This is actually furthest from the case. Fun–whatever form that takes–is a vital part of a healthy church, and a healthy youth ministry. Sure, if the only thing we ever do is “fun,” and we never do Bible study, or prayer or service then we’re missing the fullness of things (I should be quick to note that all of those things can and should be “fun,”). The problem isn’t with having fun, the problem is with replacing Jesus and his kingdom with fun.

One of the most successful youth ministries I have ever been a part of spent huge amounts of time being together, hanging out, talking, playing games, walking around town, going to a family’s cabin, playing games, going out to eat, going to movies, and playing games. These kinds of “social” times weren’t merely fun for us, but they allowed us to build trust with one another and enter into shared life–what we might call, community–on a very regular basis. The point of this stuff, however, was not to attract new students to the ministry. The point was for the Body of Christ to live life together.

As I told a student recently, regardless of how they might feel, the last thing their friend wants or needs is more fun. What their friend needs and wants (even if they aren’t at a place to articulate this yet) is something that goes beyond a culture that demands we be concerned with getting ahead. Jesus offers that. We need to stop being embarrassed by the counter-cultural nature of Jesus. At the same time, this isn’t to say that one should never spend time simply hanging out and being together. That is as much a part of enacting Jesus’ mission on earth as studying the Bible, praying or building homes; in our over-stressed and over-worked society, time to simply relax and be together is a vital spiritual practice.

I’m intrigued by the concept. I love the idea of removing chapter and verse numbers and allowing students to read the Bible without those helps distracting them and proving very unhelpful. One of the reasons I like Robert Alter’s translation of the David Story is because the verse numbers hang out on the sides and don’t distract nearly as much from just reading the text. The idea of reading in community is also something that I can get excited about with this resource. It’s worth checking out.

At the same time, however, it always makes me nervous when we try to get students reading the Bible and we start with the New Testament. I know, I know, we always want to get to Jesus. But that’s like reading the Lord of the Rings and starting with the Battle of the Pelennor fields. You really have no idea what is going on, but wow it’s exciting. I’d be far more excited about CBEmini if they were starting in the Old Testament. I know it’s supposed to be a short 9-day study, so–of course–we want them to get Jesus, right? I’m not so sure that’s the best idea and I’m almost certain that it isn’t the way to help students engage deeply with Scripture.

I’m not saying CBEmini is a detrimental thing. Far from it. It probably fills a niche. But the gaping hole, as I see it, is still that we aren’t helping student process the full story of Scripture and, in all honesty, we probably don’t know the story all that well ourselves. Still, I’d love to see more resources like this, and perhaps a year-long plan like CBEmini that started students in Genesis. Any publishers interested in doing something like that? I’d be happy to consult on laying it out. Seriously.

You can expect regular blogging to return sometime shortly after the holidays. I’ve lots of ideas for posts, but we’re still finding equilibrium, which means that-hopefully-I’ll have a schedule after the holidays that will allow for more writing time. See you then.

See you on the flip side.

After a very busy summer in which I realized that I, my leaders and our students needed time with God, not more stuff to do, I picked up Downtime: Helping Teenagers Pray. I’m fairly familiar with Yaconelli’s other two books Contemplative Youth Ministry and Growing Souls, and I hope to read Wonder, Fear and Longing soon. What struck me most about Downtime is the extent to which it really is a how-to kind of book.

That isn’t to say that Mark’s other books are all theory, far from it. But Downtime has a decidedly “this is something to might try,” vibe to it. This really makes it a great resources to have on your shelf. The first three chapters serve as a kind of introduction concerned with helping us prepare to encounter God. The overall title of this section is “Slowing to the Speed of God,” and I can’t think of a better metaphor for what Mark is trying to explain. It really is about slowing down and walking beside God.

The remainder of the book consists of chapters which outline various prayer exercises surrounding a particular theme. So, for instance, chapter ten talks about rest. Mark starts the chapter out with a story and a question: What if I designed retreats and exercises in which young people were encouraged to pray be sleeping? He then goes on to discuss our tendency to over-schedule retreats. He shares a story about a time when he led a workshop and asked attendees to take a 30 minute nap.

In chapter twelve, Mark talks about what it might look like if we were to view eating as a form of prayer. Once again, this is accompanied by various stories and examples of what this might look like, as well as an excellent discussion regarding fasting and students. This format is repeated for ever chapter in the book and is the primary reason why the book is so helpful.

Although this isn’t a book that I think makes a great introduction to Mark’s ideas (for that, check out Contemplative Youth Ministry) it is certainly a book worth having on your shelf and worth looking at often.

