INSERT INTO `wp_posts` VALUES (8768,202,'2013-04-13 08:59:39','2013-04-13 15:59:39','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 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.\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, 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.\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 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.\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 take part 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 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 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 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.\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: it\'s 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 when they grow up and leave home.\n\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?\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 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.\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 <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.”\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 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.\n\nI believe that relevance 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 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.\n\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.\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 faith with the youth we are serving.\n\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.\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-15','','','2013-04-13 08:59:39','2013-04-13 15:59:39','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-15/',0,'revision','',0),(8767,202,'2013-04-13 08:38:00','2013-04-13 15:38:00','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 when they grow up and leave home.\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 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.\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 <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.”\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 a rock band?  Do you need to be up on all the latest trends in teen pop culture?  Well… probably not.\n\nI believe that relevance 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 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.\n\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.\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 faith with the youth we are serving.\n\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.\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-14','','','2013-04-13 08:38:00','2013-04-13 15:38:00','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-14/',0,'revision','',0),(8776,202,'2013-04-13 09:05:45','2013-04-13 16:05:45','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><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 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><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 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\r\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-23','','','2013-04-13 09:05:45','2013-04-13 16:05:45','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-23/',0,'revision','',0),(8769,202,'2013-04-13 08:59:50','2013-04-13 15:59:50','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><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, 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><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 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><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 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\r\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-16','','','2013-04-13 08:59:50','2013-04-13 15:59:50','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-16/',0,'revision','',0),(8771,202,'2013-04-13 09:00:36','2013-04-13 16:00:36','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><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, 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><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 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><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 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\r\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-18','','','2013-04-13 09:00:36','2013-04-13 16:00:36','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-18/',0,'revision','',0),(8770,202,'2013-04-13 09:00:07','2013-04-13 16:00:07','<p>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.</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 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.</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 <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.</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 <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):</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, 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.</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-- we should opt for outright evangelism.</p>\r\n<p>Actually, 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:</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 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.</p>\r\n<p>Asking 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.</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 take part 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 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 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 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.</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 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.</p>\r\n<p>At 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.</p>\r\n<p>It 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.</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 when they grow up and leave home.</p>\r\n<p>In 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?</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 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.</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 <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.”</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 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.</p>\r\n<p>I believe that 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 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.</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 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.</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 faith with the youth we are serving.</p>\r\n<p>When 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.</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-17','','','2013-04-13 09:00:07','2013-04-13 16:00:07','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-17/',0,'revision','',0),(8772,202,'2013-04-13 09:03:33','2013-04-13 16:03:33','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><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, 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><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 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><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 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\r\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-19','','','2013-04-13 09:03:33','2013-04-13 16:03:33','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-19/',0,'revision','',0),(8773,202,'2013-04-13 09:03:42','2013-04-13 16:03:42','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><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, 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><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 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><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 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\r\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-20','','','2013-04-13 09:03:42','2013-04-13 16:03:42','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-20/',0,'revision','',0),(8774,202,'2013-04-13 09:04:36','2013-04-13 16:04:36','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><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=\"0\" height=\"0\" 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, 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><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 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><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 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\r\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-21','','','2013-04-13 09:04:36','2013-04-13 16:04:36','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-21/',0,'revision','',0),(8775,202,'2013-04-13 09:04:44','2013-04-13 16:04:44','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.