(8699,205,'2013-03-31 20:08:14','2013-04-01 03:08:14','Imagine yourself and a group of people in a meeting with your church\'s pastor. The church has been changing and seeing new life as people explore what it means to be a church in the early 21st century. The group presents a concept for a phenomenal new ministry connecting the community and congregation, leading to radically transformed lives. Excitement grips the group as they explain the concept to your pastor. You\'re elated when she says \"yes!\" and you start planning the roll out.\n\nAs the group finalizes the plans, you find out about newly imposed guidelines and limitations that cut out the core of the ministry. Influential members of the congregation complain to the pastor (\"We\'ve never done it that way\") and she sets limits out of fear that the church will lose major contributors. Indirectly your hear that the elder board or denominational hierarchy is afraid the ministry will reflect poorly on the church, thus reducing the weekly attendance.\n\nMaybe the group decides on what they believe will be an optimum structure, but the pastor tells them to run it a different way. The mandated changes aren\'t just an alternative way to accomplish the same purpose. They cut the essential core out of the proposed ministry. The group mourns and loses heart, realizing the ministry will end up on the garbage heap of failed programs. You\'re convinced the pastor follows and loves Christ, so what went wrong? Is the pastor the stumbling block or is the church encountering a larger and systemic problem?\n\nIn the overall Christian community we\'ve been thinking through re-definitions of church, recognizing how much it is a product of a corporate, modernist industrial mindset. Book after book and innumerable blog posts explore how Western society\'s transition out of the enlightenment era is a major catalyst for transformation of what it means to be a church. These works examine the structure of the church and propose alternatives but rarely consider how the role of pastors changes with potential transitions. I still think churches need some person or group of people that function similar to current day pastors. I can\'t yet envision a congregation larger than a house church (which may be our future) operating without some semblance of a pastor.\n\nLet\'s consider a few ways in which pastors find themselves caught between their training, expectations, roles, and changing expectations.\n\nIn seminary, pastors encounter a strong academic bias toward Bible as text rather than Bible as story and narrative. This bias minimizes the inherent humanity of God\'s self-description through the narrative and image. Emphasis on parsing Greek or Hebrew at the expense of connecting with people in their own personal life situations encourage pastors to rapid-fire verses at people rather than engage in the harder work of coming alongside them. I\'m glad I learned both languages but I didn\'t trust the narrative of the Bible for years.\n\nPastors attempt to simultaneous meet expectations of diverse constituencies, and their challenges are becoming more difficult. Shrinking budgets/attendance, more demanding denominational leadership, and long term attendees who feel displaced by changes increase the stress levels on a pastor. Micromanagement is a typical response since the pastor may feel he is the only one who can simultaneously satisfy so many different constituencies with conflicting goals.  Many pastors under such pressure may exhibit health problems, engage in unhealthy behaviors, or decide that what they are doing is not worth the pain and leave the pastorate.\n\nThere\'s also a danger that the pastor grasps only part of the sheep and shepherd analogy. The pastor might see the people of the congregation as simple sheep incapable of making decisions on their own. When someone moves into more of a shepherding role, the pastor\'s role as shepherd is jeopardized. The one true shepherd is Jesus and others become like Jesus when they follow him. Thus the pastor is not the head shepherd nor the CEO of an modernist, industrial model church.\n\nI\'m not even sure that we should even have full time pastor paid by the congregation. Most pastors are drastically underpaid and overworked. Even with a very inadequate salary, the aditihigh cost of benefits such as health insurance drains the financial resources of a congregation. Why not embrace a model in which several people earn their living in commercial or other non-church settings and function as the leaders?\n\nExamples counter examples? dialog?\n\nThe role of a pastor changes as a church grows or shrinks. Who has ownership?','Is Your Pastor Holding Your Church Back?','','inherit','open','open','','8602-revision-28','','','2013-03-31 20:08:14','2013-04-01 03:08:14','',8602,'http://provoketive.com/2013/03/31/8602-revision-28/',0,'revision','',0),(8700,205,'2013-03-31 20:12:12','2013-04-01 03:12:12','Imagine yourself and a group of people in a meeting with your church\'s pastor. The church has been changing and seeing new life as people explore what it means to be a church in the early 21st century. The group presents a concept for a phenomenal new ministry connecting the community and congregation, leading to radically transformed lives. Excitement grips the group as they explain the concept to your pastor. You\'re elated when she says \"yes!\" and you start planning the roll out.\n\nAs the group finalizes the plans, you find out about newly imposed guidelines and limitations that cut out the core of the ministry. Influential members of the congregation complain to the pastor (\"We\'ve never done it that way\") and she sets limits out of fear that the church will lose major contributors. Indirectly your hear that the elder board or denominational hierarchy is afraid the ministry will reflect poorly on the church, thus reducing the weekly attendance.\n\nMaybe the group decides on what they believe will be an optimum structure, but the pastor tells them to run it a different way. The mandated changes aren\'t just an alternative way to accomplish the same purpose. They cut the essential core out of the proposed ministry. The group mourns and loses heart, realizing the ministry will end up on the garbage heap of failed programs. You\'re convinced the pastor follows and loves Christ, so what went wrong? Is the pastor the stumbling block or is the church encountering a larger and systemic problem?\n\nIn the overall Christian community we\'ve been thinking through re-definitions of church, recognizing how much it is a product of a corporate, modernist industrial mindset. Book after book and innumerable blog posts explore how Western society\'s transition out of the enlightenment era is a major catalyst for transformation of what it means to be a church. These works examine the structure of the church and propose alternatives but rarely consider how the role of pastors changes with potential transitions. I still think churches need some person or group of people that function similar to current day pastors. I can\'t yet envision a congregation larger than a house church (which may be our future) operating without some semblance of a pastor.\n\nLet\'s consider a few ways in which pastors find themselves caught between their training, expectations, roles, and changing expectations.\n\nIn seminary, pastors encounter a strong academic bias toward Bible as text rather than Bible as story and narrative. This bias minimizes the inherent humanity of God\'s self-description through the narrative and image. Emphasis on parsing Greek or Hebrew at the expense of connecting with people in their own personal life situations encourage pastors to rapid-fire verses at people rather than engage in the harder work of coming alongside them. I\'m glad I learned both languages but I didn\'t trust the narrative of the Bible for years.\n\nPastors attempt to simultaneous meet expectations of diverse constituencies, and their challenges are becoming more difficult. Shrinking budgets/attendance, more demanding denominational leadership, and long term attendees who feel displaced by changes increase the stress levels on a pastor. Micromanagement is a typical response since the pastor may feel he is the only one who can simultaneously satisfy so many different constituencies with conflicting goals.  Many pastors under such pressure may exhibit health problems, engage in unhealthy behaviors, or decide that what they are doing is not worth the pain and leave the pastorate.\n\nThere\'s also a danger that the pastor grasps only part of the sheep and shepherd analogy. The pastor might see the people of the congregation as simple sheep incapable of making decisions on their own. When someone moves into more of a shepherding role, the pastor\'s role as shepherd is jeopardized. The one true shepherd is Jesus and others become like Jesus when they follow him. Thus the pastor is not the head shepherd nor the CEO of an modernist, industrial model church.\n\nI\'m not even sure that we should even have full time pastor paid by the congregation. Most pastors are drastically underpaid and overworked. Even with a very inadequate salary, the additional cost of benefits such as health insurance helos to drain the financial resources of a congregation. Why not embrace a model in which several people earn their living in commercial or other non-church settings and function as the pastors or leaders?\n\nHave you seen these types of conflicts? Looking into the future, how would you define a pastor? Do you have examples of pastors that are undergong','Is Your Pastor Holding Your Church Back?','','inherit','open','open','','8602-revision-29','','','2013-03-31 20:12:12','2013-04-01 03:12:12','',8602,'http://provoketive.com/2013/03/31/8602-revision-29/',0,'revision','',0),(8701,205,'2013-03-31 20:12:56','2013-04-01 03:12:56','Imagine yourself and a group of people in a meeting with your church\'s pastor. The church has been changing and seeing new life as people explore what it means to be a church in the early 21st century. The group presents a concept for a phenomenal new ministry connecting the community and congregation, leading to radically transformed lives. Excitement grips the group as they explain the concept to your pastor. You\'re elated when she says \"yes!\" and you start planning the roll out.\r\n\r\nAs the group finalizes the plans, you find out about newly imposed guidelines and limitations that cut out the core of the ministry. Influential members of the congregation complain to the pastor (\"We\'ve never done it that way\") and she sets limits out of fear that the church will lose major contributors. Indirectly your hear that the elder board or denominational hierarchy is afraid the ministry will reflect poorly on the church, thus reducing the weekly attendance.\r\n\r\nMaybe the group decides on what they believe will be an optimum structure, but the pastor tells them to run it a different way. The mandated changes aren\'t just an alternative way to accomplish the same purpose. They cut the essential core out of the proposed ministry. The group mourns and loses heart, realizing the ministry will end up on the garbage heap of failed programs. You\'re convinced the pastor follows and loves Christ, so what went wrong? Is the pastor the stumbling block or is the church encountering a larger and systemic problem?\r\n\r\nIn the overall Christian community we\'ve been thinking through re-definitions of church, recognizing how much it is a product of a corporate, modernist industrial mindset. Book after book and innumerable blog posts explore how Western society\'s transition out of the enlightenment era is a major catalyst for transformation of what it means to be a church. These works examine the structure of the church and propose alternatives but rarely consider how the role of pastors changes with potential transitions. I still think churches need some person or group of people that function similar to current day pastors. I can\'t yet envision a congregation larger than a house church (which may be our future) operating without some semblance of a pastor.\r\n\r\nLet\'s consider a few ways in which pastors find themselves caught between their training, expectations, roles, and changing expectations.\r\n\r\nIn seminary, pastors encounter a strong academic bias toward Bible as text rather than Bible as story and narrative. This bias minimizes the inherent humanity of God\'s self-description through the narrative and image. Emphasis on parsing Greek or Hebrew at the expense of connecting with people in their own personal life situations encourage pastors to rapid-fire verses at people rather than engage in the harder work of coming alongside them. I\'m glad I learned both languages but I didn\'t trust the narrative of the Bible for years.\r\n\r\nPastors attempt to simultaneous meet expectations of diverse constituencies, and their challenges are becoming more difficult. Shrinking budgets/attendance, more demanding denominational leadership, and long term attendees who feel displaced by changes increase the stress levels on a pastor. Micromanagement is a typical response since the pastor may feel he is the only one who can simultaneously satisfy so many different constituencies with conflicting goals.  Many pastors under such pressure may exhibit health problems, engage in unhealthy behaviors, or decide that what they are doing is not worth the pain and leave the pastorate.\r\n\r\nThere\'s also a danger that the pastor grasps only part of the sheep and shepherd analogy. The pastor might see the people of the congregation as simple sheep incapable of making decisions on their own. When someone moves into more of a shepherding role, the pastor\'s role as shepherd is jeopardized. The one true shepherd is Jesus and others become like Jesus when they follow him. Thus the pastor is not the head shepherd nor the CEO of an modernist, industrial model church.\r\n\r\nI\'m not even sure that we should even have full time pastor paid by the congregation. Most pastors are drastically underpaid and overworked. Even with a very inadequate salary, the additional cost of benefits such as health insurance helos to drain the financial resources of a congregation. Why not embrace a model in which several people earn their living in commercial or other non-church settings and function as the pastors or leaders?\r\n\r\nHave you seen these types of conflicts? Looking into the future, how would you define a pastor? Do you have examples of pastors that have recognized the transitions and are in the process of changing?','Is Your Pastor Holding Your Church Back?','','inherit','open','open','','8602-revision-30','','','2013-03-31 20:12:56','2013-04-01 03:12:56','',8602,'http://provoketive.com/2013/03/31/8602-revision-30/',0,'revision','',0),(8702,205,'2013-03-31 20:13:09','2013-04-01 03:13:09','Imagine yourself and a group of people in a meeting with your church\'s pastor. The church has been changing and seeing new life as people explore what it means to be a church in the early 21st century. The group presents a concept for a phenomenal new ministry connecting the community and congregation, leading to radically transformed lives. Excitement grips the group as they explain the concept to your pastor. You\'re elated when she says \"yes!\" and you start planning the roll out.\r\n\r\nAs the group finalizes the plans, you find out about newly imposed guidelines and limitations that cut out the core of the ministry. Influential members of the congregation complain to the pastor (\"We\'ve never done it that way\") and she sets limits out of fear that the church will lose major contributors. Indirectly your hear that the elder board or denominational hierarchy is afraid the ministry will reflect poorly on the church, thus reducing the weekly attendance.\r\n\r\nMaybe the group decides on what they believe will be an optimum structure, but the pastor tells them to run it a different way. The mandated changes aren\'t just an alternative way to accomplish the same purpose. They cut the essential core out of the proposed ministry. The group mourns and loses heart, realizing the ministry will end up on the garbage heap of failed programs. You\'re convinced the pastor follows and loves Christ, so what went wrong? Is the pastor the stumbling block or is the church encountering a larger and systemic problem?\r\n\r\nIn the overall Christian community we\'ve been thinking through re-definitions of church, recognizing how much it is a product of a corporate, modernist industrial mindset. Book after book and innumerable blog posts explore how Western society\'s transition out of the enlightenment era is a major catalyst for transformation of what it means to be a church. These works examine the structure of the church and propose alternatives but rarely consider how the role of pastors changes with potential transitions. I still think churches need some person or group of people that function similar to current day pastors. I can\'t yet envision a congregation larger than a house church (which may be our future) operating without some semblance of a pastor.\r\n\r\nLet\'s consider a few ways in which pastors find themselves caught between their training, expectations, roles, and changing expectations.\r\n\r\nIn seminary, pastors encounter a strong academic bias toward Bible as text rather than Bible as story and narrative. This bias minimizes the inherent humanity of God\'s self-description through the narrative and image. Emphasis on parsing Greek or Hebrew at the expense of connecting with people in their own personal life situations encourage pastors to rapid-fire verses at people rather than engage in the harder work of coming alongside them. I\'m glad I learned both languages but I didn\'t trust the narrative of the Bible for years.\r\n\r\nPastors attempt to simultaneous meet expectations of diverse constituencies, and their challenges are becoming more difficult. Shrinking budgets/attendance, more demanding denominational leadership, and long term attendees who feel displaced by changes increase the stress levels on a pastor. Micromanagement is a typical response since the pastor may feel he is the only one who can simultaneously satisfy so many different constituencies with conflicting goals.  Many pastors under such pressure may exhibit health problems, engage in unhealthy behaviors, or decide that what they are doing is not worth the pain and leave the pastorate.\r\n\r\nThere\'s also a danger that the pastor grasps only part of the sheep and shepherd analogy. The pastor might see the people of the congregation as simple sheep incapable of making decisions on their own. When someone moves into more of a shepherding role, the pastor\'s role as shepherd is jeopardized. The one true shepherd is Jesus and others become like Jesus when they follow him. Thus the pastor is not the head shepherd nor the CEO of an modernist, industrial model church.\r\n\r\nI\'m not even sure that we should even have full time pastor paid by the congregation. Most pastors are drastically underpaid and overworked. Even with a very inadequate salary, the additional cost of benefits such as health insurance helo to drain the financial resources of a congregation. Why not embrace a model in which several people earn their living in commercial or other non-church settings and function as the pastors or leaders?\r\n\r\nHave you seen these types of conflicts? Looking into the future, how would you define a pastor? Do you have examples of pastors that have recognized the transitions and are in the process of changing?','Is Your Pastor Holding Your Church Back?','','inherit','open','open','','8602-revision-31','','','2013-03-31 20:13:09','2013-04-01 03:13:09','',8602,'http://provoketive.com/2013/03/31/8602-revision-31/',0,'revision','',0),(8703,205,'2013-03-31 20:13:16','2013-04-01 03:13:16','Imagine yourself and a group of people in a meeting with your church\'s pastor. The church has been changing and seeing new life as people explore what it means to be a church in the early 21st century. The group presents a concept for a phenomenal new ministry connecting the community and congregation, leading to radically transformed lives. Excitement grips the group as they explain the concept to your pastor. You\'re elated when she says \"yes!\" and you start planning the roll out.\r\n\r\nAs the group finalizes the plans, you find out about newly imposed guidelines and limitations that cut out the core of the ministry. Influential members of the congregation complain to the pastor (\"We\'ve never done it that way\") and she sets limits out of fear that the church will lose major contributors. Indirectly your hear that the elder board or denominational hierarchy is afraid the ministry will reflect poorly on the church, thus reducing the weekly attendance.\r\n\r\nMaybe the group decides on what they believe will be an optimum structure, but the pastor tells them to run it a different way. The mandated changes aren\'t just an alternative way to accomplish the same purpose. They cut the essential core out of the proposed ministry. The group mourns and loses heart, realizing the ministry will end up on the garbage heap of failed programs. You\'re convinced the pastor follows and loves Christ, so what went wrong? Is the pastor the stumbling block or is the church encountering a larger and systemic problem?\r\n\r\nIn the overall Christian community we\'ve been thinking through re-definitions of church, recognizing how much it is a product of a corporate, modernist industrial mindset. Book after book and innumerable blog posts explore how Western society\'s transition out of the enlightenment era is a major catalyst for transformation of what it means to be a church. These works examine the structure of the church and propose alternatives but rarely consider how the role of pastors changes with potential transitions. I still think churches need some person or group of people that function similar to current day pastors. I can\'t yet envision a congregation larger than a house church (which may be our future) operating without some semblance of a pastor.\r\n\r\nLet\'s consider a few ways in which pastors find themselves caught between their training, expectations, roles, and changing expectations.\r\n\r\nIn seminary, pastors encounter a strong academic bias toward Bible as text rather than Bible as story and narrative. This bias minimizes the inherent humanity of God\'s self-description through the narrative and image. Emphasis on parsing Greek or Hebrew at the expense of connecting with people in their own personal life situations encourage pastors to rapid-fire verses at people rather than engage in the harder work of coming alongside them. I\'m glad I learned both languages but I didn\'t trust the narrative of the Bible for years.\r\n\r\nPastors attempt to simultaneous meet expectations of diverse constituencies, and their challenges are becoming more difficult. Shrinking budgets/attendance, more demanding denominational leadership, and long term attendees who feel displaced by changes increase the stress levels on a pastor. Micromanagement is a typical response since the pastor may feel he is the only one who can simultaneously satisfy so many different constituencies with conflicting goals.  Many pastors under such pressure may exhibit health problems, engage in unhealthy behaviors, or decide that what they are doing is not worth the pain and leave the pastorate.\r\n\r\nThere\'s also a danger that the pastor grasps only part of the sheep and shepherd analogy. The pastor might see the people of the congregation as simple sheep incapable of making decisions on their own. When someone moves into more of a shepherding role, the pastor\'s role as shepherd is jeopardized. The one true shepherd is Jesus and others become like Jesus when they follow him. Thus the pastor is not the head shepherd nor the CEO of an modernist, industrial model church.\r\n\r\nI\'m not even sure that we should even have full time pastor paid by the congregation. Most pastors are drastically underpaid and overworked. Even with a very inadequate salary, the additional cost of benefits such as health insurance helo to drain the financial resources of a congregation. Why not embrace a model in which several people earn their living in commercial or other non-church settings and function as the pastors or leaders?\r\n\r\nHave you seen these types of conflicts? Looking into the future, how would you define a pastor? Do you have examples of pastors that have recognized the transitions and are in the process of changing?','Is Your Pastor Holding Your Church Back?','','inherit','open','open','','8602-revision-32','','','2013-03-31 20:13:16','2013-04-01 03:13:16','',8602,'http://provoketive.com/2013/03/31/8602-revision-32/',0,'revision','',0),(8704,205,'2013-03-31 20:21:46','2013-04-01 03:21:46','Imagine yourself and a group of people in a meeting with your church\'s pastor. The church has been changing and seeing new life as people explore what it means to be a church in the early 21st century. The group presents a concept for a phenomenal new ministry connecting the community and congregation, leading to radically transformed lives. Excitement grips the group as they explain the concept to your pastor. You are elated when she says \"yes!\" and you start planning the roll out.\r\n\r\nAs the group finalizes the plans, you find out about newly imposed guidelines and limitations that cut out the core of the ministry. Influential members of the congregation complain to the pastor (\"We\'ve never done it that way\") and she sets limits out of fear that the church will lose major contributors. Indirectly you hear that the elder board or denominational hierarchy is afraid the ministry will reflect poorly on the church, thus reducing the weekly attendance.\r\n\r\nMaybe the group decides on what they believe will be an optimum structure, but the pastor tells them to run it a different way. The mandated changes are not just an alternative way to accomplish the same purpose. They cut the essential core out of the proposed ministry. The group mourns and loses heart, realizing the ministry will end up on the garbage heap of failed programs. You are convinced the pastor follows and loves Christ, so what went wrong? Is the pastor a stumbling block, or is the church encountering a larger and systemic problem?\r\n\r\nIn the overall Christian community, we have been thinking through re-definitions of church, recognizing how much it is a product of a corporate, modernist industrial mindset. Book after book and innumerable blog posts explore how Western society\'s transition out of the enlightenment era is a major catalyst for transformation of what it means to be a church. These works examine the structure of the church and propose alternatives but rarely consider how the role of pastors changes with potential transitions. I still think churches need some person or group of people that function similar to current day pastors. I cannot yet envision a congregation larger than a house church (which may be our future) operating without some semblance of a pastor.\r\n\r\nLet\'s consider a few ways in which pastors find themselves caught between their training, expectations, roles, and changing expectations.\r\n\r\nIn seminary, pastors encounter a strong academic bias toward Bible as text rather than Bible as story and narrative. This bias minimizes the inherent humanity of God\'s self-description through the narrative and image. Emphasis on parsing Greek or Hebrew at the expense of connecting with people in their own personal life situations encourage pastors to rapid-fire verses at people rather than engage in the harder work of coming alongside them. I am glad I learned both languages but I did not trust the narrative of the Bible for years.\r\n\r\nPastors attempt to simultaneous meet expectations of diverse constituencies, and their challenges are becoming more difficult. Shrinking budgets/attendance, more demanding denominational leadership, and long-term attendees who feel displaced by changes increase the stress levels on a pastor. Micromanagement is a typical response since the pastor may feel he is the only one who can simultaneously satisfy so many different constituencies with conflicting goals. Many pastors under such pressure may exhibit health problems, engage in unhealthy behaviors, or decide that what they are doing is not worth the pain and leave the pastorate.\r\n\r\nThere is also a danger that the pastor grasps only part of the sheep and shepherd analogy. The pastor might see the people of the congregation as simple sheep incapable of making decisions on their own. The movement of a person closer to a shepherding role jeopardizes the pastor\'s role as sole shepherd. The one true shepherd is Jesus and others become like Jesus when they follow him. Thus, the pastor is not the head shepherd or the CEO of a modernist, industrial model church.\r\n\r\nI am not even sure that we should even have full time pastor paid by the congregation. Most pastors are drastically underpaid and overworked. Even with a very inadequate salary, the additional cost of benefits such as health insurance help to drain the financial resources of a congregation. Why can’t several people earn their living in commercial or other non-church settings and function as the pastors or leaders?\r\n\r\nWithin your experience, have you seen these types of conflicts? Looking into the future, how would you define a pastor? Do you have examples of pastors that have recognized the transitions and are in the process of changing?','Is Your Pastor Holding Your Church Back?','','inherit','open','open','','8602-revision-33','','','2013-03-31 20:21:46','2013-04-01 03:21:46','',8602,'http://provoketive.com/2013/03/31/8602-revision-33/',0,'revision','',0),(8705,205,'2013-03-31 20:48:12','2013-04-01 03:48:12','Imagine yourself and a group of people in a meeting with your church\'s pastor. The church has been changing and seeing new life as people explore what it means to be a church in the early 21st century. The group presents a concept for a phenomenal new ministry connecting the community and congregation, leading to radically transformed lives. Excitement grips the group as they explain the concept to your pastor. You are elated when she says \"yes!\" and you start planning the roll out.\n\nAs the group finalizes the plans, you find out about newly imposed guidelines and limitations that cut out the core of the ministry. Influential members of the congregation complain (\"We\'ve never done it that way, what will other people say?\") and the pastor sets limits out of fear that the church will lose major contributors. Indirectly you hear that the elder board or denominational hierarchy is afraid the ministry will reflect poorly on the church, thus reducing the weekly attendance.\n\nMaybe the group decides on what they believe will be an optimum structure, but the pastor tells them to run it a different way. The mandated changes are not just an alternative way to accomplish the same purpose. They cut the essential core out of the proposed ministry. The group mourns and loses heart, realizing the ministry will end up on the garbage heap of failed programs. You are convinced the pastor follows and loves Christ, so what went wrong? Is the pastor an obstacle, or is the church encountering a larger and systemic problem?\n\nIn the overall Christian community, we have been thinking through re-definitions of church, recognizing how much it is a product of a corporate, modernist industrial mindset. Book after book and innumerable blog posts explore how Western society\'s transition out of the enlightenment era is a major catalyst for transformation of what it means to be a church. These works examine the structure of the church and propose alternatives but rarely consider how the role of pastors changes with potential transitions. I still think churches need some person or group of people that function similar to current day pastors. I cannot yet envision a congregation larger than a house church (which may be our future) operating without some semblance of a pastor.\n\nLet\'s consider a few ways in which pastors find themselves caught between their training, expectations, roles, and changing expectations.\n\nIn seminary, pastors encounter a strong academic bias toward Bible as text rather than Bible as story and narrative. This bias minimizes the inherent humanity of God\'s self-description through the narrative and image. Emphasis on parsing Greek or Hebrew at the expense of connecting with people in their own personal life situations encourage pastors to rapid-fire verses at people rather than engage in the harder work of coming alongside them. I am glad I learned both languages but I did not trust the narrative of the Bible for years.\n\nPastors attempt to simultaneous meet expectations of diverse constituencies, and their challenges are becoming more difficult. Shrinking budgets/attendance, more demanding denominational leadership, and long-term attendees who feel displaced by changes increase the stress levels on a pastor. Micromanagement is a typical response since the pastor may feel he is the only one who can simultaneously satisfy so many different constituencies with conflicting goals. Many pastors under such pressure may exhibit health problems, engage in unhealthy behaviors, or decide that what they are doing is not worth the pain and leave the pastorate.\n\nThere is also a danger that the pastor grasps only part of the sheep and shepherd analogy. The pastor might see the people of the congregation as simple sheep incapable of making decisions on their own. The movement of a person closer to a shepherding role jeopardizes the pastor\'s role as sole shepherd. The one true shepherd is Jesus and others become like Jesus when they follow him. Thus, the pastor is not the head shepherd or the CEO of a modernist, industrial model church.\n\nI am not even sure that we should even have full time pastor paid by the congregation. Most pastors are drastically underpaid and overworked. Even with a very inadequate salary, the additional cost of benefits such as health insurance help to drain the financial resources of a congregation. Why can’t several people earn their living in commercial or other non-church settings and function as the pastors or leaders?\n\nCan you share your experiences, good and bad, with these types of conflicts? Looking into the future, how would you define a pastor? Do you have examples of pastors that have recognized the transitions and are in the process of changing?','Is Your Pastor Holding Your Church Back?','','inherit','open','open','','8602-revision-34','','','2013-03-31 20:48:12','2013-04-01 03:48:12','',8602,'http://provoketive.com/2013/03/31/8602-revision-34/',0,'revision','',0),(8706,205,'2013-03-31 20:56:49','2013-04-01 03:56:49','Imagine yourself and a group of people in a meeting with your church\'s pastor. The church has been changing and seeing new life as people explore what it means to be a church in the early 21st century. The group presents a concept for a phenomenal new ministry connecting the community and congregation, leading to radically transformed lives. Excitement grips the group as they explain the concept to your pastor. You are elated when she says \"yes!\" and you start planning the roll out.\n\nAs the group finalizes the plans, you find out about newly imposed guidelines and limitations that cut out the core of the ministry. Influential members of the congregation complain (\"We\'ve never done it that way, what will other people say?\") and the pastor sets limits out of fear that the church will lose major contributors. Indirectly you hear that the elder board or denominational hierarchy is afraid the ministry will reflect poorly on the church, thus reducing the weekly attendance.\n\nMaybe the group decides on what they believe will be an optimum structure, but the pastor tells them to run it a different way. The mandated changes are not just an alternative way to accomplish the same purpose. They cut the essential core out of the proposed ministry. The group mourns and loses heart, realizing the ministry will end up on the garbage heap of failed programs. You are convinced the pastor follows and loves Christ, so what went wrong? Is the pastor an obstacle, or is the church encountering a larger and systemic problem?\n\nIn the overall Christian community, we have been thinking through re-definitions of church, recognizing how much it is a product of a corporate, modernist industrial mindset. Book after book and innumerable blog posts explore how Western society\'s transition out of the enlightenment era is a major catalyst for transformation of what it means to be a church. These works examine the structure of the church and propose alternatives but rarely consider how the role of pastors changes with potential transitions. I still think churches need some person or group of people that function similar to current day pastors. I cannot yet envision a congregation larger than a house church (which may be our future) operating without some semblance of a pastor.\n\nLet\'s consider a few ways in which pastors find themselves caught between their training, expectations, roles, and changing expectations.\n\nIn seminary, pastors encounter a strong academic bias toward Bible as text rather than Bible as story and narrative. This bias minimizes the inherent humanity of God\'s self-description through the narrative and image. Emphasis on parsing Greek or Hebrew at the expense of connecting with people in their own personal life situations encourage pastors to rapid-fire verses at people rather than engage in the harder work of coming alongside them. I am glad I learned both languages but I did not trust the narrative of the Bible for years.\n\nPastors attempt to simultaneous meet expectations of diverse constituencies, and their challenges are becoming more difficult. Shrinking budgets/attendance, more demanding denominational leadership, and long-term attendees who feel displaced by changes increase the stress levels on a pastor. Micromanagement is a typical response since the pastor may feel he is the only one who can simultaneously satisfy so many different constituencies with conflicting goals. Many pastors under such pressure may exhibit health problems, engage in unhealthy behaviors, or decide that what they are doing is not worth the pain and leave the pastorate.\n\nThere is also a danger that the pastor grasps only part of the sheep and shepherd analogy(John 10:14). The pastor might see the people of the congregation as simple sheep incapable of making decisions on their own. The movement of a person closer to a shepherding role jeopardizes the pastor\'s role as sole shepherd. The one good shepherd is Jesus and others become like Jesus when they follow him. Thus, the pastor is not the head shepherd or the CEO of a modernist, industrial model church.\n\nI am not even sure that we should even have full time pastor paid by the congregation. Most pastors are drastically underpaid and overworked. Even with a very inadequate salary, the additional cost of benefits such as health insurance help to drain the financial resources of a congregation. Why can’t several people earn their living in commercial or other non-church settings and function as the pastors or leaders?\n\nCan you share your experiences, good and bad, with these types of conflicts? Looking into the future, how would you define a pastor? Do you have examples of pastors that have recognized the transitions and are in the process of changing?','Is Your Pastor Holding Your Church Back?','','inherit','open','open','','8602-revision-35','','','2013-03-31 20:56:49','2013-04-01 03:56:49','',8602,'http://provoketive.com/2013/03/31/8602-revision-35/',0,'revision','',0),(8707,205,'2013-03-31 20:59:38','2013-04-01 03:59:38','Imagine yourself and a group of people in a meeting with your church\'s pastor. The church has been changing and seeing new life as people explore what it means to be a church in the early 21st century. The group presents a concept for a phenomenal new ministry connecting the community and congregation, leading to radically transformed lives. Excitement grips the group as they explain the concept to your pastor. You are elated when she says \"yes!\" and you start planning the roll out.\n\nAs the group finalizes the plans, you find out about newly imposed guidelines and limitations that cut out the core of the ministry. Influential members of the congregation complain (\"We\'ve never done it that way, what will other people say?\") and the pastor sets limits out of fear that the church will lose major contributors. Indirectly you hear that the elder board or denominational hierarchy is afraid the ministry will reflect poorly on the church, thus reducing the weekly attendance.\n\nMaybe the group decides on what they believe will be an optimum structure, but the pastor tells them to run it a different way. The mandated changes are not just an alternative way to accomplish the same purpose. They cut the essential core out of the proposed ministry. The group mourns and loses heart, realizing the ministry will end up on the garbage heap of failed programs. You are convinced the pastor follows and loves Christ, so what went wrong? Is the pastor an obstacle, or is the church encountering a larger and systemic problem?\n\nIn the overall Christian community, we have been thinking through re-definitions of church, recognizing how much it is a product of a corporate, modernist industrial mindset. Book after book and innumerable blog posts explore how Western society\'s transition out of the enlightenment era is a major catalyst for transformation of what it means to be a church. These works examine the structure of the church and propose alternatives but rarely consider how the role of pastors changes with potential transitions. I still think churches need some person or group of people that function similar to current day pastors. I cannot yet envision a congregation larger than a house church (which may be our future) operating without some semblance of a pastor.\n\nLet\'s consider a few ways in which pastors find themselves caught between their training, expectations, roles, and changing expectations.\n\nIn seminary, pastors encounter a strong academic bias toward Bible as text rather than Bible as story and narrative. This bias minimizes the inherent humanity of God\'s self-description through the narrative and image. Emphasis on parsing Greek or Hebrew at the expense of connecting with people in their own personal life situations encourage pastors to rapid-fire verses at people rather than engage in the harder work of coming alongside them. I am glad I learned both languages but I did not trust the narrative of the Bible for years.\n\nPastors attempt to simultaneous meet expectations of diverse constituencies, and their challenges are becoming more difficult. Shrinking budgets/attendance, more demanding denominational leadership, and long-term attendees who feel displaced by changes increase the stress levels on a pastor. Micromanagement is a typical response since the pastor may feel he is the only one who can simultaneously satisfy so many different constituencies with conflicting goals. Many pastors under such pressure may exhibit health problems, engage in unhealthy behaviors, or decide that what they are doing is not worth the pain and leave the pastorate.\n\nThere is also a danger that the pastor grasps only part of the sheep and shepherd analogy(John 10:14). The pastor might see the people of the congregation as simple sheep incapable of making decisions on their own. The movement of a person closer to a shepherding role jeopardizes the pastor\'s role as \"sole\" shepherd. The one good shepherd is Jesus and others become like Jesus when they follow him. Thus, the pastor is not the head shepherd or the CEO of a modernist, industrial model church.\n\nI am not even sure that we should even have full time pastor paid by the congregation. Most pastors are drastically underpaid and overworked. Even with a very inadequate salary, the additional cost of benefits such as health insurance help to drain the financial resources of a congregation. Why can’t several people earn their living in commercial or other non-church settings and function as the pastors or leaders?\n\nCan you share your experiences, good and bad, with these types of conflicts? Looking into the future, how would you define a pastor? Do you have examples of pastors that have recognized the transitions and are in the process of changing?','Is Your Pastor Holding Your Church Back?','','inherit','open','open','','8602-revision-36','','','2013-03-31 20:59:38','2013-04-01 03:59:38','',8602,'http://provoketive.com/2013/03/31/8602-revision-36/',0,'revision','',0),(8708,205,'2013-03-31 21:11:54','2013-04-01 04:11:54','Imagine yourself and a group of people in a meeting with your church\'s pastor. The church has been changing and seeing new life as people explore what it means to be a church in the early 21st century. The group presents a concept for a phenomenal new ministry connecting the community and congregation, leading to radically transformed lives. Excitement grips the group as they explain the concept to your pastor. You are elated when she says \"yes!\" and you start planning the roll out.\n\nAs the group finalizes the plans, you find out about newly imposed guidelines and limitations that cut out the core of the ministry. Influential members of the congregation complain (\"We\'ve never done it that way, what will other people say?\") and the pastor sets limits out of fear that the church will lose major contributors. Indirectly you hear that the elder board or denominational hierarchy is afraid the ministry will reflect poorly on the church, thus reducing the weekly attendance.\n\nMaybe the group decides on what they believe will be an optimum structure, but the pastor tells them to run it a different way. The mandated changes are not just an alternative way to accomplish the same purpose. They cut the essential core out of the proposed ministry. The group mourns and loses heart, realizing the ministry will end up on the garbage heap of failed programs. You are convinced the pastor follows and loves Christ, so what went wrong? Is the pastor an obstacle, or is the church encountering a larger and systemic problem?\n\nIn the overall Christian community, we have been thinking through re-definitions of church, recognizing how much it is a product of a corporate, modernist industrial mindset. Book after book and innumerable blog posts explore how Western society\'s transition out of the enlightenment era is a major catalyst for transformation of what it means to be a church. These works examine the structure of the church and propose alternatives but rarely consider how the role of pastors changes with potential transitions. I still think churches need a person or group of people who provide some degree of leadership/followership. I cannot yet envision a congregation larger than a house church (which may be our future) operating without some semblance of a pastor.\n\nLet\'s consider a few ways in which pastors find themselves caught between their training, expectations, roles, and changing expectations.\n\nIn seminary, pastors encounter a strong academic bias toward Bible as text rather than Bible as story and narrative. This bias minimizes the inherent humanity of God\'s self-description through the narrative and image. Emphasis on parsing Greek or Hebrew at the expense of connecting with people in their own personal life situations encourage pastors to rapid-fire verses at people rather than engage in the harder work of coming alongside them. I am glad I learned both languages but I did not trust the narrative of the Bible for years.\n\nPastors attempt to simultaneous meet expectations of diverse constituencies, and their challenges are becoming more difficult. Shrinking budgets/attendance, more demanding denominational leadership, and long-term attendees who feel displaced by changes increase the stress levels on a pastor. Micromanagement is a typical response since the pastor may feel he is the only one who can simultaneously satisfy so many different constituencies with conflicting goals. Many pastors under such pressure may exhibit health problems, engage in unhealthy behaviors, or decide that what they are doing is not worth the pain and leave the pastorate.\n\nThere is also a danger that the pastor grasps only part of the sheep and shepherd analogy(John 10:14). The pastor might see the people of the congregation as simple sheep incapable of making decisions on their own. The movement of a person closer to a shepherding role jeopardizes the pastor\'s role as \"sole\" shepherd. A maturing faith leads a person toward becoming a shepherd. The one good shepherd is Jesus and others become like Jesus in shepherding when they follow him. Thus, the pastor is not the head shepherd or the CEO of a modernist, industrial model church.\n\nI am not even sure that we should even have full-time pastor paid by the congregation. Most pastors are drastically underpaid and overworked. Even with a very inadequate salary, the additional cost of benefits such as health insurance help to drain the financial resources of a congregation. Why can’t several people earn their living in commercial or other non-church settings and function as the pastors or leaders?\n\nCan you share your experiences, good and bad, with these types of conflicts? Looking into the future, how would you define a pastor? Do you have examples of pastors that have recognized the transitions and are in the process of changing?','Is Your Pastor Holding Your Church Back?','','inherit','open','open','','8602-revision-37','','','2013-03-31 21:11:54','2013-04-01 04:11:54','',8602,'http://provoketive.com/2013/03/31/8602-revision-37/',0,'revision','',0),(8709,205,'2013-03-31 21:13:13','2013-04-01 04:13:13','Imagine yourself and a group of people in a meeting with your church\'s pastor. The church has been changing and seeing new life as people explore what it means to be a church in the early 21st century. The group presents a concept for a phenomenal new ministry connecting the community and congregation, leading to radically transformed lives. Excitement grips the group as they explain the concept to your pastor. You are elated when she says \"yes!\" and you start planning the roll out.\n\nAs the group finalizes the plans, you find out about newly imposed guidelines and limitations that cut out the core of the ministry. Influential members of the congregation complain (\"We\'ve never done it that way, what will other people say?\") and the pastor sets limits out of fear that the church will lose major contributors. Indirectly you hear that the elder board or denominational hierarchy is afraid the ministry will reflect poorly on the church, thus reducing the weekly attendance.\n\nMaybe the group decides on what they believe will be an optimum structure, but the pastor tells them to run it a different way. The mandated changes are not just an alternative way to accomplish the same purpose. They cut the essential core out of the proposed ministry. The group mourns and loses heart, realizing the ministry will end up on the garbage heap of failed programs. You are convinced the pastor follows and loves Christ, so what went wrong? Is the pastor an obstacle, or is the church encountering a larger and systemic problem?\n\nIn the overall Christian community, we have been thinking through re-definitions of church, recognizing how much it is a product of a corporate, modernist industrial mindset. Book after book and innumerable blog posts explore how Western society\'s transition out of the enlightenment era is a major catalyst for transformation of what it means to be a church. These works examine the structure of the church and propose alternatives but rarely consider how the role of pastors changes with potential transitions. I still think churches need a person or group of people who provide some degree of leadership/followership. I cannot yet envision a congregation larger than a house church (which may be our future) operating without a semblance of a pastor.\n\nLet\'s consider a few ways in which pastors find themselves caught between their training, expectations, roles, and changing expectations.\n\nIn seminary, pastors encounter a strong academic bias toward Bible as text rather than Bible as story and narrative. This bias minimizes the inherent humanity of God\'s self-description through the narrative and image. Emphasis on parsing Greek or Hebrew at the expense of connecting with people in their own personal life situations encourage pastors to rapid-fire verses at people rather than engage in the harder work of coming alongside them. I am glad I learned both languages but I did not trust the narrative of the Bible for years.\n\nPastors attempt to simultaneous meet expectations of diverse constituencies, and their challenges are becoming more difficult. Shrinking budgets/attendance, more demanding denominational leadership, and long-term attendees who feel displaced by changes increase the stress levels on a pastor. Micromanagement is a typical response since the pastor may feel he is the only one who can simultaneously satisfy so many different constituencies with conflicting goals. Many pastors under such pressure may exhibit health problems, engage in unhealthy behaviors, or decide that what they are doing is not worth the pain and leave the pastorate.\n\nThere is also a danger that the pastor grasps only part of the sheep and shepherd analogy(John 10:14). The pastor might see the people of the congregation as simple sheep incapable of making decisions on their own. The movement of a person closer to a shepherding role jeopardizes the pastor\'s role as \"sole\" shepherd. A maturing faith leads a person toward becoming a shepherd. The one good shepherd is Jesus and others become like Jesus in shepherding when they follow him. Thus, the pastor is not the head shepherd or the CEO of a modernist, industrial model church.\n\nI am not even sure that we should even have full-time pastor paid by the congregation. Most pastors are drastically underpaid and overworked. Even with a very inadequate salary, the additional cost of benefits such as health insurance help to drain the financial resources of a congregation. Why can’t several people earn their living in commercial or other non-church settings and function as the pastors or leaders?\n\nCan you share your experiences, good and bad, with these types of conflicts? Looking into the future, how would you define a pastor? Do you have examples of pastors that have recognized the transitions and are in the process of changing?','Is Your Pastor Holding Your Church Back?','','inherit','open','open','','8602-revision-38','','','2013-03-31 21:13:13','2013-04-01 04:13:13','',8602,'http://provoketive.com/2013/03/31/8602-revision-38/',0,'revision','',0),(8710,205,'2013-03-31 21:13:45','2013-04-01 04:13:45','Imagine yourself and a group of people in a meeting with your church\'s pastor. The church has been changing and seeing new life as people explore what it means to be a church in the early 21st century. The group presents a concept for a phenomenal new ministry connecting the community and congregation, leading to radically transformed lives. Excitement grips the group as they explain the concept to your pastor. You are elated when she says \"yes!\" and you start planning the roll out.\r\n\r\nAs the group finalizes the plans, you find out about newly imposed guidelines and limitations that cut out the core of the ministry. Influential members of the congregation complain (\"We\'ve never done it that way, what will other people say?\") and the pastor sets limits out of fear that the church will lose major contributors. Indirectly you hear that the elder board or denominational hierarchy is afraid the ministry will reflect poorly on the church, thus reducing the weekly attendance.\r\n\r\nMaybe the group decides on what they believe will be an optimum structure, but the pastor tells them to run it a different way. The mandated changes are not just an alternative way to accomplish the same purpose. They cut the essential core out of the proposed ministry. The group mourns and loses heart, realizing the ministry will end up on the garbage heap of failed programs. You are convinced the pastor follows and loves Christ, so what went wrong? Is the pastor an obstacle, or is the church encountering a larger and systemic problem?\r\n\r\nIn the overall Christian community, we have been thinking through re-definitions of church, recognizing how much it is a product of a corporate, modernist industrial mindset. Book after book and innumerable blog posts explore how Western society\'s transition out of the enlightenment era is a major catalyst for transformation of what it means to be a church. These works examine the structure of the church and propose alternatives but rarely consider how the role of pastors changes with potential transitions. I still think churches need a person or group of people who provide some degree of leadership/followership. I cannot yet envision a congregation larger than a house church (which may be our future) operating without a semblance of a pastor.\r\n\r\nLet\'s consider a few ways in which pastors find themselves caught between their training, expectations, roles, and changing expectations.\r\n\r\nIn seminary, pastors encounter a strong academic bias toward Bible as text rather than Bible as story and narrative. This bias minimizes the inherent humanity of God\'s self-description through the narrative and image. Emphasis on parsing Greek or Hebrew at the expense of connecting with people in their own personal life situations encourage pastors to rapid-fire verses at people rather than engage in the harder work of coming alongside them. I am glad I learned both languages but I did not trust the narrative of the Bible for years.\r\n\r\nPastors attempt to simultaneous meet expectations of diverse constituencies, and their challenges are becoming more difficult. Shrinking budgets/attendance, more demanding denominational leadership, and long-term attendees who feel displaced by changes increase the stress levels on a pastor. Micromanagement is a typical response since the pastor may feel he is the only one who can simultaneously satisfy so many different constituencies with conflicting goals. Many pastors under such pressure may exhibit health problems, engage in unhealthy behaviors, or decide that what they are doing is not worth the pain and leave the pastorate.\r\n\r\nThere is also a danger that the pastor grasps only part of the sheep and shepherd analogy(John 10:14). The pastor might see the people of the congregation as simple sheep incapable of making decisions on their own. The movement of a person closer to a shepherding role jeopardizes the pastor\'s role as \"sole\" shepherd. A maturing faith leads a person toward becoming a shepherd. The one good shepherd is Jesus and others become like Jesus in shepherding when they follow him. Thus, the pastor is not the head shepherd or the CEO of a modernist, industrial model church.\r\n\r\nI am not even sure that we should even have full-time pastor paid by the congregation. Most pastors are drastically underpaid and overworked. Even with a very inadequate salary, the additional cost of benefits such as health insurance help to drain the financial resources of a congregation. Why can’t several people earn their living in commercial or other non-church settings and function as the pastors or leaders?\r\n\r\nCan you share your experiences, good and bad, with these types of conflicts? Looking into the future, how would you define a pastor? Do you have examples of pastors that have recognized the transitions and are in the process of changing?','Is Your Pastor Holding Your Church Back?','','inherit','open','open','','8602-revision-39','','','2013-03-31 21:13:45','2013-04-01 04:13:45','',8602,'http://provoketive.com/2013/03/31/8602-revision-39/',0,'revision','',0),(8817,67,'2013-04-17 18:51:33','2013-04-18 01:51:33','<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x4206.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8804\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x4206-195x300.jpg\" width=\"195\" height=\"300\" /></a>Few books have been radically instrumental in changing my perspective of the Kingdom of God. Some caused me to think. Some caused me to ask questions. Some caused me to change opinions and some changed the course of my personal ministry as a whole. One in particular has accomplished all of these, and more surprising; that book happens to be fiction. I don\'t read a lot of fiction and consequentially, I don\'t write a lot of fiction. It\'s difficult to write, takes more time and discipline and requires more patience than I posses. Reading fiction is just as difficult because when we give our selves and our time to fiction, we take on a huge responsibility. We can read fiction at face value, skimming through the pages, simply for the purpose of entertainment. Or we can allow ourselves to enter fiction, being taken deeper than the surface. We become part of the story, an observer that sees the details of every aspect. When we do this, we open ourselves up to the imagination, and sometimes the imagination is more powerful in spiritual transformation than reality itself.