Recently I’ve been thinking more and more about the world that our children and teenagers are growing up in. On Saturday morning I came downstairs to make breakfast and saw my 10 year old son was Skyping with one of his good friends who lives in Turkey where his parents are missionaries. My son and his friend haven’t seen each other since last summer but they maintain a pretty close relationships via the digital world. I loved listening to them interact and talk about their “worlds” which couldn’t be any more different in “reality” but I guess their digital worlds are actually pretty similar.
As the digital world has flattened the real world and made connections so much easier I think most of us would probably agree that we have actually lost something in all of this. I’m sure someone way more critical than me might argue that we’ve lost our sense of reality but I’m not willing to go there yet. I think reality has shifted in a way that many of us parents are trying to keep up with but I still think most of us can recognize the difference between the two. But, it is getting harder.
Last night I was hanging out with a few staff guys and they both asked about the trampoline I had set up yesterday for my kids. Of course they knew that I had done it because of my update to Twitter. I turned to one of them and was going to tell him about it and he jokingly said “I don’t need real time updates twitter is fine.” He was kidding but I wonder how much of that is starting to become even more true. With the spread of social media and ways of connecting we start having an “ambient awareness” of what’s going on int he lives of those we connect with that way so that we may feel like we “know” what’s going on with them from the things we see they say on the web.
But, isn’t this sort of like listening to a “sound bite” from a politician and feeling like you know what they stand for?
So here’s what I contest. I think now more than ever our students need face time. They need opportunities to connect with each other in the non digital world and to engage with each other in that way. I know people who read blogs like lists so here’s 5 points:
1. Real World connections are not passive like the digital world can be- In the digital world I can reply and connect when I want to when I feel like it. In the real world I’m forced to interact with others and can’t hide behind my screen. Students need to get out of the “comfort zone” and be challenged. The Digital world right now breeds the comfort zone.
2. The real world doesn’t have neat categories- If I stay in my digital world I can find people to interact with who are just like me. Some of that is good because I can find a place I’m comfortable but I need to be exposed to other people. Teenagers need to have opportunities to interact with other groups and people and see how they fit.
3. Face Time comes with space- Staying in the digital world allows you to be constantly engaged. You can jump from one site to the other or one game or social media platform. It can be exhausting. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve attempted to take a nap before but had my iphone next to me and found myself 1/2 hour into my “relaxation” only to find I’d been online the whole time. Face Time brings space. What I mean by that is that when we take teenagers on trips and get them away from the web they will often times find that they don’t know what to do. They don’t have a device to fill all their time so they find they have extra time to fill. Having “space” is good for teenagers because it forces them to create and engage with others.
4. The digital World can’t compete (yet)- Over the years I’ve taken students just about all over the world. From touring Auschwitz with a combined team of German, American and Polish students to wandering through skid row of San Francisco to climbing over ruins in Cambodia and walking where Jesus walked in Jerusalem. These experiences are immensely powerful and are best done with others. Yes you can experience some of the senses of those trips online but only through a few senses, mainly visual and auditory. Real World experience with others and involving all the senses is so important for teenagers to actively engage and interpret.
5. Real connection is more than just passing information- Much of what are students are learning in the digital world is how to pass information around. They have mastered the art of short text and “status” updates. In many cases this is a great thing. I’ve actually had more rewarding conversations with students via social media than in the real world. I’ll pick on a group here and say that often in the real world a 7th grade boy will just say his day was “fine” but in the digital realm he may be way more open and talk about how he’s really feeling. But, while that is a great thing for social media it also is training students that information passing is the key to relationships. I think in this way digital kids need face time in order to be shown that relationship is so much more. Sometimes just doing something with someone without verbal communication is key.
We are in the midst of graduation season here in Texas. I’m putting together a big slide show for our senior class. Parents and students have sent in 100′s of photos of them “interacting” with each other. Most of these pictures show them smiling and engaged in some sort of activity together. I haven’t gotten a single picture yet of a student sitting in front of their computer or with an iphone in hand interacting with their digital friends. Maybe I will someday but what I’m seeing in all these pictures is that there is still a high value placed on Face Time and while we interact with people more and more via the web we have not yet given up on the real world.
But, I think in the Youth Ministry world we need to continue to push families and students to recognize that Face Time is valuable. I think it’s only going to get harder.
And dear apple computer. I’m glad you call your video chatting program Face Time. But, it’s just not the same.
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Recently I’ve been thinking more and more about the world that our children and teenagers are growing up in. On Saturday morning I came downstairs to make breakfast and saw my 10 year old son was Skyping with one of his good friends who lives in Turkey where his parents are missionaries. My son and his friend haven’t seen each other since last summer but they maintain a pretty close relationships via the digital world. I loved listening to them interact and talk about their “worlds” which couldn’t be any more different in “reality” but I guess their digital worlds are actually pretty similar.