\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><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=\"0\" height=\"0\" 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, 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><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 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><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 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\r\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-22','','','2013-04-13 09:04:44','2013-04-13 16:04:44','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-22/',0,'revision','',0),(8777,202,'2013-04-13 09:05:54','2013-04-13 16:05:54','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><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 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><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 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\r\n&nbsp;','Relevance: A Youth Minister Answers (Part 2 of 2)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-24','','','2013-04-13 09:05:54','2013-04-13 16:05:54','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-24/',0,'revision','',0),(8779,202,'2013-04-13 09:07:39','2013-04-13 16:07:39','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-26','','','2013-04-13 09:07:39','2013-04-13 16:07:39','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-26/',0,'revision','',0),(8780,202,'2013-04-13 09:26:48','2013-04-13 16:26:48','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)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-27','','','2013-04-13 09:26:48','2013-04-13 16:26:48','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-27/',0,'revision','',0),(8860,12,'2013-05-08 08:00:34','2013-05-08 15:00:34','I cannot stand reality television. Well, I take that back. There are a few shows I like. I can handle Storage Wars, Pawn Stars and Auction Hunters (before they added the pawn shop.) But my favorite show is <a href=\"http://www.spike.com/shows/bar-rescue\">Bar Rescue</a>.\r\n\r\nOn Spike Network’s Bar Rescue, <a href=\"http://www.jontaffer.com/\">Jon Taffer</a>, nationally known bar expert, scouts out failing bars for weeks in advance, then goes in and tries to save them. Typically, an episode has him doing a lot of yelling at the management, questioning their motives, not allowing them to make excuses, and bringing in experts to show the kitchen and bartenders how awful they are.\r\n\r\nAt the end, he rebuilds the bar, usually renames it and everything is better. Before the credits roll, they give an update telling how the bar is doing two months later. Typically, the bar follows the new changes and is saved. On a few occasions, the bar returns to its original theme and name and goes right back to doing terrible.\r\n\r\nI know, great stuff, right? Nice to know the bars of America are being saved.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/decline.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8862\" style=\"margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 6px;\" alt=\"decline\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/decline.jpg\" width=\"250\" height=\"200\" /></a>As I was watching the other day, I started thinking about our <a href=\"http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/17-leadership/323-report-examines-the-state-of-mainline-protestant-churches\">declining American churches</a>. On top of that, I started thinking about the pastor friends I have across the country and their typical complaints: “<em>We really need to change the old music we have, but it’s never going to happen without a huge fight</em>,” “<em>The leadership just won’t listen to anything. Nothing is going to happen without a leadership change</em>,” “<em>What we need is a younger crowd, but the older generation doesn’t want younger people here</em>.” And so on, and so forth.\r\n\r\nSo let’s get resident good guy Jeff Foxworthy to host “<em>Church Rescue</em>.” He can grab a host of church experts to find churches that are about to close the doors. Put in some security cameras, have some people pose as visitors to the church and see how they are treated, check out their numbers for the past few years. Heck, even bring in a preaching expert or two.\r\n\r\nThen, all at once, just have the expert team just walk into a deacons/elders meeting and start jabbering about all the problems. Show them video footage of how things look to people on the outside and tell them that it’s not going to get better unless things change. Sound good?\r\n\r\nWell, maybe not. I bring up that ridiculous idea for a couple of reasons.\r\n\r\nFirst, there are a lot of struggling churches in our country. We all know it. If you’re in a struggling church, you probably have a laundry list of reasons in your head why your church is struggling. Maybe it is the music. Maybe it’s the pastor. Maybe it’s the lack of outreach or young people.\r\n\r\nSecondly, there are a lot of <a href=\"http://fallenpastor.com/2012/06/22/pastors-and-destructive-high-expectations-where-do-they-come-from/\">struggling pastors</a>. Men who have dedicated their lives to ministry and week after week see no<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/churchld.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-8863\" alt=\"churchld\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/churchld-300x224.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" /></a> return for their toil. Sometimes, they just get frustrated and quit. Sometimes, they are self-deceived and they are the problem. Sometimes, too much is expected of them. And other times, they have quit communicating with their church and leadership.\r\n\r\nBut the common thread is that most people in church want things to be better. They want the gospel to thrive. They want people to be saved and coming to worship.\r\n\r\nWhen I talk to pastors, a lot of times the task seems overwhelming. And it seems like it. And there’s no easy fix, that’s for sure.\r\n\r\nUnfortunately, there’s no Jon Taffer church expert walking through the door who can make any nenbership better overnight. And even if there was, it would be for the wrong reasons. It would be based on entertainment, flashy lights and all the wrong things.\r\n\r\nWhere does it start? With people in church willing to change. To look within. To ask and answer a simple question, “<em>Why aren’t people coming here? Why isn’t this a place that sinners want to come and hear the gospel? Is it something about us? Is the message wrong? Is it our attitude? Is it the way we treat others?</em>”\r\n\r\nReally, that’s one thing Bar Rescue has right. Taffer challenges the leadership of the bar to question their motives. He wants them to ask themselves, “<em>Are we willing to do what it takes to keep this place open?</em>”\r\n\r\nOf course, churches shouldn’t be willing to step down to the lowest common denominator to get people in the door. However, we should be ready to ask ourselves, “<em>Is what we are doing in line with Scripture? Are we loving like Christ loved? Are we loving sinners like He did? Are we going after the people Christ went after? Are we willing to have people in our church that don’t look like us?</em>”\r\n\r\nIt would be a process that took God breaking the hearts of the people in the church. It would take a brave and humble move by the church leadership, but it would definitely be a church rescue, done by the ultimate church expert – Jesus Christ.','New Reality Show Pitch: Church Rescue','','publish','open','open','','new-reality-show-pitch-church-rescue','','','2013-05-07 20:14:02','2013-05-08 03:14:02','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=8860',0,'post','',5),(8786,67,'2013-04-17 08:15:52','2013-04-17 15:15:52','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 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.\n\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, just as Christ\n\n&nbsp;','Review of Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim\'s Tale by Ian Morgan Cron ','','inherit','open','open','','8783-revision-2','','','2013-04-17 08:15:52','2013-04-17 15:15:52','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(8787,67,'2013-04-17 08:18:24','2013-04-17 15:18:24','','9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x420','','inherit','open','open','','9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x420','','','2013-04-17 08:18:24','2013-04-17 15:18:24','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x420.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(8788,67,'2013-04-17 08:17:10','2013-04-17 15:17:10','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 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.\n\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.\n\n&nbsp;','Review of Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim\'s Tale by Ian Morgan Cron ','','inherit','open','open','','8783-revision-3','','','2013-04-17 08:17:10','2013-04-17 15:17:10','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(8789,67,'2013-04-17 08:18:47','2013-04-17 15:18:47','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-4','','','2013-04-17 08:18:47','2013-04-17 15:18:47','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(8790,67,'2013-04-17 08:25:43','2013-04-17 15:25:43','','9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x420','','inherit','open','open','','9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x420-2','','','2013-04-17 08:25:43','2013-04-17 15:25:43','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x4201.