• An alternative to mission trips: Co-Mission
• Continuing with the discussions about youth group mission trips, Tim says Short Term Student Mission Trips Are Worth It.
• This isn’t a youth ministry post, and I don’t really know what I think about the book recommendation in it, but in general he is right. All youth ministry people need to acknowledge The Value of Theology.
• Have a small youth group? Here’s some thoughts on Growing a Small Youth Group.
• The title says it all: Religion and Sex Among American University Students.
• What kind of teacher are you? Two kinds of schooling.
• Need cheap ministry ideas? The $1 Idea Bucket.
• The Declining Faith Of Our Teenagers? Thoughts on one of the latest Barna reports.

Church, Mission & Theology

• The ELCA made the New York Times: Lutherans Welcome Seven Gay Pastors. Some good reflections on the issue are here: Gospel Writ Large.
• Should preachers not seek to be a good preacher?
• David Fitch thinks churches should not make any public statements, for or against, on GLBTQ relationships. Here’s Why Pre-Labeling A Church Community’s Stance on Same-Sex Relations is a Bad Idea.
• Drew Tatusko is blogging again, thankfully. I think he’s one of the best bloggers out there right now. Two posts from this week–we cannot change unless we mourn & evangelical indulgences?: idolatry in reverse.
• Ed Stetzer talks about When Missional Churches Will Multiply
• More thoughts on the recent public fame of liberation theologian James Cone: for some context see this Interview James Cone, and for some opinion, see this article at The Other Journal
• On pastoral visitation: Doing Ministry in the Living Room
• A huge series with lots of thoughts: The Future of Mainline Protestantism

Quite the title, isn’t it? Yes, The Promise of Despair: The Way of the Cross as the Way of the Church by Andrew Root has quite the suggestive title, but that is part of the point. This is a book about death, in both a literal and symbolic sense. Death is not limited to people physically dying, but is also present when we lose a job, are debilitated by illness, or a slave to addiction. Death lurks all around us. Root contends that the church usually tries to avoid death, but that a true church can only be found in the midst of death, by facing it and owning up to it because we worship a God who also can be found in death, facing it, and not turning and looking the other way: “Christian faith is a faith that has as its central event the cross, the reality of death” (xxvii).

In a way, this book is a kind of practical theodicy. It does not so much answer the question Why is there evil, pain and suffering in the world? as much as it tries to answer What does the church do about evil, pain and suffering in the world? For Root the source of pain and suffering is the “monster” of death, and he carries this personification of death as a monster throughout the whole book.

The book is divided into two parts. The first sets the groundwork regarding our current cultural situation, an environment where we must deal with things like the death of meaning, authority, and identity. Although postmodernism seems like a topic that is starting to become overhyped, Root gives one of the most succinct and philosophically robust accounts of the current postmodern landscape. The first part of the book functions well as a primer on postmodernism. Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean Baudrillard, and Anthony Giddens are some of the philosophers who weigh heavily in these discussion.

On of the best chapters in the book, especially for youth ministry, is the final chapter in Part One that deals with the death of identity. In this chapter Root explains how identity used to be formed by work and love: what one did for a living and one’s family. Today, he says, identity is defined by consumption and intimacy. It is no longer what we do or produce that form us, but what we have and consume. Root defines intimacy as “feelings of closeness” (60) as opposed to love, which is a commitment. In youth ministry, where we are dealing with adolescents constructing their own identities, this chapter has much for us to ponder.

Part Two outlines the reasons why the church must face the reality of death and enter into it as a central practice. He draws from Luther’s theology of the cross, arguing that the God of the Bible is encountered in Jesus Christ on the cross: “The church is the community that seeks to live from the new order–not from life to death, but from death to life” (88). When the church faces death, the church faces reality. The church must be with people in death because we are a people who hope in a future when death will be no more; we are a people moving from death to life. This hope that the church can offer to those in the midst of death is not to be confused with optimism:

The problem with an optimistic church is that it spends all its energy on creating optimistic artificial light, seeking to pull people who know so well the darkness into faux light. An optimistic church seeks to cover the darkness. But the church of the cross seeks to make its life in what is, in darkness, hoping for the day when darkness is no longer covered but is overcome completely by the dawn of God’s future. (147)

It should be noted that Root is not speaking about death in the popular sense of “dying to self.” Instead, he is speaking more about passages like Galatians 6:2: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” In fact, he uses the word sacramental to suggest that God is particularly present in a special way, conveying his grace, when we encounter someone else in their despair. If this is the case, then the church should not shy away from ministering to those facing the monster of death in their lives.