As the digital world has flattened the real world and made connections so much easier I think most of us would probably agree that we have actually lost something in all of this. I’m sure someone way more critical than me might argue that we’ve lost our sense of reality but I’m not willing to go there yet. I think reality has shifted in a way that many of us parents are trying to keep up with but I still think most of us can recognize the difference between the two. But, it is getting harder.
Last night I was hanging out with a few staff guys and they both asked about the trampoline I had set up yesterday for my kids. Of course they knew that I had done it because of my update to Twitter. I turned to one of them and was going to tell him about it and he jokingly said “I don’t need real time updates twitter is fine.” He was kidding but I wonder how much of that is starting to become even more true. With the spread of social media and ways of connecting we start having an “ambient awareness” of what’s going on int he lives of those we connect with that way so that we may feel like we “know” what’s going on with them from the things we see they say on the web.
But, isn’t this sort of like listening to a “sound bite” from a politician and feeling like you know what they stand for?
So here’s what I contest. I think now more than ever our students need face time. They need opportunities to connect with each other in the non digital world and to engage with each other in that way. I know people who read blogs like lists so here’s 5 points:
1. Real World connections are not passive like the digital world can be- In the digital world I can reply and connect when I want to when I feel like it. In the real world I’m forced to interact with others and can’t hide behind my screen. Students need to get out of the “comfort zone” and be challenged. The Digital world right now breeds the comfort zone.
2. The real world doesn’t have neat categories- If I stay in my digital world I can find people to interact with who are just like me. Some of that is good because I can find a place I’m comfortable but I need to be exposed to other people. Teenagers need to have opportunities to interact with other groups and people and see how they fit.
3. Face Time comes with space- Staying in the digital world allows you to be constantly engaged. You can jump from one site to the other or one game or social media platform. It can be exhausting. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve attempted to take a nap before but had my iphone next to me and found myself 1/2 hour into my “relaxation” only to find I’d been online the whole time. Face Time brings space. What I mean by that is that when we take teenagers on trips and get them away from the web they will often times find that they don’t know what to do. They don’t have a device to fill all their time so they find they have extra time to fill. Having “space” is good for teenagers because it forces them to create and engage with others.
4. The digital World can’t compete (yet)- Over the years I’ve taken students just about all over the world. From touring Auschwitz with a combined team of German, American and Polish students to wandering through skid row of San Francisco to climbing over ruins in Cambodia and walking where Jesus walked in Jerusalem. These experiences are immensely powerful and are best done with others. Yes you can experience some of the senses of those trips online but only through a few senses, mainly visual and auditory. Real World experience with others and involving all the senses is so important for teenagers to actively engage and interpret.
5. Real connection is more than just passing information- Much of what are students are learning in the digital world is how to pass information around. They have mastered the art of short text and “status” updates. In many cases this is a great thing. I’ve actually had more rewarding conversations with students via social media than in the real world. I’ll pick on a group here and say that often in the real world a 7th grade boy will just say his day was “fine” but in the digital realm he may be way more open and talk about how he’s really feeling. But, while that is a great thing for social media it also is training students that information passing is the key to relationships. I think in this way digital kids need face time in order to be shown that relationship is so much more. Sometimes just doing something with someone without verbal communication is key.
We are in the midst of graduation season here in Texas. I’m putting together a big slide show for our senior class. Parents and students have sent in 100′s of photos of them “interacting” with each other. Most of these pictures show them smiling and engaged in some sort of activity together. I haven’t gotten a single picture yet of a student sitting in front of their computer or with an iphone in hand interacting with their digital friends. Maybe I will someday but what I’m seeing in all these pictures is that there is still a high value placed on Face Time and while we interact with people more and more via the web we have not yet given up on the real world.
But, I think in the Youth Ministry world we need to continue to push families and students to recognize that Face Time is valuable. I think it’s only going to get harder.
And dear apple computer. I’m glad you call your video chatting program Face Time. But, it’s just not the same.
This last Sunday at my church Rhett Smith taught a class on Anxiety for parents. Rhett is in the process of writing a book on this and he’s pretty sharp so every time he talks I end up going home and thinking about it for hours. In this case he was talking about how so much of the anxiety in students comes from the parents. His point was that parents “over expectations” or “pressure” was causing huge damage to their students. There were a number of examples given by parents many of who’m “got it” but clearly a few who “didn’t.” I live in a city with highly motivated driven people. I think the % of students who graduate from high school and head directly to college is about 98% Because of this there seems to be an almost daily discussion about how students need to “better there resume” and “be involved in more things” so that they look good for college recruiters.
