Life. Love. Faith.

I’m horribly tech-illiterate by today’s standards. I used to be cutting-edge about 12 years ago, but that’s like 4,000 years in the electronic world, I think. So I’m trying out posting a “Cover Link” to a book more of us probably need to read: Better Safe than Sued. The ideas is that the cover image is supposed to show up, along with a link to YMbookstore. We’ll see how it works.

A great new youth ministry books is Sustainable Youth Ministry by Mark Devries. I’m trying to make it show up in an iFrame, but I’m not sure it’s working well…though I do think the text-only link works fine here: Sustainable Youth Ministry

And last but not least, we have the option to put banners on a site, too. Let’s see if this works:

Affirmative Action is one of those policies that always seems to have controversy around it, and kids in my youth ministries usually have staunch opinions that either mirror or are completely antithetical to those held by their parents. Seldom do I hear a teenager (or many adults, for that matter) talk about hotbutton issues like this with any sense of nuance. Those of us who work with kids have a responsibility to help kids discover the complexities of these issues rather than trying to indoctrinate them into a polarizing perspective.

The final Supreme Court decision of this term is, I think, a great example of the complexities involved in this issue. I really don’t think most people are nearly as polarized on this issue as the loudmouths (on both sides) make it sound. Most of us believe the best people should be promoted to the best positions regardless of gender or race. Most of us also don’t refute that biases have occurred–and still occur–based on a number of factors, of which gender and race are still factors. And frankly, most of us would like to see those biases removed.

The rub comes in which one of those values wins out. For most of us, I think it depends upon the context. To be truthful, this may be wrong, but I don’t care if the best person for the job was promoted within the grocery stores at which I shop, the movie theaters I frequent, etc. I’m perfectly content with diversity issues winning the argument. If I have a brain tumor, I don’t care if not a single Caucasian, African American, or Hispanic are in the field. If the best qualified doctors are all from India, then by golly, I want an Indian doctor working on my head.

As a public schoolteacher, I HATE the “dumbing down” of American education. I think we’re headed for disaster if we have to play to the lowest common denominator in order to leave no child left behind. The problem with that policy is that the ownness for success is on the wrong person–it should be on the student. Maybe I’ll blog about that more later.

However, I also realize I’m biased by my own context. I’m a white male, and I was a reasonably successful student. Therefore, I need help sometimes to realize that my benchmarks may be culturally biased. I am convinced that without racial, gender, and economic data on standardized tests over the past 30 years, our tests wouldn’t have become more equitable–which they really have. So sometimes the measuring sticks themselves really do need to be rethought. After all, how many church youth workers find themselves tied to formal or informal measuring sticks related to numbers that they realize don’t always translate to true transformative ministry?

I also have to realize that I have far less racial prejudice than previous generations (especially living in the South) because we were bussed back and forth across town during my elementary school years to achieve mandated diversity. And the schoolteachers of the era simply had to figure out how to make it work, because it was more important to diversify than it was to keep the status quo.

I want the best qualified people doing the work–particularly work like firefighting, medicine, law enforcement, civil engineering, teaching, governing, banking–well, heck, I guess I want the best qualified people no matter what. When people are denied that opportunity because of gender, race, or other factors that shouldn’t be factors, that’s not good. But I also want every strata of society to represent the Kingdom of God at its finest–which includes every color, every race, every ethnicity, every culture. Somehow, I think our dialogue on these issues would be strengthened if we could hold up both of these values as good, noble values rather than assuming the worst about the opposition and demonizing the other point of view.

My mom is an amazing short-term mission trip planner. I’ve never seen someone more passionate about taking groups of people to third-world countries. When I became a youth minister, I started co-leading trips with her—and we based our mission work around a “mission exposure” model, recognizing that we would have little lasting effect as short-termers, but that the “missional lifestyle” impact on the students could be incredible.

We based our work around one of my favorite scriptural passages found in Matthew 25:31-46. Jesus is talking about how he’ll separate people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. The message is clear: We are to pay attention to the needs of others—ALL others. Not just those in our socioeconomic status, not just those of a certain skin color or nationality, not just those who speak the same language or attend the same church.

Jesus paints a pretty gloomy picture for those who don’t care for those around them—and he drives home the point, saying that it’s about caring for “the least of these”…people whom others have cast away: The oppressed, abused, neglected, abandoned, elderly, widowed, orphaned, unemployed, homeless, depressed, downtrodden, and poor. But not only them. We also are called to care for the drunkards, prostitutes, and child abusers; the dropouts, junkies, and gang bangers; the greedy, corrupt, and abusers of power.

