More Thoughts on Youth Ministry

I have read a couple articles recently that I wanted to share in light of the last post about some of the problems in youth ministry. Both of these articles are by a guy named Mike Yaconelli. Mike, is considered by many to be the "Father of youth ministry" as we now know it. He was the founder of Youth Specialties, one of the largest youth ministry companies out there. Mike passed away some years ago (I can't remember why) but has left a deep legacy. Sadly, as much as his name is championed, his words are seldom heeded.

The first article, "10 Easy Steps to Guarantee a Successful Youth Ministry," is a wonderful piece of satire. When I read the article in a recent issue of Youthworker I was both saddened and elated. I was elated, because it felt nice to hear a voice that expressed the same thoughts I was having, but I was saddened because these are the exact things that I am being criticized by the parents and counselors here for not doing.

Here is the article: 10 Easy Steps to Guarantee a Successful Youth Ministry

The Second article is about rethinking youth ministry. Since my first youth ministry class with Dr. Walters at Houghton, I've held the belief that one of the highest goals of youth ministry should be to engage the students in the greater life of the whole congregation. This article takes this belief one step further and asserts that no youth ministry is the best youth ministry. Yaconelli doesn't say that we need to get rid of youth ministry all together (thankfully, because I need a job) but that we do need to get kids plugged into the church at deep levels that transcend just attendance. I agree completely and from, what I've found, so does everyone with whom I've talked. The problem I've found is that everyone like this in theory, but once you try to actively implement engagement with the whole church people get angry if the youth take a while to respond or "get it."

Here is this article: A Better Idea Than Youth Ministry

I'd love some extra thoughts on these issues.

- Ben

Entertainment or Ministry

A little over a week ago I took a group of students from our church on a ski trip to WV. As I stood in the parking lot I saw streams of teenagers file out of bus after bus. Some of the busses were chartered and others clearly had the church logo and name painted on the side. As I stood, waiting for our rental agent, I realized that you couldn't tell there was a recession going on in this country and that somewhere people were in need. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty disgusted as I looked at all these lines and all this money. I was upset about the entertainment driven focus of youth ministry. (You might be asking why I took our students there. Well, I tried to not do a ski-trip this year and do a spiritual formation retreat, but I met so much resistance that it couldn't be done.)

I guess I never realized how much ski-trips were essential to youth "ministry" until the other day. Growing up in poor, rural Pennsylvania I didn't go on my first youth group ski trip until we had a new pastor come in and tell us that to be an effective youth ministry we need to go on one.

I was upset, and was going to blog when I got back but I put it off and never got around. Then the other night in our youth council meeting the students tossed out the idea of doing a movie night at youth group. I spoke up and said that a movie night would have strict limitations given current copyright laws and the fact that I would not allow anything over a "G" movie. As we were having discussion I heard one of the youth counselors mutter to another counselor "he's never been a fan of showing a movie" in a disgruntled tone. To be fair, she's right. I'm not a fan of taking valuable spiritual formation time and spending all that time in entertaining students. The only real way I'd consider this would be if we found a movie that offers a great chance for spiritual dialogue and then we analyzed the movie afterwards. But I know that this isn't what they have in mind.

I was a little disturbed by the fact that I have to constantly defend my desire for formation over entertainment in our youth program but just counted it up to a need for further growth and education.

Today, as I came into the office I got a small "events guide" in the mail. The guide is by a group called "Entertaining Teens" which offers "Live Entertainment, Touring Ministries & Events." Seriously? How did youth ministry ever get to be about entertainment? Especially the crappy, cheesy, gimmicky, over-the-top entertainment that this organization offers. What are we doing?

Many people would object to my anti-entertainment ministry stance citing that we need to "attract" the youth and get them here. I honestly can't think of a bigger lie in the history of the Christian church. The idea that we, in youth ministry, can somehow compete with Hollywood, friends, video games, etc in the realm of entertainment to "get kids here" is absolutely laughable and until the youth ministry culture realizes that we will continue to produce generation after generation of half-discipled students who will easily drift away from Christ when life gets hard, the entertainment stops, or other things grab their attention.

Some would point out that the youth ministry culture is changing. That this is a growing realization. I would disagree.