Here’s 3 examples of what I see all the time:
1. Boys and girls who play a sport year round and can’t do anything else because of it. If they are not in school season they are in club or select season or they are training for one of those. They spend all their time doing this sport and it becomes their identity. Often they are pushed to do this by the parents who like the identity of being able to say that there student is a “star”. In some instances it’s not the parents who are pushing the students but they are doing something equally wrong which is not helping students learn healthy boundaries and space. In my own family we made the decision with our son this spring to have him not play lacrosse. We wanted him to try another sport and he was really excited so he starts baseball next week. (to be clear if he didn’t want to play a sport at all we wouldn’t push him) We feel like it’s our job right now to give him exposure to different things so he can see what he enjoys. What I see as a problem here is that these students who do gymnastics 20 hours a week or baseball all year long are really missing out on a lot of other opportunities because they are so scheduled and there is “pressure” to continue.
2. I talked to a student this last week and asked what they were doing this summer. They replied that that were studying for the SAT all summer. I asked how many times they’d already taken it and they said 2 and that they had taken the ACT 1 time also. Then that student said “I have to get into {unamed} college because it’s what’s expected. My parents went there and my grandparents went there. This is a student who is amazing and has a great heart for service but hasn’t been able to be involved in our HS ministry because of all the pressure.
3. I actually heard a parent say this week that if your son/daughter doesn’t start something at the elementary age they will never be successful at the High school age. I’m pretty sure this person was talking about playing an instrument but they were applying it to everything. Sadly this mentality has created a really tough world for many parents who have bought into it and have private coaches for their first graders.
I love parents and work with some pretty amazing ones who are doing a great job with their teenagers. I could give example after example of parents who are doing a great job. But with that said it’s always amazing to me how in almost every meeting with parents we talk about the issue of “Peer” pressure and what they are worried about their students being exposed to but we never talk about “Parental” pressure.
Here’s 3 steps to opening up the door with parents to talk about this:
1. Never get an “us vs. them” mentality going. This was a great reminder yesterday in my staff meeting that our job will always be to partner with parents. Start there. Partnering with parents can look as simple as just getting to know them. Have small groups meet in their homes. Talk to them when they drop off or pick up their students. Invite them on trips.
2. Have trained therapists/counselors come in and speak. What I love about Rhett is that he speaks straight forward to the parents and doesn’t hold back or sugar coat things. We do a once a month Sunday morning parenting class and he leads all of them. I’m always in the room to add in my thoughts and opinions but Rhett is the leader. He also does one on one counseling with students and meets with families to talk about these issues.
3. Address the hidden issue. In almost all of these parental pressure situations there are issues that parents are projecting on their students. Most parents don’t even recognize they are doing it. We started out being a little sneaky having parents come to a “parenting” class that really was a “marriage” class but now we’re not even being sneaky. This last weekend we told parents that in most situations where there kids were feeling overly anxious it was there fault. (that raised a few eyebrows) Not all parents agreed but that’s ok.
4. Disciple Parents. Yes even if you are 25 you can figure out ways to disciple parents. Chances are you won’t do it but maybe your church has a mens or women’s ministry and you can speak with the leaders of those groups and give them your perspective on some areas you think your parents need to hear. You probably work more closely and know more parents than most people in your church. Use that knowledge and relationship to give you parents help. I’ve said this here a few times and I can get away with it since I’m a parent. I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time as a parent and I’m pretty convinced other don’t either. We all need help.
So there you go. If you are a parent and reading this know that we love you and want to partner with you and that sometimes you are putting too much pressure on your teenagers and it is really hurting them. Let us help you because it’s what we love to do. I live in both worlds as a parent and a youth pastor. I don’t have either one figured out and I hope when you read this you know that I’m pointing fingers at myself in all of this. I am fortunate to have some amazing examples of parents who do this right and I can only say that I’ve fumbled around for quite a while and have landed on a few things that I think will help.
I’ve been wrestling with this for a while but unsure of how to best get my point across without sounding like a jerk. But, as summer is getting closer and missions trip training and preparation is happening in many places I thought I’d take a stab at this.
I’ve been a youth worker of some sort for over 20 years. In the majority of those years I’ve done some sort of cross cultural missions experience with students. In most of those situations it’s almost always been us going somewhere that a different culture of people need help and my youth groups which have always tended to be filled with white kids “take care of them.”
A major problem I see happening is that our students associate particular people groups and races as always needing help. They classify them as needy and it doesn’t matter where they see them they can’t shake it. This is incredibly unfair and unjust to many people who are actually doing really well but get lumped into the same groups in our students minds.
I always cringe when I feel like the “great white hope” has come into any place and we believe we are making a significant contribution. Sometimes we are but at what cost for that community.
So how do we break this cycle?
