Becoming Human Beings

“In 1963 I went on that famous March on Washington, and the clearest memory that I have of it is standing near the Lincoln Memorial hearing the song “We Shall Overcome” sung by the quarter of a million or so people who were there. And while I listened, my eye fell on one very old Negro man, with a face like shoe leather and a sleazy suit and expression that was more befuddled than anything else; and I wondered to myself if, quite apart from the whole civil-rights question, that poor old bird could ever conceivably overcome anything. He was there to become a human being. Well, and so were the rest of us. And so are we all, no less befuddled than he when you come right down to it. Poor old bird, poor young birds, every one of us. And deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome some day, as he will, by God’s grace, by helping the seed of the kingdom grow in ourselves and in other and in each other until finally in all of us it becomes a tree where the birds of the air can come and make their nests in our branches. That is all that matters really.”
- Fredrick Buechner

The Problem with High School Ministry

High school ministry across the country is a struggle for churches. A radical change has occurred. (or should I say discontinuous change) It's certainly not the first and it won't be the last.

Youth ministry (especially high school ministry) was the solution church and parachurch ministries used to address the growing chasm of adolescence. Youth ministry as we know it has become fairly confident in this answer and have felt that what has worked for the last 30 years will work for the future.

But today's high school student is different than any other person who has existed on the face of the earth. At least in a few ways. In other ways, it's important to affirm that they are very much the same. But that isn't what this post is about. High school students who our churches are working with are unique. They are a new people group who have grown up and been shaped within a unique environment.

Managing this change with the same skills and approaches to teens will not work for this group of people.

Youth ministry from 8 years ago might work with middle school students today. But not for a majority of high school students. The youth worker who is hands on with kids will develop a series of responses over the next few years. But here is something I can't get out of my head, so I'll pass it on to you, especially if you are a Senior Pastor, church leader or youth pastor.

Do me a favor: Go read your churches vision statement. Read about what your church says it's mission in the world is.

Now spend the next couple years wrestling with this.
Is that vision, and mission something your high school students would be willing to die for? Willing to give up everything for. Would you be willing to let them? Are you willing to die for what your church exists?

Most of the High school students I talk to don't attend church because they don't see anything worthy of their time. The gospel and discipleship comes across as some kind of endless self-help formula that never ends and to which others outside their world become an afterthought. Kids are looking for something to give their lives to and most churches offer them games and "a youth program" with a crazy busy schedule that keeps kids out of trouble or better yet... builds a resume for life.


These kids see through the games and "fun". Most of them can have fun somewhere else.

Far too many high school ministries (and by default most churches) today are only training students to be adults who view church as irrelevant to real life.

There are other elements that contribute to the smallness of high school ministry today as well. I won't go into those at this point though.

An Assumption I've been Carrying

I should know better. And though my friends leading the WCC Youth Ministry would tell me, "Don't should on yourself"... I am right now. I really should have known better. Maybe we can all learn from my faulty assumption. Perhaps you hold this faulty assumption. Perhaps you have lived in the understanding I'm coming into.

But let me back up a bit.
We all carry assumptions about the world we live in, why it is the way it is and how things will always be. We often don't actually see our own assumptions very clearly because they are quite simply the ruling ideas that define our criteria for making important decisions based on our memories of our experiences and encounters with the world.

For instance, my wife has never taken an allergy test, but she refuses to eat shrimp. Once she ate shrimp and she had the sensation of her throat constricting. A scary experience that left here with a new rule for eating. No shrimp. Was it actually the shrimp? Probably. Could it have been something else? Yes. Perhaps because we were sitting in the smoking section (a rare place to find us) Pam was reacting to the smoker at the next table. Perhaps it was some other ingredient in the food. It makes no difference, because Pam made the assumption it was the shrimp that caused her reaction. I think she's right by the way. This re-enforces her assumptions.

Now the assumption I've been functioning within is under the radar. It's not shrimp it has to do with change and the church. I'm honestly not sure where my assumption came from but I can just say it's been with me for quite a long long time.

I have always assumed that people leading the church understood change to be discontinuous. Alan Roxburgh describes discontinuous change as disruptive and unanticipated. It's the kind of change that demands change within us as people because, as Alan writes, "The skills we have learned aren't helpful in this kind of change."

He contrasts discontinuous change to continuous change which he describes as a change that "develops out of what has gone before and therefore can be expected, anticipated and managed."

Good stuff.

I have always known that there are people who, when faced with a challenge and need to change simply refuse to do so. This is still true. But there are those who desire to change but simply misunderstand the the nature of change. For them, change is to be managed. Change is dependent upon the skill they have already learned. Which it does, sometimes, when change is continuous.

But you can not depend upon skills you currently have for discontinuous change. It requires a new set of assumption about life, ministry, family and God.

So I must admit. I thought, or at least I've been functioning under the assumption that everyone understood this.

My new Macbook Pro

It came in the mail yesterday and I'm finding my way around it. I'll spare you the details of how great it is... except for Jimmy, I want you to know how great my it is and how much better it is than your HP. :-)

Church Assessment means Blog Pause

I apologize for the pause in my blogging. When I'm travelling with the Riddle Group to do an assessment it is an all consuming venture. There is no room for extra brain activity.