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(8791,67,'2013-04-17 08:24:59','2013-04-17 15:24:59','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-5','','','2013-04-17 08:24:59','2013-04-17 15:24:59','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(8792,67,'2013-04-17 08:26:53','2013-04-17 15:26:53','','9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x420','','inherit','open','open','','9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x420-3','','','2013-04-17 08:26:53','2013-04-17 15:26:53','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x4202.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(8797,67,'2013-04-17 08:33:31','2013-04-17 15:33:31','','9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x420','','inherit','open','open','','9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x420-4','','','2013-04-17 08:33:31','2013-04-17 15:33:31','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x4203.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(8795,67,'2013-04-17 08:27:33','2013-04-17 15:27:33','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-7','','','2013-04-17 08:27:33','2013-04-17 15:27:33','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-7/',0,'revision','',0),(8799,67,'2013-04-17 08:36:46','2013-04-17 15:36:46','','9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x420','','inherit','open','open','','9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x420-5','','','2013-04-17 08:36:46','2013-04-17 15:36:46','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x4204.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(8915,206,'2013-05-09 19:19:36','2013-05-10 02:19:36','Imran khan; a former sportsman, philanthropist, an active politician and 3rd most influential leader of 2012 according to the Global Post is the only hope left for the people of an economically diminishing state as such as Pakistan . By so far, Imran Khan is considered as the most popular leader in the country’s history. In 1996 Khan formed his political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI). It was founded initially as socio-political movement which envisioned to embody anti-corruption policies and to put an end to the endless corruption in the country. However, the road towards success is never easy. His party was not even able to secure one seat in General Elections of 1997. It was only then in 2002 National Elections, when Khan ran for office and became a Member of Parliament. However, he continued to profoundly criticize the entire political order of Pakistan, which he reckoned as dishonest and ineffective. This is where Khan began the grassroots of his campaign in order to create awareness among people about his political party or his ideology towards a New Pakistan, as his wholehearted supporters would like to call it.\r\n\r\nImran Khan enunciates and influences out the vision of a Modern Islamic Republic and advocates a model of Welfare State for Pakistan where state plays key role in protecting and promoting the economic and social well-being of its citizens. His party maintains that it represents Pakistanis, regardless of religious, ethnic and linguistic background, bringing all the people of Pakistan together. After years of consistent struggle, Imran Khan has gained a tremendous support from the people of Pakistan. It is his continuous struggle, devotion and perseverance that his political party is now considered the largest party in Pakistan by membership with over 10 million members in Pakistan and overseas. Consequently, PTI has done massive campaigning and rallying with a turnover of hundreds of thousands of people for the upcoming General Elections on 11th May 2013\r\n\r\nOver the years, Pakistan has diminished drastically in economic sense. It is because of the inability of the previous political elites to act against energy crisis, inflation and social tensions. It is the Imran Khan in which people of Pakistan has placed their hopes into. Due to incomparable corruptions, blunders, and impropriety of the former governments Imran Khan is the seamless choice most of the people of Pakistan deem. However, a question still remains: Will Pakistan choose the right person for the state? Only the time can tell.','Imran Khan - An Ideology; A Hope','','inherit','open','open','','8905-revision-4','','','2013-05-09 19:19:36','2013-05-10 02:19:36','',8905,'http://provoketive.com/2013/05/09/8905-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(8917,67,'2013-05-15 08:00:52','2013-05-15 15:00:52','[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/65723010[/vimeo]\r\n\r\nDavid Bowie is not an artist without controversy. Since the release of his first album in 1967, the sometimes androgynous performer has always possessed the ability to stir the pot, especially when rock and roll needed it the most. One of the first patrons of Glam Rock, if not the first, Bowie has taken music to another level that has satisfied the ears as well as the other senses. Unlike many of the transparent musician-songwriters of today, Bowie cannot be contained to a particular box of genre. In fact, just when you think you have him figured out, you find that he is just as much a mystery as he ever has been.\r\n\r\nWhen you ponder his lengthy career, the only time that you might find Bowie without controversy is when he is absent from the music scene. Since the  release of his 2003 album <em>Reality</em>, a few live endeavors and the appearance in the 2006 British film, <em>The Prestige</em>, not much has been heard from Bowie save a few occasional mentions guaranteed an artist of his status. But with the release of his new album, <em>The Next Day</em>, and the accompanying video for the title track, the 66 year old Bowie proves that he is still capable of attracting controversy; this time from the Anglican and Catholic Church.\r\n\r\nIn the occasional instance that Christianity and pop culture cross paths, my interest and attention is always heightened. Although Evangelical Christianity has done is best to meld itself within the realms of post-modern culture, the success has been short-lived and in some cases destructive. The Christian concept of being <em>\"in the world, but not of the world\"</em>, attributed from such verses as <em>John 15:19</em> and <em>Romans 12:2</em>, has become somewhat of an anomaly; not particularly appearing in either camp with much clarity. Post-Modern Evangelicalism has become somewhat of a caricature of itself, developing it\'s own image of culture, but not really obtaining a sustainable manner of functioning within it. Ironically, it is usually from the secular that arise challenging messages of faith and thought provoking images of Christianity and the Church. So it is with <em>The Next Day</em>.\r\n\r\nWhether considered controversial or not, the video for <em>The Next Day</em> is not without shocking and suggestive imagery. Upon it\'s release, The Catholic League attacked Bowie as being a <em>\"switch-hitting, bisexual senior citizen from London\" that \"is strewn with characteristic excess.\"</em>  The League\'s President, Bill Donohoe, stated that <em>\"the video is strewn with characteristic excess: one priest bashes a homeless man, while others are busy hitting on women…The lyrics refer to  the “priest stiff in hate” and “women dressed as men for the pleasure of that priest.” The song concludes with, “They can work with Satan </em><em>while they dress with the saints.” In short, the video reflects the artist—it is a mess.\"</em> Donohoe goes on to accuse Bowie of not understanding true Christianity and being <em>\"confused about religion.\"</em>\r\n\r\nI must admit that as a minister, I was a bit apprehensive in viewing the video based on what I had previously heard. The pointless and ignorant ridiculing of any faith system, especially within the obscene and offensive, is one of the only arenas in which I don\'t have much tolerance. I have always been a fan of David Bowie and his music, but after reading other commentary and discovering that even Youtube had given the video an adult only \"Content Warning\" for being \"Explicit\", I began to wonder if Bowie had possibly pushed the limits and that no redeeming aspects would be found in this endeavor. Again, I cannot stress the fact that the video is shocking and what many would consider offensive, but what I discovered in <em>The Next Day</em> was just the opposite of what I had expected, and what many views might expect as well.