Here’s a couple thoughts. Some I’ve done, some that I haven’t.
1. If your church is in an area that draws from one particular ethnic group you’ve got to find some healthy ways of exposure. You can do this by partnering with other more diverse youth groups to do anything from a fun activity to an actual missions project.
2. Before going to a place where your students will be exposed to a particular group and needs make sure to talk about the issues that have made those needs so great and focus on the macro issues affect more than just that group. I realize this sentence was probably not written well so here’s what I mean. If you are going to Haiti you can talk about the history of Haiti and the way that the “system” has made it so difficult for people to break free from the bad cycle. But, then apply that same concept to where you currently live and talk about how there are “systems” here in the US that cause the same problems for people.
3. Do all you can to separate race from need. Similar to #2 above you have to make sure your students understand that there are not any characteristics in any particular people group that cause these things to happen to them. Injustice and systemic problems affect everyone the same way.
4. Have your students do research on people from particular locations where you will be doing work and learn about people who are doing ok. The key here is balance. If you only ever exposure your students to the negative side of any particular area that’s what they will think the whole area is defined by.
Just some simple thoughts by me. I’d love to know what you think.
So this last weekend I was in a pretty isolated place on Orcas Island in the state of Washington. I was there as part of the Post Doctoral work I get to do with George Fox Seminary as a part of their “Future Church Think Tank” During one of our conversations someone made the statement that it should be our goal as Christians to not “isolate” our students but instead to “Insulate” them. That same person shared that the way they did that was to prepare their students from the “inside Out” I’ve been thinking about that statement for the last few days and it really resonated with me last night. I was lying in bed with my oldest son Soren and we were having a good talk about life. (he’s 10) We had just gotten back from an event at church where we got to listen to a guy who plays in the NFL share his faith. Soren told me that he really enjoyed the night and loved that guy had grown up in a Christian Home but didn’t know what God was going to do with him. But he was faithful and God revealed it. He said he liked that Daniel didn’t know what God was doing but that he fully listened and God showed up.
What does this mean? It means that my goal as a youth pastor and father is not to isolate my students from the world. Isolation in my mind is a separate world where no one has any contact with the other. Insulation though is different it’s what I have a ton of in my attic that separates our bedroom from the really hot Texas summer heat. We “insulate” our students when we give them skills to know how to best respond to the crazy stuff they see in the world. It’s what we do when we teach parenting seminars and attempt to prepare parents to talk to their students about what they will be exposed too. Insulation is a much better paradigm to promote as a Youth pastor because it says we are “in” but we are not “of” the world.
Do I have anything figured out? No. But I am convinced that God has gifted me in the area of discernment. I love it that I have the opportunity to think through this with you. Tell me what you think.
Digital kids need face time
Recently I’ve been thinking more and more about the world that our children and teenagers are growing up in. On Saturday morning I came downstairs to make breakfast and saw my 10 year old son was Skyping with one of his good friends who lives in Turkey where his parents are missionaries. My son and his friend haven’t seen each other since last summer but they maintain a pretty close relationships via the digital world. I loved listening to them interact and talk about their “worlds” which couldn’t be any more different in “reality” but I guess their digital worlds are actually pretty similar.
As the digital world has flattened the real world and made connections so much easier I think most of us would probably agree that we have actually lost something in all of this. I’m sure someone way more critical than me might argue that we’ve lost our sense of reality but I’m not willing to go there yet. I think reality has shifted in a way that many of us parents are trying to keep up with but I still think most of us can recognize the difference between the two. But, it is getting harder.
Last night I was hanging out with a few staff guys and they both asked about the trampoline I had set up yesterday for my kids. Of course they knew that I had done it because of my update to Twitter. I turned to one of them and was going to tell him about it and he jokingly said “I don’t need real time updates twitter is fine.” He was kidding but I wonder how much of that is starting to become even more true. With the spread of social media and ways of connecting we start having an “ambient awareness” of what’s going on int he lives of those we connect with that way so that we may feel like we “know” what’s going on with them from the things we see they say on the web.
But, isn’t this sort of like listening to a “sound bite” from a politician and feeling like you know what they stand for?
So here’s what I contest. I think now more than ever our students need face time. They need opportunities to connect with each other in the non digital world and to engage with each other in that way. I know people who read blogs like lists so here’s 5 points:
1. Real World connections are not passive like the digital world can be- In the digital world I can reply and connect when I want to when I feel like it. In the real world I’m forced to interact with others and can’t hide behind my screen. Students need to get out of the “comfort zone” and be challenged. The Digital world right now breeds the comfort zone.
2. The real world doesn’t have neat categories- If I stay in my digital world I can find people to interact with who are just like me. Some of that is good because I can find a place I’m comfortable but I need to be exposed to other people. Teenagers need to have opportunities to interact with other groups and people and see how they fit.