Though this book is a weighty book simply because of the subject matter, it is a fairly concise and accessible book (160 pages or so). And while I think that Root might be a bit repetitive at times, this is such a unique book that there is no where else to go for a treatment of this subject. For Christians and church leaders trying to lead lives and churches where we deal with people’s lives in reality (and not in an idealized state), this book is a must-read.

For another review, see Jake Bouma’s review of the book in the American Theological Inquiry .

Disclaimer: This book was provided as a review copy free of charge from the publisher.

———————————————–

Hello Youth Ministry friends, I’m sorry to interrupt your regularly scheduled blog reading, but I have broken transmission to offer you an opportunity.

I wanted to get before you the chance to get a free copy of my book Relationships Unfiltered. As the new school year approaches and you think about volunteer leader meetings and trainings I would like to suggest you take a look at Relationships Unfiltered. It’s written just for this setting with discussion questions and chapters filled with illustrations and stories–but also promises to get you and your team thinking theologically about your core practice this coming school year: forming relationships with young people.

Here’s what I can do: If you’ll email me (aroot@luthersem.edu) I’ll send you a free copy of the book so you can look it over and decide if it would be of help to you and your volunteers. If you’re interested in using it you can then go to Zondervan.com or Zondervan.com/ministry and type in the code 980752 in the “source code” box. Starting August 1 this will give you a 40% discount on as many books as you’d like.

And I’ll also offer this, if you do use the book with your team, I’m willing to do a select number of skype or ichat conversations with you and your team after getting through the book.

- Andrew Root

———————————————–

I bought a copy for all my small group leaders, so the 40% off offer is possibly a great way to save on a quality resource. If you do not have this book, you should at least take up the offer on the free book. I have posted my thoughts on the book in my post here and say:

In my mind, this is the book that every small group leader and mentor needs to read. I have said before, and this book confirms it, that although youth ministry is not easy, it is not complicated, either. In fact, it is fairly simple. It has to do with loving Jesus and loving teenagers. What Root does in this book is tell us what it looks like to love teenagers: focus on the who instead of the how. Root says that the first questions for youth leaders is not How do we get kids to church? or How can we influence kids to be better Christians, but the first questions should always begin with who: Who is this teenager in my small group? Who are the marginalized in our community? Who is Jesus Christ in the lives of these students? Root says that How? questions do not properly attend to the humanity of the individual and instead focus on method. Root argues persuasively against this by grounding his approach in the theology of the incarnation.

• Killer Guests. Each week they interview a guest, usually someone who has recently released a book (but not always). Their past guests have included: Andrew Root, N.T. Wright (yes, I said that correctly), Richard Rohr, Harvey Cox, Philip Clayton, Walter Brueggemann, Terence Fretheim, John Cobb, John Dominic Crossan, John Caputo, and many more. And even the people you haven’t heard of that they dig up are usually spectacular.
• Quality interviews. The interviews are usually above-average quality, asking insightful and interesting questions that don’t just allow the authors to rehash their books all over again.
• It’s done by two average guys with a Skype account. This is one of the coolest things, in my opinion. Tripp Fuller is a youth minister and PhD student, and Chad Crawford works for a nonprofit organization. And yet they get these great scholars and theologians to do these interviews with them. It is a sign of the times–the little guys are outdoing the big organizations and corporations.
• They realize they are two average guys with a Skype account and don’t take themselves too seriously. I love listening to the introductions of every episode because of the banter between Tripp and Chad. You get the feeling they would be cool to hang out with.

They are pretty big proponents of process theology and have a disproportionate number of process theologians on their show, but I think that’s okay. I’ve learned a lot about process theology by listening to their show that I haven’t heard elsewhere. Even if you don’t agree with it, you can learn about it.