This is the heart of the gospel. It really is.

Many of us like to believe that the heart of the gospel has to do with our own salvation, but I believe that’s a selfish perspective. I believe the heart of the gospel has to do with salvation for ALL, which means we have a responsibility that goes way beyond our own professions of faith.

I’m not advocating “works righteousness” or “salvation through works.” Nothing we do will ever be good enough.

Fortunately, Jesus took care of that a couple thousand years ago. The question is, then, How do we respond to that kind of amazing love? The answer lies in this passage from Matthew. If we really get it—that God loves us enough to die for us—then we will want to do the kinds of things advocated in this passage.

As youth ministers, we need to be aware that it’s not just about us serving students, though. Our role is to help them become aware of the needs out there that they can attend to right now—not one day down the road when they’re older. We want to encourage lifestyles of sacrificial service that will make following the Matthew 25 example a “no duh.”

On one of those trips my mom and I led to Jamaica, we visited St. Monica’s Home for the Abandoned Elderly. How’s that for a name just brimming with positivity and hope? There, we met Sam—a blind man with nubs where his fingers used to be and only a couple of holes in his head where his nose used to be. Sam was one of the last surviving members of an old leper colony; leprosy had eaten away many of his extremities before antibiotics stopped the progression. Sam is the most poignant physical representation of “the least of these” I’ve ever met.

Yet when we visited him, his countenance was bright as he praised God for bringing him visitors from overseas. He began reciting Scripture verses and poetry, singing songs and inviting us to sing along. Not a one among us could watch this man without weeping—out of wonder at his faith, out of sadness for his plight, and out of guilt over how much we take for granted.

We went hoping to experience what it would be like to serve the least of these, and we found ourselves being ministered to in ways beyond our wildest dreams. May God bless you as you—and your students—serve the least of these in Jesus’ name.

I’m a little unsure how to react to South Carolina Govenor Mark Sanford’s admission of his extramarital affair today. He’s just one of many leaders whose sexual exploits have been publicly aired. Sometimes I’m not quite sure of the difference between real news and “reality TV.”

Earlier today, I twittered that I really liked the quote, “Who we are emerges from the story we tell ourselves,” which was part of a blog post by Scot McKnight on Christianity Today’s site titled “The Story Called Us,” which was all about some of the benefits of staying married.

From the Barna Research Group’s statistics concerning divorce rates in Christians being no different than the divorce rate in the general population, to story after story of leaders (both religious and political) being involved in sexual scandals, to the ever-present tensions around the definition of marriage (particularly in the same-sex union debates), it’s clear that sexuality and fidelity are issues that need to be discussed at length with our young people.

Our kids see and hear lots of messages sent to them about intimacy, sexuality, faithfulness, image, etc. And they need some help sorting through all of that. They don’t need me picking up stones to throw at any given individual or group, but they do need help thinking through issues at a deep level. And even more, they need us to model behavior for them that will help them make good choices.

And when we mess things up–in whatever areas we may do so–may we model repentance and reparation. When we are fortunate enough to not screw things up, may we model humility and grace, with the full knowledge that we do good only by another’s power, not our own…for there, but for the grace of God, go I.

As part of CYMT’s Lilly Foundation grant, I got to participate in a “Think Tank” full of youth ministry professors and veteran youth pastors from around the country trying to bridge some of the gaps between the “academy”—those who study and train youth ministers—and the “practitioners”—those who are in the trenches working directly with kids. We were given a pre-writing assignment leading into the event, and my topic was: “What are the most effective and innovative ways of training youth workers who do not come in contact with the academy?” I had five main points in my paper; here is point five, which is really more of an explanation about how my thinking has been shaped by my particular contexts.

Contexts and Caveats

I have absolutely no idea if any of this is particularly innovative—and I’m quite sure plenty of other ideas I didn’t think of would prove quite effective, as well. These thoughts primarily stem from my current context, the projects with which I’ve worked over the past few years, and the holes I see in current systems and structures providing training for youth ministers.