I recently (back in September) attended the Youth Specialties National Youthworkers Convention in Los Angeles. As I sat in the small break-out groups I had much hope. I heard the presenters talking about deep discipleship, having kids encounter the scripture, and other wonderful things. I really thought the culture was changing...until I went to the main sessions. These main sessions were filled with "sermons void of content," rock 'n roll covers as "worship" songs, high production videos, sound, and lighting design, and enough "ra-ra, yay Jesus" to put the National Cheerleading competition to shame.

As these two worlds (the small and large sessions) I realized that the culture really isn't changing. Sure, there is a growing emphasis in youth ministry on contemplation, silence, and the like. But it is still shrouded in gimmicks and entertainment. Silence is only valued if it's accompanied by powerpoint images and eclectic music. Contemplation is valued only at a pragmatic level. The emphasis is still with entertainment. Why? Because this is how the youth directors are filling their souls.

Sure there are always the exceptions (Praise the Lord!!) but as long as those who lead the youth seek entertainment and not discipleship then youth ministry will continue to be entertainment driven and as such we will continue to fail generation after generation.

New Lenten Blog...Kind Of

I'm doing something different with our youth group this year during Lent. Instead of handing out costly paper devotionals I'm jumping on the trendy-train and doing a daily Lenten blog for my students. Maybe they won't read it (like the devotionals I handed out last year) but I thought I might as well try.

Unfortunately this idea just struck me the other day so I didn't develop a long-term plan for a direction of this blog and as such the blog will likely change, grow, and develop throughout the Lenten season - especially as I receive feedback from my students. My initial plan is to poach information from the Asbury Readers that I edited while I was in seminary and add in some of my own thoughts for clarity. I also plan to explore various topics that come up that need some explanation so it might not be as systematic and ordered as I like. I guess we'll see how it goes. But you can bank on the fact that there will be a lot of scripture and quotes from the saints!

Since I'll be focusing a lot on that for the next 40+ days my posting on this blog might be a bit more sparse than it normally would be during the Lenten season (even though I just returned after a busy season at work). I may cross-post a few things but I'll try to keep that to a minimum. Fear not, I will return and I will eventually post the thoughts I've promised (*cough* filioque *cough*).

If you'd like to follow along with this feel free. The only thing that I ask is that if you read along over there try not to get into a theological discussion in the comments. Feel free to comment a bit since it might help the students feel free to engage but I don't want to scare my students away. =) If you have comments or questions email me or comment over here. My students are smart, but they're still learning the faith (as we all are). I'm trying to challenged them as much as I can without completely overwhelming all of them and it is very hard to try to write for students in grades 6-12 all at the same time.

The address is: http://saintlukeyouth.wordpress.com

May we all see Christ more clearly this Lenten season!

- Ben

Vampires, Romance, and Monasticism.

It seems like only in the world of youth ministry could there be a blog post written that encompasses vampires, romance, and monasticism. Or maybe it could only happen in my mind - I'm not sure.

Anyway, I was over on Anna's blog (here) and she posted something about the new Twilight movie coming out. I intended to post a quick comment about an event from breakfast this morning and it ended up being a little mini blog post. I figured I'd repost it here.

Here, with a few edits and additions, is my comment from her blog:

I confess I haven't read the Twilight books but I did experience one of the fall-outs from the books this morning while talking to a member of my youth group. This girl wanted advice on what to do because she has a friend who actually believes that she is a vampire. In fact, she believes it so much that she sucks her boyfriend's blood. Somehow this girl's friend is so caught up into the vampire mythos that she is unable to differentiate from reality.

I'm really not blaming the books for this as much as I'm blaming what seems to be a societal renewal of interest in this narrative over the past 3-5 years (of which Twilight is just cashing in). My beef with twilight (and again I haven't read them) is the same problem I have with most of those dramatized romance books that teenage girls (and sometimes guys) read. These books paint an unreal picture of teenage "love" and affection. Causing students to seek after such intense relationships when most of them are far too emotionally immature to handle such a relationship. I fear that these types of highly dramatized romantic books will heighten the teenage problem of seeking to find fulfillment and identity in a relationship with another person instead of in God. This misplaced fulfillment will likely result in more teenage pregnancies, emotional distress, suicides over broken hearts, and other problems of the same ilk.

Maybe I'm over-reacting because I've not read the books, and to be sure I'm not intending to single them out. I put this issue squarely at the feed of all of Hollywood and book distributors.

The church is also not without blame. As protestants we mostly reject singleness as a blessing and gift from God and have outrightly rejected monasticism. This has resulted in the same problems with relationships existing in the church because we tend to view people as incomplete until they are married.