One of the things I appreciate most about Immerse is that it takes youth ministry seriously. It also takes theology seriously. I’m constantly encouraged and challenged as I read Immerse because the writers know that youth ministry is far from simple. I read a variety of youth ministry resources and sometimes I’m still amazed at the oversimplicity of those resources. At other times I’m frustrated by a same-old, same-old approach. That isn’t the case with Immerse. It consistently challenges me to think deeply about my ministry and my students.

The current issue (Nov-Dec) is full of helpful articles from the likes of Kara Powell, Mark Yaconelli, Andy Root, Michael Novelli and Tony Jones. You’d be hard pressed to find a lineup that would make me more excited (well, you could add Kenda Creasy Dean). I can’t even begin to say enough things about the excellent articles in Immerse.

Finally, one of the most helpful things about Immerse Journal is that it doesn’t end with the print publication. You can visit ImmerseJournal.com to read electronic articles interacting with (and sometimes disagreeing with parts of)the articles in the print publication. This interaction makes reading Immerse feel a great deal like entering into a dialog with the greater youth ministry community.

So, I’m a sophomore in college, studying Bible with a minor in Youth Ministry, and I find myself confronted with a question: Why bother doing youth ministry? I’d been pursuing a calling, but I hadn’t stopped to answer some very fundamental questions about youth ministry. I don’t think I’m unique in this, actually. Many youth ministry programs at colleges naturally raise these kinds of questions–and well they should!

As I was wrestling with this I was also studying the Bible in more depth than I ever had before. I had a phenomenal Old Testament professor who was helping me to grasp things and wrestle with questions I was only beginning to grasp. During this time I started to become dissatisfied with what I saw as a complete lack of depth when it came to Scripture and theology in youth ministry. In fairness, I was a sophomore, so some of my not-so-humble arguments with other classmates will have to be glossed over. However, I really did begin questioning why we do youth ministry in the way we do it. I started wondering if having someone stand up and yak at students for however long was the best way of teaching. I even began questioning whether hiding the “churchy” aspects of youth group was a good idea.

Enter Tony Jones and Postmodern Youth Ministry. My copy (which I still have), was a Christmas gift from my parents. I’m pretty sure I read it in about two days, and then started reading it again. My copy is covered in various colors of highlighter. I have notes all over the place. In fact, sometimes I will reread Postmodern Youth Ministry and be amazed at how much it changed my way of thinking. I’ve even read portions to Mandy and she’ll ask, “Is that your note, or something the author said?” That’s how integral the ideas that Tony elucidates have become to my thinking. It would take entirely too long to create a list of the most important things I learned from this book. But, I will try to briefly explain some of the highlights.

The non-foundationalist approach to theology that Tony espouses actually helped me navigate some difficult questions about the Old Testament. I was beginning to delve deeply into some often neglected sections of our Holy Book, as I mentioned, and some of my very deeply held theological assumptions where being challenged–about God, about myself, about the nature of Revelation, about eschatology. It was an awesome time, but also a challenging one. The idea that we construct knowledge together was also helpful to me. Perhaps most helpful was the idea that being spiritual is actually what people are after. As most of the emerging church guys were pointing out in the late 1990s and early 2000s, we might have gone too far in trying to remove the spiritual from our churches. After all, Christianity really is about God, Jesus and spiritual things.

So, at this point everything was up in the air in terms of ministry. I was trying a lot of new things, and many of them were being received well. But I was definitely beginning to discover that there were some things about typical youth ministry that I wasn’t really comfortable with. I made plenty of mistakes during this time, but a desire to do youth ministry differently was beginning to take form.

However, I’d like to push back a little on Barry’s proposed solutions. Essentially his solution to this dilemma is to start teaching the Bible more, and specifically helping our students to understand and apply it to their lives. That’s an excellent goal, and something we surely need to be more concerned with in youth ministry. However, I think the actual problem is deeper.

Let’s take a step back. Students want more Bible. Awesome. But we need to first ask why they aren’t currently getting enough. Then we can worry about how to correct the lack. I’d suggest that we don’t help our students engage Scripture thoroughly enough for two reasons.

First, in many youth ministries, the idea of teaching the Bible in any depth is reserved for the truly committed students. The rest, we assume, don’t actually want to learn about God. We’re just happy they come for the entertainment. So, we need to adjust our philosophy. If our philosophy of youth ministry is to attract a ton of students with games, video, lights, lasers, pizza, t-shirts, electronic dance floors and cupcakes we probably aren’t going to have the time or energy to help guide them toward a serious engagement with Scripture (or, ya know, God). I’ve blogged elsewhere about attractional youth ministry, so I won’t further belabor the point here.

