Here and Again? On Rally Day and Brokenness

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. (John 1:35-37)

I was at a low spot in my ministry – lacking self-confidence, burned out, and on the verge of hopelessness. These verses from John’s gospel were read as the text during a lectio divina exercise at the retreat I was attending. I, of course, was hoping for some inspiration that would put the wind back in my sails as a new programming year was starting. The only word I could hear in this text was “again”. Again?!

But this word made my ears tingle. I didn’t want to do all of this . . . again.
Rally day . . . again?
Recruiting volunteers . . . again?
Convincing the congregation to invest in their youth . . . again?
Convincing youth and families to invest in the congregation . . . again?
I didn’t want to do any of it ever again!

youth ministry is experiential

The father of experiential education, John Dewey, presented the world with his most concise and compelling vision of what experiential education could be in his classic, Experience and Education in 1938. It has some valuable lessons for those of us who work in the area of children, youth and family ministry.

Dewey was writing to critique both the traditional and the progressive approaches to education. The traditional approach was primarily content-driven and didactic. The instructor was the source of knowledge and the student was an empty vessel waiting to be filled with all the knowledge the instructor could impart. The progressive approach was primarily student-centered and unstructured. The assumption was students would only learn through freedom and a hands-off approach. This was a naïve understanding of both freedom and learning. Learning will not happen unless there is some structure and intended outcome working in partnership with freedom. In his critique, Dewey claimed that not all experiences are educative. These are words to heed for those of us working in youth ministry.

rebranding youth ministry

In the six years I’ve taught Youth and Family Ministry at Augsburg College, I’ve noticed a decrease in the number of students in our program. However, I’ve also seen an increase in the number of students across the college who are interested in and involved with youth ministry in some form. These students want to work with youth in the context of a faith community, but have no interested in earning a degree in youth ministry. In fact, many of them don’t see themselves serving professionally in youth ministry in the traditional sense.

This is both troubling and inspiring. The problem is not a lack of interest in ministry with youth. The problem, I think, is linked to the branding of our profession.

ELCA Youth Ministry Network Extravganza Workshops & Webinars

This past weekend I had the honor to gather once again with many, many, many youth ministers from across the ELCA. These folks are volunteers, part-timers, full-timers, rostered lay-leaders and ordained clergy. They are young and they are old. They are liberal, moderate and conservative and it is beautiful!

Best of all, these folks really, really love the kids they are called to serve. There is no doubt about that.

youth ministry is vocational

Emmanuel! God is with us, in the vocations of our youth!

Vocation is the most critical issues youth ministry faces today. If we cannot help young people listen for and discern God’s call in their lives, then they will find little reason to stay engaged in the community of faith. When we claim that God is at work in the life of a young person, we claim that biology and culture are not the only factors in human development. From a theological perspective, Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Bio-Ecological Systems Theory is incomplete. We would also want to add one more system, the kairos system.

Kairos is God’s time. God shows up and God does God’s work in God’s time. Culture and biology shape our physical, cognitive and social development but God also works on us in kairos moments.

Youth Ministry is Holistic

22% of children in the USA under the age of 18 are living in poverty. Yet, when I hear the Church talking about young people I don’t hear us talking about poverty rates. I only hear us talking about post-confirmation retention rates. Isn’t this a little short-sighted? Where are the boundaries or limits to our call? Are those of us in children, youth and family ministry only charged with the faith formation of young people?

Youth Ministry is Relational

Mission without relationship is colonialism. Ministry without relationship is patronizing.

I’ve been guilty of both many times. I was new to ministry and had developed a complex chart depicting the leadership structure that my ministry would take including youth committee members, small group leaders, peer ministers, drivers, etc. I shared this with my father, a pastor. His responded by saying, “That sure is a nice drawing. Where are the people?” I had a snazzy organizational chart for my ministry but no people to plug into it because I had not established any relationships. Mission without relationship.

Also, there were two times when I tried to assert myself as an authority figure or mentor into the life of a young person who I thought was “needy” only to be shot down by the teens both times because I had not done the hard work of actually getting to know them. Ministry without relationship.

In previous posts I’ve claimed that everything we do in our ministry with youth can be thought of as interpretation, discernment or proclamation. My claim here is that our work of interpretation, discernment and proclamation should always be done relationally.

In Honor of the Youth Minister on Rally Day

³⁵ The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, ³⁶and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ ³⁷The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. (John 1:35-37)

A few years ago I was at a retreat where this verse was used for our morning Lectio Divina exercise. We were asked to identify the word that grabbed us. My word was “again”. — What? — Why “again”? — Why couldn’t I have a cooler word, Lord?

As I began to wonder and pray about what this word “again” might mean for me; I realized I was really anxious and angry about having to start a new program year at the church and all the monotony that would come with it. I would have to try and make Jesus become really important to a bunch of youth again. I would have to try and motivate a congregation to support their youth again. I would have to convince parents that they play the primary role in the faith formation of their kids again. It all seemed so exhausting to me.

Youth Ministry Is Theological

Kenda Creasy Dean’s Almost Christian has gotten a lot of attention in the past year and I am glad. I was beginning to think that we (as a Church) had glossed over the findings of the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) too quickly. Kenda offers us an antidote to the Moralistic Therapeutic Deism of the NSYR by looking into the lives of highly devoted young people. These youth register as highly devoted youth because they …

a reflection on fatherhood

Yesterday was my son’s birthday. He is eight. This day causes me to pause from thinking about youth ministry to reflect on fatherhood instead. My son’s name is Elijah Gabriel. I chose the name Elijah after taking Mark Throntveit’s Elijah/Elisha class at Luther Seminary. I chose the name Gabriel after having read The Giver the day before he was born. We chose his names because they were meaningful, but little did we know how meaningful they’d become and little did I know how much I would learn about faith from Elijah and the biblical stories that bear his names.