\r\n\r\nSo it is with <a title=\"Chasing Francis\" href=\"http://zondervan.com/9780310336709\">Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim\'s Tale</a> by <a title=\"Ian\" href=\"http://www.iancron.com/\">Ian Morgan Cron</a>. In reading the first few pages, I found myself transported into a new and unfamiliar story that was also far too real. The story is new, fresh and alive, but also very real and close to home. When introduced to the main character, Chase Falson, I met someone for the first time, but also felt as if I had known him for years. In many ways, Chase is diametrically different than I am; personally, emotionally and professionally. But I also found that Chase was me; a mirror that was reading back words and reflecting emotions that I have felt for many years.\r\n\r\nChase Falson is the lead pastor of the largest megachurch in New England, and the quintessential picture of evangelical success. He has jumped through every hoop, crossed every T and dotted every I. From the time he entered seminary, he accomplished everything that he set his mind to accomplish. From all reasonable perspectives, Chase has finally \"arrived\". But the reader quickly realizes that his arrival does not entail a permanent stay, but a possible departure. Not a temporary departure that can be found in a refreshing retreat or sabbatical, but a departure from all that he knows and has been prepared for.\r\n\r\nFrustrated and disenchanted with the modern church model and what he sees as transparent and empty, Chase begins to ask questions. He begins to feel more and more restless in his ministry, wondering if something more exists. Faith is diminishing for Chase and questions are outnumbering answers. The tipping point comes in the death of a nine-year old girl, daughter of a fragile thirty-five-year-old ex-con alcoholic who had recently gotten sober and become a follower of Christ. <em>\"So where\'s God now? I gave my life to Christ, did everything you told me. How could he do this?\"</em> The words of a grieving mother push Chase to the brink of anything he has ever experienced emotionally, spiritually or ministerially. He buries a little girl and with her buries his preconceived ideas of what the Church was supposed to be.\r\n\r\nThe Sunday after the funeral, Chase reaches the point of no return admitting his doubts to his congregation.  He lays himself bare, wounded and angry. Chase is no longer a minister, but one who desperately needs ministering for himself. His brokenness, frustrations and anger are laid before the church; the sacrifice of a pastor that has nothing left to give. As the congregation stands before him, Chase comes to the realization that he doesn\'t have the answers they seek, because they are the same questions he is asking himself and of God. Chase wonders if he has ever actually had answers and if some questions simply have no answer. The past meets the present and for Chase, they no longer mesh. <em>\"Maybe we\'re all fools.\"</em>  And with those words, his pilgrimage begins.\r\n\r\nDesperate for answers and forced by his elders into a leave of absence, Chase finds himself crossing the Atlantic to visit his uncle, a Franciscan priest.  It is here, in Italy, that he encounters the teachings and philosophies of Francis of Assisi, rediscovering his faith from this spiritual leader that lived 800 years ago. Realizing that Francis faced many of the same radical cultural changes that we face today, Chase finds a refreshing perspective of what being a follower of Christ truly is, what the Church should be and what the Kingdom of God is really all about.  In the transition from the middle ages to Modernity, Francis gives us wisdom as we find ourselves moving from the Modern era to the uncharted territory of the Postmodern.\r\n\r\nIn a way that very few other authors are capable of, Ian Morgan Cron tells a story that transcends the years since Francis lived. Revealing surprising parallels, he skillfully illustrates the problems that Francis faced in his day; a Church in the midst of a radical cultural, economic  and  societal shift. Realizing that the Church of today faces very similar issues, Cron paints a fictional picture that eerily resembles reality. For it is through this story that a great comfort is found in the old rather than the new. We feel encouragement in simplicity rather than the complex. We find that wisdom calls to us over hundreds of years and assures us that there is hope for the Church. And that hope is found in the liberating possibility that we can at least consider putting aside our endless pursuit of doing something new and different, and look at what has simply been laid before us. And that in itself could, ironically, be new and different.\r\n\r\n<a title=\"Chasing Francis\" href=\"http://zondervan.com/9780310336709\">Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim\'s Tale</a> is being re-leased through <a title=\"Zondervon\" href=\"http://zondervan.com/\">Zondvervon</a> on May 7, 2013 and is currently available for pre-order.','Review of Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim\'s Tale by Ian Morgan Cron ','','inherit','open','open','','8783-autosave','','','2013-04-17 18:51:33','2013-04-18 01:51:33','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(8839,67,'2013-04-20 09:19:41','2013-04-20 16:19:41','<!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;-->\r\n\r\n<!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;-->\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">As an aspiring writer, there<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/The-Irresistable-Table-by-Mary-DeMuth.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft  wp-image-8835\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/The-Irresistable-Table-by-Mary-DeMuth-300x300.jpg\" width=\"240\" height=\"240\" /></a> are not many opportunities that I would turn down to translate my thoughts to words. I’ve written for children’s ministry magazines, news publications, online devotionals, book compilations and currently working on my own book. I’ve written music reviews, commentary on current events, book reviews, conducted interviews and posted literally hundreds of blog entries. But as I envisioned my career as a writer and pondered the possibilities of literary endeavors, reviewing a cook book never came to mind.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">When I heard that my friend and fellow writer, <a title=\"Mary DeMuth\" href=\"http://www.marydemuth.com/\">Mary DeMuth</a>, was looking for folks to read and review her latest book, I was honored to have the opportunity. When I discovered that it was in fact a cook book, my excitement quickly turned to anxiety. I had no idea what to expect in reading a cook book from beginning to end and had even less of an idea of how I would develop a book review worthy of Mary’s status as a writer. So, as is my usual reaction to anxiety-inducing situations, I did what I commonly do: I ignored the task, hoping it would eventually go away. This works quite well with typical avoidances such as doctor appointments, laundry, grocery shopping and my wife’s favorite, having my car inspected.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">One of the unfortunate side-effects of anxiety is its ability to produce guilt. As I sat in my favorite corner of Starbucks, I continued to see the PDF file of Mary’s book glaring at me from my desktop. I’ve read several of Mary’s publications and blogs and always loved what she had to say. Why would I not equally enjoy her culinary prose as well? Resolved to accomplish the task at hand, I put down my copy of <i>Writers Who Procrastinate and Let Down Their Friends Who Write Cook Books</i>, and opened the convicting PDF file of <a title=\"The Irresistible Table\" href=\"http://www.marydemuth.com/store/the-irresistible-table-cookbook/\"><i>The Irresistible Table</i></a> by Mary DeMuth. After reading the introduction, I gazed out of the rain covered window in front of me, thinking to myself, <i>“Why did I not read this sooner?”</i> This is not simply a cook book. This is not only a collection of recipes. This is a guide to community that happens to have recipes and step by step instructions of how to prepare for encounters with deeper community.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt;line-height: normal\">From the very beginning of the introduction, one can easily see that <i>community</i> is the main thrust of this book. <i>“</i><i>The goal of ‘</i><i>The Irresistible Table’ </i><i>is to give the home cook an arsenal of easy, delicious recipes and encourage a lifestyle of community and hospitality for her immediate community: her family. And the community she longs to gather around that family.”</i>  While I would have to disagree with her gender direction, (I’m a stay at home dad and the cook of our home), the essential truth of this sentiment rings very true with me as a minister as well. Community is not an activity but a lifestyle. Community is an essential link to faith and a missing element in today’s culture. Community is necessary for holistic spiritual growth and a vital element to revealing the Kingdom of God.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt;line-height: normal\"> Mary elaborates by reflecting on the essentials of community, revealing how the shared meal is paramount to building healthy gatherings. “<i>Community is a celebration of others. Community can be spontaneous. Community is an attitude. Community involves more than entertaining. It celebrates engagement.” </i> These principles are reflected throughout the book as Mary periodically illustrates how a particular encounter intertwines with the preparation of a certain recipe. Experiences with family, friends and gatherings are intimately a part of her obvious love of cooking and an obvious ingredient as to why she developed this writing project.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt;line-height: normal\"> Of course, in reviewing a cook book, one would assume that the individual recipes would be considered as well. While I was unfortunately not able to personally review every concoction myself, I chose to sample one recipe from each section. The Table of Contents is a process through community, beginning with satisfying breakfast and progressing through indulgent desserts. Appetizers, salads, breads, soups, various main courses and even drinks, are all are essential aspects of communal gatherings. These are included in an easy-to-reference manner and leave the average cook eager to expand their menu. Mary includes simple recipes that are not only easy to prepare, but are practical and fairly neutral in terms of appealing to most pallets. Each chapter begins with an engaging introduction that ties familiar recipes to her passion for some aspect of community.</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt;line-height: normal\">Whether stories of family or friends, the imagery that Mary creates helps encourage the reader to imagine similar stories of their own. On several occasions, I found myself drifting back with nostalgia to simpler times and memories of how my mom and grandmother built strong community through cooking. It caused me to reflect on the simple power of the shared meal and the possibility that we are missing something much larger in our fast-food culture. Meals take time to prepare. Meals take time to serve and create an inviting table. Meals take time to enjoy and of course, meals take time to clean up afterward. But is it possible that when we take the time to focus on the communal meal, we open the door to why we are given time on the earth to begin with?</p>\r\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt;line-height: normal\">You can get to know Mary and her other publications at <a title=\"Mary\" href=\"http://www.marydemuth.com/\">www.marydemuth.com </a>and also find <a title=\"The Irresistible Table\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/The-Irresistible-Table-Mary-DeMuth/dp/1481860011\">The Irresistible Table</a> on Amazon.</p>','Cooking Community: A Review of the Irresistible Table by Mary DeMuth','','inherit','open','open','','8834-revision-4','','','2013-04-20 09:19:41','2013-04-20 16:19:41','',8834,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/20/8834-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(8835,67,'2013-04-20 09:16:36','2013-04-20 16:16:36','','The-Irresistable-Table-by-Mary-DeMuth','','inherit','open','open','','the-irresistable-table-by-mary-demuth','','','2013-04-20 09:16:36','2013-04-20 16:16:36','',8834,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/The-Irresistable-Table-by-Mary-DeMuth.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(8836,67,'2013-04-20 09:17:57','2013-04-20 16:17:57','<!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;-->\n \n  \n \n\n\n<!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;-->\n \n  Normal\n  0\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  false\n  false\n  false\n  \n  EN-US\n  X-NONE\n  X-NONE\n  \n   \n   \n   \n   \n   \n   \n   \n   \n   \n  \n  \n   \n   \n   \n   \n   \n   \n   \n   \n   \n   \n   \n  \n<!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;-->\n \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n \n<!--[if gte mso 10]&gt;-->\n\n /* Style Definitions */\n table.MsoNormalTable\n	{mso-style-name:\"Table Normal\";\n	mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;\n	mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;\n	mso-style-noshow:yes;\n	mso-style-priority:99;\n	mso-style-parent:\"\";\n	mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;\n	mso-para-margin-top:0in;\n	mso-para-margin-right:0in;\n	mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;\n	mso-para-margin-left:0in;\n	line-height:115%;\n	mso-pagination:widow-orphan;\n	font-size:11.0pt;\n	font-family:\"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\";\n	mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;\n	mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;\n	mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;\n	mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}\n\n\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">As an aspiring writer, there<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/The-Irresistable-Table-by-Mary-DeMuth.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft  wp-image-8835\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/The-Irresistable-Table-by-Mary-DeMuth-300x300.jpg\" width=\"240\" height=\"240\" /></a> are not many opportunities that I would turn down to translate my thoughts to words. I’ve written for children’s ministry magazines, news publications, online devotionals, book compilations and currently working on my own book. I’ve written music reviews, commentary on current events, book reviews, conducted interviews and posted literally hundreds of blog entries. But as I envisioned my career as a writer and pondered the possibilities of literary endeavors, reviewing a cook book never came to mind.</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">When I heard that my friend and fellow writer, <a title=\"Mary DeMuth\" href=\"http://www.marydemuth.com/\">Mary DeMuth</a>, was looking for folks to read and review her latest book, I was honored to have the opportunity. When I discovered that it was in fact a cook book, my excitement quickly turned to anxiety. I had no idea what to expect in reading a cook book from beginning to end and had even less of an idea of how I would develop a book review worthy of Mary’s status as a writer. So, as is my usual reaction to anxiety-inducing situations, I did what I commonly do: I ignored the task, hoping it would eventually go away. This works quite well with typical avoidances such as doctor appointments, laundry, grocery shopping and my wife’s favorite, having my car inspected. <span> </span></p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">One of the unfortunate side-effects of anxiety is its ability to produce guilt. As I sat in my favorite corner of Starbucks, I continued to see the PDF file of Mary’s book glaring at me from my desktop. I’ve read several of Mary’s publications and blogs and always loved what she had to say. Why would I not equally enjoy her culinary prose as well? Resolved to accomplish the task at hand, I put down my copy of <i>Writers Who Procrastinate and Let Down Their Friends Who Write Cook Books</i>, and opened the convicting PDF file of <a title=\"The Irresistible Table\" href=\"http://www.marydemuth.com/store/the-irresistible-table-cookbook/\"><i>The Irresistible Table</i></a> by Mary DeMuth. After reading the introduction, I gazed out of the rain covered window in front of me, thinking to myself, <i>“Why did I not read this sooner?”</i> This is not simply a cook book. This is not only a collection of recipes. This is a guide to community that happens to have recipes and step by step instructions of how to prepare for encounters with deeper community.</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt;line-height: normal\">From the very beginning of the introduction, one can easily see that <i>community</i> is the main thrust of this book. <i>“</i><i><span>The goal of ‘</span></i><i><span>The Irresistible Table’ </span></i><i><span>is to give the home cook an arsenal of easy, delicious recipes and encourage a lifestyle of community and hospitality for her immediate community: her family. And the community she longs to gather around that family.”</span></i><span>  </span>While I would have to disagree with her gender direction, (I’m a stay at home dad and the cook of our home), the essential truth of this sentiment rings very true with me as a minister as well. Community is not an activity but a lifestyle. Community is an essential link to faith and a missing element in today’s culture. Community is necessary for holistic spiritual growth and a vital element to revealing the Kingdom of God.</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt;line-height: normal\"> Mary elaborates by reflecting on the essentials of community, revealing how the shared meal is paramount to building healthy gatherings. “<i><span>Community is a celebration of others. Community can be spontaneous. Community is an attitude. Community involves more than entertaining. It celebrates engagement.” </span></i><span><span> </span>These principles are reflected throughout the book as Mary periodically illustrates how a particular encounter intertwines with the preparation of a certain recipe. Experiences with family, friends and gatherings are intimately a part of her obvious love of cooking and an obvious ingredient as to why she developed this writing project.</span></p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt;line-height: normal\"><span> Of course, in reviewing a cook book, one would assume that the individual recipes would be considered as well. While I was unfortunately not able to personally review every concoction myself, I chose to sample one recipe from each section. The Table of Contents is a process through c</span><span>ommunity, beginning with satisfying breakfast and progressing through indulgent desserts. Appetizers, salads, breads, soups, various main courses and even drinks, are all are essential aspects of communal gatherings. These are included in an easy-to-reference manner and leave the average cook eager to expand their menu. Mary includes simple recipes that are not only easy to prepare, but are practical and fairly neutral in terms of appealing to most pallets. Each chapter begins with an engaging introduction that ties familiar recipes to her passion for some aspect of community. </span></p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt;line-height: normal\"><span>Whether stories of family or friends, the imagery that Mary creates helps encourage the reader to imagine similar stories of their own. On several occasions, I found myself drifting back with nostalgia to simpler times and memories of how my mom and grandmother built strong community through cooking. It caused me to reflect on the simple power of the shared meal and the possibility that we are missing something much larger in our fast-food culture. Meals take time to prepare. Meals take time to serve and create an inviting table. Meals take time to enjoy and of course, meals take time to clean up afterward. But is it possible that when we take the time to focus on the communal meal, we open the door to why we are given time on the earth to begin with?<span>    </span></span></p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt;line-height: normal\">You can get to know Mary and her other publications at <a title=\"Mary\" href=\"http://www.marydemuth.com/\">www.marydemuth.com </a>and also find <a title=\"The Irresistible Table\" href=\"http://www.amazon.com/The-Irresistible-Table-Mary-DeMuth/dp/1481860011\">The Irresistible Table</a> on Amazon.</p>','Cooking Community: A Review of the Irresistible Table by Mary DeMuth','','inherit','open','open','','8834-revision','','','2013-04-20 09:17:57','2013-04-20 16:17:57','',8834,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/20/8834-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(8785,67,'2013-04-16 09:22:26','2013-04-16 16:22:26','There are not many books that have been radically instrumental in changing my perspective of the Kingdom of God. Some have caused me to think. Some have caused me to ask questions. Some have caused me to change my opinions and some have changed the course of my personal ministry as a whole. There is one in particular that has accomplished all of the above, and what is even more surprising; that book happens to be fiction. I don\'t read a lot of fiction and consequentially, I don\'t write a lot of fiction. Fiction is difficult to write, takes more time and discipline and requires much more patience than I posses. Reading fiction is just as difficult because when we give our selves and our time to fiction, we take on a huge responsibility. We can read fiction at face value, skimming through the pages, simply for the purpose of entertainment. Or we can allow ourselves to enter fiction, being taken deeper than the surface. We can become part of the story, an observer that sees the details of each and every aspect. When we do this, we open ourselves up to the imagination, and sometimes the imagination is more powerful in spiritual transformation than reality itself.\n\nSo it is with my reading of Chasing Francis by Ian Morgan Cron. In reading the first few pages, I found myself transported into a new and unfamiliar story that was also far too real. The story is new, fresh and alive, but also very real and close to home. When introduced to the main character, Chase Falson, I met someone for the first time, but also felt as if I had known him for years. In many ways, Chase is diametrically different than I am; personally, emotionally and professionally. But I also found that Chase was me; a mirror that was reading back words and reflecting emotions that I have felt for many years.\n\nChase is the lead pastor of the largest megachurch in New England, and the quintessential picture of evangelical success. He has jumped through every hoop, crossed every T and dotted every I. From the time he entered seminary, he has accomplished everything he set his mind to accomplish. From all reasonable perspectives, Chase Falson has finally \"arrived\". But the reader quickly realizes that his arrival does not entail a permanent stay, but a possible departure. Not a temporary departure that can be found in a refreshing retreat or sabbatical, but a departure from all that he knows and has been prepared for.\n\nFrustrated and disenchanted with the modern church model and what he sees as transparent and empty, Chase begins to ask questions. He begins to feel more and more restless in his ministry, wondering if something more exists. Faith is diminishing for Chase and questions are outnumbering answers. The tipping point comes in the death of a nine-year old little girl, the daughter of a fragile thirty-five-year-old ex-con alcoholic who had recently gotten sober and become a follower of Christ. <em>\"So where\'s God now? I gave my life to Christ, did everything you told me. How could he do this?\" </em>The words of a grieving mother push Chase to the brink of anything he has ever experienced emotionally, spiritually or ministerially. He buries a little girl and buries his preconceived ideas of what the Church was supposed to be.\n\nThe Sunday after the funeral, Chase reaches the point of no return admitting his doubts to his congregation.  He lays himself bare, wounded and angry. Chase is no longer a minister, but one who desperately needs ministering for himself. His brokenness, frustrations and anger are laid before the church; the sacrifice of a pastor that has nothing left to give. As the congregation stands before him, Chase comes to the realization that he doesn\'t have the answers they seek, because they are the same questions he is asking himself and of God. Chase wonders if he has ever actually had answers and if some questions simply have no answer. The past meets the present and for Chase, they no longer mesh together. <em>\"Maybe we\'re all fools.\"</em>  And with those words, his pilgrimage begins.\n\nDesperate for answers and forced by his elders into a leave of absence, Chase finds himself in Italy, visiting his uncle Kenny who had become a Franciscan Priest. Kenny too had faced a breaking point, loosing his pregnant wife in\n\n&nbsp;\n\nA few years ago, I began a journey of becoming a Franciscan in the Order of Ecumenical Franciscans.','Review of Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim\'s Tale by Ian Morgan Cron ','','inherit','open','open','','8783-revision','','','2013-04-16 09:22:26','2013-04-16 16:22:26','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/16/8783-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(8725,35,'2013-04-24 08:00:24','2013-04-24 15:00:24','Sometimes I perform the popular,\r\n\r\nseek to satisfy the status quo\r\n\r\nbecause it’s socially easier\r\n\r\nto pretend to be like “them”.\r\n\r\nSometimes I crave acceptance,\r\n\r\neven though it costs my soul.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nI was created custom-made by God,\r\n\r\nwith ideas unique to me,\r\n\r\nperceptions that fit no one else\r\n\r\nthat I alone can abdicate.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThen I think of Jael in Judges 4\r\n\r\nwho defied her husband’s allegiance\r\n\r\nto follow the God of Israel,\r\n\r\nrisking absolutely everything\r\n\r\nin response to God’s command.\r\n\r\nI think of Paul and Peter\r\n\r\nand Martin Luther King,\r\n\r\nhonoring their beliefs\r\n\r\nover rational safety.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nAm I willing to honor\r\n\r\ncommon approval\r\n\r\nover confirmed conviction\r\n\r\nto follow Jesus’ call?\r\n\r\nDangerous devotion\r\n\r\nto the only one\r\n\r\nwho gave all for me?\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nAm I such a coward?\r\n\r\nYes.\r\n\r\nAm I committed to God?\r\n\r\nI wonder.\r\n\r\nAnd yet my heart is drawn to love\r\n\r\nwithout conditions or demands,\r\n\r\na God who accepts me as I am,\r\n\r\nstays with me, no matter what,\r\n\r\nirrevocable, illogical\r\n\r\nto my finite mind.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nJesus, help me to risk resistance,\r\n\r\nresentment, my own reticence\r\n\r\nto stand for what I believe\r\n\r\nperhaps alone except for you.','No Matter What','','publish','open','open','','no-matter-what','','','2013-04-18 09:29:38','2013-04-18 16:29:38','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=8725',0,'post','',2),(8726,35,'2013-04-09 08:34:35','2013-04-09 15:34:35','','holding hands','','inherit','open','open','','holding-hands','','','2013-04-09 08:34:35','2013-04-09 15:34:35','',8725,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/holding-hands.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(8727,35,'2013-04-09 08:33:09','2013-04-09 15:33:09','Sometimes I perform the popular,\n\nseek to satisfy the status quo\n\nbecause it’s socially easier\n\nto pretend to be like “them”.\n\nSometimes I crave acceptance,\n\neven though it costs my soul.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nI was created custom-made by God,\n\nwith ideas unique to me,\n\nperceptions that fit no one else\n\nthat I alone can abdicate.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThen I think of Jael in Judges 4\n\nwho defied her husband’s allegiance\n\nto follow the God of Israel,\n\nrisking absolutely everything\n\nin response to God’s command.\n\nI think of Paul and Peter\n\nand Martin Luther King,\n\nhonoring their beliefs\n\nover rational safety.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nAm I willing to honor\n\ncommon approval\n\nover confirmed conviction\n\nto follow Jesus’ call?\n\nDangerous devotion\n\nto the only one\n\nwho gave all for me?\n\n&nbsp;\n\nAm I such a coward?\n\nYes.\n\nAm I committed to God?\n\nI wonder.\n\nAnd yet my heart is drawn to love\n\nwithout conditions or demands,\n\na God who accepts me as I am,\n\nstays with me, no matter what,\n\nirrevocable, illogical\n\nto my finite mind.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nJesus, help me to risk resistance,\n\nresentment, my own reticence\n\nto stand for what I believe\n\nperhaps alone except for you.','No Matter What','','inherit','open','open','','8725-revision','','','2013-04-09 08:33:09','2013-04-09 15:33:09','',8725,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/09/8725-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(8730,1,'2013-03-29 20:12:03','2013-03-30 03:12:03','E. L. James “<em>Fifty Shades of Grey</em>” trilogy has sold millions upon millions of books. Her success has been accredited to all sorts of things. She has critics as well as fans, an <a href=\"http://www.opposingviews.com/i/entertainment/fifty-shades-grey-movie-emma-roberts-or-emma-bell-play-anastasia\">upcoming movie</a> and <a href=\"http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2013/03/e-l-james-fifty-shades-of-gray-new-book\">just announced a book on writing tips</a>.\r\n\r\nI was browsing Amazon recently and came across a work by <a href=\"http://cassandraparkin.wordpress.com/author/cassandraparkin/\">Cassandra Parkin</a>, “<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Lighter-Shades-Grey-Critical-ebook/dp/B009KBL1DA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364610361&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=cassandra+parkin\"><em>Lighter Shades of Grey: A (very) Critical Reader’s Guide to ‘Fifty Shades of Grey.</em></a>” She also has companion novels for the other two works in the trilogy, “<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Shades-Lighter-Critical-ebook/dp/B009JF5RO6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364610361&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=cassandra+parkin\"><em>Fifty Shades Lighter: A (very) Critical Reader’s Guide to ‘Fifty Shades Darker</em></a>” and “<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Lighter-Shades-Freed-Critical-ebook/dp/B00A3EMVXC/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364610361&amp;sr=8-5&amp;keywords=cassandra+parkin\"><em>Lighter Shades Freed: A (very) Critical Reader’s Guide to ‘Fifty Shades Freed.</em></a>’”\r\n\r\nI read a couple of reviews and noting its humor, I decided to give it a try for its unbeatable price of $2.99. I was not disappointed. Parkin takes James to task with biting sarcasm for her writing failures, but also uncovers some serious issues.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/lighter.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8650\" style=\"margin-left: 6px;margin-right: 6px\" alt=\"lighter\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/lighter-228x300.jpg\" width=\"228\" height=\"300\" /></a>Parkin recommends her book for several audiences. First, for those who enjoy the book so they can be aware of the arguments that will come their way as to why the book is so awful. Secondly, for those on the fence trying to decide whether or not to read it. Finally, it’s for those who have decided not to read it and have been asked, “<em>how can you know it’s bad when you haven’t read it?</em>”\r\n\r\nI wanted to talk to her further so I contacted the North England native. I’m definitely glad I did. We talked about James’ work, the dangers within toward women, the BDSM element, bad literature, and even tips on writing. Besides these topics, it was terrific to interview her. I found a strong feminist greatly concerned with women’s issues, a great literary mind, and an incredibly talented writer with tremendous spirit and voice.\r\n\r\nBesides this work, she won the 2011 Scott Prize for Short Stories for her work, “<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/World-Fairy-Tales-Cassandra-Parkin/dp/1844718816/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364610361&amp;sr=8-7&amp;keywords=cassandra+parkin\"><em>New World Fairy Tales</em></a>.” Her novel, \"<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Summer-All-Ran-Away-ebook/dp/B00BU2NGR6/ref=la_B007NCIS2U_1_4?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364610678&amp;sr=1-4\"><em>The Summer We All Ran Away</em></a>\", will be published by Legend Press in August 2013 and she is working on her second novel, \"<em>The Beach Hut</em>.\"\r\n\r\nHere is n excerpt from “<em>Lighter Shades</em>” to give you an idea of its flavor: “<em>Even if you feel there’s something wrong with a world where this book will shortly be outselling bread, it’s hard to argue that ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ isn’t…significant. And a book this…significant…deserves to be subjected to thorough textual analysis. By taking it apart into teeny tiny small little pieces and putting those pieces under a spiteful, mean-spirited microscope, we may all just learn something about the elusive nature of the best seller.</em>\r\n\r\nAnd at the very least, we’ll all get to spend time enjoyably picking holes in the success of others. And time spent having fun is rarely wasted, I think.” (Kindle Location, 55)\r\n\r\n<strong><em>Ray:</em></strong> <em>I wanted you to know there was so much I enjoyed about your book: Your writing style, your snarkiness and your obvious love for good fiction. My concern is that people will just see your critique of James’ work as an act of jealousy instead of a clarion call to responsible writing and just an entertaining work of writing in its own right. Have you had such criticism? How do you react to this?</em>\r\n\r\n<strong><em>Cassandra:</em></strong> Thank you – I’m so glad you enjoyed the book! It was a lot of fun to write, I have to say.\r\n\r\nYou’re right, of course; I’ve been accused of jealousy by plenty of people, sometimes in alarmingly vivid terms. I especially enjoyed the lady who described an entire life for me where I’ve spent years scratching away in a garret at some terribly high-brow and pretentious work of literature, rejected by agent after agent and mocked by publishers, and now pass my time by endlessly raging about E L James’s success every day, and drinking myself into a coma every night. (I think she was talking about me. It’s possible she had me confused with the ghost of Ernest Hemingway.)\r\n\r\nI must admit, I do find it quite odd that so many people’s instinctive response to me saying, “<em>I think this is a bit rubbish, and here’s why</em>” is to instantly scream “<em>Oh, but you’re just JEALOUS!</em>” Why would I be? I genuinely don’t wish I’d written “<em>Fifty Shades</em>”. If one day I write a book and it sells as well as “<em>Fifty Shades</em>” and I’m also proud of it – well, that’ll be a lovely experience. But if it never happens, so what? Is there a certain level of sales or wealth that entitles us to have an opinion?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>R:</em></strong> The phenomenon of “<em>Fifty Shades</em>” is a remarkable thing and you address it well in the opening section. You put aside <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/50shades.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8652\" alt=\"50shades\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/50shades-213x300.jpg\" width=\"213\" height=\"300\" /></a>the idea the popular theory of “<em>mommy porn</em>” being its biggest attraction and show its appeal being its origins with Fanfic, especially its commonality with the “<em>Twilight</em>” series. Since these books have been written, how have you seen the market grow? More books like this have been written, surely. But has the writing gotten better or are readers just settling for even worse written fiction?\r\n\r\n<em><strong>C:</strong></em> I think the main impact of “<em>Fifty Shades</em>” has been to bring non-conventional sex into the Romance genre – in the same way “<em>Twilight</em>” combined Romance with Supernatural. We all know that Romance books are commodity items, with hundreds of titles published a year. Collectively, they’re a huge success. But none of the individual titles are bestsellers because they’re written to a formula, and there are so many to choose from.\r\n\r\n“<em>Fifty Shades</em>” has created a market for Romance with BDSM sexual content. At the moment, there are quite a few BDSM-themed romances on the Top Ten shelves in the supermarkets, because if you want a BDSM-themed romance, there aren’t that many choices yet. But as the market catches up, I imagine the individual titles will disappear from the Top Ten, but BDSM romances will have their own imprint within the big Genre-Fiction houses. Mills and Boon have a Supernatural Romance imprint, with eight new titles every month. This time next year I’m sure they’ll have the same for the “Fifty Shades” fans.\r\n\r\nHas there been a change in quality? I’d probably draw a distinction between bad writing and retrogressive themes. I’m sure the writing will get better, because I can’t imagine any editor willfully commissioning a bad writer to create a Fifty-Shades-A-Like novel when the Genre Fiction field has so many excellent writers to choose from. However, if they stay true to the central theme of the Fifty Shades series - which is basically “<em>Stand by your abusive man, girls, because if you love him hard enough you can fix him!</em>” - then I’ll stand by my judgment of their overall value to society.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>R:</em></strong> James’ book, as you mentioned, didn’t undergo much critical editing. Hypothetical question: Do you think an editing process would have helped this book? Or, would it have made it less appealing to the readers?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C:</em></strong> Well, I think it would have made it a lot harder for me and others to laugh at! I don’t know if fewer descriptions of Christian’s well-hung pants or Ana saying “<em>Oh my</em>” less often would have made it less fun for fans, but it would certainly have taken away a lot of what I enjoyed about it.\r\n\r\nHowever, I think what Fifty Shades fans respond to is the underlying theme of falling for a monster, who you then redeem through the power of your love. Women are taught from a very young age that it’s rude and ungrateful to reject male attention – even when it’s offered by someone who is violent, destructive or dangerous towards us. Instead, we should use our power to transform these cruel and undesirable men into our perfect heroes.\r\n\r\nWhen you write it out like that, it’s pretty laughable, and I’d laugh about it myself if this particular fantasy didn’t come with its own verified body-count. In the UK, two women a week are killed by violent and abusive partners – usually after enduring months and years of appalling behaviour. The reasons we stay with men who treat us like this? Because we think that if we love him hard enough and long enough, he’ll reform.\r\n\r\n<em><strong><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/bomer.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8653\" style=\"margin-left: 6px;margin-right: 6px\" alt=\"bomer\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/bomer-225x300.jpg\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>R:</strong></em> One of the major themes of your writing that many reviewers seem to have missed is how Ana is forced to have sex against her will. (Loc. 355, 647 Kindle) Over and over, you mention that Ana has the right to say “<em>no</em>,” whether there is a contract or not. In fact, you note how Ana is even raped and kidnapped. Further, Christian morally justifies his actions. Why are these actions skipped over by many readers or excused? Is it because it is under the guise of a fiction/fantasy novel? What are the dangers?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C:</em></strong> The way I’ve heard it justified is that Christian behaves like this because he’s “<em>damaged</em>”, and doesn’t know how to have a proper relationship. Well, yes; I can absolutely buy that. His childhood was terrible, and a lot of his behaviour is strongly suggestive of sociopathy. How could he not struggle with healthy relationships?\r\n\r\nWhat I take issue with is the idea that Christian can be fixed if he only finds the right woman; and that, because Christian thinks Ana might be the one, it’s then her responsibility to become that right woman. The narrative’s driven by what Christian needs, not what Ana needs. Ana’s “<em>reward</em>” is Christian’s transformation.\r\n\r\nFor the record, I don’t think this idea comes from “<em>Fifty Shades</em>”. It’s already in our heads, which is why we respond to it so strongly, and why so many people get so angry when it’s challenged.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>R:</em></strong> Ana commonly references “<em>Tess of the D’Urbervilles</em>” and compares herself to her. You commonly note that the reference is terrible since the correlation is awful. Tess was raped. But the problems don’t end there. James struggles with the basic use of metaphor, simile, character interaction, and descriptions. At what point did James become responsible for her major errors? If she had sold 30 books on Amazon, I suppose we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Is the real problem James’ writing or the fact that we have a population that doesn’t recognize subpar writing?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C: </em></strong>I think it’s always okay to point out when you think something isn’t very good. How loudly you feel compelled to point that out depends on how big an impact you believe the not-very-goodness is having. If I go to a restaurant and my burger is horrible, I’ll probably complain to the waiter. (Well actually, since I’m British, I’ll probably eat it anyway, pay the bill, leave a tip and then complain to my husband in the car afterwards…but you get the idea.) But if I go to McDonald’s and my burger is horrible, I think it’s appropriate to complain far more publically. A lot of people eat in McDonald’s, so a lot of people might be interested in my experience.\r\n\r\nAnd if people want to carry on eating in McDonald’s anyway, fair enough. I haven’t ever said to anyone, “<em>Don’t buy this book because it’s awful</em>”. I’m just sharing my experience.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>R:</em></strong> As a follow up, many people might say, “<em>I don’t care that it’s poorly written. I just like the story.</em>” Should that concern us? Are we a world of undiscerning readers or is it okay to expect less out of our writers as long as the “<em>story</em>” is compelling and titillating?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C:</em></strong> I’m not sure the success of “<em>Fifty Shades</em>” is a four-horseman-style harbinger of the death of quality writing. The <em>succès fou</em> is a very old phenomenon, and the world seems to have survived. If there’s anything that worries me about “<em>Fifty Shades</em>”, it’s what it tells us all about our collective willingness to endorse and even romanticise abusive relationships.\r\n\r\n________________________\r\n\r\n<em>Please stay tuned for part two of this interview.</em>\r\n\r\nCassandra Parkin has a Master\'s degree in English Literature from York University, and has been writing fiction all her life - mostly as Christmas and birthday presents for friends and family. She is married with two children, has so far resisted her clear genetic destiny to become a mad old cat lady, and lives in a small but perfectly formed village in East Yorkshire.\r\n\r\nRay Carroll is author of \"<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fallen-Pastor-Finding-Restoration-Broken/dp/0615567096/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1347593993&amp;sr=8-1\">Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World.</a>\" He blogs regularly at <a href=\"http://www.fallenpastor.com\">www.fallenpastor.com</a>.','Author Interview: Cassandra Parkin, “Lighter Shades of Grey: A (very) Critical Reader’s Guide to ‘Fifty Shades of Grey,\'\" Part One','','inherit','open','open','','8646-revision-5','','','2013-03-29 20:12:03','2013-03-30 03:12:03','',8646,'http://provoketive.com/2013/03/29/8646-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(8793,67,'2013-04-17 08:26:21','2013-04-17 15:26:21','There are not many books that have been radically instrumental in changing my perspective of the Kingdom of God. Some have caused me to think. Some have caused me to ask questions. Some have caused me to change my opinions and some have changed the course of my personal ministry as a whole. There is one in particular that has accomplished all of the above, and what is even more surprising; that book happens to be fiction. I don\'t read a lot of fiction and consequentially, I don\'t write a lot of fiction. Fiction is difficult to write, takes more time and discipline and requires much more patience than I posses. Reading fiction is just as difficult because when we give our selves and our time to fiction, we take on a huge responsibility. We can read fiction at face value, skimming through the pages, simply for the purpose of entertainment. Or we can allow ourselves to enter fiction, being taken deeper than the surface. We can become part of the story, an observer that sees the details of each and every aspect. When we do this, we open ourselves up to the imagination, and sometimes the imagination is more powerful in spiritual transformation than reality itself.\r\n\r\nSo it is with my reading of Chasing Francis by Ian Morgan Cron. In reading the first few pages, I found myself transported into a new and unfamiliar story that was also far too real. The story is new, fresh and alive, but also very real and close to home. When introduced to the main character, Chase Falson, I met someone for the first time, but also felt as if I had known him for years. In many ways, Chase is diametrically different than I am; personally, emotionally and professionally. But I also found that Chase was me; a mirror that was reading back words and reflecting emotions that I have felt for many years.\r\n\r\nChase is the lead pastor of the largest megachurch in New England, and the quintessential picture of evangelical success. He has jumped through every hoop, crossed every T and dotted every I. From the time he entered seminary, he has accomplished everything he set his mind to accomplish. From all reasonable perspectives, Chase Falson has finally \"arrived\". But the reader quickly realizes that his arrival does not entail a permanent stay, but a possible departure. Not a temporary departure that can be found in a refreshing retreat or sabbatical, but a departure from all that he knows and has been prepared for.\r\n\r\nFrustrated and disenchanted with the modern church model and what he sees as transparent and empty, Chase begins to ask questions. He begins to feel more and more restless in his ministry, wondering if something more exists. Faith is diminishing for Chase and questions are outnumbering answers. The tipping point comes in the death of a nine-year old little girl, the daughter of a fragile thirty-five-year-old ex-con alcoholic who had recently gotten sober and become a follower of Christ. <em>\"So where\'s God now? I gave my life to Christ, did everything you told me. How could he do this?\" </em>The words of a grieving mother push Chase to the brink of anything he has ever experienced emotionally, spiritually or ministerially. He buries a little girl and buries his preconceived ideas of what the Church was supposed to be.\r\n\r\nThe Sunday after the funeral, Chase reaches the point of no return admitting his doubts to his congregation.  He lays himself bare, wounded and angry. Chase is no longer a minister, but one who desperately needs ministering for himself. His brokenness, frustrations and anger are laid before the church; the sacrifice of a pastor that has nothing left to give. As the congregation stands before him, Chase comes to the realization that he doesn\'t have the answers they seek, because they are the same questions he is asking himself and of God. Chase wonders if he has ever actually had answers and if some questions simply have no answer. The past meets the present and for Chase, they no longer mesh together. <em>\"Maybe we\'re all fools.\"</em>  And with those words, his pilgrimage begins.\r\n\r\nDesperate for answers and forced by his elders into a leave of absence, Chase finds himself crossing Atlantic to visit his uncle, a Franciscan priest.  It is here, in Italy, that he encounters the teachings and philosophies and of Francis of Assisi, rediscovering his faith from this spiritual leader that lives 800 years ago. Realizing that Francis faced many of the same radical cultural changes that we face today, Chase finds a refreshing perspective of what being a follower of Christ truly is, what the Church should be and what the Kingdom of God is really all about.  In the transition from the middle ages to Modernity, Francis gives us wisdom as we find ourselves moving from the Modern era to the uncharted territory of the Postmodern.\r\n\r\nIn a way that very few authors are capable of doing, Ian Morgan Cron tells a story that transcends the years since Francis lived. Revealing surprising parallels, he skillfully illustrates the problems that Francis faced in his day; a Church in the midst of a radical cultural, economic  and societal shift. Realizing that the Church of today faces very similar issues, Cron paints a fictional picture that eerily resembles reality. For it is through this story that a great comfort is found in the old rather than the new. Encouragement is found in simplicity rather than the complex. We find that wisdom calls to us over hundreds of years and assures us that there is hope for the Church. And that hope is found in liberating possibility that we can at least consider putting aside our endless pursuit of doing something new and different, and look at what has been laid before us. And that in itself could be ironically new and different.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Review of Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim\'s Tale by Ian Morgan Cron ','','inherit','open','open','','8783-revision-6','','','2013-04-17 08:26:21','2013-04-17 15:26:21','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-6/',0,'revision','',0),(8734,12,'2013-04-09 10:02:27','2013-04-09 17:02:27','E. L. James “<em>Fifty Shades of Grey</em>” trilogy has sold millions upon millions of books. Her success has been accredited to all sorts of things. She has critics as well as fans, an <a href=\"http://www.opposingviews.com/i/entertainment/fifty-shades-grey-movie-emma-roberts-or-emma-bell-play-anastasia\">upcoming movie</a> and <a href=\"http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2013/03/e-l-james-fifty-shades-of-gray-new-book\">just announced a book on writing tips</a>.\r\n\r\nI was browsing Amazon recently and came across a work by <a href=\"http://cassandraparkin.wordpress.com/author/cassandraparkin/\">Cassandra Parkin</a>, “<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Lighter-Shades-Grey-Critical-ebook/dp/B009KBL1DA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364610361&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=cassandra+parkin\"><em>Lighter Shades of Grey: A (very) Critical Reader’s Guide to ‘Fifty Shades of Grey.</em></a>” She also has companion novels for the other two works in the trilogy, “<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Shades-Lighter-Critical-ebook/dp/B009JF5RO6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364610361&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=cassandra+parkin\"><em>Fifty Shades Lighter: A (very) Critical Reader’s Guide to ‘Fifty Shades Darker</em></a>” and “<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Lighter-Shades-Freed-Critical-ebook/dp/B00A3EMVXC/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364610361&amp;sr=8-5&amp;keywords=cassandra+parkin\"><em>Lighter Shades Freed: A (very) Critical Reader’s Guide to ‘Fifty Shades Freed.</em></a>’”\r\n\r\nI read a couple of reviews and noting its humor, I decided to give it a try for its unbeatable price of $2.99. I was not disappointed. Parkin takes James to task with biting sarcasm for her writing failures, but also uncovers some serious issues.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/lighter.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8650\" style=\"margin-left: 6px;margin-right: 6px\" alt=\"lighter\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/lighter-228x300.jpg\" width=\"228\" height=\"300\" /></a>Parkin recommends her book for several audiences. First, for those who enjoy the book so they can be aware of the arguments that will come their way as to why the book is so awful. Secondly, for those on the fence trying to decide whether or not to read it. Finally, it’s for those who have decided not to read it and have been asked, “<em>how can you know it’s bad when you haven’t read it?</em>”\r\n\r\nI wanted to talk to her further so I contacted the North England native. I’m definitely glad I did. We talked about James’ work, the dangers within toward women, the BDSM element, bad literature, and even tips on writing. Besides these topics, it was terrific to interview her. I found a strong feminist greatly concerned with women’s issues, a great literary mind, and an incredibly talented writer with tremendous spirit and voice.\r\n\r\nBesides this work, she won the 2011 Scott Prize for Short Stories for her work, “<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/World-Fairy-Tales-Cassandra-Parkin/dp/1844718816/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364610361&amp;sr=8-7&amp;keywords=cassandra+parkin\"><em>New World Fairy Tales</em></a>.” Her novel, \"<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Summer-All-Ran-Away-ebook/dp/B00BU2NGR6/ref=la_B007NCIS2U_1_4?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364610678&amp;sr=1-4\"><em>The Summer We All Ran Away</em></a>\", will be published by Legend Press in August 2013 and she is working on her second novel, \"<em>The Beach Hut</em>.\"\r\n\r\nHere is n excerpt from “<em>Lighter Shades</em>” to give you an idea of its flavor: “<em>Even if you feel there’s something wrong with a world where this book will shortly be outselling bread, it’s hard to argue that ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ isn’t…significant. And a book this…significant…deserves to be subjected to thorough textual analysis. By taking it apart into teeny tiny small little pieces and putting those pieces under a spiteful, mean-spirited microscope, we may all just learn something about the elusive nature of the best seller.</em>\r\n\r\nAnd at the very least, we’ll all get to spend time enjoyably picking holes in the success of others. And time spent having fun is rarely wasted, I think.” (Kindle Location, 55)\r\n\r\n<strong><em>Ray:</em></strong> <em>I wanted you to know there was so much I enjoyed about your book: Your writing style, your snarkiness and your obvious love for good fiction. My concern is that people will just see your critique of James’ work as an act of jealousy instead of a clarion call to responsible writing and just an entertaining work of writing in its own right. Have you had such criticism? How do you react to this?</em>\r\n\r\n<strong><em>Cassandra:</em></strong> Thank you – I’m so glad you enjoyed the book! It was a lot of fun to write, I have to say.\r\n\r\nYou’re right, of course; I’ve been accused of jealousy by plenty of people, sometimes in alarmingly vivid terms. I especially enjoyed the lady who described an entire life for me where I’ve spent years scratching away in a garret at some terribly high-brow and pretentious work of literature, rejected by agent after agent and mocked by publishers, and now pass my time by endlessly raging about E L James’s success every day, and drinking myself into a coma every night. (I think she was talking about me. It’s possible she had me confused with the ghost of Ernest Hemingway.)\r\n\r\nI must admit, I do find it quite odd that so many people’s instinctive response to me saying, “<em>I think this is a bit rubbish, and here’s why</em>” is to instantly scream “<em>Oh, but you’re just JEALOUS!</em>” Why would I be? I genuinely don’t wish I’d written “<em>Fifty Shades</em>”. If one day I write a book and it sells as well as “<em>Fifty Shades</em>” and I’m also proud of it – well, that’ll be a lovely experience. But if it never happens, so what? Is there a certain level of sales or wealth that entitles us to have an opinion?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>R:</em></strong> The phenomenon of “<em>Fifty Shades</em>” is a remarkable thing and you address it well in the opening section. You put aside <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/50shades.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8652\" alt=\"50shades\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/50shades-213x300.jpg\" width=\"213\" height=\"300\" /></a>the idea the popular theory of “<em>mommy porn</em>” being its biggest attraction and show its appeal being its origins with Fanfic, especially its commonality with the “<em>Twilight</em>” series. Since these books have been written, how have you seen the market grow? More books like this have been written, surely. But has the writing gotten better or are readers just settling for even worse written fiction?\r\n\r\n<em><strong>C:</strong></em> I think the main impact of “<em>Fifty Shades</em>” has been to bring non-conventional sex into the Romance genre – in the same way “<em>Twilight</em>” combined Romance with Supernatural. We all know that Romance books are commodity items, with hundreds of titles published a year. Collectively, they’re a huge success. But none of the individual titles are bestsellers because they’re written to a formula, and there are so many to choose from.\r\n\r\n“<em>Fifty Shades</em>” has created a market for Romance with BDSM sexual content. At the moment, there are quite a few BDSM-themed romances on the Top Ten shelves in the supermarkets, because if you want a BDSM-themed romance, there aren’t that many choices yet. But as the market catches up, I imagine the individual titles will disappear from the Top Ten, but BDSM romances will have their own imprint within the big Genre-Fiction houses. Mills and Boon have a Supernatural Romance imprint, with eight new titles every month. This time next year I’m sure they’ll have the same for the “Fifty Shades” fans.\r\n\r\nHas there been a change in quality? I’d probably draw a distinction between bad writing and retrogressive themes. I’m sure the writing will get better, because I can’t imagine any editor willfully commissioning a bad writer to create a Fifty-Shades-A-Like novel when the Genre Fiction field has so many excellent writers to choose from. However, if they stay true to the central theme of the Fifty Shades series - which is basically “<em>Stand by your abusive man, girls, because if you love him hard enough you can fix him!</em>” - then I’ll stand by my judgment of their overall value to society.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>R:</em></strong> James’ book, as you mentioned, didn’t undergo much critical editing. Hypothetical question: Do you think an editing process would have helped this book? Or, would it have made it less appealing to the readers?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C:</em></strong> Well, I think it would have made it a lot harder for me and others to laugh at! I don’t know if fewer descriptions of Christian’s well-hung pants or Ana saying “<em>Oh my</em>” less often would have made it less fun for fans, but it would certainly have taken away a lot of what I enjoyed about it.