Release

We hear a lot about the need to release others to do ministry. As youth pastors we are told how important it is to allow our volunteers to do ministry. “Delegation is one of the most important skills a pastor can have,” I was once told. Several months ago one of my adult volunteers mentioned that she had really enjoyed teaching the middle school students back during the transition period between the previous youth director and myself. After some more discussion we decided that she’d join me this fall and we’d create a kind of teaching cycle. I still do most of the teaching (though I wouldn’t mind allowing others the opportunity to teach!), but she now handles some of it as well.

Last Wednesday was her first time up to the plate this year. I know she was nervous, but she did a phenomenal job. We’ve been talking about faith. Things have been going well, students seem to be connecting, asking good questions, and hopefully integrating things into their lives. We’ve talked about what faith is, how one can be open with God even when you’re angry, how our faith centered on the incarnate God, and several other things besides. But this particular adult leader has a story, and because of her background she could say to our students, “When tragedy strikes, you can be angry with God. But keep the faith. He has a plan. You may not feel like it in the midst of tragedy, but he does work things out for good.” I could say the same thing, of course, but it would lack to authenticity that she brought to it.

She’s a widow.

She knows what it is like to go through tragedy, to be angry with God, but to keep the faith. She has experienced that pain. But she has also experienced the love of God as he continues to lead her through life. Releasing allows our students to see that the only people who know God aren’t the paid youth professionals, but the regular adults in our churches. By releasing some of the teaching (which I love doing) I’ve allowed my students to hear another voice, a voice that comes at things from a different angle. My students will benefit from this. It’s worth it.

Voices

Paul Martin has been working through an excellent series of posts on the individuals he sees as the voices in the coming (currently happening?) revolution in youth ministry. This week he mentions theological voices.

I find the inclusion of an entire post devoted to those who are thinking about youth ministry from a theological perspective to be extremely refreshing. Perhaps more refreshing still is that most of these individuals have theological background. They could write a paper for an academic journal. Ten years ago, when I was in college, I remember being disappointed that there were not more voices from theological and biblical studies that were speaking into youth ministry. In hindsight there were voices, I just wasn’t aware of them yet (Kenda Creasy Dean, for instance). But there has certainly been an increase in recent years.

I still find it disappointing that we don’t have biblical studies people speaking into youth ministry. I realize that some will say that biblical studies is an extremely specialized field, whereas practical theology necessarily recommends itself to these kinds of interactions. However, without biblical studies speaking into youth ministry our curriculum will continue to be less than it might otherwise be. We will continue to be comfortable with whatever gets us by in terms of our knowledge of the Bible, instead of challenging ourselves to go the distance. In the 90s no one would have believed that youth ministry would experience a theological renewal, and itself be pushing other ministries of the church to think theologically and have greater depth, but that is exactly what is happening. Maybe youth ministry can be the place where we start engaging Scripture in much more depth than we typically do. In another fifteen years, maybe youth ministry will be leading the charge and encouraging pastoral staff to use the tools they learned in seminary. Maybe youth ministry can be a place where Christians are challenged to acknowledge Scripture for what it is, really wrestle with the difficulties this presents, own it as our story, and allow it to form our lives.

MERGE

If you are a youth worker and you take your students on summer trips to conferences or retreats, then you need to consider MERGE. I am somewhat skeptical of many summer trips for youth ministries. I think they can be very manipulative. They also, in my experience, tend to make big promises and fail to deliver. MERGE isn’t like that.

We took a fair number of our high school students to Grand Rapids this past July to attend MERGE. The drive was long, but it was entirely worth it. I could spend hours talking to you about all the wonderful aspects of MERGE. But I’ll stop myself at outlining what a typical day looked like, and then listing a few of the reasons MERGE is, hands down, the best conference for students I have ever attended–as a leader or as a student.