This is a major problem within Protestant theology. Not only are we refusing to accept the biblical principles, but we are imposing on people a paradigm which may indeed hinder their spiritual growth. I truly believe that some people are called to singleness and/or the monastic life. If we insist, as we often do (albeit through actions and no so often words), that these individuals are incomplete in their singleness we are in essence asserting that they cannot be fully redeemed until married.

Think about what this lie does to our Christology. If a person is incomplete in singleness then we assert that Christ, in his singleness, was not a complete individual and thus there is a part of humanity that he did not fully redeem. Are we implicitly calling Christ's work insufficient by our exhortations and expectations of others?

I'm not really trying to speak ill of the twilight books. I'm sure their well-written pieces of creative fiction. I'm not even discouraging my students from reading them, I just think that we need to be aware of the subtle messages we send our kids.

Things have been super busy here lately, but I fully intend to write part two of my filioque posts pretty soon.

- Ben

Going Old School - an ode to krispy Kreme

Sitting here in our church lobby surrounded by the "great cloud of witnesses" that is 1,908 Krispy Kreme doughnuts for our youth group fundraiser (a very easy and profitable fundraiser, by the way) I was just reminded by a friend on facebook of the poem I wrote in college about these wonderful cake and glaze objects.

Irresistible Grease

- by Ben Howard

I

Krispy Kremes

Drenched in Grease

Clogging my arteries as I feast

II

My mouth is watering

My heart is beating

Krispy Kremes come for my eating

III

Thinking of you,

You wonderful cake

I dream of you until I wake

IV

Manna from Heaven

Sweet cake and glaze

I wish to devour you until the world becomes a haze

V

Oh Krispy Kremes

My greasy joy

I'm so glad that you're not made of soy

VI

Calvinists are wrong

Arminians are right

Krispy Kremes come to me in the night!

In case your wondering this was written as a joke after consecutive all-nighters in which my friends and I survived on Krispy Kremes, chicken wings, and caffeine. Also, if you can believe it, this was actually published in our college's poetry publication. I still can't believe this fact...they must have really been hurting for some submissions that year.

Big hat tip to Gustav and Moeller for the all-nighters and their help on this.

Youth Ministry 101

Some things they just don't teach you in seminary and, I suppose, to be fair most of those things you just have to learn on your own. Last week I encountered one of those moments.

Our youth group had planned a trip to the local water park a few weeks ago and before we went I was thinking through a list of things to bring while walking around Wal-Mart when I came to sunscreen. As I thought about it I realized that it was very obvious that I couldn't ask a student to apply sunscreen to my back and it would be very awkward to ask one of the adult counselors to do it as well. (I suppose this is part of the curse of being single in youth ministry - you don't have anyone to apply sunscreen to your back during the summer).

As I thought about the issue and walked by the sunscreen aisle I realized that they now has sunscreen that sprayed on from an aerosol can. I grabbed a a can of and walked away reveling in the fact that I had the foresight to see this as a problem and was able to find a solution.

Our trip to the water park came and went and I escaped the sizzling North Carolina sun unscathed. A few weeks later I was getting ready to embark on a beach retreat with a few seniors who will be going off to college in the fall. As I set my bag down on the sand during our first full morning at the beach I asked one of my seniors to spray my back down with aerosol sunscreen. She obliged and gave my back a good spray and then I took the can and sprayed my chest and arms. After a full day at the beach in the blazing sun I got back to the beach house, and wast getting ready to hop in the shower when I looked in the mirror.

What they don't teach you in seminary is that aerosol sunscreen doesn't really mix with a strong ocean breeze and it's also hard to see in the bright sun. Basically it looks like Zoro attacked my back with a can of red spray paint and my chest and arms are spotted red from where the wind blew the sunscreen away from my body. Seminary Fail!

In case you're interested my friend Luke and I have started another blog where we will post random experiences like this that "they don't teach you in seminary." I'm not sure if it'll take off or not, since I hope for our sake we don't have too many more of these experiences (even though I'm sure we will). You can find the site here.

Have Faith!

That was the charge of many of the graduation speakers, salutatorians, valedictorians that I have heard speak at the three graduation ceremonies I attended over the past week or two. If this wasn't the specific charge it was nevertheless an essential piece of almost every speech that was given. The students were exhorted to keep the faith, have faith, and reminded that it was by faith that they had made it to this glorious point in their lives. Everywhere I turned faith was being mentioned in one way or another. But what kind of faith? Faith in what?

