I’ve been reading Phyllis Tickle’s new book, The Great Emergence. It’s good; lots of interesting insights about how history, culture, and the church have been woven together for the last 2000 years.
One of the central questions in Tickle’s historic patterns is, Where is authority? I was talking about this book last night with some church leaders and we started talking about authority. A few of them adhered to Luther’s sola scriptura, or only Scripture.
At first glance, sola scriptura makes sense. But the problem is that every human brings a certain bias to their own study of Scripture. What do you do when two folks who believe in sola scriptura come to different conclusions about what Scripture has to say?
My best answer about sources of authority comes from the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. John Wesley believed that God revealed Himself through four sources: Scripture, history, reason, and experience.
That begs the question: is Scripture equal to the other sources, or does it trump the other sources? I definitely believe the former; Scripture is the ultimate trump card.
Yet what I appreciate about the Wesleyan Quadrilateral is that it allows God to speak through other secondary forms of revelation.
The next time you’re looking at a tricky passage of Scripture or talking with kids about a tricky issue (homosexuality, evolution, abortion, or any of the other biggies), try bringing the Wesleyan Quadrilateral into the conversation. What does Scripture say? How about tradition, reason, and experience? How (if at all) does the Wesleyan Quadrilateral help you navigate a more transformational path?
Last Friday I was in Palm Desert speaking about Intergenerational Youth Ministry. To my delight, one of the questioners at the end of my presentation asked, “So I’m a senior pastor. What are the first steps our church should take?”
He was sitting in my seminar with his youth pastor and his family ministry pastor.
They had come as a team. Brilliant.
Lots of times youth workers don’t feel like they have much power to bring about change in their churches. Lots of times they are right.
We hope that FYI resources are something that your senior pastor might be responsive to because they come from Fuller Seminary, and because they are based in research. We hope that our resources help your entire team get on the same page—or at least have a real conversation.
In case you missed yesterday’s E-Journal…
Here are the top five most-accessed resources from FYI for Jan-March 2009!
In case you’ve missed the recent increase in media attention to the issue, homelessness in America is on the rise, especially among families. Certainly cause for prayer and for action in the Church.
What’s equally or perhaps even more disturbing is that there were already 1.5 million kids on the street — one in every 50 kids in the U.S. — according to data recently released by the National Center on Family Homelessness. Much of the data is actually several years old, recorded from 2005-2006, indicating that the situation is likely worse now, and likely to get exponentially worse in the coming months.
Entitled “America’s Youngest Outcasts,” the report and website from the NCFH is fascinating, including state-by-state report cards (in my own state, California, there are 34,000 homeless high school kids alone). But they don’t stop with information. A whole section is dedicated to advocacy, and you can download a free advocacy kit with ways to get involved on multiple levels, including influencing public policy related to affordable housing and homelessness. In other words, they want to help us have a voice that can be heard beyond our muttering to the computer screen, “what a shame.”
From the report’s executive summary, here’s a quick reminder of the realities of homelessness:
Children without homes are twice as likely to experience hunger as other children. Two-thirds worry they won’t have enough to eat. More than one-third of homeless children report being forced to skip meals. Homelessness makes children sick. Children who experience homelessness are more than twice as likely as middle class children to have moderate to severe acute and chronic health problems. Homeless children are twice as likely as other children to repeat a grade in school, to be expelled or suspended, or to drop out of high school. At the end of high school, few homeless students are proficient in reading and math – and their estimated graduation rate is below 25%.
Caring for the poor is God’s issue, not just social activists or government agencies. As poverty and homelessness finally rise to the public consciousness of Americans, how will the church respond? 1.5 million kids — and counting — want to know.
Last week the Wall Street Journal shared about a recent Michigan State University study of seventh-graders looking at the connection between morality in real life and online. In other words, what’s acceptable to a 12 or 13-year-old online and what’s acceptable in person? Here’s an excerpt from the article about the findings:
The study showed that greater Internet use correlates with a greater acceptance of “Internet harm,” which included threatening others over email and reading other people’s emails without asking. And overall, while the findings indicate that real-world morality hinted at how children view questionable online behavior, the relationship was weak, says Linda A. Jackson, a psychology professor at Michigan State and the principal investigator for the study.