Each of our days began with breakfast. Pretty standard for a conference, right? Except that at MERGE all of the leaders, from various groups, gathered for breakfast together with the event organizers. We talked about how the previous day had gone, how our students had been impacted, what seemed to connect and what didn’t and any concerns we had. Then we spent a few minutes talking about what the current day was going to look like. After breakfast we headed to our story gathering, which consisted of a retelling of a core story from the Bible (Creation, the Fall, Jesus, the Church, etc). After the story gathering we would break into smaller(ish) groups (but youth groups stayed together in the same group) and spend time discussing the stories and what God had revealed to us, about the story, ourselves, the world, etc. I heard some of my students share amazingly profound thoughts during this time. Were some of them trying to share something they thought we’d approve of? Absolutely. But on the whole I believe these times were filled with authentic sharing. As leaders, we were constantly encouraged to enter the stories ourselves and participate in these discussions as participants, not as teachers. This was one of the most refreshing aspects of MERGE because I was freed to grow with my students. The benefit to them and to me simply can’t be overstated.

After this gathering time we’d head to noon prayers, then to lunch and then to an afternoon experience that reinforced or otherwise intersected with the story. One day we walked around outside, recreating the wilderness wandering of the Israelites. Another day we walked through the “Journey to the Cross,” an experience which included various interactive aspects in the broad tradition of the stations of the cross (though reimagined). During still another experience we all participated in a Messianic Seder. This led into some free time and then dinner.

Following dinner we would gather together once again for a time where we responded to God. We (students and leaders alike) were encouraged to use art to respond to what God was doing in us, or to write a poem, journal our thoughts, spend time at a body prayer station, write a letter to God, or participate in other ways. Some of the students from our group wrote a rap, while others produced some very touching pieces of art, sculpture, poetry, or other personal pieces. After this gathering we had time to be together as church groups or relax before heading to bed.

That gives you an idea of what MERGE was like. Now let me share why MERGE is unlike any other conference I’ve ever been to or heard of for students.

1. MERGE asks leaders to participate. At too many conferences the staff essentially want me and the other adults from our group to chaperone our students and talk with them after the evening meeting, but otherwise leave them in the hands of the event staff. At MERGE we were encouraged to participate in all areas of the experience. Yes, we were there to supervise and care for our students, but in a very pastoral manner. I don’t think any of the leaders from our group, or any of the other groups, left without being changed ourselves.

2. MERGE focuses on the Story. I’ve never been to a conference that has such an intense focus on the story of God. That isn’t to say that other conferences don’t have entertaining or engaging speakers. They do. But they often focus on a theme or topic, as opposed to helping students encounter the Bible in a new and fresh way. MERGE is entirely about helping students to take a fresh look at the story of God and, whats more, MERGE encourages students to realize that the Christian faith is about how our lives merge with the story of God, today.

3. MERGE is fun without being all about entertainment. The organizers of MERGE know that students want to have a good time. But, from my observation, they also understand that the story of God is the most exciting story ever written. They aren’t there to entertain students for a week, but to help those students experience God and his story in fresh ways.

4. MERGE isn’t about the emotion. Too often I’ve seen emotion used to manipulate students into making a decision that lasts for a couple days, or a few weeks, at most. MERGE isn’t about manipulating students. It’s not about calling for a decision in an emotionally charged service. There were elements of MERGE that were very emotional. I saw my students shed tears and even shed a few of my own. But the point wasn’t the emotion, and the emotion wasn’t used to call for false decisions.

5. MERGE calls students to participate in the story. Bearing in mind #4 above, MERGE still calls students to change their lives and the world. The final experience on the final day included a time to brainstorm with your group about ways we could join in the mission of God throughout our communities and the world. This caused us to think, a lot. I know it challenged some of the students in our group to think seriously about their goals in life. The thing is, it wasn’t a one night episode. Some of my students are still, two months later, processing through those questions. They haven’t yet completely made a decision, or they have made smaller decisions that lead on a particular trajectory. This is what I want to see after a retreat.

MERGE is amazing, but it isn’t a cure all. Just like any summer trip, it is highly dependent on what you do week to week before and after. But perhaps that aspect of summer trips is best left for another day.

If you’re still interested, take a look at this highlights video from MERGE 2011. Look close and you’ll see me and several of the students from our group.

On Turning Ships

My senior pastor has an analogy that he constantly brings up to those of us on staff: making changes at a church is like turning a super tanker, it takes time. This couldn’t be more true. It’s also very true for a youth ministry, though youth ministries are–by nature–more agile than entire churches.