That is exactly the problem. The faith that was being exhorted and remembered was not a specific faith but merely some abstract notion and vague concept. These salutatorians, class presidents, and valedictorians freely mentioned church and God because most were good church-going people. But their concept of faith was surely less than a Christian understanding of the term.

Let me be clear, I am not laying the fault at these young kids because that is exactly what they are. They are students, they are doing nothing more than putting together a speech based on what they've learned through their lives at school, church, and from society. These kids did an admirable job with what they've been given, but sadly they have not been given enough substantial teaching in the Church to really know what faith is. I lay the blame on the churches for these students having unqualified abstract notions of faith that do not match with what the Christian church has taught through the ages. I also do not leave my church without blame because one of these speakers (though she was one of the best ones) was a student from my church.

As these students and graduation speakers spoke of having faith they mentioned faith in self on par with faith in God. They spoke about being able to overcome adversity and one even mentioned a scriptural reference of "faith the size of a mustard seed." It was when this quote was given that it all hit me like a load of bricks. This student (not the one from my church) and all the rest before her are products of an age of protestantism where faith is a commodity. Faith is something akin to positive self-talk. Sadly faith has become a form of positive God-talk that aids the individual in achieving his or her dreams and goals. The years of therapeutic and anthropocentric Christianity have left us with a shallow faith that amounts to nothing. This is what we are passing on to the next generation.

Sure, as protestants we champion the reformation cry "sola gratia" based on Paul's expression "salvation by grace through faith" but practically this works itself out to pulling oneself up by his or her bootstraps because faith is nothing more than positive thinking and self-motivation. If this is the case we are nothing more than pelagian heretics masquerading as believers of the truth. Surely faith is essential to the gospel call, but the substance of our faith does not lie in us but in our relationship with the triune God.

We have lost the sense that "faith the size of the mustard seed" isn't pointing to "faith" in the abstract or faith as a commodity but it necessitates that faith is something had via a relationship with the divine. To speak of faith in the abstract is absurd and it digs right at the root of the Christian Faith that we hold and are charged to pass along to younger generations.

In order for Protestantism to be true to the call of the gospel we must realize that faith is more than positive God-talk, that faith is based in the work of Christ - his incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension; for divorce faith from the Christ event is to own a faith that is as unchristian as pagan worship. We must also realize that faith by nature changes the very substance of our being. One cannot have faith in God and remain unchanged. Faith is more than a mental ascent it requires a change of our whole being. The Christian faith does not belong in the realm of the abstract but is firmly planted in the person of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of the Father who brought about our redemption.

Really I'm not angry at these students, I'm sad for them. Their professions merely indicate that we as a church have not done a good job passing on the truth of the Christian message. Lord have mercy on us as we seek to proclaim and pass along the true faith. Amen.

- Ben

Thoughts from Sunday School Prep.

I've been teaching my 8th grade confirmation Sunday school class about the Trinity the past two weeks. I've really enjoyed it even if I was sad that I don't have enough time to really dig deep with them on this issue.

There is one thing that I've been thinking through that has really bothered me the last few days. As I prepare for Sunday school I try to think through various issues the kids may raise and attempt to prepare answers for them. One issue that I've been thinking through in anticipation of the kids was the heresy of Modalism. Even though this issue didn't come up I've been thinking a lot about Modalism the past few days. Just to be clear I'm not thinking about it in a "maybe it's right" sort of way. I completely affirm with the Fathers and the councils that Modalism is a heresy and that it incorrectly describes the Trinity. What I've been thinking about is the soteriological ramifications of modalism.

I've spent the last three years reading, believing, and praying trinitarian doctrine. I affirm the truth brought forth in the seven ecumenical councils of the Church and am resolutely Trinitarian in every way. I can could go on and on explaining why certain Christological heresies strike right at the heart of our ability to be redeemed by God. I can explain to you why it is primarily a salvific issue that Mary be called Theotokos and not Christotokos (as the Nestorian heresy taught), I can tell you how Arianism distorts God's plan of salvation, and I can tell you why I believe that the insertion of the Filoque into the Nicene Creed creates a propensity for Modalism in the West.