3. Face Time comes with space- Staying in the digital world allows you to be constantly engaged. You can jump from one site to the other or one game or social media platform. It can be exhausting. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve attempted to take a nap before but had my iphone next to me and found myself 1/2 hour into my “relaxation” only to find I’d been online the whole time. Face Time brings space. What I mean by that is that when we take teenagers on trips and get them away from the web they will often times find that they don’t know what to do. They don’t have a device to fill all their time so they find they have extra time to fill. Having “space” is good for teenagers because it forces them to create and engage with others.
4. The digital World can’t compete (yet)- Over the years I’ve taken students just about all over the world. From touring Auschwitz with a combined team of German, American and Polish students to wandering through skid row of San Francisco to climbing over ruins in Cambodia and walking where Jesus walked in Jerusalem. These experiences are immensely powerful and are best done with others. Yes you can experience some of the senses of those trips online but only through a few senses, mainly visual and auditory. Real World experience with others and involving all the senses is so important for teenagers to actively engage and interpret.
5. Real connection is more than just passing information- Much of what are students are learning in the digital world is how to pass information around. They have mastered the art of short text and “status” updates. In many cases this is a great thing. I’ve actually had more rewarding conversations with students via social media than in the real world. I’ll pick on a group here and say that often in the real world a 7th grade boy will just say his day was “fine” but in the digital realm he may be way more open and talk about how he’s really feeling. But, while that is a great thing for social media it also is training students that information passing is the key to relationships. I think in this way digital kids need face time in order to be shown that relationship is so much more. Sometimes just doing something with someone without verbal communication is key.
We are in the midst of graduation season here in Texas. I’m putting together a big slide show for our senior class. Parents and students have sent in 100′s of photos of them “interacting” with each other. Most of these pictures show them smiling and engaged in some sort of activity together. I haven’t gotten a single picture yet of a student sitting in front of their computer or with an iphone in hand interacting with their digital friends. Maybe I will someday but what I’m seeing in all these pictures is that there is still a high value placed on Face Time and while we interact with people more and more via the web we have not yet given up on the real world.
But, I think in the Youth Ministry world we need to continue to push families and students to recognize that Face Time is valuable. I think it’s only going to get harder.
And dear apple computer. I’m glad you call your video chatting program Face Time. But, it’s just not the same. There is no augmentation without an amputation. -McLuhan
A few weeks back I was in the midst of a discussion where someone who I respect greatly tossed out this quote. We were in the midst of a relatively basic conversation about the future of the Western Church. He said it then and it struck me as something that we don’t really talk about too much within the church. I’m sure that many of us who are involved in Church ministry all have some sort of program, event, ministry that we would love to kill but we don’t feel like we can without upsetting a ton of people. But, I think too that the reality is that many of us can’t do anything new at all because of all the energy we are expanding keeping the past decisions afloat.
I am a huge fan of Marshall McLuhan and think he was a brilliant thinker and futurist who completely understood how much things would radically change. He is in my estimation still further out than most churches even though he passed away back in 1980.
So how does this fit in youth ministry?
1. Have your really dreamed much about how things could work if you could start from scratch in your church, community and ministry? If you had full freedom to begin again what things would be essential and what things that you are currently doing would you want to cut out.
2. What things are you currently doing that you believe have served their purpose and now only exist to prop up memories? Maybe now is the time for an amputation.
3. Most amputations are done when things are unhealthy but occasionally they are done when there is the “potential” that something may become unhealthy. Are there areas in your ministry that have the potential to become unhealthy and would a little trimming now stop you from a full amputation later?
I’ve never been afraid of change. The opposite is probably more true. I embrace change especially when it makes sense. One thing that is helpful in this is that people have confirmed in me that they think I have the gift of discernment. I often am able to perceive the necessary changes and steps we need to take before others. Where I get in trouble is when I don’t do a good job of explaining myself and my reasoning and help others to discern the same thing. That’s an area I’ve grown in but is still tough. Just because something appears clear to me doesn’t mean it is to others.
So here’s my Wednesday though. What things in your life, ministry and world do you see that are ready for change and how will you amputate things in order to make those changes happen?
What’s worse Peer Pressure or Parental Pressure?
This last Sunday at my church Rhett Smith taught a class on Anxiety for parents. Rhett is in the process of writing a book on this and he’s pretty sharp so every time he talks I end up going home and thinking about it for hours. In this case he was talking about how so much of the anxiety in students comes from the parents. His point was that parents “over expectations” or “pressure” was causing huge damage to their students. There were a number of examples given by parents many of who’m “got it” but clearly a few who “didn’t.” I live in a city with highly motivated driven people. I think the % of students who graduate from high school and head directly to college is about 98% Because of this there seems to be an almost daily discussion about how students need to “better there resume” and “be involved in more things” so that they look good for college recruiters.
