault on an injured ankle.  It doesn’t seem as heroic as it used to.  Now it seems like it was motivated by a desire to win at all costs, with little thought given to the athlete. 

The NPR headline read, “Simone Biles Now Realizes She’s More Than Her Gymnastics Accomplishments.”  Four weeks earlier, I preached that exact message to a group of 9-12th graders at a church summer camp.  I told them God loves you regardless of how well you do in a sport or a performance.  Any competent youth leader could have – and would have – told Simone Biles that years ago, if her training schedule allowed some church time.  I spend a lot of time telling teenagers there are more important things than money, fame, and power, especially if those things cost you a piece of your soul.  Maybe that soul work in youth ministry matters after all. 

I knew a young lady who was a very talented track and field athlete.  I never saw her compete, but I heard from other sources she was Olympics material.  Then one day she injured herself during a meet.  Badly.  “You may never compete again” badly.  As you can imagine, this was devastating news.  She was angry at the world and began to put up barriers between herself and others.  She had been an athlete for so long.  Who was she now?  She was fortunate.  She got some great medical care and the doctors were able to restore her to the point she could compete again.  I don’t know if she got back to that same competitive level or not.  But she and her family were grateful she was able to compete again.

I am grateful there are doctors who can restore broken bodies.  I am grateful this young lady had the determination and the discipline to come back from a severe injury.  Recovery is hard, painful work and I am proud of her for what she accomplished.  But I wasn’t sure she ever dealt with the question, “Who am I without sports?”  The purpose of her recovery may have been only to take her back to the way things were before.  I know you’re supposed to get back on the horse after it throws you, but before getting back on, it would be good to ask yourself why you’re on the horse. 

“If you do not make time for your wellness, you will be forced to take time for your illness.”  I don’t know who said it, but it’s been proven again.  I am grateful that Simone Biles put soul care ahead of athletic performance, even if failures in her athletic performance drove her to it.  I hope she looks upon soul care as more than a way of restoring her gymnastic skills.  I hope she gets in touch with The One who has always loved her, who sees her as a precious gift, and doesn’t measure her worth in Olympic medals.

Maybe Simone Biles can make a podcast that will tell coaches to support youth ministry and that important work goes on there, so that together we can raise up complete human beings, body and soul together.

Encore: Thoughts on LPYC Choir Tour – Day Two – Owning the Music

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As I’m working on (yet again) restarting this blog, I thought I’d bring back a series I wrote in 2014 about a youth choir tour, originally published in July 2014.  Enjoy.

This is one of a set of blog entries inspired by the 2014 tour of the Living Proof Youth Choir (LPYC) of Christ UMC in Plano, Texas.  It isn’t meant to be a summary of the tour, but a set of reflections prompted by events on the trip.

Tour Day Two was a Sunday.  The choir sang for the two worship services at First & Calvary Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Missouri.  Their program is a worship service, with hymns, responsive, readings, and corporate prayers in between the songs.  The pastor introduced us, then turned the worship hour over to LPYC.

I attended most of the rehearsals the week before the tour.  Rehearsals recall the old saying that if you like sausage, you shouldn’t watch anyone make it.  Trey, the director, spent his share of time telling the youth to stop talking and put away their phones.  It takes effort to pull a group of high schoolers’ voices into a choir.  Going into the tour, I felt that they knew the music well, but as I was listening to them that Sunday morning, I heard a level of mastery I didn’t hear in the rehearsals.  There’s knowing the music and there’s owning the music.

At the second service, the choir added hand motions to Praise His Holy Name.  It started in the guys’ section and rippled over to the girls’ section.  They loved the song, felt comfortable playing with it, and so they had a little fun.  This was, of course, as much a surprise to their director as it was to everyone else.  But when you own the music, you can make things happen.