I teach English and journalism at a poor, rural, public high school about an hour outside of Nashville. It’s actually not my first choice of a “day job,” but I am finding that it grounds me in what’s going on with kids every day—outside of a church context—which is very helpful for me. I am also the music minister at our little United Methodist church; I serve as the executive editor of The Journal of Student Ministries; and I have five children ages 17 years through 4 months. My wife is the onsite program director at a church camp and the director of youth and children’s ministries at our church. So we’re incredibly busy—and I don’t do a whole lot of reading for fun, nor do I attend many youth ministry professional development activities these days as a participant.

For my teaching role, I do very little intentional work that would be described as traditional “continuing education,” either. However, I am always open to bite-sized chunks of information that fit needs I have right now (or that I can see on the horizon), particularly if that information is in a medium that’ll allow me to multi-task (that I can read during the announcements, listen to while I grade papers, or watch during my lunch break)—and I am especially interested if the information ties in a variety of disciplines (biology, sociology, neurology, etc.) to help me better understand kids and how I can be a better teacher for them.

My most passionate professional role, however, is as the resource director for CYMT, primarily focused on YMtoday.com, one of four new web sites in the “YM” family. My real passion for this centers around the belief that I’m not the only one with limited time, but that all of us need to find ways to magnify our efforts. One of the best ways is to find great resources we don’t have to create to free us up to focus on the one thing we can’t outsource to anyone else: Relationships—with God, our families, colleagues, students, and their parents. For everything else, resources are (or should be) available. That’s what I’d like to see us—and other people—do better: Provide resources to free up youth minister’s time for relationships.

As part of CYMT’s Lilly Foundation grant, I got to participate in a “Think Tank” full of youth ministry professors and veteran youth pastors from around the country trying to bridge some of the gaps between the “academy”—those who study and train youth ministers—and the “practitioners”—those who are in the trenches working directly with kids. We were given a pre-writing assignment leading into the event, and my topic was: “What are the most effective and innovative ways of training youth workers who do not come in contact with the academy?” I had five main points in my paper; here is point four:

Cross-disciplinary Exploration
One thing that could lead to the death of the American academic institution as we know it, is the “silo” mentality arising as fields of study become more specialized. In my field of specialty, for instance, pedagogical approaches with adolescents, we find people who specialize in a particular approach to constructivist learning, others whose sole interests are around brain synapses and cognitive conditioning, and still others whose academic identities are tied to a particular model of classroom management. Though these professors teach in the same department, they have little meaningful dialogue furthering their understandings because they are each the academic monarchs of their narrow fiefdoms.

Move this beyond the traditional departments, and the silo mentality is further exacerbated. Sociologists look at the world differently than psychologists, and teacher educators look at students differently than seminary professors. They think differently, and their departments function without any cross-pollination of personnel or ideas. Youth ministers in the field know this, too, because senior pastors look at the church differently than music ministers, and you can bet that church councils and church janitors see the large youth gathering last week through different lenses.

One fantastic advantage of youth ministry in the academic world—at least historically—has been that we’re just not quite sure where to put them. Some think of it as a “Christian ministry” division (pastoral ministry, children’s ministry, singles’ ministry, etc.)—where the difference in focus is the age group or specialty. Others think of it as a “Christian education” division (separate from “pastoral” functions), where the Sunday school superintendents from my childhood would fit. Still others think of it as a “missional” undertaking—where understanding the culture of adolescents is as critical to youth ministry as learning another language would be prior to going onto the mission field.

The beautiful thing about this orphaned identity is that we can begin to forge new cross-disciplinary ground, where those who’ve been writing public school curriculum for years communicate with those who study adolescents through an anthropological lens—providing age-appropriate meaningful stories and other “hooks” for kids within the texts and other media of our youth ministry curriculum; where pedagogical specialists are teamed with those writing up research results—providing material that is not only insightful but also (gasp!) understandable by regular, ordinary folks; where systematic theologians meet with the chaplain at the inner city teen center as they try to work out questions of theodicy that actually matter to a real-life teenager.

As part of CYMT’s Lilly Foundation grant, I got to participate in a “Think Tank” full of youth ministry professors and veteran youth pastors from around the country trying to bridge some of the gaps between the “academy”—those who study and train youth ministers—and the “practitioners”—those who are in the trenches working directly with kids. We were given a pre-writing assignment leading into the event, and my topic was: “What are the most effective and innovative ways of training youth workers who do not come in contact with the academy?” I had five main points in my paper; here is point three:

Interest (or Need)-based Instruction

We are a consumer-driven society in almost every way, yet our educational institutions continue to prescribe a canon of knowledge or curriculum (or course load) that all students must endure in order to achieve a particular certification level, major, or degree. Some students will always be drawn to the academy, and they’ll jump through whatever hoops are set before them in order to achieve the recognition afforded by their affiliation with that institution. Those who don’t seek formal education will likely find such institutional restrictions a barrier to receiving any training at all.