\r\n\r\nThe video not only features Bowie, but also actors <em>Gary Oldman</em> and <em>Marion Cotillard</em>. It opens to Gothic imagery with the sound of church bells outside of what appears to be a church converted into a nightclub. The plot begins with a priest, played by Oldman, punching and knocking out a homeless man begging for money. One would be tempted to immediately draw a connection to the Pharisees of Jesus time, but there is no concealing the lack of compassion. He is accompanied by what appears to be a nun as they enter into the club and a scene of complete Christian hypocrisy and debauchery. The priest\'s nun companion apparently has had her eyes gouged out, perhaps from the excessive sin that she has been forced to witness, or perhaps to protect her form the truth of her surroundings. <em> \"...if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.\" (Matthew 18:9)</em>. Was this her own doing or the priest; done to protect her salvation, knowing that the removal of one eye would not suffice? The head of the Baptist? Righteousness on a platter?\r\n\r\nDavid Bowie portrays a Christ-like lead singer of the house band, appearing to vocally chastise the clubs patrons, particularly Oldman\'s character, who chooses a scantily clad woman (Cotillard) to join him on the dance floor. The room begins to spin out of control as Bowie continues his accusing, reminiscent of Christ\'s charge to the Pharisees as being <em>\"whitewashed tombs\" (Matthew 23:27</em>). Cotillard\'s character\'s eyes begin darting around the room, apparently becoming disturbed, and possibly spiritually convicted, by the blatant sin that fills the room. Her emotional state eventually becomes physical as she develops stigmata. Blood gushes from her wrists and onto the clubs patrons as Oldman directs his anger toward Bowie, <em>\"This is your doing! You call yourself a prophet?!\"</em>\r\n\r\nAs Christ\'s message of repentance was rejected, so is Bowie\'s as he is attacked by the crowd of priests, Cardinals, nuns and patrons; pummeled and beaten to the ground. The video\'s climax and most glaring images of Christology lie in the obvious redemption of Colliard\'s character as she rises to her feet, the stigmatic blood flow ceased. With hands still scared and stained with blood, her eyes become fixed on a distant light, as if receiving some sort of divine revelation. Bowie takes notice of this and joins her with the other religious leaders, all realizing that something miraculous has occurred. Bowie addresses the room, thanking them as if his mission has been accomplished, and then vanishes to the stunned surprise of all.\r\n\r\nThe question remains: Is <em>The Next Day</em> UN-Christian, anti-religion, sacrilegious or antagonistic of the Church in general? Can we learn anything about ourselves, faith or theology? Ultimately, that determination needs to be made by each person that views the video on their own. However, is it possible that the negativity directed toward Bowie and this video has developed not because of the underlying message, but the shocking imagery itself. Let us not forget: Stigma is a bloody spiritual condition, one that not even St. Francis would have had an issue with in terms of the offensive nature. Could there be a positive message found beneath the shocking storyline; a story that just might emulate reality more than fiction?\r\n\r\nWe live in a culture of hypocrisy that permeates all compartments of life, including the Church. This is made clear by Bowie\'s video which represents the negative and destructive worldview held by believers and non-believers alike. Bowie\'s Christ-like character calls out the hypocrisy of Christian leadership, resulting in the apparent repentance and redemption of Colliard\'s character and possibly the collective group as well. None the less, shocking, vulgar and violent though it may be, so lies the reality of our world. Are we not all hopeless sinners in need of redemption? And let\'s face it; when was the last time you witnessed repentance and stigmata provoked by the convicting words of a worship leader? I prefer Bowie\'s attire as well.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','David Bowie: The Next Day Video Review','','publish','open','open','','david-bowie-the-next-day-video-review','','','2013-05-14 21:44:36','2013-05-15 04:44:36','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=8917',0,'post','',1),(8798,67,'2013-04-17 08:28:58','2013-04-17 15:28:58','<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x4203.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-8794\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x4203-150x150.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /></a>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-8','','','2013-04-17 08:28:58','2013-04-17 15:28:58','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-8/',0,'revision','',0),(8800,67,'2013-04-17 08:38:51','2013-04-17 15:38:51','','9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x420','','inherit','open','open','','9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x420-6','','','2013-04-17 08:38:51','2013-04-17 15:38:51','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x4205.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(8801,67,'2013-04-17 08:35:32','2013-04-17 15:35:32','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 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.\n\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.\n\n&nbsp;','Review of Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim\'s Tale by Ian Morgan Cron ','','inherit','open','open','','8783-revision-9','','','2013-04-17 08:35:32','2013-04-17 15:35:32','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-9/',0,'revision','',0),(8802,67,'2013-04-17 08:39:18','2013-04-17 15:39:18','There are not many books that have been radically instrumental in changing my perspective of the Kingdom of God. Some have caused me to <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x4205.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8800\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x4205-195x300.jpg\" width=\"195\" height=\"300\" /></a>. 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-10','','','2013-04-17 08:39:18','2013-04-17 15:39:18','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-10/',0,'revision','',0),(8806,67,'2013-04-17 08:43:36','2013-04-17 15:43:36','<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>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 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.\n\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.\n\n&nbsp;','Review of Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim\'s Tale by Ian Morgan Cron ','','inherit','open','open','','8783-revision-13','','','2013-04-17 08:43:36','2013-04-17 15:43:36','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-13/',0,'revision','',0),(8803,67,'2013-04-17 08:39:39','2013-04-17 15:39:39','<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x4203.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-8797\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x4203-150x150.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /></a>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-11','','','2013-04-17 08:39:39','2013-04-17 15:39:39','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-11/',0,'revision','',0),(8804,67,'2013-04-17 08:42:10','2013-04-17 15:42:10','','9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x420','','inherit','open','open','','9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x420-7','','','2013-04-17 08:42:10','2013-04-17 15:42:10','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x4206.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(8805,67,'2013-04-17 08:40:41','2013-04-17 15:40:41','<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x4203.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-8797\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9780310336693_p0_v3_s260x4203-150x150.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" /></a>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-12','','','2013-04-17 08:40:41','2013-04-17 15:40:41','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-12/',0,'revision','',0),(8810,67,'2013-04-17 11:16:52','2013-04-17 18:16:52','<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.\n\nSo it is with 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 anddotted 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 girl, daughter of a fragile thirty-five-year-old ex-con alcoholic who had recently gotten sober and become a follower of Christ. \"So where\'s God now? I gave my life to Christ, did everything you told me. How could he do this?\" 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. \"Maybe we\'re all fools.\"  And with those words, his pilgrimage begins.\n\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.\n\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. 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 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.','Review of Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim\'s Tale by Ian Morgan Cron ','','inherit','open','open','','8783-revision-17','','','2013-04-17 11:16:52','2013-04-17 18:16:52','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-17/',0,'revision','',0),(8808,67,'2013-04-17 11:15:53','2013-04-17 18:15:53','<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 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\r\n\r\ndotted 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 girl, daughter of a fragile thirty-five-year-old ex-con alcoholic who had recently gotten sober and become a follower of Christ. \"So where\'s God now? I gave my life to Christ, did everything you told me. How could he do this?