Two days later, LPYC sang at New Kingdom Church, an African-American church on Chicago’s West Side.  When they sang Praise His Holy Name, the energy level in the room, high to begin with, doubled or tripled.  When you own the music, you can make things happen.  Instead of ending the song, Trey kept it going.  It was guys only, then girls only, with the piano, without the piano, then going down to a whisper and back up to a shout.  The choir agreed it was their best tour experience ever.

When you own the music, you can make things happen.  When you own the music, the message follows.

A few years ago I sent a survey to our clergy asking how long it took to prepare a sermon, where their ideas came from, who their preaching heroes were, etc.  I was especially interested in how long it took to pull a sermon together.  I thought the more experienced preachers would take less time, and when it comes to pulling the text of a sermon together, that’s true.  But the process of sermon preparation changes with experience.  All pastors read the scriptural text two to three weeks before that Sunday and then mull over the passage, looking for the message they need to bring out.  Experienced preachers know how to dwell in the scripture over that time.  It becomes a part of them.  They learn how to be open to the insights God brings over that time.  They learn how to own the scripture and it shows in their preaching.  They’ve found their voice and are confident in it.

I’ll talk about Glenn Burleigh’s Order My Steps in a later post, but let me say now I woke up each morning with “Order my steps in your Word” running through my head.  In my morning devotional time, I pondered what it meant to “walk worthy, my calling to fulfill”.  When you own the music, the message follows.  It’s a part of you like nothing else is.  That’s why we sing so much of our theology.

I’ve looked on iTunes for recordings of Keith Hampton’s Praise His Holy Name, Mark Miller’s I Believe, and Glenn Burleigh’s Order My Steps that are as good as what I hear from LPYC.  I haven’t found them.  I am, of course, completely biased, but I can’t imagine these songs coming from anyone else.  That’s the other part of owning the music and the message, you’re part of a bond.  I’ll have more on that later.

Great things happen when you own the music.  Greater things happen when you own the message.

Encore – Thoughts on LPYC Tour 2014 – Day One

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As I’m working on (yet again) restarting this blog, I thought I’d bring back a series I wrote in 2014 about a youth choir tour, originally published in July 2014.  Enjoy.

This is the start of a set of entries inspired by the 2014 tour of the Living Proof Youth Choir (LPYC) of Christ UMC in Plano, Texas. It isn’t meant to be a summary of the tour, but a set of reflections prompted by events on the trip.

The first stop on the tour is Springhill, an assisted living facility in Neosho, Missouri.  This tour will take us to St. Louis and Chicago and back.  We will sing for churches, for a children’s ministry, for a homeless ministry, and for places like Springhill.

The choir program includes Christ has Broken Down the Wall by Mark Miller. It works the way most powerful songs work, with a simple melody and simple words. It starts with a solo voice:

Christ has broken down the wall. Christ has broken down the wall. Let us join our hearts as one. Christ has broken down the wall.

The soloist this year is Natalie, who sings as if the song was written for her. I can’t listen to this song without feeling the tears, and they start when Natalie starts. By the end of the tour, Natalie will sing through her own tears.

We’re accepted as we are. We’re accepted as we are. Through God’s love all is reconciled. We’re accepted as we are.

Lately I’ve spent a lot of time in assisted living facilities. It’s a place where your limitations seek to define you. As my mother’s dementia worsened, her needs became greater than our ability to respond. My sister and I placed her in a facility that cares for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, where she lived until her death last April. The same week as her death, my father suffered a severe stroke. He’s recovering well, but he now has to learn to live with a set of physical limitations. He’s living in a facility that can assist him with those tasks he can no longer do safely. I associate these places with limitations, with finitude.

The people here live with finitude. The rest of us know in our heads that we’re finite, but we’re able to go for long stretches without thinking about it. In this setting, I listen to a song that tells me how we’re all accepted, limitations and all.

Cast aside your doubts and fears. Cast aside your doubts and fears. Peace and love freely offered here. Cast aside your doubts and fears.

