U2: Joshua Tree (Remastered / Expanded) (Super Deluxe Edition) (2CD/DVD)
I thought we had it hard doing youth ministry in the contemporary Adolescent Culture of the Midwest but obviously not quite as tough as doing ministry with youth in New York City. You can see what I'm talking about when you watch this powerful and gripping music video from the Flight of the Conchords.
ht to Micah King
One of the aspects of our ministry that may actually be our specialty is nurturing environments of transformation. Our staff is passionate about intentionally creating environments of time, space, hospitality, community, learning, prayer and worship. We believe these environments help students and youth workers discover, grow and encounter God in profound ways.
All this summer, at Youthfront camps and our mission site in Mexico, we have immersed more than five thousand young people in an environment of learning about God’s mission for the world and in deep and meaningful times of prayer. We have set aside significant amounts of time and space to sit at the feet of Jesus Christ and learn what it means to become a disciple.
My favorite time is the prayer times of Morning Prayer, Midday Prayer and Compline (a prayer time at the completion of the day before bedtime). These prayer times are simple, yet profound and transforming. My favorite learning environment is the Tabernacle Experience for high school students at Youthfront Camp South.
We also set aside a significant amount of time called Sacred Space for students to engage in solitude and prayer. When students are in an environment where they listen, pray and meditate on scripture – they often encounter God in profound ways. Obviously, we are well aware that there is no place where God’s Presence is absent and this truth is what we want young people to discover. However, in our day and culture, when no place is Holy for young people you have to create the time and space for them to begin the discovery that the whole world is full of the Presence and Grandeur of God. We believe that the Holy Spirit has allowed us to create environments “where prayer has been valid.”
The world’s preeminent New Testament Scholar N. T. Wright addressing a group of ministers said, “I have become increasingly conscious of the sense of place as one significant element in prayer, as in T. S. Eliot’s phrase, ‘where prayer has been valid’ – not that prayer cannot be valid anywhere, but that a habit of prayer in a particular place can tap into existing memories of earlier local devotion and generate its own in turn.”
Wright recently wrote in his best selling book Surprised by Hope, “The New Testament never imagines that when the new heavens and new earth arrive, God will say, in effect, ‘Well, that first creation wasn’t so good after all, was it? Aren’t you glad we’ve got rid of all that space, time and matter?’ What happens when we think of space, time, and matter as being renewed, not abandoned, within the life of the church? The renewal and reclaiming of space has recently involved, among other things, a fresh grasp of the Celtic tradition of ‘thin places,’ places where the curtain between heaven and earth seems almost transparent. This is in fact just one aspect of a much wider theology of place, which has been under serious threat in the West since the Enlightenment. Jesus does indeed declare that God calls all people everywhere to worship him in spirit and truth rather than limiting worship to this or that holy mountain. But this doesn’t undercut a proper theology of God’s reclaiming of the whole world, which is anticipated in the claiming of space for worship and prayer.” Surprised by Hope, Page 259
We believe that the environments that Youthfront has had the privilege and stewardship to create and nurture is not some new fangled fad, nor is it a retreat from the world. Instead, these environments are a beginning, a place, and a God-given space that illustrates and demonstrates the reality that someday soon the whole world will be recognizably filled with the visible Glory of God.
What do you think? Would youth ministry and the spiritual formation of youth be more transformational if we put more emphasis on creating environments where students can discover the truth of Scripture and listen to the still small voice of the Holy Spirit instead of the ways we have been doing youth ministry over the last fifty years?
There is an excellent post from Chris Folmsbee here on Gever Tulley, Founder of the Tinkering School, and Tulley's ideas on dangerous things you should let your kids do. Chris does a great job of thinking of this idea in the context of youth ministry... I love Chris.
Most of this week I spent trying to recover from a month long run of one major responsibility after another. The Youth Ministry Executive Council is a good event to attend because it is a laid back
relational environment. It is always a wonderful opportunity to connect with Denominational Youth Leaders and National Youth Ministry Organization leaders. The gathering moved from Washington, DC to Virginia Beach this year. We stayed at the Founders Inn. It was a weird experience to have Pat Robertson walk up on a conversation that I was having with Bo Boshers from Willow Creek and Darrell Nuss from National Network of Youth Ministries. Man does he look old in person. Vicki traveled with me because I've reached companion status on SouthWest. If there is an extra seat available when I book my ticket Vicki gets to travel with me free. We stayed the last night right on the beach, the weather cooperated - it was 82 degrees.
On May 12 and 13 YouthFront, in partnership with Christ Community Church, is hosting youth worker training called Shaping a Missional Community. It is designed to help youth workers create a ministry environment built on biblical practices and inspire students to live missionally.
Shaping a Missional Community will help you…
Shaping a Missional Community
INTRODUCTION
PART 1: SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP
PART 2: TELLING THE STORY OF GOD – TEACHING
PART 3: DOING THE STORY OF GOD – SERVING
PART 4: BEING THE STORY OF GOD – COMMUNITY
PART 5: CELEBRATING THE STORY OF GOD – WORSHIP
PART 6: REVISIONING YOUR YOUTH MINISTRY...