\r\n\r\nHowever, I think what Fifty Shades fans respond to is the underlying theme of falling for a monster, who you then redeem through the power of your love. Women are taught from a very young age that it’s rude and ungrateful to reject male attention – even when it’s offered by someone who is violent, destructive or dangerous towards us. Instead, we should use our power to transform these cruel and undesirable men into our perfect heroes.\r\n\r\nWhen you write it out like that, it’s pretty laughable, and I’d laugh about it myself if this particular fantasy didn’t come with its own verified body-count. In the UK, two women a week are killed by violent and abusive partners – usually after enduring months and years of appalling behaviour. The reasons we stay with men who treat us like this? Because we think that if we love him hard enough and long enough, he’ll reform.\r\n\r\n<em><strong><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/bomer.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8653\" style=\"margin-left: 6px;margin-right: 6px\" alt=\"bomer\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/bomer-225x300.jpg\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>R:</strong></em> One of the major themes of your writing that many reviewers seem to have missed is how Ana is forced to have sex against her will. (Loc. 355, 647 Kindle) Over and over, you mention that Ana has the right to say “<em>no</em>,” whether there is a contract or not. In fact, you note how Ana is even raped and kidnapped. Further, Christian morally justifies his actions. Why are these actions skipped over by many readers or excused? Is it because it is under the guise of a fiction/fantasy novel? What are the dangers?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C:</em></strong> The way I’ve heard it justified is that Christian behaves like this because he’s “<em>damaged</em>”, and doesn’t know how to have a proper relationship. Well, yes; I can absolutely buy that. His childhood was terrible, and a lot of his behaviour is strongly suggestive of sociopathy. How could he not struggle with healthy relationships?\r\n\r\nWhat I take issue with is the idea that Christian can be fixed if he only finds the right woman; and that, because Christian thinks Ana might be the one, it’s then her responsibility to become that right woman. The narrative’s driven by what Christian needs, not what Ana needs. Ana’s “<em>reward</em>” is Christian’s transformation.\r\n\r\nFor the record, I don’t think this idea comes from “<em>Fifty Shades</em>”. It’s already in our heads, which is why we respond to it so strongly, and why so many people get so angry when it’s challenged.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>R:</em></strong> Ana commonly references “<em>Tess of the D’Urbervilles</em>” and compares herself to her. You commonly note that the reference is terrible since the correlation is awful. Tess was raped. But the problems don’t end there. James struggles with the basic use of metaphor, simile, character interaction, and descriptions. At what point did James become responsible for her major errors? If she had sold 30 books on Amazon, I suppose we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Is the real problem James’ writing or the fact that we have a population that doesn’t recognize subpar writing?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C: </em></strong>I think it’s always okay to point out when you think something isn’t very good. How loudly you feel compelled to point that out depends on how big an impact you believe the not-very-goodness is having. If I go to a restaurant and my burger is horrible, I’ll probably complain to the waiter. (Well actually, since I’m British, I’ll probably eat it anyway, pay the bill, leave a tip and then complain to my husband in the car afterwards…but you get the idea.) But if I go to McDonald’s and my burger is horrible, I think it’s appropriate to complain far more publically. A lot of people eat in McDonald’s, so a lot of people might be interested in my experience.\r\n\r\nAnd if people want to carry on eating in McDonald’s anyway, fair enough. I haven’t ever said to anyone, “<em>Don’t buy this book because it’s awful</em>”. I’m just sharing my experience.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>R:</em></strong> As a follow up, many people might say, “<em>I don’t care that it’s poorly written. I just like the story.</em>” Should that concern us? Are we a world of undiscerning readers or is it okay to expect less out of our writers as long as the “<em>story</em>” is compelling and titillating?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C:</em></strong> I’m not sure the success of “<em>Fifty Shades</em>” is a four-horseman-style harbinger of the death of quality writing. The <em>succès fou</em> is a very old phenomenon, and the world seems to have survived. If there’s anything that worries me about “<em>Fifty Shades</em>”, it’s what it tells us all about our collective willingness to endorse and even romanticise abusive relationships.\r\n\r\n________________________\r\n\r\n<em>Please stay tuned for part two of this interview.</em>\r\n\r\nCassandra Parkin has a Master\'s degree in English Literature from York University, and has been writing fiction all her life - mostly as Christmas and birthday presents for friends and family. She is married with two children, has so far resisted her clear genetic destiny to become a mad old cat lady, and lives in a small but perfectly formed village in East Yorkshire.\r\n\r\nRay Carroll is author of \"<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fallen-Pastor-Finding-Restoration-Broken/dp/0615567096/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1347593993&amp;sr=8-1\">Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World.</a>\" He blogs regularly at <a href=\"http://www.fallenpastor.com\">www.fallenpastor.com</a>.','Cassandra Parkin, “Lighter Shades of Grey - Part One','','inherit','open','open','','8646-revision-6','','','2013-04-09 10:02:27','2013-04-09 17:02:27','',8646,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/09/8646-revision-6/',0,'revision','',0),(8735,12,'2013-04-09 10:03:26','2013-04-09 17:03:26','<strong><em>R:</em></strong> <em>I was interested about your take on how the BDSM community was angry at the book. You said, “The whole point is that both parties are supposed to enjoy the act itself.” (Loc. 956, Kindle). Apparently, James got the BDSM part wrong as well. Have you had members of the BDSM community agree with you on this point?</em>\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C: </em></strong>Actually, I have – both in public discussion, and in private conversations. The main themes I’ve seen are as follows:\r\n\r\n-          BDSM sex (like all consensual sex) isn’t about willfully imposing your needs and desires on another person. It’s about finding out what you both like, and then doing that together.\r\n\r\n-          Liking BDSM isn’t a sign of damage, and isn’t something that needs fixing. It’s just a preference. Some people like stamp-collecting, some people like gourmet cooking, some people like tying each other up during sex. As long as everyone’s happy, what’s the problem?\r\n\r\n-          Liking BDSM has nothing to do with being abusive towards your spouse. Christian telling Ana where she can go, who she can see, how she can dress, what she can eat, whether she can go to work, what she does with her money and what form of contraceptive she can use because he likes BDSM. He tells Ana where she can go, who she can see, how she can dress, what she can eat, whether she can go to work, what she does with her money and what form of contraceptive she can use because he is abusive…and, co-incidentally, he likes BDSM.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>R: </em></strong>One of the reactions that came from this book was that women were engaging their husbands more intimately after they read the book. It’s an argument, in a way, that the book must be having some sort of positive effect and can’t be “<em>all bad</em>.” I have all types of theories about this, but I’m wondering if it is a positive, negative or neutral response to reading it. Thoughts?\r\n\r\n<em><strong>C: </strong></em>If couples really are having better, more loving sex and happier marriages as a result of reading “<em>Fifty Shades</em>”, then <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/usashades.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8657\" alt=\"usashades\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/usashades-300x220.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"220\" /></a>fair play to them. And if I’m honest, it probably contributed to my marital happiness as well. Mainly by making me think, “<em>Thank goodness my husband is absolutely nothing like Christian Grey</em>.”\r\n\r\nOkay, being serious; I’m kind of suspicious about this idea. I’ve had a lot of comments from a lot of people about my “<em>Lighter Shades</em>” series, ranging from “<em>You go, sister</em>” to “<em>You will spend eternity in Hell, stewing in a boiling pot of your own jealous bile</em>”. I’ve never, ever had anyone say to me, “<em>I love this book because it improved my sex life with my spouse</em>”. Maybe I just attract the wrong sort of reader, I don’t know…\r\n\r\nI’m not saying that no-one in the whole world anywhere has ever read “<em>Fifty Shades</em>” and experienced better marital sex as a result. It’s sold 65 million copies world-wide. I’d be more surprised if there weren’t a few people in there who found it liberating. But whole nations of couples? Seriously? We’ve all been sexually repressed and frustrated in our marriages, from the long-ago dawn of Time right up until last year? Are we really that dumb at relating to each other?\r\n\r\nI do wonder if this is just one of those Factoids that get invented one afternoon in an office somewhere, and then take on a bizarre life of their own. You know that urban legend that we all eat eight spiders a year because they crawl into our mouths while we sleep? Apparently that was invented by a journalist called Lisa Holst, specifically to prove that we’ll believe stuff that sounds exciting, even when it’s completely made up.\r\n\r\n<em><strong>R:</strong></em> I liked the fact that in the information at the end, you answered questions that I’m sure people would have about you. Specifically, “<em>Are you jealous of her success?</em>” You answered, “<em>Well, what do you think?</em>” Any of us would love to be living off of the profits she will be seeing for years. But in this work, in your own creative way, you have done a lot of things: You are pointing out the need for responsible writing, you protect the classics, you show a need for women to respect themselves, and more. What has been the most important thing for you in writing these three books?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C: </em></strong>There’s definitely a perception out in the world that Feminist is the opposite of Funny. So I definitely hope I’ve managed to write some books which are both funny and feminist in their finished form.\r\n\r\n<strong><em><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/writing.gif\"><img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8658\" style=\"margin-left: 6px;margin-right: 6px\" alt=\"writing\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/writing.gif\" width=\"254\" height=\"254\" /></a>R:</em></strong> E. L. James recently announced that she was working on a book about writing. After your careful examination of her work, what do you think she could offer to the writers of the world?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C:</em></strong> The comforting thought that if it can happen to her, it can happen to any of us.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>R:</em></strong> What would you suggest to an aspiring fiction writer? Are there any classes to take, works to read, or helpful tips?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C:</em></strong> Okay, this will be very, very subjective because this is just what’s worked for me! But here are my top five tips:\r\n\r\n1.      <strong>Find the right notebook</strong>\r\n\r\nThis is a very important stage of the writing process. Go into one of those luxury stationers filled with gorgeous notebooks of every imaginable size and design. Indulge yourself for as long as you feel you need in swooning over their sheer papery loveliness. Spend some time choosing the notebook you love the most, because it’s a wonderful object that makes your heart beat faster just looking at it.\r\n\r\nThen put it back on the shelf, walk away from it and go and buy the cheapest, tattiest notebook you can find. This is the notebook you will actually use to work in. Writing is a messy, scribbly process, and if you buy the gorgeous notebook, you’ll never actually use it to write in because you won’t want to pollute its loveliness with your scribbled-out notes and terrible handwriting. Beautiful stationery is the hidden enemy of creativity.\r\n\r\n2.    <strong>  Allocate time to actually write.</strong>\r\n\r\nTime is a very democratic resource. We all get exactly the same amount of it - twenty-four hours in every day. Time is also a very well-used resource. We all use exactly the same amount of it – twenty-four hours each day.\r\n\r\nTo start writing, you have to stop doing something else. Play less. Work less. Sleep less. Eat less. Go out less. Stay in less. Something has to give.\r\n\r\n3.      Accept that writing is often not fun\r\n\r\nThere will be days when every word you write will suck beyond all explanation. Words will not be your friends. Your characters will be annoying and wooden. Their dialogue will not sparkle. Your plot will meander into an implausible cul-de-sac. You will wonder why you’re bothering. This happens to everyone – you, me, Stephen King, Jacqueline Susann, Iris Murdoch, J K Rowling, everyone. Write anyway. Write even though you don’t feel like it. Keep going. The only way out is through.\r\n\r\n4.      <strong>Editing is what makes the difference</strong>\r\n\r\nYour first draft will probably be a train-wreck. That’s okay, it’s supposed to be. Go through at least three times – once with a hatchet, once with a chisel and once with a scalpel. When every word you cut causes you actual physical pain, you’re probably about half-way there.\r\n\r\nAlso, never compare your first draft to anyone else’s finished work (even your own finished work).\r\n\r\n5.      <strong>Ignore every word I’ve said</strong>\r\n\r\nThe only thing that matters is that you actually write. Whatever works for you at getting the words out of your head and onto paper is the right way.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>R:</em></strong> Just for kicks, what are some of your favorite works of literature?\r\n\r\n<em><strong>C:</strong></em>  Goodness, where do I start? I can probably manage a Top Ten, as long as I can cheat and have a couple of anthologies and omnibus editions…\r\n\r\nJane Austen’s collected works (especially Mansfield Park), The Grimm brothers’ Fairy Tales collection, The Night Watch sequence from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, The Shining by Stephen King, Middlemarch by George Eliot, Vanity Fair by William Thackeray, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, by some mysterious Anglo-Saxon genius, Villette by Charlotte Bronte, The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter\r\n\r\nNow I feel like a traitor to all the other books I love that I haven’t included – Peyton Place and Valley of the Dolls and Carrie and Morte d’Arthur and Hitchhikers and The Canterbury Tales and Mennonite in a Little Black Dress…oh dear. What a difficult question. I have to move on now or I’ll lose my mind!\r\n\r\nAnd of course, it goes without saying that I am really, really looking forward to E L James’s book on the subject.<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/adams.png\"><img class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-8659\" alt=\"adams\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/adams.png\" width=\"177\" height=\"169\" /></a>\r\n\r\n<em><strong>R:</strong></em> Do you have any favorite books on writing? (for instance, I love Stephen King’s, “On Writing.”)\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C:</em></strong> I love Stephen King’s On Writing – it’s wise and funny and real and honest, and I really admire his approach to it as a serious profession. I also rather like Douglas Adams’ occasional notes in The Salmon of Doubt (“<em>I like deadlines…I love the whooshing noise they make as they rush by</em>”).\r\n\r\n____________________\r\n\r\nCassandra Parkin has a Master’s degree in English Literature from York University, and has been writing fiction all her life – mostly as Christmas and birthday presents for friends and family. She is married with two children, has so far resisted her clear genetic destiny to become a mad old cat lady, and lives in a small but perfectly formed village in East Yorkshire.  You can also follow Cassandra on Twitter <a href=\"https://twitter.com/cassandrajaneuk\">@cassandrajaneuk </a>and read her blog at <a href=\"http://www.cassandraparkin.wordpress.com\">www.cassandraparkin.wordpress.com</a>. You will definitely be doing yourself a favor by reading any of her books, so take time to check them out.\r\n\r\nRay Carroll is author of “<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fallen-Pastor-Finding-Restoration-Broken/dp/0615567096/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1347593993&amp;sr=8-1\">Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World.</a>” He blogs regularly at <a href=\"http://www.fallenpastor.com\">www.fallenpastor.com</a>.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Cassandra Parkin, “Lighter Shades of Grey - Part Two','','inherit','open','open','','8656-revision-4','','','2013-04-09 10:03:26','2013-04-09 17:03:26','',8656,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/09/8656-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(8736,1,'2013-04-09 10:45:45','2013-04-09 17:45:45','E. L. James “<em>Fifty Shades of Grey</em>” trilogy has sold millions upon millions of books. Her success has been accredited to all sorts of things. She has critics as well as fans, an <a href=\"http://www.opposingviews.com/i/entertainment/fifty-shades-grey-movie-emma-roberts-or-emma-bell-play-anastasia\">upcoming movie</a> and <a href=\"http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2013/03/e-l-james-fifty-shades-of-gray-new-book\">just announced a book on writing tips</a>.\r\n\r\nI was browsing Amazon recently and came across a work by <a href=\"http://cassandraparkin.wordpress.com/author/cassandraparkin/\">Cassandra Parkin</a>, “<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Lighter-Shades-Grey-Critical-ebook/dp/B009KBL1DA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364610361&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=cassandra+parkin\"><em>Lighter Shades of Grey: A (very) Critical Reader’s Guide to ‘Fifty Shades of Grey.</em></a>” She also has companion novels for the other two works in the trilogy, “<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Shades-Lighter-Critical-ebook/dp/B009JF5RO6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364610361&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=cassandra+parkin\"><em>Fifty Shades Lighter: A (very) Critical Reader’s Guide to ‘Fifty Shades Darker</em></a>” and “<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Lighter-Shades-Freed-Critical-ebook/dp/B00A3EMVXC/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364610361&amp;sr=8-5&amp;keywords=cassandra+parkin\"><em>Lighter Shades Freed: A (very) Critical Reader’s Guide to ‘Fifty Shades Freed.</em></a>’”\r\n\r\nI read a couple of reviews and noting its humor, I decided to give it a try for its unbeatable price of $2.99. I was not disappointed. Parkin takes James to task with biting sarcasm for her writing failures, but also uncovers some serious issues.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/lighter.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8650\" style=\"margin-left: 6px;margin-right: 6px\" alt=\"lighter\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/lighter-228x300.jpg\" width=\"228\" height=\"300\" /></a>Parkin recommends her book for several audiences. First, for those who enjoy the book so they can be aware of the arguments that will come their way as to why the book is so awful. Secondly, for those on the fence trying to decide whether or not to read it. Finally, it’s for those who have decided not to read it and have been asked, “<em>how can you know it’s bad when you haven’t read it?</em>”\r\n\r\nI wanted to talk to her further so I contacted the North England native. I’m definitely glad I did. We talked about James’ work, the dangers within toward women, the BDSM element, bad literature, and even tips on writing. Besides these topics, it was terrific to interview her. I found a strong feminist greatly concerned with women’s issues, a great literary mind, and an incredibly talented writer with tremendous spirit and voice.\r\n\r\nBesides this work, she won the 2011 Scott Prize for Short Stories for her work, “<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/World-Fairy-Tales-Cassandra-Parkin/dp/1844718816/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364610361&amp;sr=8-7&amp;keywords=cassandra+parkin\"><em>New World Fairy Tales</em></a>.” Her novel, \"<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Summer-All-Ran-Away-ebook/dp/B00BU2NGR6/ref=la_B007NCIS2U_1_4?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364610678&amp;sr=1-4\"><em>The Summer We All Ran Away</em></a>\", will be published by Legend Press in August 2013 and she is working on her second novel, \"<em>The Beach Hut</em>.\"\r\n\r\nHere is n excerpt from “<em>Lighter Shades</em>” to give you an idea of its flavor: “<em>Even if you feel there’s something wrong with a world where this book will shortly be outselling bread, it’s hard to argue that ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ isn’t…significant. And a book this…significant…deserves to be subjected to thorough textual analysis. By taking it apart into teeny tiny small little pieces and putting those pieces under a spiteful, mean-spirited microscope, we may all just learn something about the elusive nature of the best seller.</em>\r\n\r\nAnd at the very least, we’ll all get to spend time enjoyably picking holes in the success of others. And time spent having fun is rarely wasted, I think.” (Kindle Location, 55)\r\n\r\n<strong><em>Ray:</em></strong> <em>I wanted you to know there was so much I enjoyed about your book: Your writing style, your snarkiness and your obvious love for good fiction. My concern is that people will just see your critique of James’ work as an act of jealousy instead of a clarion call to responsible writing and just an entertaining work of writing in its own right. Have you had such criticism? How do you react to this?</em>\r\n\r\n<strong><em>Cassandra:</em></strong> Thank you – I’m so glad you enjoyed the book! It was a lot of fun to write, I have to say.\r\n\r\nYou’re right, of course; I’ve been accused of jealousy by plenty of people, sometimes in alarmingly vivid terms. I especially enjoyed the lady who described an entire life for me where I’ve spent years scratching away in a garret at some terribly high-brow and pretentious work of literature, rejected by agent after agent and mocked by publishers, and now pass my time by endlessly raging about E L James’s success every day, and drinking myself into a coma every night. (I think she was talking about me. It’s possible she had me confused with the ghost of Ernest Hemingway.)\r\n\r\nI must admit, I do find it quite odd that so many people’s instinctive response to me saying, “<em>I think this is a bit rubbish, and here’s why</em>” is to instantly scream “<em>Oh, but you’re just JEALOUS!</em>” Why would I be? I genuinely don’t wish I’d written “<em>Fifty Shades</em>”. If one day I write a book and it sells as well as “<em>Fifty Shades</em>” and I’m also proud of it – well, that’ll be a lovely experience. But if it never happens, so what? Is there a certain level of sales or wealth that entitles us to have an opinion?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>R:</em></strong> The phenomenon of “<em>Fifty Shades</em>” is a remarkable thing and you address it well in the opening section. You put aside <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/50shades.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8652\" alt=\"50shades\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/50shades-213x300.jpg\" width=\"213\" height=\"300\" /></a>the idea the popular theory of “<em>mommy porn</em>” being its biggest attraction and show its appeal being its origins with Fanfic, especially its commonality with the “<em>Twilight</em>” series. Since these books have been written, how have you seen the market grow? More books like this have been written, surely. But has the writing gotten better or are readers just settling for even worse written fiction?\r\n\r\n<em><strong>C:</strong></em> I think the main impact of “<em>Fifty Shades</em>” has been to bring non-conventional sex into the Romance genre – in the same way “<em>Twilight</em>” combined Romance with Supernatural. We all know that Romance books are commodity items, with hundreds of titles published a year. Collectively, they’re a huge success. But none of the individual titles are bestsellers because they’re written to a formula, and there are so many to choose from.\r\n\r\n“<em>Fifty Shades</em>” has created a market for Romance with BDSM sexual content. At the moment, there are quite a few BDSM-themed romances on the Top Ten shelves in the supermarkets, because if you want a BDSM-themed romance, there aren’t that many choices yet. But as the market catches up, I imagine the individual titles will disappear from the Top Ten, but BDSM romances will have their own imprint within the big Genre-Fiction houses. Mills and Boon have a Supernatural Romance imprint, with eight new titles every month. This time next year I’m sure they’ll have the same for the “Fifty Shades” fans.\r\n\r\nHas there been a change in quality? I’d probably draw a distinction between bad writing and retrogressive themes. I’m sure the writing will get better, because I can’t imagine any editor willfully commissioning a bad writer to create a Fifty-Shades-A-Like novel when the Genre Fiction field has so many excellent writers to choose from. However, if they stay true to the central theme of the Fifty Shades series - which is basically “<em>Stand by your abusive man, girls, because if you love him hard enough you can fix him!</em>” - then I’ll stand by my judgment of their overall value to society.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>R:</em></strong> James’ book, as you mentioned, didn’t undergo much critical editing. Hypothetical question: Do you think an editing process would have helped this book? Or, would it have made it less appealing to the readers?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C:</em></strong> Well, I think it would have made it a lot harder for me and others to laugh at! I don’t know if fewer descriptions of Christian’s well-hung pants or Ana saying “<em>Oh my</em>” less often would have made it less fun for fans, but it would certainly have taken away a lot of what I enjoyed about it.\r\n\r\nHowever, I think what Fifty Shades fans respond to is the underlying theme of falling for a monster, who you then redeem through the power of your love. Women are taught from a very young age that it’s rude and ungrateful to reject male attention – even when it’s offered by someone who is violent, destructive or dangerous towards us. Instead, we should use our power to transform these cruel and undesirable men into our perfect heroes.\r\n\r\nWhen you write it out like that, it’s pretty laughable, and I’d laugh about it myself if this particular fantasy didn’t come with its own verified body-count. In the UK, two women a week are killed by violent and abusive partners – usually after enduring months and years of appalling behaviour. The reasons we stay with men who treat us like this? Because we think that if we love him hard enough and long enough, he’ll reform.\r\n\r\n<em><strong><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/bomer.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8653\" style=\"margin-left: 6px;margin-right: 6px\" alt=\"bomer\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/bomer-225x300.jpg\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>R:</strong></em> One of the major themes of your writing that many reviewers seem to have missed is how Ana is forced to have sex against her will. (Loc. 355, 647 Kindle) Over and over, you mention that Ana has the right to say “<em>no</em>,” whether there is a contract or not. In fact, you note how Ana is even raped and kidnapped. Further, Christian morally justifies his actions. Why are these actions skipped over by many readers or excused? Is it because it is under the guise of a fiction/fantasy novel? What are the dangers?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C:</em></strong> The way I’ve heard it justified is that Christian behaves like this because he’s “<em>damaged</em>”, and doesn’t know how to have a proper relationship. Well, yes; I can absolutely buy that. His childhood was terrible, and a lot of his behaviour is strongly suggestive of sociopathy. How could he not struggle with healthy relationships?\r\n\r\nWhat I take issue with is the idea that Christian can be fixed if he only finds the right woman; and that, because Christian thinks Ana might be the one, it’s then her responsibility to become that right woman. The narrative’s driven by what Christian needs, not what Ana needs. Ana’s “<em>reward</em>” is Christian’s transformation.\r\n\r\nFor the record, I don’t think this idea comes from “<em>Fifty Shades</em>”. It’s already in our heads, which is why we respond to it so strongly, and why so many people get so angry when it’s challenged.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>R:</em></strong> Ana commonly references “<em>Tess of the D’Urbervilles</em>” and compares herself to her. You commonly note that the reference is terrible since the correlation is awful. Tess was raped. But the problems don’t end there. James struggles with the basic use of metaphor, simile, character interaction, and descriptions. At what point did James become responsible for her major errors? If she had sold 30 books on Amazon, I suppose we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Is the real problem James’ writing or the fact that we have a population that doesn’t recognize subpar writing?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C: </em></strong>I think it’s always okay to point out when you think something isn’t very good. How loudly you feel compelled to point that out depends on how big an impact you believe the not-very-goodness is having. If I go to a restaurant and my burger is horrible, I’ll probably complain to the waiter. (Well actually, since I’m British, I’ll probably eat it anyway, pay the bill, leave a tip and then complain to my husband in the car afterwards…but you get the idea.) But if I go to McDonald’s and my burger is horrible, I think it’s appropriate to complain far more publically. A lot of people eat in McDonald’s, so a lot of people might be interested in my experience.\r\n\r\nAnd if people want to carry on eating in McDonald’s anyway, fair enough. I haven’t ever said to anyone, “<em>Don’t buy this book because it’s awful</em>”. I’m just sharing my experience.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>R:</em></strong> As a follow up, many people might say, “<em>I don’t care that it’s poorly written. I just like the story.</em>” Should that concern us? Are we a world of undiscerning readers or is it okay to expect less out of our writers as long as the “<em>story</em>” is compelling and titillating?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C:</em></strong> I’m not sure the success of “<em>Fifty Shades</em>” is a four-horseman-style harbinger of the death of quality writing. The <em>succès fou</em> is a very old phenomenon, and the world seems to have survived. If there’s anything that worries me about “<em>Fifty Shades</em>”, it’s what it tells us all about our collective willingness to endorse and even romanticise abusive relationships.\r\n\r\n________________________\r\n\r\n<em>Please stay tuned for part two of this interview.</em>\r\n\r\nCassandra Parkin has a Master\'s degree in English Literature from York University, and has been writing fiction all her life - mostly as Christmas and birthday presents for friends and family. She is married with two children, has so far resisted her clear genetic destiny to become a mad old cat lady, and lives in a small but perfectly formed village in East Yorkshire.\r\n\r\nRay Carroll is author of \"<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fallen-Pastor-Finding-Restoration-Broken/dp/0615567096/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1347593993&amp;sr=8-1\">Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World.</a>\" He blogs regularly at <a href=\"http://www.fallenpastor.com\">www.fallenpastor.com</a>.','Cassandra Parkin, “Lighter Shades of Grey\" - Part One','','inherit','open','open','','8646-revision-7','','','2013-04-09 10:45:45','2013-04-09 17:45:45','',8646,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/09/8646-revision-7/',0,'revision','',0),(8737,1,'2013-04-09 10:45:55','2013-04-09 17:45:55','<strong><em>R:</em></strong> <em>I was interested about your take on how the BDSM community was angry at the book. You said, “The whole point is that both parties are supposed to enjoy the act itself.” (Loc. 956, Kindle). Apparently, James got the BDSM part wrong as well. Have you had members of the BDSM community agree with you on this point?</em>\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C: </em></strong>Actually, I have – both in public discussion, and in private conversations. The main themes I’ve seen are as follows:\r\n\r\n-          BDSM sex (like all consensual sex) isn’t about willfully imposing your needs and desires on another person. It’s about finding out what you both like, and then doing that together.\r\n\r\n-          Liking BDSM isn’t a sign of damage, and isn’t something that needs fixing. It’s just a preference. Some people like stamp-collecting, some people like gourmet cooking, some people like tying each other up during sex. As long as everyone’s happy, what’s the problem?\r\n\r\n-          Liking BDSM has nothing to do with being abusive towards your spouse. Christian telling Ana where she can go, who she can see, how she can dress, what she can eat, whether she can go to work, what she does with her money and what form of contraceptive she can use because he likes BDSM. He tells Ana where she can go, who she can see, how she can dress, what she can eat, whether she can go to work, what she does with her money and what form of contraceptive she can use because he is abusive…and, co-incidentally, he likes BDSM.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>R: </em></strong>One of the reactions that came from this book was that women were engaging their husbands more intimately after they read the book. It’s an argument, in a way, that the book must be having some sort of positive effect and can’t be “<em>all bad</em>.” I have all types of theories about this, but I’m wondering if it is a positive, negative or neutral response to reading it. Thoughts?\r\n\r\n<em><strong>C: </strong></em>If couples really are having better, more loving sex and happier marriages as a result of reading “<em>Fifty Shades</em>”, then <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/usashades.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8657\" alt=\"usashades\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/usashades-300x220.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"220\" /></a>fair play to them. And if I’m honest, it probably contributed to my marital happiness as well. Mainly by making me think, “<em>Thank goodness my husband is absolutely nothing like Christian Grey</em>.”\r\n\r\nOkay, being serious; I’m kind of suspicious about this idea. I’ve had a lot of comments from a lot of people about my “<em>Lighter Shades</em>” series, ranging from “<em>You go, sister</em>” to “<em>You will spend eternity in Hell, stewing in a boiling pot of your own jealous bile</em>”. I’ve never, ever had anyone say to me, “<em>I love this book because it improved my sex life with my spouse</em>”. Maybe I just attract the wrong sort of reader, I don’t know…\r\n\r\nI’m not saying that no-one in the whole world anywhere has ever read “<em>Fifty Shades</em>” and experienced better marital sex as a result. It’s sold 65 million copies world-wide. I’d be more surprised if there weren’t a few people in there who found it liberating. But whole nations of couples? Seriously? We’ve all been sexually repressed and frustrated in our marriages, from the long-ago dawn of Time right up until last year? Are we really that dumb at relating to each other?\r\n\r\nI do wonder if this is just one of those Factoids that get invented one afternoon in an office somewhere, and then take on a bizarre life of their own. You know that urban legend that we all eat eight spiders a year because they crawl into our mouths while we sleep? Apparently that was invented by a journalist called Lisa Holst, specifically to prove that we’ll believe stuff that sounds exciting, even when it’s completely made up.\r\n\r\n<em><strong>R:</strong></em> I liked the fact that in the information at the end, you answered questions that I’m sure people would have about you. Specifically, “<em>Are you jealous of her success?</em>” You answered, “<em>Well, what do you think?</em>” Any of us would love to be living off of the profits she will be seeing for years. But in this work, in your own creative way, you have done a lot of things: You are pointing out the need for responsible writing, you protect the classics, you show a need for women to respect themselves, and more. What has been the most important thing for you in writing these three books?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C: </em></strong>There’s definitely a perception out in the world that Feminist is the opposite of Funny. So I definitely hope I’ve managed to write some books which are both funny and feminist in their finished form.\r\n\r\n<strong><em><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/writing.gif\"><img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8658\" style=\"margin-left: 6px;margin-right: 6px\" alt=\"writing\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/writing.gif\" width=\"254\" height=\"254\" /></a>R:</em></strong> E. L. James recently announced that she was working on a book about writing. After your careful examination of her work, what do you think she could offer to the writers of the world?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C:</em></strong> The comforting thought that if it can happen to her, it can happen to any of us.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>R:</em></strong> What would you suggest to an aspiring fiction writer? Are there any classes to take, works to read, or helpful tips?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C:</em></strong> Okay, this will be very, very subjective because this is just what’s worked for me! But here are my top five tips:\r\n\r\n1.      <strong>Find the right notebook</strong>\r\n\r\nThis is a very important stage of the writing process. Go into one of those luxury stationers filled with gorgeous notebooks of every imaginable size and design. Indulge yourself for as long as you feel you need in swooning over their sheer papery loveliness. Spend some time choosing the notebook you love the most, because it’s a wonderful object that makes your heart beat faster just looking at it.\r\n\r\nThen put it back on the shelf, walk away from it and go and buy the cheapest, tattiest notebook you can find. This is the notebook you will actually use to work in. Writing is a messy, scribbly process, and if you buy the gorgeous notebook, you’ll never actually use it to write in because you won’t want to pollute its loveliness with your scribbled-out notes and terrible handwriting. Beautiful stationery is the hidden enemy of creativity.\r\n\r\n2.    <strong>  Allocate time to actually write.</strong>\r\n\r\nTime is a very democratic resource. We all get exactly the same amount of it - twenty-four hours in every day. Time is also a very well-used resource. We all use exactly the same amount of it – twenty-four hours each day.\r\n\r\nTo start writing, you have to stop doing something else. Play less. Work less. Sleep less. Eat less. Go out less. Stay in less. Something has to give.\r\n\r\n3.      Accept that writing is often not fun\r\n\r\nThere will be days when every word you write will suck beyond all explanation. Words will not be your friends. Your characters will be annoying and wooden. Their dialogue will not sparkle. Your plot will meander into an implausible cul-de-sac. You will wonder why you’re bothering. This happens to everyone – you, me, Stephen King, Jacqueline Susann, Iris Murdoch, J K Rowling, everyone. Write anyway. Write even though you don’t feel like it. Keep going. The only way out is through.\r\n\r\n4.      <strong>Editing is what makes the difference</strong>\r\n\r\nYour first draft will probably be a train-wreck. That’s okay, it’s supposed to be. Go through at least three times – once with a hatchet, once with a chisel and once with a scalpel. When every word you cut causes you actual physical pain, you’re probably about half-way there.\r\n\r\nAlso, never compare your first draft to anyone else’s finished work (even your own finished work).\r\n\r\n5.      <strong>Ignore every word I’ve said</strong>\r\n\r\nThe only thing that matters is that you actually write. Whatever works for you at getting the words out of your head and onto paper is the right way.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>R:</em></strong> Just for kicks, what are some of your favorite works of literature?\r\n\r\n<em><strong>C:</strong></em>  Goodness, where do I start? I can probably manage a Top Ten, as long as I can cheat and have a couple of anthologies and omnibus editions…\r\n\r\nJane Austen’s collected works (especially Mansfield Park), The Grimm brothers’ Fairy Tales collection, The Night Watch sequence from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, The Shining by Stephen King, Middlemarch by George Eliot, Vanity Fair by William Thackeray, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, by some mysterious Anglo-Saxon genius, Villette by Charlotte Bronte, The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter\r\n\r\nNow I feel like a traitor to all the other books I love that I haven’t included – Peyton Place and Valley of the Dolls and Carrie and Morte d’Arthur and Hitchhikers and The Canterbury Tales and Mennonite in a Little Black Dress…oh dear. What a difficult question. I have to move on now or I’ll lose my mind!\r\n\r\nAnd of course, it goes without saying that I am really, really looking forward to E L James’s book on the subject.<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/adams.png\"><img class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-8659\" alt=\"adams\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/adams.png\" width=\"177\" height=\"169\" /></a>\r\n\r\n<em><strong>R:</strong></em> Do you have any favorite books on writing? (for instance, I love Stephen King’s, “On Writing.”)\r\n\r\n<strong><em>C:</em></strong> I love Stephen King’s On Writing – it’s wise and funny and real and honest, and I really admire his approach to it as a serious profession. I also rather like Douglas Adams’ occasional notes in The Salmon of Doubt (“<em>I like deadlines…I love the whooshing noise they make as they rush by</em>”).\r\n\r\n____________________\r\n\r\nCassandra Parkin has a Master’s degree in English Literature from York University, and has been writing fiction all her life – mostly as Christmas and birthday presents for friends and family. She is married with two children, has so far resisted her clear genetic destiny to become a mad old cat lady, and lives in a small but perfectly formed village in East Yorkshire.  You can also follow Cassandra on Twitter <a href=\"https://twitter.com/cassandrajaneuk\">@cassandrajaneuk </a>and read her blog at <a href=\"http://www.cassandraparkin.wordpress.com\">www.cassandraparkin.wordpress.com</a>. You will definitely be doing yourself a favor by reading any of her books, so take time to check them out.\r\n\r\nRay Carroll is author of “<a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fallen-Pastor-Finding-Restoration-Broken/dp/0615567096/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1347593993&amp;sr=8-1\">Fallen Pastor: Finding Restoration in a Broken World.</a>” He blogs regularly at <a href=\"http://www.fallenpastor.com\">www.fallenpastor.com</a>.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Cassandra Parkin, “Lighter Shades of Grey\" - Part Two','','inherit','open','open','','8656-revision-5','','','2013-04-09 10:45:55','2013-04-09 17:45:55','',8656,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/09/8656-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(8738,202,'2013-04-24 08:00:48','2013-04-24 15:00:48','My first experience in youth ministry while in college was in a poor, rural community in Alabama at a Baptist church where the overwhelming majority of the 50 or so regular attendees were over the age of 65.  At some point, kids who lived in the small houses and trailer homes nearby discovered that every Wednesday night this church offered a free, warm meal and they started coming in droves.  Suddenly there were 20+ kids aged 7 to 15 at this church.  None of their families were involved in the congregation.  No one in the church had any youth ministry experience.  So they recruited a few students from nearby <a href=\"http://www.sebc.edu\">Southeastern Bible College</a> to come start a youth program.  Eventually the leader of that program recruited me.\r\n\r\nWe didn’t know what we were doing any more than the people who had called us did, and I’m still not sure how effective we were in our ministry with these kids.  But we played a lot of ping-pong and basketball, did our best to teach a few things about God and the Bible, and learned as much as we could as we went along.  Since that experience I’ve had plenty of other opportunities to learn about and practice youth ministry, and though I am convinced that anyone who thinks they have youth ministry \"all figured out” is either a lunatic or lying, these experiences have taught me a few important principles that I want to share.\r\n\r\nIn this article I want to outline a basic “theory” of youth ministry that attempts to address the issues brought up in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one of this series</a>.  The goal is not to create a rigid formula for what every youth ministry should look like.  I don’t have, nor do I think I ever will have, such a formula, so these thoughts are not meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution to every church’s questions.  What I do intend to do is highlight some basic principles that I think are extremely important for any church to think about as they plan and develop their own ministry with youth.  As with <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, this is meant to start a conversation not end one, to offer one perspective on an issue not claim to be the definitive view.  I hope many others will join the discussion that follows and that we will learn more from one another than we could ever claim to know on our own.\r\n<h2>Underlying Principles</h2>\r\nTo lay my cards on the table, I have to acknowledge that the core of this theory of youth ministry is based largely on my own faith journey.  My own experiences of wrestling with my faith both while growing up and during my theological training at <a href=\"http://www.sebc.edu\">Southeastern Bible College</a> and <a href=\"http://divinity.yale.edu\">Yale Divinity School</a> have embedded in my thinking three major principles that lie not far beneath the surface of everything else I will argue for in this article (its worth acknowledging that I have been greatly aided in articulating the first two by the research of <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195384776/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0195384776&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Christian Smith</a> and his team of sociologists):\r\n\r\n<strong><em>First</em>, students won’t believe what they don’t find important.</strong>  When youth find a worship service boring or scoff at the idea of a missions trip, that isn’t just adolescent angst or a social-networking-age induced inability to sit still.  What they are telling you, implicitly, is that they don’t find these things important.  They don’t think they are things that they need, they don’t see them as valuable.  And what they don’t find valuable or important isn’t likely to be something they continue to do for very long after the pressure of parents or other mentoring adults is gone.  Transfer this principle from the activities of the church to the faith of the church: what happens when youth don’t find their faith valuable or important?  How long will they continue to believe?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>Second,</em> students won’t find important what they can’t explain the meaning and significance of themselves.</strong>  Too often when we talk about our faith, especially with youth, it\'s the “expert-in-the-room” who does all the talking.  Which results in our youth being unable to explain for themselves why their faith is important to them.  Over time, this leads them to conclude that it isn’t that important (in the same way that most of us decide understanding multivariate calculus isn’t really important to our lives).  Which, when we are dealing with matters of faith, often leads them to question whether they really believe any of it in the first place (circling back to the first principle above).  I’m convinced that successful faith formation with youth has to aim for getting our students comfortable explaining what their faith means to them, in their own words using their own voice, so that their faith becomes <em>their</em> faith, something that they find important and worth believing.\r\n\r\n<strong><em><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright  wp-image-8745\" alt=\"Student Eating Pizza\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza-300x277.jpg\" width=\"210\" height=\"194\" /></a>Third</em>, youth ministry is about students, not the prestige of the youth minister or the reputation of a local church.</strong>  Kids can tell when they are being used.  And while they might put up with that for a while (especially if they are getting something out of it, like free pizza every week), eventually, when the perks run out, they will run away.\r\n\r\nNow, with these principles in mind, let’s work back through the questions posed in part one of this series:\r\n<h2>The Goal of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\nThe goal of ministry in general is the proclaiming of the gospel.  Which might seem to indicate that of the two possible goals for youth ministry identified in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>-- evangelizing to kids or creating a safe space for kids to relax and feel loved-- we should opt for outright evangelism.\r\n\r\nActually, I think that a successful youth ministry can do both.  Maybe it would be better said I believe a successful youth ministry should and must do both, in a manner of speaking.  Let me explain:\r\n\r\nThroughout the Christian tradition, whether it be in the Pauline notion of general revelation, the Catholic doctrine of Natural Law, or the Wesleyan notion of prevenient grace, Christians have believed that the God who stands at the center of all things is reaching out to every person, inviting them to enter into a cosmic drama of redemption.  Twentieth-century theologian <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226803376/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226803376&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Paul Tillich</a> famously put it this way: \"religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.”  Perhaps the most effective way for youth (or really, anyone) to discover the value and importance of faith is for them to identify the ways they encounter this \"ultimate concern\" in their own life, to articulate their own experience of how God has been and is continuing to reach out to them; put another way: to tell the story of their own journey of faith.\r\n\r\nAsking students to tell their stories, examining the ways God is at work in their lives, is itself a form of evangelism and can lead to a whole host of incredible conversations about faith.  But it also cannot happen unless students feel safe.  In today\'s world there are very few places where students will ever be asked questions about an “ultimate concern.”  Answering existential questions about faith and its significance to their lives carries with it a certain degree of risk and requires a certain amount of openness to their peers and youth leaders.  And that, in turn, requires them to feel comfortable with and loved by those who are participating in this process with them.  So before a youth ministry can push its students to really think about faith as something meaningful in their lives, it must have created a space where they are willing to enter into the conversation.\r\n<h2>The Tenor of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8746\" alt=\"Ray of Light\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light-300x219.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>Inviting students to tell their own stories, examining their own lives to see the ways God is reaching out to them and inviting them to take part in the cosmic drama of redemption, requires that the tenor of a youth ministry strike a particular balance.\r\n\r\nAs we ask students to analyze their stories and think about what they believe and why it is important and valuable, our conversations must be open to a certain degree of doubt and questioning.  Demanding certainty from students, especially early in the process of their faith development, leads them to give up on finding their own faith and revert to regurgitating the answers they think we expect.  Room for doubts and honest questions is necessary if we want students to find their own words with which to express their faith.  In a <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/april-2-2013-dr-andrew-root/\">recent talk</a> I heard by <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Root/e/B001JS9RFQ/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;qid=1365627665&amp;sr=1-4&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\" target=\"_blank\">Andy Root</a>, Professor of Youth Ministry at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, he described the balance to be struck this way: “we can say to young people, ‘continue to doubt, continue to wrestle with questions, but continue to do that here.\'”\r\n\r\nThis tenor is set through our own modeling of what we are hoping our students will do.  In the same talk, Andy went on to point out that “we learn to tell our stories by hearing stories.”  When we model the process of exploring our own stories, describing our faith journeys, and articulating what we believe and why its important for our lives, we open up our students to engaging in the same kind of process for themselves.  When we model what a confident, vibrant, faith looks like we set a tone for our students to follow.  When we use theological language (more on this in a minute) to explain the ways we have come to articulate our own faith, we equip students by giving them language with which to describe their experience of God working in their own lives.\r\n<h2>The Content of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\nStriking this balance in the tenor of our ministry while inviting students to tell their own faith stories allows us to strike a balance in the content of our ministry between focusing on theology and focusing on practical living.\r\n\r\nTheology can be important to a youth ministry because of how it helps us to explain our own faith journeys and helps to equip our students with the language to talk about theirs.  By helping us to articulate our faith clearly, theological language plays a significant role by helping to underscore the importance of our faith.  Simply put: it\'s easier to see the importance of something when you have a clearer understanding of it.\r\n\r\nAt the same time, most often our faith stories will themselves reflect our experiences of God in life, and many of the most important questions we will ask about our faith have to do with the way it practically effects of our lives.  That means that in inviting students to reflect on what they believe, we also have to invite them to consider the practical importance and significance of those beliefs in their everyday lives.\r\n\r\nIt is important to note that both theological language and the practical living out of faith can be taught in multiple styles and ways that engage our students from different directions.  Music, art, drama, hands-on experience, and many other possibilities supplement more traditional teaching or group discussion.  The goal, at the end of the day, is to give students the means to express faith in their own words, not teaching them to parrot the words that we use, and employing a variety of styles of engaging the content we are teaching is a great way to equip students to this end.\r\n<h2>Youth Ministry in the Life of the Church</h2>\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8747\" alt=\"Inviting People In\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In-196x300.jpg\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" /></a>In the first part of this series, I posed a question about how youth should be engaged in the life of a church.  Alternatively, it seems, we can keep kids in worship with the larger church community, often at the risk of letting them become bored or disengaged, or we can keep kids in an “age-appropriate” ministry separate form the rest of the church which then runs the risk of leaving kids without a sense of what the church community really is when they grow up and leave home.\r\n\r\nIn reality, of course, we can have both an age-appropriate youth ministry and invite kids to take part in the larger community on Sunday mornings.  The latter half of that, however, is a bit trickier.  How do we make kids feel like they are part of the larger church community, especially when much of that community is made up of adults they may not have meaningful relationships with?\r\n\r\nIn <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a> I paraphrased a parable from <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/february-5-2013-dr-roland-martinson/\">Roland Martinson</a> on the importance of having youth be connected to the community in what he refers to as “inter-generational ministry.”  My own feeling, echoing his and grounded in my own experience of church, is that when youth have ways to be involved in worship-- whether that be helping with music, ushering, or setting up chairs-- they gain a sense of ownership that encourages them to want to be part of the community.  Likewise, as <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/#comments\">a commenter on the first part of this series</a> pointed out, when the congregation’s worship contains at least a few elements intentionally aimed at engaging youth, they are more likely to be interested in sticking around.  By both reaching out to youth and inviting them to reach in and become more involved in the community, churches can keep youth engaged on Sunday mornings while also providing them with an “age-appropriate” ministry at other times during the week.\r\n<h2>Leadership and How to Do That Here</h2>\r\nTwo of the most pressing and difficult issues for many churches when it comes to youth ministry are, as it was put in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, “who is going to lead it?” and “how do we do that at our church?”  In a way, these are closely related questions: whoever leads a youth ministry is in effect tasked with figuring out how to make it happen.\r\n\r\nAt the most basic level, the leader of a youth ministry must be committed to youth, skilled at teaching, and capable of providing pastoral care and thoughtful mentoring to students traveling through a formative period of life.  Such a role could be filled by a lay person or an ordained minister, a “professional” member of the church staff or a volunteer from within the congregation.  Ultimately, I believe, this should be a combination of many people led by a staff “point-person,” likely a pastor or designated youth minister.