New Middle School Lesson Review Site for Easter Series

This is our new site for our Easter series. This website is part of a process of us going digital - taking our weekly lessons and making them available to parents and students online. It's more interactive than an email or letter, and also more accessible. Our thoughts are that if we continue to see that people are going to the site, then we will take it to the next level. Check it our and make suggestions or comments.

Continuing the Multiracial coversation...

There is not a biblical mandate explicitly stated in scripture, but certainly implicitly. I would relate it to the teaching about the Trinity. The whole of the New Testament is filled with people interacting together of way different ethnic and racial backgrounds. Jesus and the woman at the well, Phillip and the Eunuch, Peter and Cornelius, just to name a few of the more popular stories.

The problem is that we only get to read the words and not see them. I know this is weird, but what if we could visually see those previously mentioned stories. That would change a lot of what we think and perceive. Most of what we read gets sent through the little goggles in our brains. So, my Caucasian lenses tend to color those stories and make them not nearly as revolutionary as they really were. Plus, since we in America relate racial issues to primarily black/white, we miss what Jesus and the other writers were trying to say. For example, Jesus and the Samaritan Woman does not come across as utterly and completely revolutionary until you read into the context - something I will not explain here. Just as revolutionary is Peter going to Cornelius' house. A Jew and a Roman soldier. But the point is that time and time again stories and events from the New Testament are told in the context of great racial tension and hatred. Just because it does not say somewhere that every church should be as racially diverse as it's immediate surrounding community, does not mean that it is not at least implied that it should be. That's enough for now... any thoughts folks?

Is there a Biblical Mandate for Multi-Racial Youth Ministry

I say yes!!! One of the biggest influences in my christian life over the last few years has been the introduction of the idea of a multi-racial church. My question though, is there a Biblical mandate clearly stated in scripture that encourages local churches to be multi-ethnic, multi-economic, and multi-racial. I think there is. But I want to know what you think.

Right now, especially if you are in urban or suburban ministry, your students are growing up in a much more diverse community than we have ever imagined. They walk through the doors of their schools and learn in the context of great cultural and racial diversity. Then, they walk through the doors of our churches and they are ushered straight back to the 60's. Yeah, you're right, it's not that bad. But I guarantee that there is much, much less diversity in your church than there is in the community where your church is located.

Do this if you have some free time and about $80. Find out the exact government stats for the 1 mile and 5 mile radius of your church. Being a local church, isn't it at least reasonable to think that your church demographic should be at least similar to the surrounding area? Is it? Not mine, not most of yours. Of course, this isn't true of every church in America... there's always the exception. But, it is by far the majority.

In conclusion to today's rant... The church should be setting the tone of the racial issues in America, not fueling them. Wake up folks, we have a black President. Like him or not, this man clearly defines multi-culturalism. The world is changing and becoming more and more diverse and I'm afraid we in the church will do what comes naturally to us... dig our feet in the sand and worry about it in twenty years or so. Yeah, that's been working out great for us so far! Oh and by the way, Christian music isn't cool anymore either.

Honestly, Where have all the students gone?

What is it about youth ministers that cause them to be so concerned about the size of their groups? How's your group doing with numbers - is it in a season of growth? Or, is it going through a transitional season? Youth Ministry is no different than "Big Church". Youth groups go through regular periods of decline and growth.

Here are some important questions:

Why do you want a big youth group?

Why do you prefer a small youth group?

Have you ever felt jealousy towards another youth group or youth pastor? Why do you care?

If you have a ton of students, are you really discipling all of them?

If you have a small group, do you blame it on church budget, size, culture, etc?

I have some answers and thoughts, but I thought it would be cool to throw this out there and see if there is a response first.

Web based curriculum

Well, our Jr High online lesson review website has been up and running for about 5 weeks now and the experiment seems to be working. I've just put in a counter and I've had about 30 hits in the last few days. I know this is nothing radically new, but it is our first attempt to take our teaching to another venue to help kids and parents engage in what we're learning. Would love for you to visit and give advice/suggestions. Thanks so much!

The Missional Youth Ministry

Friend of Missional is a website that is very informative about the missional church discussion. I'm one who is very interested in the direction of this discussion and its impact on the American church in particular. Since youth ministry is my context, I'm interested in learning more about what "missional" would look like in youth ministry. I've taken this quote from the Friend of Missional site. Maybe it, and many of the other informative pieces available on the site, will help us make the transition from a predominantly attractional youth ministry model to a externally focused, missional ministry.