Here’s 3 examples of what I see all the time:
1. Boys and girls who play a sport year round and can’t do anything else because of it. If they are not in school season they are in club or select season or they are training for one of those. They spend all their time doing this sport and it becomes their identity. Often they are pushed to do this by the parents who like the identity of being able to say that there student is a “star”. In some instances it’s not the parents who are pushing the students but they are doing something equally wrong which is not helping students learn healthy boundaries and space. In my own family we made the decision with our son this spring to have him not play lacrosse. We wanted him to try another sport and he was really excited so he starts baseball next week. (to be clear if he didn’t want to play a sport at all we wouldn’t push him) We feel like it’s our job right now to give him exposure to different things so he can see what he enjoys. What I see as a problem here is that these students who do gymnastics 20 hours a week or baseball all year long are really missing out on a lot of other opportunities because they are so scheduled and there is “pressure” to continue.
2. I talked to a student this last week and asked what they were doing this summer. They replied that that were studying for the SAT all summer. I asked how many times they’d already taken it and they said 2 and that they had taken the ACT 1 time also. Then that student said “I have to get into {unamed} college because it’s what’s expected. My parents went there and my grandparents went there. This is a student who is amazing and has a great heart for service but hasn’t been able to be involved in our HS ministry because of all the pressure.
3. I actually heard a parent say this week that if your son/daughter doesn’t start something at the elementary age they will never be successful at the High school age. I’m pretty sure this person was talking about playing an instrument but they were applying it to everything. Sadly this mentality has created a really tough world for many parents who have bought into it and have private coaches for their first graders.
I love parents and work with some pretty amazing ones who are doing a great job with their teenagers. I could give example after example of parents who are doing a great job. But with that said it’s always amazing to me how in almost every meeting with parents we talk about the issue of “Peer” pressure and what they are worried about their students being exposed to but we never talk about “Parental” pressure.
Here’s 3 steps to opening up the door with parents to talk about this:
1. Never get an “us vs. them” mentality going. This was a great reminder yesterday in my staff meeting that our job will always be to partner with parents. Start there. Partnering with parents can look as simple as just getting to know them. Have small groups meet in their homes. Talk to them when they drop off or pick up their students. Invite them on trips.
2. Have trained therapists/counselors come in and speak. What I love about Rhett is that he speaks straight forward to the parents and doesn’t hold back or sugar coat things. We do a once a month Sunday morning parenting class and he leads all of them. I’m always in the room to add in my thoughts and opinions but Rhett is the leader. He also does one on one counseling with students and meets with families to talk about these issues.
3. Address the hidden issue. In almost all of these parental pressure situations there are issues that parents are projecting on their students. Most parents don’t even recognize they are doing it. We started out being a little sneaky having parents come to a “parenting” class that really was a “marriage” class but now we’re not even being sneaky. This last weekend we told parents that in most situations where there kids were feeling overly anxious it was there fault. (that raised a few eyebrows) Not all parents agreed but that’s ok.
4. Disciple Parents. Yes even if you are 25 you can figure out ways to disciple parents. Chances are you won’t do it but maybe your church has a mens or women’s ministry and you can speak with the leaders of those groups and give them your perspective on some areas you think your parents need to hear. You probably work more closely and know more parents than most people in your church. Use that knowledge and relationship to give you parents help. I’ve said this here a few times and I can get away with it since I’m a parent. I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time as a parent and I’m pretty convinced other don’t either. We all need help.
So there you go. If you are a parent and reading this know that we love you and want to partner with you and that sometimes you are putting too much pressure on your teenagers and it is really hurting them. Let us help you because it’s what we love to do. I live in both worlds as a parent and a youth pastor. I don’t have either one figured out and I hope when you read this you know that I’m pointing fingers at myself in all of this. I am fortunate to have some amazing examples of parents who do this right and I can only say that I’ve fumbled around for quite a while and have landed on a few things that I think will help.
Are we unintentionally teaching our students that all minorities need help?
I’ve been wrestling with this for a while but unsure of how to best get my point across without sounding like a jerk. But, as summer is getting closer and missions trip training and preparation is happening in many places I thought I’d take a stab at this.
I’ve been a youth worker of some sort for over 20 years. In the majority of those years I’ve done some sort of cross cultural missions experience with students. In most of those situations it’s almost always been us going somewhere that a different culture of people need help and my youth groups which have always tended to be filled with white kids “take care of them.”
A major problem I see happening is that our students associate particular people groups and races as always needing help. They classify them as needy and it doesn’t matter where they see them they can’t shake it. This is incredibly unfair and unjust to many people who are actually doing really well but get lumped into the same groups in our students minds.
