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Youth Ministry Educators are Good people

October 25, 2011 in Education, NYWC, Teaching with 2 Comments

Spent 3 days up in Seattle this weekend with friends attending the Association of Youth Ministry Educators Conference.   I know that probably doesn’t sound like a big party but it was great.  I’m biased I know because a bunch of my friends were there and I enjoyed being with them. I also like the format of the conference where someone gives a lecture/paper and there is always a response from someone else. Sort of a mini debate which pushes all of us to think.   If you are in the Youth Ministry world at all you will recognize some of these great folks.  Jeff Keuss, Andy Root, Mike King, Kenda Dean, Mark Matlock, Dave Rahn, Les Christie, Bethany Stolle, Tony Jones, Andrew Zirschky, Jason Santos, Chap Clark, Brad Griffin, Duffy Robbins, Amy Jacober and more.  There were 120+ of us representing pretty much every institution that teaches youth ministry.

I am particular excited about the direction that Youth Ministry Education seems to be going. In my opinion we are seeing 2 trends emerging that are shaping what we do.

1. There is a distinct turn towards a deeper theological reflection.  This seems to be stemming from Princeton Seminary and Luther Seminary and the folks involved there. Kenda Dean and Andy Root’s book The Theological Turn in Youth Ministry. Is a great place to start engaging in that discussion.

2. There is a greater awareness of the need for different disciplines to be engaged in the world of youth ministry.  Chap Clark is one of my mentors and professors from Fuller Seminary.  He along with Kara Powell and Brad Griffin and the Fuller Youth Institute are really pushing the boundaries of this and engaging different disciplines together to dialogue through how to best teach and reach students.  Just go to Amazon and look up Sticky Faith and you’ll get a couple of great resources that show how they are committed to using their research to help shape this discussion.

Another thing that I am particularly stoked about was the way Youth Specialties is working to reengage the academy and some of these theologians. Part of what is happening this year are some of the theological panels and cafes that YS is putting on at the National Youth Workers Conventions. Many of these educators and theologians and academic institutions will be represented there and that’s a great place to engage with these folks.  Mark Matlock the president of YS announced at the event that YS has a new publishing arrangement with Zondervan and that they are committing 20% of the books they publish within that agreement to be from the category YS Academic. This is a great step and will help the academy get it’s resources into the hands of youth workers.

That’s it. Academics can be fun.

Youth Ministry Falsehood #5: You must be theologically trained

August 3, 2011 in Education, Youth Ministry with 8 Comments

I’m pretty much assuming that some of you who read this are going to disagree with me. In fact some of you might actually be frustrated that I called out your education and reliance on words than end in -ology.   But here it goes.

First, just a reminder. In general I like to first point fingers at myself with this blog.  I tend to write about things I’m wrestling with and if there is ever a bad example needed I can usually find one from my own ineptitude and life.

Let me also say to those of you who don’t know me well I went to school for a long time.  I have both an M.Div and a D.Min and the loans to prove it.  I am not saying that education isn’t important I just think there are other starting places that are perhaps even more helpful in youth ministry.

So here it goes.

I was a better youth pastor before I got educated.   What I mean by that is I was less focused on the “why” and the “how” and more on just the “do” of youth ministry.   In many incidents my education has created a whole additional wall between myself and the students.  I find myself sitting in an office thinking strategy, spending hours making sure I get the subtle greek nuances correct and over analyzing results to reveal necessary changes.  (ok the greek part is a lie but you get my point) :)    I read a ton of books about the “how” of youth ministry. I write articles, books, blogs and talk to a lot of friends about youth ministry.

But somewhere in all of that I forget to actually “do” youth ministry. 

Here’s the problem as I see it. Because I’ve spent so much time being theologically trained I feel a certain need to make sure that I approach everything from that perspective to somehow justify that education and prove to people it’s relevance.

But the reality is most students don’t care.  They just want to know that I love them and that I want to be with them.  They don’t care about Greek or Hebrew or eschatology (except 7th grade boys who think the book of Revelation is the best thing ever.) Sometimes our over intellectualizing and need to justify our own education by teaching systematic theology to 5th graders is killing our ministries and over intellectualizing their faith.

Maybe this will make my point better.  If you’ve ever seen the tv show “House” you know that the main character is a pretty smart doctor but he’s also a pretty big jerk.  Somewhere along the line he managed to pick up some pretty amazing knowledge about doctoring but he missed out on the part where you translate that knowledge into actually being a doctor that cares about people.

What I’m trying to encourage here is people who are in hiring processes to be reminded that just having an M.Div or a Youth Ministry degree or some other higher education degree doesn’t really qualify you to work with students.  It’s got to be more than that. We have to create space in our youth ministries for people who have other training and background to feel valuable in their contributions to the ministry.