\" 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. T\r\n\r\nhe past meets the present and for Chase, they no longer mesh. \"Maybe we\'re all fools.\"  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. 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 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.','Review of Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim\'s Tale by Ian Morgan Cron ','','inherit','open','open','','8783-revision-15','','','2013-04-17 11:15:53','2013-04-17 18:15:53','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-15/',0,'revision','',0),(8809,67,'2013-04-17 11:16:35','2013-04-17 18:16:35','<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 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 anddotted 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 girl, daughter of a fragile thirty-five-year-old ex-con alcoholic who had recently gotten sober and become a follower of Christ. \"So where\'s God now? I gave my life to Christ, did everything you told me. How could he do this?\" 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. \"Maybe we\'re all fools.\"  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. 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 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.','Review of Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim\'s Tale by Ian Morgan Cron ','','inherit','open','open','','8783-revision-16','','','2013-04-17 11:16:35','2013-04-17 18:16:35','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-16/',0,'revision','',0),(8811,67,'2013-04-17 14:53:41','2013-04-17 21:53:41','<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.\n\nSo it is with 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 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.\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 girl, daughter of a fragile thirty-five-year-old ex-con alcoholic who had recently gotten sober and become a follower of Christ. \"So where\'s God now? I gave my life to Christ, did everything you told me. How could he do this?\" 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. \"Maybe we\'re all fools.\"  And with those words, his pilgrimage begins.\n\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.\n\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. 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 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.','Review of Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim\'s Tale by Ian Morgan Cron ','','inherit','open','open','','8783-revision-18','','','2013-04-17 14:53:41','2013-04-17 21:53:41','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-18/',0,'revision','',0),(8812,67,'2013-04-17 15:08:37','2013-04-17 22:08:37','<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.\n\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.\n\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.\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 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.\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. <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 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.\n\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 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.\n\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-19','','','2013-04-17 15:08:37','2013-04-17 22:08:37','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-19/',0,'revision','',0),(8813,67,'2013-04-17 15:09:08','2013-04-17 22:09:08','<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-20','','','2013-04-17 15:09:08','2013-04-17 22:09:08','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-20/',0,'revision','',0),(8814,67,'2013-04-17 15:09:14','2013-04-17 22:09:14','<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-21','','','2013-04-17 15:09:14','2013-04-17 22:09:14','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-21/',0,'revision','',0),(8815,67,'2013-04-17 15:09:39','2013-04-17 22:09:39','<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-22','','','2013-04-17 15:09:39','2013-04-17 22:09:39','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-22/',0,'revision','',0),(8816,67,'2013-04-17 15:10:33','2013-04-17 22:10:33','<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-revision-23','','','2013-04-17 15:10:33','2013-04-17 22:10:33','',8783,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/17/8783-revision-23/',0,'revision','',0),(8821,1,'2013-03-29 08:04:53','2013-03-29 15:04:53','After the passionate back-and-forth on the news yesterday, with the looming possibility of federal legislation on the issue of same sex marriage, I quietly logged into my account, and with a few clicks of the mouse replaced that picture of my gorgeous wife with one of a simple red background and a white equals sign.\r\n\r\nMarriage equality, is what it represents.\r\n\r\nI had a feeling it could be divisive, specifically among my Christian friends. Many clicked that little thumbs up picture, showing their support. Many have been silent thus far, perhaps marking their indifference. But following an amazing conversation with a co-worker minutes ago, I felt like this should be  written so that I can take the opportunity and clarify my decision before wrong assumptions are made.\r\n\r\nTo my friends outside of Christianity:\r\n\r\nIt was devastating to me that, following my reawakening in faith, I had friends in same sex relationships that had already predicted the downfall of our relationship. So hatefully has the Church responded to the issue of your sexuality that you assumed I would follow suit and disregard the depth and breadth of the precious time we have been allowed to spend together. For that I am sorry. It is still incredibly disheartening to me that, in following a God that preaches love and respect, that invites us in to a relationship of complete joy and peace, so many Christians have erred on the side of judgment when it comes to the issue of homosexuality. It is up to none of us to judge but God. To take the banner, political or religious, on any issue and divide ourselves against others on the basis of what God commands both cripples the possibility of individual relationships (because people become generalized into a category based on how they feel about an issue) and goes against the gentle command of Jesus to “go and make disciples”. How each of us, individually, choose to live before God is ultimately a matter of personal accountability. How could I ever be so bold as to command you to follow what I see as God’s commandments when I am breaking the one that Jesus says is the greatest, to love our enemies as ourselves?\r\n\r\nTo my friends within Christianity:\r\n\r\nIn our universe, there are two simple possibilities—homosexuality is a sin, or homosexuality is not a sin. There are no other possible alternatives.\r\n\r\nLet us look first at the side within Christianity that believes homosexuality is not a sin. You are an important voice, and one that has not come upon your conclusions lightly, or without sincerity. Looking at Scriptures, there are roughly 6 or 7 verses that speak directly to the issue, and even those can be somewhat unclear in their intended meaning. Jesus says nothing on the issue other than offering an example of a healthy heterosexual marriage. The word Paul uses for “homosexual” actually was originally used to refer to a “male prostitute”. There are hugely important debates that are being had from both within and outside of Christianity on this issue. But, at the very least, I think most would agree that what is openly discouraged in Scripture are unhealthy sexual relationships outside of marriage. Thus, this issue is even more pressing because the Church represents the loudest voice opposing the very thing that would allow homosexuals to operate within a Scripturally-sound framework. It falls on us, perhaps more-so than others because of the persuasion of our involvement thus far, to make a stand and support.\r\n\r\nNow, let’s move to the side of Christianity that believes homosexuality is a sin. The vast majority of modern Christianity has struggled with this, of not outright declared it an abomination and fostered some deep-seated anger about the issue. What, then, is our responsibility as a Church?\r\n\r\nI can say this: there is no Scriptural foundation, either OT or NT, from Jesus to Paul to Moses to Adam, that tells us evangelism or the living out of God’s commands includes having them forced upon people outside of the Church. In pursuing state-sponsored legislation for an issue that we may personally feel is wrong goes contrary to our responsibility as believers. We are told to go and make disciples, we are told to live out the commands of Christ…\r\n\r\n…but we are told to love and to be in relationships with people. Any authority we feel we should speak into the lives of others cannot be spoken until their is a basis of a loving relationship in place. It could be grievously damaging to the work of the Church if we seek to allow our government to do the work of living out God’s commands instead of each of us doing it individually. It was under persecution that the Church thrived because it forced people to live out the example of Christ.