I always cringe when I feel like the “great white hope” has come into any place and we believe we are making a significant contribution. Sometimes we are but at what cost for that community.
So how do we break this cycle?
Here’s a couple thoughts. Some I’ve done, some that I haven’t.
1. If your church is in an area that draws from one particular ethnic group you’ve got to find some healthy ways of exposure. You can do this by partnering with other more diverse youth groups to do anything from a fun activity to an actual missions project.
2. Before going to a place where your students will be exposed to a particular group and needs make sure to talk about the issues that have made those needs so great and focus on the macro issues affect more than just that group. I realize this sentence was probably not written well so here’s what I mean. If you are going to Haiti you can talk about the history of Haiti and the way that the “system” has made it so difficult for people to break free from the bad cycle. But, then apply that same concept to where you currently live and talk about how there are “systems” here in the US that cause the same problems for people.
3. Do all you can to separate race from need. Similar to #2 above you have to make sure your students understand that there are not any characteristics in any particular people group that cause these things to happen to them. Injustice and systemic problems affect everyone the same way.
4. Have your students do research on people from particular locations where you will be doing work and learn about people who are doing ok. The key here is balance. If you only ever exposure your students to the negative side of any particular area that’s what they will think the whole area is defined by.
Just some simple thoughts by me. I’d love to know what you think. Don’t compare your Ministry with others. Compare with your potential
Ok so here’s a simple thought. Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about how much so many churches and youth ministries base their worth upon how they feel they stack up against others. What that looks like is that we talk a lot about the things that could be comparable. So we get stuck talking about numbers, budgets, buildings and other things like that.
But let’s be honest. It’s not the way we should be doing things.
I work at a church that has an amazing amount of potential. Our members have more resources and gifts available to them then I have ever seen before. If we compare ourselves with others we look pretty good and are doing a lot of great stuff. But, if we compare ourselves against our potential we don’t stack up very well.
So how do we go about this? Do we beat ourselves up because we aren’t meeting our potential or do we have a way of somehow figuring out our how to reconcile all of this.
Truth: I don’t know. But I will say this. Recently I’ve felt God telling me over and over again that I need to “dream bigger”. I don’t think I’m being told that I need to be bigger or to seek a bigger thing but that the “dreams” I have need to be bigger. What that means for my youth ministry or my church I don’t know. I just know that for the last 6 months I keep hearing this same thing. What could God do with us if we stopped limiting ourselves and dreamed bigger?
So there you go. I’m wrestling to figure out what our potential is. What’s yours?
Youth Ministry: I only know one way to do it “Stoked”
16 months ago I booked a vacation with one of my best friends in the world James. His family and my family are heading to Mexico in June. I only tell you this to show you a little bit about me. I love to look forward to things. It’s always been that way for me as a youth pastor too. I’m the guy who tries to create events that students think about for a long time and are so stoked to be a part of that I never have to “sell” them to sign up. James and I text or call each other about once a week and talk about how stoked we are to take our families to Mexico. We’ve actually talked about how much we have needed this vacation as something to look forward to for the 16 months. And he’s a Psychologist so he’s smarter than you so just believe that we’re right. :)
I stared planning the Highland Park Presbyterian Church Student Ministry summer 2011 about a year ago and I can’t believe that it all goes down in about 3 months. I’m so stoked for the things I get to be a a part of I thought I’d share some of them here tonight.
May 31-June 4 Houseboat trip: When I was a Youth Pastor at Bel Air Presbyterian Church and at North Coast Calvary Chapel we did a houseboat trip almost every summer. At one point I did 9 years in a row of Houseboats I think. Those trips are amazing because in my opinion they are the best way to grow community in your youth group. This summer we’re bringing that trip to Texas (truthfully Arkansas) as we are heading out for 5 days to kick the summer off right. The boats we are going out on this year are nicer than any I’ve ever been on. I’ve got an amazing staff and a great bunch of students signed up already.
July 2-9 Seattle Missions trip: Again this feels like “retro” summer for me because this will be the 4th time I’ve taken teams to Seattle to serve the homeless and disadvantaged population. Back in 2001 I met one of my closest friends Phil Cunningham on this trip as he was our leader for YWAM Seattle. Phil has gone on to do great amazing things like starting the organization Steps of Justice and I’m so stoked to introduce more students to his heart. We’ll be staying at Seattle Pacific University (yea I’m a graduate) and serving downtown Seattle. We’ll also be kicking it in my home town of Langley Washington on Whidbey Island at some point. Most Texas teenagers have never been to the Pacific Northwest. I’m praying for sun and for Jesus to both be real to the Texas and the Washington folks. We’ll be introducing these Texas kids to Stand Up Paddleboarding. and to my Hippy Sister who sells pants on Ebay.