JR Woodward at Dream Awakener has a perspective on success that really helps my understanding of missional. His post A Working Definition of Success provides a working definition of what missional might look like. Here it is:

• Not simply how many people come to our church services, but how many people our church serves.
• Not simply how many people attend our ministry, but how many people have we equipped for ministry.
• Not simply how many people minister inside the church, but how many minister outside the church.
• Not simply helping people become more whole themselves, but helping people bring more wholeness to their world. (i.e. justice, healing, relief)
• Not simply how many ministries we start, but how many ministries we help.
• Not simply how many unbelievers we bring into the community of faith, but how many ‘believers' we help experience healthy community.
• Not simply working through our past hurts, but working alongside the Spirit toward wholeness.
• Not simply counting the resources that God gives us to steward, but counting how many good stewards are we developing for the sake of the world.
• Not simply how we are connecting with our culture but how we are engaging our culture.
• Not simply how much peace we bring to individuals, but how much peace we bring to our world.
• Not simply how effective we are with our mission, but how faithful we are to our God.
• Not simply how unified our local church is, but how unified is "the church" in our neighborhood, city and world?
• Not simply how much we immerse ourselves in the text, but how faithfully we live in the story of God.
• Not simply being concerned about how our country is doing, but being concern for the welfare of other countries.
• Not simply how many people we bring into the kingdom, but how much of the kingdom we bring to the earth.

Any thoughts?

The Death of Attractional Youth Ministry

I'm literally praying for the day when Youth Ministry as we know it today will end. I know, you're probably saying that this is all I talk about. You're right. It's in my heart and soul. I know not every youth ministry in the world has to go down this journey. But I do believe that a few well respected ministries should serve as a model for the rest and start to tear down the walls of attractional youth ministry.

We all do it! We all like the pats and cheers of pulling off an event where large numbers of kids show up. It certainly gives the perception that the ministry is doing the "right" things. Can we be effective at both nurturing the souls of our students and pulling off big time, attractional ministry gatherings? What are we accomplishing by piling in students by the drove? I'm not going down that road anymore.

So come with me down a different road. If you're doing things differently, and I mean really differently, then please respond. Let's get a dialogue going about what youth ministry can look like outside of cool lights, videos, and crazy relay games. If you're having great success with an attractional youth ministry, than bless you. I want to know what truly missional youth ministry looks like.

Youth Ministry: What exactly do you want?

What do you do when what you’ve always done doesn’t work anymore? I’m confused, lonely, and feel extremely guilty. I used to have all the answers. Students used to flock to events and programs. That’s not the case anymore and I’m now left with the nagging questions about whether it’s my incompetence or something cultural. I do know this: something is broken. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s youth ministry models, or maybe it’s all of the above. Gone are the days when churches can simply hire a youth director to run a program and expect large flocks of students with nothing else to do on Sundays or Wednesdays to show up, embrace the gospel, and become committed disciples. I know things have to change, but more times than not I have no idea what my job is supposed to look like. I question what I’m doing and I question whether I’m even the best person to be doing it. Would my church, and more importantly, the Youth of my church be better served by someone else?

What is youth ministry? Is there ONE definition to answer that question? What do we do with students that have now grown up in a totally digital era? Even the poorest of the students I encounter have computers, video games, cell phones, and TV. How do you “attract” that? Pizza? Crazy relays? Cool acronyms? I think not!

What is “Deep Biblical Teaching”? If the answer to our youth ministry quandary is that our students are hungry for more depth in teaching, why don’t they flock to the “Big” church service? I hear it said that our teaching needs to be deep, but also on their level. Seriously, what does that mean? Is it deep, or is it kind of deep? Do you remember more than a handful of sermons you heard as a teen? Why do we continue to believe in the evangelical world that the “cure all” is a lesson or sermon when time and time again it is proven that the teacher/learner model is one of the least effective? If I wanted to be in the business of imparting biblical information I would have taken a job as a professor at a Christian school.

Daily I take into account the diversity of personalities, race, financial status, geographic location, and family life of the students God has sent to our ministry. Am I the only one thinking about this? We are a church is filled with the same diversity. Yet, we offer a ton of different ways for folks to deepen their souls, find relationship, and join the mission because we know that no one program meets the needs of every person. At some point we have to state our vision and purpose clearly, narrow our programming to best fit that vision and purpose, and move forward the best we can.