The idea for this entry came from this verse. It seems that life saves some of its biggest challenges until you’re frailest. Your limitations remind you of what you can’t do. You’ve lost friends and loved ones. It takes a lot of courage to grow old. You get to see those who embrace life even at this stage.

We will tear down the wall. We will tear down every wall. God has called us one and all. Christ has broken down the wall.

They sing this verse with such conviction that I believe they will be the ones to do it. The words change from “we will tear down the wall” to “we will tear down every wall”. The singers may be young, but they understand finitude. There are those with chronic health problems, those who have family members with chronic health problems, and those whose parents have divorced. There are those who bring themselves to church; whose families don’t share in the faith they have found. Being a teenager means wanting greater independence, but not being able to claim it just yet. These singers know about walls.

After the choir sings, the students visit with the residents.  They get along so well, everyone smiling and laughing.  The residents share their stories and the students are eager to listen.  There’s a joke that says grandparents and grandchildren get along so well because they have a common enemy. These high school students and these elderly residents have finitude in common. It’s another reminder of how important it is to have each other, how much we really need each other, how important it is for us to connect with each other.

After all, it’s “WE will tear down the walls.”

This link goes to a video of the song being performed on a previous choir tour. You will see that year’s choir performing at churches, visiting the residents of a nursing home and a homeless ministry, and having some fun.

The Big Idea

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Big Light Bulb by ariwriter on Flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. (It’s really a water tower. What’s the big idea?)

What do you do when church ministries aren’t working like you want?

When they’ve lost their momentum?

When you just want them fixed and out of your hair?

You want The Big Idea.

The Big Idea will swoop down out of heaven and rescue you.  It’s bold.  Daring.  Out of the box.  It’s the Messiah of ideas.  It saves ministries.  Everyone wants The Big Idea.

Until they see one.

Because Big Ideas involve change and have work attached to them.

Everyone should immediately fall at the feet of The Big Idea, awestruck by its bold and daring messianic out of the box-ness.

The Big Idea is supposed feel good.  It’s supposed to fix everything.  Everyone should immediately fall at the feet of The Big Idea, awestruck by its bold and daring messianic out of the box-ness.  This thing here is . . . other.  Who knew “out of the box” meant we had to leave our box?

I was part of a strategic planning group for my church.  As we looked over our final recommendations, the chairman asked for comments and Skip spoke up.  Skip had retired from senior corporate management at a major oil company.  He’d seen plenty of strategic plans.  When he saw one, he looked for fear.  No fear means no challenge.  If The Big Idea doesn’t scare you, it’s not a big idea. 

People like their boxes.  Boxes are comfortable and secure.  Who wants to abandon the box they worked so hard to build?  How do I know things will be better outside my box?  If The Big Idea doesn’t demand something of you, it’s not a big idea.

Think of big ideas in science.  Copernicus put the sun at the center of the solar system.  Joseph Lister told surgeons that infections came from germs.  Those big ideas had to unseat the previous big idea and there was plenty of resistance.  If The Big Idea doesn’t threaten you, it’s not a big idea.

Congregations expect pastors to have that next Big Idea that instantly sends people running to the ministry.  And they think it works the other way around:  if people aren’t running to the ministry, there hasn’t been a Big Idea.  That’s The Problem with The Big Idea.  Some walk away because they feel scared, demanded of, and threatened, regardless of how big the idea is.  The Big Idea is less about solving problems and more about making them go away.

Big Ideas die from lack of work.  They aren’t quick or easy.  Big Ideas are a test of your priorities, your commitment, and your desire.  And they can change the world.

“We would rather be ruined than changed
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.” – W.H. Auden

Reflections on youth ministry: School vs church

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“So, so sleepy . . . ” by Clemsonunivlibrary on Flickr. (CC BY-NC 2.0). Would coffee have helped?