Andrew Root has recently written on the idea that youth ministry may help churches to reclaim theological thinking. Much like many of the changes to churches in the ’80s and ’90s can be traced to youth ministry, so too a sort of turn back to the theological. I agree with the idea, in theory, but I’m not convinced that the so-called theological turn in youth ministry is quite prevalent enough at present (N.B. On twitter Andrew Root acknowledged this as an issue). Ironically, when once upon a time senior pastors would have longed for more theologically astute youth pastors, now we have youth pastors who are recognizing a need for theological nuance and their senior pastors are staring at them and arguing for a more basic, unnuanced approach. There is a certain twisted poetic justice to this.

I’m thankful that those in my current ministry support my own quest to continue learning and thinking. I’m also thankful for the parents and others in my church who are willing to give things a try. Moving from an entertainment-based model of youth ministry to a more theologically nuanced ministry is not exactly easy. Turning ships takes time. Turning ministries takes time and is often painful on various levels. Ultimately, turning the ship is still worth it because our students deserve to be taken seriously. It’s one of the things for which they’re longing. It’s worth it because the church needs youth ministries (indeed, churches) that have more depth than a dodgeball game and a thrown together devotion are likely to provide. Ultimately it’s worth it because Jesus has called us to something more than a culturally-bound consumeristic expression of his Kingdom.

But it can be very, very hard.

On Being the Body

Recently, I shared my own concerns about the implicit message we send students when we separate them from the rest of the Church. We certainly mean well, but it ends up subtly teaching them that the Church is made up of individuals exactly like themselves. In a run of the mill youth ministry the only adults students might see and interact with are the youth pastor and other volunteer youth workers.

Having people who specifically pour into students’ lives is a very good thing. But we need more than that. Our church has been discussing how to do family and intergenerational ministry better over the past six months. Some of the first suggestions that came up, of course, were ways to encourage students to join our Sunday morning worship services. I think this may be a very important first step, and I think it is vital that students be involved in the corporate worship of a local church. This isn’t enough, though, and we knew it even as we discussed it.

So, we talked about other ways we might help students and adults to connect. We’ve come up with what we think are some good ideas, everything from youth family potluck dinners to an intergenerational mission trip (and no, my students were not overly pleased to hear that one). These are all important steps for us, and I think we’ll look back and see that they are important and effective ways to help students and adults connect.

The heart of the issue, however, is that students need to do more than simply see adults, or even share a meal with them, or a week of construction work. Ultimately our students need to share life with the adults in our churches. They need to see adults in our churches struggling with faith, doubt and pain. They need to walk alongside one of the elders in our church as his wife loses a battle with cancer. They need to share the joy of a young couple in the church when they have their first baby. They need to pray for the family where a parent has just lost a job. In short, they need to fully participate in the life of the church. At the same time, the adults in our churches need to be sharing the lives of our students. The adults need to share the excitement of a student who has just been accepted to a top tier college. They need to be there to enter into the pain of a student who has just broken off a relationship–no matter whether they think it was a serious relationship or not. They need to struggle with students who don’t know where God is because of some event in life. In short, we all need to enter into the messes that make up each others’ lives.

This is difficult because sometimes students give the impression that they don’t want to get to know adults on such a personal level. Further complicating matters is our tendency to want adults who “work with the youth ministry” to avoid sharing things that are too personal or reveal a great amount of struggle. Certainly real life sometimes intrudes and the teens in a church get to experience something like what I’ve described above. Those times tend to be few and far between though. We like to keep things tidy, probably because we like to pretend that we have nice, tidy lives. I mean, let’s be honest, the kind of sharing I’m talking about rarely happens between adults. I’d argue it tends to be more likely to happen, or more natural, among adults. But we need to remember that teenagers are full members of the Body of Christ, not merely junior members.

The great advantage that teenagers have over adults may be that they, generally speaking, recognize that they don’t have tidy lives. Somehow, as youth workers, we have to help our students connect with adults in meaningful ways and then we have to help the adults in our church realize that its OK to pull back the curtain and show students that as adults we struggle too. This is a tall order, I know. But we need to help our students fully enter into life as the Body of Christ. They need to know the adults in our church–and not only those who are youth workers!–as friends, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, grandparents and surrogate parents. In the same way, it is vital that the adults in our congregations know students as sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, grandchildren and fellow Christians. Students need to know that faith doesn’t end when they graduate high school, but that the struggle to love like Jesus loved continues for the rest of life. When we’ve begun communicating that message, both explicitly and implicitly, maybe we’ll also have opportunity to rejoice in what our students bring to the table in our churches, both as teenagers and as twenty-somethings.