July 18-29 Israel Family Trip: Last year was my first ever trip to Israel. We took 9 high school students from my church Highland Park Presbyterian. While we were there my high school director and I talked about what it would look like to do the trip in 2011 with families. So this year we’re heading back with 19 people. I’m pretty stoked to have a bunch of families come with us and to have them experience Israel together. Someday when my kids are older I want to take them on this trip.
August 11-20 Kenya: This one is still tentative but I was asked to come and speak at the Presbyterian Church of East Africas summer Youth conference. This is a big event for their denomination and pretty historic for us. My church started an African fellowship 7 years ago that has become it’s own worship service at the 11am hour. I told them I would only come if I could bring our Youth Pastor for the African congregation and also only if we were planning on bringing a joint team of both groups next summer 2012. We try all we can to integrate our groups together and I love the idea of planning 15 months out to do a historic combined event for August 2012.
Yea it’s a lot. In the midst of this I’m going on a 2 week vacation with my family to Mexico at the beginning of the summer and a 5 day trip with my family to Yosemite California right after the summer. My family is also coming on the Houseboat trip. I’m stoked as my kids are getting older too and able to go on more with us.
Not Isolation but Insulation
So this last weekend I was in a pretty isolated place on Orcas Island in the state of Washington. I was there as part of the Post Doctoral work I get to do with George Fox Seminary as a part of their “Future Church Think Tank” During one of our conversations someone made the statement that it should be our goal as Christians to not “isolate” our students but instead to “Insulate” them. That same person shared that the way they did that was to prepare their students from the “inside Out” I’ve been thinking about that statement for the last few days and it really resonated with me last night. I was lying in bed with my oldest son Soren and we were having a good talk about life. (he’s 10) We had just gotten back from an event at church where we got to listen to a guy who plays in the NFL share his faith. Soren told me that he really enjoyed the night and loved that guy had grown up in a Christian Home but didn’t know what God was going to do with him. But he was faithful and God revealed it. He said he liked that Daniel didn’t know what God was doing but that he fully listened and God showed up.
What does this mean? It means that my goal as a youth pastor and father is not to isolate my students from the world. Isolation in my mind is a separate world where no one has any contact with the other. Insulation though is different it’s what I have a ton of in my attic that separates our bedroom from the really hot Texas summer heat. We “insulate” our students when we give them skills to know how to best respond to the crazy stuff they see in the world. It’s what we do when we teach parenting seminars and attempt to prepare parents to talk to their students about what they will be exposed too. Insulation is a much better paradigm to promote as a Youth pastor because it says we are “in” but we are not “of” the world.
Do I have anything figured out? No. But I am convinced that God has gifted me in the area of discernment. I love it that I have the opportunity to think through this with you. Tell me what you think.
Steps of Justice
My friend Phil Cunningham has been leading the charge for a while now in helping Youth Workers think about Justice in new ways. Last year he put together this amazing 30-Day Steps of Justice Prayer guide and today they released a video that helps explain what they are all about. Check it out and you will be changed.
Parents:5 Youth Ministry Areas to Think about
Sitting in a great round table discussion with youth workers at an “Orange RE-Think” meeting. We are wrestling with 5 topics this morning and coming up with some “best practices” to do ministry to parents around these topics. I would love to hear some ideas you have around these things because everyone is an expert in their own youth ministry context.
The first 4 are topics we were given and the last one is the one we were brainstorming about. What do you do to “teach” or to “engage” parents in these areas?
1. Disengaged Parents
2. Technology
3. Unconventional Family
4. Economically Afflicted
5. Being a Youth Youth Minister
I’m writing a new book. Gonna make some parents angry.
So I’m not able to share a lot of details about this yet but I’m pretty stoked to be writing a new book and to have signed contracts for 2 others. I’ll reveal the details of this all in a few weeks but I just wanted to mention here because I’m stoked about it. I’ve also officially signed with a literary agent too and he’s already been a huge help negotiating all of this contract mess. I’ll be the first to admit that I laugh when I think about what God is doing with all of this. I never would have thought.
This is clearly a teaser because when I post the details I want the posts to look good and I need some help from the marketing end of this publishing house to help me make a big splash with my reveal.
So I’ll just say this about the next book I’m writing. It’s aimed at parents. It supports youth workers. It doesn’t hold back. I take shots at what I see is a very damaging view and practice of Christianity that is toxic to our teenagers. I’ll probably make some people mad but hopefully I’ll be pointing fingers at myself enough that they see that I’m in this struggle with them.
This book will launch in the fall and I’ve got only a few short months to get all my ideas down on paper. I could use some prayer and encouragement.
