Mike King

Immigration Reform Lunch Briefing with Noel Castellanos from CCDA

Next Tuesday, April 23, Youthfront is hosting an event sponsored by the Christian Community Development Association.

CCDA is providing an Oklahoma Joe’s bbq lunch for pastors and ministry leaders.  The special guest is Noel Castellanos, CEO of CCDA.  He will be addressing the current issue of Immigration Reform.  Many churches in the KC metro support ministry initiatives among Hispanics which serve many whom are here without proper documentation.  Right now, immigration reform is at a critical juncture and many Christians are unsure what they can or should do about it. 

Join us from 11-1pm at Youthfront's auditorium to hear from Noel about how you can navigate your church to think differently about immigrants through Scripture and participate in making historic changes for millions of families that have been torn apart by poor immigration policy.  

Feel free to invite other key leaders, but please RSVP with the number of people who will be attending with you by emailing Kurt Rietema - krietema@youthfront.com

Youthfront Auditorium, 4715 Rainbow Blvd. Shawnee Mission, KS  66205

Two Time World Series Champion Jeremy Affeldt and His New Book

On Baseball's Opening Day, Youthfront supporter, friend and associate Jeremy Affeldt releases his first book taking readers off the field and into his life story.  The story of Jeremy’s relationship with our President Mike King and his involvement in our ministry, as well as details of his active participation with Youthfront’s Something to Eat ™ initiative are featured prominently in the book.  Expected to make multiple best-seller lists, this book offers a compelling, page-turning story for all readers.  Another fan of Youthfront and five time Major League All Star, Mike Sweeney says, “Jeremy Affeldt may be a two-time World Series champion and one of the greatest left-handed relievers in major league baseball but that is just the tip of the iceberg as to the man that he is.  As you will read in this book, Jeremy Affeldt is not defined by baseball. He is defined and validated as a child and follower of the most high God.”

Affeldt, pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, tells of the ups and downs of his life and major league career beginning with his childhood spent in a military family, the impact his parents had on his life, and his tumultuous high school years.  Affeldt admits that he was often an uncaring, self-centered athlete who was difficult for his parents and teachers. So much so, that his dad kicked him out of the home on more than one occasion.   Although he attended a Christian school, Jeremy wasn’t buying any of it until a series of events led him to see his need for Christ.

After being kicked out of games and sitting the bench because of his behaviors and his attitude, one of his coaches gave him books on attitude and anger control as well as scriptures that Jeremy read mainly so he wouldn’t have to watch the games from the stands. As the Bible began to come alive for him, he was also influenced by God’s transforming work in the life of another student who had been Jeremy’s archenemy. That was the beginning of Jeremy’s close walk with Christ.

Jeremy Affeldt tells of his opportunities in baseball, his marriage to his high school sweetheart and, of course, his success including two World Series Championships – after many setbacks and injuries – in the major leagues.

The book includes Jeremy Affedlt’s passion for social justice and his humanitarian endeavors as he continues to use his time and finances to do God’s work throughout the world.   Available now, discover the side of Jeremy that thrives off the field; the side that is passionate about freeing the slave, feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty and seeking justice for the oppressed.

ORDER BOOK

The ALL NEW Immerse Journal

At Immerse Journal, we believe in good and faithful cultural realities. For the past several years this has meant publishing seriously intelligent and creative essays on the topic of youth ministry.

But good things are meant to be shared. That's why we are pleased to announce that as of April 1 we are enlarging our focus to bring the conversation to our friends in the larger church community.

The new Immerse will sound like a person expounding. On the subjects you want. We're writing on more. And we're writing on mission.

What you love about us will stay largely the same: theological sophistication, expert opinions, and thoughtful commentary on church culture and culture overall. We had a hunch that issues impacting youth ministry must eventually be addressed in the broader ecclesial context. We knew there was more to the story, so now we want to go there too—and we'd like to bring you with us.

Beginning this spring, Immerse will publish four journals yearly. Arrangements have been made for the fulfillment of your current subscription. However, for those wishing to opt out, you'll find a refund option available inside your first issue. For the record, we don't think you'll want to leave.

 

 

To subscribe to the new Immerse Journal or find more information, please visit us at our website. Join the conversation.

  

Peasants' Day Feast 2-18-13

Youthfront is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization.

to bring youth into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ

Peasants' Day Feast 2-18-13

In the midst of our prosperity, we so quickly forget.  Today marks the 3rd anniversary of the earthquake that devastated Haiti.  In the days following, thousands filled Youthfront’s auditorium to pray and to pack thousands of meals that were then shipped to respond to the crisis there. 