\r\n\r\nIn part this team approach is ideal because it helps to ensure that whoever is responsible for leading or overseeing a youth ministry has the support of the congregation.  One of the <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/#comments\">commenters on part one of this series</a> noted that youth ministry can often feel like a lonely job.  I remember about six months into one of my first roles in youth ministry being asked by a member of the congregation after the service if I was a new visitor at the church.  To be honest, I was taken aback by the question.  “No, actually, I’m on the staff here,” I managed to mutter before running away.  The question revealed the distance between the congregation and the youth ministry and its leadership.  Such a distance can quickly burn out a youth leader.  For their ministry to be successful, youth leaders need to have the support and backing of the larger church.  That means, I believe, supporting whoever the “point-person” for the youth ministry is with volunteers from the congregation.  It also means ensuring that the youth leader is integrated into the community of other adults at the church and not relegated to always being “with the kids.”\r\n\r\nWhat is not required to be a successful youth minister, I believe, is being a young, extreme extrovert, who can’t sit still and understands all the newest trends of youth culture.  Nor does a church need a massive youth budget or the ability to simulate the experience of a rock concert.  More on this in a moment, but suffice it to say that I think people with a variety of personalities, teaching styles, and visions for what their ministry will look like can be very effective in their role provided that they are genuine to themselves and minister to their students out of a love for seeing those students grow and learn in their faith.\r\n<h2>To Be Relevant, or Not to Be Relevant?</h2>\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8748\" alt=\"Mega-Church Interior\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>That is the question, perhaps the most disputed one among youth ministers today.  It also has a lot do with the practical question of how a particular youth ministry will look on the ground.  Do you need flashy video promos and a rock band?  Do you need to be up on all the latest trends in teen pop culture?  Well… probably not.\r\n\r\nI believe that relevance in a youth ministry takes three forms:\r\n\r\n<em>First,</em> when we are genuinely invested in the lives of our youth, we will become aware of the things that they find interesting.  The more we learn about those things, either through our conversations with them or through listening to the music they are all singing along to on the drive to an event or watching some of the you-tube videos they are talking about before youth group, the more we will understand about their world, and, consequently, the more “relevant” our ministry will be, even if we aren’t actively designing a ministry modeled on their culture.\r\n\r\n<em>Second,</em> I think relevance is also a factor of empowering student leaders.  One of the most significant things that ever happened to me in my journey toward ministry was being asked to plan and lead the music for my high school youth group.  When we make a move to bring students into leadership roles within our group, asking them to help plan activities or lead worship, invariably they will bring something of their own tastes and interests and passions to the table.  And as their creativity impacts what the group looks like, our community and its worship start to look more “relevant” to our youth because they are shaping it, not us.\r\n\r\n<em>Third,</em> I think relevance also emerges from youth leaders being themselves.  While the movies we grew up on or the music we love might not always be what our youth are into now, if we are doing the work of building meaningful, ministering relationships with them they will humor us when we share our interests and often times find something about it they like, too.  Relevance doesn’t have to be about staying on the cutting edge of current trends in pop culture, it’s about finding a common language with which to share our faith with the youth we are serving.\r\n\r\nWhen we find such a common language, whether it be through the lens of our own interests or the things our youth are excited about, we create a space where they feel at home and comfortable, opening up the door for them to be willing to engage serious questions about their faith and its meaning for their lives, and allowing us to work with them, helping them learn to articulate this faith and connect with the God who loves them.\r\n\r\n<hr />\r\n\r\n<em>Alexander Marshall is an experienced youth worker, blogger, writer, and student at Yale Divinity School.  You can connect with him on <a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/alexanderpmarshall\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alexp_marshall\">Twitter</a>, or by <a href=\"http://apmarshall.wordpress.com/\">visiting his blog</a>.</em>','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','publish','closed','closed','','relevance-a-youth-minister-answers-part-2-of-2','','','2013-04-18 09:30:21','2013-04-18 16:30:21','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=8738',0,'post','',0),(8739,202,'2013-04-10 13:45:26','2013-04-10 20:45:26','My first experience in youth ministry while in college was at a baptist church in a poor, rural community in Alabama.  The overwhelming majority of the 50 or so regular attendees at the church were over the age of 65.  At some point, kids who lived in the small houses and trailer homes nearby discovered that every Wednesday night this church offered a free, warm meal and they started coming in droves.  Suddenly there were 20+ kids aged 7 to 15 at this church.  None of their families were involved in the congregation.  No one in the church had any youth ministry experience.  So they recruited a few students from nearby Southeastern Bible College to come start a youth program.  Eventually the leader of that program recruited me.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nWe didn’t know what we were doing any more than the people who had called us did, and I’m still not sure how effective we were in our ministry with these kids.  But we played a lot of ping pong and basketball, did our best to teach these kids a few things about God and the Bible, and learned as much as we could as we went along.  Since that experience I’ve had plenty of other opportunities to learn and practice youth ministry, and though I am convinced that anyone who thinks they have youth ministry all “figured out” is either a lunatic or lying, these experiences have taught me a few important principles that I believe lie behind a successful youth ministry.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nIn this article I want to outline a basic “theory” of youth ministry that attempts to address the issues brought up in part one of this series.  The goal is not to create a rigid formula for what youth ministry should look like on the ground.  I don’t have, nor do I think I ever will have, such a formula, so these thoughts are not meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution to every church’s problems.  What I do intend to do is highlight some basic principles that I think are extremely important for any church to think about as they plan and develop their own ministry with youth.  As with part one, this is meant to start a conversation not end one, to provide one perspective on an issue not claim to be the definitive view.  I hope many others will join the discussion that follows and that we will learn more from one another than we could ever claim to know on our own.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<b>Underlying Principles</b>\n\n&nbsp;\n\nTo lay my cards on the table, I have to acknowledge that the core of this theory of youth ministry is based largely on my own faith journey.  My own experiences of wrestling with my faith both while growing up and during my theological training at Southeastern Bible College and Yale Divinity School have embedded in my thinking three major principles (its worth acknowledging that I have been greatly aided in articulating the first two by the research of Christian Smith and his team of sociologists) that lie not far beneath the surface of everything else I will argue for in this article:\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<b><i>First</i>, students won’t believe what they don’t find important.</b>  When youth find a worship service boring or scoff at the idea of a missions trip, that isn’t just adolescent angst or a social-networking-age induced inability to sit still.  What they are telling you, implicitly, is that they don’t find these things important.  They don’t think they are things that they need, they don’t see them as valuable.  And what they don’t find valuable or important isn’t likely to be something they continue to do for very long after the pressure of parents or other mentoring adults is gone.  Transfer this principle from the activities of the church to the faith of the church: what happens when youth don’t find their faith “valuable” or “important”?  How long will they continue to “believe”?\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<b><i>Second,</i> students won’t find important what they can’t explain the meaning and significance of themselves.</b>  Too often when we talk about our faith, especially with youth, its the “expert-in-the-room” who does all the talking.  Which results in our youth being unable to explain for themselves why their faith is important to them.  Over time, this leads them to conclude that it isn’t that important (in the same way that most of us decide understanding multivariable calculus isn’t really that important to our lives).  Which, when we are dealing with matters of faith, frequently leads them to question whether they really believe any of it in the first place (circling back to the first principle above).  I’m convinced that successful faith formation with youth has to be about getting our students comfortable explaining what their faith means to them, in their own words using their own voice, so that their faith becomes <i>their</i> faith, something that they find important and worth believing.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<b><i>Third</i>, youth ministry is about students, not the prestige of the youth minister or the reputation of a local church.</b>  Kids can tell when they are being used.  And while they might put up with that for a while (especially if they are “getting something” out of it, like free pizza every week), eventually, when the perks run out, they will run away.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nNow, with these principles in mind, let’s work back through the questions posed in part one of this series:\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<b>The Goal of Youth Ministry</b>\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThe goal of ministry in general is the proclaiming of the gospel.  Which might seem to indicate that of the two possible goals for youth ministry identified in part one-- evangelizing to kids or creating a safe space for kids to relax and feel loved-- I am choosing outright “evangelism.”\n\n&nbsp;\n\nActually, I think that a successful youth ministry can do both.  Maybe it would be better said I think a successful youth ministry should and must do both, in a manner of speaking.  Let me explain:\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThroughout the Christian tradition, whether it be in the Pauline notion of general revelation, the Catholic doctrine of Natural Law, or the Wesleyan notion of prevenient grace, Christians believe that the God who stands at the center of all things is reaching out to every person, inviting them to enter into a cosmic drama of redemption.  Twentieth-century theologian Paul Tillich famously described religion as “the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.”  Perhaps the most effective way for youth (and really, anyone) to discover the value and importance of faith is for them to identify the ways they encounter this ultimate concern in their own life, to articulate their own experience of how God has been and is continuing to reach out to them, to tell the story of their own journey of faith.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nAsking them to tell their stories, examining the ways God is at work in their lives, is itself a form of evangelism and can lead to a whole host of incredible conversations about faith.  But it also cannot happen unless students feel “safe.”  In todays world there are very few places where students will ever be asked questions about an “ultimate concern.”  Answering existential questions about faith and its significance to their lives carries with it a certain degree of risk and requires a certain amount of openness to their peers and youth leaders.  And that, in turn, requires them to feel comfortable with and loved by those who are participating in this process with them.  So before a youth ministry can push it students to really think about faith as something meaningful in their lives, it must have created a space where they are willing to enter into the conversation.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<b>The Tenor of Youth Ministry</b>\n\n&nbsp;\n\nInviting students to tell their own stories, examining their own lives to see the ways God is reaching out to them and inviting them to participate in the cosmic drama of redemption, requires that the tenor of a youth ministry strike a particular balance.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nAs we ask students to analyze their stories and think about what they believe and why it is important and valuable, our conversations must be open to a certain degree of doubt and questioning.  Demanding certainty from students, especially early on in the process of their faith development, leads them to give up on finding their own faith and revert to regurgitating the answers they think you expect.  Room for doubts and honest questions is necessary if we want students to find their own words with which to express their faith.  In a recent talk I heard from Any Root, Professor of Youth Ministry at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, he described the balance that has to be struck this way: “we can say to young people, ‘continue to doubt, continue to wrestle with questions, but continue to do that here.”\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThis tenor is set through our own modeling of what we are looking for students to do.  In the same talk, Andy went on to say that “we learn to tell our stories by hearing stories.”  When we model the process of exploring our own lives, describing our faith journeys, and articulating what we believe and why its important for our lives we open up our students to engaging in the same kind of process.  When we model what a confident, vibrant, faith looks like we set a tone that our students will follow.  When we utilize theology to explain the ways we have come to articulate our own faith, we equip students by giving them language with which to describe their experience of God working in their own lives.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<b>The Content of Youth Ministry</b>\n\n&nbsp;\n\nStriking this balance in the tenor of our ministry while inviting students to tell their own faith stories allows us to strike a balance in the content of our ministry between focusing on theology and focusing on practical living.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nTheology will be important to a youth ministry because of how it helps us to explain our own faith journeys and helps to equip our students with the language to talk about theirs.  By helping us to articulate our faith clearly, theological language plays a significant role by helping to underscore the importance of our faith.  Simply put: its easier to see the importance of something when you have a clearer understanding of it.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nAt the same time, most often our faith stories will themselves reflect our <i>experiences</i> of God in life, and many of the most important questions we will have about our faith have to do with the way it practically effects of our lives.  That means that in inviting students to reflect on what they believe, we also have to invite them to consider the practical importance and significance of those beliefs in their everyday lives.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<b>Youth Ministry in the Life of the Church</b>\n\n&nbsp;\n\nIn the first part of this series, I posed a question about how youth should be engaged in the life of a church.  Alternatively, it seems, we can keep kids in worship with the larger church community, often at the risk of letting them become bored or disengaged, or we can keep kids in an “age-appropriate” ministry separate form the rest of the church which then runs the risk of leaving kids without a sense of what the church community really is.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nIn reality, of course, we can have both an age-appropriate youth ministry and invite kids to participate in the larger community on Sunday mornings.  The latter part of that, however, is a bit trickier.  How do we make kids feel like they are part of the larger church community, especially when much of that community is made up of adults they may not have had previous meaningful relationships with?\n\n&nbsp;\n\nIn part one I paraphrased a parable from Roland Martinson on the importance of having youth be connected to the community in what he refers to as “inter-generational ministry.”  My own feeling, echoing his and grounded in my own experience of church, is that when youth have ways to be involved in worship-- whether that be helping with music, ushering, or setting up chairs-- they gain a sense of ownership that encourages them to want to be part of the community.  Likewise, as a commenter on the first part of this series pointed out, when the congregation’s worship contains at least a few elements intentionally aimed at engaging youth, they are more likely to be interested in sticking around.  By both reaching out to youth and inviting them to become more involved in the community, churches can keep youth engaged in the larger community on Sunday mornings even while also providing them with an “age-appropriate” ministry at other times during the week.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<b>Leadership and How to Do That Here</b>\n\n&nbsp;\n\nTwo of the most pressing and difficult issues for many churches when it comes to youth ministry are, as it was put in part one, “who is going to lead it?” and “how do we do that at our church?”  In a way, these are closely related questions: whoever leads a youth ministry is in effect tasked with figuring out how to make it happen.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nAt the most basic level, the leader of a youth ministry must be committed to youth, skilled at teaching, and capable of providing pastoral care and thoughtful mentoring to students traveling through a formative period of life.  Such a role could be filled by a lay person or an ordained minister, a “professional” member of the church staff or a volunteer from within the congregation.  Ultimately, I believe, this should be a combination of many people led by a staff “point-person,” likely a pastor or designated youth minister.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nIn part this team approach is ideal because it helps to ensure that whoever is responsible for leading or overseeing a youth ministry has the support of the congregation.  One of the commenters on part one of this series noted that youth ministry can often feel like a lonely job.  I remember about six months into one of my first roles in youth ministry being asked by a member of the congregation after the service if I was a new visitor at the church.  To be honest, I was taken aback by the question.  “No, actually, I’m on the staff here,” I managed to mutter.  The question revealed the distance between the congregation and the youth ministry and its leadership.  Such a distance can quickly burn out a youth leader.  For their ministry to be successful, youth leaders need to have the support and backing of the larger church.  That means, I believe, supporting whoever the “point-person” for the youth ministry is with volunteers from the congregation.  It also means ensuring that the youth leader is integrated into the community of other adults at the church and not relegated to always being “with the kids.”\n\n&nbsp;\n\nWhat is not required to be a successful youth minister, I believe, is being a young, extreme extrovert, who can’t sit still and understands all the newest trends of youth culture.  Nor does a church need a massive youth budget or the ability to simulate the experience of a rock concert.  More on this in a moment, but suffice it to say that I think people with a variety of personalities, teaching styles, and visions for what their ministry will look like can be very effective in their role provided that they are genuine to themselves and minister to their students out of a love for seeing those students grow and learn in their faith.\n\n&nbsp;\n\n<b>To Be Relevant, or Not to Be?</b>\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThis is perhaps the most disputed question amongst youth ministers today, and it also has a lot do with the practical question of how a particular youth ministry will look on the ground.  Do you need flashy video promos and rock band?  Do you need to be up on all the latest trends in teen pop culture?  Well… probably not.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nRelevance in a youth ministry takes three forms:\n\n&nbsp;\n\nFirst, when we are genuinely invested in the lives of our youth, we will become aware of the things that they are interested in.  The more we learn about those things, either through our conversations with them or through listening to the music they are all singing along to in the car on our way to an event or watching some of the you-tube videos they are talking about before youth group, the more we will understand about their world, and, consequently, the more “relevant” our ministry will be, even if we aren’t actively designing a ministry that looks like their culture.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nSecond, I think relevance is also a factor of empowering student leaders.  One of the most significant things that every happened to me in my journey toward ministry was being asked to plan and lead the music for my high school youth group.  When we make a move to bring students into leadership roles within our group, asking them to help plan activities or lead worship, invariably they will bring something of their own tastes and interests and passions to the table.  And as their creativity impacts what the group looks like, our community and its worship start to look more “relevant” to our youth because they are shaping it, not us.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThird, I think relevance also emerges from youth leaders being themselves.  While the movies we grew up on or the music we love might not always be what our youth are into now, if we are doing the work of building meaningful, ministering relationships with them they will humor us when we share our interests and often times find something about it they like, too.  Relevance doesn’t have to be about staying on the cutting edge of current trends in pop culture, it’s about finding a common language with which to share our experiences with the youth we are serving.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nWhen we find such a common language, whether it be through the terms of our own interests or the things our youth are excited about, we create a space where they feel at home and comfortable, opening up the door for them to be willing to engage serious questions about their faith and its meaning for their lives, and allowing us to work with them, helping them learn to articulate this faith and connect with the God who loves them.','Rele','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision','','','2013-04-10 13:45:26','2013-04-10 20:45:26','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/10/8738-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(8820,1,'2013-04-17 15:11:15','2013-04-17 22:11:15','<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x4206.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8804\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x4206-195x300.jpg\" width=\"195\" height=\"300\" /></a>Few books have been radically instrumental in changing my perspective of the Kingdom of God. Some caused me to think. Some caused me to ask questions. Some caused me to change opinions and some changed the course of my personal ministry as a whole. One in particular has accomplished all of these, and more surprising; that book happens to be fiction. I don\'t read a lot of fiction and consequentially, I don\'t write a lot of fiction. It\'s difficult to write, takes more time and discipline and requires more patience than I posses. Reading fiction is just as difficult because when we give our selves and our time to fiction, we take on a huge responsibility. We can read fiction at face value, skimming through the pages, simply for the purpose of entertainment. Or we can allow ourselves to enter fiction, being taken deeper than the surface. We become part of the story, an observer that sees the details of every aspect. When we do this, we open ourselves up to the imagination, and sometimes the imagination is more powerful in spiritual transformation than reality itself.\r\n\r\nSo it is with <a title=\"Chasing Francis\" href=\"http://zondervan.com/9780310336709\">Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim\'s Tale</a> by <a title=\"Ian\" href=\"http://www.iancron.com/\">Ian Morgan Cron</a>. In reading the first few pages, I found myself transported into a new and unfamiliar story that was also far too real. The story is new, fresh and alive, but also very real and close to home. When introduced to the main character, Chase Falson, I met someone for the first time, but also felt as if I had known him for years. In many ways, Chase is diametrically different than I am; personally, emotionally and professionally. But I also found that Chase was me; a mirror that was reading back words and reflecting emotions that I have felt for many years.\r\n\r\nChase Falson is the lead pastor of the largest megachurch in New England, and the quintessential picture of evangelical success. He has jumped through every hoop, crossed every T and dotted every I. From the time he entered seminary, he accomplished everything that he set his mind to accomplish. From all reasonable perspectives, Chase has finally \"arrived\". But the reader quickly realizes that his arrival does not entail a permanent stay, but a possible departure. Not a temporary departure that can be found in a refreshing retreat or sabbatical, but a departure from all that he knows and has been prepared for.\r\n\r\nFrustrated and disenchanted with the modern church model and what he sees as transparent and empty, Chase begins to ask questions. He begins to feel more and more restless in his ministry, wondering if something more exists. Faith is diminishing for Chase and questions are outnumbering answers. The tipping point comes in the death of a nine-year old girl, daughter of a fragile thirty-five-year-old ex-con alcoholic who had recently gotten sober and become a follower of Christ. <em>\"So where\'s God now? I gave my life to Christ, did everything you told me. How could he do this?\"</em> The words of a grieving mother push Chase to the brink of anything he has ever experienced emotionally, spiritually or ministerially. He buries a little girl and with her buries his preconceived ideas of what the Church was supposed to be.\r\n\r\nThe Sunday after the funeral, Chase reaches the point of no return admitting his doubts to his congregation.  He lays himself bare, wounded and angry. Chase is no longer a minister, but one who desperately needs ministering for himself. His brokenness, frustrations and anger are laid before the church; the sacrifice of a pastor that has nothing left to give. As the congregation stands before him, Chase comes to the realization that he doesn\'t have the answers they seek, because they are the same questions he is asking himself and of God. Chase wonders if he has ever actually had answers and if some questions simply have no answer. The past meets the present and for Chase, they no longer mesh. <em>\"Maybe we\'re all fools.\"</em>  And with those words, his pilgrimage begins.\r\n\r\nDesperate for answers and forced by his elders into a leave of absence, Chase finds himself crossing the Atlantic to visit his uncle, a Franciscan priest.  It is here, in Italy, that he encounters the teachings and philosophies of Francis of Assisi, rediscovering his faith from this spiritual leader that lived 800 years ago. Realizing that Francis faced many of the same radical cultural changes that we face today, Chase finds a refreshing perspective of what being a follower of Christ truly is, what the Church should be and what the Kingdom of God is really all about.  In the transition from the middle ages to Modernity, Francis gives us wisdom as we find ourselves moving from the Modern era to the uncharted territory of the Postmodern.\r\n\r\nIn a way that very few other authors are capable of, Ian Morgan Cron tells a story that transcends the years since Francis lived. Revealing surprising parallels, he skillfully illustrates the problems that Francis faced in his day; a Church in the midst of a radical cultural, economic  and  societal shift. Realizing that the Church of today faces very similar issues, Cron paints a fictional picture that eerily resembles reality. For it is through this story that a great comfort is found in the old rather than the new. We feel encouragement in simplicity rather than the complex. We find that wisdom calls to us over hundreds of years and assures us that there is hope for the Church. And that hope is found in the liberating possibility that we can at least consider putting aside our endless pursuit of doing something new and different, and look at what has simply been laid before us. And that in itself could, ironically, be new and different.\r\n\r\n<a title=\"Chasing Francis\" href=\"http://zondervan.com/9780310336709\">Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim\'s Tale</a> is being re-leased through <a title=\"Zondervon\" href=\"http://zondervan.com/\">Zondvervon</a> on May 7, 2013 and is currently available for pre-order.','Review of Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim\'s Tale by Ian Morgan Cron ','','inherit','open','open','','8783-revision-24','','','2013-04-17 15:11:15','2013-04-17 22:11:15','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-24/',0,'revision','',0),(8741,202,'2013-04-10 14:08:05','2013-04-10 21:08:05','My first experience in youth ministry while in college was at a baptist church in a poor, rural community in Alabama.  The overwhelming majority of the 50 or so regular attendees at the church were over the age of 65.  At some point, kids who lived in the small houses and trailer homes nearby discovered that every Wednesday night this church offered a free, warm meal and they started coming in droves.  Suddenly there were 20+ kids aged 7 to 15 at this church.  None of their families were involved in the congregation.  No one in the church had any youth ministry experience.  So they recruited a few students from nearby Southeastern Bible College to come start a youth program.  Eventually the leader of that program recruited me.\n\nWe didn’t know what we were doing any more than the people who had called us did, and I’m still not sure how effective we were in our ministry with these kids.  But we played a lot of ping pong and basketball, did our best to teach these kids a few things about God and the Bible, and learned as much as we could as we went along.  Since that experience I’ve had plenty of other opportunities to learn and practice youth ministry, and though I am convinced that anyone who thinks they have youth ministry all “figured out” is either a lunatic or lying, these experiences have taught me a few important principles that I believe lie behind a successful youth ministry.\n\nIn this article I want to outline a basic “theory” of youth ministry that attempts to address the issues brought up in part one of this series.  The goal is not to create a rigid formula for what youth ministry should look like on the ground.  I don’t have, nor do I think I ever will have, such a formula, so these thoughts are not meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution to every church’s problems.  What I do intend to do is highlight some basic principles that I think are extremely important for any church to think about as they plan and develop their own ministry with youth.  As with <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, this is meant to start a conversation not end one, to provide one perspective on an issue not claim to be the definitive view.  I hope many others will join the discussion that follows and that we will learn more from one another than we could ever claim to know on our own.\n<h2>Underlying Principles</h2>\nTo lay my cards on the table, I have to acknowledge that the core of this theory of youth ministry is based largely on my own faith journey.  My own experiences of wrestling with my faith both while growing up and during my theological training at Southeastern Bible College and Yale Divinity School have embedded in my thinking three major principles (its worth acknowledging that I have been greatly aided in articulating the first two by the research of <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195384776/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0195384776&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Christian Smith</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0195384776\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> and his team of sociologists) that lie not far beneath the surface of everything else I will argue for in this article:\n\n<strong><em>First</em>, students won’t believe what they don’t find important.</strong>  When youth find a worship service boring or scoff at the idea of a missions trip, that isn’t just adolescent angst or a social-networking-age induced inability to sit still.  What they are telling you, implicitly, is that they don’t find these things important.  They don’t think they are things that they need, they don’t see them as valuable.  And what they don’t find valuable or important isn’t likely to be something they continue to do for very long after the pressure of parents or other mentoring adults is gone.  Transfer this principle from the activities of the church to the faith of the church: what happens when youth don’t find their faith “valuable” or “important”?  How long will they continue to “believe”?\n\n<strong><em>Second,</em> students won’t find important what they can’t explain the meaning and significance of themselves.</strong>  Too often when we talk about our faith, especially with youth, its the “expert-in-the-room” who does all the talking.  Which results in our youth being unable to explain for themselves why their faith is important to them.  Over time, this leads them to conclude that it isn’t that important (in the same way that most of us decide understanding multivariable calculus isn’t really that important to our lives).  Which, when we are dealing with matters of faith, frequently leads them to question whether they really believe any of it in the first place (circling back to the first principle above).  I’m convinced that successful faith formation with youth has to be about getting our students comfortable explaining what their faith means to them, in their own words using their own voice, so that their faith becomes <em>their</em> faith, something that they find important and worth believing.\n\n<strong><em>Third</em>, youth ministry is about students, not the prestige of the youth minister or the reputation of a local church.</strong>  Kids can tell when they are being used.  And while they might put up with that for a while (especially if they are getting something out of it, like free pizza every week), eventually, when the perks run out, they will run away.\n\nNow, with these principles in mind, let’s work back through the questions posed in part one of this series:\n<h2>The Goal of Youth Ministry</h2>\nThe goal of ministry in general is the proclaiming of the gospel.  Which might seem to indicate that of the two possible goals for youth ministry identified in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>-- evangelizing to kids or creating a safe space for kids to relax and feel loved-- I am choosing outright “evangelism.”\n\nActually, I think that a successful youth ministry can do both.  Maybe it would be better said I think a successful youth ministry should and must do both, in a manner of speaking.  Let me explain:\n\nThroughout the Christian tradition, whether it be in the Pauline notion of general revelation, the Catholic doctrine of Natural Law, or the Wesleyan notion of prevenient grace, Christians believe that the God who stands at the center of all things is reaching out to every person, inviting them to enter into a cosmic drama of redemption.  Twentieth-century theologian <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226803376/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226803376&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Paul Tillich</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0226803376\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> famously described religion as \"the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.”  Perhaps the most effective way for youth (and really, anyone) to discover the value and importance of faith is for them to identify the ways they encounter this ultimate concern in their own life, to articulate their own experience of how God has been and is continuing to reach out to them, to tell the story of their own journey of faith.\n\nAsking them to tell their stories, examining the ways God is at work in their lives, is itself a form of evangelism and can lead to a whole host of incredible conversations about faith.  But it also cannot happen unless students feel “safe.”  In todays world there are very few places where students will ever be asked questions about an “ultimate concern.”  Answering existential questions about faith and its significance to their lives carries with it a certain degree of risk and requires a certain amount of openness to their peers and youth leaders.  And that, in turn, requires them to feel comfortable with and loved by those who are participating in this process with them.  So before a youth ministry can push it students to really think about faith as something meaningful in their lives, it must have created a space where they are willing to enter into the conversation.\n<h2>The Tenor of Youth Ministry</h2>\nInviting students to tell their own stories, examining their own lives to see the ways God is reaching out to them and inviting them to participate in the cosmic drama of redemption, requires that the tenor of a youth ministry strike a particular balance.\n\nAs we ask students to analyze their stories and think about what they believe and why it is important and valuable, our conversations must be open to a certain degree of doubt and questioning.  Demanding certainty from students, especially early on in the process of their faith development, leads them to give up on finding their own faith and revert to regurgitating the answers they think you expect.  Room for doubts and honest questions is necessary if we want students to find their own words with which to express their faith.  In a <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/april-2-2013-dr-andrew-root/\">recent talk</a> I heard from <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Root/e/B001JS9RFQ/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;qid=1365627665&amp;sr=1-4&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\" target=\"_blank\">Andy Root</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" />, Professor of Youth Ministry at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, he described the balance that has to be struck this way: “we can say to young people, ‘continue to doubt, continue to wrestle with questions, but continue to do that here.”\n\nThis tenor is set through our own modeling of what we are looking for students to do.  In the same talk, Andy went on to say that “we learn to tell our stories by hearing stories.”  When we model the process of exploring our own lives, describing our faith journeys, and articulating what we believe and why its important for our lives we open up our students to engaging in the same kind of process.  When we model what a confident, vibrant, faith looks like we set a tone that our students will follow.  When we utilize theology to explain the ways we have come to articulate our own faith, we equip students by giving them language with which to describe their experience of God working in their own lives.\n<h2>The Content of Youth Ministry</h2>\nStriking this balance in the tenor of our ministry while inviting students to tell their own faith stories allows us to strike a balance in the content of our ministry between focusing on theology and focusing on practical living.\n\nTheology will be important to a youth ministry because of how it helps us to explain our own faith journeys and helps to equip our students with the language to talk about theirs.  By helping us to articulate our faith clearly, theological language plays a significant role by helping to underscore the importance of our faith.  Simply put: its easier to see the importance of something when you have a clearer understanding of it.\n\nAt the same time, most often our faith stories will themselves reflect our <i>experiences</i> of God in life, and many of the most important questions we will have about our faith have to do with the way it practically effects of our lives.  That means that in inviting students to reflect on what they believe, we also have to invite them to consider the practical importance and significance of those beliefs in their everyday lives.\n<h2>Youth Ministry in the Life of the Church</h2>\nIn the first part of this series, I posed a question about how youth should be engaged in the life of a church.  Alternatively, it seems, we can keep kids in worship with the larger church community, often at the risk of letting them become bored or disengaged, or we can keep kids in an “age-appropriate” ministry separate form the rest of the church which then runs the risk of leaving kids without a sense of what the church community really is.\n\nIn reality, of course, we can have both an age-appropriate youth ministry and invite kids to participate in the larger community on Sunday mornings.  The latter part of that, however, is a bit trickier.  How do we make kids feel like they are part of the larger church community, especially when much of that community is made up of adults they may not have had previous meaningful relationships with?\n\nIn <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a> I paraphrased a parable from <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/february-5-2013-dr-roland-martinson/\">Roland Martinson</a> on the importance of having youth be connected to the community in what he refers to as “inter-generational ministry.”  My own feeling, echoing his and grounded in my own experience of church, is that when youth have ways to be involved in worship-- whether that be helping with music, ushering, or setting up chairs-- they gain a sense of ownership that encourages them to want to be part of the community.  Likewise, as a commenter on the first part of this series pointed out, when the congregation’s worship contains at least a few elements intentionally aimed at engaging youth, they are more likely to be interested in sticking around.  By both reaching out to youth and inviting them to become more involved in the community, churches can keep youth engaged in the larger community on Sunday mornings even while also providing them with an “age-appropriate” ministry at other times during the week.\n<h2>Leadership and How to Do That Here</h2>\nTwo of the most pressing and difficult issues for many churches when it comes to youth ministry are, as it was put in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, “who is going to lead it?” and “how do we do that at our church?”  In a way, these are closely related questions: whoever leads a youth ministry is in effect tasked with figuring out how to make it happen.\n\nAt the most basic level, the leader of a youth ministry must be committed to youth, skilled at teaching, and capable of providing pastoral care and thoughtful mentoring to students traveling through a formative period of life.  Such a role could be filled by a lay person or an ordained minister, a “professional” member of the church staff or a volunteer from within the congregation.  Ultimately, I believe, this should be a combination of many people led by a staff “point-person,” likely a pastor or designated youth minister.\n\nIn part this team approach is ideal because it helps to ensure that whoever is responsible for leading or overseeing a youth ministry has the support of the congregation.  One of the commenters on part one of this series noted that youth ministry can often feel like a lonely job.  I remember about six months into one of my first roles in youth ministry being asked by a member of the congregation after the service if I was a new visitor at the church.  To be honest, I was taken aback by the question.  “No, actually, I’m on the staff here,” I managed to mutter.  The question revealed the distance between the congregation and the youth ministry and its leadership.  Such a distance can quickly burn out a youth leader.  For their ministry to be successful, youth leaders need to have the support and backing of the larger church.  That means, I believe, supporting whoever the “point-person” for the youth ministry is with volunteers from the congregation.  It also means ensuring that the youth leader is integrated into the community of other adults at the church and not relegated to always being “with the kids.”\n\nWhat is not required to be a successful youth minister, I believe, is being a young, extreme extrovert, who can’t sit still and understands all the newest trends of youth culture.  Nor does a church need a massive youth budget or the ability to simulate the experience of a rock concert.  More on this in a moment, but suffice it to say that I think people with a variety of personalities, teaching styles, and visions for what their ministry will look like can be very effective in their role provided that they are genuine to themselves and minister to their students out of a love for seeing those students grow and learn in their faith.\n<h2>To Be Relevant, or Not to Be Relevant?</h2>\nThat is the question, perhaps the most disputed one amongst youth ministers today.  It also has a lot do with the practical question of how a particular youth ministry will look on the ground.  Do you need flashy video promos and rock band?  Do you need to be up on all the latest trends in teen pop culture?  Well… probably not.\n\nRelevance in a youth ministry takes three forms:\n\n<em>First,</em> when we are genuinely invested in the lives of our youth, we will become aware of the things that they are interested in.  The more we learn about those things, either through our conversations with them or through listening to the music they are all singing along to in the car on our way to an event or watching some of the you-tube videos they are talking about before youth group, the more we will understand about their world, and, consequently, the more “relevant” our ministry will be, even if we aren’t actively designing a ministry that looks like their culture.\n\n<em>Second,</em> I think relevance is also a factor of empowering student leaders.  One of the most significant things that every happened to me in my journey toward ministry was being asked to plan and lead the music for my high school youth group.  When we make a move to bring students into leadership roles within our group, asking them to help plan activities or lead worship, invariably they will bring something of their own tastes and interests and passions to the table.  And as their creativity impacts what the group looks like, our community and its worship start to look more “relevant” to our youth because they are shaping it, not us.\n\n<em>Third,</em> I think relevance also emerges from youth leaders being themselves.  While the movies we grew up on or the music we love might not always be what our youth are into now, if we are doing the work of building meaningful, ministering relationships with them they will humor us when we share our interests and often times find something about it they like, too.  Relevance doesn’t have to be about staying on the cutting edge of current trends in pop culture, it’s about finding a common language with which to share our experiences with the youth we are serving.\n\nWhen we find such a common language, whether it be through the terms of our own interests or the things our youth are excited about, we create a space where they feel at home and comfortable, opening up the door for them to be willing to engage serious questions about their faith and its meaning for their lives, and allowing us to work with them, helping them learn to articulate this faith and connect with the God who loves them.\n\n<hr />\n\n<em>Alexander Marshall is an experienced youth worker, blogger, writer, and student at Yale Divinity School.  You can connect with him on <a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/alexanderpmarshall\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alexp_marshall\">Twitter</a>, or by <a href=\"http://apmarshall.wordpress.com/\">visiting his blog</a>.</em>\n\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-2','','','2013-04-10 14:08:05','2013-04-10 21:08:05','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/10/8738-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(8742,0,'2013-04-10 14:16:18','2013-04-10 21:16:18','Spirituality, Gender Equality, \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nspirituality, Gender Equality, Relationships, and Family\n<!--more-->\nAUTHOR: Carlotta Maria Shinn-Russell\nAUTHOR EMAIL: carlotta_russsell@yahoo.com\nAUTHOR URL: http://carlottmaria.com\nSUBJECT: Provoketive Magazine Writing For Provoketive\nIP: 199.20.31.52\nArray\n(\n    [Name] =&gt; Carlotta Maria Shinn-Russell \n    [Email] =&gt; carlotta_russsell@yahoo.com\n    [Existing Blog or Website] =&gt; carlottmaria.com\n    [List the topic you are interested writing about] =&gt; Spirituality, Gender Equality, \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nspirituality, Gender Equality, Relationships, and Family \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\n    [Current or New WordPress Login Name (We\'ll send you a password.)] =&gt; carlottamaria\n)\n','Carlotta Maria Shinn-Russell - 2013-04-10 14:16:18','','publish','open','open','','1b58c7716af879cf7c0249ef1116acaa','','','2013-04-10 14:16:18','2013-04-10 21:16:18','',358,'http://provoketive.com/?post_type=feedback&p=8742',0,'feedback','',0),(8748,202,'2013-04-11 16:28:54','2013-04-11 23:28:54','','Mega-Church Interior','','inherit','open','open','','olympus-digital-camera-6','','','2013-04-11 16:28:54','2013-04-11 23:28:54','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(8749,202,'2013-04-11 16:28:53','2013-04-11 23:28:53','My first experience in youth ministry while in college was at a baptist church in a poor, rural community in Alabama.  The overwhelming majority of the 50 or so regular attendees at the church were over the age of 65.  At some point, kids who lived in the small houses and trailer homes nearby discovered that every Wednesday night this church offered a free, warm meal and they started coming in droves.  Suddenly there were 20+ kids aged 7 to 15 at this church.  None of their families were involved in the congregation.  No one in the church had any youth ministry experience.  So they recruited a few students from nearby Southeastern Bible College to come start a youth program.  Eventually the leader of that program recruited me.\n\nWe didn’t know what we were doing any more than the people who had called us did, and I’m still not sure how effective we were in our ministry with these kids.  But we played a lot of ping pong and basketball, did our best to teach these kids a few things about God and the Bible, and learned as much as we could as we went along.  Since that experience I’ve had plenty of other opportunities to learn and practice youth ministry, and though I am convinced that anyone who thinks they have youth ministry all “figured out” is either a lunatic or lying, these experiences have taught me a few important principles that I believe lie behind a successful youth ministry.\n\nIn this article I want to outline a basic “theory” of youth ministry that attempts to address the issues brought up in part one of this series.  The goal is not to create a rigid formula for what youth ministry should look like on the ground.  I don’t have, nor do I think I ever will have, such a formula, so these thoughts are not meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution to every church’s problems.  What I do intend to do is highlight some basic principles that I think are extremely important for any church to think about as they plan and develop their own ministry with youth.  As with <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, this is meant to start a conversation not end one, to provide one perspective on an issue not claim to be the definitive view.  I hope many others will join the discussion that follows and that we will learn more from one another than we could ever claim to know on our own.\n<h2>Underlying Principles</h2>\nTo lay my cards on the table, I have to acknowledge that the core of this theory of youth ministry is based largely on my own faith journey.  My own experiences of wrestling with my faith both while growing up and during my theological training at Southeastern Bible College and Yale Divinity School have embedded in my thinking three major principles (its worth acknowledging that I have been greatly aided in articulating the first two by the research of <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195384776/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0195384776&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Christian Smith</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0195384776\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> and his team of sociologists) that lie not far beneath the surface of everything else I will argue for in this article:\n\n<strong><em>First</em>, students won’t believe what they don’t find important.</strong>  When youth find a worship service boring or scoff at the idea of a missions trip, that isn’t just adolescent angst or a social-networking-age induced inability to sit still.  What they are telling you, implicitly, is that they don’t find these things important.  They don’t think they are things that they need, they don’t see them as valuable.  And what they don’t find valuable or important isn’t likely to be something they continue to do for very long after the pressure of parents or other mentoring adults is gone.  Transfer this principle from the activities of the church to the faith of the church: what happens when youth don’t find their faith “valuable” or “important”?  How long will they continue to “believe”?\n\n<strong><em>Second,</em> students won’t find important what they can’t explain the meaning and significance of themselves.</strong>  Too often when we talk about our faith, especially with youth, its the “expert-in-the-room” who does all the talking.  Which results in our youth being unable to explain for themselves why their faith is important to them.  Over time, this leads them to conclude that it isn’t that important (in the same way that most of us decide understanding multivariable calculus isn’t really that important to our lives).  Which, when we are dealing with matters of faith, frequently leads them to question whether they really believe any of it in the first place (circling back to the first principle above).  I’m convinced that successful faith formation with youth has to be about getting our students comfortable explaining what their faith means to them, in their own words using their own voice, so that their faith becomes <em>their</em> faith, something that they find important and worth believing.\n\n<strong><em><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright  wp-image-8745\" alt=\"Student Eating Pizza\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza-300x277.jpg\" width=\"210\" height=\"194\" /></a>Third</em>, youth ministry is about students, not the prestige of the youth minister or the reputation of a local church.</strong>  Kids can tell when they are being used.  And while they might put up with that for a while (especially if they are getting something out of it, like free pizza every week), eventually, when the perks run out, they will run away.\n\nNow, with these principles in mind, let’s work back through the questions posed in part one of this series:\n<h2>The Goal of Youth Ministry</h2>\nThe goal of ministry in general is the proclaiming of the gospel.  Which might seem to indicate that of the two possible goals for youth ministry identified in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>-- evangelizing to kids or creating a safe space for kids to relax and feel loved-- I am choosing outright “evangelism.”\n\nActually, I think that a successful youth ministry can do both.  Maybe it would be better said I think a successful youth ministry should and must do both, in a manner of speaking.  Let me explain:\n\nThroughout the Christian tradition, whether it be in the Pauline notion of general revelation, the Catholic doctrine of Natural Law, or the Wesleyan notion of prevenient grace, Christians believe that the God who stands at the center of all things is reaching out to every person, inviting them to enter into a cosmic drama of redemption.  Twentieth-century theologian <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226803376/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226803376&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Paul Tillich</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0226803376\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> famously described religion as \"the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.”  Perhaps the most effective way for youth (and really, anyone) to discover the value and importance of faith is for them to identify the ways they encounter this ultimate concern in their own life, to articulate their own experience of how God has been and is continuing to reach out to them, to tell the story of their own journey of faith.\n\nAsking them to tell their stories, examining the ways God is at work in their lives, is itself a form of evangelism and can lead to a whole host of incredible conversations about faith.  But it also cannot happen unless students feel “safe.”  In todays world there are very few places where students will ever be asked questions about an “ultimate concern.”  Answering existential questions about faith and its significance to their lives carries with it a certain degree of risk and requires a certain amount of openness to their peers and youth leaders.  And that, in turn, requires them to feel comfortable with and loved by those who are participating in this process with them.  So before a youth ministry can push it students to really think about faith as something meaningful in their lives, it must have created a space where they are willing to enter into the conversation.\n<h2>The Tenor of Youth Ministry</h2>\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8746\" alt=\"Ray of Light\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light-300x219.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>Inviting students to tell their own stories, examining their own lives to see the ways God is reaching out to them and inviting them to participate in the cosmic drama of redemption, requires that the tenor of a youth ministry strike a particular balance.\n\nAs we ask students to analyze their stories and think about what they believe and why it is important and valuable, our conversations must be open to a certain degree of doubt and questioning.  Demanding certainty from students, especially early on in the process of their faith development, leads them to give up on finding their own faith and revert to regurgitating the answers they think you expect.  