We’ve had yet another school shooting this week.  Some people, like the American Family Association, say we’d have fewer shootings if we had God back in the schools.  School life would be better, the reasoning goes, if we had God, or prayer, in our schools.  In my part of the world, Young Life and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes have such a large presence in schools that I don’t think you can make a credible claim that God isn’t in the schools.  But schools definitely interfere with a church’s youth ministry.

Schools make demands on our kids like never before.  Maybe we need prayer in schools because students don’t have time for church.  Students today are more overcommitted, over-homeworked, and over-AP-classed than ever before.  And the pressure to have the right college resume is constant.  I was in the corporate world for 30 years before entering the ministry and did a lot of hiring.  Five years after you graduate, where you went to college just isn’t that important.

My first Christmas after arriving at a new church, I suggested the youth group carol to homebound church members.  The students were uneasy.  They kept saying they didn’t have musical skill, weren’t talented singers, that singing wasn’t something they did often.  That surprised me; I thought everyone caroled.  Besides, the people you visit don’t care how well you sing, they’re just happy you’re there.  It didn’t hit me until later – the standard of perfection is so high that students can’t sing for the fun of it.  Everything has to be professional quality. 

This isn’t the student’s idea.  Just as millennials didn’t invent participation trophies, today’s students are approaching life as they’ve been taught.  They have to do it all and do it at the highest level.  If you aren’t taking at least four AP classes, something is wrong.  If you don’t spend 12 hours a day at school, something is wrong.  If you haven’t graduated with enough college credit to cover your freshman year, something is wrong.  Everyone expects you to be overwhelmed and overcommitted.  We are completely bought in to this culture.  Nothing has been taken from us – we handed it over.  We don’t need to worry about keeping God out of schools while schools are keeping kids out of church. 

We see a lot in the news about teenage anxiety, depression, and suicide.

Is it possible a little less time in school and a little more in church would help? 

Reflections on Youth Ministry: Math

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What Math looks like

We didn’t teach our kids math. We wanted them to make up their own minds about it. Knowledge is such a personal thing it seemed unfair for us to impose our perspective on our children. Truth is so relative. My generation was raised with math – our parents didn’t give us a choice – but that was back when it was expected, whether you wanted to or not. It’s just different today.

We thought about having them take math, but one of ours wanted to be a dance team officer.  She’s a talented dancer and we want to encourage her to follow her dreams. As drill team season went on, it was harder and harder to fit math in to our schedule. Those coaches expect so much, they schedule extra practices, she also needs private dance lessons, and there are competitions that take up the weekend. We were also worried about how our kids would fit in with the other math kids. They know some of the kids in the math class, but they aren’t close friends. Once more of their friends start going to math, I’m sure they’ll want to go. We said maybe if they started going to math, their friends would join them, but they weren’t interested, and we weren’t going to fight that battle. It’s so hard to get them out of bed for math class. Besides, if the math teacher can’t make it interesting and keep my kid entertained in the process, they won’t learn math anyway. It’s really the math teacher’s job to make sure my kids can do math.

I know math is a life skill. I use it from time to time and it’s helped me through some rough spots. But math will always be there if they want to take it up when they’re older.

[Image is “What Math Looks Like?” by “Diane Horvath” on Flikr.  CC-BY-2.0.  I think that guy likes math.]

My Thoughts on 13 Reasons Why

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**This post contains spoilers.**

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I’m not any kind of expert on teen suicide.  I watched 13 Reasons Why and felt the need to comment, not because I have special knowledge to share, but just because.

The show is the 13 reasons why Hannah Baker killed herself.  Before she died, Hannah left behind 13 tapes describing the actions of 13 different people who she said drove her to suicide.  The show is good storytelling, with a talented cast, a great script, and an appropriate amount of product placement.

