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youTheology is a Saint Paul School of Theology Pan-Methodist program that is preparing leaders, deepening faith, providing youth ministry resources, and giving opportunities for loving and serving God and others with high school students and youth workers.
“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.” Jesus Christ
One of the most difficult things I’ve ever experienced in my four decades of youth ministry was to serve as a Pallbearer for the funeral of one of a 13-year-old boy in my youth group. Paul was the victim of repeated bullying by a large group of peers that tragically left Paul with the mistaken conclusion that his reality was too unbearable and he chose to end his own life. This happened nearly 30 years ago. Unfortunately, bullying has gotten much worse in the last ten years.
Right now the movie documentary Bully, along with several highly publicized cases involving tragic results because of bullying among teenagers, has created a heightened awareness of the frightening dynamic of this issue in our culture.
Working with adolescents, we regularly hear stories of young people who everyday have to deal with being bullied. Everyday, hundreds of thousands of young people have to deal with the fear of attending school where they know they will be bullied. It’s estimated that an average of more than 150,000 young people stay home from school everyday to avoid being bullied. Most of the time this occurs without parents being aware that it’s happening to their child.
Bullying involves acts of repetitive negative behavior of a person or persons toward another person or persons that is aggressive and intimidating in nature. Bullying can take the forms of emotional, verbal, and/or physical abuse. Bullying can be a one-on-one issue but most often it involves a collaborative group engaged in peer abuse directed at one or more individuals.
Research reveals that young people who are regularly bullied face an increased risk of mental health issues. Depression, anxiety, lack of motivation, despair, helplessness, and suicidal thoughts prevail among those who are dealing with being perpetually bullied. In addition to thinking about harming themselves, some begin to fanaticize about hurting their tormenters. According to a report by the Secret Service, two-thirds of students who participated in school shootings were victims of bullying at school that had reached the level of self-described “torment.”
Mona O’Moore of the Anti-Bullying Centre at Trinity College in Dublin, has written, "There is a growing body of research which indicates that individuals, whether child or adult, who are persistently subjected to abusive behavior are at risk of stress related illness which can sometimes lead to suicide."
In addition to aggressive and physical actions that intimidate and harm the victims of bullying there are new forms of bullying that have emerged through social media. This type of Cyber-bullying attempts to socially isolate the victim by spreading rumors, name calling, threatening, criticizing, manipulating, ostracizing, etc. through a variety of social medias, including Facebook, Twitter, and whatever new social media tools emerged last week, along with those that will surface this week.
According to the Cyberbullying Research Center, One in five teenagers are harassed regularly online. Almost one-half of all teenagers have experienced some form of online harassment. More than one-third (37%) of teens admit to using social networking sites to victimize and harass their peers.
Before we, as adults, rest in the idea that we have moved beyond the ability to bully, let me suggest that we may not engage in the overt bullying actions of adolescents but we must ask ourselves if we have not just adopted more sophisticated forms of bullying – gossip, character assassination, ostracizing, sabotaging, and exclusionary behavior toward others.
When Jesus was asked what it means to truly be his follower he says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, Love your neighbor as yourself” Luke 10:27. He then tells one of the best-known stories called the parable of the Good Samaritan in order to explain and explore the heart of what it means to be a genuine follower of Christ. In this parable Jesus commends the man who comes to the rescue and takes care of a victim of extreme bullying. We must stand up for those who are being bullied. Christians must speak up. We have to take action concerning this issue
What is Youthfront doing about this issue?
What can parents do?
I believe that we have a window of opportunity created by this movie Bully and the media’s attention on this issue to double down our effort to radically alter the reality of bullying in our culture. This, I believe is something that the followers of Jesus and God’s church must passionately engage in. We must do this for our kids.