\r\n\r\nIn a more personal note, we cannot carry this banner so loudly, so forcefully, and lay aside the ones that we are more familiar with. I think this issue is more difficult for many Christians because perhaps they have never experienced it themselves. So, to take another example from Christ, we can look at the command to not get a divorce. Jesus is rock-solid in how he commands against this issue (again, not saying a word about homosexuality). Yet, Christians are sometimes all-but-silent about the issue. I come from parents that got divorced. I, myself, was previously married and got a divorce. Both of us were able to do this because we live in a governmental system where it is legally allowed. For someone to stand on the side against legalizing same sex marriage because they feel it goes against God’s command but to be living a life where they were able to get a divorce, which obviously goes against God’s command, would be the height of hypocrisy. I feel it is simply not the route we should be focused on. If someone is willing to so boldly carry the banner against same sex marriage, then why are they not even more boldly carrying the banner to have divorce made illegal?\r\n\r\nIn the end, it boils down to how much we are willing to wrestle with our faith in an effort to love more fully and follow more closely the God who loves us. It comes down to whether we are willing, while holding strong to the pillars of our faith—God is love, Jesus died for us, we are commanded to love out of an understanding of that sacrifice—to wrestle with the pieces of our theology that we have held to perhaps more tightly but sometimes in spite of the fact that it perhaps could look differently. I did not write this to confuse anyone’s theology, but to challenge us all to go back to the basics, to the unshakeables of our faith, and work our way out from there, making sure all our secondary and tertiary beliefs are in line and held for reasons glorfying and befitting the God tat has given us our commands.\r\n\r\nAnd if what we believe ever, for even a moment, causes us to sin in how we uphold it…we need to seriously look at whether it is the belief that should be refashioned, or our own heart behind it. The Pharisees had all the answers…except for why the commands were given in the first place: to display God’s love.','Why Every Christian Should (Legally) Support Gay Marriage','','inherit','open','open','','8599-revision','','','2013-03-29 08:04:53','2013-03-29 15:04:53','',8599,'http://provoketive.com/2013/03/29/8599-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(8822,1,'2013-03-29 21:00:06','2013-03-30 04:00:06','There is a remarkable statement in the Hebrew Bible about two men brawling:\r\n<blockquote>If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to the rescue of her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity. (Deuteronomy 25v11-12)</blockquote>\r\nThe rule goes something like this: if two men are fighting, and the wife of one of them (who apparently is getting his butt kicked) comes over to rescue him from his attacker, and she reaches out and grabs him by his private parts, you are to cut off her hand and show her no pity. A few sentences before this rule is another one which says an ox gets to eat while treading out the grain. Just below is a warning that God doesn\'t like anyone who uses false weights and measures. But apparently the woman who rescues her husband with an effective self-defense technique is left with a missing body part and no emotional support. Sound familiar?\r\n\r\nThe other day a friend told me about her awful treatment by the men in her workplace. She told me about receiving sexist and demeaning comments, emails and after-hours phone calls asking if they could come over to her house to discuss a presentation they had to make the next day. She told me about being ignored in favor of her male counterparts.\r\n\r\nSome 2,000 years ago, a Hebrew sage named Ben Sira wrote,<em> \"the birth of a daughter is a loss\" and \"better is a wickedness of a man than a woman who does good.\"</em> Today we would consider Ben Sira\'s words misogynistic, but they are part of the historical record and Ben Sira was not alone. From Mesopotamia to Egypt, women in the ancient world were considered property—valuable property, but property non-the less. Christopher Rollston, a tenured professor and author from a conservative Christian seminary wrote an <a href=\"http://tinyurl.com/cqfhocd\">article</a> for Huffington Post stating how sacralizing patriarchy is wrong. His point is that gender equality may not have been the norm two or three thousand years ago, but today it is essential. <em>\"So, the next time someone refers to biblical values,\"</em> he wrote, \"<em>it\'s worth mentioning to them that the Bible often marginalized women, and that\'s not something anyone should value.\"</em> The financially strapped seminary <a href=\"http://www.insidehighered.com/node/41131\">reprimanded </a>Rollston because his article ran afoul of their theological position on women. His article is also affecting the seminary\'s fundraising efforts. Rollston resigned, and I think he did the right thing. Ultimately conservative institutions are going to continue losing highly trained and talented scholars over embarrassingly parochial issues.\r\n\r\nI once asked a pastor why women do not have prominent leadership roles in his church. I wondered because he has a lot of terrific things to say about faith, life, and what it all means. But his response troubled me, \"Women,<em>\"</em> he said, \"would rather listen to what I have to say.\" <em>This is always about that</em>, I thought.\r\n\r\nElizabeth Barret Browning\'s poem, <em>Aurora Leigh</em> has a few lines about the burning bush:\r\n<blockquote>Earth\'s crammed with heaven,\r\nAnd every common bush afire with god,\r\nBut only he who sees takes off his shoes;\r\nThe rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.</blockquote>\r\nThe monks at Sinai say their five-thousand-year-old mulberry is the bush. It occurs to me that for some, finding the bush is more important than what the bush represents: that faith is not about finding the right bush; it\'s about taking off your shoes—t<em>his is always about that.</em>\r\n\r\nA true spirituality is one that affirms men and women at the level of their deepest identity—who they are in God which is much deeper than mere gender. This true self is more important than any issues of gender, culture, or sexuality, which are as Richard Rhor* says, <em>\"accidental to one\'s foundational core as a child of God.\"</em>\r\n\r\nIt is<em> \"pure heresy\"</em> to call anyone whose gender is different <em>\"intrinsically disordered.\"</em>\r\n\r\nThe problems caused by labeling anyone <em>\"intrinsically disordered\"</em> are profound. The wounds are deep. I asked my friend how sexism affected her:\r\n<blockquote><em>Sexism makes me feel deep in my soul that I am not good enough.</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sexism makes me think I might be overlooked;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sexism makes me think that all the hard work I have done in school is not worth anything;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sexism makes me question everything about my self;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sexism pushes me to overcompensate and be critical;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sexism causes anxiety and depression;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sexism causes division among women because we see each other as competition and not trusted friends.</em></blockquote>\r\nThis could be shocking to some, but if you read the four Gospels carefully, you will note Jesus\' consistently distinctive attitude towards the two genders. Jesus always calls women <em>upward</em> (\"Neither do I condemn you,\" John 8v11) and men <em>downward</em> (\"If anyone wants to be first, he must be last,\" to the twelve disciples, Mark 9v35). Our selective memory is such that most of us have not noted this clear pattern in the Scriptures.\r\n\r\nCould this be what we mean by sexism and patriarchy?\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n*To read more about Richard Rohr\'s <em>Unitive Consciousness: Beyond Gender</em>, see his periodical, <em>Radical Grace</em>, Summer, 2012 issue. You can order a copy from <a href=\"http://www.cac.org\">The Center For Action and Contemplation</a>.\r\n\r\n*And of course, if you are a victim of sexism in the work place, please do not suffer in silence. Seek out help. Talk to someone you trust.