Room for doubts and honest questions is necessary if we want students to find their own words with which to express their faith.  In a <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/april-2-2013-dr-andrew-root/\">recent talk</a> I heard from <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Root/e/B001JS9RFQ/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;qid=1365627665&amp;sr=1-4&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\" target=\"_blank\">Andy Root</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" />, Professor of Youth Ministry at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, he described the balance that has to be struck this way: “we can say to young people, ‘continue to doubt, continue to wrestle with questions, but continue to do that here.”\n\nThis tenor is set through our own modeling of what we are looking for students to do.  In the same talk, Andy went on to say that “we learn to tell our stories by hearing stories.”  When we model the process of exploring our own lives, describing our faith journeys, and articulating what we believe and why its important for our lives we open up our students to engaging in the same kind of process.  When we model what a confident, vibrant, faith looks like we set a tone that our students will follow.  When we utilize theology to explain the ways we have come to articulate our own faith, we equip students by giving them language with which to describe their experience of God working in their own lives.\n<h2>The Content of Youth Ministry</h2>\nStriking this balance in the tenor of our ministry while inviting students to tell their own faith stories allows us to strike a balance in the content of our ministry between focusing on theology and focusing on practical living.\n\nTheology will be important to a youth ministry because of how it helps us to explain our own faith journeys and helps to equip our students with the language to talk about theirs.  By helping us to articulate our faith clearly, theological language plays a significant role by helping to underscore the importance of our faith.  Simply put: its easier to see the importance of something when you have a clearer understanding of it.\n\nAt the same time, most often our faith stories will themselves reflect our <i>experiences</i> of God in life, and many of the most important questions we will have about our faith have to do with the way it practically effects of our lives.  That means that in inviting students to reflect on what they believe, we also have to invite them to consider the practical importance and significance of those beliefs in their everyday lives.\n<h2>Youth Ministry in the Life of the Church</h2>\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8747\" alt=\"Inviting People In\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In-196x300.jpg\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" /></a>In the first part of this series, I posed a question about how youth should be engaged in the life of a church.  Alternatively, it seems, we can keep kids in worship with the larger church community, often at the risk of letting them become bored or disengaged, or we can keep kids in an “age-appropriate” ministry separate form the rest of the church which then runs the risk of leaving kids without a sense of what the church community really is.\n\nIn reality, of course, we can have both an age-appropriate youth ministry and invite kids to participate in the larger community on Sunday mornings.  The latter part of that, however, is a bit trickier.  How do we make kids feel like they are part of the larger church community, especially when much of that community is made up of adults they may not have had previous meaningful relationships with?\n\nIn <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a> I paraphrased a parable from <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/february-5-2013-dr-roland-martinson/\">Roland Martinson</a> on the importance of having youth be connected to the community in what he refers to as “inter-generational ministry.”  My own feeling, echoing his and grounded in my own experience of church, is that when youth have ways to be involved in worship-- whether that be helping with music, ushering, or setting up chairs-- they gain a sense of ownership that encourages them to want to be part of the community.  Likewise, as a commenter on the first part of this series pointed out, when the congregation’s worship contains at least a few elements intentionally aimed at engaging youth, they are more likely to be interested in sticking around.  By both reaching out to youth and inviting them to become more involved in the community, churches can keep youth engaged in the larger community on Sunday mornings even while also providing them with an “age-appropriate” ministry at other times during the week.\n<h2>Leadership and How to Do That Here</h2>\nTwo of the most pressing and difficult issues for many churches when it comes to youth ministry are, as it was put in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, “who is going to lead it?” and “how do we do that at our church?”  In a way, these are closely related questions: whoever leads a youth ministry is in effect tasked with figuring out how to make it happen.\n\nAt the most basic level, the leader of a youth ministry must be committed to youth, skilled at teaching, and capable of providing pastoral care and thoughtful mentoring to students traveling through a formative period of life.  Such a role could be filled by a lay person or an ordained minister, a “professional” member of the church staff or a volunteer from within the congregation.  Ultimately, I believe, this should be a combination of many people led by a staff “point-person,” likely a pastor or designated youth minister.\n\nIn part this team approach is ideal because it helps to ensure that whoever is responsible for leading or overseeing a youth ministry has the support of the congregation.  One of the commenters on part one of this series noted that youth ministry can often feel like a lonely job.  I remember about six months into one of my first roles in youth ministry being asked by a member of the congregation after the service if I was a new visitor at the church.  To be honest, I was taken aback by the question.  “No, actually, I’m on the staff here,” I managed to mutter.  The question revealed the distance between the congregation and the youth ministry and its leadership.  Such a distance can quickly burn out a youth leader.  For their ministry to be successful, youth leaders need to have the support and backing of the larger church.  That means, I believe, supporting whoever the “point-person” for the youth ministry is with volunteers from the congregation.  It also means ensuring that the youth leader is integrated into the community of other adults at the church and not relegated to always being “with the kids.”\n\nWhat is not required to be a successful youth minister, I believe, is being a young, extreme extrovert, who can’t sit still and understands all the newest trends of youth culture.  Nor does a church need a massive youth budget or the ability to simulate the experience of a rock concert.  More on this in a moment, but suffice it to say that I think people with a variety of personalities, teaching styles, and visions for what their ministry will look like can be very effective in their role provided that they are genuine to themselves and minister to their students out of a love for seeing those students grow and learn in their faith.\n<h2>To Be Relevant, or Not to Be Relevant?</h2>\nThat is the question, perhaps the most disputed one amongst youth ministers today.  It also has a lot do with the practical question of how a particular youth ministry will look on the ground.  Do you need flashy video promos and rock band?  Do you need to be up on all the latest trends in teen pop culture?  Well… probably not.\n\nRelevance in a youth ministry takes three forms:\n\n<em>First,</em> when we are genuinely invested in the lives of our youth, we will become aware of the things that they are interested in.  The more we learn about those things, either through our conversations with them or through listening to the music they are all singing along to in the car on our way to an event or watching some of the you-tube videos they are talking about before youth group, the more we will understand about their world, and, consequently, the more “relevant” our ministry will be, even if we aren’t actively designing a ministry that looks like their culture.\n\n<em>Second,</em> I think relevance is also a factor of empowering student leaders.  One of the most significant things that every happened to me in my journey toward ministry was being asked to plan and lead the music for my high school youth group.  When we make a move to bring students into leadership roles within our group, asking them to help plan activities or lead worship, invariably they will bring something of their own tastes and interests and passions to the table.  And as their creativity impacts what the group looks like, our community and its worship start to look more “relevant” to our youth because they are shaping it, not us.\n\n<em>Third,</em> I think relevance also emerges from youth leaders being themselves.  While the movies we grew up on or the music we love might not always be what our youth are into now, if we are doing the work of building meaningful, ministering relationships with them they will humor us when we share our interests and often times find something about it they like, too.  Relevance doesn’t have to be about staying on the cutting edge of current trends in pop culture, it’s about finding a common language with which to share our experiences with the youth we are serving.\n\nWhen we find such a common language, whether it be through the terms of our own interests or the things our youth are excited about, we create a space where they feel at home and comfortable, opening up the door for them to be willing to engage serious questions about their faith and its meaning for their lives, and allowing us to work with them, helping them learn to articulate this faith and connect with the God who loves them.\n\n<hr />\n\n<em>Alexander Marshall is an experienced youth worker, blogger, writer, and student at Yale Divinity School.  You can connect with him on <a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/alexanderpmarshall\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alexp_marshall\">Twitter</a>, or by <a href=\"http://apmarshall.wordpress.com/\">visiting his blog</a>.</em>\n\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-3','','','2013-04-11 16:28:53','2013-04-11 23:28:53','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/11/8738-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(8750,202,'2013-04-11 16:29:38','2013-04-11 23:29:38','My first experience in youth ministry while in college was at a baptist church in a poor, rural community in Alabama.  The overwhelming majority of the 50 or so regular attendees at the church were over the age of 65.  At some point, kids who lived in the small houses and trailer homes nearby discovered that every Wednesday night this church offered a free, warm meal and they started coming in droves.  Suddenly there were 20+ kids aged 7 to 15 at this church.  None of their families were involved in the congregation.  No one in the church had any youth ministry experience.  So they recruited a few students from nearby Southeastern Bible College to come start a youth program.  Eventually the leader of that program recruited me.\r\n\r\nWe didn’t know what we were doing any more than the people who had called us did, and I’m still not sure how effective we were in our ministry with these kids.  But we played a lot of ping pong and basketball, did our best to teach these kids a few things about God and the Bible, and learned as much as we could as we went along.  Since that experience I’ve had plenty of other opportunities to learn and practice youth ministry, and though I am convinced that anyone who thinks they have youth ministry all “figured out” is either a lunatic or lying, these experiences have taught me a few important principles that I believe lie behind a successful youth ministry.\r\n\r\nIn this article I want to outline a basic “theory” of youth ministry that attempts to address the issues brought up in part one of this series.  The goal is not to create a rigid formula for what youth ministry should look like on the ground.  I don’t have, nor do I think I ever will have, such a formula, so these thoughts are not meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution to every church’s problems.  What I do intend to do is highlight some basic principles that I think are extremely important for any church to think about as they plan and develop their own ministry with youth.  As with <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, this is meant to start a conversation not end one, to provide one perspective on an issue not claim to be the definitive view.  I hope many others will join the discussion that follows and that we will learn more from one another than we could ever claim to know on our own.\r\n<h2>Underlying Principles</h2>\r\nTo lay my cards on the table, I have to acknowledge that the core of this theory of youth ministry is based largely on my own faith journey.  My own experiences of wrestling with my faith both while growing up and during my theological training at Southeastern Bible College and Yale Divinity School have embedded in my thinking three major principles (its worth acknowledging that I have been greatly aided in articulating the first two by the research of <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195384776/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0195384776&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Christian Smith</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0195384776\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> and his team of sociologists) that lie not far beneath the surface of everything else I will argue for in this article:\r\n\r\n<strong><em>First</em>, students won’t believe what they don’t find important.</strong>  When youth find a worship service boring or scoff at the idea of a missions trip, that isn’t just adolescent angst or a social-networking-age induced inability to sit still.  What they are telling you, implicitly, is that they don’t find these things important.  They don’t think they are things that they need, they don’t see them as valuable.  And what they don’t find valuable or important isn’t likely to be something they continue to do for very long after the pressure of parents or other mentoring adults is gone.  Transfer this principle from the activities of the church to the faith of the church: what happens when youth don’t find their faith “valuable” or “important”?  How long will they continue to “believe”?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>Second,</em> students won’t find important what they can’t explain the meaning and significance of themselves.</strong>  Too often when we talk about our faith, especially with youth, its the “expert-in-the-room” who does all the talking.  Which results in our youth being unable to explain for themselves why their faith is important to them.  Over time, this leads them to conclude that it isn’t that important (in the same way that most of us decide understanding multivariable calculus isn’t really that important to our lives).  Which, when we are dealing with matters of faith, frequently leads them to question whether they really believe any of it in the first place (circling back to the first principle above).  I’m convinced that successful faith formation with youth has to be about getting our students comfortable explaining what their faith means to them, in their own words using their own voice, so that their faith becomes <em>their</em> faith, something that they find important and worth believing.\r\n\r\n<strong><em><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright  wp-image-8745\" alt=\"Student Eating Pizza\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza-300x277.jpg\" width=\"210\" height=\"194\" /></a>Third</em>, youth ministry is about students, not the prestige of the youth minister or the reputation of a local church.</strong>  Kids can tell when they are being used.  And while they might put up with that for a while (especially if they are getting something out of it, like free pizza every week), eventually, when the perks run out, they will run away.\r\n\r\nNow, with these principles in mind, let’s work back through the questions posed in part one of this series:\r\n<h2>The Goal of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\nThe goal of ministry in general is the proclaiming of the gospel.  Which might seem to indicate that of the two possible goals for youth ministry identified in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>-- evangelizing to kids or creating a safe space for kids to relax and feel loved-- I am choosing outright “evangelism.”\r\n\r\nActually, I think that a successful youth ministry can do both.  Maybe it would be better said I think a successful youth ministry should and must do both, in a manner of speaking.  Let me explain:\r\n\r\nThroughout the Christian tradition, whether it be in the Pauline notion of general revelation, the Catholic doctrine of Natural Law, or the Wesleyan notion of prevenient grace, Christians believe that the God who stands at the center of all things is reaching out to every person, inviting them to enter into a cosmic drama of redemption.  Twentieth-century theologian <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226803376/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226803376&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Paul Tillich</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0226803376\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> famously described religion as \"the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.”  Perhaps the most effective way for youth (and really, anyone) to discover the value and importance of faith is for them to identify the ways they encounter this ultimate concern in their own life, to articulate their own experience of how God has been and is continuing to reach out to them, to tell the story of their own journey of faith.\r\n\r\nAsking them to tell their stories, examining the ways God is at work in their lives, is itself a form of evangelism and can lead to a whole host of incredible conversations about faith.  But it also cannot happen unless students feel “safe.”  In todays world there are very few places where students will ever be asked questions about an “ultimate concern.”  Answering existential questions about faith and its significance to their lives carries with it a certain degree of risk and requires a certain amount of openness to their peers and youth leaders.  And that, in turn, requires them to feel comfortable with and loved by those who are participating in this process with them.  So before a youth ministry can push it students to really think about faith as something meaningful in their lives, it must have created a space where they are willing to enter into the conversation.\r\n<h2>The Tenor of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8746\" alt=\"Ray of Light\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light-300x219.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>Inviting students to tell their own stories, examining their own lives to see the ways God is reaching out to them and inviting them to participate in the cosmic drama of redemption, requires that the tenor of a youth ministry strike a particular balance.\r\n\r\nAs we ask students to analyze their stories and think about what they believe and why it is important and valuable, our conversations must be open to a certain degree of doubt and questioning.  Demanding certainty from students, especially early on in the process of their faith development, leads them to give up on finding their own faith and revert to regurgitating the answers they think you expect.  Room for doubts and honest questions is necessary if we want students to find their own words with which to express their faith.  In a <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/april-2-2013-dr-andrew-root/\">recent talk</a> I heard from <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Root/e/B001JS9RFQ/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;qid=1365627665&amp;sr=1-4&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\" target=\"_blank\">Andy Root</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" />, Professor of Youth Ministry at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, he described the balance that has to be struck this way: “we can say to young people, ‘continue to doubt, continue to wrestle with questions, but continue to do that here.”\r\n\r\nThis tenor is set through our own modeling of what we are looking for students to do.  In the same talk, Andy went on to say that “we learn to tell our stories by hearing stories.”  When we model the process of exploring our own lives, describing our faith journeys, and articulating what we believe and why its important for our lives we open up our students to engaging in the same kind of process.  When we model what a confident, vibrant, faith looks like we set a tone that our students will follow.  When we utilize theology to explain the ways we have come to articulate our own faith, we equip students by giving them language with which to describe their experience of God working in their own lives.\r\n<h2>The Content of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\nStriking this balance in the tenor of our ministry while inviting students to tell their own faith stories allows us to strike a balance in the content of our ministry between focusing on theology and focusing on practical living.\r\n\r\nTheology will be important to a youth ministry because of how it helps us to explain our own faith journeys and helps to equip our students with the language to talk about theirs.  By helping us to articulate our faith clearly, theological language plays a significant role by helping to underscore the importance of our faith.  Simply put: its easier to see the importance of something when you have a clearer understanding of it.\r\n\r\nAt the same time, most often our faith stories will themselves reflect our <i>experiences</i> of God in life, and many of the most important questions we will have about our faith have to do with the way it practically effects of our lives.  That means that in inviting students to reflect on what they believe, we also have to invite them to consider the practical importance and significance of those beliefs in their everyday lives.\r\n<h2>Youth Ministry in the Life of the Church</h2>\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8747\" alt=\"Inviting People In\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In-196x300.jpg\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" /></a>In the first part of this series, I posed a question about how youth should be engaged in the life of a church.  Alternatively, it seems, we can keep kids in worship with the larger church community, often at the risk of letting them become bored or disengaged, or we can keep kids in an “age-appropriate” ministry separate form the rest of the church which then runs the risk of leaving kids without a sense of what the church community really is.\r\n\r\nIn reality, of course, we can have both an age-appropriate youth ministry and invite kids to participate in the larger community on Sunday mornings.  The latter part of that, however, is a bit trickier.  How do we make kids feel like they are part of the larger church community, especially when much of that community is made up of adults they may not have had previous meaningful relationships with?\r\n\r\nIn <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a> I paraphrased a parable from <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/february-5-2013-dr-roland-martinson/\">Roland Martinson</a> on the importance of having youth be connected to the community in what he refers to as “inter-generational ministry.”  My own feeling, echoing his and grounded in my own experience of church, is that when youth have ways to be involved in worship-- whether that be helping with music, ushering, or setting up chairs-- they gain a sense of ownership that encourages them to want to be part of the community.  Likewise, as a commenter on the first part of this series pointed out, when the congregation’s worship contains at least a few elements intentionally aimed at engaging youth, they are more likely to be interested in sticking around.  By both reaching out to youth and inviting them to become more involved in the community, churches can keep youth engaged in the larger community on Sunday mornings even while also providing them with an “age-appropriate” ministry at other times during the week.\r\n<h2>Leadership and How to Do That Here</h2>\r\nTwo of the most pressing and difficult issues for many churches when it comes to youth ministry are, as it was put in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, “who is going to lead it?” and “how do we do that at our church?”  In a way, these are closely related questions: whoever leads a youth ministry is in effect tasked with figuring out how to make it happen.\r\n\r\nAt the most basic level, the leader of a youth ministry must be committed to youth, skilled at teaching, and capable of providing pastoral care and thoughtful mentoring to students traveling through a formative period of life.  Such a role could be filled by a lay person or an ordained minister, a “professional” member of the church staff or a volunteer from within the congregation.  Ultimately, I believe, this should be a combination of many people led by a staff “point-person,” likely a pastor or designated youth minister.\r\n\r\nIn part this team approach is ideal because it helps to ensure that whoever is responsible for leading or overseeing a youth ministry has the support of the congregation.  One of the commenters on part one of this series noted that youth ministry can often feel like a lonely job.  I remember about six months into one of my first roles in youth ministry being asked by a member of the congregation after the service if I was a new visitor at the church.  To be honest, I was taken aback by the question.  “No, actually, I’m on the staff here,” I managed to mutter.  The question revealed the distance between the congregation and the youth ministry and its leadership.  Such a distance can quickly burn out a youth leader.  For their ministry to be successful, youth leaders need to have the support and backing of the larger church.  That means, I believe, supporting whoever the “point-person” for the youth ministry is with volunteers from the congregation.  It also means ensuring that the youth leader is integrated into the community of other adults at the church and not relegated to always being “with the kids.”\r\n\r\nWhat is not required to be a successful youth minister, I believe, is being a young, extreme extrovert, who can’t sit still and understands all the newest trends of youth culture.  Nor does a church need a massive youth budget or the ability to simulate the experience of a rock concert.  More on this in a moment, but suffice it to say that I think people with a variety of personalities, teaching styles, and visions for what their ministry will look like can be very effective in their role provided that they are genuine to themselves and minister to their students out of a love for seeing those students grow and learn in their faith.\r\n<h2>To Be Relevant, or Not to Be Relevant?</h2>\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8748\" alt=\"Mega-Church Interior\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>That is the question, perhaps the most disputed one amongst youth ministers today.  It also has a lot do with the practical question of how a particular youth ministry will look on the ground.  Do you need flashy video promos and rock band?  Do you need to be up on all the latest trends in teen pop culture?  Well… probably not.\r\n\r\nRelevance in a youth ministry takes three forms:\r\n\r\n<em>First,</em> when we are genuinely invested in the lives of our youth, we will become aware of the things that they are interested in.  The more we learn about those things, either through our conversations with them or through listening to the music they are all singing along to in the car on our way to an event or watching some of the you-tube videos they are talking about before youth group, the more we will understand about their world, and, consequently, the more “relevant” our ministry will be, even if we aren’t actively designing a ministry that looks like their culture.\r\n\r\n<em>Second,</em> I think relevance is also a factor of empowering student leaders.  One of the most significant things that every happened to me in my journey toward ministry was being asked to plan and lead the music for my high school youth group.  When we make a move to bring students into leadership roles within our group, asking them to help plan activities or lead worship, invariably they will bring something of their own tastes and interests and passions to the table.  And as their creativity impacts what the group looks like, our community and its worship start to look more “relevant” to our youth because they are shaping it, not us.\r\n\r\n<em>Third,</em> I think relevance also emerges from youth leaders being themselves.  While the movies we grew up on or the music we love might not always be what our youth are into now, if we are doing the work of building meaningful, ministering relationships with them they will humor us when we share our interests and often times find something about it they like, too.  Relevance doesn’t have to be about staying on the cutting edge of current trends in pop culture, it’s about finding a common language with which to share our experiences with the youth we are serving.\r\n\r\nWhen we find such a common language, whether it be through the terms of our own interests or the things our youth are excited about, we create a space where they feel at home and comfortable, opening up the door for them to be willing to engage serious questions about their faith and its meaning for their lives, and allowing us to work with them, helping them learn to articulate this faith and connect with the God who loves them.\r\n\r\n<hr />\r\n\r\n<em>Alexander Marshall is an experienced youth worker, blogger, writer, and student at Yale Divinity School.  You can connect with him on <a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/alexanderpmarshall\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alexp_marshall\">Twitter</a>, or by <a href=\"http://apmarshall.wordpress.com/\">visiting his blog</a>.</em>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-4','','','2013-04-11 16:29:38','2013-04-11 23:29:38','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/11/8738-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(8752,202,'2013-04-11 16:30:49','2013-04-11 23:30:49','My first experience in youth ministry while in college was at a baptist church in a poor, rural community in Alabama.  The overwhelming majority of the 50 or so regular attendees at the church were over the age of 65.  At some point, kids who lived in the small houses and trailer homes nearby discovered that every Wednesday night this church offered a free, warm meal and they started coming in droves.  Suddenly there were 20+ kids aged 7 to 15 at this church.  None of their families were involved in the congregation.  No one in the church had any youth ministry experience.  So they recruited a few students from nearby Southeastern Bible College to come start a youth program.  Eventually the leader of that program recruited me.\r\n\r\nWe didn’t know what we were doing any more than the people who had called us did, and I’m still not sure how effective we were in our ministry with these kids.  But we played a lot of ping pong and basketball, did our best to teach these kids a few things about God and the Bible, and learned as much as we could as we went along.  Since that experience I’ve had plenty of other opportunities to learn and practice youth ministry, and though I am convinced that anyone who thinks they have youth ministry all “figured out” is either a lunatic or lying, these experiences have taught me a few important principles that I believe lie behind a successful youth ministry.\r\n\r\nIn this article I want to outline a basic “theory” of youth ministry that attempts to address the issues brought up in part one of this series.  The goal is not to create a rigid formula for what youth ministry should look like on the ground.  I don’t have, nor do I think I ever will have, such a formula, so these thoughts are not meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution to every church’s problems.  What I do intend to do is highlight some basic principles that I think are extremely important for any church to think about as they plan and develop their own ministry with youth.  As with <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, this is meant to start a conversation not end one, to provide one perspective on an issue not claim to be the definitive view.  I hope many others will join the discussion that follows and that we will learn more from one another than we could ever claim to know on our own.\r\n<h2>Underlying Principles</h2>\r\nTo lay my cards on the table, I have to acknowledge that the core of this theory of youth ministry is based largely on my own faith journey.  My own experiences of wrestling with my faith both while growing up and during my theological training at Southeastern Bible College and Yale Divinity School have embedded in my thinking three major principles (its worth acknowledging that I have been greatly aided in articulating the first two by the research of <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195384776/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0195384776&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Christian Smith</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0195384776\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> and his team of sociologists) that lie not far beneath the surface of everything else I will argue for in this article:\r\n\r\n<strong><em>First</em>, students won’t believe what they don’t find important.</strong>  When youth find a worship service boring or scoff at the idea of a missions trip, that isn’t just adolescent angst or a social-networking-age induced inability to sit still.  What they are telling you, implicitly, is that they don’t find these things important.  They don’t think they are things that they need, they don’t see them as valuable.  And what they don’t find valuable or important isn’t likely to be something they continue to do for very long after the pressure of parents or other mentoring adults is gone.  Transfer this principle from the activities of the church to the faith of the church: what happens when youth don’t find their faith “valuable” or “important”?  How long will they continue to “believe”?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>Second,</em> students won’t find important what they can’t explain the meaning and significance of themselves.</strong>  Too often when we talk about our faith, especially with youth, its the “expert-in-the-room” who does all the talking.  Which results in our youth being unable to explain for themselves why their faith is important to them.  Over time, this leads them to conclude that it isn’t that important (in the same way that most of us decide understanding multivariable calculus isn’t really that important to our lives).  Which, when we are dealing with matters of faith, frequently leads them to question whether they really believe any of it in the first place (circling back to the first principle above).  I’m convinced that successful faith formation with youth has to be about getting our students comfortable explaining what their faith means to them, in their own words using their own voice, so that their faith becomes <em>their</em> faith, something that they find important and worth believing.\r\n\r\n<strong><em><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright  wp-image-8745\" alt=\"Student Eating Pizza\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza-300x277.jpg\" width=\"210\" height=\"194\" /></a>Third</em>, youth ministry is about students, not the prestige of the youth minister or the reputation of a local church.</strong>  Kids can tell when they are being used.  And while they might put up with that for a while (especially if they are getting something out of it, like free pizza every week), eventually, when the perks run out, they will run away.\r\n\r\nNow, with these principles in mind, let’s work back through the questions posed in part one of this series:\r\n<h2>The Goal of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\nThe goal of ministry in general is the proclaiming of the gospel.  Which might seem to indicate that of the two possible goals for youth ministry identified in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>-- evangelizing to kids or creating a safe space for kids to relax and feel loved-- I am choosing outright “evangelism.”\r\n\r\nActually, I think that a successful youth ministry can do both.  Maybe it would be better said I think a successful youth ministry should and must do both, in a manner of speaking.  Let me explain:\r\n\r\nThroughout the Christian tradition, whether it be in the Pauline notion of general revelation, the Catholic doctrine of Natural Law, or the Wesleyan notion of prevenient grace, Christians believe that the God who stands at the center of all things is reaching out to every person, inviting them to enter into a cosmic drama of redemption.  Twentieth-century theologian <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226803376/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226803376&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Paul Tillich</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0226803376\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> famously described religion as \"the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.”  Perhaps the most effective way for youth (and really, anyone) to discover the value and importance of faith is for them to identify the ways they encounter this ultimate concern in their own life, to articulate their own experience of how God has been and is continuing to reach out to them, to tell the story of their own journey of faith.\r\n\r\nAsking them to tell their stories, examining the ways God is at work in their lives, is itself a form of evangelism and can lead to a whole host of incredible conversations about faith.  But it also cannot happen unless students feel “safe.”  In todays world there are very few places where students will ever be asked questions about an “ultimate concern.”  Answering existential questions about faith and its significance to their lives carries with it a certain degree of risk and requires a certain amount of openness to their peers and youth leaders.  And that, in turn, requires them to feel comfortable with and loved by those who are participating in this process with them.  So before a youth ministry can push it students to really think about faith as something meaningful in their lives, it must have created a space where they are willing to enter into the conversation.\r\n<h2>The Tenor of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8746\" alt=\"Ray of Light\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light-300x219.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>Inviting students to tell their own stories, examining their own lives to see the ways God is reaching out to them and inviting them to participate in the cosmic drama of redemption, requires that the tenor of a youth ministry strike a particular balance.\r\n\r\nAs we ask students to analyze their stories and think about what they believe and why it is important and valuable, our conversations must be open to a certain degree of doubt and questioning.  Demanding certainty from students, especially early on in the process of their faith development, leads them to give up on finding their own faith and revert to regurgitating the answers they think you expect.  Room for doubts and honest questions is necessary if we want students to find their own words with which to express their faith.  In a <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/april-2-2013-dr-andrew-root/\">recent talk</a> I heard from <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Root/e/B001JS9RFQ/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;qid=1365627665&amp;sr=1-4&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\" target=\"_blank\">Andy Root</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" />, Professor of Youth Ministry at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, he described the balance that has to be struck this way: “we can say to young people, ‘continue to doubt, continue to wrestle with questions, but continue to do that here.”\r\n\r\nThis tenor is set through our own modeling of what we are looking for students to do.  In the same talk, Andy went on to say that “we learn to tell our stories by hearing stories.”  When we model the process of exploring our own lives, describing our faith journeys, and articulating what we believe and why its important for our lives we open up our students to engaging in the same kind of process.  When we model what a confident, vibrant, faith looks like we set a tone that our students will follow.  When we utilize theology to explain the ways we have come to articulate our own faith, we equip students by giving them language with which to describe their experience of God working in their own lives.\r\n<h2>The Content of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\nStriking this balance in the tenor of our ministry while inviting students to tell their own faith stories allows us to strike a balance in the content of our ministry between focusing on theology and focusing on practical living.\r\n\r\nTheology will be important to a youth ministry because of how it helps us to explain our own faith journeys and helps to equip our students with the language to talk about theirs.  By helping us to articulate our faith clearly, theological language plays a significant role by helping to underscore the importance of our faith.  Simply put: its easier to see the importance of something when you have a clearer understanding of it.\r\n\r\nAt the same time, most often our faith stories will themselves reflect our <i>experiences</i> of God in life, and many of the most important questions we will have about our faith have to do with the way it practically effects of our lives.  That means that in inviting students to reflect on what they believe, we also have to invite them to consider the practical importance and significance of those beliefs in their everyday lives.\r\n<h2>Youth Ministry in the Life of the Church</h2>\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8747\" alt=\"Inviting People In\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In-196x300.jpg\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" /></a>In the first part of this series, I posed a question about how youth should be engaged in the life of a church.  Alternatively, it seems, we can keep kids in worship with the larger church community, often at the risk of letting them become bored or disengaged, or we can keep kids in an “age-appropriate” ministry separate form the rest of the church which then runs the risk of leaving kids without a sense of what the church community really is.\r\n\r\nIn reality, of course, we can have both an age-appropriate youth ministry and invite kids to participate in the larger community on Sunday mornings.  The latter part of that, however, is a bit trickier.  How do we make kids feel like they are part of the larger church community, especially when much of that community is made up of adults they may not have had previous meaningful relationships with?\r\n\r\nIn <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a> I paraphrased a parable from <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/february-5-2013-dr-roland-martinson/\">Roland Martinson</a> on the importance of having youth be connected to the community in what he refers to as “inter-generational ministry.”  My own feeling, echoing his and grounded in my own experience of church, is that when youth have ways to be involved in worship-- whether that be helping with music, ushering, or setting up chairs-- they gain a sense of ownership that encourages them to want to be part of the community.  Likewise, as a commenter on the first part of this series pointed out, when the congregation’s worship contains at least a few elements intentionally aimed at engaging youth, they are more likely to be interested in sticking around.  By both reaching out to youth and inviting them to become more involved in the community, churches can keep youth engaged in the larger community on Sunday mornings even while also providing them with an “age-appropriate” ministry at other times during the week.\r\n<h2>Leadership and How to Do That Here</h2>\r\nTwo of the most pressing and difficult issues for many churches when it comes to youth ministry are, as it was put in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, “who is going to lead it?” and “how do we do that at our church?”  In a way, these are closely related questions: whoever leads a youth ministry is in effect tasked with figuring out how to make it happen.\r\n\r\nAt the most basic level, the leader of a youth ministry must be committed to youth, skilled at teaching, and capable of providing pastoral care and thoughtful mentoring to students traveling through a formative period of life.  Such a role could be filled by a lay person or an ordained minister, a “professional” member of the church staff or a volunteer from within the congregation.  Ultimately, I believe, this should be a combination of many people led by a staff “point-person,” likely a pastor or designated youth minister.\r\n\r\nIn part this team approach is ideal because it helps to ensure that whoever is responsible for leading or overseeing a youth ministry has the support of the congregation.  One of the commenters on part one of this series noted that youth ministry can often feel like a lonely job.  I remember about six months into one of my first roles in youth ministry being asked by a member of the congregation after the service if I was a new visitor at the church.  To be honest, I was taken aback by the question.  “No, actually, I’m on the staff here,” I managed to mutter.  The question revealed the distance between the congregation and the youth ministry and its leadership.  Such a distance can quickly burn out a youth leader.  For their ministry to be successful, youth leaders need to have the support and backing of the larger church.  That means, I believe, supporting whoever the “point-person” for the youth ministry is with volunteers from the congregation.  It also means ensuring that the youth leader is integrated into the community of other adults at the church and not relegated to always being “with the kids.”\r\n\r\nWhat is not required to be a successful youth minister, I believe, is being a young, extreme extrovert, who can’t sit still and understands all the newest trends of youth culture.  Nor does a church need a massive youth budget or the ability to simulate the experience of a rock concert.  More on this in a moment, but suffice it to say that I think people with a variety of personalities, teaching styles, and visions for what their ministry will look like can be very effective in their role provided that they are genuine to themselves and minister to their students out of a love for seeing those students grow and learn in their faith.\r\n<h2>To Be Relevant, or Not to Be Relevant?</h2>\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8748\" alt=\"Mega-Church Interior\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>That is the question, perhaps the most disputed one amongst youth ministers today.  It also has a lot do with the practical question of how a particular youth ministry will look on the ground.  Do you need flashy video promos and rock band?  Do you need to be up on all the latest trends in teen pop culture?  Well… probably not.\r\n\r\nRelevance in a youth ministry takes three forms:\r\n\r\n<em>First,</em> when we are genuinely invested in the lives of our youth, we will become aware of the things that they are interested in.  The more we learn about those things, either through our conversations with them or through listening to the music they are all singing along to in the car on our way to an event or watching some of the you-tube videos they are talking about before youth group, the more we will understand about their world, and, consequently, the more “relevant” our ministry will be, even if we aren’t actively designing a ministry that looks like their culture.\r\n\r\n<em>Second,</em> I think relevance is also a factor of empowering student leaders.  One of the most significant things that every happened to me in my journey toward ministry was being asked to plan and lead the music for my high school youth group.  When we make a move to bring students into leadership roles within our group, asking them to help plan activities or lead worship, invariably they will bring something of their own tastes and interests and passions to the table.  And as their creativity impacts what the group looks like, our community and its worship start to look more “relevant” to our youth because they are shaping it, not us.\r\n\r\n<em>Third,</em> I think relevance also emerges from youth leaders being themselves.  While the movies we grew up on or the music we love might not always be what our youth are into now, if we are doing the work of building meaningful, ministering relationships with them they will humor us when we share our interests and often times find something about it they like, too.  Relevance doesn’t have to be about staying on the cutting edge of current trends in pop culture, it’s about finding a common language with which to share our experiences with the youth we are serving.\r\n\r\nWhen we find such a common language, whether it be through the terms of our own interests or the things our youth are excited about, we create a space where they feel at home and comfortable, opening up the door for them to be willing to engage serious questions about their faith and its meaning for their lives, and allowing us to work with them, helping them learn to articulate this faith and connect with the God who loves them.\r\n\r\n<hr />\r\n\r\n<em>Alexander Marshall is an experienced youth worker, blogger, writer, and student at Yale Divinity School.  You can connect with him on <a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/alexanderpmarshall\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alexp_marshall\">Twitter</a>, or by <a href=\"http://apmarshall.wordpress.com/\">visiting his blog</a>.</em>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-6','','','2013-04-11 16:30:49','2013-04-11 23:30:49','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/11/8738-revision-6/',0,'revision','',0),(8751,202,'2013-04-11 16:30:12','2013-04-11 23:30:12','<p>My first experience in youth ministry while in college was at a baptist church in a poor, rural community in Alabama.  The overwhelming majority of the 50 or so regular attendees at the church were over the age of 65.  At some point, kids who lived in the small houses and trailer homes nearby discovered that every Wednesday night this church offered a free, warm meal and they started coming in droves.  Suddenly there were 20+ kids aged 7 to 15 at this church.  None of their families were involved in the congregation.  No one in the church had any youth ministry experience.  So they recruited a few students from nearby Southeastern Bible College to come start a youth program.  Eventually the leader of that program recruited me.</p>\r\n<p>We didn’t know what we were doing any more than the people who had called us did, and I’m still not sure how effective we were in our ministry with these kids.  But we played a lot of ping pong and basketball, did our best to teach these kids a few things about God and the Bible, and learned as much as we could as we went along.  Since that experience I’ve had plenty of other opportunities to learn and practice youth ministry, and though I am convinced that anyone who thinks they have youth ministry all “figured out” is either a lunatic or lying, these experiences have taught me a few important principles that I believe lie behind a successful youth ministry.</p>\r\n<p>In this article I want to outline a basic “theory” of youth ministry that attempts to address the issues brought up in part one of this series.  The goal is not to create a rigid formula for what youth ministry should look like on the ground.  I don’t have, nor do I think I ever will have, such a formula, so these thoughts are not meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution to every church’s problems.  What I do intend to do is highlight some basic principles that I think are extremely important for any church to think about as they plan and develop their own ministry with youth.  As with <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, this is meant to start a conversation not end one, to provide one perspective on an issue not claim to be the definitive view.  I hope many others will join the discussion that follows and that we will learn more from one another than we could ever claim to know on our own.</p>\r\n<h2>Underlying Principles</h2>\r\n<p>To lay my cards on the table, I have to acknowledge that the core of this theory of youth ministry is based largely on my own faith journey.  My own experiences of wrestling with my faith both while growing up and during my theological training at Southeastern Bible College and Yale Divinity School have embedded in my thinking three major principles (its worth acknowledging that I have been greatly aided in articulating the first two by the research of <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195384776/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0195384776&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Christian Smith</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0195384776\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> and his team of sociologists) that lie not far beneath the surface of everything else I will argue for in this article:</p>\r\n<p><strong><em>First</em>, students won’t believe what they don’t find important.</strong>  When youth find a worship service boring or scoff at the idea of a missions trip, that isn’t just adolescent angst or a social-networking-age induced inability to sit still.  What they are telling you, implicitly, is that they don’t find these things important.  They don’t think they are things that they need, they don’t see them as valuable.  And what they don’t find valuable or important isn’t likely to be something they continue to do for very long after the pressure of parents or other mentoring adults is gone.  Transfer this principle from the activities of the church to the faith of the church: what happens when youth don’t find their faith “valuable” or “important”?  How long will they continue to “believe”?</p>\r\n<p><strong><em>Second,</em> students won’t find important what they can’t explain the meaning and significance of themselves.</strong>  Too often when we talk about our faith, especially with youth, its the “expert-in-the-room” who does all the talking.  Which results in our youth being unable to explain for themselves why their faith is important to them.  Over time, this leads them to conclude that it isn’t that important (in the same way that most of us decide understanding multivariable calculus isn’t really that important to our lives).  Which, when we are dealing with matters of faith, frequently leads them to question whether they really believe any of it in the first place (circling back to the first principle above).  I’m convinced that successful faith formation with youth has to be about getting our students comfortable explaining what their faith means to them, in their own words using their own voice, so that their faith becomes <em>their</em> faith, something that they find important and worth believing.</p>\r\n<p><strong><em><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright  wp-image-8745\" alt=\"Student Eating Pizza\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza-300x277.jpg\" width=\"210\" height=\"194\" /></a>Third</em>, youth ministry is about students, not the prestige of the youth minister or the reputation of a local church.</strong>  Kids can tell when they are being used.  And while they might put up with that for a while (especially if they are getting something out of it, like free pizza every week), eventually, when the perks run out, they will run away.</p>\r\n<p>Now, with these principles in mind, let’s work back through the questions posed in part one of this series:</p>\r\n<h2>The Goal of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\n<p>The goal of ministry in general is the proclaiming of the gospel.  Which might seem to indicate that of the two possible goals for youth ministry identified in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>-- evangelizing to kids or creating a safe space for kids to relax and feel loved-- I am choosing outright “evangelism.”</p>\r\n<p>Actually, I think that a successful youth ministry can do both.  Maybe it would be better said I think a successful youth ministry should and must do both, in a manner of speaking.  Let me explain:</p>\r\n<p>Throughout the Christian tradition, whether it be in the Pauline notion of general revelation, the Catholic doctrine of Natural Law, or the Wesleyan notion of prevenient grace, Christians believe that the God who stands at the center of all things is reaching out to every person, inviting them to enter into a cosmic drama of redemption.  Twentieth-century theologian <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226803376/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226803376&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Paul Tillich</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0226803376\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> famously described religion as \"the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.”  Perhaps the most effective way for youth (and really, anyone) to discover the value and importance of faith is for them to identify the ways they encounter this ultimate concern in their own life, to articulate their own experience of how God has been and is continuing to reach out to them, to tell the story of their own journey of faith.</p>\r\n<p>Asking them to tell their stories, examining the ways God is at work in their lives, is itself a form of evangelism and can lead to a whole host of incredible conversations about faith.  But it also cannot happen unless students feel “safe.”  In todays world there are very few places where students will ever be asked questions about an “ultimate concern.”  Answering existential questions about faith and its significance to their lives carries with it a certain degree of risk and requires a certain amount of openness to their peers and youth leaders.  And that, in turn, requires them to feel comfortable with and loved by those who are participating in this process with them.  So before a youth ministry can push it students to really think about faith as something meaningful in their lives, it must have created a space where they are willing to enter into the conversation.</p>\r\n<h2>The Tenor of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8746\" alt=\"Ray of Light\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light-300x219.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>Inviting students to tell their own stories, examining their own lives to see the ways God is reaching out to them and inviting them to participate in the cosmic drama of redemption, requires that the tenor of a youth ministry strike a particular balance.</p>\r\n<p>As we ask students to analyze their stories and think about what they believe and why it is important and valuable, our conversations must be open to a certain degree of doubt and questioning.  Demanding certainty from students, especially early on in the process of their faith development, leads them to give up on finding their own faith and revert to regurgitating the answers they think you expect.  Room for doubts and honest questions is necessary if we want students to find their own words with which to express their faith.  