So, if you don’t already listen to the show, I think you should. They have 81 episodes thus far, so there is plenty of material to get you started. Go listen to a few and I think you’ll be hooked.

• Jake like to discuss big questions. I think youth ministers need to get together more and discuss big questions as well.
• Risk Lawrence on The Parachurch Mistake
• Top Ten Mistakes Christian Parents of Teens Make
• But, sometimes it isn’t always the parents’ fault: Good Parents May Plant Bad Seeds
• Share of College Spending for Recreation Is Rising. Are colleges turning into country clubs?
• 7 Signs You’re Serving Outside Your Area of Passion by Doug Fields & Matt McGill
• Tony Jones is going chapter by chapter through Kenda Creasy Dean’s new book, Almost Christian
• Consider attending Rooted: A Theology Conference for Student Ministry
• Have Missions Become Too “Deeds”-Centric?
• A good thing to keep in mind when doing mission and service trips: The SALLT Project

Theology, Church, & Mission

• Hauerwas: America’s god is dying
• Persecuted churches help me to keep ministry in perspective
• What the church can learn from Teach For America
• CNN: Don Miller tells of the ‘best sermon I ever heard’
• I might need to pick up this book: Getting the Reformation Wrong
• Wisdom from Dallas Willard: Interview at Catalyst West
• There’s been a bit of hubub about women bishops in the Anglican church. My response to the situation is the same as this guy: Just get rid of bishops
• Is Your Church Developmental?
• Glenn Beck has created some responses recently from his forays into theology: Tom Wright Challenges ‘Christian’ Views Opposing Social Justice & No Beck, You Aren’t Intelligently Addressing James Cone
• Stop talking about it and be the church
• The Danger of Manufactured Pre-Determined Diversity
  
• Why the situation in Haiti is so difficult: Social Currency

1. We don’t go to many big events like that.
2. I avoid youth group t-shirts if at all possible.

In my five years of youth ministry, we have never had a youth group t-shirt of any sort. Every now and then someone will suggest that we need a t-shirt for this or that, and I take it under advisement and see if anyone feels strongly enough about it to bring it up again or take the steps to actually make it happen. So far, no one has.

Now, I don’t think you are evil or have a bad youth group if you have t-shirts for your ministry (because that would include about every youth group in the country, it seems). I have just personally made a commitment to avoid expending any of my energy of youth group t-shirts for a few reasons:

• T-shirts are not important. You have to prioritize in ministry, right? “Keep the main thing the main thing,” they say. T-shirts do not fall into that category. The church has existed long enough without youth groups and churches having their own t-shirts.
• “They’re just t-shirts; it’s not that big of a deal.” I had one of my good friends say that to me one time after we had a conversation about why I didn’t do t-shirts. His point was that there wasn’t harm in doing them and that they weren’t “that big of a deal.” I agree that they aren’t a big deal, which is why I choose to go without them.
• T-shirts do not create identity. I’ve heard some people say t-shirts are a good way to provide cohesion and identity to a group. Maybe so, but that’s not the kind of identity I want to create in my group. First of all, if there is no other way we can think of to create identity within our ministries than to make a t-shirt, our time would be better spent trying to figure out a possible alternative. Second, we say that our identity is found in being children of God, so I try and put that into practice. You can’t teach a lesson on identity-in-Christ and then go and try to create identity-by-t-shirt.
• Some people can’t imagine youth ministry without t-shirts. If that is the case, then you should probably go without t-shirts for a while. There’s more to ministry than t-shirts. It’s possible to do youth ministry without t-shirts. I promise.
• I’ve made it this far. Part of the inspiration to keep going without a youth ministry shirt is that it’s already been five years without one. This wasn’t really a life goal that I had, but when I started thinking about it I realized that I’ve never had a shirt in any group I’ve worked with, and that seemed like a pretty significant streak. So now I’m trying to avoid them to keep my record going. Maybe a whole 30-year youth ministry career with no t-shirts? I bet it can be done.