That suggests that other factors are influencing online morality, she says. “There’s a disparity in the ways kids think about morality or virtue in the virtual world and the real world. There’s something else that goes on.”
What the “something else” is still isn’t clear. “We have to better understand how they conceptualize that world, whether they really think it is separate in some way.”
Moral reasoning in virtual reality begs a few different questions. Some have to do with the type of world we are developing for ourselves and kids, wherein our online behaviors take a distinct shape that we sometimes surprisingly discover is inconsistent from our real-time behaviors.
Another set of questions might explore whether this phenomenon is really any different from adolescent culture in general. Drawing from the constructs of our colleague Chap Clark, we could look at this as more evidence that kids operate out of a different sense of morality, safety, and self in the adolescent “world beneath” than when they are operating in the world of adults.
We’re probably also safe to say that a seventh-grader’s moral compass fluctuates quite a bit from day to day… and that one of the joys of youth ministry is that we get to come alongside them as they navigate decision-making along this crazy ride.
Teenagers have trouble thinking about the future when making decisions in the present. Not news. The debate on the developmental neuropsychology – and policy-making – tables seems to be whether this inability to be future-minded has more to do with adolescent brain immaturity related to decision-making and self control or with governing sensation-seeking. This article outlines a recent study along those lines.
Trying to make sense of this: the adolescent brain is immature on multiple levels related to decision-making. One level involves the ability to practice self-control. This system continues to mature well after age 16, leading some to suggest that the age for legal driving (among other things) should be increased. But a new study looks at another brain function, related but distinct. This regulates thrill-seeking. Between the ages of 10-16, the system governing sensation-seeking in the brain is highly active. This apparently increases the likelihood that teens will make short-sighted decisions-not necessarily because of their impulsivity or lack of self-control, but out of a drive to feel, to seek thrills.
Of course, these functions are related, and a host of other factors play into teen decision-making. We might look at this research and say that adolescence is in fact the “perfect storm” of development in the brain, body, relationships, and culture that from time to time (even daily) completely overwhelm kids and their ability to make appropriate decisions.
None of this, however, really gets at the issues of responsibility and accountability for those short-sighted decisions. How are we to develop appropriate expectations for kids in our ministries based on what we know about their brains and bodies? And how do we approach thrill-seeking behaviors in ministry? To what extent should younger students’ increased desire for sensation influence the ways we communicate the gospel, worship, build community, and serve others? To what extent could an over-emphasis on thrill-seeking in ministry stunt kids’ ability to forge a faith that lasts beyond their youth group years?
What do you think? How should research like this influence how we do what we do in youth ministry?
Thank goodness. Researchers agree that teens are “mental and physical works in progress.” Whew. At least we have the scientific community on our side.
Meanwhile, cosmetic surgeons continue to alter kids’ bodies each day, to the tune of 77,000 operations per year. Breast augmentation and liposuction are highest on the list, but researchers warn that with constantly-changing bodies, the long-term impact of such surgeries before age 21 can be devastating, both psychologically and physically. One physician-researcher noted, “What we’re doing is taking a very turbulent time in terms of their body image development and permanently changing their bodies.”
One really interesting part of this research recommendation is the issue of “informed consent.” Can a teenager—or anyone under 25, according to some developmental research—really make an informed decision about altering their appearance in these ways? The fact that our society puts the opportunity for such decisions in the hands of children under the age of 18 is astounding. One researcher noted that the pressures from peers and—yes—parents to look perfect can directly or indirectly influence decisions about cosmetic surgery in unhealthy ways (and of course, parents have to consent for surgeries under 18). They also make a distinction between chronological age and developmental age, or actual maturity, in the ability to make decisions.
I think that’s instructive for us in youth ministry. Chronological and developmental age aren’t always in line (uh, middle school jumps out as huge evidence for this principle). But how can we give kids opportunities now—while they are in our ministries—to learn more about and practice healthy decision-making that will prepare them for the multitude of decisions ahead? While perhaps a small percentage of our students will contemplate plastic surgery given the costs and associated risks, ALL of them will face decisions outside our ministries that require their developmental age to catch up with their chronological age in big ways.