The second reason I’d suggest students in youth ministries don’t engage Scripture as deeply as they might like is that we–as youth workers–don’t engage it as deeply as we should (I’d actually propose a third reason, which is that sometimes students only realize they wanted more Scripture in retrospect, thus they don’t take advantage of the opportunities they do have, but that’s more an issue of statistics and the limits of self-reporting). We don’t know Scripture that well ourselves, and so the idea that we might actually delve deeply into it can be disconcerting. I know I’ve probably beaten this horse to death already, but youth pastors ought to have a strong education in Bible. If we don’t know the Story, there is no way we can help our students to know God’s story.

I realize that the idea of formally studying Bible is all good for those who are just now entering the field, but somewhat harder for those of us who already have our degrees and are doing youth ministry. To those of you who are deciding what to study in college, let me plead with you: study Bible. At least minor in it. Even better, major in biblical studies or theology and minor in youth ministry. Then go to seminary. For those of us who are already past that stage, let me plead with you: study the Bible. Buy good commentaries and consult them regularly as you prepare lessons. Read through the Bible, and then do so again. Read scholars, not only other pastors. Push yourselves, don’t simply remain comfortable. Learn to use tools like Logos or Accordance. Devote substantial amounts of time to studying. Take a class on the Bible at a seminary, especially if your church provides you with money for continuing education. Do anything realistically possible to give yourself a better grasp of Scripture.

I know all of this takes time. I know we are already short on time. But maybe that gets back to my first point, we need to change the philosophy that governs our ministries. If we don’t have time to devote ourselves to prayer and studying Scripture, maybe we’re missing the point of ministry. If we want to help students delve deeply into Scripture than we need to delve deeply into Scripture for ourselves. We can’t teach what we don’t know.

Once we’ve confronted our own philosophy of ministry and our own study of Scripture, then it will be time to actually teach students the Bible. The statistics don’t lie, students want to learn the Bible. They want to confront the difficult questions. As the ones who serve as spiritual mentors and guides to students, we ought to be prepared to help them do exactly that.

I first experienced what we might term a call to youth ministry when I was 14 and highly involved in the youth ministry at the church where my father was senior pastor. This youth ministry was fairly typical for the mid-1990s. In fact, one of our weekly events was specifically designed to be as “non-churchy” as possible. This was the event to which we were supposed to invite all of our non-church-attending friends. We played a lot of games, had a lot of entertainment, ate copious amounts of junk food and then had a devotional. This is the environment that I knew as “youth ministry.”

So, sometime around when I was 14 or 15 I read Purpose Driven Youth Ministry by Doug Fields. I fell head-over-heels in love with the PDYM method of doing ministry. Looking back it’s really somewhat laughable. I’m certain Doug would have been horrified had he met me back then. I thought it was the be-all-end-all paradigm for doing ministry to students. The idea that we had to target our programs toward different “interest levels” made perfect sense to me at the time.

I continued in this phase until I got to college where I received more exposure to different youth ministry ideas. I also began to realize that PDYM had some good ideas, but probably wasn’t going to work in every situation. Even during this time though, I was convinced that we needed to have awesome, huge youth ministry events where students would come for the entertainment and then hear the gospel. Partly this was based on my theology, and partly on my own experience of youth ministry as a teen.

At the time, I was just beginning to realize that “living the Christian life,” might have relevance for this life rather than only the next. I was trying to reconcile an upbringing that tended to emphasis the eternal aspects of the faith with my emerging reading of Scripture which seemed to say a great deal about life on planet Earth and surprisingly little about Heaven. It wasn’t easy for me, and this affected the way I did ministry. I tended to focus on any opportunity to “share the gospel.” There are positives to this, but as I look back I think I missed the point at times. On the whole I created some really fun events, but I’m pretty sure that I managed to convert students to fun and entertainment rather than to Jesus.

There was one thing that I learned from PDYM and planning youth events during my first year or two in college: when we do an event there ought to be a purpose behind that event! Doug expresses it this way in PDYM: Target audience + purpose = event. I’d rather we make things less program-centric now, and I’m not convinced that having a target audience is entirely helpful, but the idea that what we do ought to have a reason behind it has stuck with me. The question I began to find myself facing was: What’s the reason for youth ministry?