We are starting to exclude amazing people from our youth ministries because we are placing such a high starting point on youth workers to have a theological degree or education.

Let me finish this slight rant by saying this.  I purposefully chose the title of this blog to say that I don’t think Theological “training” is the most important thing. But, I do believe that being Theologically “Driven” is important.  I think that can come when you are in the job not as a prerequisite to getting one.

I want my staff to care deeply about theology and to want to grow and to evaluate all we do based on it.   I’m hoping that there are a ton of you who decide to go to the Theological Forums at the National Youth Workers Conventions this fall.  I hope many of you read books by Kenda Deen and Andy Root. Subscribe to Immerse Journal to read great things by authors who will encourage you to think deeper.   I’m hoping that you ask deep questions about the “why” of all that you do you in ministry.  I just don’t want you to get sucked into the lie that it’s only when you have some sort of degree that you will be a more respected youth worker.

Care about Theology just don’t get sucked into the lie that it is only when you “get it” that you will be a better youth worker.

Youth Ministry Falsehoods.

  1. You must be with students 24/7
  2. You must be young
  3. You must be single/married
  4. You must be irresponsible and fly by the Seat of your Pants
  5. You must be theologically trained
  6. You must be an extrovert
  7. You must a great upfront communicator
  8. You must be wild and crazy and a kid magnet
  9. You must be willing to be poor
  10. You must want to be a “real” pastor some day

Feeling so fly like a Cheese Stick like a Cheese Stick.

October 28, 2010 in Education, Jesus, Teaching, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

Images
I was reminded the other day that it only takes a slight variance in something for it to take on a totally different meaning.  I was in the car with my five year old daughter and the song "Like a G6" came on by Far East Movement.    I'd heard the song a few times before and on our local blog the Park Cities People had a short post on it a while back.  So I decided to listen.   About half way through the first hook I heard my daughter from the back seat say "Hey, I have a Cheese Stick"  and she held it up.    I started laughing because her simple statement made the song have a totally different meaning.  Later I tweeted it out and I've had a ton of friends text me when they heard the Cheese Stick song.  

Here's the lyrics for the hook.  

Poppin bottles in the ice, like a blizzard
When we drink we do it right gettin slizzard
Sippin sizzurp in my ride, like Three 6
Now I’m feelin so fly like a G6
Like a G6, Like a G6
Now I’m feelin so fly like a G6

So here's my short thought on this.  A couple weeks ago I heard Steve Argue teach an amazing seminar on "Content and Context."  He has set up the leadership model of his youth ministry to divide job descriptions up in this way.  On my own team we are doing it similar this year too. We've got an amazing content creator guy named Austin Ariail.  He's a DTS grad who lives and breathes content.  He provides us with resources that we then have to put int he right "context" for the students in the individual ministries to hear. 

The problem arrises though when we "miss it" by even just a little bit.  If the content is off just a bit or the person doing the contextualization errors by just a little then we have the possibility of teaching something that is heard in a vastly different way.   It seems pretty clear to me that Western Christianity and the modern church is teaching a vastly different version of the Gospel than it was probably originally taught.   We have the results to prove it that students are leaving their faith in huge numbers when they get to college.  

I'm not going to tell you what a G6 is.  You can Google it and figure it out.  I will only say that it is about as far from a "cheese stick" as it could be.   I'm not going to tell you what your students are learning about Jesus at your youth ministry.  I will only pray that the divide between the real Jesus and the perceived Jesus by all our students is not such great a divide. 

 

Youth Ministry/Chaplaincy: an intersection of hope and grief

June 8, 2010 in Education, Highland Park Presbyterian Church, Youth Ministry with 4 Comments

The last few months I've been catching a bit of crap from people for blogging more about work at the hospital more than my job as a youth pastor.  At first I was frustrated about that a bit but then I just owned the fact that I tend to write about the areas in my life that I'm growing the most.  This 400 hours of hospital Clinical Pastoral Education has been the biggest growth area for me this spring and I now vow to write about it without feeling any guilt. 

At the same time I am a Youth Pastor and it is what God has called me to be.  I love youth ministry and building something that will ultimately draw students towards a long term life of discipleship with Jesus and hopefully a desire in them to "go" and make disciples.

This spring has been pretty rough combining these two things.  The hospital eats up a lot of time and this was a season that the Youth Ministry had some great needs.  I'm very thankful that I will be finishing Chaplaincy in 10 days and will be able to fully focus energy back on the Youth Ministry side of my life. 