Despite all this, when I was thinking about and trying to articulate why we reject I could do no better than penciling down how Modalism is directly contrary to the God explained in scripture. Don't get me wrong, that in and of itself is enough to reject a certain teaching, especially one concerning the Trinity. But I wanted to offer my kids (if they asked, which they didn't) something more than "obviously this isn't how God is spoken about in scriptures." Don't get me wrong, I have a very high view of the scriptures and I believe them to be very clear that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three different persons and yet all fully divine but the scriptures can be distorted and indeed they were used by the modalists to corrupt the teaching of the Godhead.

And so I decided this week that I wasn't going to look up the answer in Pelikan's history, a book on doctrine, or in the works of Irrenaeus and other such prolific defenders of the faith. I decided this because I have no doubts that the belief in Modalism is detrimental to our faith and it corrupts how we think about God. I also know that I have worked through this in the past but am merely drawing a blank. So I ask those of you more theologically astute than I am to post your thoughts on this.

It seems to me the Modalism largely strikes at the incarnation. The description is on the tip of my tongue but I cannot seem to fully articulate it. I had hoped writing this blog post would help me to be able to articulate things but it hasn't worked this time. If each person of the Trinity is not really a person but just a "mode" of God or a temporary manifestation of God (as Modalism teaches) then it seems that something about our redemption in Christ is incomplete. It seems that if Christ is just a mode then was humanity really assumed and redeemed? For we know as St. Basil states; "that which was not assumed cannot be redeemed" (paraphrase).

It also seems that if the Spirit is just a mode of some ethereal divine essence then I wonder how fully dwells within believers. I am so frustrated because I sense all these problems with Modalism and yet I cannot fully articulate it. So give input and we can have ourselves a nice old fashioned heresy bashing party.


Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Text Messaging: My arch-nemisis!

I hate text messaging, and may even go so far as to say it is the bane of my existence. Sure it has it's purposes and if you looked at my cell phone bills (or rather my parent's bills because ashamedly I was still on their plan in seminary) you would see a moderate usage of text messages.

But now I am thrust into the world of youth ministry and for my middle to upper-middle class kids text messaging is the chief means of communication. Apparently e-mail is too cumbersome and to my surprise Facebook and Myspace are even out for most of them. They text like there is no tomorrow and will often have full conversations via text messaging (one of my biggest pet peeves).

So in an effort to actually be able to encourage and communicate with my kids I've decided that I need to descend into the fiery pits of text messaging. As I contemplate this task I feel like the main character from Dante's Inferno, who, as he approaches the entrance into Hell, sees a sign that reads "Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here." I am that dreadful soul descending into the darkest abyss where I am forced to submit to my arch enemy the text message. Lucky for me my new work phone number is an unlimited text plan.

Really the scenario isn't as bad as it sounds since I've found some solutions to my texting incompetence. One solution I found was on the "Simply Youth Ministry" website (here). Here they offer what is brilliantly called "Simply TXT" (you can watch the video here). This neat little subscription program is really the impetus for the post, but I thought I would provide some interesting (and true) back story instead of just calling the post "Simply TXT: Ripping of Youth Ministers One Text at a Time." Though that may be a catchy title.

You see, while I'm not a technical savant like some of my friends, I am educated enough in the ways of technology to know that you can send text messages from an email account for free. I also realized that if I could figure out the same information that this program asks for (number and carrier) then I could create my own groups and send unlimited messages without paying the 10,20,30, or 40 dollars each month. Especially when my budget is already small.

So good job Doug Fields and Simply Youth Ministry, you have created a nice interface so that you can charge youth ministers and churches money so that they can open up another way of communicating to their parishioners. I understand that your websites subtitle is: "simplifying ministry...saving you time" but I doubt your program will save much time in the long run.

I understand that you don't charge much, but your program doesn't do much either and it seems to me that it would have been more beneficial for you to just offer a link to a website like "makeuseof.com" (here) and then told your readers to make a contact list of the various numbers in either outlook, mail, or some other client. Sure you wouldn't be able to fleece youth ministers and churches, and you wouldn't be able to make a quick buck in rough times. But your ministry helps are gobbled up by so many people that it baffles me why you wouldn't point them to a way to achieve the same goal while not costing their ministry a cent. (Ok, It really doesn't baffle me it just makes me sad and a little perturbed).

So Doug Fields and Simply Youth Ministry, I salute you for ripping off the masses of youth leaders who are using your product. Way to be capitalists first and Christians second.