In a <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/april-2-2013-dr-andrew-root/\">recent talk</a> I heard from <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Root/e/B001JS9RFQ/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;qid=1365627665&amp;sr=1-4&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\" target=\"_blank\">Andy Root</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" />, Professor of Youth Ministry at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, he described the balance that has to be struck this way: “we can say to young people, ‘continue to doubt, continue to wrestle with questions, but continue to do that here.”</p>\r\n<p>This tenor is set through our own modeling of what we are looking for students to do.  In the same talk, Andy went on to say that “we learn to tell our stories by hearing stories.”  When we model the process of exploring our own lives, describing our faith journeys, and articulating what we believe and why its important for our lives we open up our students to engaging in the same kind of process.  When we model what a confident, vibrant, faith looks like we set a tone that our students will follow.  When we utilize theology to explain the ways we have come to articulate our own faith, we equip students by giving them language with which to describe their experience of God working in their own lives.</p>\r\n<h2>The Content of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\n<p>Striking this balance in the tenor of our ministry while inviting students to tell their own faith stories allows us to strike a balance in the content of our ministry between focusing on theology and focusing on practical living.</p>\r\n<p>Theology will be important to a youth ministry because of how it helps us to explain our own faith journeys and helps to equip our students with the language to talk about theirs.  By helping us to articulate our faith clearly, theological language plays a significant role by helping to underscore the importance of our faith.  Simply put: its easier to see the importance of something when you have a clearer understanding of it.</p>\r\n<p>At the same time, most often our faith stories will themselves reflect our <i>experiences</i> of God in life, and many of the most important questions we will have about our faith have to do with the way it practically effects of our lives.  That means that in inviting students to reflect on what they believe, we also have to invite them to consider the practical importance and significance of those beliefs in their everyday lives.</p>\r\n<h2>Youth Ministry in the Life of the Church</h2>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8747\" alt=\"Inviting People In\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In-196x300.jpg\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" /></a>In the first part of this series, I posed a question about how youth should be engaged in the life of a church.  Alternatively, it seems, we can keep kids in worship with the larger church community, often at the risk of letting them become bored or disengaged, or we can keep kids in an “age-appropriate” ministry separate form the rest of the church which then runs the risk of leaving kids without a sense of what the church community really is.</p>\r\n<p>In reality, of course, we can have both an age-appropriate youth ministry and invite kids to participate in the larger community on Sunday mornings.  The latter part of that, however, is a bit trickier.  How do we make kids feel like they are part of the larger church community, especially when much of that community is made up of adults they may not have had previous meaningful relationships with?</p>\r\n<p>In <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a> I paraphrased a parable from <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/february-5-2013-dr-roland-martinson/\">Roland Martinson</a> on the importance of having youth be connected to the community in what he refers to as “inter-generational ministry.”  My own feeling, echoing his and grounded in my own experience of church, is that when youth have ways to be involved in worship-- whether that be helping with music, ushering, or setting up chairs-- they gain a sense of ownership that encourages them to want to be part of the community.  Likewise, as a commenter on the first part of this series pointed out, when the congregation’s worship contains at least a few elements intentionally aimed at engaging youth, they are more likely to be interested in sticking around.  By both reaching out to youth and inviting them to become more involved in the community, churches can keep youth engaged in the larger community on Sunday mornings even while also providing them with an “age-appropriate” ministry at other times during the week.</p>\r\n<h2>Leadership and How to Do That Here</h2>\r\n<p>Two of the most pressing and difficult issues for many churches when it comes to youth ministry are, as it was put in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, “who is going to lead it?” and “how do we do that at our church?”  In a way, these are closely related questions: whoever leads a youth ministry is in effect tasked with figuring out how to make it happen.</p>\r\n<p>At the most basic level, the leader of a youth ministry must be committed to youth, skilled at teaching, and capable of providing pastoral care and thoughtful mentoring to students traveling through a formative period of life.  Such a role could be filled by a lay person or an ordained minister, a “professional” member of the church staff or a volunteer from within the congregation.  Ultimately, I believe, this should be a combination of many people led by a staff “point-person,” likely a pastor or designated youth minister.</p>\r\n<p>In part this team approach is ideal because it helps to ensure that whoever is responsible for leading or overseeing a youth ministry has the support of the congregation.  One of the commenters on part one of this series noted that youth ministry can often feel like a lonely job.  I remember about six months into one of my first roles in youth ministry being asked by a member of the congregation after the service if I was a new visitor at the church.  To be honest, I was taken aback by the question.  “No, actually, I’m on the staff here,” I managed to mutter.  The question revealed the distance between the congregation and the youth ministry and its leadership.  Such a distance can quickly burn out a youth leader.  For their ministry to be successful, youth leaders need to have the support and backing of the larger church.  That means, I believe, supporting whoever the “point-person” for the youth ministry is with volunteers from the congregation.  It also means ensuring that the youth leader is integrated into the community of other adults at the church and not relegated to always being “with the kids.”</p>\r\n<p>What is not required to be a successful youth minister, I believe, is being a young, extreme extrovert, who can’t sit still and understands all the newest trends of youth culture.  Nor does a church need a massive youth budget or the ability to simulate the experience of a rock concert.  More on this in a moment, but suffice it to say that I think people with a variety of personalities, teaching styles, and visions for what their ministry will look like can be very effective in their role provided that they are genuine to themselves and minister to their students out of a love for seeing those students grow and learn in their faith.</p>\r\n<h2>To Be Relevant, or Not to Be Relevant?</h2>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8748\" alt=\"Mega-Church Interior\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>That is the question, perhaps the most disputed one amongst youth ministers today.  It also has a lot do with the practical question of how a particular youth ministry will look on the ground.  Do you need flashy video promos and rock band?  Do you need to be up on all the latest trends in teen pop culture?  Well… probably not.</p>\r\n<p>Relevance in a youth ministry takes three forms:</p>\r\n<p><em>First,</em> when we are genuinely invested in the lives of our youth, we will become aware of the things that they are interested in.  The more we learn about those things, either through our conversations with them or through listening to the music they are all singing along to in the car on our way to an event or watching some of the you-tube videos they are talking about before youth group, the more we will understand about their world, and, consequently, the more “relevant” our ministry will be, even if we aren’t actively designing a ministry that looks like their culture.</p>\r\n<p><em>Second,</em> I think relevance is also a factor of empowering student leaders.  One of the most significant things that every happened to me in my journey toward ministry was being asked to plan and lead the music for my high school youth group.  When we make a move to bring students into leadership roles within our group, asking them to help plan activities or lead worship, invariably they will bring something of their own tastes and interests and passions to the table.  And as their creativity impacts what the group looks like, our community and its worship start to look more “relevant” to our youth because they are shaping it, not us.</p>\r\n<p><em>Third,</em> I think relevance also emerges from youth leaders being themselves.  While the movies we grew up on or the music we love might not always be what our youth are into now, if we are doing the work of building meaningful, ministering relationships with them they will humor us when we share our interests and often times find something about it they like, too.  Relevance doesn’t have to be about staying on the cutting edge of current trends in pop culture, it’s about finding a common language with which to share our experiences with the youth we are serving.</p>\r\n<p>When we find such a common language, whether it be through the terms of our own interests or the things our youth are excited about, we create a space where they feel at home and comfortable, opening up the door for them to be willing to engage serious questions about their faith and its meaning for their lives, and allowing us to work with them, helping them learn to articulate this faith and connect with the God who loves them.</p>\r\n<hr />\r\n<p><em>Alexander Marshall is an experienced youth worker, blogger, writer, and student at Yale Divinity School.  You can connect with him on <a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/alexanderpmarshall\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alexp_marshall\">Twitter</a>, or by <a href=\"http://apmarshall.wordpress.com/\">visiting his blog</a>.</em></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-5','','','2013-04-11 16:30:12','2013-04-11 23:30:12','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/11/8738-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(8753,202,'2013-04-11 16:30:59','2013-04-11 23:30:59','My first experience in youth ministry while in college was at a baptist church in a poor, rural community in Alabama.  The overwhelming majority of the 50 or so regular attendees at the church were over the age of 65.  At some point, kids who lived in the small houses and trailer homes nearby discovered that every Wednesday night this church offered a free, warm meal and they started coming in droves.  Suddenly there were 20+ kids aged 7 to 15 at this church.  None of their families were involved in the congregation.  No one in the church had any youth ministry experience.  So they recruited a few students from nearby Southeastern Bible College to come start a youth program.  Eventually the leader of that program recruited me.\r\n\r\nWe didn’t know what we were doing any more than the people who had called us did, and I’m still not sure how effective we were in our ministry with these kids.  But we played a lot of ping pong and basketball, did our best to teach these kids a few things about God and the Bible, and learned as much as we could as we went along.  Since that experience I’ve had plenty of other opportunities to learn and practice youth ministry, and though I am convinced that anyone who thinks they have youth ministry all “figured out” is either a lunatic or lying, these experiences have taught me a few important principles that I believe lie behind a successful youth ministry.\r\n\r\nIn this article I want to outline a basic “theory” of youth ministry that attempts to address the issues brought up in part one of this series.  The goal is not to create a rigid formula for what youth ministry should look like on the ground.  I don’t have, nor do I think I ever will have, such a formula, so these thoughts are not meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution to every church’s problems.  What I do intend to do is highlight some basic principles that I think are extremely important for any church to think about as they plan and develop their own ministry with youth.  As with <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, this is meant to start a conversation not end one, to provide one perspective on an issue not claim to be the definitive view.  I hope many others will join the discussion that follows and that we will learn more from one another than we could ever claim to know on our own.\r\n<h2>Underlying Principles</h2>\r\nTo lay my cards on the table, I have to acknowledge that the core of this theory of youth ministry is based largely on my own faith journey.  My own experiences of wrestling with my faith both while growing up and during my theological training at Southeastern Bible College and Yale Divinity School have embedded in my thinking three major principles (its worth acknowledging that I have been greatly aided in articulating the first two by the research of <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195384776/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0195384776&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Christian Smith</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0195384776\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> and his team of sociologists) that lie not far beneath the surface of everything else I will argue for in this article:\r\n\r\n<strong><em>First</em>, students won’t believe what they don’t find important.</strong>  When youth find a worship service boring or scoff at the idea of a missions trip, that isn’t just adolescent angst or a social-networking-age induced inability to sit still.  What they are telling you, implicitly, is that they don’t find these things important.  They don’t think they are things that they need, they don’t see them as valuable.  And what they don’t find valuable or important isn’t likely to be something they continue to do for very long after the pressure of parents or other mentoring adults is gone.  Transfer this principle from the activities of the church to the faith of the church: what happens when youth don’t find their faith “valuable” or “important”?  How long will they continue to “believe”?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>Second,</em> students won’t find important what they can’t explain the meaning and significance of themselves.</strong>  Too often when we talk about our faith, especially with youth, its the “expert-in-the-room” who does all the talking.  Which results in our youth being unable to explain for themselves why their faith is important to them.  Over time, this leads them to conclude that it isn’t that important (in the same way that most of us decide understanding multivariable calculus isn’t really that important to our lives).  Which, when we are dealing with matters of faith, frequently leads them to question whether they really believe any of it in the first place (circling back to the first principle above).  I’m convinced that successful faith formation with youth has to be about getting our students comfortable explaining what their faith means to them, in their own words using their own voice, so that their faith becomes <em>their</em> faith, something that they find important and worth believing.\r\n\r\n<strong><em><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright  wp-image-8745\" alt=\"Student Eating Pizza\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza-300x277.jpg\" width=\"210\" height=\"194\" /></a>Third</em>, youth ministry is about students, not the prestige of the youth minister or the reputation of a local church.</strong>  Kids can tell when they are being used.  And while they might put up with that for a while (especially if they are getting something out of it, like free pizza every week), eventually, when the perks run out, they will run away.\r\n\r\nNow, with these principles in mind, let’s work back through the questions posed in part one of this series:\r\n<h2>The Goal of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\nThe goal of ministry in general is the proclaiming of the gospel.  Which might seem to indicate that of the two possible goals for youth ministry identified in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>-- evangelizing to kids or creating a safe space for kids to relax and feel loved-- I am choosing outright “evangelism.”\r\n\r\nActually, I think that a successful youth ministry can do both.  Maybe it would be better said I think a successful youth ministry should and must do both, in a manner of speaking.  Let me explain:\r\n\r\nThroughout the Christian tradition, whether it be in the Pauline notion of general revelation, the Catholic doctrine of Natural Law, or the Wesleyan notion of prevenient grace, Christians believe that the God who stands at the center of all things is reaching out to every person, inviting them to enter into a cosmic drama of redemption.  Twentieth-century theologian <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226803376/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226803376&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Paul Tillich</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0226803376\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> famously described religion as \"the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.”  Perhaps the most effective way for youth (and really, anyone) to discover the value and importance of faith is for them to identify the ways they encounter this ultimate concern in their own life, to articulate their own experience of how God has been and is continuing to reach out to them, to tell the story of their own journey of faith.\r\n\r\nAsking them to tell their stories, examining the ways God is at work in their lives, is itself a form of evangelism and can lead to a whole host of incredible conversations about faith.  But it also cannot happen unless students feel “safe.”  In todays world there are very few places where students will ever be asked questions about an “ultimate concern.”  Answering existential questions about faith and its significance to their lives carries with it a certain degree of risk and requires a certain amount of openness to their peers and youth leaders.  And that, in turn, requires them to feel comfortable with and loved by those who are participating in this process with them.  So before a youth ministry can push it students to really think about faith as something meaningful in their lives, it must have created a space where they are willing to enter into the conversation.\r\n<h2>The Tenor of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8746\" alt=\"Ray of Light\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light-300x219.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>Inviting students to tell their own stories, examining their own lives to see the ways God is reaching out to them and inviting them to participate in the cosmic drama of redemption, requires that the tenor of a youth ministry strike a particular balance.\r\n\r\nAs we ask students to analyze their stories and think about what they believe and why it is important and valuable, our conversations must be open to a certain degree of doubt and questioning.  Demanding certainty from students, especially early on in the process of their faith development, leads them to give up on finding their own faith and revert to regurgitating the answers they think you expect.  Room for doubts and honest questions is necessary if we want students to find their own words with which to express their faith.  In a <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/april-2-2013-dr-andrew-root/\">recent talk</a> I heard from <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Root/e/B001JS9RFQ/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;qid=1365627665&amp;sr=1-4&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\" target=\"_blank\">Andy Root</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" />, Professor of Youth Ministry at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, he described the balance that has to be struck this way: “we can say to young people, ‘continue to doubt, continue to wrestle with questions, but continue to do that here.”\r\n\r\nThis tenor is set through our own modeling of what we are looking for students to do.  In the same talk, Andy went on to say that “we learn to tell our stories by hearing stories.”  When we model the process of exploring our own lives, describing our faith journeys, and articulating what we believe and why its important for our lives we open up our students to engaging in the same kind of process.  When we model what a confident, vibrant, faith looks like we set a tone that our students will follow.  When we utilize theology to explain the ways we have come to articulate our own faith, we equip students by giving them language with which to describe their experience of God working in their own lives.\r\n<h2>The Content of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\nStriking this balance in the tenor of our ministry while inviting students to tell their own faith stories allows us to strike a balance in the content of our ministry between focusing on theology and focusing on practical living.\r\n\r\nTheology will be important to a youth ministry because of how it helps us to explain our own faith journeys and helps to equip our students with the language to talk about theirs.  By helping us to articulate our faith clearly, theological language plays a significant role by helping to underscore the importance of our faith.  Simply put: its easier to see the importance of something when you have a clearer understanding of it.\r\n\r\nAt the same time, most often our faith stories will themselves reflect our <i>experiences</i> of God in life, and many of the most important questions we will have about our faith have to do with the way it practically effects of our lives.  That means that in inviting students to reflect on what they believe, we also have to invite them to consider the practical importance and significance of those beliefs in their everyday lives.\r\n<h2>Youth Ministry in the Life of the Church</h2>\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8747\" alt=\"Inviting People In\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In-196x300.jpg\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" /></a>In the first part of this series, I posed a question about how youth should be engaged in the life of a church.  Alternatively, it seems, we can keep kids in worship with the larger church community, often at the risk of letting them become bored or disengaged, or we can keep kids in an “age-appropriate” ministry separate form the rest of the church which then runs the risk of leaving kids without a sense of what the church community really is.\r\n\r\nIn reality, of course, we can have both an age-appropriate youth ministry and invite kids to participate in the larger community on Sunday mornings.  The latter part of that, however, is a bit trickier.  How do we make kids feel like they are part of the larger church community, especially when much of that community is made up of adults they may not have had previous meaningful relationships with?\r\n\r\nIn <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a> I paraphrased a parable from <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/february-5-2013-dr-roland-martinson/\">Roland Martinson</a> on the importance of having youth be connected to the community in what he refers to as “inter-generational ministry.”  My own feeling, echoing his and grounded in my own experience of church, is that when youth have ways to be involved in worship-- whether that be helping with music, ushering, or setting up chairs-- they gain a sense of ownership that encourages them to want to be part of the community.  Likewise, as a commenter on the first part of this series pointed out, when the congregation’s worship contains at least a few elements intentionally aimed at engaging youth, they are more likely to be interested in sticking around.  By both reaching out to youth and inviting them to become more involved in the community, churches can keep youth engaged in the larger community on Sunday mornings even while also providing them with an “age-appropriate” ministry at other times during the week.\r\n<h2>Leadership and How to Do That Here</h2>\r\nTwo of the most pressing and difficult issues for many churches when it comes to youth ministry are, as it was put in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, “who is going to lead it?” and “how do we do that at our church?”  In a way, these are closely related questions: whoever leads a youth ministry is in effect tasked with figuring out how to make it happen.\r\n\r\nAt the most basic level, the leader of a youth ministry must be committed to youth, skilled at teaching, and capable of providing pastoral care and thoughtful mentoring to students traveling through a formative period of life.  Such a role could be filled by a lay person or an ordained minister, a “professional” member of the church staff or a volunteer from within the congregation.  Ultimately, I believe, this should be a combination of many people led by a staff “point-person,” likely a pastor or designated youth minister.\r\n\r\nIn part this team approach is ideal because it helps to ensure that whoever is responsible for leading or overseeing a youth ministry has the support of the congregation.  One of the commenters on part one of this series noted that youth ministry can often feel like a lonely job.  I remember about six months into one of my first roles in youth ministry being asked by a member of the congregation after the service if I was a new visitor at the church.  To be honest, I was taken aback by the question.  “No, actually, I’m on the staff here,” I managed to mutter.  The question revealed the distance between the congregation and the youth ministry and its leadership.  Such a distance can quickly burn out a youth leader.  For their ministry to be successful, youth leaders need to have the support and backing of the larger church.  That means, I believe, supporting whoever the “point-person” for the youth ministry is with volunteers from the congregation.  It also means ensuring that the youth leader is integrated into the community of other adults at the church and not relegated to always being “with the kids.”\r\n\r\nWhat is not required to be a successful youth minister, I believe, is being a young, extreme extrovert, who can’t sit still and understands all the newest trends of youth culture.  Nor does a church need a massive youth budget or the ability to simulate the experience of a rock concert.  More on this in a moment, but suffice it to say that I think people with a variety of personalities, teaching styles, and visions for what their ministry will look like can be very effective in their role provided that they are genuine to themselves and minister to their students out of a love for seeing those students grow and learn in their faith.\r\n<h2>To Be Relevant, or Not to Be Relevant?</h2>\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8748\" alt=\"Mega-Church Interior\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>That is the question, perhaps the most disputed one amongst youth ministers today.  It also has a lot do with the practical question of how a particular youth ministry will look on the ground.  Do you need flashy video promos and rock band?  Do you need to be up on all the latest trends in teen pop culture?  Well… probably not.\r\n\r\nRelevance in a youth ministry takes three forms:\r\n\r\n<em>First,</em> when we are genuinely invested in the lives of our youth, we will become aware of the things that they are interested in.  The more we learn about those things, either through our conversations with them or through listening to the music they are all singing along to in the car on our way to an event or watching some of the you-tube videos they are talking about before youth group, the more we will understand about their world, and, consequently, the more “relevant” our ministry will be, even if we aren’t actively designing a ministry that looks like their culture.\r\n\r\n<em>Second,</em> I think relevance is also a factor of empowering student leaders.  One of the most significant things that every happened to me in my journey toward ministry was being asked to plan and lead the music for my high school youth group.  When we make a move to bring students into leadership roles within our group, asking them to help plan activities or lead worship, invariably they will bring something of their own tastes and interests and passions to the table.  And as their creativity impacts what the group looks like, our community and its worship start to look more “relevant” to our youth because they are shaping it, not us.\r\n\r\n<em>Third,</em> I think relevance also emerges from youth leaders being themselves.  While the movies we grew up on or the music we love might not always be what our youth are into now, if we are doing the work of building meaningful, ministering relationships with them they will humor us when we share our interests and often times find something about it they like, too.  Relevance doesn’t have to be about staying on the cutting edge of current trends in pop culture, it’s about finding a common language with which to share our experiences with the youth we are serving.\r\n\r\nWhen we find such a common language, whether it be through the terms of our own interests or the things our youth are excited about, we create a space where they feel at home and comfortable, opening up the door for them to be willing to engage serious questions about their faith and its meaning for their lives, and allowing us to work with them, helping them learn to articulate this faith and connect with the God who loves them.\r\n\r\n<hr />\r\n\r\n<em>Alexander Marshall is an experienced youth worker, blogger, writer, and student at Yale Divinity School.  You can connect with him on <a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/alexanderpmarshall\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alexp_marshall\">Twitter</a>, or by <a href=\"http://apmarshall.wordpress.com/\">visiting his blog</a>.</em>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-7','','','2013-04-11 16:30:59','2013-04-11 23:30:59','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/11/8738-revision-7/',0,'revision','',0),(8754,202,'2013-04-11 16:38:41','2013-04-11 23:38:41','My first experience in youth ministry while in college was at a baptist church in a poor, rural community in Alabama.  The overwhelming majority of the 50 or so regular attendees at the church were over the age of 65.  At some point, kids who lived in the small houses and trailer homes nearby discovered that every Wednesday night this church offered a free, warm meal and they started coming in droves.  Suddenly there were 20+ kids aged 7 to 15 at this church.  None of their families were involved in the congregation.  No one in the church had any youth ministry experience.  So they recruited a few students from nearby <a href=\"http://www.sebc.edu\">Southeastern Bible College</a> to come start a youth program.  Eventually the leader of that program recruited me.\n\nWe didn’t know what we were doing any more than the people who had called us did, and I’m still not sure how effective we were in our ministry with these kids.  But we played a lot of ping pong and basketball, did our best to teach a few things about God and the Bible, and learned as much as we could as we went along.  Since that experience I’ve had plenty of other opportunities to learn about and practice youth ministry, and though I am convinced that anyone who thinks they have youth ministry \"all figured out” is either a lunatic or lying, these experiences have taught me a few important principles that I want to share.\n\nIn this article I want to outline a basic “theory” of youth ministry that attempts to address the issues brought up in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one of this series</a>.  The goal is not to create a rigid formula for what every youth ministry should look like.  I don’t have, nor do I think I ever will have, such a formula, so these thoughts are not meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution to every church’s questions.  What I do intend to do is highlight some basic principles that I think are extremely important for any church to think about as they plan and develop their own ministry with youth.  As with <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, this is meant to start a conversation not end one, to provide one perspective on an issue not claim to be the definitive view.  I hope many others will join the discussion that follows and that we will learn more from one another than we could ever claim to know on our own.\n<h2>Underlying Principles</h2>\nTo lay my cards on the table, I have to acknowledge that the core of this theory of youth ministry is based largely on my own faith journey.  My own experiences of wrestling with my faith both while growing up and during my theological training at <a href=\"http://www.sebc.edu\">Southeastern Bible College</a> and <a href=\"http://divinity.yale.edu\">Yale Divinity School</a> have embedded in my thinking three major principles that lie not far beneath the surface of everything else I will argue for in this article (its worth acknowledging that I have been greatly aided in articulating the first two by the research of <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195384776/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0195384776&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Christian Smith</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0195384776\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> and his team of sociologists):\n\n<strong><em>First</em>, students won’t believe what they don’t find important.</strong>  When youth find a worship service boring or scoff at the idea of a missions trip, that isn’t just adolescent angst or a social-networking-age induced inability to sit still.  What they are telling you, implicitly, is that they don’t find these things important.  They don’t think they are things that they need, they don’t see them as valuable.  And what they don’t find valuable or important isn’t likely to be something they continue to do for very long after the pressure of parents or other mentoring adults is gone.  Transfer this principle from the activities of the church to the faith of the church: what happens when youth don’t find their faith “valuable” or “important”?  How long will they continue to “believe”?\n\n<strong><em>Second,</em> students won’t find important what they can’t explain the meaning and significance of themselves.</strong>  Too often when we talk about our faith, especially with youth, its the “expert-in-the-room” who does all the talking.  Which results in our youth being unable to explain for themselves why their faith is important to them.  Over time, this leads them to conclude that it isn’t that important (in the same way that most of us decide understanding multivariable calculus isn’t really that important to our lives).  Which, when we are dealing with matters of faith, frequently leads them to question whether they really believe any of it in the first place (circling back to the first principle above).  I’m convinced that successful faith formation with youth has to be about getting our students comfortable explaining what their faith means to them, in their own words using their own voice, so that their faith becomes <em>their</em> faith, something that they find important and worth believing.\n\n<strong><em><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright  wp-image-8745\" alt=\"Student Eating Pizza\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza-300x277.jpg\" width=\"210\" height=\"194\" /></a>Third</em>, youth ministry is about students, not the prestige of the youth minister or the reputation of a local church.</strong>  Kids can tell when they are being used.  And while they might put up with that for a while (especially if they are getting something out of it, like free pizza every week), eventually, when the perks run out, they will run away.\n\nNow, with these principles in mind, let’s work back through the questions posed in part one of this series:\n<h2>The Goal of Youth Ministry</h2>\nThe goal of ministry in general is the proclaiming of the gospel.  Which might seem to indicate that of the two possible goals for youth ministry identified in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>-- evangelizing to kids or creating a safe space for kids to relax and feel loved-- I am choosing outright “evangelism.”\n\nActually, I think that a successful youth ministry can do both.  Maybe it would be better said I think a successful youth ministry should and must do both, in a manner of speaking.  Let me explain:\n\nThroughout the Christian tradition, whether it be in the Pauline notion of general revelation, the Catholic doctrine of Natural Law, or the Wesleyan notion of prevenient grace, Christians believe that the God who stands at the center of all things is reaching out to every person, inviting them to enter into a cosmic drama of redemption.  Twentieth-century theologian <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226803376/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226803376&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Paul Tillich</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0226803376\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> famously described religion as \"the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.”  Perhaps the most effective way for youth (and really, anyone) to discover the value and importance of faith is for them to identify the ways they encounter this ultimate concern in their own life, to articulate their own experience of how God has been and is continuing to reach out to them, to tell the story of their own journey of faith.\n\nAsking them to tell their stories, examining the ways God is at work in their lives, is itself a form of evangelism and can lead to a whole host of incredible conversations about faith.  But it also cannot happen unless students feel “safe.”  In todays world there are very few places where students will ever be asked questions about an “ultimate concern.”  Answering existential questions about faith and its significance to their lives carries with it a certain degree of risk and requires a certain amount of openness to their peers and youth leaders.  And that, in turn, requires them to feel comfortable with and loved by those who are participating in this process with them.  So before a youth ministry can push it students to really think about faith as something meaningful in their lives, it must have created a space where they are willing to enter into the conversation.\n<h2>The Tenor of Youth Ministry</h2>\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8746\" alt=\"Ray of Light\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light-300x219.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>Inviting students to tell their own stories, examining their own lives to see the ways God is reaching out to them and inviting them to participate in the cosmic drama of redemption, requires that the tenor of a youth ministry strike a particular balance.\n\nAs we ask students to analyze their stories and think about what they believe and why it is important and valuable, our conversations must be open to a certain degree of doubt and questioning.  Demanding certainty from students, especially early on in the process of their faith development, leads them to give up on finding their own faith and revert to regurgitating the answers they think you expect.  Room for doubts and honest questions is necessary if we want students to find their own words with which to express their faith.  In a <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/april-2-2013-dr-andrew-root/\">recent talk</a> I heard from <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Root/e/B001JS9RFQ/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;qid=1365627665&amp;sr=1-4&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\" target=\"_blank\">Andy Root</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" />, Professor of Youth Ministry at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, he described the balance that has to be struck this way: “we can say to young people, ‘continue to doubt, continue to wrestle with questions, but continue to do that here.”\n\nThis tenor is set through our own modeling of what we are looking for students to do.  In the same talk, Andy went on to say that “we learn to tell our stories by hearing stories.”  When we model the process of exploring our own lives, describing our faith journeys, and articulating what we believe and why its important for our lives we open up our students to engaging in the same kind of process.  When we model what a confident, vibrant, faith looks like we set a tone that our students will follow.  When we utilize theology to explain the ways we have come to articulate our own faith, we equip students by giving them language with which to describe their experience of God working in their own lives.\n<h2>The Content of Youth Ministry</h2>\nStriking this balance in the tenor of our ministry while inviting students to tell their own faith stories allows us to strike a balance in the content of our ministry between focusing on theology and focusing on practical living.\n\nTheology will be important to a youth ministry because of how it helps us to explain our own faith journeys and helps to equip our students with the language to talk about theirs.  By helping us to articulate our faith clearly, theological language plays a significant role by helping to underscore the importance of our faith.  Simply put: its easier to see the importance of something when you have a clearer understanding of it.\n\nAt the same time, most often our faith stories will themselves reflect our <i>experiences</i> of God in life, and many of the most important questions we will have about our faith have to do with the way it practically effects of our lives.  That means that in inviting students to reflect on what they believe, we also have to invite them to consider the practical importance and significance of those beliefs in their everyday lives.\n<h2>Youth Ministry in the Life of the Church</h2>\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8747\" alt=\"Inviting People In\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In-196x300.jpg\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" /></a>In the first part of this series, I posed a question about how youth should be engaged in the life of a church.  Alternatively, it seems, we can keep kids in worship with the larger church community, often at the risk of letting them become bored or disengaged, or we can keep kids in an “age-appropriate” ministry separate form the rest of the church which then runs the risk of leaving kids without a sense of what the church community really is.\n\nIn reality, of course, we can have both an age-appropriate youth ministry and invite kids to participate in the larger community on Sunday mornings.  The latter part of that, however, is a bit trickier.  How do we make kids feel like they are part of the larger church community, especially when much of that community is made up of adults they may not have had previous meaningful relationships with?\n\nIn <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a> I paraphrased a parable from <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/february-5-2013-dr-roland-martinson/\">Roland Martinson</a> on the importance of having youth be connected to the community in what he refers to as “inter-generational ministry.”  My own feeling, echoing his and grounded in my own experience of church, is that when youth have ways to be involved in worship-- whether that be helping with music, ushering, or setting up chairs-- they gain a sense of ownership that encourages them to want to be part of the community.  Likewise, as a commenter on the first part of this series pointed out, when the congregation’s worship contains at least a few elements intentionally aimed at engaging youth, they are more likely to be interested in sticking around.  By both reaching out to youth and inviting them to become more involved in the community, churches can keep youth engaged in the larger community on Sunday mornings even while also providing them with an “age-appropriate” ministry at other times during the week.\n<h2>Leadership and How to Do That Here</h2>\nTwo of the most pressing and difficult issues for many churches when it comes to youth ministry are, as it was put in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, “who is going to lead it?” and “how do we do that at our church?”  In a way, these are closely related questions: whoever leads a youth ministry is in effect tasked with figuring out how to make it happen.\n\nAt the most basic level, the leader of a youth ministry must be committed to youth, skilled at teaching, and capable of providing pastoral care and thoughtful mentoring to students traveling through a formative period of life.  Such a role could be filled by a lay person or an ordained minister, a “professional” member of the church staff or a volunteer from within the congregation.  Ultimately, I believe, this should be a combination of many people led by a staff “point-person,” likely a pastor or designated youth minister.\n\nIn part this team approach is ideal because it helps to ensure that whoever is responsible for leading or overseeing a youth ministry has the support of the congregation.  One of the commenters on part one of this series noted that youth ministry can often feel like a lonely job.  I remember about six months into one of my first roles in youth ministry being asked by a member of the congregation after the service if I was a new visitor at the church.  To be honest, I was taken aback by the question.  “No, actually, I’m on the staff here,” I managed to mutter.  The question revealed the distance between the congregation and the youth ministry and its leadership.  Such a distance can quickly burn out a youth leader.  For their ministry to be successful, youth leaders need to have the support and backing of the larger church.  That means, I believe, supporting whoever the “point-person” for the youth ministry is with volunteers from the congregation.  It also means ensuring that the youth leader is integrated into the community of other adults at the church and not relegated to always being “with the kids.”\n\nWhat is not required to be a successful youth minister, I believe, is being a young, extreme extrovert, who can’t sit still and understands all the newest trends of youth culture.  Nor does a church need a massive youth budget or the ability to simulate the experience of a rock concert.  More on this in a moment, but suffice it to say that I think people with a variety of personalities, teaching styles, and visions for what their ministry will look like can be very effective in their role provided that they are genuine to themselves and minister to their students out of a love for seeing those students grow and learn in their faith.\n<h2>To Be Relevant, or Not to Be Relevant?</h2>\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8748\" alt=\"Mega-Church Interior\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>That is the question, perhaps the most disputed one amongst youth ministers today.  It also has a lot do with the practical question of how a particular youth ministry will look on the ground.  Do you need flashy video promos and rock band?  Do you need to be up on all the latest trends in teen pop culture?  Well… probably not.\n\nRelevance in a youth ministry takes three forms:\n\n<em>First,</em> when we are genuinely invested in the lives of our youth, we will become aware of the things that they are interested in.  The more we learn about those things, either through our conversations with them or through listening to the music they are all singing along to in the car on our way to an event or watching some of the you-tube videos they are talking about before youth group, the more we will understand about their world, and, consequently, the more “relevant” our ministry will be, even if we aren’t actively designing a ministry that looks like their culture.\n\n<em>Second,</em> I think relevance is also a factor of empowering student leaders.  One of the most significant things that every happened to me in my journey toward ministry was being asked to plan and lead the music for my high school youth group.  When we make a move to bring students into leadership roles within our group, asking them to help plan activities or lead worship, invariably they will bring something of their own tastes and interests and passions to the table.  And as their creativity impacts what the group looks like, our community and its worship start to look more “relevant” to our youth because they are shaping it, not us.\n\n<em>Third,</em> I think relevance also emerges from youth leaders being themselves.  While the movies we grew up on or the music we love might not always be what our youth are into now, if we are doing the work of building meaningful, ministering relationships with them they will humor us when we share our interests and often times find something about it they like, too.  Relevance doesn’t have to be about staying on the cutting edge of current trends in pop culture, it’s about finding a common language with which to share our experiences with the youth we are serving.\n\nWhen we find such a common language, whether it be through the terms of our own interests or the things our youth are excited about, we create a space where they feel at home and comfortable, opening up the door for them to be willing to engage serious questions about their faith and its meaning for their lives, and allowing us to work with them, helping them learn to articulate this faith and connect with the God who loves them.\n\n<hr />\n\n<em>Alexander Marshall is an experienced youth worker, blogger, writer, and student at Yale Divinity School.  You can connect with him on <a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/alexanderpmarshall\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alexp_marshall\">Twitter</a>, or by <a href=\"http://apmarshall.wordpress.com/\">visiting his blog</a>.</em>\n\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-8','','','2013-04-11 16:38:41','2013-04-11 23:38:41','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/11/8738-revision-8/',0,'revision','',0),(8762,202,'2013-04-12 22:49:09','2013-04-13 05:49:09','My first experience in youth ministry while in college was at a baptist church in a poor, rural community in Alabama.  The overwhelming majority of the 50 or so regular attendees at the church were over the age of 65.  At some point, kids who lived in the small houses and trailer homes nearby discovered that every Wednesday night this church offered a free, warm meal and they started coming in droves.  Suddenly there were 20+ kids aged 7 to 15 at this church.  None of their families were involved in the congregation.  No one in the church had any youth ministry experience.  So they recruited a few students from nearby <a href=\"http://www.sebc.edu\">Southeastern Bible College</a> to come start a youth program.  Eventually the leader of that program recruited me.\n\nWe didn’t know what we were doing any more than the people who had called us did, and I’m still not sure how effective we were in our ministry with these kids.  But we played a lot of ping pong and basketball, did our best to teach a few things about God and the Bible, and learned as much as we could as we went along.  Since that experience I’ve had plenty of other opportunities to learn about and practice youth ministry, and though I am convinced that anyone who thinks they have youth ministry \"all figured out” is either a lunatic or lying, these experiences have taught me a few important principles that I want to share.\n\nIn this article I want to outline a basic “theory” of youth ministry that attempts to address the issues brought up in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one of this series</a>.  The goal is not to create a rigid formula for what every youth ministry should look like.  I don’t have, nor do I think I ever will have, such a formula, so these thoughts are not meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution to every church’s questions.  What I do intend to do is highlight some basic principles that I think are extremely important for any church to think about as they plan and develop their own ministry with youth.  As with <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, this is meant to start a conversation not end one, to provide one perspective on an issue not claim to be the definitive view.  I hope many others will join the discussion that follows and that we will learn more from one another than we could ever claim to know on our own.\n<h2>Underlying Principles</h2>\nTo lay my cards on the table, I have to acknowledge that the core of this theory of youth ministry is based largely on my own faith journey.  My own experiences of wrestling with my faith both while growing up and during my theological training at <a href=\"http://www.sebc.edu\">Southeastern Bible College</a> and <a href=\"http://divinity.yale.edu\">Yale Divinity School</a> have embedded in my thinking three major principles that lie not far beneath the surface of everything else I will argue for in this article (its worth acknowledging that I have been greatly aided in articulating the first two by the research of <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195384776/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0195384776&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Christian Smith</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0195384776\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> and his team of sociologists):\n\n<strong><em>First</em>, students won’t believe what they don’t find important.</strong>  When youth find a worship service boring or scoff at the idea of a missions trip, that isn’t just adolescent angst or a social-networking-age induced inability to sit still.  What they are telling you, implicitly, is that they don’t find these things important.  They don’t think they are things that they need, they don’t see them as valuable.  And what they don’t find valuable or important isn’t likely to be something they continue to do for very long after the pressure of parents or other mentoring adults is gone.  Transfer this principle from the activities of the church to the faith of the church: what happens when youth don’t find their faith “valuable” or “important”?  How long will they continue to “believe”?\n\n<strong><em>Second,</em> students won’t find important what they can’t explain the meaning and significance of themselves.</strong>  Too often when we talk about our faith, especially with youth, its the “expert-in-the-room” who does all the talking.  Which results in our youth being unable to explain for themselves why their faith is important to them.  Over time, this leads them to conclude that it isn’t that important (in the same way that most of us decide understanding multivariable calculus isn’t really that important to our lives).  Which, when we are dealing with matters of faith, frequently leads them to question whether they really believe any of it in the first place (circling back to the first principle above).  I’m convinced that successful faith formation with youth has to be about getting our students comfortable explaining what their faith means to them, in their own words using their own voice, so that their faith becomes <em>their</em> faith, something that they find important and worth believing.\n\n<strong><em><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright  wp-image-8745\" alt=\"Student Eating Pizza\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza-300x277.jpg\" width=\"210\" height=\"194\" /></a>Third</em>, youth ministry is about students, not the prestige of the youth minister or the reputation of a local church.</strong>  Kids can tell when they are being used.  And while they might put up with that for a while (especially if they are getting something out of it, like free pizza every week), eventually, when the perks run out, they will run away.\n\nNow, with these principles in mind, let’s work back through the questions posed in part one of this series:\n<h2>The Goal of Youth Ministry</h2>\nThe goal of ministry in general is the proclaiming of the gospel.  Which might seem to indicate that of the two possible goals for youth ministry identified in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>-- evangelizing to kids or creating a safe space for kids to relax and feel loved-- I am choosing outright “evangelism.”\n\nActually, I think that a successful youth ministry can do both.  Maybe it would be better said I think a successful youth ministry should and must do both, in a manner of speaking.  Let me explain:\n\nThroughout the Christian tradition, whether it be in the Pauline notion of general revelation, the Catholic doctrine of Natural Law, or the Wesleyan notion of prevenient grace, Christians believe that the God who stands at the center of all things is reaching out to every person, inviting them to enter into a cosmic drama of redemption.  Twentieth-century theologian <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226803376/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226803376&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Paul Tillich</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0226803376\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> famously described religion as \"the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.”  Perhaps the most effective way for youth (and really, anyone) to discover the value and importance of faith is for them to identify the ways they encounter this ultimate concern in their own life, to articulate their own experience of how God has been and is continuing to reach out to them, to tell the story of their own journey of faith.\n\nAsking them to tell their stories, examining the ways God is at work in their lives, is itself a form of evangelism and can lead to a whole host of incredible conversations about faith.  But it also cannot happen unless students feel “safe.”  In todays world there are very few places where students will ever be asked questions about an “ultimate concern.”  Answering existential questions about faith and its significance to their lives carries with it a certain degree of risk and requires a certain amount of openness to their peers and youth leaders.  And that, in turn, requires them to feel comfortable with and loved by those who are participating in this process with them.  So before a youth ministry can push it students to really think about faith as something meaningful in their lives, it must have created a space where they are willing to enter into the conversation.\n<h2>The Tenor of Youth Ministry</h2>\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8746\" alt=\"Ray of Light\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light-300x219.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>Inviting students to tell their own stories, examining their own lives to see the ways God is reaching out to them and inviting them to participate in the cosmic drama of redemption, requires that the tenor of a youth ministry strike a particular balance.\n\nAs we ask students to analyze their stories and think about what they believe and why it is important and valuable, our conversations must be open to a certain degree of doubt and questioning.  Demanding certainty from students, especially early on in the process of their faith development, leads them to give up on finding their own faith and revert to regurgitating the answers they think you expect.  