On Presidents’ Day, February 18th, as our country remembers the privileged and the powerful, we gather together to honor the peasants and the poor like we did three years ago.  Join us for the Peasants’ Day Feast to package thousands of meals that will be shipped to countries experiencing urgent food crises.  Together, in fits of passionate action filling bags to boxes, boxes to pallets, and pallets to shipping containers with humble, life-giving feasts, we awaken an imagination of another world, another kingdom, another King.

Groups, youthworkers, families, individuals; all are invited to give food and clean water to the poor and powerless.  Join us for our Peasants’ Day Feast.  Sign up now.

Download posters and flyers for this event here.

Click these links to learn about Youthfront's Something to Eat™ and Something to Drink™

Peasant's Day Feast

On Presidents’ Day, Feb. 18, we’re going to be doing a push to have the biggest packing event in Youthfront’s auditorium since the earthquake in Haiti three years ago.  We’re calling it Peasants’ Day Feast.  As our country remembers the privileged and the powerful, we honor the peasants and the poor.  As much of the American church begins its Lenten fast, we chose a different kind of fasting--an Isaiah 58 kind of fast where we loosen the chains of injustice and share our food with the hungry.  

We’re also developing a way for churches to take a Something to Eat assembly line home with them so that their churches and youth groups can practice this “Lenten fast” by packaging meals onsite all the way through Easter.  We’ll also be developing a series of prayers and reflections for each week of Lent that focus on Christ, our spiritual hunger, and the physical hunger experienced by so many worldwide.

Join us on Presidents’ Day, February 18 where hundreds from around the KC metro area will descend upon Youthfront’s auditorium to pack thousands of meals that will be shipped to countries experiencing urgent food crises.  Together, in fits of passionate action filling bags to boxes, boxes to pallets, and pallets to shipping containers with humble, life-giving feasts, we awaken an imagination of another world, another kingdom, another King.  Join us for our Peasants’ Day Feast.

For more information check out the website.

Act Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly

“How do we as youth workers seek justice - and teach our students to do the same? How do we help the world’s most vulnerable people  in our own neighborhood -without enabling dependency?”

If you find yourself asking how to teach students what it means to seek justice and love mercy, this event is for you.

We’ll meet at the South Branch Library in the Argentine neighborhood in Kansas City, KS for a short presentation and discussion on how to do “missions” with dignity, followed by a tour of the community and a Something to Eat™ meal packaging event at the Franklin Center. As we wrap up, we’ll enjoy delicious
homemade Mexican food from one of our neighborhood friends.

When: Thursday, Nov. 29th, 9:00 AM - noon

Where: South Branch Library in the Argentine neighborhood of KC, KS

Cost: $10 - includes lunch and Something to Eat™  packaging experience

Register online at www.youthfront.com/justicetraining

Eschatology and The Youth Ministry Mission Trip

Immerse is a proud sponsor of the National Youth Worker Convention Theological Forums again this year.  Over the next months leading up to the conferences we will be having some of the panelists that will be at the forums sharing some pre-cursory thoughts on some of the questions they will be asked.  This week our friend Andy Root lets us in on his preparation for the up coming eschatology panel.

As I was preparing for my eschatology panel in Dallas at the National Youth Workers Convention, I got an email from a youth worker asking for some insight on why he was so uncomfortable with a youth mission trip he had just gone on. He explained that his young people spent all day working, motivated by rhetoric from the leadership on how big a difference they were making, how they were changing the world. The kids were told over and over again that if they really believed in Jesus and really wanted it, they could do anything.

Yet, he explained, “I’ve now been back there six years in a row, same place, and honestly things aren’t getting better but worse. So what are we doing there?”

I thought it was a great question and one that could only be answered through an eschatological perspective embedded in the resurrection of Jesus. As I’ll say on that panel in Dallas on eschatology, the only way for eschatology not to be weird (like a poorly done Christian Apocalyptic movie) is for all our eschatological assertions to be embedded in the person and action of Jesus. Jesus is the man of the eschaton because Jesus is the new Adam. Unlike his friend Lazarus, who is raised to die again, Jesus is the man of the future, man of completion because, now alive, death is no more. (Death is no more for him, and because we are in him, as Paul says, we are promised that one day death will be no more for us too. But this is in our future, in the eschaton, though it is now for Jesus—because he is the man of the future).