Because of all the above, I really don’t care for t-shirts, so I’m not going to spend any of my time making them happen. If someone else thinks it is that important, someone else will take that project on. And if your group does the t-shirt thing, I don’t think less of you. But don’t tell me they are a necessity to ministry, because they just aren’t.

Has anyone else given up on youth group t-shirts? Or would there be a mutiny in your group if you didn’t have a t-shirt for your next mission trip?

So began a theological debate last week about mission trips carried on in 140 character increments amongst Andy Root, Adam McLane, and myself. It all started when Andy posted this little snippet of theological provocation:

the point of mission trips is to invite kids to witness in their feeble acts to the promise of God’s action to make all things new.

Adam’s response was:

Maybe in an idealistic world. But in the practical world of YM, there are many different reasons/justifications for missions.

And my contribution to the topic was:

I don’t think it’s idealistic. Our mission trip theme last year was (God’s coming) “shalom” and we talked about exactly that.

The way I read it, we were approaching mission trips from three different perspectives:

• A theologian
• A person who interacts with tons of different churches, youth ministers and youth groups
• A person who primarily works and ministers within a specific local context

Adam wasn’t necessarily disagree with either Andy or myself, but saying that, for the most part, “most youth groups don’t think theologically about much.” He also said that “Most youth groups aren’t as sophisticated as yours. There are a lot of youth groups on trips.” That Adam used the word “sophisticated” to describe our youth ministry was quite surprising. I would expect that if anyone ever came to observe or research the way we do youth ministry at our church they would be significantly underwhelmed. To me our youth ministry isn’t sophisticated, at all. In fact, it’s pretty simple. No bells, no whistles, no lights, no fog machines, no in-house videos. That stuff sounds sophisticated to me. I don’t have the time or creative energy to mess with that stuff.

I do try to ground everything that we do theologically, but to me that isn’t sophisticated. Theology can’t be sophisticated because it permeates everything we do, whether we acknowledge it or not. So, whether a youth minister is a seminary grad who reads obscure theology journals on weekends or is a volunteer who has only been theologically trained through Sunday school classes the net result of our ministry is the same: theology–what we believe about God–is communicated through our practice. But we need to help people interpret our practice since we are “hermeneutical animals.”

That’s where theology comes in. Rather than going on a mission trip to “help people,” we are witnessing to the hope that the Christian community confesses in a God who will one way restore all things unto himself and make all things new and whole. Any group can go and help people. There’s nothing distinctly Christian in helping people; it’s just pragmatic. But a pragmatic approach falls short: people will be hungry again tomorrow, houses will continue to deteriorate and need further repair, another hurricane will come and do damage again. Practically speaking, mission trips make no sense because they are lessons in futility. The work is never finished, there is often more to do, and many times the people don’t deserve our help. However, the point is not to practically help, but it witness to our hope in God. So, even though drug addicts are laying in a bed of their own making, we still feed them because we too are unworthy of the grace given to us in Jesus Christ. And even though that house will need to be repainted again in another 20 years, we paint the house because we are witnessing to the day when God will make all things new and there will be no more pain, nor more decay, no more deterioration.

It’s really not that sophisticated. Christians believe in heaven and Christians believe in forgiveness by grace alone through faith, so I interpreted the practice of mission trips through those lenses. That’s all it means to do youth ministry with some sort of theological foundation. All we have to do is to interpret our practice through simple lenses like that in order to help our communities understand the point of why we do what we do. Left to themselves, they will interpret practice through the lens of cultural norms. Our job as leaders in the church must be to take those actions and reclaim them for the purpose of forming people in faith.

I think that Adam was right in saying that some people don’t think very theologically about youth ministry because it is too sophisticated. But why?

Is it really that sophisticated? Where have we gone wrong in our churches to make people think that they are incapable of thinking theologically (when in reality is is impossible to avoid)? Can theology be reclaimed by laypeople in churches? Can volunteers lead theologically robust mission experiences? How can we help them do that?

Greed, in other words, prohibits faith. But the inverse is also true. For it is in the Christian celebration of the Eucharist that we have the prismatic act that makes possible our recognition that God has given us everything we need.

The Eucharist not only is the proclamation of abundance, but it is the enactment of abundance. In the Eucharist we discover that we cannot use Christ up. In the Eucharist we discover that the more the body and blood of Christ is shared, the more there is to be shared.