Resources The Center for Parent/Youth Understanding, www.cpyu.org Wikipedia
Press Release: Tim Keel, Mike King to teach Missional Leadership and Discipleship Spring 2012 at Nazarene Theological Seminary
Tim Keel, pastor of Jacobs Well Church and Mike King, President and CEO of YouthFront will teach CED 615 Missional Leadership and Discipleship Tuesdays 1:30-4:30 during the Spring Term. The two leaders in the Missional movement agreed to co-direct the course with Reverend Keel’s return to Kansas City. Reverend Mike King, an NTS graduate, has co-taught the class with Ron Benefiel and also with Dean Blevins in past sessions. Reverend Keel has co-taught coursework with Keith Schwanz. This will be the first time these two missional leaders will work together in an NTS class. For more information contact the Registrar or Dr. Dean Blevins - dgblevins@nts.edu.
The issues of vocation, college attendance and developmental guidance are very important aspects of youth ministry. This is a subject where youth workers easily find tension as we navigate through the realities of our culture, parental expectations, student assumptions, the American Dream and Kingdom obedience to God’s mission.
Here are a couple of resources that may help you to think through these issues which we cannot afford to ignore if we are truly forming disciples of Jesus Christ and shaping our churches for God’s mission in the world.
In the Nov/Dec issue of Immerse Journal, renowned architect David Greusel wrote an article challenging status quo thinking on the idea that college is the only trajectory for today’s young people. He helps youth workers think through how to reset this default assumption.
Greusel states, “In my family, the default assumption was always contrasted with ditch digging, as though all students who didn’t go to college ended up in the manual excavation business. It was assumed to be self-evident that ditch digging was a horrible enough idea, so it was unnecessary to point out that getting a college diploma was to be preferred—it was just assumed. It was even less likely that someone around our dinner table would have entertained the idea that ditch digging (as it is really done—operating big, yellow, heavy equipment with multiple knobs and levers) might be fun, might be work that someone would actually want to do on purpose.”
He also wrote on this subject at Cardus in an article called, “Vocational Reform.”
This morning Roy Williams’ Monday Memo asks the question, “But Why Are You Going to College?” He writes,
“Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings.”
- Proverbs, ch. 22
Stand before kings? Sounds great! But how does one get “skilled in his work?”
American children were taught for 100 years that all we had to do to be successful was listen, take notes, remember what we were told and repeat it accurately when asked.
Americans call this silliness “education” and we guard the concept fiercely, obstinately and ridiculously.
“You’ve got the grades to get into college…”
“Smart enough to get a scholarship…”
“The first of my family to go to college…”
“College educated…”
The worship of college runs deep in American families. To question college or to criticize it is to brand yourself a heretic.
But college is no longer a religion among employers.
A comprehensive study released by the Harvard Graduate School of Education on February 2, 2011, suggests that America’s “college for all” mindset may be doing more harm than good. According to the study, Americans place too much emphasis on 4-year degree programs when 2-year occupational programs would better prepare students for today’s job market.
Fifty years ago 30 percent of the jobs in America were “white collar.” The white collars enjoyed more prestige, had more opportunity and made more money than the 70 percent who were “blue collar” laborers.
College, we were told, was the difference.
Flash forward half a century; 30 percent of the jobs in America today are “white collar,” just as before. But only 15 percent of today’s jobs are “blue collar.” The remaining 50 percent are jobs that didn’t exist half a century ago; jobs that require specialized training but not a 4-year degree.
And since there aren’t enough people trained to do these jobs, our skilled “no collars” are paid wonderfully high salaries because employers are begging to hire them. The no collars make higher salaries, in fact, than two-thirds of the 30 percent whose collars are white.
“Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings.” And he will do it without a collar.
Meanwhile, our universities graduate exactly 10 times more psychology majors each year than there are jobs for psychology majors. But these bright-eyed innocents are never told, “There will be a job for only 1 in every 10 of you. The rest of you will have to find some other way to make a living.”
I’m betting you know at least a dozen young adults with college degrees who are struggling to find work today. Am I right? But the problem isn’t that there aren’t any jobs. There are plenty of jobs for people with the right skills. These “educated unemployed” simply chose a course of study for which there is no demand in today’s workplace.” From Monday Morning Memo, February 28, 2011 - Roy Williams
https://wizardacademy.org/scripts/default.asp
Youth workers, any thoughts? How do we create this conversation in our churches? How important is this issue?