What did I say back?  Something like this: (which, by the way, comes from an upcoming book, Unlocking Eschatology and Mission in Youth Ministry [Zondervan 2012]).

A mission trip in youth ministry is about witnessing to the resurrection; it is not about bringing the resurrection. Jesus, and Jesus alone, is the resurrection. The mission trip is about joining in God’s action by entering death with people, trusting that our actions are windows into the promise of God to take all that is death (hungry stomachs, sagging roofs, parentless children) and bring life out of it. Promise can happen only within reality, only within bearing death. But promise honestly enters into the death of this reality, hoping and waiting for the next, the new reality.

It is about what is coming. The mission trip is standing in reality while, through our action, witnessing to the action of God, who promises to overcome death in all its forms.

The youth ministry mission trip possesses no power to bring forth justice. But it nevertheless bends its life toward justice by seeking the person of Jesus who brings forth the coming of God’s future, when all will be fed and cared for. So now, today, we feed and care for others as a sacrament of the fullness of God’s coming future.

For more great stuff check out the Immerse Blog

Stop Short Term Mission Trips for Youth Groups?

I remember taking my first short term mission trip with students nearly thirty years ago before they were a fixed annual project for most church youth groups.  I have many fond memories from leading several dozen of these "short term mission trips."  However, over the last seven or eight years I have engaged with many youth workers in a dialogue about the theological warrant for this concept. 

Christianity Today recently featured three views on this issue.  Brian Howell, believes that we should cease expensive "travel-intensive projects."  He states there are good reasons for Christians to travel but "projects" is not one of them.  I believe we should shift to an emphasis on missional activity in our local contexts.  The concept of pilgrimage also needs to be reconsidered as a valid faith-immersion formational activity in our churches and youth groups.

Here are a few thoughts from Brian M. Howell who is associate professor of anthropology at Wheaton College and author of Short-Term Mission: An Ethnography of Christian Travel Narrative and Experience (IVP Academic, forthcoming).

"Churches should not abandon travel, but we should abandon most travel-intensive 'projects.'

It is good for American Christians to visit Christians in other places to witness what God is doing around the world. It is good for American Christians to visit missionaries, learning firsthand about their work and how to pray for them. The opportunity to learn from all our brothers and sisters living and working around the world is a gift many of us have received due to our relative wealth, access to technology, and leisure time. We should accept this blessing gratefully.

When it comes to projects, however, the good we do is often outweighed by the warped impressions left on both sides. For example, sending high-school students to do construction in front of poor, underemployed adults furthers the humiliation of the poor as they see wealthy North Americans casually doing jobs they would happily accept, while it reinforces the views of many American Christians that poor people cannot help themselves.

Our projects further promote views of poor people as lacking personal agency, as short-term mission teams often spend most of their time interacting with children conducting Vacation Bible School or teaching games. Teams often leave with the impression that the whole country is childlike, vulnerable, and in need of our care. When short-termers do interact with adults, it is often in unequal relationships—cooks, drivers, and other employees of the American missionaries—where true fellowship is difficult. Those ministries run by nationals who host short-term teams frequently adapt their ministry to meet the needs of visiting foreigners first and local residents second. These hosts are reluctant to ask too much of powerful guests or to confront their visitors' views and risk losing material benefits.

Unequal social relationships and a skewed view of poor communities can affect service in the United States too. However, there is a reason why many churches have little problem getting 25 youths to sign up for a project in South Africa, while the trip to a nearby urban community goes unfilled. The dynamics of international travel make it easier to imagine that we in the West have no responsibility for the problems "over there" beyond our occasional charity. We can feel good about our service without being confronted by our responsibility for the injustices we witness. In nearby urban centers, or a local apartment complex, we are more likely to be confronted with the reality that our lives are bound up with theirs, and we cannot so easily turn away from what is going on in front of us when it gets difficult or inconvenient.

We should not abandon international travel, nor should we be less generous with our resources. But if we would spend less time building walls, painting houses, or digging ditches, we could spend our time learning how the problems there are part of the problems here. These trips should serve to teach us how we are bound up together, in our economics, in our politics, and, most importantly, in Christ."

The article continues with views from David Livermore and Robert Priest.  READ FULL ARTICLE HERE.