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto by www.thatslikewhoa.com','On Sexism, Patriarchy And Strange Ways To Lose Body Parts','','inherit','open','open','','8607-revision-33','','','2013-03-29 21:00:06','2013-03-30 04:00:06','',8607,'http://provoketive.com/2013/03/29/8607-revision-33/',0,'revision','',0),(8823,1,'2013-04-18 09:28:00','2013-04-18 16:28:00','There is a remarkable statement in the Hebrew Bible about two men brawling:\r\n<blockquote>If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to the rescue of her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity. (Deuteronomy 25v11-12)</blockquote>\r\nThe rule goes something like this: if two men are fighting, and the wife of one of them (who apparently is getting his butt kicked) comes over to rescue him from his attacker, and she reaches out and grabs him by his private parts, you are to cut off her hand and show her no pity. A few sentences before this rule is another one which says an ox gets to eat while treading out the grain. Just below is a warning that God doesn\'t like anyone who uses false weights and measures. But apparently the woman who rescues her husband with an effective self-defense technique is left with a missing body part and no emotional support. Sound familiar?\r\n\r\nThe other day a friend told me about her awful treatment by the men in her workplace. She told me about receiving sexist and demeaning comments, emails and after-hours phone calls asking if they could come over to her house to discuss a presentation they had to make the next day. She told me about being ignored in favor of her male counterparts.\r\n\r\nSome 2,000 years ago, a Hebrew sage named Ben Sira wrote,<em> \"the birth of a daughter is a loss\" and \"better is a wickedness of a man than a woman who does good.\"</em> Today we would consider Ben Sira\'s words misogynistic, but they are part of the historical record and Ben Sira was not alone. From Mesopotamia to Egypt, women in the ancient world were considered property—valuable property, but property non-the less. Christopher Rollston, a tenured professor and author from a conservative Christian seminary wrote an <a href=\"http://tinyurl.com/cqfhocd\">article</a> for Huffington Post stating how sacralizing patriarchy is wrong. His point is that gender equality may not have been the norm two or three thousand years ago, but today it is essential. <em>\"So, the next time someone refers to biblical values,\"</em> he wrote, \"<em>it\'s worth mentioning to them that the Bible often marginalized women, and that\'s not something anyone should value.\"</em> The financially strapped seminary <a href=\"http://www.insidehighered.com/node/41131\">reprimanded </a>Rollston because his article ran afoul of their theological position on women. His article is also affecting the seminary\'s fundraising efforts. Rollston resigned, and I think he did the right thing. Ultimately conservative institutions are going to continue losing highly trained and talented scholars over embarrassingly parochial issues.\r\n\r\nI once asked a pastor why women do not have prominent leadership roles in his church. I wondered because he has a lot of terrific things to say about faith, life, and what it all means. But his response troubled me, \"Women,<em>\"</em> he said, \"would rather listen to what I have to say.\" <em>This is always about that</em>, I thought.\r\n\r\nElizabeth Barret Browning\'s poem, <em>Aurora Leigh</em> has a few lines about the burning bush:\r\n<blockquote>Earth\'s crammed with heaven,\r\nAnd every common bush afire with god,\r\nBut only he who sees takes off his shoes;\r\nThe rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.</blockquote>\r\nThe monks at Sinai say their five-thousand-year-old mulberry is the bush. It occurs to me that for some, finding the bush is more important than what the bush represents: that faith is not about finding the right bush; it\'s about taking off your shoes—t<em>his is always about that.</em>\r\n\r\nA true spirituality is one that affirms men and women at the level of their deepest identity—who we are in God which is much deeper than mere gender. This true self is more important than any issues of gender, culture, or sexuality, which are as Richard Rhor* says, <em>\"accidental to one\'s foundational core as a child of God.\"</em>\r\n\r\nIt is<em> \"pure heresy\"</em> to call anyone whose gender is different <em>\"intrinsically disordered.\"</em>\r\n\r\nThe problems caused by labeling anyone <em>\"intrinsically disordered\"</em> are profound. The wounds are deep. I asked my friend how sexism affected her:\r\n<blockquote><em>Sexism makes me feel deep in my soul that I am not good enough.</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sexism makes me think I might be overlooked;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sexism makes me think that all the hard work I have done in school is not worth anything;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sexism makes me question everything about my self;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sexism pushes me to overcompensate and be critical;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sexism causes anxiety and depression;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sexism causes division among women because we see each other as competition and not trusted friends.</em></blockquote>\r\nThis could be shocking to some, but if you read the four Gospels carefully, you will note Jesus\' consistently distinctive attitude towards the two genders. Jesus always calls women <em>upward</em> (\"Neither do I condemn you,\" John 8v11) and men <em>downward</em> (\"If anyone wants to be first, he must be last,\" to the twelve disciples, Mark 9v35). Our selective memory is such that most of us have not noted this clear pattern in the Scriptures.\r\n\r\nCould this be what we mean by sexism and patriarchy?\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n*To read more about Richard Rohr\'s <em>Unitive Consciousness: Beyond Gender</em>, see his periodical, <em>Radical Grace</em>, Summer, 2012 issue. You can order a copy from <a href=\"http://www.cac.org\">The Center For Action and Contemplation</a>.\r\n\r\n*And of course, if you are a victim of sexism in the work place, please do not suffer in silence. Seek out help. Talk to someone you trust.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto by www.thatslikewhoa.com','On Sexism, Patriarchy And Strange Ways To Lose Body Parts','','inherit','open','open','','8607-revision-34','','','2013-04-18 09:28:00','2013-04-18 16:28:00','',8607,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/18/8607-revision-34/',0,'revision','',0),(8824,1,'2013-03-31 21:14:30','2013-04-01 04:14:30','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-40','','','2013-03-31 21:14:30','2013-04-01 04:14:30','',8602,'http://provoketive.com/2013/03/31/8602-revision-40/',0,'revision','',0),(8825,1,'2013-04-11 17:25:48','2013-04-12 00:25:48','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-3','','','2013-04-11 17:25:48','2013-04-12 00:25:48','',8725,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/11/8725-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(8826,1,'2013-04-13 13:02:08','2013-04-13 20:02:08','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)','','inherit','open','open','','8738-revision-28','','','2013-04-13 13:02:08','2013-04-13 20:02:08','',8738,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/13/8738-revision-28/',0,'revision','',0),(8831,204,'2013-04-18 09:28:22','2013-04-18 16:28:22','There is a remarkable statement in the Hebrew Bible about two men brawling:\r\n<blockquote>If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to the rescue of her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity. (Deuteronomy 25v11-12)</blockquote>\r\nThe rule goes something like this: if two men are fighting, and the wife of one of them (who apparently is getting his butt kicked) comes over to rescue him from his attacker, and she reaches out and grabs him by his private parts, you are to cut off her hand and show her no pity. A few sentences before this rule is another one which says an ox gets to eat while treading out the grain. Just below is a warning that God doesn\'t like anyone who uses false weights and measures. But apparently the woman who rescues her husband with an effective self-defense technique is left with a missing body part and no emotional support. Sound familiar?\r\n\r\nThe other day a friend told me about her awful treatment by the men in her workplace. She told me about receiving sexist and demeaning comments, emails and after-hours phone calls asking if they could come over to her house to discuss a presentation they had to make the next day. She told me about being ignored in favor of her male counterparts.\r\n\r\nSome 2,000 years ago, a Hebrew sage named Ben Sira wrote,<em> \"the birth of a daughter is a loss\" and \"better is a wickedness of a man than a woman who does good.\"</em> Today we would consider Ben Sira\'s words misogynistic, but they are part of the historical record and Ben Sira was not alone. From Mesopotamia to Egypt, women in the ancient world were considered property—valuable property, but property non-the less. Christopher Rollston, a tenured professor and author from a conservative Christian seminary wrote an <a href=\"http://tinyurl.com/cqfhocd\">article</a> for Huffington Post stating how sacralizing patriarchy is wrong. His point is that gender equality may not have been the norm two or three thousand years ago, but today it is essential. <em>\"So, the next time someone refers to biblical values,\"</em> he wrote, \"<em>it\'s worth mentioning to them that the Bible often marginalized women, and that\'s not something anyone should value.