A Christianity Worth Believing In

Recently I had a copy of True Story: A Christianity Worth Believing In by James Choung given to me. I have to be honest, I’m normally a bit skeptical of this kind of book. The gentleman who gave it to me, however, is someone I trust. Also, Shane Claiborne has a blurb on the back, so, ya know.

The majority of the book takes the form of a fictional story meant to illustrate the points that Choung deals with in more detail in the final quarter of the book. The story certainly isn’t going to win any awards in terms of plot, characterization, pacing or really anything else. It does serve well to illustrate the point that Choung is trying to make: that the most common ways of explaining the gospel often miss the biggest parts thereof.

My own faith journey has included the kind of painful questioning that the main characters in Choung’s story undertake. There were times when I found myself smiling at the characters or nodding my head, remembering a time in my own life when I’d felt like my entire metaphorical faith-house had just been utterly ripped apart. Many of the questions that he addresses in the book are questions I’ve struggled with and questions I hear others struggling with.

The most helpful aspect of the book may be a picture that is developed step by step throughout the book that Choung proposes as a new tool for explaining the Christian story. Rather than some chasm with a cross bridging it, we see a far more nuanced diagram that gives–in my opinion–a much fuller characterization of what Christianity is all about. At the least, True Story potentially adds to the discussion that needs to happen regarding the question: what is the gospel? I, like some of the characters in the book, am simply tired of hearing about how it’s all about where I go when I die.

One small critique–why does it seem that pastoral minded Christians are incapable of having a nuanced understanding of Hebrew or Greek? Every time a character mentioned a Hebrew or Greek word, I cringed. In variably it was just silly or ridiculous. Case-in-point, the Hebrew word for voice and thunder are the same, therefore when God speaks, it’s loud. What? The same word for voice gets applied to David, Moses, etc, etc. Do they have voices like thunder as well? Does every biblical character have a loud, rumbling voice? Of course not. The Church would be served better if more individuals spent time learning Hebrew and Greek, and learning them well.

Youth Ministry and Bad Theology

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3.27-28

Let’s be honest, as books like Almost Christian point out: youth ministries haven’t been doing a great job of nurturing the faith of youth. We have, perhaps, done an excellent job of entertaining them, of sometimes keeping them away from drugs and alcohol, and perhaps of helping them connect to one another. But we certainly haven’t nurtured faith–at least as a generalization.

So, it should come as no surprise that Family-Based ministry is somewhat of a buzz word at the moment. In youth ministry circles we’ve come to realize that parents aren’t the enemy, but a vital ally as we try to help students own their faith. We’ve also begun to realize that parents have their own pains and issues that need the love of Jesus. Even so, we still separate our students into their own ghetto with little or no interaction with the greater church.

Let me be quick to add that I think the current call from some corners to abolish youth ministry as we know it is sensationalist and mis-directed. Adolescence is a distinct developmental phase, and we need to address it in the church. Burying our heads in the sand is probably the worst thing we could do. However, we do need to take seriously the idea that we need to assess our current methods of doing ministry.

The more I think about the way we do youth ministry traditionally, with students segregated into their own section of the church for any number of things, the more I have theological issues with that strategy. What may surprise you is that I don’t have theological issues with this method of ministry based on some idea that the parents need to be primarily responsible for the faith development of their children (though parents ought to be primarily responsible). After all, the village has always been involved with rearing the young, at least until the advent of our modern, disjointed society.

No, my theological concern is that by segregating our students into their own ghetto we implicitly teach them that everyone in the Church is just like them…a teenager. With this implicit message is it any wonder that when students are no longer teenagers they also tend to no longer be Christians? We’ve spent the previous seven or so years of their lives teaching them exactly that. I worry that our implicit message may run even deeper, teaching them that everyone in the Church is just like them not only in relation to age, but also in terms of ethnicity, culture (or sub-culture), musical preferences, etc. To be sure, some youth ministries are more diverse in these areas than others which may mitigate some of my concern. But it is easy to see throughout church history that Christians have commonly struggled with the inclusive nature of Jesus’ call to spread the gospel. Peter had to convince the Jerusalem church, after all, to accept God’s movement among the gentiles (cf., Acts 10-11).