Innovation and Tradition

James K.A. Smith from Calvin College writes for Duke Divinity's Faith and Leadership about how innovation requires grounding in tradition if it is going to truly flourish.  The article is entitled, "Tradition for Innovation" and I guess I'm posting it because I really agree with the core of what he's saying.  Here are some of his thoughts:

        "The entrepreneurial independence of evangelical spirituality leaves room for all kinds of congregational startups that require little if any institutional support. Catering to increasingly specialized “niche” audiences, these startups are not beholden to liturgical forms or institutional legacies. Indeed, many proudly announce their desire to 'reinvent church.'”

         "If the church is going to send out 'restorers' who engage culture for the common good, we need to recover and remember the rich imaginative practices of historic Christian worship that carry the unique story of the gospel."

Smith also describes "many ways in which the liturgical tradition nurtures and replenishes the imagination:"

    "• Kneeling in confession and voicing “the things we have done and the things we have left undone …” tangibly and viscerally impresses upon us the brokenness of our world and humbles our own pretensions;

    • Pledging allegiance in the Creed is a political act -- a reminder that we are citizens of a coming kingdom, curtailing our temptation to overidentify with any configuration of the earthly city;

    • The rite of baptism, where the congregation vows to help raise a child alongside the parents, is just the liturgical formation we need to be a people who can support those raising children with intellectual disabilities or other special needs;

    • Sitting at the Lord’s Table with the risen King, where all are invited to eat, is a tactile reminder of the just, abundant world that God longs for."

Read the whole article here

This is the quote I wish I could have tweeted but it was past the character count.

"We cannot hope to re-create the world if we are constantly reinventing “church.” Instead, we will reinvent ourselves right out of the story. Liturgical tradition is the platform for imaginative innovation."

275,000 Meals Headed to the Horn of Africa

Last week we loaded a full shipping container of food (approximately 275,000 meals) into a truck to begin the journey to Kenya.  The food will be delivered to those who are tragically affected by the famine and civil wars that are happening in the Horn of Africa.  The meals were made possible through Youthfront's Something to Eat initiative in partnership with Jeremy Affeldt's Generation Alive (Spokane, WA) and Future Profits (Palo Alto, CA).  The article below was written by Youthfront staff member Austin Averill who directs our Something to Eat initiative.

 

On a bitter cold winter morning, I was more excited to wake up at four and head to work than I have ever been in my life. On this particular morning, I left the harsh Midwest weather behind with my co-workers Ray Zuercher and Mike King, President of Youthfront, to meet up with San Francisco Giants pitcher Jeremy Affeldt, Founder of Generation Alive, in Palo Alto, California. Why, might you ask, would a logistics guru, president of a non-profit organization, recent college graduate, and professional baseball player meet in “The Golden State?” I can think of no better reason than to facilitate a Something to Eat packaging event.

The next day, approximately 300 students flooded through the doors of Sequoia High School’s gymna- sium to package as many Something to Eat meals as possible. “Packing a meal” means measuring rice, soy protein, dried vegetables and a nutrient dense vitamin powder, pouring it all into a bag, and sealing it up. These meals then get packed into a box, which get stacked onto a pallet, which gets basically shrink- wrapped, then is shipped away to feed malnourished orphans. The meals from this particular event went to Kenya, though Youthfront sends meals to various places domestically and abroad.

However, orphans aren’t the only ones who get fed as the result of a Something to Eat event. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the spiritual formation aspect of meal packaging is just as important as the orphans we feed.

The youth who give up a Saturday in order to provide starving people with something to eat do so because they are hungry for justice. They recognize that something is wrong in the world and long to be a part of a solution. Something to Eat provides them with the opportunity to connect others’ physical hunger with their own spiritual hunger, with the hunger for justice and righteousness and the hunger to make the world more complete and more whole, more like the way that God intended.

The kids at Sequoia High were given “something to eat” in a different way every 30 minutes, at which point we paused the packaging for a moment of silence, as well as a short lesson about social justice, world hunger, and how we can have an effect on bringing redemption to this world.

In response to the Horn of Africa’s war and drought-induced famine, the students of Sequoia High raised several thousand dollars which allowed them to package nearly 130,000 meals to send another shipment to the needy.

These students by no means know wealth – and many of them are all too familiar with just the opposite of it. Yet they recognized that there are others in the world who are not only hungry, but who have it even worse than they do. This is what motivated those some might call “the least of these” to dedicate themselves to making the world a better place for someone else. They spread the word about the event, raised money for the raw materials that go into making a meal, and spent an entire Saturday wearing hair nets and packaging meals. THAT is why we do what we do at Youthfront – not for justice alone, but to see young people changed, liberated, transformed for the Kingdom of God.