Although Hannah’s descent into suicide drives the show, the protagonist is Clay Jensen, a classmate who feels personally responsible for Hannah’s death.  We follow Clay as he listens to each of the tapes.  Clay and Hannah had feelings for each other.  Clay is the one with the least to hide of all the people Hannah blames for her death.  The others don’t want the information on the tapes to get out and are afraid Clay will expose them.  On top of that, Clay’s mother is the attorney defending the school district against a lawsuit filed by Hannah’s parents.  Clay has plenty of reasons to keep quiet about the tapes, but he is driven to do justice to Hannah’s memory.

I may sound terribly out of touch here, but 13 Reasons Why plays out like most young adult fiction.  There are stock characters:  the evil-rich-kid-who-gets-away-with-everything, the jerk-jock-that-gets-away-with-everything, the ambitious-student-council-girl-who-runs-everything, the gay-artsy-guy-who’s-into-poetry, etc.  There are some differences, the cheerleader gradually develops a conscience and so does the rebel-whose-mom-has-an-abusive-boyfriend.  Many of the characters are raising themselves; their parents are gone for days at a time.  Most of the adults don’t have a clue, although Clay’s mom suspects something is up.  It’s a given that no high schooler will tell an adult anything.  If you’re looking for a timely and frank examination of high school culture, I don’t think this is it.

It’s also important to remember that the events of the series had to be things that push Hannah to take her life.  Some people say and do things that people don’t normally do in order to push the plot to Hannah’s suicide.  The actions of Mr. Porter, the high school counselor, are the best example.  I’m no expert, but those who are say that no counselor would say what Mr. Porter said to Hannah.  But Mr. Porter had to say the wrong thing, otherwise Hannah wouldn’t have killed herself.  No suicide – no story.

There are legitimate concerns about the show’s content.  One is that the show both oversimplifies and glamorizes suicide.  The show depicts Hannah’s suicide in detail.  I’ll address suicide a little later.  I was equally disturbed by the depiction of two rapes, both perpetrated by the same person.  Neither are violent or sexualized, but I found them disturbing because the rapist acts out of a sense of entitlement; he thinks he’s taking what’s his to take.  In the first rape, the victim is passed-out drunk.  In the second, the rapist physically overpowers his victim, who is Hannah.  It’s timely in a day when (1) the President of the United States can brag about grabbing women by their genitals and (2) a Stanford student can sexually assault an unconscious drunk girl and get only three months in jail.  If this series starts a national debate about anything, it should include our attitudes about rape.

I have to agree with my friend Patricia Lund, 13 Reasons Why does a good job dealing with the damage social media can do to your reputation, cyber-bullying, regular bullying, and the average teen’s difficulty in understanding consequences.  But it has little to say about teen suicide.  I’m no better at spotting a suicidal teen now than I was before.

Here’s what I did learn.

The characters don’t want to face the things they’ve done.  This includes Hannah.  Clay is the only one who understands the only way to truly deal with something is to face it squarely.  There are places in the story where Clay discovers that things didn’t happen the way Hannah described them.  Her memories skew toward more hurtful scenarios.  Ultimately we have to accept unpleasant facts about our circumstances.  The 14th Reason Why is that Hannah wouldn’t face her responsibility for her feelings.  The right thing is often the hard thing and avoiding it only makes life harder.

I kept wondering if Clay would kill himself.  Suicides are frequently followed by other suicides.  But while Hannah was pushing people away, isolating herself, Clay has a friend named Tony.  Tony stays up with Clay while Clay listens to Hannah’s tape about him.  Tony guides Clay through the process of listening to the tapes, as painful as they are to Clay.  Hannah pushes people away, Clay accepts the help others offer.

Those are lessons we need to lift up to our teenagers.  The right thing can be the hard thing.  You’re surrounded by people who can help you, if you’ll let them.

But there’s one more lesson:  I knew a lady in my church group who took her own life.  I didn’t know her well, she was more of an acquaintance than a friend, but her death was a shock.  In the weeks that followed, we wondered what we had missed.  Were there clues we should have seen?  Did she reach out to us and we couldn’t see?  I don’t think anyone will ever know the real reasons she killed herself.  Clay ends the show by saying that everyone let Hannah down and everyone could have done something to stop her.  I hope I never deal with a teen suicide, but if I ever do, I will never say that.  Our teenagers deserve better answers (like here) and the tragedy of teen suicide needs a more insightful treatment than 13 Reasons Why.