The last week though there has been some great intersections between Youth Ministry and Chaplaincy. Here's two quick stories:

Last week I had a chance to sit with a mother and her 16 year old son.  He'd been accidentally shot and had been in the hospital for about a month.  When I went into the room I was immediately struck by how the mother and son were interacting.  They were finishing each others sentences, telling me stories together and really seemed to be enjoying each other.  My interaction with them was great and I remember thinking "I wonder what it is about this tragedy that has brought them together so close?"   It was a really rewarding time and I saw in them the way a major difficult situation can bring the family together. I've thought a lot since my time with them about how this experience will forever shape them as a family and I wonder how much "better" their relationships will be because of this.  

Tonight I had a much different experience.  I had to be with a family when they found out that their 16 year old son was officially brain dead.  He had drowned in a pool.  This situation was incredibly difficult and I  just sat with the family for a while without saying anything except "I'm sorry, " There just wasn't anything needed to be said during this time of grief.  The mother  has had her future story with her son altered forever.  The "what if's" will now always remain just that.  My interaction with this family was still as a youth pastor but it was vastly different because in this situation hope was gone.  

We talk a lot about future stories both in chaplaincy and in youth ministry.  Most people that I spend time with in the hospital have had their future story radical altered instantly.  

What I'm learning at the intersection between my two lives right now is that the "Present" is the only reality that really makes sense.  Focusing too much on a future of possibilities that can change instantly only brings disappointment. 

I've learned a ton about myself. About how I deal with grief and how I can be a more "present" person in the ministry that I lead.  I'm praying for the next 10 days where I will be working a total of 48 hours at the hospital.  We're also kicking off a summer service program tomorrow at church and taking a ton of kids to a baseball game tomorrow night.  I'm hoping that this is a great and rewarding 10 days of being present wherever I am. 

SoberVirgins: I just got punked

June 5, 2010 in Books, Education, Youth Ministry with 3 Comments

  Sobervirgins
 In my last post I mentioned how I got to spend some great time for a few days talking about how youth workers can be trained better and what primary research has been done that we need to find ways of getting into their hands.   There were some pretty amazing people there and quite a few of them are pretty sharp.  This has been a three year project that I've been pretty lucky to be a part of.  Two of the guys are good friends and also PhD candidates in Practical Theology at Princeton Seminary.   

I told them about an idea I had for a book dealing with Youth Ministry and specifically from a Youth Pastors perspective what it is I feel like parents want me to do.  The book Title is "SoberVirgins" which often times is what I feel parents care about when sending their kids to youth group. If their kids can just somehow graduate from High School with those two words still defining who they are then they feel like the "church" has done it's job. 

Anyways my two "friends" bought the domain name and created a fake book cover giving themselves the authorship of the book and me the "forward".  I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard but at the same time I was also realizing that this project might have some legs to it.  It is something that all 3 of us are really passionate about and something that we are uniquely positioned to talk about.  

So to my friends. Jason Santos and Andrew Zirschky good punk and I'm looking forward to making this project a reality.  

Youth Ministry Training: dreaming and scheming

June 4, 2010 in Education, Teaching, Youth Ministry with 4 Comments

Sitting in a room with some great people working on a Youth Ministry Training module aimed at providing theological reflection and education for youth workers.  

CYMT (Center for Youth Ministry Training) has organized this for the last three years and it's good.  Hopefully after three years we have worked out the kinks and are putting things into place that will be useful for youth workers.  

We've been kicking around how this looks for a while now and have finally landed with a model that might be most helpful.

I should probably state the place I start in all of this is that we don't do enough reflection time in the midst of training.  I love the conferences I get to go to but I generally come home from most conference tired and with a bag of resources that ends up in a corner of my office for too long.

I'm wondering how many people feel the same way as I do.

1. Do you buy books and resources that you don't read?

2. Do you wish you had more time to reflect during or after a conference?

I'm hoping to hear from some of my youth ministry friends about what they think they, their volunteers and the youth ministry world as a whole need. 

Chaplaincy: The second half

April 21, 2010 in Education, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

I'm more than 1/2 way done with my Clinical Pastoral Education.  It's been a pretty grueling time working a full-time job as well as being at the hospital 20 hours a week.  I had a few trips in the middle of it which helped but now I have to make up those hours.  But, overall I've learned a ton.

Here's a couple things I have learned that apply well to Youth Ministry:

1. Hospital: More often my words get in the way of what I really need to do which is sit with people and enter into their pain with them.  It's the "Place Sharing" that Andy Root talks about so much. 

Youth Ministry: In the Youth Ministry world I have to recognize that my best ministry to students can be in this space where I am just with them without any programs.

2. Hospital: I don't always have to know what I'm doing to be a chaplain.  It would be helpful if I knew exactly how to do all things in the hospital but it just isn't realistic.  Every day I work I end up doing something I've never done before.  I just pray a lot and recognize that God is using me and I'm ok with my limited knowledge of all things. 