Room for doubts and honest questions is necessary if we want students to find their own words with which to express their faith.  In a <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/april-2-2013-dr-andrew-root/\">recent talk</a> I heard from <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Root/e/B001JS9RFQ/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;qid=1365627665&amp;sr=1-4&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\" target=\"_blank\">Andy Root</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" />, Professor of Youth Ministry at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, he described the balance that has to be struck this way: “we can say to young people, ‘continue to doubt, continue to wrestle with questions, but continue to do that here.”\n\nThis tenor is set through our own modeling of what we are looking for students to do.  In the same talk, Andy went on to say that “we learn to tell our stories by hearing stories.”  When we model the process of exploring our own lives, describing our faith journeys, and articulating what we believe and why its important for our lives we open up our students to engaging in the same kind of process.  When we model what a confident, vibrant, faith looks like we set a tone that our students will follow.  When we utilize theology to explain the ways we have come to articulate our own faith, we equip students by giving them language with which to describe their experience of God working in their own lives.\n<h2>The Content of Youth Ministry</h2>\nStriking this balance in the tenor of our ministry while inviting students to tell their own faith stories allows us to strike a balance in the content of our ministry between focusing on theology and focusing on practical living.\n\nTheology will be important to a youth ministry because of how it helps us to explain our own faith journeys and helps to equip our students with the language to talk about theirs.  By helping us to articulate our faith clearly, theological language plays a significant role by helping to underscore the importance of our faith.  Simply put: its easier to see the importance of something when you have a clearer understanding of it.\n\nAt the same time, most often our faith stories will themselves reflect our <i>experiences</i> of God in life, and many of the most important questions we will have about our faith have to do with the way it practically effects of our lives.  That means that in inviting students to reflect on what they believe, we also have to invite them to consider the practical importance and significance of those beliefs in their everyday lives.\n<h2>Youth Ministry in the Life of the Church</h2>\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8747\" alt=\"Inviting People In\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In-196x300.jpg\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" /></a>In the first part of this series, I posed a question about how youth should be engaged in the life of a church.  Alternatively, it seems, we can keep kids in worship with the larger church community, often at the risk of letting them become bored or disengaged, or we can keep kids in an “age-appropriate” ministry separate form the rest of the church which then runs the risk of leaving kids without a sense of what the church community really is.\n\nIn reality, of course, we can have both an age-appropriate youth ministry and invite kids to participate in the larger community on Sunday mornings.  The latter part of that, however, is a bit trickier.  How do we make kids feel like they are part of the larger church community, especially when much of that community is made up of adults they may not have had previous meaningful relationships with?\n\nIn <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a> I paraphrased a parable from <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/february-5-2013-dr-roland-martinson/\">Roland Martinson</a> on the importance of having youth be connected to the community in what he refers to as “inter-generational ministry.”  My own feeling, echoing his and grounded in my own experience of church, is that when youth have ways to be involved in worship-- whether that be helping with music, ushering, or setting up chairs-- they gain a sense of ownership that encourages them to want to be part of the community.  Likewise, as a commenter on the first part of this series pointed out, when the congregation’s worship contains at least a few elements intentionally aimed at engaging youth, they are more likely to be interested in sticking around.  By both reaching out to youth and inviting them to become more involved in the community, churches can keep youth engaged in the larger community on Sunday mornings even while also providing them with an “age-appropriate” ministry at other times during the week.\n<h2>Leadership and How to Do That Here</h2>\nTwo of the most pressing and difficult issues for many churches when it comes to youth ministry are, as it was put in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, “who is going to lead it?” and “how do we do that at our church?”  In a way, these are closely related questions: whoever leads a youth ministry is in effect tasked with figuring out how to make it happen.\n\nAt the most basic level, the leader of a youth ministry must be committed to youth, skilled at teaching, and capable of providing pastoral care and thoughtful mentoring to students traveling through a formative period of life.  Such a role could be filled by a lay person or an ordained minister, a “professional” member of the church staff or a volunteer from within the congregation.  Ultimately, I believe, this should be a combination of many people led by a staff “point-person,” likely a pastor or designated youth minister.\n\nIn part this team approach is ideal because it helps to ensure that whoever is responsible for leading or overseeing a youth ministry has the support of the congregation.  One of the commenters on part one of this series noted that youth ministry can often feel like a lonely job.  I remember about six months into one of my first roles in youth ministry being asked by a member of the congregation after the service if I was a new visitor at the church.  To be honest, I was taken aback by the question.  “No, actually, I’m on the staff here,” I managed to mutter.  The question revealed the distance between the congregation and the youth ministry and its leadership.  Such a distance can quickly burn out a youth leader.  For their ministry to be successful, youth leaders need to have the support and backing of the larger church.  That means, I believe, supporting whoever the “point-person” for the youth ministry is with volunteers from the congregation.  It also means ensuring that the youth leader is integrated into the community of other adults at the church and not relegated to always being “with the kids.”\n\nWhat is not required to be a successful youth minister, I believe, is being a young, extreme extrovert, who can’t sit still and understands all the newest trends of youth culture.  Nor does a church need a massive youth budget or the ability to simulate the experience of a rock concert.  More on this in a moment, but suffice it to say that I think people with a variety of personalities, teaching styles, and visions for what their ministry will look like can be very effective in their role provided that they are genuine to themselves and minister to their students out of a love for seeing those students grow and learn in their faith.\n<h2>To Be Relevant, or Not to Be Relevant?</h2>\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8748\" alt=\"Mega-Church Interior\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>That is the question, perhaps the most disputed one amongst youth ministers today.  It also has a lot do with the practical question of how a particular youth ministry will look on the ground.  Do you need flashy video promos and rock band?  Do you need to be up on all the latest trends in teen pop culture?  Well… probably not.\n\nRelevance in a youth ministry takes three forms:\n\n<em>First,</em> when we are genuinely invested in the lives of our youth, we will become aware of the things that they are interested in.  The more we learn about those things, either through our conversations with them or through listening to the music they are all singing along to in the car on our way to an event or watching some of the you-tube videos they are talking about before youth group, the more we will understand about their world, and, consequently, the more “relevant” our ministry will be, even if we aren’t actively designing a ministry that looks like their culture.\n\n<em>Second,</em> I think relevance is also a factor of empowering student leaders.  One of the most significant things that every happened to me in my journey toward ministry was being asked to plan and lead the music for my high school youth group.  When we make a move to bring students into leadership roles within our group, asking them to help plan activities or lead worship, invariably they will bring something of their own tastes and interests and passions to the table.  And as their creativity impacts what the group looks like, our community and its worship start to look more “relevant” to our youth because they are shaping it, not us.\n\n<em>Third,</em> I think relevance also emerges from youth leaders being themselves.  While the movies we grew up on or the music we love might not always be what our youth are into now, if we are doing the work of building meaningful, ministering relationships with them they will humor us when we share our interests and often times find something about it they like, too.  Relevance doesn’t have to be about staying on the cutting edge of current trends in pop culture, it’s about finding a common language with which to share our experiences with the youth we are serving.\n\nWhen we find such a common language, whether it be through the terms of our own interests or the things our youth are excited about, we create a space where they feel at home and comfortable, opening up the door for them to be willing to engage serious questions about their faith and its meaning for their lives, and allowing us to work with them, helping them learn to articulate this faith and connect with the God who loves them.\n\n<hr />\n\n<em>Alexander Marshall is an experienced youth worker, blogger, writer, and student at Yale Divinity School.  You can connect with him on <a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/alexanderpmarshall\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alexp_marshall\">Twitter</a>, or by <a href=\"http://apmarshall.wordpress.com/\">visiting his blog</a>.</em>\n\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-9','','','2013-04-12 22:49:09','2013-04-13 05:49:09','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/12/8738-revision-9/',0,'revision','',0),(8756,35,'2013-04-09 08:35:08','2013-04-09 15:35:08','Sometimes I perform the popular,\r\n\r\nseek to satisfy the status quo\r\n\r\nbecause it’s socially easier\r\n\r\nto pretend to be like “them”.\r\n\r\nSometimes I crave acceptance,\r\n\r\neven though it costs my soul.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nI was created custom-made by God,\r\n\r\nwith ideas unique to me,\r\n\r\nperceptions that fit no one else\r\n\r\nthat I alone can abdicate.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThen I think of Jael in Judges 4\r\n\r\nwho defied her husband’s allegiance\r\n\r\nto follow the God of Israel,\r\n\r\nrisking absolutely everything\r\n\r\nin response to God’s command.\r\n\r\nI think of Paul and Peter\r\n\r\nand Martin Luther King,\r\n\r\nhonoring their beliefs\r\n\r\nover rational safety.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nAm I willing to honor\r\n\r\ncommon approval\r\n\r\nover confirmed conviction\r\n\r\nto follow Jesus’ call?\r\n\r\nDangerous devotion\r\n\r\nto the only one\r\n\r\nwho gave all for me?\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nAm I such a coward?\r\n\r\nYes.\r\n\r\nAm I committed to God?\r\n\r\nI wonder.\r\n\r\nAnd yet my heart is drawn to love\r\n\r\nwithout conditions or demands,\r\n\r\na God who accepts me as I am,\r\n\r\nstays with me, no matter what,\r\n\r\nirrevocable, illogical\r\n\r\nto my finite mind.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nJesus, help me to risk resistance,\r\n\r\nresentment, my own reticence\r\n\r\nto stand for what I believe\r\n\r\nperhaps alone except for you.','No Matter What','','inherit','open','open','','8725-revision-2','','','2013-04-09 08:35:08','2013-04-09 15:35:08','',8725,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/09/8725-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(8834,67,'2013-04-26 08:00:13','2013-04-26 15:00:13','<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/The-Irresistable-Table-by-Mary-DeMuth.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft  wp-image-8835\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/The-Irresistable-Table-by-Mary-DeMuth-300x300.jpg\" width=\"192\" height=\"192\" /></a>As an aspiring writer, there are not many opportunities that I would turn down to translate my thoughts to words. I’ve written for children’s ministry magazines, news publications, online devotionals, book compilations and currently working on my own book. I’ve written music reviews, commentary on current events, book reviews, conducted interviews and posted literally hundreds of blog entries. But as I envisioned my career as a writer and pondered the possibilities of literary endeavors, reviewing a cook book never came to mind.\r\n\r\nWhen I heard that my friend and fellow writer, <a title=\"Mary DeMuth\" href=\"http://www.marydemuth.com/\">Mary DeMuth</a>, was looking for folks to read and review her latest book, I was honored to have the opportunity. When I discovered that it was in fact a cook book, my excitement quickly turned to anxiety. I had no idea what to expect in reading a cook book from beginning to end and had even less of an idea of how I would develop a book review worthy of Mary’s status as a writer. So, as is my usual reaction to anxiety-inducing situations, I did what I commonly do: I ignored the task, hoping it would eventually go away. This works quite well with typical avoidances such as doctor appointments, laundry, grocery shopping and my wife’s favorite, having my car inspected.\r\n\r\nOne of the unfortunate side-effects of anxiety is its ability to produce guilt. As I sat in my favorite corner of Starbucks, I continued to see the PDF file of Mary’s book glaring at me from my desktop. I’ve read several of Mary’s publications and blogs and always loved what she had to say. Why would I not equally enjoy her culinary prose as well? Resolved to accomplish the task at hand, I put down my copy of Writers Who Procrastinate and Let Down Their Friends Who Write Cook Books, and opened the convicting PDF file of <a title=\"The Irresistible Table\" href=\"http://www.marydemuth.com/store/the-irresistible-table-cookbook/\">The Irresistible Table</a> by <a title=\"Mary DeMuth\" href=\"http://www.marydemuth.com/\">Mary DeMuth</a>. After reading the introduction, I gazed out of the rain covered window in front of me, thinking to myself, “Why did I not read this sooner?” This is not simply a cook book. This is not only a collection of recipes. This is a guide to community that happens to have recipes and step by step instructions of how to prepare for encounters with deeper community.\r\n\r\nFrom the very beginning of the introduction, one can easily see that community is the main thrust of this book. “The goal of ‘The Irresistible Table’ is to give the home cook an arsenal of easy, delicious recipes and encourage a lifestyle of community and hospitality for her immediate community: her family. And the community she longs to gather around that family.” While I would have to disagree with her gender direction, (I’m a stay at home dad and the cook of our home), the essential truth of this sentiment rings very true with me as a minister as well. Community is not an activity but a lifestyle. Community is an essential link to faith and a missing element in today’s culture. Community is necessary for holistic spiritual growth and a vital element to revealing the Kingdom of God.\r\n\r\nMary elaborates by reflecting on the essentials of community, revealing how the shared meal is paramount to building healthy gatherings. “Community is a celebration of others. Community can be spontaneous. Community is an attitude. Community involves more than entertaining. It celebrates engagement.” These principles are reflected throughout the book as Mary periodically illustrates how a particular encounter intertwines with the preparation of a certain recipe. Experiences with family, friends and gatherings are intimately a part of her obvious love of cooking and an obvious ingredient as to why she developed this writing project.\r\n\r\nOf course, in reviewing a cook book, one would assume that the individual recipes would be considered as well. While I was unfortunately not able to personally review every concoction myself, I chose to sample one recipe from each section. The Table of Contents is a process through community, beginning with satisfying breakfast and progressing through indulgent desserts. Appetizers, salads, breads, soups, various main courses and even drinks, are all are essential aspects of communal gatherings. These are included in an easy-to-reference manner and leave the average cook eager to expand their menu. Mary includes simple recipes that are not only easy to prepare, but are practical and fairly neutral in terms of appealing to most pallets. Each chapter begins with an engaging introduction that ties familiar recipes to her passion for some aspect of community.\r\n\r\nWhether stories of family or friends, the imagery that Mary creates helps encourage the reader to imagine similar stories of their own. On several occasions, I found myself drifting back with nostalgia to simpler times and memories of how my mom and grandmother built strong community through cooking. It caused me to reflect on the simple power of the shared meal and the possibility that we are missing something much larger in our fast-food culture. Meals take time to prepare. Meals take time to serve and create an inviting table. Meals take time to enjoy and of course, meals take time to clean up afterward. But is it possible that when we take the time to focus on the communal meal, we open the door to why we are given time on the earth to begin with?\r\n\r\nGet to know Mary and her other publications at <a title=\"Mary DeMuth\" href=\"http://www.marydemuth.com/\">www.marydemuth.com</a>.','Cooking Community: A Review of the Irresistible Table by Mary DeMuth','','publish','open','open','','cooking-community-a-review-of-the-irresistible-table-by-mary-demuth','','','2013-04-21 19:12:09','2013-04-22 02:12:09','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=8834',0,'post','',1),(8763,202,'2013-04-13 07:59:15','2013-04-13 14:59:15','My first experience in youth ministry while in college was in a poor, rural community in Alabama at a baptist church where the overwhelming majority of the 50 or so regular attendees were over the age of 65.  At some point, kids who lived in the small houses and trailer homes nearby discovered that every Wednesday night this church offered a free, warm meal and they started coming in droves.  Suddenly there were 20+ kids aged 7 to 15 at this church.  None of their families were involved in the congregation.  No one in the church had any youth ministry experience.  So they recruited a few students from nearby <a href=\"http://www.sebc.edu\">Southeastern Bible College</a> to come start a youth program.  Eventually the leader of that program recruited me.\n\nWe didn’t know what we were doing any more than the people who had called us did, and I’m still not sure how effective we were in our ministry with these kids.  But we played a lot of ping pong and basketball, did our best to teach a few things about God and the Bible, and learned as much as we could as we went along.  Since that experience I’ve had plenty of other opportunities to learn about and practice youth ministry, and though I am convinced that anyone who thinks they have youth ministry \"all figured out” is either a lunatic or lying, these experiences have taught me a few important principles that I want to share.\n\nIn this article I want to outline a basic “theory” of youth ministry that attempts to address the issues brought up in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one of this series</a>.  The goal is not to create a rigid formula for what every youth ministry should look like.  I don’t have, nor do I think I ever will have, such a formula, so these thoughts are not meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution to every church’s questions.  What I do intend to do is highlight some basic principles that I think are extremely important for any church to think about as they plan and develop their own ministry with youth.  As with <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, this is meant to start a conversation not end one, to provide one perspective on an issue not claim to be the definitive view.  I hope many others will join the discussion that follows and that we will learn more from one another than we could ever claim to know on our own.\n<h2>Underlying Principles</h2>\nTo lay my cards on the table, I have to acknowledge that the core of this theory of youth ministry is based largely on my own faith journey.  My own experiences of wrestling with my faith both while growing up and during my theological training at <a href=\"http://www.sebc.edu\">Southeastern Bible College</a> and <a href=\"http://divinity.yale.edu\">Yale Divinity School</a> have embedded in my thinking three major principles that lie not far beneath the surface of everything else I will argue for in this article (its worth acknowledging that I have been greatly aided in articulating the first two by the research of <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195384776/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0195384776&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Christian Smith</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0195384776\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> and his team of sociologists):\n\n<strong><em>First</em>, students won’t believe what they don’t find important.</strong>  When youth find a worship service boring or scoff at the idea of a missions trip, that isn’t just adolescent angst or a social-networking-age induced inability to sit still.  What they are telling you, implicitly, is that they don’t find these things important.  They don’t think they are things that they need, they don’t see them as valuable.  And what they don’t find valuable or important isn’t likely to be something they continue to do for very long after the pressure of parents or other mentoring adults is gone.  Transfer this principle from the activities of the church to the faith of the church: what happens when youth don’t find their faith valuable or important?  How long will they continue to believe?\n\n<strong><em>Second,</em> students won’t find important what they can’t explain the meaning and significance of themselves.</strong>  Too often when we talk about our faith, especially with youth, its the “expert-in-the-room” who does all the talking.  Which results in our youth being unable to explain for themselves why their faith is important to them.  Over time, this leads them to conclude that it isn’t that important (in the same way that most of us decide understanding multivariable calculus isn’t really important to our lives).  Which, when we are dealing with matters of faith, frequently leads them to question whether they really believe any of it in the first place (circling back to the first principle above).  I’m convinced that successful faith formation with youth has to be about getting our students comfortable explaining what their faith means to them, in their own words using their own voice, so that their faith becomes <em>their</em> faith, something that they find important and worth believing.\n\n<strong><em><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright  wp-image-8745\" alt=\"Student Eating Pizza\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza-300x277.jpg\" width=\"210\" height=\"194\" /></a>Third</em>, youth ministry is about students, not the prestige of the youth minister or the reputation of a local church.</strong>  Kids can tell when they are being used.  And while they might put up with that for a while (especially if they are getting something out of it, like free pizza every week), eventually, when the perks run out, they will run away.\n\nNow, with these principles in mind, let’s work back through the questions posed in part one of this series:\n<h2>The Goal of Youth Ministry</h2>\nThe goal of ministry in general is the proclaiming of the gospel.  Which might seem to indicate that of the two possible goals for youth ministry identified in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>-- evangelizing to kids or creating a safe space for kids to relax and feel loved-- we should opt for outright evangelism.\n\nActually, I think that a successful youth ministry can do both.  Maybe it would be better said I believe a successful youth ministry should and must do both, in a manner of speaking.  Let me explain:\n\nThroughout the Christian tradition, whether it be in the Pauline notion of general revelation, the Catholic doctrine of Natural Law, or the Wesleyan notion of prevenient grace, Christians have believed that the God who stands at the center of all things is reaching out to every person, inviting them to enter into a cosmic drama of redemption.  Twentieth-century theologian <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226803376/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226803376&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Paul Tillich</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0226803376\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> famously put it this way: \"religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.”  Perhaps the most effective way for youth (or really, anyone) to discover the value and importance of faith is for them to identify the ways they encounter this \"ultimate concern\" in their own life, to articulate their own experience of how God has been and is continuing to reach out to them; put another way: to tell the story of their own journey of faith.\n\nAsking students to tell their stories, examining the ways God is at work in their lives, is itself a form of evangelism and can lead to a whole host of incredible conversations about faith.  But it also cannot happen unless students feel safe.  In todays world there are very few places where students will ever be asked questions about an “ultimate concern.”  Answering existential questions about faith and its significance to their lives carries with it a certain degree of risk and requires a certain amount of openness to their peers and youth leaders.  And that, in turn, requires them to feel comfortable with and loved by those who are participating in this process with them.  So before a youth ministry can push its students to really think about faith as something meaningful in their lives, it must have created a space where they are willing to enter into the conversation.\n<h2>The Tenor of Youth Ministry</h2>\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8746\" alt=\"Ray of Light\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light-300x219.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>Inviting students to tell their own stories, examining their own lives to see the ways God is reaching out to them and inviting them to participate in the cosmic drama of redemption, requires that the tenor of a youth ministry strike a particular balance.\n\nAs we ask students to analyze their stories and think about what they believe and why it is important and valuable, our conversations must be open to a certain degree of doubt and questioning.  Demanding certainty from students, especially early on in the process of their faith development, leads them to give up on finding their own faith and revert to regurgitating the answers they think you expect.  Room for doubts and honest questions is necessary if we want students to find their own words with which to express their faith.  In a <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/april-2-2013-dr-andrew-root/\">recent talk</a> I heard from <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Root/e/B001JS9RFQ/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;qid=1365627665&amp;sr=1-4&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\" target=\"_blank\">Andy Root</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" />, Professor of Youth Ministry at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, he described the balance that has to be struck this way: “we can say to young people, ‘continue to doubt, continue to wrestle with questions, but continue to do that here.”\n\nThis tenor is set through our own modeling of what we are looking for students to do.  In the same talk, Andy went on to say that “we learn to tell our stories by hearing stories.”  When we model the process of exploring our own lives, describing our faith journeys, and articulating what we believe and why its important for our lives we open up our students to engaging in the same kind of process.  When we model what a confident, vibrant, faith looks like we set a tone that our students will follow.  When we utilize theology to explain the ways we have come to articulate our own faith, we equip students by giving them language with which to describe their experience of God working in their own lives.\n<h2>The Content of Youth Ministry</h2>\nStriking this balance in the tenor of our ministry while inviting students to tell their own faith stories allows us to strike a balance in the content of our ministry between focusing on theology and focusing on practical living.\n\nTheology will be important to a youth ministry because of how it helps us to explain our own faith journeys and helps to equip our students with the language to talk about theirs.  By helping us to articulate our faith clearly, theological language plays a significant role by helping to underscore the importance of our faith.  Simply put: its easier to see the importance of something when you have a clearer understanding of it.\n\nAt the same time, most often our faith stories will themselves reflect our <i>experiences</i> of God in life, and many of the most important questions we will have about our faith have to do with the way it practically effects of our lives.  That means that in inviting students to reflect on what they believe, we also have to invite them to consider the practical importance and significance of those beliefs in their everyday lives.\n<h2>Youth Ministry in the Life of the Church</h2>\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8747\" alt=\"Inviting People In\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In-196x300.jpg\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" /></a>In the first part of this series, I posed a question about how youth should be engaged in the life of a church.  Alternatively, it seems, we can keep kids in worship with the larger church community, often at the risk of letting them become bored or disengaged, or we can keep kids in an “age-appropriate” ministry separate form the rest of the church which then runs the risk of leaving kids without a sense of what the church community really is.\n\nIn reality, of course, we can have both an age-appropriate youth ministry and invite kids to participate in the larger community on Sunday mornings.  The latter part of that, however, is a bit trickier.  How do we make kids feel like they are part of the larger church community, especially when much of that community is made up of adults they may not have had previous meaningful relationships with?\n\nIn <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a> I paraphrased a parable from <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/february-5-2013-dr-roland-martinson/\">Roland Martinson</a> on the importance of having youth be connected to the community in what he refers to as “inter-generational ministry.”  My own feeling, echoing his and grounded in my own experience of church, is that when youth have ways to be involved in worship-- whether that be helping with music, ushering, or setting up chairs-- they gain a sense of ownership that encourages them to want to be part of the community.  Likewise, as a commenter on the first part of this series pointed out, when the congregation’s worship contains at least a few elements intentionally aimed at engaging youth, they are more likely to be interested in sticking around.  By both reaching out to youth and inviting them to become more involved in the community, churches can keep youth engaged in the larger community on Sunday mornings even while also providing them with an “age-appropriate” ministry at other times during the week.\n<h2>Leadership and How to Do That Here</h2>\nTwo of the most pressing and difficult issues for many churches when it comes to youth ministry are, as it was put in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, “who is going to lead it?” and “how do we do that at our church?”  In a way, these are closely related questions: whoever leads a youth ministry is in effect tasked with figuring out how to make it happen.\n\nAt the most basic level, the leader of a youth ministry must be committed to youth, skilled at teaching, and capable of providing pastoral care and thoughtful mentoring to students traveling through a formative period of life.  Such a role could be filled by a lay person or an ordained minister, a “professional” member of the church staff or a volunteer from within the congregation.  Ultimately, I believe, this should be a combination of many people led by a staff “point-person,” likely a pastor or designated youth minister.\n\nIn part this team approach is ideal because it helps to ensure that whoever is responsible for leading or overseeing a youth ministry has the support of the congregation.  One of the commenters on part one of this series noted that youth ministry can often feel like a lonely job.  I remember about six months into one of my first roles in youth ministry being asked by a member of the congregation after the service if I was a new visitor at the church.  To be honest, I was taken aback by the question.  “No, actually, I’m on the staff here,” I managed to mutter.  The question revealed the distance between the congregation and the youth ministry and its leadership.  Such a distance can quickly burn out a youth leader.  For their ministry to be successful, youth leaders need to have the support and backing of the larger church.  That means, I believe, supporting whoever the “point-person” for the youth ministry is with volunteers from the congregation.  It also means ensuring that the youth leader is integrated into the community of other adults at the church and not relegated to always being “with the kids.”\n\nWhat is not required to be a successful youth minister, I believe, is being a young, extreme extrovert, who can’t sit still and understands all the newest trends of youth culture.  Nor does a church need a massive youth budget or the ability to simulate the experience of a rock concert.  More on this in a moment, but suffice it to say that I think people with a variety of personalities, teaching styles, and visions for what their ministry will look like can be very effective in their role provided that they are genuine to themselves and minister to their students out of a love for seeing those students grow and learn in their faith.\n<h2>To Be Relevant, or Not to Be Relevant?</h2>\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8748\" alt=\"Mega-Church Interior\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>That is the question, perhaps the most disputed one amongst youth ministers today.  It also has a lot do with the practical question of how a particular youth ministry will look on the ground.  Do you need flashy video promos and rock band?  Do you need to be up on all the latest trends in teen pop culture?  Well… probably not.\n\nRelevance in a youth ministry takes three forms:\n\n<em>First,</em> when we are genuinely invested in the lives of our youth, we will become aware of the things that they are interested in.  The more we learn about those things, either through our conversations with them or through listening to the music they are all singing along to in the car on our way to an event or watching some of the you-tube videos they are talking about before youth group, the more we will understand about their world, and, consequently, the more “relevant” our ministry will be, even if we aren’t actively designing a ministry that looks like their culture.\n\n<em>Second,</em> I think relevance is also a factor of empowering student leaders.  One of the most significant things that every happened to me in my journey toward ministry was being asked to plan and lead the music for my high school youth group.  When we make a move to bring students into leadership roles within our group, asking them to help plan activities or lead worship, invariably they will bring something of their own tastes and interests and passions to the table.  And as their creativity impacts what the group looks like, our community and its worship start to look more “relevant” to our youth because they are shaping it, not us.\n\n<em>Third,</em> I think relevance also emerges from youth leaders being themselves.  While the movies we grew up on or the music we love might not always be what our youth are into now, if we are doing the work of building meaningful, ministering relationships with them they will humor us when we share our interests and often times find something about it they like, too.  Relevance doesn’t have to be about staying on the cutting edge of current trends in pop culture, it’s about finding a common language with which to share our experiences with the youth we are serving.\n\nWhen we find such a common language, whether it be through the terms of our own interests or the things our youth are excited about, we create a space where they feel at home and comfortable, opening up the door for them to be willing to engage serious questions about their faith and its meaning for their lives, and allowing us to work with them, helping them learn to articulate this faith and connect with the God who loves them.\n\n<hr />\n\n<em>Alexander Marshall is an experienced youth worker, blogger, writer, and student at Yale Divinity School.  You can connect with him on <a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/alexanderpmarshall\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alexp_marshall\">Twitter</a>, or by <a href=\"http://apmarshall.wordpress.com/\">visiting his blog</a>.</em>\n\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-10','','','2013-04-13 07:59:15','2013-04-13 14:59:15','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-10/',0,'revision','',0),(8764,202,'2013-04-13 08:07:44','2013-04-13 15:07:44','My first experience in youth ministry while in college was in a poor, rural community in Alabama at a baptist church where the overwhelming majority of the 50 or so regular attendees were over the age of 65.  At some point, kids who lived in the small houses and trailer homes nearby discovered that every Wednesday night this church offered a free, warm meal and they started coming in droves.  Suddenly there were 20+ kids aged 7 to 15 at this church.  None of their families were involved in the congregation.  No one in the church had any youth ministry experience.  So they recruited a few students from nearby <a href=\"http://www.sebc.edu\">Southeastern Bible College</a> to come start a youth program.  Eventually the leader of that program recruited me.\n\nWe didn’t know what we were doing any more than the people who had called us did, and I’m still not sure how effective we were in our ministry with these kids.  But we played a lot of ping pong and basketball, did our best to teach a few things about God and the Bible, and learned as much as we could as we went along.  Since that experience I’ve had plenty of other opportunities to learn about and practice youth ministry, and though I am convinced that anyone who thinks they have youth ministry \"all figured out” is either a lunatic or lying, these experiences have taught me a few important principles that I want to share.\n\nIn this article I want to outline a basic “theory” of youth ministry that attempts to address the issues brought up in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one of this series</a>.  The goal is not to create a rigid formula for what every youth ministry should look like.  I don’t have, nor do I think I ever will have, such a formula, so these thoughts are not meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution to every church’s questions.  What I do intend to do is highlight some basic principles that I think are extremely important for any church to think about as they plan and develop their own ministry with youth.  As with <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, this is meant to start a conversation not end one, to provide one perspective on an issue not claim to be the definitive view.  I hope many others will join the discussion that follows and that we will learn more from one another than we could ever claim to know on our own.\n<h2>Underlying Principles</h2>\nTo lay my cards on the table, I have to acknowledge that the core of this theory of youth ministry is based largely on my own faith journey.  My own experiences of wrestling with my faith both while growing up and during my theological training at <a href=\"http://www.sebc.edu\">Southeastern Bible College</a> and <a href=\"http://divinity.yale.edu\">Yale Divinity School</a> have embedded in my thinking three major principles that lie not far beneath the surface of everything else I will argue for in this article (its worth acknowledging that I have been greatly aided in articulating the first two by the research of <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195384776/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0195384776&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Christian Smith</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0195384776\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> and his team of sociologists):\n\n<strong><em>First</em>, students won’t believe what they don’t find important.</strong>  When youth find a worship service boring or scoff at the idea of a missions trip, that isn’t just adolescent angst or a social-networking-age induced inability to sit still.  What they are telling you, implicitly, is that they don’t find these things important.  They don’t think they are things that they need, they don’t see them as valuable.  And what they don’t find valuable or important isn’t likely to be something they continue to do for very long after the pressure of parents or other mentoring adults is gone.  Transfer this principle from the activities of the church to the faith of the church: what happens when youth don’t find their faith valuable or important?  How long will they continue to believe?\n\n<strong><em>Second,</em> students won’t find important what they can’t explain the meaning and significance of themselves.</strong>  Too often when we talk about our faith, especially with youth, its the “expert-in-the-room” who does all the talking.  Which results in our youth being unable to explain for themselves why their faith is important to them.  Over time, this leads them to conclude that it isn’t that important (in the same way that most of us decide understanding multivariable calculus isn’t really important to our lives).  Which, when we are dealing with matters of faith, frequently leads them to question whether they really believe any of it in the first place (circling back to the first principle above).  I’m convinced that successful faith formation with youth has to be about getting our students comfortable explaining what their faith means to them, in their own words using their own voice, so that their faith becomes <em>their</em> faith, something that they find important and worth believing.\n\n<strong><em><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright  wp-image-8745\" alt=\"Student Eating Pizza\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza-300x277.jpg\" width=\"210\" height=\"194\" /></a>Third</em>, youth ministry is about students, not the prestige of the youth minister or the reputation of a local church.</strong>  Kids can tell when they are being used.  And while they might put up with that for a while (especially if they are getting something out of it, like free pizza every week), eventually, when the perks run out, they will run away.\n\nNow, with these principles in mind, let’s work back through the questions posed in part one of this series:\n<h2>The Goal of Youth Ministry</h2>\nThe goal of ministry in general is the proclaiming of the gospel.  Which might seem to indicate that of the two possible goals for youth ministry identified in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>-- evangelizing to kids or creating a safe space for kids to relax and feel loved-- we should opt for outright evangelism.\n\nActually, I think that a successful youth ministry can do both.  Maybe it would be better said I believe a successful youth ministry should and must do both, in a manner of speaking.  Let me explain:\n\nThroughout the Christian tradition, whether it be in the Pauline notion of general revelation, the Catholic doctrine of Natural Law, or the Wesleyan notion of prevenient grace, Christians have believed that the God who stands at the center of all things is reaching out to every person, inviting them to enter into a cosmic drama of redemption.  Twentieth-century theologian <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226803376/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226803376&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Paul Tillich</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0226803376\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> famously put it this way: \"religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.”  Perhaps the most effective way for youth (or really, anyone) to discover the value and importance of faith is for them to identify the ways they encounter this \"ultimate concern\" in their own life, to articulate their own experience of how God has been and is continuing to reach out to them; put another way: to tell the story of their own journey of faith.\n\nAsking students to tell their stories, examining the ways God is at work in their lives, is itself a form of evangelism and can lead to a whole host of incredible conversations about faith.  But it also cannot happen unless students feel safe.  In todays world there are very few places where students will ever be asked questions about an “ultimate concern.”  Answering existential questions about faith and its significance to their lives carries with it a certain degree of risk and requires a certain amount of openness to their peers and youth leaders.  And that, in turn, requires them to feel comfortable with and loved by those who are participating in this process with them.  So before a youth ministry can push its students to really think about faith as something meaningful in their lives, it must have created a space where they are willing to enter into the conversation.\n<h2>The Tenor of Youth Ministry</h2>\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8746\" alt=\"Ray of Light\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light-300x219.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>Inviting students to tell their own stories, examining their own lives to see the ways God is reaching out to them and inviting them to participate in the cosmic drama of redemption, requires that the tenor of a youth ministry strike a particular balance.\n\nAs we ask students to analyze their stories and think about what they believe and why it is important and valuable, our conversations must be open to a certain degree of doubt and questioning.  Demanding certainty from students, especially early on in the process of their faith development, leads them to give up on finding their own faith and revert to regurgitating the answers they think we expect.  Room for doubts and honest questions is necessary if we want students to find their own words with which to express their faith.  In a <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/april-2-2013-dr-andrew-root/\">recent talk</a> I heard by <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Root/e/B001JS9RFQ/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;qid=1365627665&amp;sr=1-4&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\" target=\"_blank\">Andy Root</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" />, Professor of Youth Ministry at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, he described the balance that has to be struck this way: “we can say to young people, ‘continue to doubt, continue to wrestle with questions, but continue to do that here.\'”\n\nThis tenor is set through our own modeling of what we are hoping our students will do.  In the same talk, Andy went on to point out that “we learn to tell our stories by hearing stories.”  When we model the process of exploring our own stories, describing our faith journeys, and articulating what we believe and why its important for our lives, we open up our students to engaging in the same kind of process for themselves.  When we model what a confident, vibrant, faith looks like we set a tone for our students to follow.  When we utilize theological language to explain the ways we have come to articulate our own faith, we equip students by giving them language with which to describe their experience of God working in their own lives.\n<h2>The Content of Youth Ministry</h2>\nStriking this balance in the tenor of our ministry while inviting students to tell their own faith stories allows us to strike a balance in the content of our ministry between focusing on theology and focusing on practical living.\n\nTheology will be important to a youth ministry because of how it helps us to explain our own faith journeys and helps to equip our students with the language to talk about theirs.  By helping us to articulate our faith clearly, theological language plays a significant role by helping to underscore the importance of our faith.  Simply put: its easier to see the importance of something when you have a clearer understanding of it.\n\nAt the same time, most often our faith stories will themselves reflect our <i>experiences</i> of God in life, and many of the most important questions we will have about our faith have to do with the way it practically effects of our lives.  That means that in inviting students to reflect on what they believe, we also have to invite them to consider the practical importance and significance of those beliefs in their everyday lives.\n<h2>Youth Ministry in the Life of the Church</h2>\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8747\" alt=\"Inviting People In\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In-196x300.jpg\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" /></a>In the first part of this series, I posed a question about how youth should be engaged in the life of a church.  Alternatively, it seems, we can keep kids in worship with the larger church community, often at the risk of letting them become bored or disengaged, or we can keep kids in an “age-appropriate” ministry separate form the rest of the church which then runs the risk of leaving kids without a sense of what the church community really is.\n\nIn reality, of course, we can have both an age-appropriate youth ministry and invite kids to participate in the larger community on Sunday mornings.  The latter part of that, however, is a bit trickier.  How do we make kids feel like they are part of the larger church community, especially when much of that community is made up of adults they may not have had previous meaningful relationships with?\n\nIn <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a> I paraphrased a parable from <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/february-5-2013-dr-roland-martinson/\">Roland Martinson</a> on the importance of having youth be connected to the community in what he refers to as “inter-generational ministry.”  My own feeling, echoing his and grounded in my own experience of church, is that when youth have ways to be involved in worship-- whether that be helping with music, ushering, or setting up chairs-- they gain a sense of ownership that encourages them to want to be part of the community.  Likewise, as a commenter on the first part of this series pointed out, when the congregation’s worship contains at least a few elements intentionally aimed at engaging youth, they are more likely to be interested in sticking around.  By both reaching out to youth and inviting them to become more involved in the community, churches can keep youth engaged in the larger community on Sunday mornings even while also providing them with an “age-appropriate” ministry at other times during the week.\n<h2>Leadership and How to Do That Here</h2>\nTwo of the most pressing and difficult issues for many churches when it comes to youth ministry are, as it was put in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, “who is going to lead it?” and “how do we do that at our church?”  In a way, these are closely related questions: whoever leads a youth ministry is in effect tasked with figuring out how to make it happen.\n\nAt the most basic level, the leader of a youth ministry must be committed to youth, skilled at teaching, and capable of providing pastoral care and thoughtful mentoring to students traveling through a formative period of life.  Such a role could be filled by a lay person or an ordained minister, a “professional” member of the church staff or a volunteer from within the congregation.  Ultimately, I believe, this should be a combination of many people led by a staff “point-person,” likely a pastor or designated youth minister.\n\nIn part this team approach is ideal because it helps to ensure that whoever is responsible for leading or overseeing a youth ministry has the support of the congregation.  One of the commenters on part one of this series noted that youth ministry can often feel like a lonely job.  I remember about six months into one of my first roles in youth ministry being asked by a member of the congregation after the service if I was a new visitor at the church.  To be honest, I was taken aback by the question.  “No, actually, I’m on the staff here,” I managed to mutter.  The question revealed the distance between the congregation and the youth ministry and its leadership.  Such a distance can quickly burn out a youth leader.  For their ministry to be successful, youth leaders need to have the support and backing of the larger church.  That means, I believe, supporting whoever the “point-person” for the youth ministry is with volunteers from the congregation.  It also means ensuring that the youth leader is integrated into the community of other adults at the church and not relegated to always being “with the kids.”\n\nWhat is not required to be a successful youth minister, I believe, is being a young, extreme extrovert, who can’t sit still and understands all the newest trends of youth culture.  Nor does a church need a massive youth budget or the ability to simulate the experience of a rock concert.  More on this in a moment, but suffice it to say that I think people with a variety of personalities, teaching styles, and visions for what their ministry will look like can be very effective in their role provided that they are genuine to themselves and minister to their students out of a love for seeing those students grow and learn in their faith.\n<h2>To Be Relevant, or Not to Be Relevant?</h2>\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8748\" alt=\"Mega-Church Interior\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>That is the question, perhaps the most disputed one amongst youth ministers today.  It also has a lot do with the practical question of how a particular youth ministry will look on the ground.  Do you need flashy video promos and rock band?  Do you need to be up on all the latest trends in teen pop culture?  Well… probably not.\n\nRelevance in a youth ministry takes three forms:\n\n<em>First,</em> when we are genuinely invested in the lives of our youth, we will become aware of the things that they are interested in.  The more we learn about those things, either through our conversations with them or through listening to the music they are all singing along to in the car on our way to an event or watching some of the you-tube videos they are talking about before youth group, the more we will understand about their world, and, consequently, the more “relevant” our ministry will be, even if we aren’t actively designing a ministry that looks like their culture.\n\n<em>Second,</em> I think relevance is also a factor of empowering student leaders.  One of the most significant things that every happened to me in my journey toward ministry was being asked to plan and lead the music for my high school youth group.  When we make a move to bring students into leadership roles within our group, asking them to help plan activities or lead worship, invariably they will bring something of their own tastes and interests and passions to the table.  And as their creativity impacts what the group looks like, our community and its worship start to look more “relevant” to our youth because they are shaping it, not us.\n\n<em>Third,</em> I think relevance also emerges from youth leaders being themselves.  While the movies we grew up on or the music we love might not always be what our youth are into now, if we are doing the work of building meaningful, ministering relationships with them they will humor us when we share our interests and often times find something about it they like, too.  Relevance doesn’t have to be about staying on the cutting edge of current trends in pop culture, it’s about finding a common language with which to share our experiences with the youth we are serving.\n\nWhen we find such a common language, whether it be through the terms of our own interests or the things our youth are excited about, we create a space where they feel at home and comfortable, opening up the door for them to be willing to engage serious questions about their faith and its meaning for their lives, and allowing us to work with them, helping them learn to articulate this faith and connect with the God who loves them.\n\n<hr />\n\n<em>Alexander Marshall is an experienced youth worker, blogger, writer, and student at Yale Divinity School.  You can connect with him on <a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/alexanderpmarshall\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alexp_marshall\">Twitter</a>, or by <a href=\"http://apmarshall.wordpress.com/\">visiting his blog</a>.</em>\n\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-11','','','2013-04-13 08:07:44','2013-04-13 15:07:44','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-11/',0,'revision','',0),(8765,202,'2013-04-13 08:07:48','2013-04-13 15:07:48','My first experience in youth ministry while in college was in a poor, rural community in Alabama at a baptist church where the overwhelming majority of the 50 or so regular attendees were over the age of 65.  At some point, kids who lived in the small houses and trailer homes nearby discovered that every Wednesday night this church offered a free, warm meal and they started coming in droves.  Suddenly there were 20+ kids aged 7 to 15 at this church.  None of their families were involved in the congregation.  No one in the church had any youth ministry experience.  So they recruited a few students from nearby <a href=\"http://www.sebc.edu\">Southeastern Bible College</a> to come start a youth program.  Eventually the leader of that program recruited me.\r\n\r\nWe didn’t know what we were doing any more than the people who had called us did, and I’m still not sure how effective we were in our ministry with these kids.  But we played a lot of ping pong and basketball, did our best to teach a few things about God and the Bible, and learned as much as we could as we went along.  Since that experience I’ve had plenty of other opportunities to learn about and practice youth ministry, and though I am convinced that anyone who thinks they have youth ministry \"all figured out” is either a lunatic or lying, these experiences have taught me a few important principles that I want to share.\r\n\r\nIn this article I want to outline a basic “theory” of youth ministry that attempts to address the issues brought up in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one of this series</a>.  