The enormity of the responsibility I have been given in Youth Ministry is very real to me. I don’t know how long I can keep going but the thought of giving up and walking away terrifies me even more. Too much is at stake! Too many students need Jesus! I’m willing to fight this fight – regardless of the consequences. Another thing I know: if we go backwards in student ministry we will continue to ask these same questions about numbers, depth, and programming instead of moving forward with ideas and practices that will help today’s students deepen their souls, find relationship, and join the mission.

Am I the only one that's lost out here? Fix me if you can!

Multi-racial Youth Ministry

One thing that I rarely ever see in the emergence Christianity discussions is a post-racial church. I see post-evangelical, post-denominational, post-everything else, but I don't often see anything about post-racial. As our American culture becomes more and more diverse, I'm hoping for a church that starts to reflect the incredible variety of God's human creation. I'm as excited as the next person about the coming changes in our Christian culture. We're taking on big theological issues, social justice issues, yet we still have black church, white church, hispanic church, asian church, etc... Why does Sunday morning continue to be one of the most segregated times in America? Shouldn't that be a time when brothers and sisters of all kinds and colors get together? What a powerful statement it would be for the world to see a united body of Christ, living and loving together. I have to believe that this is what Jesus would want. Any thoughts?

Reduced Budgets in Youth Ministry

Well, the financial situation in our country has, and will continue to, put a strain on many youth ministry budgets. I work at a large nondenominational church and this year we have significantly reduced the whole church budget in an effort to be good stewards in a year where giving will most likely be down. I'm anticipating some changes in our ministry programming that could be a good thing. It certainly will cause us to focus on the things that matter most. Instead of new projectors or big inflatable parties, we will have to have more low cost relational events. Creativity will become essential as we will not spend as much on "canned" curriculums. Right now I'm wondering just how spoiled I've gotten over the last few years. And better yet, how much have we spoiled our students? Is it possible to do more with less? It sounds noble and all but I believe this will be a year that stretches youth workers to depend on Jesus, will not allow us to hide behind big, costly events, and will certainly allow us to model fiscal responsibility before our students. Money can be a powerful tool in impacting lives for Christ. But, without times like these we can often become lazy, knowing that we can make something look better than it is by spending some extra cash. I pray that this would be a year for all of us increase our dependence on God to provide all that we need - not what money can buy!

Web based curriculum getting ready to go live

Well, I've been working on a new way for our students to engage the Bible with a web based review study of our current series in Proverbs. We launch the series this Sunday and students will be invited to check out the site to further engage the passages from the week's lesson. After I get the website out to our leaders I plan on posting the link on this site so I can get feedback from y'all. There's nothing new under the sun so I'm sure this is happening somewhere else. Anybody got any links? Thanks for reading and I look forward to sharing with y'all the results of this new adventure.

Collaborative, Immersive, Online Discipleship

Collaborative online discipleship is the way of the future. We'll have to come up with a better name than that, but that is the first step we must take in transforming the youth of today. If you google wed3D books you will find some great info on interactive learning. Right now I'm trying to build a website that will allow our students to interactively engage the book of Proverbs.

Here's a snipet about what web3D books could look like:“Web3D Books. Web3D Books are Web-based digital books that support bidirectional interaction with Immersive Education learning experiences. Web3D Books are used to assemble and present any combination of text, imagery (such as images and videos), audio, Web content (HTML pages, Flash animation, etc.), and Web-based 3D content (such as Shockwave and X3D). A Web3D Book can be thought of as a Web-based presentation container that can seamlessly guide learners through three-dimensional (3D) immersive learning experiences. Web3D Books are read/viewed using a standard Web browser, through which they support bidirectional interaction with the stand-alone Immersive Education platform. For example, clicking on a hyperlink in a Web3D Book might teleport the reader into a specific location of an Immersive Education learning environment that is directly related to the subject matter they were reading in the book. Likewise, 3D objects in an Immersive Education environment can be linked to any section or page of a Web3D Book to enrich the virtual reality experience with supplemental learning materials.”

Would it not be awesome to put a tool like this into the hands of our students. I wonder if it wouldn't completely rearrange the way we teach scripture to our students. Here's the problem, I have no idea how to create a website. How do we make this happen?

No More Preaching!

OK y'all, nueroeducation is something that is really interesting to me. Google that word and take in some pretty cool stuff. It's about time the old lecture based teaching method gets put on the shelf. Why do we in youth ministry feel so strongly about the lesson, message, sermon, etc? It's long been a fact that the average kid takes in about 10% of what he or she hears. Are we okay with that? 10%? Really?

When did the pulpit become the most important piece of furniture in the church? I for one am going to dedicate the next few years to finding a new way to engage this digital generation. Do we really have a choice? Any thoughts?