Youth Ministry: In the Youth Ministry world I have a hard time admitting when I don't know what to do but I think I'm willing to do that more now.

3. Hospital: Sometimes I have long chunks of time with people and sometimes only a few hours.  There have been a few times when I thought I was going to see a patient the next day so I held back from some of what I was going to talk to them about and the next day they've been sent home or worse they have died. 

Youth Ministry: In the Youth Ministry world we sometimes get a long period of time with students but often it's a pretty short interaction.  I want to treat all times as special and important.  

4. Hospital: We have a bunch of different chaplains in the hospital and none are the same.  I am finding that who the chaplain is really isn't as important as the heart the chaplain has.

Youth Ministry: Same deal.  You can be young, old, cool, nerdy.  The external characteristics of the youth worker are way less important than the heart. 

I'm sure that there is a ton more that I'll keep learning in the next bunch of weeks.  But, that's it for now. 

What seminary class would you want to take?

April 12, 2010 in Education with 4 Comments

I was recently asked to submit a proposal to teach two online seminary classes.   Not a surprise they want me to focus on Youth Ministry.  I generally think that a ton of the skills you learn in the Student Ministry world translate pretty well into the rest of the church so I’m trying to broaden the potential scope of at least one of the classes.

Here’s where I could use some help.  The class that I think could have the greatest reach outside of the youth Ministry world is the class I want to call “Technology in the Church: the changing world and how we interact with it.”  I want this class to be more than just a Facebook primer though.  You can help me by giving me some things you would want to learn in a class like this and what types of books and learning outcomes you would most be interested in.  I’m specifically looking for project ideas and what books you have read that might fit.

I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m asking you to plan this class.  My teaching style is all about practical theology and real world help and solutions.  Because of that I don’t want to rely on just myself to come up with ideas.  I could put this together but it might not have the greatest reach that I’m hoping.

The second class I’m kicking around is a more basic Youth Ministry: Leadership type class. In this one I’m hoping my experience as a youth pastor at several churches as well as my network of friends and other youth workers will give me huge resources to draw on to provide multiple models and ideas to help youth workers develop their leadership style.  I’m hoping to do quite a bit with some gift assessment resources that help the youth worker develop a model of ministry that both fits their personality and gifts as well as meets the need of their church.  This might be one of those classes that you take where you realize that your gifts are really suited for the model your church has and something might need to change.

There you have it.  Professor Rood and his ideas.  Tear them apart or give me some better ones.  I’m interested in helping the youth ministry world and this is a great opportunity for that to happen.

Hospital Chaplaincy difficulties today.

March 26, 2010 in Education, Who I am..., Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

Today was a tough day at the hospital.  I found it very hard to engage and to make the first steps to getting to be with people.  Fridays are generally tough days as I don't have a specific bunch of things to do.   I'm pretty good on days when I'm holding a trauma pager or even the house pager because then I get "called" to come and do something. 

But Fridays I'm generally on my own and what I'm supposed to do is just go up to my floor and knock on doors.  As an introvert that's just about the most difficult thing for me to do in my life. 

I'm working on strategy to make sure this doesn't happen again next Friday.  Here's a few things I'm going to try. If anyone has any other advice I'd love to hear it.  If any of you have done a chaplaincy I could use some encouragement too. 

1. Be prepared by praying and mentally engaging before going to the hospital.  

2. When arriving at the hospital after I print out my floor sheets head straight up and knock on the first door on my list.  This will force me to get involved right away without going and talking to Doctors or nurses first.

3. Pick one wing of my floor and just work my way down knocking on doors and talking to every patient.  If I don't give myself any options I'll probably be better off. 

4. Give myself some grace to take breaks throughout the shift and re energize. 

Enter into the Starchamber

March 22, 2010 in Education, Teaching, Who I am... with 2 Comments

I think that everyone needs a Star chamber. I spent three hours last night in the one that Len Sweet calls his study. It is a beautiful place.  Small, filled with books, chairs, cigar smoke and stories.  It's a place where ideas are discussed and sometimes destroyed.  The right people were there last night and the opportunity for learning was huge.   I'm not ready to talk about all that we discussed but I will say that the pedagogy of learning that Len promotes is something that needs to be spread to more people.

I need a place in Dallas where ideas about theology, the church and leadership can be dissected, ruminated on and accepted or destroyed. 

I'll also say that the cadre of learning last night was huge.  Thank you George Fox Seminary for bringing together such an amazing group.  It was rich because of your commitment.

Anyone near Dallas want to talk about this kind of stuff let me know. 

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