(Image is “My Nose is Cold” by “Jamelah e.” on Flickr.  CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.  She wasn’t on the show.)

Observations on Youth Ministry, Part 3–Getting the Right Metaphor

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When rebooting a youth program, people want someone who can come in with a lot of charisma and produce programs with such magnetism that no one can resist their attractive force.  During my time in the private sector, I repeatedly encountered managers who thought that bringing in that one software package, that one consultant, or that one productivity initiative was going to solve everything.  The software, the consultants, and the initiatives could not match the expectations, because the managers wanted something that would bring change without effort.  To change an organization, you must change yourself.

When talking about the magnetic pull of programs, someone is bound to say, “If you build it, they will come.” I used to say it.  But I’ve learned that’s only a line from a movie.  The scriptwriters arranged the story so the words would come true.  Good programs are important, but they don’t generate enough magnetic pull on their own.

The key phrase is not “If you build it,” but “critical mass.”  It takes a certain number of people committed to making “it” work.  Here’s where we need to change our thinking: the “it” is secondary to the commitment to do “it”.

I hear food metaphors are the most effective, but we have to use the right one.  We think the metaphor is a restaurant. You have choices, but the chef has to put food he thinks you want on the menu. If you don’t see anything you like, you eat somewhere else. If the chef makes the right choices consistently, people come to the restaurant. The whole thing hinges on the chef making the right offer.  Restaurants may work that way, but not ministries.  Ministries are community meals. I have a kitchen where we can cook together.  Everyone comes together, everyone brings ingredients, and everyone cooks. Together we figure out better ways to cook and together we enjoy eating what we have prepared. We need enough people to bring enough food to make a meal.  We need enough hands to prepare the meal.  Sometimes the simplest meals are feasts when we enjoy them with our friends.  It is more important to commit to come together and eat than it is to have the right menu.

Einstein is supposed to have said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”  Thriving ministries constantly evaluate and adapt.  They embrace what works, abandon what doesn’t, and constantly dig deeper to try to distinguish between what appears to be true and what actually is true.  Getting the right metaphor helps describe the situation, gets everyone thinking the same direction, and secures that common commitment.  I’ll do a common meal with the youth to drive home the point.

(Image is “1407wk7123bur” by “Wiesia” on Flickr.  CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.  I don’t know these kids.)

Observations on Youth Ministry, Part 2 – Not Your Father’s Christianity

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As I talk with my fellow youth directors, I see issues in my ministry inherent to all youth ministries, at least those in suburban, upper-middle-class churches.  What you’re reading is my attempt to work through it.  Your comments and insights are appreciated.

Overwhelmed

The issues are no surprise.  High schoolers are overcommitted, over-scheduled, and over-homeworked.  (It’s a word now.)  Church is one activity among many and it’s one with few consequences attached to it.  If you don’t make practice, you don’t play in the game.  If you don’t make rehearsals, you don’t sing the solo.  You don’t lose much if you miss church.  You’re welcomed back if you haven’t been there in a while.  (We desperately want you to come back.)  High schoolers join certain activities to build a resume for college.  I’m not sure what place church has in that resume.

My parents came up during the 40s and 50s.  The picture they painted for me was that church made for an orderly society.  Good Christians were good citizens, orderly and respectful of authority.  Back in 1993, I heard one of William F. Buckley’s Firing Line debates on the proposition “We have nothing to fear from the Religious Right.”  Buckley’s opening and closing statements were about how orderly our society would be if we followed the principles championed by the Religious Right.  The debate itself never addressed that point.  I heard it from my parents and others, Christianity was valuable enough that if it didn’t exist, it would have to be invented.