If we are going to be serious about sharing the good news of the Kingdom of God with students, we also need to be serious about helping our students understand that the Church is a diverse body of people which contains many who are not like them. We need to help teenagers understand that adults struggle, love, hate, cry, laugh, work at developing Christian practices, find prayer difficult and have difficulty loving their neighbors just like they do.

We need to realize that having students separated into “age appropriate groups” with no interaction among the other members of the Body isn’t just a bad idea, it’s bad theology.

Trusting God, Trusting Students

As youth workers, we have an odd sort of honor. We are afforded the opportunity to watch students grow as Christians, as human beings, as artists, actors, and athletes. In short, we get to watch students grow from children into adults. It’s an amazing opportunity. But the path that students walk is often one that is filled with bumps.

If we’re honest with ourselves, plenty of our students grow up and right out of the faith–if they ever had a faith to begin with. We see students who come to our ministries, talk about God, but turn around and give God maybe an hour and a half each week while they devote truly massive quantities of time to video games, sports, drama practices, T.V. shows, learning instruments and any other number of pursuits.

Add to these frustrations the fact that many of us are trying to chart a course for our ministries that moves away from fun, fun, fun, fun and into a more contemplative, authentic, religious, faith-filled, Jesus-centered, active nurturing of students’ faith and it becomes easy to see how one might become cynical. After all, charting such a course isn’t without its own unique frustrations. Even so, as we serve this God we claim to love, it is always important to remember that he is full of surprises.

I was privileged to work with two wonderful interns in our youth ministry this summer. As they sought God early in the summer, they felt a pull toward talking about Christian Practices with our students. So, this summer, we spent a large amount of time talking about Prayer, Scripture Reading, Fasting, Table Fellowship, Worship, Justice, and Sabbath. We haven’t only talked about it, but we’ve tried to enact several of these practices in different ways. I’ve learned a great deal and been challenged on a plethora of fronts (one of them being to step up my own practice of prayer).

Now, at the end of this summer, we’ve had several students–after a summer of encouragement–decide to begin cultivating one of these practices in their own lives. Some have chosen prayer, others Scripture reading, others are thinking of ways to practice justice in the midst of life. I’m truly humbled to be a part of what Jesus is doing in their lives. But, as I look back at our planning in the early summer, I’m not convinced that any of us actually expected this kind of response. Let me be clear: I have students asking me to hold them accountable to reading their Bibles, or to daily prayer. In small ways our students are beginning to live out the community that is the Church. I could not be more excited.

But, as I said, at the beginning of the summer I don’t know if we really expected students to grab hold of these ideas. In fairness, it is easy–as a youth worker–to set expectations low. So often we’re disappointed. We’ve all had the experience of putting hours into preparing a lesson only to have to endure students talking the entire time we try to deliver it. Or we’ve spent months praying for a student only to have that student decide that youth group isn’t “cool enough” anymore. We’re completely justified in protecting ourselves by setting our expectations low (though, as an aside, we’re probably missing the point of relationships when we have this kind of approach and attitude).

Be that as it may, it doesn’t make it right. Shame on us for not trusting God and not trusting our students to want to know God more. If you’re a youth worker currently in the midst of planning for the upcoming school year, take a bit of advice: trust your students. They really do want to become more like Jesus. What’s more, trust God. He certainly wants your students to live out the Christian life.

Congregational Singing

Michael Spencer is riffing on congregational singing, specifically on comments made in this post.

I have to say that I disagree with both Michael and the original poster. I’m not saying that the modern Evangelical church should be going to an all performance model. I’m not saying that contemporary “let’s have the praise team perform” church services are where we need to be. I’m not saying that all the old hymns should be thrown out. Rather, I’m sitting here and wondering what in the world people not singing in church has to do with any of that. To be sure, when a praise team is only performing that certainly leads to less heartfelt singing by the audience. However, I don’t think that such things are the reason we have less singing in our churches–or at least, not the only or even primary reason.