Why not approach training components with the students’ needs (or interests) in mind first? What are the felt needs on the part of people actively doing youth ministry? It may be that one youth worker has a need to understand basic behavior management techniques, another needs to get a handle on creating a budget, and another is in the midst of helping her students through the grief surrounding a death in their midst. A pro-active instructional approach would be to have training elements in place so youth leaders can find them in the midst of their need rather than trying to “front-end load” all of this kind of information before a person even experiences the need (which is our traditional approach).

Such an approach could still be connected to other modules and be part of a continuing education, certification, or other more formal training track–particularly if linked to reflective components that help youth workers apply new information and hold them accountable to it. However, this should be an ancillary benefit, not the primary purpose. The primary purpose should simply be to provide useful information at the time of need or interest independent of any special certification or recognition.

As part of CYMT’s Lilly Foundation grant, I got to participate in a “Think Tank” full of youth ministry professors and veteran youth pastors from around the country trying to bridge some of the gaps between the “academy”—those who study and train youth ministers—and the “practitioners”—those who are in the trenches working directly with kids. We were given a pre-writing assignment leading into the event, and my topic was: “What are the most effective and innovative ways of training youth workers who do not come in contact with the academy?” I had five main points in my paper; here is point two:

Media Variety

In addition to shorter attention spans, budding generations are increasingly disinterested in simply listening to talking heads or reading static text. Modular training components that include multiple media streams will be more effective, as users can control the means through which learning takes place. Some would prefer to read, others to hear an audio file, others a video file, and still others a more conversational approach (either through text, audio, or video).

Distance learning environments exist in public high schools that are more interactive than some of our best youth ministry training programs—and that’s a shame. We all have different learning styles and preferred communication streams; ideally, our training techniques and media should reflect that variety.

As soon as school was out for the summer, I had the great opportunity to participate in a “Think Tank” full of youth ministry professors and veteran youth pastors from around the country hosted by CYMT as part of a Lilly Foundation grant. The purpose was to help bridge some of the gaps between the “academy”—those who study and train youth ministers—and the “practitioners”—those who are in the trenches working directly with kids. We were given a pre-writing assignment leading into the event, and my topic was: “What are the most effective and innovative ways of training youth workers who do not come in contact with the academy?” I had five main points in my paper; here is point one:

Bite-sized Chunks

Our culture is a fast-paced one with short attention spans, and many youth leaders have even more ADD-ish proclivities than others. Shorter books, shorter articles, shorter video segments, and shorter events will likely be increasingly more effective—and even within them, we’ll need more movement from topic to topic, medium to medium, or story to story.

My grandmother loved Reader’s Digest—both the magazine and the condensed books—she said she could “digest” small portions at a time and still feel like she had increased in wisdom. (I think she just wanted to have enough “cultural literacy” to be able to talk about the latest books at dinner parties.) As an undergraduate English major, Cliff’s Notes were my saving grace—particularly in my honors classes when we were required to read a novel per week. Now as a high school English teacher, I still use Sparks notes to remind myself of some of the great literature I’ve read (or should’ve read).

When it comes to getting better at what we do with kids, most of us don’t want to read entire volumes philosophizing about theoretical constructs—even when we believe it would be useful. When we have limited time and energy, we look for snippets of useful knowledge, ideas, or skills that we can put into practice immediately. As educators, then (whether we like it or not), our responsibilities should entail finding ways to meaningfully enrich a person’s ministry repertoire with minimal time and energy investment on the part of the student.

I know it’s bad for the soul to work too much. But I think it’s one of my worst sins. I’m so engrained in a culture of busy-ness that I often don’t recognize my own need to stop, rest, and regenerate.

My wife suggested we take a day off and leave home together. So we did. We spent last night at Beersheba Assembly, and we’ll stay tonight, too. Austin and Bethany are here, too, but they have a separate room. We slept late, hiked a trail in the state park, went out to lunch, took a nap, read, and enjoyed time with each other.

I can feel my soul filling up even as I type this. Thank you, God, for true Sabbath.