If Christianity is such a useful tool that its absence would require its invention, maybe that’s what we did.

Not that we invented Christianity, but we invented the Christianity we practiced.  The Buddhists tell us, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.”  That Buddha would not be the true Buddha, but one’s own idea of what the Buddha should be, an invented Buddha.  One must kill the invented Buddha to find the real one.  What we’re experiencing today may be the consequences of our invented Christianity.  Church ties on the resume are no longer the credentials of the well-mannered ideal citizen.  If the object is to develop an intelligent, socialized, and productive citizen, there are other ways to do it.

So . . . what does that mean for youth ministry?  I’m not entirely sure; I’m blogging to help figure it out.  Here are some random thoughts in no particular order.

Instead of asking how the church can compete, maybe we should ask what it means to think the church must compete.  Our Christian faith should be the eyes we look through to evaluate everything else.  Christianity must speak to the fundamentals of being human, not how to thrive in the social system we invented.  That’s oversimplified, but it’s my starting point.

We need to find a way to get teenagers to step back and look at life at a time when they’re struggling to find a place for themselves.

We need to be clear to ourselves about what we intend to accomplish.  I want my youth to know there is a God who loves and cares for them, who is as close to them as their breath, and who is with them always.  I want them to have ways of getting in touch with the spiritual resources available to them for comfort and for guidance.  I want them to be able to look back on a time when instead of talk about God, there was God.

This is a work in progress, an ongoing conversation and internal debate.  I’d appreciate your comments.

(Image is “Overwhelmed” by Walt Stoneburner on Flickr.  CC BY 2.0.  I haven’t met this young lady.)

Observations on Youth Ministry, Part 1

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I’ve passed the four month mark as a youth director, so I thought I’d share some of what I’ve learned.

I’ve learned the names, grades, and schools.  I’m starting to learn more of the back stories.  I am impressed by the youth and the adult volunteers I’m working with.  I’m thankful to be working with them.  I’m not just saying that.  If I thought otherwise, I wouldn’t write anything.

Youth ministry is like a performance.  A colleague of mine compared it to playing a sport.  You spend the week preparing for the weekend, you put your best plan together, you review and rehearse, and then you execute and hope things go according to plan.  Which may or may not happen.  I’ve had my share of both.

As you might expect, a lot of this job is about relationships.  Those are still a work in progress.  I’m an Air Force brat and I spent most of my childhood moving around.  I developed instincts about being the new guy that served me well when I was in the private sector.  You can’t get too familiar too soon.  You knock on the door, but you have to spend some time waiting on the porch.  People will open the door, but that isn’t an invitation to come inside.  I’ve seen people mistake an open door for an invitation, but that makes the wait longer.  This is not because I’m dealing with youth.  It doesn’t matter if you’re 15 or 55, it’s human nature.  As a youth worker, you have to learn patience and to believe in yourself.  This is why seminary stresses having sources of spiritual support that don’t depend on how the ministry is going.  I have no complaints; I’ve received a very positive reception from everyone.  We still need time to get used to each other.  I think things are on schedule, it just takes time.

I didn’t expect to feel this confident.  You learn in seminary that you must develop good instincts and then trust them.  Seminary professors walk the line between challenging you and telling you to trust yourself.  You challenge yourself because you don’t know everything and you trust yourself because you answered a call from God.  I had to challenge and trust myself back when I was an engineer, but I find it easier now to stand for what I think is best and to listen to other viewpoints.  (That last comment will come back to haunt me).  I try to be respectful in saying what I think, but I do say it.  I find it easier to do than before.

Finally, youth ministry is like selling dog food.  It’s important for the owner to buy it, but the proof of the product is if the dog will eat it.  (Please remember that I’m a dog person.  My dog Watson is a member of the family.)  A lot of parents are glad to see me, and that’s important, but the real proof lies with the youth.  Time will tell.

[Image is my dog Watson.  He tends to get his way when he uses that face.]