Please, look around at the surrounding culture. People do not sing. It simply does not happen. The teens in my youth ministry love music. Occasionally some of them will sing to themselves in their rooms. The vast majority of the time they listen to music. It’s not that they can’t sing, it’s that they do not sing in public. It’s a cultural thing. Besides, the type of music that I and the students in my youth ministry “sing” (I’m completely tone deaf, which will apparently leave me on the bleachers in heaven–and if God does suddenly make me not tone deaf in heaven I’ll still be on the bleachers since I dislike singing) is not easily singable by those over 35–though most people under 35 can sing it no problem.

I’m not saying that this is a good thing. What I’m saying is that congregational singing is obviously going to die because public singing, outside of concerts, is dead within our culture. Now, I’ve zero problem if people like singing and want to attempt to preserve it in our churches. I’ve resigned myself to being a marginal member of any Sunday morning service for the rest of my life because A) I can’t sing, and B) I think sermons are an antiquated pedagogical method. However, I’ve reconciled myself to this. However, I do have a problem, or at least concern, when people start talking about the need to have all those “good ol’ hymns” with their “deep theology” in our churches like our churches would be less without them. I’m guessing that the church before the 1700s didn’t have the Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian or whatever denomination you happen to be, hymnal. They got along just fine. The church has, throughout history, gone through various shifts. At times congregations participated more, at other times congregations participated less. Sometimes songs were sung without music, at other times with simple instruments, etc, etc. Singing does not make a church.

As for the poetry in the Hebrew Bible–I love it. But let us remember that just because something is poetry does not mean that it was sung. Too be sure, much of it was (think the Psalms). But what is to stop someone from simply writing a poem? Nothing.

Michael Spencer makes this comment: “Calvin whitewashed the churches and contemporary evangelicals are making the same mistake with music.” I think he’s mostly correct. Except that I think when he says “music” he’s talking about hymns. That’s fine, but let us not forget that “music” includes a much wider range of semantic meaning than “hymns found in the Baptist Hymnal.” I’ve yet to hear a church play punk or hardcore music in their Sunday morning service. I wouldn’t advise this since it would most likely offend older members of a congregation (as a side note, I sometimes wonder what churches would be like if we worried as much about upsetting younger people as we do about upsetting older people). However, I’m also not going to go around sounding the alarm that evangelicals are removing music from churches because we don’t have a mosh-pit.

The original poster, at The Briefing had this to say, “Firstly, singing strengthens believers. Music and singing are not the enemy of faith, but the fuel for faith and action.” I have to disagree. It doesn’t strengthen all believers. It strengthens believers who are normally “strengthened” by music. For others it is simply something to be endured. Again, this is not a problem. We shouldn’t get rid of singing. We should just not give it credit for being or doing more than it really is or does.

He also says,

Secondly, whether you travel across the urban areas of Asia, Africa, North America or Australia, everywhere you go, increasingly, the singing in the church—both the songs that are sung and the style of music—is the same. It’s the McDonaldization of our world. And in every church you visit across the world, the music is just the same. I’d describe it as the ‘Hillsongization’ of music except that it’s such a clumsy word.

and in this I think he is absolutely correct. We really should seek a diversity of music in our churches. I think we need to seek more than simply a diversity of music, but also a diversity of creative expression: poetry, creative dance, drawing, painting, song, member created music, chants, incense, prayer, candles, etc should all have a place within our worship gatherings.

I would disagree however that traditional congregational singing is any better. Hymns and a piano/organ will not solve the issue.

In closing, I want to say that I haven’t interacted with everything the two articles I linked above have said. Some of the remaining items I agree with in principle, others I don’t. Also, as in any case like this it is possible I have misinterpreted the intentions of the authors. I’ve read both as a call to return to hymn singing and the “good ol’ days.” I’m reasonably sure that this is the intent, or at least the intent that comes through (I know Michael has said in the past that he likes liturgy and, I would assume by extension, as no problem with incense and candles).

Nevertheless, I simply do not agree that hymns will solve, or even help, the issues. The issues are deeper than returning to a way of singing that is, if not dead, certain to be dead in the next 30 years. Culture changes.

Excellent thoughts on Sermons

I’m still alive, in case anyone is wondering. I wanted to link to some really excellent thoughts on sermons over at Wezlo’s blog. Well worth spending a few minutes reading.

Of course, I should add the caveat that I wouldn’t mind getting rid of sermons all together, but since that isn’t going to happen…