PART 7: CONCLUSION
If you want more information contact AGarlich@YouthFront.com
Last weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to train youth workers at Allentown Presbyterian Church. Allentown is next to Princeton which is one of my favorite places to visit. Charlie Lyons Pardue is one of the youth pastors at APC. Charlie and I were fellow students at NTS. Kara, Charlie's wife, was also a classmate at NTS. Kara is working on her PhD at Princeton. She is a New Testament Scholar. It was good to stay with them and get caught up on life. On Thursday night I had an amazing time facilitating a learning forum with 35 youth workers from APC (35 adult youth workers from a church of 300). I must say, at first, I experienced a bit of disequilibrium. Usually I have to spend a significant amount of time trying to cast a vision for adults to engage in the shepherding of young people. This team is motivated and well trained. Our time together turned into an extremely synergistic learning experience. I believe that I learned more from them than they learned from me (not a rhetorical statement). I loved these people and look forward to more time with them in the future. The overall connection that the adults in this church have with the youth in the community is extraordinary. This is not some new cutting edge church trying new things because they are in a start-up phase. This is a church that was established in 1720. They even have a cemetery (see pictures below). I am really psyched that Charlie and Kara have ended up in such an amazing church community that is totally awake and alive.
Monday and Tuesday, Chris Folmsbee and I were in Idaho. We met with Mark Priddy from Allelon on Monday. We are excited about being connected to the Mission in Western Culture Project. On Tuesday we met with Mike Kipp, Professor of Youth Ministry at NNU in Nampe, Idaho. We are scheming and dreaming about ways to train youth workers. We came away from Idaho pretty stoked about all the things it seems that God is up to.
Now I'm in San Diego for four days of Soul Shaper Board Meetings. Soul Shaper is a part of Youth Specialties. We our a community of people who are thinking about the Spiritual Formation of youth workers and young people. I love this Soul Shaper family.
I find myself often saying, "Youth Ministry is a theological endeavor." More specifically, I feel it is essential to engage in Practical Theology when we think about youth ministry practice, formation and philosophy.
My friend Dr. Jim Hampton, who is a Professor of Youth Ministry at Asbury Theological Seminary borrows and paraphrases Karl Rahner's definition of Practical Theology and does so in the context of youth ministry. Here is Jim's Rahner-inspired definition, "Practical theology is the discipline which seeks to call the church to what it should be. It is primarily concerned with helping the church always ask the right questions, thereby helping the church continually reflect on what it is doing so that it can do those things which are core to its being as the expression of God's kingdom here on earth. It's goal is to remind the other disciplines (Bible, theology, social sciences, etc.) that they all have a purpose other than pure academic intellectualism. That purpose is to always discover how their respective disciplines speak to the church here and now, and how those disciplines can assist the church in the carrying out of that identity."
This definition really resonates with my passion for the Church and Youth Ministry. It also fuels my conviction that those who really want to see youth ministry flourish and be what it should be cannot just focus on youth ministry without holistically seeing its connection with the broader church.
It doesn't get much better than this weekend for me. I am speaking at a Spiritual Retreat for 60 youth workers at the beautiful Mount Hermon Christian Camp and Conference Center. I am leading four sessions. Scotty Gullick, MJ, Jason 
and the rest of the staff are great. I thought YouthFront has been around forever. We are only 65 years old. Mount Hermon is 102 years old. I thought it was going to rain the whole weekend. Getting here was pretty rough because of the storms. However, today the rain has stopped and the sun has tried to peak through the clouds. It's cool to see the passionate commitment the youth ministry staff here at Mount Hermon has to engage in doing camp and spiritual formation of adolescents in a deep and thoughtful way. They say they have been watching and learning from YouthFront Camps but we have a lot to learn from them.
From Genesis and the rest of the Old Testament through the Gospels, Acts and the Epistles we see a theme of transferring faith from older generations to the young emerging generations. The Shema in Deuteronomy 6 is referred to as the Israelites Confession of Faith.
"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up" Deut 6:4-7.
There is a sacred obligation to care for the spiritual formation of young people. We see these kinds of relationships demonstrated throughout the Old Testament in examples like Moses’ relationship with Joshua, Samuel’s relationship with David, and Elijah’s relationship with Elisha. In the New Testament the theme continues. Titus 2 speaks of the principle of older generations teaching the younger generations. Jesus, who begins his ministry when he is approximately thirty years old selected a group of young men (several may have been teenagers) and invested his life into them. Paul continues this pattern in his relationship with Timothy.
This sacred responsibility should not be taken lightly by passionate and obedient followers of Jesus Christ. And yet, while research clearly shows the effectiveness of adult efforts in the spiritual formation of young people, research also sadly shows that churches and ministries are having a hard time finding adults who are willing to invest in the spiritual development of young people. This is a tragedy and negligent violation of God’s intention for adult followers of Jesus to engage in the spiritual formation of the emerging generations.
According to research commissioned by The Pioneer Club Ministry, most Christian adults strongly agree that their own faith development was shaped by adults in their lives during their youth. And yet, less than half of this same group believes that they have a responsibility to nurture the emerging generation of Christian young people.
Youth Pastors are struggling to find adults to serve as mentors and prayer partners for young people. Youth ministries are falling short of having the resources needed to reach a new generation with the Good News of Jesus Christ.
I have never experienced a time when youth were more interested in becoming deep disciples of Jesus Christ. Too be honest, we simply lack resources. We need volunteers. We need prayer partners. We need passionate followers of Jesus to give sacrificially to help us fulfill our mission and God’s command to bring youth into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
Mike King: Presence-centered Youth Ministry: Guiding Students into Spiritual Formation
Phyllis Tickle: Divine Hours
A great resource for keeping the daily office.
Kenda Creasy Dean: Practicing Passion
This book should be read by anyone who desires to passionately pursue Jesus and cares about others joining them on this journey.
Recent Comments