The Eucharist, therefore, is the way the Christian Church learns to understand why generosity rather than greed can and must shape our economic relations.

So ends this article by Stanley Hauerwas on greed and the economic crisis. This isn’t really a critique of Hauerwas’ article, but on the apparent weakness of Eucharistic theology in general. Assuming you come from a faith tradition where the Lord’s Supper is understood as a sacrament, whereby something actually happens, rather than an ordinance, which is more along the lines of a memorial act of symbolism, why is it that the Eucharist appears to be so powerless?

I have seen multiple articles, whole books even, which advocate for a Eucharistic theology as an answer to various problems in the world. I’ve even preached a sermon or taught a lesson or two with such emphases. There is supposed theological power in the Eucharist. Hauerwas says that it is through the Eucharist that we are taught about generosity, not through sermons or Bible studies. Can taking communion every Sunday make us more generous people?

It doesn’t appear so. Plenty of other examples of the apparent failure of Eucharistic theology to form Christians could be cited as well.

So, my questions are:

• Are these theologians off their rocker? Are they making communion into something it isn’t?
• If not, why isn’t there more power in the Eucharist? Or is it there and we just aren’t noticing it?
• Or are we missing the interpretive element in our teaching and sermons? Do we need to exegete our practices more for our congregations?

What do you think? Can the Eucharist be a bedrock for mining theological insights for Christian formation?

Surprisingly, their most common answer was Soul Emergence. Soul Emergence was a program that we had cancelled a year and a half ago because of scheduling conflicts and never really picked back up, for a few mostly pathetic reasons. The idea behind Soul Emergence (it wasn’t even started by me, the previous youth minister launched it) was to create one of those typical emergent-style worship services complete with plenty of time for prayer and contemplation. It started out fairly complicated with a sermon/discussion time, music and singing, and then a self-directed prayer time using the dozen or so prayer stations that were set up around the room.

But eventually Soul Emergence really became centered around those prayer stations. We didn’t do music anymore and I just spoke briefly to introduce a thought or topic or to explain a new spiritual practice to the group. And then, they were sent off to pray by themselves for 30-45 minutes. When people ask me, “What is Soul Emergence?” I usually respond by saying “a way to trick youth into praying for extended periods of time.” Tell a 15 year old to pray for even 10 minutes straight and you will probably get a funny look. But for some reason, the guidance and environment provided during the time of Soul Emergence lends itself to youth praying for significant chunks of time (in fact, one night we spent two hours in silence; no one said a word). It is really quite remarkable. Anytime you can get people to pray, I think it is a good thing.

As I said, we had canceled Soul Emergence for about 18 months due to some petty scheduling issues. Since I learned that this was one thing that was really formative in the faith lives of our young people, it was a no brainer to start it up again. So we brought it back for the spring and will do it again once fall kicks back off. In a way, Soul Emergence is founded on the idea of the classic prayer chapel. It is a sacred space provided for prayer and contemplation. Sometimes we need those dedicated placed in order to learn how to pray. Then, we can better integrate prayer and our faith into other areas of our lives.

If there is any way you can get youth praying, you should work at it. For the teens in my church, prayer has been a significant piece of their spiritual formation, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. For a starting point on creating a worship and prayer environment like we do, I recommend Emerging Worship: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations. I’ll see if I can dig up any more good resources for people who are interested.

What about you? How have you found great ways to get teens (or anyone for that matter) to pray? Do you have resources for creating similar environments?

• Kenda Creasy Dean has a new book out about the implications of the National Study on Youth and Religion. She gets interviewed here.
• A review of the latest Twilight movie.
• A website just for small youth groups.
• American creativity is on the decline.
• Evangelicals lose fewer youth than liberals.

Church & Theology

• Donald Miller: Could your church survive if there were no sermons?
• Books on ecclesiolgy.
• Stanley Hauerwas on the life of the theologian.
• The Presbyterian Church (USA) has a new website.

Miscellaneous

• Is the stock market as-we-know-it a thing of the past?
• Grilling the perfect steak.