\"</em> The financially strapped seminary <a href=\"http://www.insidehighered.com/node/41131\">reprimanded </a>Rollston because his article ran afoul of their theological position on women. His article is also affecting the seminary\'s fundraising efforts. Rollston resigned, and I think he did the right thing. Ultimately conservative institutions are going to continue losing highly trained and talented scholars over embarrassingly parochial issues.\r\n\r\nI once asked a pastor why women do not have prominent leadership roles in his church. I wondered because he has a lot of terrific things to say about faith, life, and what it all means. But his response troubled me, \"Women,<em>\"</em> he said, \"would rather listen to what I have to say.\" <em>This is always about that</em>, I thought.\r\n\r\nElizabeth Barret Browning\'s poem, <em>Aurora Leigh</em> has a few lines about the burning bush:\r\n<blockquote>Earth\'s crammed with heaven,\r\nAnd every common bush afire with god,\r\nBut only he who sees takes off his shoes;\r\nThe rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.</blockquote>\r\nThe monks at Sinai say their five-thousand-year-old mulberry is the bush. It occurs to me that for some, finding the bush is more important than what the bush represents: that faith is not about finding the right bush; it\'s about taking off your shoes—t<em>his is always about that.</em>\r\n\r\nA true spirituality is one that affirms men and women at the level of their deepest identity—who we are in God which is much deeper than mere gender. This true self is more important than any issues of gender, culture, or sexuality, which are as Richard Rhor* says, <em>\"accidental to one\'s foundational core as a child of God.\"</em>\r\n\r\nIt is<em> \"pure heresy\"</em> to call anyone whose gender is different <em>\"intrinsically disordered.\"</em>\r\n\r\nThe problems caused by labeling anyone <em>\"intrinsically disordered\"</em> are profound. The wounds are deep. I asked my friend how sexism affected her:\r\n<blockquote><em>Sexism makes me feel deep in my soul that I am not good enough.</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sexism makes me think I might be overlooked;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sexism makes me think that all the hard work I have done in school is not worth anything;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sexism makes me question everything about my self;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sexism pushes me to overcompensate and be critical;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sexism causes anxiety and depression;</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sexism causes division among women because we see each other as competition and not trusted friends.</em></blockquote>\r\nThis could be shocking to some, but if you read the four Gospels carefully, you will note Jesus\' consistently distinctive attitude towards the two genders. Jesus always calls women <em>upward</em> (\"Neither do I condemn you,\" John 8v11) and men <em>downward</em> (\"If anyone wants to be first, he must be last,\" to the twelve disciples, Mark 9v35). Our selective memory is such that most of us have not noted this clear pattern in the Scriptures.\r\n\r\nCould this be what we mean by sexism and patriarchy?\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n*To read more about Richard Rohr\'s <em>Unitive Consciousness: Beyond Gender</em>, see his periodical, <em>Radical Grace</em>, Summer, 2012 issue. You can order a copy from <a href=\"http://www.cac.org\">The Center For Action and Contemplation</a>.\r\n\r\n*And of course, if you are a victim of sexism in the work place, please do not suffer in silence. Seek out help. Talk to someone you trust.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPhoto by www.thatslikewhoa.com','On Sexism, Patriarchy And Strange Ways To Lose Body Parts','','inherit','open','open','','8607-revision-35','','','2013-04-18 09:28:22','2013-04-18 16:28:22','',8607,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/18/8607-revision-35/',0,'revision','',0),(8838,67,'2013-04-20 09:18:36','2013-04-20 16:18:36','<!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;-->\r\n\r\n<!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;-->\r\n\r\nNormal\r\n0\r\n\r\nfalse\r\nfalse\r\nfalse\r\n\r\nEN-US\r\nX-NONE\r\nX-NONE\r\n\r\n<!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;-->\r\n\r\n<!--[if gte mso 10]&gt;-->\r\n\r\n/* Style Definitions */\r\ntable.MsoNormalTable\r\n{mso-style-name:\"Table Normal\";\r\nmso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;\r\nmso-tstyle-colband-size:0;\r\nmso-style-noshow:yes;\r\nmso-style-priority:99;\r\nmso-style-parent:\"\";\r\nmso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;\r\nmso-para-margin-top:0in;\r\nmso-para-margin-right:0in;\r\nmso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;\r\nmso-para-margin-left:0in;\r\nline-height:115%;\r\nmso-pagination:widow-orphan;\r\nfont-size:11.0pt;\r\nfont-family:\"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\";\r\nmso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;\r\nmso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;\r\nmso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;\r\nmso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}\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-3','','','2013-04-20 09:18:36','2013-04-20 16:18:36','',8834,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/20/8834-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(8837,67,'2013-04-20 09:18:23','2013-04-20 16:18:23','<!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;-->\r\n \r\n  \r\n \r\n\r\n\r\n<!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;-->\r\n \r\n  Normal\r\n  0\r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  false\r\n  false\r\n  false\r\n  \r\n  EN-US\r\n  X-NONE\r\n  X-NONE\r\n  \r\n   \r\n   \r\n   \r\n   \r\n   \r\n   \r\n   \r\n   \r\n   \r\n  \r\n  \r\n   \r\n   \r\n   \r\n   \r\n   \r\n   \r\n   \r\n   \r\n   \r\n   \r\n   \r\n  \r\n<!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;-->\r\n \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n  \r\n \r\n<!--[if gte mso 10]&gt;-->\r\n\r\n /* Style Definitions */\r\n table.MsoNormalTable\r\n	{mso-style-name:\"Table Normal\";\r\n	mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;\r\n	mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;\r\n	mso-style-noshow:yes;\r\n	mso-style-priority:99;\r\n	mso-style-parent:\"\";\r\n	mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;\r\n	mso-para-margin-top:0in;\r\n	mso-para-margin-right:0in;\r\n	mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;\r\n	mso-para-margin-left:0in;\r\n	line-height:115%;\r\n	mso-pagination:widow-orphan;\r\n	font-size:11.0pt;\r\n	font-family:\"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\";\r\n	mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;\r\n	mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;\r\n	mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;\r\n	mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}\r\n\r\n\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. <span> </span></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><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>\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><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>\r\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>\r\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>\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-2','','','2013-04-20 09:18:23','2013-04-20 16:18:23','',8834,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/20/8834-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(8840,67,'2013-04-20 09:26:52','2013-04-20 16:26:52','<!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;-->\r\n\r\n<!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;-->\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-5','','','2013-04-20 09:26:52','2013-04-20 16:26:52','',8834,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/20/8834-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(8844,67,'2013-04-20 09:48:54','2013-04-20 16:48:54','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\nWhen I heard that my friend and fellow writer, Mary DeMuth, 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\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 The Irresistible Table by Mary DeMuth. 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\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?','Cooking Community: A Review of the Irresistible Table by Mary DeMuth','','inherit','open','open','','8834-revision-9','','','2013-04-20 09:48:54','2013-04-20 16:48:54','',8834,'http://provoketive.com/2013/04/20/8834-revision-9/',0,'revision','',0),