The goal is not to create a rigid formula for what every youth ministry should look like.  I don’t have, nor do I think I ever will have, such a formula, so these thoughts are not meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution to every church’s questions.  What I do intend to do is highlight some basic principles that I think are extremely important for any church to think about as they plan and develop their own ministry with youth.  As with <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, this is meant to start a conversation not end one, to provide one perspective on an issue not claim to be the definitive view.  I hope many others will join the discussion that follows and that we will learn more from one another than we could ever claim to know on our own.\r\n<h2>Underlying Principles</h2>\r\nTo lay my cards on the table, I have to acknowledge that the core of this theory of youth ministry is based largely on my own faith journey.  My own experiences of wrestling with my faith both while growing up and during my theological training at <a href=\"http://www.sebc.edu\">Southeastern Bible College</a> and <a href=\"http://divinity.yale.edu\">Yale Divinity School</a> have embedded in my thinking three major principles that lie not far beneath the surface of everything else I will argue for in this article (its worth acknowledging that I have been greatly aided in articulating the first two by the research of <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195384776/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0195384776&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Christian Smith</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0195384776\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> and his team of sociologists):\r\n\r\n<strong><em>First</em>, students won’t believe what they don’t find important.</strong>  When youth find a worship service boring or scoff at the idea of a missions trip, that isn’t just adolescent angst or a social-networking-age induced inability to sit still.  What they are telling you, implicitly, is that they don’t find these things important.  They don’t think they are things that they need, they don’t see them as valuable.  And what they don’t find valuable or important isn’t likely to be something they continue to do for very long after the pressure of parents or other mentoring adults is gone.  Transfer this principle from the activities of the church to the faith of the church: what happens when youth don’t find their faith valuable or important?  How long will they continue to believe?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>Second,</em> students won’t find important what they can’t explain the meaning and significance of themselves.</strong>  Too often when we talk about our faith, especially with youth, its the “expert-in-the-room” who does all the talking.  Which results in our youth being unable to explain for themselves why their faith is important to them.  Over time, this leads them to conclude that it isn’t that important (in the same way that most of us decide understanding multivariable calculus isn’t really important to our lives).  Which, when we are dealing with matters of faith, frequently leads them to question whether they really believe any of it in the first place (circling back to the first principle above).  I’m convinced that successful faith formation with youth has to be about getting our students comfortable explaining what their faith means to them, in their own words using their own voice, so that their faith becomes <em>their</em> faith, something that they find important and worth believing.\r\n\r\n<strong><em><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright  wp-image-8745\" alt=\"Student Eating Pizza\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza-300x277.jpg\" width=\"210\" height=\"194\" /></a>Third</em>, youth ministry is about students, not the prestige of the youth minister or the reputation of a local church.</strong>  Kids can tell when they are being used.  And while they might put up with that for a while (especially if they are getting something out of it, like free pizza every week), eventually, when the perks run out, they will run away.\r\n\r\nNow, with these principles in mind, let’s work back through the questions posed in part one of this series:\r\n<h2>The Goal of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\nThe goal of ministry in general is the proclaiming of the gospel.  Which might seem to indicate that of the two possible goals for youth ministry identified in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>-- evangelizing to kids or creating a safe space for kids to relax and feel loved-- we should opt for outright evangelism.\r\n\r\nActually, I think that a successful youth ministry can do both.  Maybe it would be better said I believe a successful youth ministry should and must do both, in a manner of speaking.  Let me explain:\r\n\r\nThroughout the Christian tradition, whether it be in the Pauline notion of general revelation, the Catholic doctrine of Natural Law, or the Wesleyan notion of prevenient grace, Christians have believed that the God who stands at the center of all things is reaching out to every person, inviting them to enter into a cosmic drama of redemption.  Twentieth-century theologian <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226803376/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226803376&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Paul Tillich</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0226803376\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> famously put it this way: \"religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.”  Perhaps the most effective way for youth (or really, anyone) to discover the value and importance of faith is for them to identify the ways they encounter this \"ultimate concern\" in their own life, to articulate their own experience of how God has been and is continuing to reach out to them; put another way: to tell the story of their own journey of faith.\r\n\r\nAsking students to tell their stories, examining the ways God is at work in their lives, is itself a form of evangelism and can lead to a whole host of incredible conversations about faith.  But it also cannot happen unless students feel safe.  In todays world there are very few places where students will ever be asked questions about an “ultimate concern.”  Answering existential questions about faith and its significance to their lives carries with it a certain degree of risk and requires a certain amount of openness to their peers and youth leaders.  And that, in turn, requires them to feel comfortable with and loved by those who are participating in this process with them.  So before a youth ministry can push its students to really think about faith as something meaningful in their lives, it must have created a space where they are willing to enter into the conversation.\r\n<h2>The Tenor of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8746\" alt=\"Ray of Light\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light-300x219.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>Inviting students to tell their own stories, examining their own lives to see the ways God is reaching out to them and inviting them to participate in the cosmic drama of redemption, requires that the tenor of a youth ministry strike a particular balance.\r\n\r\nAs we ask students to analyze their stories and think about what they believe and why it is important and valuable, our conversations must be open to a certain degree of doubt and questioning.  Demanding certainty from students, especially early on in the process of their faith development, leads them to give up on finding their own faith and revert to regurgitating the answers they think we expect.  Room for doubts and honest questions is necessary if we want students to find their own words with which to express their faith.  In a <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/april-2-2013-dr-andrew-root/\">recent talk</a> I heard by <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Root/e/B001JS9RFQ/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;qid=1365627665&amp;sr=1-4&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\" target=\"_blank\">Andy Root</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" />, Professor of Youth Ministry at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, he described the balance that has to be struck this way: “we can say to young people, ‘continue to doubt, continue to wrestle with questions, but continue to do that here.\'”\r\n\r\nThis tenor is set through our own modeling of what we are hoping our students will do.  In the same talk, Andy went on to point out that “we learn to tell our stories by hearing stories.”  When we model the process of exploring our own stories, describing our faith journeys, and articulating what we believe and why its important for our lives, we open up our students to engaging in the same kind of process for themselves.  When we model what a confident, vibrant, faith looks like we set a tone for our students to follow.  When we utilize theological language to explain the ways we have come to articulate our own faith, we equip students by giving them language with which to describe their experience of God working in their own lives.\r\n<h2>The Content of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\nStriking this balance in the tenor of our ministry while inviting students to tell their own faith stories allows us to strike a balance in the content of our ministry between focusing on theology and focusing on practical living.\r\n\r\nTheology will be important to a youth ministry because of how it helps us to explain our own faith journeys and helps to equip our students with the language to talk about theirs.  By helping us to articulate our faith clearly, theological language plays a significant role by helping to underscore the importance of our faith.  Simply put: its easier to see the importance of something when you have a clearer understanding of it.\r\n\r\nAt the same time, most often our faith stories will themselves reflect our <i>experiences</i> of God in life, and many of the most important questions we will have about our faith have to do with the way it practically effects of our lives.  That means that in inviting students to reflect on what they believe, we also have to invite them to consider the practical importance and significance of those beliefs in their everyday lives.\r\n<h2>Youth Ministry in the Life of the Church</h2>\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8747\" alt=\"Inviting People In\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In-196x300.jpg\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" /></a>In the first part of this series, I posed a question about how youth should be engaged in the life of a church.  Alternatively, it seems, we can keep kids in worship with the larger church community, often at the risk of letting them become bored or disengaged, or we can keep kids in an “age-appropriate” ministry separate form the rest of the church which then runs the risk of leaving kids without a sense of what the church community really is.\r\n\r\nIn reality, of course, we can have both an age-appropriate youth ministry and invite kids to participate in the larger community on Sunday mornings.  The latter part of that, however, is a bit trickier.  How do we make kids feel like they are part of the larger church community, especially when much of that community is made up of adults they may not have had previous meaningful relationships with?\r\n\r\nIn <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a> I paraphrased a parable from <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/february-5-2013-dr-roland-martinson/\">Roland Martinson</a> on the importance of having youth be connected to the community in what he refers to as “inter-generational ministry.”  My own feeling, echoing his and grounded in my own experience of church, is that when youth have ways to be involved in worship-- whether that be helping with music, ushering, or setting up chairs-- they gain a sense of ownership that encourages them to want to be part of the community.  Likewise, as a commenter on the first part of this series pointed out, when the congregation’s worship contains at least a few elements intentionally aimed at engaging youth, they are more likely to be interested in sticking around.  By both reaching out to youth and inviting them to become more involved in the community, churches can keep youth engaged in the larger community on Sunday mornings even while also providing them with an “age-appropriate” ministry at other times during the week.\r\n<h2>Leadership and How to Do That Here</h2>\r\nTwo of the most pressing and difficult issues for many churches when it comes to youth ministry are, as it was put in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, “who is going to lead it?” and “how do we do that at our church?”  In a way, these are closely related questions: whoever leads a youth ministry is in effect tasked with figuring out how to make it happen.\r\n\r\nAt the most basic level, the leader of a youth ministry must be committed to youth, skilled at teaching, and capable of providing pastoral care and thoughtful mentoring to students traveling through a formative period of life.  Such a role could be filled by a lay person or an ordained minister, a “professional” member of the church staff or a volunteer from within the congregation.  Ultimately, I believe, this should be a combination of many people led by a staff “point-person,” likely a pastor or designated youth minister.\r\n\r\nIn part this team approach is ideal because it helps to ensure that whoever is responsible for leading or overseeing a youth ministry has the support of the congregation.  One of the commenters on part one of this series noted that youth ministry can often feel like a lonely job.  I remember about six months into one of my first roles in youth ministry being asked by a member of the congregation after the service if I was a new visitor at the church.  To be honest, I was taken aback by the question.  “No, actually, I’m on the staff here,” I managed to mutter.  The question revealed the distance between the congregation and the youth ministry and its leadership.  Such a distance can quickly burn out a youth leader.  For their ministry to be successful, youth leaders need to have the support and backing of the larger church.  That means, I believe, supporting whoever the “point-person” for the youth ministry is with volunteers from the congregation.  It also means ensuring that the youth leader is integrated into the community of other adults at the church and not relegated to always being “with the kids.”\r\n\r\nWhat is not required to be a successful youth minister, I believe, is being a young, extreme extrovert, who can’t sit still and understands all the newest trends of youth culture.  Nor does a church need a massive youth budget or the ability to simulate the experience of a rock concert.  More on this in a moment, but suffice it to say that I think people with a variety of personalities, teaching styles, and visions for what their ministry will look like can be very effective in their role provided that they are genuine to themselves and minister to their students out of a love for seeing those students grow and learn in their faith.\r\n<h2>To Be Relevant, or Not to Be Relevant?</h2>\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8748\" alt=\"Mega-Church Interior\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>That is the question, perhaps the most disputed one amongst youth ministers today.  It also has a lot do with the practical question of how a particular youth ministry will look on the ground.  Do you need flashy video promos and rock band?  Do you need to be up on all the latest trends in teen pop culture?  Well… probably not.\r\n\r\nRelevance in a youth ministry takes three forms:\r\n\r\n<em>First,</em> when we are genuinely invested in the lives of our youth, we will become aware of the things that they are interested in.  The more we learn about those things, either through our conversations with them or through listening to the music they are all singing along to in the car on our way to an event or watching some of the you-tube videos they are talking about before youth group, the more we will understand about their world, and, consequently, the more “relevant” our ministry will be, even if we aren’t actively designing a ministry that looks like their culture.\r\n\r\n<em>Second,</em> I think relevance is also a factor of empowering student leaders.  One of the most significant things that every happened to me in my journey toward ministry was being asked to plan and lead the music for my high school youth group.  When we make a move to bring students into leadership roles within our group, asking them to help plan activities or lead worship, invariably they will bring something of their own tastes and interests and passions to the table.  And as their creativity impacts what the group looks like, our community and its worship start to look more “relevant” to our youth because they are shaping it, not us.\r\n\r\n<em>Third,</em> I think relevance also emerges from youth leaders being themselves.  While the movies we grew up on or the music we love might not always be what our youth are into now, if we are doing the work of building meaningful, ministering relationships with them they will humor us when we share our interests and often times find something about it they like, too.  Relevance doesn’t have to be about staying on the cutting edge of current trends in pop culture, it’s about finding a common language with which to share our experiences with the youth we are serving.\r\n\r\nWhen we find such a common language, whether it be through the terms of our own interests or the things our youth are excited about, we create a space where they feel at home and comfortable, opening up the door for them to be willing to engage serious questions about their faith and its meaning for their lives, and allowing us to work with them, helping them learn to articulate this faith and connect with the God who loves them.\r\n\r\n<hr />\r\n\r\n<em>Alexander Marshall is an experienced youth worker, blogger, writer, and student at Yale Divinity School.  You can connect with him on <a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/alexanderpmarshall\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alexp_marshall\">Twitter</a>, or by <a href=\"http://apmarshall.wordpress.com/\">visiting his blog</a>.</em>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-12','','','2013-04-13 08:07:48','2013-04-13 15:07:48','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-12/',0,'revision','',0),(8766,202,'2013-04-13 08:27:34','2013-04-13 15:27:34','My first experience in youth ministry while in college was in a poor, rural community in Alabama at a baptist church where the overwhelming majority of the 50 or so regular attendees were over the age of 65.  At some point, kids who lived in the small houses and trailer homes nearby discovered that every Wednesday night this church offered a free, warm meal and they started coming in droves.  Suddenly there were 20+ kids aged 7 to 15 at this church.  None of their families were involved in the congregation.  No one in the church had any youth ministry experience.  So they recruited a few students from nearby <a href=\"http://www.sebc.edu\">Southeastern Bible College</a> to come start a youth program.  Eventually the leader of that program recruited me.\n\nWe didn’t know what we were doing any more than the people who had called us did, and I’m still not sure how effective we were in our ministry with these kids.  But we played a lot of ping pong and basketball, did our best to teach a few things about God and the Bible, and learned as much as we could as we went along.  Since that experience I’ve had plenty of other opportunities to learn about and practice youth ministry, and though I am convinced that anyone who thinks they have youth ministry \"all figured out” is either a lunatic or lying, these experiences have taught me a few important principles that I want to share.\n\nIn this article I want to outline a basic “theory” of youth ministry that attempts to address the issues brought up in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one of this series</a>.  The goal is not to create a rigid formula for what every youth ministry should look like.  I don’t have, nor do I think I ever will have, such a formula, so these thoughts are not meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution to every church’s questions.  What I do intend to do is highlight some basic principles that I think are extremely important for any church to think about as they plan and develop their own ministry with youth.  As with <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, this is meant to start a conversation not end one, to provide one perspective on an issue not claim to be the definitive view.  I hope many others will join the discussion that follows and that we will learn more from one another than we could ever claim to know on our own.\n<h2>Underlying Principles</h2>\nTo lay my cards on the table, I have to acknowledge that the core of this theory of youth ministry is based largely on my own faith journey.  My own experiences of wrestling with my faith both while growing up and during my theological training at <a href=\"http://www.sebc.edu\">Southeastern Bible College</a> and <a href=\"http://divinity.yale.edu\">Yale Divinity School</a> have embedded in my thinking three major principles that lie not far beneath the surface of everything else I will argue for in this article (its worth acknowledging that I have been greatly aided in articulating the first two by the research of <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195384776/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0195384776&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Christian Smith</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0195384776\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> and his team of sociologists):\n\n<strong><em>First</em>, students won’t believe what they don’t find important.</strong>  When youth find a worship service boring or scoff at the idea of a missions trip, that isn’t just adolescent angst or a social-networking-age induced inability to sit still.  What they are telling you, implicitly, is that they don’t find these things important.  They don’t think they are things that they need, they don’t see them as valuable.  And what they don’t find valuable or important isn’t likely to be something they continue to do for very long after the pressure of parents or other mentoring adults is gone.  Transfer this principle from the activities of the church to the faith of the church: what happens when youth don’t find their faith valuable or important?  How long will they continue to believe?\n\n<strong><em>Second,</em> students won’t find important what they can’t explain the meaning and significance of themselves.</strong>  Too often when we talk about our faith, especially with youth, its the “expert-in-the-room” who does all the talking.  Which results in our youth being unable to explain for themselves why their faith is important to them.  Over time, this leads them to conclude that it isn’t that important (in the same way that most of us decide understanding multivariable calculus isn’t really important to our lives).  Which, when we are dealing with matters of faith, frequently leads them to question whether they really believe any of it in the first place (circling back to the first principle above).  I’m convinced that successful faith formation with youth has to be about getting our students comfortable explaining what their faith means to them, in their own words using their own voice, so that their faith becomes <em>their</em> faith, something that they find important and worth believing.\n\n<strong><em><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright  wp-image-8745\" alt=\"Student Eating Pizza\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza-300x277.jpg\" width=\"210\" height=\"194\" /></a>Third</em>, youth ministry is about students, not the prestige of the youth minister or the reputation of a local church.</strong>  Kids can tell when they are being used.  And while they might put up with that for a while (especially if they are getting something out of it, like free pizza every week), eventually, when the perks run out, they will run away.\n\nNow, with these principles in mind, let’s work back through the questions posed in part one of this series:\n<h2>The Goal of Youth Ministry</h2>\nThe goal of ministry in general is the proclaiming of the gospel.  Which might seem to indicate that of the two possible goals for youth ministry identified in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>-- evangelizing to kids or creating a safe space for kids to relax and feel loved-- we should opt for outright evangelism.\n\nActually, I think that a successful youth ministry can do both.  Maybe it would be better said I believe a successful youth ministry should and must do both, in a manner of speaking.  Let me explain:\n\nThroughout the Christian tradition, whether it be in the Pauline notion of general revelation, the Catholic doctrine of Natural Law, or the Wesleyan notion of prevenient grace, Christians have believed that the God who stands at the center of all things is reaching out to every person, inviting them to enter into a cosmic drama of redemption.  Twentieth-century theologian <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226803376/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226803376&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Paul Tillich</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0226803376\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" /> famously put it this way: \"religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.”  Perhaps the most effective way for youth (or really, anyone) to discover the value and importance of faith is for them to identify the ways they encounter this \"ultimate concern\" in their own life, to articulate their own experience of how God has been and is continuing to reach out to them; put another way: to tell the story of their own journey of faith.\n\nAsking students to tell their stories, examining the ways God is at work in their lives, is itself a form of evangelism and can lead to a whole host of incredible conversations about faith.  But it also cannot happen unless students feel safe.  In todays world there are very few places where students will ever be asked questions about an “ultimate concern.”  Answering existential questions about faith and its significance to their lives carries with it a certain degree of risk and requires a certain amount of openness to their peers and youth leaders.  And that, in turn, requires them to feel comfortable with and loved by those who are participating in this process with them.  So before a youth ministry can push its students to really think about faith as something meaningful in their lives, it must have created a space where they are willing to enter into the conversation.\n<h2>The Tenor of Youth Ministry</h2>\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8746\" alt=\"Ray of Light\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light-300x219.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>Inviting students to tell their own stories, examining their own lives to see the ways God is reaching out to them and inviting them to participate in the cosmic drama of redemption, requires that the tenor of a youth ministry strike a particular balance.\n\nAs we ask students to analyze their stories and think about what they believe and why it is important and valuable, our conversations must be open to a certain degree of doubt and questioning.  Demanding certainty from students, especially early on in the process of their faith development, leads them to give up on finding their own faith and revert to regurgitating the answers they think we expect.  Room for doubts and honest questions is necessary if we want students to find their own words with which to express their faith.  In a <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/april-2-2013-dr-andrew-root/\">recent talk</a> I heard by <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Root/e/B001JS9RFQ/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;qid=1365627665&amp;sr=1-4&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\" target=\"_blank\">Andy Root</a><img style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=musingsandph-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" />, Professor of Youth Ministry at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, he described the balance that has to be struck this way: “we can say to young people, ‘continue to doubt, continue to wrestle with questions, but continue to do that here.\'”\n\nThis tenor is set through our own modeling of what we are hoping our students will do.  In the same talk, Andy went on to point out that “we learn to tell our stories by hearing stories.”  When we model the process of exploring our own stories, describing our faith journeys, and articulating what we believe and why its important for our lives, we open up our students to engaging in the same kind of process for themselves.  When we model what a confident, vibrant, faith looks like we set a tone for our students to follow.  When we utilize theological language (more on this in a minute) to explain the ways we have come to articulate our own faith, we equip students by giving them language with which to describe their experience of God working in their own lives.\n<h2>The Content of Youth Ministry</h2>\nStriking this balance in the tenor of our ministry while inviting students to tell their own faith stories allows us to strike a balance in the content of our ministry between focusing on theology and focusing on practical living.\n\nTheology can be important to a youth ministry because of how it helps us to explain our own faith journeys and helps to equip our students with the language to talk about theirs.  By helping us to articulate our faith clearly, theological language plays a significant role by helping to underscore the importance of our faith.  Simply put: its easier to see the importance of something when you have a clearer understanding of it.\n\nAt the same time, most often our faith stories will themselves reflect our experiences of God in life, and many of the most important questions we will ask about our faith have to do with the way it practically effects of our lives.  That means that in inviting students to reflect on what they believe, we also have to invite them to consider the practical importance and significance of those beliefs in their everyday lives.\n\nIt is important to note that both theological language and the practical living out of faith can be taught in multiple styles and ways that engage people from different directions.  Music, art, drama, hands-on experience, and many other possibilities supplement more traditional teaching or group discussion.  The goal, at the end of the day, is to give students the means to express faith in their own words, not teaching them to parrot the words that we use, and employing a variety of means of engaging the content we are teaching is a great way to equip students to this end.\n<h2>Youth Ministry in the Life of the Church</h2>\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8747\" alt=\"Inviting People In\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In-196x300.jpg\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" /></a>In the first part of this series, I posed a question about how youth should be engaged in the life of a church.  Alternatively, it seems, we can keep kids in worship with the larger church community, often at the risk of letting them become bored or disengaged, or we can keep kids in an “age-appropriate” ministry separate form the rest of the church which then runs the risk of leaving kids without a sense of what the church community really is.\n\nIn reality, of course, we can have both an age-appropriate youth ministry and invite kids to participate in the larger community on Sunday mornings.  The latter part of that, however, is a bit trickier.  How do we make kids feel like they are part of the larger church community, especially when much of that community is made up of adults they may not have had previous meaningful relationships with?\n\nIn <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a> I paraphrased a parable from <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/february-5-2013-dr-roland-martinson/\">Roland Martinson</a> on the importance of having youth be connected to the community in what he refers to as “inter-generational ministry.”  My own feeling, echoing his and grounded in my own experience of church, is that when youth have ways to be involved in worship-- whether that be helping with music, ushering, or setting up chairs-- they gain a sense of ownership that encourages them to want to be part of the community.  Likewise, as a commenter on the first part of this series pointed out, when the congregation’s worship contains at least a few elements intentionally aimed at engaging youth, they are more likely to be interested in sticking around.  By both reaching out to youth and inviting them to become more involved in the community, churches can keep youth engaged in the larger community on Sunday mornings even while also providing them with an “age-appropriate” ministry at other times during the week.\n<h2>Leadership and How to Do That Here</h2>\nTwo of the most pressing and difficult issues for many churches when it comes to youth ministry are, as it was put in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, “who is going to lead it?” and “how do we do that at our church?”  In a way, these are closely related questions: whoever leads a youth ministry is in effect tasked with figuring out how to make it happen.\n\nAt the most basic level, the leader of a youth ministry must be committed to youth, skilled at teaching, and capable of providing pastoral care and thoughtful mentoring to students traveling through a formative period of life.  Such a role could be filled by a lay person or an ordained minister, a “professional” member of the church staff or a volunteer from within the congregation.  Ultimately, I believe, this should be a combination of many people led by a staff “point-person,” likely a pastor or designated youth minister.\n\nIn part this team approach is ideal because it helps to ensure that whoever is responsible for leading or overseeing a youth ministry has the support of the congregation.  One of the commenters on part one of this series noted that youth ministry can often feel like a lonely job.  I remember about six months into one of my first roles in youth ministry being asked by a member of the congregation after the service if I was a new visitor at the church.  To be honest, I was taken aback by the question.  “No, actually, I’m on the staff here,” I managed to mutter.  The question revealed the distance between the congregation and the youth ministry and its leadership.  Such a distance can quickly burn out a youth leader.  For their ministry to be successful, youth leaders need to have the support and backing of the larger church.  That means, I believe, supporting whoever the “point-person” for the youth ministry is with volunteers from the congregation.  It also means ensuring that the youth leader is integrated into the community of other adults at the church and not relegated to always being “with the kids.”\n\nWhat is not required to be a successful youth minister, I believe, is being a young, extreme extrovert, who can’t sit still and understands all the newest trends of youth culture.  Nor does a church need a massive youth budget or the ability to simulate the experience of a rock concert.  More on this in a moment, but suffice it to say that I think people with a variety of personalities, teaching styles, and visions for what their ministry will look like can be very effective in their role provided that they are genuine to themselves and minister to their students out of a love for seeing those students grow and learn in their faith.\n<h2>To Be Relevant, or Not to Be Relevant?</h2>\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8748\" alt=\"Mega-Church Interior\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>That is the question, perhaps the most disputed one amongst youth ministers today.  It also has a lot do with the practical question of how a particular youth ministry will look on the ground.  Do you need flashy video promos and rock band?  Do you need to be up on all the latest trends in teen pop culture?  Well… probably not.\n\nRelevance in a youth ministry takes three forms:\n\n<em>First,</em> when we are genuinely invested in the lives of our youth, we will become aware of the things that they are interested in.  The more we learn about those things, either through our conversations with them or through listening to the music they are all singing along to in the car on our way to an event or watching some of the you-tube videos they are talking about before youth group, the more we will understand about their world, and, consequently, the more “relevant” our ministry will be, even if we aren’t actively designing a ministry that looks like their culture.\n\n<em>Second,</em> I think relevance is also a factor of empowering student leaders.  One of the most significant things that every happened to me in my journey toward ministry was being asked to plan and lead the music for my high school youth group.  When we make a move to bring students into leadership roles within our group, asking them to help plan activities or lead worship, invariably they will bring something of their own tastes and interests and passions to the table.  And as their creativity impacts what the group looks like, our community and its worship start to look more “relevant” to our youth because they are shaping it, not us.\n\n<em>Third,</em> I think relevance also emerges from youth leaders being themselves.  While the movies we grew up on or the music we love might not always be what our youth are into now, if we are doing the work of building meaningful, ministering relationships with them they will humor us when we share our interests and often times find something about it they like, too.  Relevance doesn’t have to be about staying on the cutting edge of current trends in pop culture, it’s about finding a common language with which to share our experiences with the youth we are serving.\n\nWhen we find such a common language, whether it be through the terms of our own interests or the things our youth are excited about, we create a space where they feel at home and comfortable, opening up the door for them to be willing to engage serious questions about their faith and its meaning for their lives, and allowing us to work with them, helping them learn to articulate this faith and connect with the God who loves them.\n\n<hr />\n\n<em>Alexander Marshall is an experienced youth worker, blogger, writer, and student at Yale Divinity School.  You can connect with him on <a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/alexanderpmarshall\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alexp_marshall\">Twitter</a>, or by <a href=\"http://apmarshall.wordpress.com/\">visiting his blog</a>.</em>\n\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-13','','','2013-04-13 08:27:34','2013-04-13 15:27:34','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-13/',0,'revision','',0),(8778,202,'2013-04-13 09:07:24','2013-04-13 16:07:24','My first experience in youth ministry while in college was in a poor, rural community in Alabama at a Baptist church where the overwhelming majority of the 50 or so regular attendees were over the age of 65.  At some point, kids who lived in the small houses and trailer homes nearby discovered that every Wednesday night this church offered a free, warm meal and they started coming in droves.  Suddenly there were 20+ kids aged 7 to 15 at this church.  None of their families were involved in the congregation.  No one in the church had any youth ministry experience.  So they recruited a few students from nearby <a href=\"http://www.sebc.edu\">Southeastern Bible College</a> to come start a youth program.  Eventually the leader of that program recruited me.\r\n\r\nWe didn’t know what we were doing any more than the people who had called us did, and I’m still not sure how effective we were in our ministry with these kids.  But we played a lot of ping-pong and basketball, did our best to teach a few things about God and the Bible, and learned as much as we could as we went along.  Since that experience I’ve had plenty of other opportunities to learn about and practice youth ministry, and though I am convinced that anyone who thinks they have youth ministry \"all figured out” is either a lunatic or lying, these experiences have taught me a few important principles that I want to share.\r\n\r\nIn this article I want to outline a basic “theory” of youth ministry that attempts to address the issues brought up in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one of this series</a>.  The goal is not to create a rigid formula for what every youth ministry should look like.  I don’t have, nor do I think I ever will have, such a formula, so these thoughts are not meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution to every church’s questions.  What I do intend to do is highlight some basic principles that I think are extremely important for any church to think about as they plan and develop their own ministry with youth.  As with <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, this is meant to start a conversation not end one, to offer one perspective on an issue not claim to be the definitive view.  I hope many others will join the discussion that follows and that we will learn more from one another than we could ever claim to know on our own.\r\n<h2>Underlying Principles</h2>\r\nTo lay my cards on the table, I have to acknowledge that the core of this theory of youth ministry is based largely on my own faith journey.  My own experiences of wrestling with my faith both while growing up and during my theological training at <a href=\"http://www.sebc.edu\">Southeastern Bible College</a> and <a href=\"http://divinity.yale.edu\">Yale Divinity School</a> have embedded in my thinking three major principles that lie not far beneath the surface of everything else I will argue for in this article (its worth acknowledging that I have been greatly aided in articulating the first two by the research of <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195384776/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0195384776&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Christian Smith</a> and his team of sociologists):\r\n\r\n<strong><em>First</em>, students won’t believe what they don’t find important.</strong>  When youth find a worship service boring or scoff at the idea of a missions trip, that isn’t just adolescent angst or a social-networking-age induced inability to sit still.  What they are telling you, implicitly, is that they don’t find these things important.  They don’t think they are things that they need, they don’t see them as valuable.  And what they don’t find valuable or important isn’t likely to be something they continue to do for very long after the pressure of parents or other mentoring adults is gone.  Transfer this principle from the activities of the church to the faith of the church: what happens when youth don’t find their faith valuable or important?  How long will they continue to believe?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>Second,</em> students won’t find important what they can’t explain the meaning and significance of themselves.</strong>  Too often when we talk about our faith, especially with youth, it\'s the “expert-in-the-room” who does all the talking.  Which results in our youth being unable to explain for themselves why their faith is important to them.  Over time, this leads them to conclude that it isn’t that important (in the same way that most of us decide understanding multivariate calculus isn’t really important to our lives).  Which, when we are dealing with matters of faith, often leads them to question whether they really believe any of it in the first place (circling back to the first principle above).  I’m convinced that successful faith formation with youth has to aim for getting our students comfortable explaining what their faith means to them, in their own words using their own voice, so that their faith becomes <em>their</em> faith, something that they find important and worth believing.\r\n\r\n<strong><em><a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright  wp-image-8745\" alt=\"Student Eating Pizza\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Student-Eating-Pizza-300x277.jpg\" width=\"210\" height=\"194\" /></a>Third</em>, youth ministry is about students, not the prestige of the youth minister or the reputation of a local church.</strong>  Kids can tell when they are being used.  And while they might put up with that for a while (especially if they are getting something out of it, like free pizza every week), eventually, when the perks run out, they will run away.\r\n\r\nNow, with these principles in mind, let’s work back through the questions posed in part one of this series:\r\n<h2>The Goal of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\nThe goal of ministry in general is the proclaiming of the gospel.  Which might seem to indicate that of the two possible goals for youth ministry identified in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>-- evangelizing to kids or creating a safe space for kids to relax and feel loved-- we should opt for outright evangelism.\r\n\r\nActually, I think that a successful youth ministry can do both.  Maybe it would be better said I believe a successful youth ministry should and must do both, in a manner of speaking.  Let me explain:\r\n\r\nThroughout the Christian tradition, whether it be in the Pauline notion of general revelation, the Catholic doctrine of Natural Law, or the Wesleyan notion of prevenient grace, Christians have believed that the God who stands at the center of all things is reaching out to every person, inviting them to enter into a cosmic drama of redemption.  Twentieth-century theologian <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226803376/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226803376&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\">Paul Tillich</a> famously put it this way: \"religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.”  Perhaps the most effective way for youth (or really, anyone) to discover the value and importance of faith is for them to identify the ways they encounter this \"ultimate concern\" in their own life, to articulate their own experience of how God has been and is continuing to reach out to them; put another way: to tell the story of their own journey of faith.\r\n\r\nAsking students to tell their stories, examining the ways God is at work in their lives, is itself a form of evangelism and can lead to a whole host of incredible conversations about faith.  But it also cannot happen unless students feel safe.  In today\'s world there are very few places where students will ever be asked questions about an “ultimate concern.”  Answering existential questions about faith and its significance to their lives carries with it a certain degree of risk and requires a certain amount of openness to their peers and youth leaders.  And that, in turn, requires them to feel comfortable with and loved by those who are participating in this process with them.  So before a youth ministry can push its students to really think about faith as something meaningful in their lives, it must have created a space where they are willing to enter into the conversation.\r\n<h2>The Tenor of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8746\" alt=\"Ray of Light\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ray-of-Light-300x219.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>Inviting students to tell their own stories, examining their own lives to see the ways God is reaching out to them and inviting them to take part in the cosmic drama of redemption, requires that the tenor of a youth ministry strike a particular balance.\r\n\r\nAs we ask students to analyze their stories and think about what they believe and why it is important and valuable, our conversations must be open to a certain degree of doubt and questioning.  Demanding certainty from students, especially early in the process of their faith development, leads them to give up on finding their own faith and revert to regurgitating the answers they think we expect.  Room for doubts and honest questions is necessary if we want students to find their own words with which to express their faith.  In a <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/april-2-2013-dr-andrew-root/\">recent talk</a> I heard by <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Root/e/B001JS9RFQ/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;qid=1365627665&amp;sr=1-4&amp;tag=musingsandph-20\" target=\"_blank\">Andy Root</a>, Professor of Youth Ministry at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, he described the balance to be struck this way: “we can say to young people, ‘continue to doubt, continue to wrestle with questions, but continue to do that here.\'”\r\n\r\nThis tenor is set through our own modeling of what we are hoping our students will do.  In the same talk, Andy went on to point out that “we learn to tell our stories by hearing stories.”  When we model the process of exploring our own stories, describing our faith journeys, and articulating what we believe and why its important for our lives, we open up our students to engaging in the same kind of process for themselves.  When we model what a confident, vibrant, faith looks like we set a tone for our students to follow.  When we use theological language (more on this in a minute) to explain the ways we have come to articulate our own faith, we equip students by giving them language with which to describe their experience of God working in their own lives.\r\n<h2>The Content of Youth Ministry</h2>\r\nStriking this balance in the tenor of our ministry while inviting students to tell their own faith stories allows us to strike a balance in the content of our ministry between focusing on theology and focusing on practical living.\r\n\r\nTheology can be important to a youth ministry because of how it helps us to explain our own faith journeys and helps to equip our students with the language to talk about theirs.  By helping us to articulate our faith clearly, theological language plays a significant role by helping to underscore the importance of our faith.  Simply put: it\'s easier to see the importance of something when you have a clearer understanding of it.\r\n\r\nAt the same time, most often our faith stories will themselves reflect our experiences of God in life, and many of the most important questions we will ask about our faith have to do with the way it practically effects of our lives.  That means that in inviting students to reflect on what they believe, we also have to invite them to consider the practical importance and significance of those beliefs in their everyday lives.\r\n\r\nIt is important to note that both theological language and the practical living out of faith can be taught in multiple styles and ways that engage people from different directions.  Music, art, drama, hands-on experience, and many other possibilities supplement more traditional teaching or group discussion.  The goal, at the end of the day, is to give students the means to express faith in their own words, not teaching them to parrot the words that we use, and employing a variety of means of engaging the content we are teaching is a great way to equip students to this end.\r\n<h2>Youth Ministry in the Life of the Church</h2>\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8747\" alt=\"Inviting People In\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Inviting-People-In-196x300.jpg\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" /></a>In the first part of this series, I posed a question about how youth should be engaged in the life of a church.  Alternatively, it seems, we can keep kids in worship with the larger church community, often at the risk of letting them become bored or disengaged, or we can keep kids in an “age-appropriate” ministry separate form the rest of the church which then runs the risk of leaving kids without a sense of what the church community really is when they grow up and leave home.\r\n\r\nIn reality, of course, we can have both an age-appropriate youth ministry and invite kids to take part in the larger community on Sunday mornings.  The latter half of that, however, is a bit trickier.  How do we make kids feel like they are part of the larger church community, especially when much of that community is made up of adults they may not have have meaningful relationships with?\r\n\r\nIn <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a> I paraphrased a parable from <a href=\"http://www.youthministryinitiative.org/february-5-2013-dr-roland-martinson/\">Roland Martinson</a> on the importance of having youth be connected to the community in what he refers to as “inter-generational ministry.”  My own feeling, echoing his and grounded in my own experience of church, is that when youth have ways to be involved in worship-- whether that be helping with music, ushering, or setting up chairs-- they gain a sense of ownership that encourages them to want to be part of the community.  Likewise, as <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/#comments\">a commenter on the first part of this series</a> pointed out, when the congregation’s worship contains at least a few elements intentionally aimed at engaging youth, they are more likely to be interested in sticking around.  By both reaching out to youth and inviting them to reach in and become more involved in the community, churches can keep youth engaged on Sunday mornings while also providing them with an “age-appropriate” ministry at other times during the week.\r\n<h2>Leadership and How to Do That Here</h2>\r\nTwo of the most pressing and difficult issues for many churches when it comes to youth ministry are, as it was put in <a title=\"Relevance: The Youth Minister’s Questions (Part 1 of 2)\" href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/\">part one</a>, “who is going to lead it?” and “how do we do that at our church?”  In a way, these are closely related questions: whoever leads a youth ministry is in effect tasked with figuring out how to make it happen.\r\n\r\nAt the most basic level, the leader of a youth ministry must be committed to youth, skilled at teaching, and capable of providing pastoral care and thoughtful mentoring to students traveling through a formative period of life.  Such a role could be filled by a lay person or an ordained minister, a “professional” member of the church staff or a volunteer from within the congregation.  Ultimately, I believe, this should be a combination of many people led by a staff “point-person,” likely a pastor or designated youth minister.\r\n\r\nIn part this team approach is ideal because it helps to ensure that whoever is responsible for leading or overseeing a youth ministry has the support of the congregation.  One of the <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/2013/03/25/relevant-the-youth-ministers-questions-part-1-of-2/#comments\">commenters on part one of this series</a> noted that youth ministry can often feel like a lonely job.  I remember about six months into one of my first roles in youth ministry being asked by a member of the congregation after the service if I was a new visitor at the church.  To be honest, I was taken aback by the question.  “No, actually, I’m on the staff here,” I managed to mutter.  The question revealed the distance between the congregation and the youth ministry and its leadership.  Such a distance can quickly burn out a youth leader.  For their ministry to be successful, youth leaders need to have the support and backing of the larger church.  That means, I believe, supporting whoever the “point-person” for the youth ministry is with volunteers from the congregation.  It also means ensuring that the youth leader is integrated into the community of other adults at the church and not relegated to always being “with the kids.”\r\n\r\nWhat is not required to be a successful youth minister, I believe, is being a young, extreme extrovert, who can’t sit still and understands all the newest trends of youth culture.  Nor does a church need a massive youth budget or the ability to simulate the experience of a rock concert.  More on this in a moment, but suffice it to say that I think people with a variety of personalities, teaching styles, and visions for what their ministry will look like can be very effective in their role provided that they are genuine to themselves and minister to their students out of a love for seeing those students grow and learn in their faith.\r\n<h2>To Be Relevant, or Not to Be Relevant?</h2>\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8748\" alt=\"Mega-Church Interior\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mega-Church-Interior-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>That is the question, perhaps the most disputed one among youth ministers today.  It also has a lot do with the practical question of how a particular youth ministry will look on the ground.  Do you need flashy video promos and a rock band?  Do you need to be up on all the latest trends in teen pop culture?  Well… probably not.\r\n\r\nI believe that relevance in a youth ministry takes three forms:\r\n\r\n<em>First,</em> when we are genuinely invested in the lives of our youth, we will become aware of the things that they find interesting.  The more we learn about those things, either through our conversations with them or through listening to the music they are all singing along to on the drive to an event or watching some of the you-tube videos they are talking about before youth group, the more we will understand about their world, and, consequently, the more “relevant” our ministry will be, even if we aren’t actively designing a ministry modeled on their culture.\r\n\r\n<em>Second,</em> I think relevance is also a factor of empowering student leaders.  One of the most significant things that ever happened to me in my journey toward ministry was being asked to plan and lead the music for my high school youth group.  When we make a move to bring students into leadership roles within our group, asking them to help plan activities or lead worship, invariably they will bring something of their own tastes and interests and passions to the table.  And as their creativity impacts what the group looks like, our community and its worship start to look more “relevant” to our youth because they are shaping it, not us.\r\n\r\n<em>Third,</em> I think relevance also emerges from youth leaders being themselves.  While the movies we grew up on or the music we love might not always be what our youth are into now, if we are doing the work of building meaningful, ministering relationships with them they will humor us when we share our interests and often times find something about it they like, too.  Relevance doesn’t have to be about staying on the cutting edge of current trends in pop culture, it’s about finding a common language with which to share our faith with the youth we are serving.\r\n\r\nWhen we find such a common language, whether it be through the lens of our own interests or the things our youth are excited about, we create a space where they feel at home and comfortable, opening up the door for them to be willing to engage serious questions about their faith and its meaning for their lives, and allowing us to work with them, helping them learn to articulate this faith and connect with the God who loves them.\r\n\r\n<hr />\r\n\r\n<em>Alexander Marshall is an experienced youth worker, blogger, writer, and student at Yale Divinity School.  You can connect with him on <a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/alexanderpmarshall\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alexp_marshall\">Twitter</a>, or by <a href=\"http://apmarshall.wordpress.com/\">visiting his blog</a>.</em>\r\n','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-25','','','2013-04-13 09:07:24','2013-04-13 16:07:24','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-25/',0,'revision','',0);