Especially when they get to college, the ability to make decisions on their own will hit our students squarely between the eyes, and some of our College Transition Project research has shown that anxiety about making decisions is part of what our youth ministry kids pack in their bags when they head off to school. In one survey, nearly half (48%) of college freshmen agreed that they feel anxious that so much of what they do is up to them to decide.
So, whether it’s about cosmetic surgery or going to this weekend’s party, how are we engaging our students NOW in their decision-making abilities? What can we do to equip them with skills that help their work-in-progress developmental age appropriately pace with their chronological age to make important life choices? Sounds like part of the task of discipleship to me.
Here’s another temptation from Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Temptations of a CEO: the failure to have clear vision and clear goals.
What’s vision? My best definition, one I’ve heard multiple times and don’t know who to attribute it to, is a picture of your preferred future.
What’s your vision? I’ll tell you ours at FYI: our vision is to be a leading voice for deeper youth ministry. As a team, we’re asking ourselves: If we want to be a leading voice for deeper youth ministry in 2 years, what do we need to do now?
That’s where goals come in. They are the small (or medium or even large or XL) steps that get you to your vision.
That’s why we’re blogging more. We can’t be a deep voice if we’re not talking. So one of our goals is to post blogs 3-4 times/week.
That vision is a grid for us, helping us decide where to eliminate and where to concentrate. If something doesn’t help us be a leading voice for deeper youth ministry, we shouldn’t do it. We won’t do it well; someone else can do it better.
What’s your picture for 2 years from now? And what goals can you set to help you get there?
I love re-reading books. I often feel like I learn and apply more the second time around (kind of like the way “Princess Bride” seems to get better every time I watch it).
I’m re-reading The Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni. One of Lencioni’s temptations that I think is relevant to youth ministry is Temptation #2: The failure to hold others on our team accountable. According to Lencioni, we often want to be liked more than we want to hold others accountable.
My best definition for accountability, the one I use with kids and adults alike, is inviting someone to speak into your life. How well are you doing holding the (paid and volunteer) leaders accountable in your ministry? How well are you doing at speaking into their life about their personal, spiritual, and ministry development?
It’s interesting to me how few churches have an established process to review their employees, let alone their volunteers. When I was a youth pastor, I always felt the most connected to our interns and leaders when I was meeting with them individually to help them assess their relationship with God and with students. It never was anything all that complicated; simply a time to ask a few pointed questions, questions they knew ahead of time so they could prepare and be the first to answer. Questions like:
- How would you describe your spiritual journey this month?
- What in your life would you want students to imitate?
- What in your life would you not want them to imitate?
- How are you doing in your relationships with students?
- What are you doing well?
- What do you wish you were doing do differently?
And perhaps the most important: How can I help you?
A few weeks ago I posted about a video made by a group of high school students not far from here who shared some of their very real reflections and fears about the impact of the current economy on their lives. Turns out they sent a copy of that video to the President, who today directly addressed their concerns in a speech on education. He said:
It was heartbreaking that a girl so full of promise was so full of worry that she and her class titled their video, “Is anybody listening?” So, today, there’s something I want to say to Yvonne and her class at Village Academy: I am listening. We are listening. America is listening. And we will not rest until your parents can keep your jobs—we will not rest until your parents can keep their jobs and your families can keep their homes, and you can focus on what you should be focusing on—your own education…
The point is not that Obama is a superhero who is going to solve all of these problems. The point is that kids spoke up—honestly, authentically, passionately, and in an appropriate way—and they gained a voice. And an adult was helping them through that process, present to their pain and helping them express it. In my previous post I suggested that in our own ministries we have the opportunity to cultivate a culture of listening to the pain rather than avoiding it. Obama’s no youth pastor, but he did just that: he listened to an insignificant group of public school teenagers with a video camera.
So…how are our churches modeling that same kind of listening and response? How many of our kids would agree that they feel heard and supported by the broader congregation? How many would agree that church is the place they go to be heard? If the answer is “not many”, are we satisfied with that answer? I’m not.