To give you a glimpse into what we do: the main chunk of the schedule is over 3 days. I went in a day early this time to observe the 2 Saturday night services and 2 Sunday morning services along with accompanying youth programs. The main chunk was Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. During those 3 days Jonathan and I will interview 63 people one-to-one. (A min. of 30 minutes each) We'll participate or lead over 53 hours of conversation. Then on the 4th day we write our assessment with ActionPoints which give direction to the congregation to move on. 99% of the document (17 pages in this case) is completely original material unique to the church we are visiting.

All of this thinking and writing makes it difficult to blog during an assessment, so I appreciate your patience.

Colorado Springs

I'm in the Colorado Springs airport heading home after 6 days in the beautiful shadow of pikes peak.

It was a very good experience to be working with the incredible people at Woodmen Valley Chapel. They took great care of us and they have incredible people on staff. I look forward to continued friendships with many of them.

I'm tired though and ready to be home. Jonoathan and I had 50 hours of conversations since monday morning.

Teen Abstinence

This article is interesting.

"Students who participated in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex a few years later as those who did not, according to a long-awaited study mandated by Congress.

Also, those who attended one of the four abstinence classes reviewed reported having similar numbers of sexual partners as those who did not attend the classes, and they first had sex at about the same age as their control group counterparts — 14.9 years, according to Mathematica Policy Research Inc."

Then later.

"“I really do think it’s a two-part story. First, there is no evidence that the programs increased the rate of sexual abstinence,” said Chris Trenholm, a senior researcher at Mathematica who oversaw the study. “However, the second part of the story that I think is equally important is that we find no evidence that the programs increased the rate of unprotected sex.”

Trenholm said his second point of emphasis was important because some critics of abstinence programs have contended that they lead to less frequent use of condoms."

Colorado Springs

I'll be in Colorado Springs in the not to distant future. I'll be doing an assessment a church there. I have lots of memories from Colorado Springs. I attended a Leadership Network/ YS large church youth ministry forum in 1998 and while I was there I had my first Jamba Juice. I remember Darrell Pearson taking a few of us to Yakatori as well. Then Darrell took us to meet the great Jim Hancock who was famous to me because he was the mastermind behind EDGEtv, the precursor to what every semi-modern church does now in their services. Jim is a true artist whose stuff you must read.

This trip I'm looking forward to meeting new friends and hoping to hang out with Jen and Jay However. Jen who among other things gives significant leadership to YMwomen: A network for women in Youth Ministry and Jay who is the gatekeeper for all things publishing for at YS.

This trip the second consultant will be Jonathan Reitz who I just discovered (via an obscure website) is considered by someone to be a Famous Lutheran! Who knew?

My Future Computer

After a completely ridiculous amount of research and visits to local tech stores for hands on experiece, I believe I know what I'm going to get. The amount of research is due in part to my needing to save some money to spend on the machine and the pressure of my hard drive crashing last Sat.

Unless Apple comes out with a new line of machines in the next two weeks my next machine will be a refurbished 15-inch MacBook Pro 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo with 1GB memory and 120GB hardrive.

Though I haven't decided on the glossy or matte screen.

Life Coaching my Sister

My cousin is a dentist and he's my dentist. He's very generous with me and what he wants me to pay him as a family member. (Generally nothing at all)

My dad is a lawyer. He's good for free legal advice.

My uncle is vet. He's generous with my family specifically with my yellow lab Shelby.

I could go on here.

I have often thought, that as a youth pastor, pastor or consultant that I don't have as much to offer my family for free. Have you ever felt that way?

So when my little sister is seeking some vocational clarity and needs some outside coaching for life (something I offer as a coach and consultant) it makes me very happy to be able to use my gifts and vocation to serve her.

That's what I'm doing tonight! What's really cool is that she was referred to me by her friend whose husband I coached last week.

That's my sister in them middle between my sister-in-law and mom.

Billboard

I'm not a fan of churches using billboards. There's nothing sinful about it, but I have my reasons. I'm also not a raving fan of some of the ecclesiology of my friends at Lifechurh.tv . But this made me laugh.

I'm driving down the highway here in Tulsa. I drive past a church who has recently had a billboard saying "Exit here - God" for people to come to their church.
Lame.

Then today I read this red billboard.

-------------------------
Boycott LifeChurch.tv

- Satan

--------------------------

Hilarious. Only in Tulsa. I laughed out loud for at least a mile.
Totally creative. Completely original. and very very funny.

Zachery at Scouts

Tonight at Cub scouts all the boys were making posters. The instructions from Steve the very patient den leader, were make a poster about anything you want to, it might be a sport or sports teams, it might be an imaginary creature, it might be a moive you like.

Zach is third. The kids before him draw OU logo's and football stadiums.
Zach starts his presentation with the OU logo, a Lightsaber duel, the loch ness monster, and... Siberius. When Steve asked who Siberius was, Zach replied, "He's the one who guards the gates of hell and keeps the spirits in!"

Everyone burst out laughing. Including me. So funny.

So then I ask, "Where did you learn about Siberius?"

From my "Mythical Handbook Drawing Guide"

Grandma got that for you didn't she?

Yep!

Never a dull moment.

The People Formerly Known as Congregation

And then there's this

wow.

The People Formerly Known as Pastor

A breath-taking post from my former co-worker and pastor John Frye. Link

Irony

A state lawmaker who authored a drunk driving law was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of DUI.

Link