Mike King

The U.S. Religious Landscape

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey Reveals a Fluid and Diverse Pattern of Faith. 

An extensive new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life details the religious affiliation of the American public and explores the shifts taking place in the U.S. religious landscape. Based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older, the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey finds that religious affiliation in the U.S. is both very diverse and extremely fluid.  Read article

New Podcast

There is a new podcast on Studio47.  This podcast features Sally Rymer and Megan Roach, two teenage girls who are taking the Bible seriously that they can make a difference in the world they live in.  They are taking on the sex slave industry in the name of Jesus.  Amazing girls... you should listen to what they have to say here.

O God, Protect your Church

O God, you are the fountain of all truth; we ask you to protect your church from all false teaching.

Protect the Church 

From all teaching and preaching which would destroy men’s’ faith;
From all that removes the old foundations without putting anything in their place;
From all that confuses the simple, that perplexes the seeker, that bewilders the way-faring man, 

And yet at the same time protect the Church

From the failure to face new truth;
From devotion to words and ideas which the passing of the years has rendered unintelligible;
From all intellectual cowardice and from all mental lethargy and sloth. 

O God, send to your Church teachers,

Whose minds are wise with wisdom;
Whose hearts are warm with love;
Whose lips are eloquent with truth. 

Send to your Church teachers

Whose desire is to build and not to destroy;
Who are adventurous with the wise;
And yet gentle with the simple;
Who strenuously exercise the intellect,
And who yet remember that the heart has reasons of its own. 

Give to your Church preachers and teachers who can make known the Lord Christ to others because they know him themselves; and give to your Church hearers, who, being freed from prejudice, will follow truth as blind men long for light.

This we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

   

 

Prayers for the Christian Year by William Barclay

Speaking at a Real Estate Conference

I spoke at the United Country Real Estate Convention this morning.  One of our YouthFront Board Members, Lou Francis, is the President of United Country.  They had 700 staff and associates here for the convention at Crown Center.  I spoke about the UNC study on Religion and Adolescents.  I asked Where are the Adults?  I also showed the news story on Sally Rymer, one of our teen staff.  I was amazed at how energized this group was.  I talked to dozens of delegates after I finished speaking.  So many of them were volunteer youth workers.  I was really surprised by their passion for youth ministry.  Brett Francis, Lou's son and one of our alumni teen staff led the time of singing and worship.  I stuck around for the corporate welcome by Lou to his company.  It was very cool to see the standing ovation he got and to watch him in his element.  I am so grateful for Lou creating this opportunity for youth ministry and YouthFront.

Coming Soon

 

Lunar Eclipse

Last night we had a great view of the Lunar Eclipse.  The only problem was the fact that you could only keep your eyes open for 15 seconds looking at it before your eyeballs froze solid.  I ran outside a few times to take a quick picture.

6:00 PM

8:00

 

9:30

 

                                                                                                                                 

                                                                                                                                              

   

                  

 

 

       3:00 AM (In my dreams)

Interesting article

Christianity Today has published an article called The Future Lies in the Past: Why evangelicals are connecting with the early church as they move into the 21st Century. While I am encouraged that my alma mater Liberty University is engaging with the season of Lent and others are discovering the wonderful heritage of our Christian faith, I think the title The Future Lies in the Past is over-stated.  The future is connected to the past but I believe that we should creatively lean into the future - God's future which is among God's people.  I love history.  I love liturgy.  I love the connection with our family heritage.  I just don't want the church to cease creating liturgy, creating history and adding to the richness of what will be the Christian Heritage.  I hope this isn't embraced as just the latest fad.   

The Teenage Brain

Over the last several years neuroscientists have been discovering new information about the brain development of adolescents. We are learning amazing things about how dynamically the teenage brain is changing during adolescence. Those committed to working with teenagers find this information extremely fascinating. For decades, parents, teachers, social workers and youth workers, along with anyone else who spends much time around teenagers, have asked the question, "Why do teenagers act like they do?" These new discoveries about the brain are giving us insight for this question.

In the book The Primal Teen: What the New Discoveries About the Teenage Brain Tell Us, the author, Barbara Strauch explores the emerging research concerning adolescent brain development. Strauch is the medical science and health editor of The New York Times. She takes us beyond hormones as a primary explanation of teen behavior and reveals what scientists are finding out about how the brain of a teenager works. She writes, "The teenage brain may, in fact, be briefly insane. But, scientists say, it is crazy by design. The teenage brain is in flux, maddening and muddled. And that’s how it’s supposed to be. And the teenage brain is also wondrous. It’s the brains of teenagers, after all, that began to grapple with our knottiest, most abstract concepts, with honesty and justice. They may find themselves, often to their own surprise, happy to stay up until three A.M. to listen to a friend in trouble, worrying about the children in war-torn Afghanistan, or passionately falling in love with the nuances of a poem."1

We are finding out that the frontal lobe (which enables a human being to make right decisions) is the last part of the brain of an adolescent to reach maturity (as late as the early twenties). The frontal lobe also keeps a human being from being too impulsive. The reality is that adolescent brains are going through a critical stage of organizing and developing and the result is that teenagers are wired to see and experience the world differently than adults and children. They also learn differently.

All of this information makes a significant impact on how we should do youth ministry and engage in the spiritual formation of young people. For instance, the short-term memory center of the brain is going through major changes during adolescence. Give a teenager a list of three things to do and chances are they will accomplish one of those tasks and forget the two others. This doesn’t have anything to do with rebellion it is just how their brain works during this phase of their life. Studies show that teenagers learn best through experiences. They respond well by imitating something that is modeled for them.

Unfortunately, most of our educational models used in schools and churches focus on the impartation of information. The belief that filling a kids head with the right facts is the way to shape them is extremely ineffective. The spiritual formation of our young people must involve experiential learning, sustained spiritual practices, and close guidance by adults who model the way to be Christian. Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that information and facts are not important. I am saying that we must be more creative in how we teach the truth of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. This is why we are creating learning environments and experiences in our ministry to young people. I believe that Jesus demonstrated to us how this is to be done by teaching his disciples along the way through parables that fired their imagination. Jesus used real life circumstances to mold and shape his followers. Jesus told stories and used nature to communicate profound truth. Jesus asked questions and didn’t always provide answers. Jesus created learning experiences for his disciples. It seems obvious that Jesus didn’t convene a classroom every morning to give his lectures. Jesus Christ, the creator, knew best how to shape his human followers. Here at YouthFront we are committed to moving away from rationalistic enlightenment models of human education. We are passionate about returning to biblical models of teaching the Great Good News and imparting to teenagers a way of life that helps them grasp the reality that they are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God.

The Primal Teen: What the New Discoveries About the Teenage Brain Tell Us About Our Kids, Barbara Strauch (Anchor Books, New York, 2003), page 8.

A week of travel

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.

Studio 47

There are a couple of new podcast's available on  Studio 47.  An interview with Tim Keel and a discussion on Philip Pullman's Golden Compass.  I love these podcasts because of the creativity and personalities of Andy Garlich, Aaron Mitchum, Nick Pickrell, and Moe Didde (when she makes her guest appearances.