I am a big fan of TED. I watch the video vignettes often. I attended a live TED event for the first time Thursday night at the Nelson Art Gallery and it was such a catalytic environment of creativity. I attended with David Greusel, his wife and youngest daughter along with 900 other curious learners. The tickets for the event were gone in a few minutes when they went online.
My two most favorite presenters were Dr. Brene Brown and Dr. Michael Wesch. Dr. Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. "She has spent the last ten years studying courage, shame and authenticity. She is the Behavioral Health Scholar-in-Residence at the Council on Alcohol and Drugs."
She spoke about our cultures pursuit to avoid vulnerability. She talked about the arrogance and misguided effort to embrace certainty and avoid risk (and faith). Her talk was so theologically rich.
Dr. Wesch is an Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University in Manhattan, KS. He is exploring the effects of new media on society and culture. His YouTube videos are extremely popular. He has won the Wired Magazine Rave Award, along with many others too numerous to list. He was the 2008 Carnegie U.S. Professor of the Year for Doctoral and Research Universities. He dealt with learning theory and pedagogy. He was BRILLIANT.
The whole night was a imaginative learning feast.
Given my overwhelming interest in "late adolescent" development the issues of college, education, vocation, apprenticeship and formation are on my radar screen. We are trying to address some of this through our Youthfront School of Formation. Youthfront School of Formation is a 16-week missional learning community in the neglected urban neighborhood of Argentine in Kansas City, KS. In this learning community we seek to more fully integrate our educational and vocational callings with the redemptive story of God through three specific ways: 1) thoughtful personal reflection; 2) critique and formation of theological paradigms; 3) provoking an awareness of environmental and socio-political realities.
On NPR recently I heard an interesting dialogue on Talk of the Nation on the subject "Who Needs College, And Who Shouldn't Go?" The discussion focused on the increasing costs of college education and examined the realities of college graduates finding meaningful employment in the current financial environment. The focus turned to the lack of apprenticeship programs in North America and the stigma attached to vocational training. This was a very informative conversation.
Today Jim Newberry pointed me to an article by a mutual friend of ours - David Greusel. David is a world class Architect and designed the Prayer Chapel at Youthfront South. Greusel's article is featured on the Cardus' web site. Cardus is a think tank: "An ideas lab for social innovation."
David Greusel's article is entitled, "Vocational Rehab." He talks about the loss of understanding of the concept of vocation. "I think that we in the developed world have hitched our wagons to the star of economic advancement to our detriment. Not that economic advancement is bad, of course, but that it tends to get our priorities out of whack. When parents, students and guidance counselors are all studying which careers pay the most, have the most potential for growth and will be most needed as baby boomers age, they overlook the quiet demands of calling—of what individuals were created to do." READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE
We must help the young people we work with, along with their parents take a hard look at the importance of becoming first and foremost the human being God intended them to be instead of being taken over by an agenda to become a money maker. These issues are extremely important to discuss in our churches, families and youth ministries.
This last week I was in the role of Professor at Olivet University, located south of Chicago. I taught a Graduate Module on Missional Leadership which met requirements for youth ministry students and church leadership students. Teaching 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM each day was exhausting but fulfilling. The class was made up of twenty-two graduate students enthusiastic about the course content. It was a wonderful week hanging with these bright students.
Our course outcomes were:
1) Articulate a working theology of missional leadership
2) Assess a local setting for missional ministry potential
3) Utilize specific practices for the sake of missional ministry
4) Conceive of a specific structures to guide a missionally shaped ministry
It was also great to be with Mark Holcomb, Assistant Professor of Christian Education, who teaches youth ministry at Olivet. The weather was awesome and the Olivet Campus is quite impressive. Olivet is the home of the Chicago Bears Training Camp so they are bracing themselves for the media circus coming to campus during the Bear's new quarterback Jay Cutler.
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Alan E. Lewis: Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday
Kenda Creasy Dean: Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church
Dirk Hayhurst: The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran
Philip Sheldrake: Spaces for the Sacred: Place, Memory, and Identity
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