Wonderings and Wanderings

Two weeks ago the weekly high school small group (we call them c-groups) that meets in my home multiplied into two groups.  We had 12-14 kids coming consistently and it was too large for a small group.  Not everyone could be heard. It was difficult to get through a lesson, etc.  We had talked for quite awhile that we would need to multiply one day when our group was large enough and strong enough.  And the day came.  We planted a new c-group on Monday nights with two youth stepping up to co-lead it.  It is so awesome!  I love to see that happen even when I’m sad about not seeing certain kids every week at my house. But it is a good thing because more youth will be reached this way.

As a result, last night I had my first c-group at my house that was all guys.  Me and five guys.  We played Wii for awhile than got to our small group share time.  Answering irrelevant questions, etc.  As the rest of the lesson progressed, it was interrupted on occasion with farts.  At first there was some attempt to disguise them or to at least pretend it was some weird noise like a chair creaking or a shoe sliding on the table.  But after awhile, the level of comfort was completely there and rather than that being expressed in answers to questions, it was expressing through farting.

The highlight: We gather in our circle, arms across shoulders and as I close the prayer, ……  yep, you guessed it.  A musical AMEN escaped from one of the members.

We wondered if Jesus and the disciples ever had these kind of gatherings around fires or on boats or in places where they stayed on their travels.  We agreed that where two or three guys are gathered ….

I’ve been polling my youth anonymously about the state of our youth ministry.  (Thanks to Survey Monkey for free surveys.) I want us to do some honest evaluation over the summer as we think about the next year in youth ministry.  I’ve been here 8 and a half years and that makes it easy to get in a rut. 

The responses have been coming in ever so slowly.  They’ve been mostly positive in a healthy way.  Translation: not overly gussy where I’m skeptical that they are trying not to make me feel bad but practical and balanced. I’m pretty pleased with the maturity of their responses and not surprised by most of them.  It seems that we have struck the rigth balance on activities and events, that we have caring adults, and that the kids feel like they grow from the constant service activities we do.

There is one very clear theme, however, through all of the survey responses:  we are not family.  Here are some of the comments to the open-ended question – "The thing that frustrates or disappoints me most about our youth ministry is . . ."

• When someone new comes were not as welcoming as we should be as youth
• the cliques..they need to mix. starting in middle school…it all starts there.
• how our youth group isnt open to each. we are to clicky. groups dont talk with other groups and sometimes i feel im being judged.
• too clique-y, not very accepting of new people

Ouch, huh? The only good thing about this is that I have a real clear focus for our youth group this next year.

I’d love to hear from some of you what suggestions you have to work through this to being a loving family.  Some of you are youth ministers, all of you are or were teenagers at some point in your life.  What suggestions to you have to fight cliques?  What ideas have you seen to help make a larger youth group family? It is tougher when it is larger (we average 45 – 55 youth 7 – 12 grade) but not impossible!

In case you are curious and want to do your own survey, here are the 10 questions I sent out on this first survey.  More will come as I look for more detailed feedback.

1. Gender
2. Grade in School
3. Please indicate the activities that you attend on a regular basis. (I listed our regular weeky activities.)
4. Please indicate which events you participated in this past year. (I listed our yearly big events like trips and retreats, etc.)
5. How pleased are you with the following ministries this past year? (There was a ranking scale from "I hate it" to "I love it" for every weekly activity and event.
6. In my opinion, our activities are: (four options from "interesting and fun" to "boring and dull.")
7. In my opinion, we: (four option from "need to be more serious about our faith", "need to reach out more to unbelieving students", "the right balance between fun and serious," "need to lighten up and have more fun."
8. I keep coming to our youth group for the following reasons (they could check as many as they wanted from parents, to events, to friends, to adults I like.)
9. The thing I love most about our youth ministry is …
10. The thing that frustrates or disappoints me most about our youth ministry is . . .

Last weekend was our youth DiscipleNow weekend.  It is one of our big events of the year and one of the reasons I haven’t blogged recently.  It has been pretty busy leading up to the weekend as we get all the details and assignments worked out.  At DNow, youth stay in homes of church members for the weekend and have small group Bible studies along with larger group worship, service projects and fun activities.  We had 58 youth participate and it was a great weekend.  We had our awesome DNOW band back with us – No Longer Quiet and some great small group leaders. Our theme was "Becoming" and is published by Student Life. It was a really great study and the student books were great!  We volunteered on Saturday at the Samaritan Center – our local food pantry.  It was the Boy Scouts Annual Food Drive and helped to sort the food and box it up.  It is a great service project and we love helping the Samaritan Center.  Starting 8 years ago, we always do a "Mission JC" piece to our DNow weekend as we commit to helping out others while we have fun.  On Saturday, we did the game "Amazing Race" based on the tv show and it was a definite hit!   The end was very exciting as two of my groups were neck and neck throughout the entire race and finished withing seconds of one another.  One of my junior girls group beat out the senior boys by just a few seconds!  CRAZY!  It was a great spiritual weekend for us.  The youth really received a much-needed challenge on Saturday night about whether they were truly taking their faith seriously or not.  It was a very honest, in-your-face talk and several of the youth were convicted.  I was a little uncomfortable with it at times.  Partly because that is not my approach and I’ve seen that type of talk do more damage than good.  The last thing I want is to create a legalistic youth group – youth who are more concerned with right and wrong than about a loving relationship that transforms their life.  But there were some things they really needed to hear and the person who said it did a great job of communicating love in the midst of the challenge. 

The challenge is living that out in the real world – the world away from a weekend like DNow.  My struggle is helping the youth to do that. To give them the one-on-one time, the resources, the encouragement as soon as possible while they are motivated to start a new habit of relationship building with Christ.  After 8 years, I’ve seen these "windows" come and go. It is the frustrating part of ministry – ministry to any age group.

Tonight at the C-Group at my house, all the kids that were present were also present at DNow.  So we spent the evening talking about their spiritual experience at DNow.  It was interesting to hear the different reactions to the talk on Saturday.  Some felt it was needed and it really nailed it on the head.  A couple of others were angry and turned-off by it.  Both reactions were honest and telling. But either way – there was a reaction which led to a great discussion.  As one youth said, "It was so much easier when you were a kid."

We are in the final countdown to our 30-Hour Famine weekend at Refuge. I have 37 youth signed up for the Friday – Saturday event where we fast for 30 hours to raise money and awareness regarding world hunger.  I did an interview today with a reporter from our local newspaper.  They are featuring the story for this Friday’s Religious Section.  Hopefully, it will encourage others to host a similar event at their churches and to check out World Vision to learn about their wonderful ministries around the world.  We did this last year and the kids did a great job. Young people are natural activist.  The challenge is to help them connect it to their faith rather than a feel-good band wagon movement.

I’ve been reading some follow-up articles from the New Baptist Covenant gathering as people get home and continue to process all that they heard and experienced in Atlanta.  The challenge has been put to all of us to think of the next practical steps we take.  It is very easy to come home and be distracted by all the obligations and responsibilities of life and ministry.  One of the things happening at church that will help me to keep the conversation going is the beginning of our "It’s Time" study groups.  It is a great study in missional living and helping the church be the presence of Christ in their communities.  To date we have 107 individuals signed up for small groups which is a great response! After we finish the study, we have a day of serving planned in the community along with another follow-up brainstorming session to share dreams and empower the church to active service. I’m beyond excited about what that might look like!

On another note, tomorrow is Election Day here in Missouri.  Make sure to exercise your right to vote!

One of my former youth, Kristen Vogel, is working in Uganda for the next two years as part of the Halo Foundation.  Kristen has committed two years to serving as an International HALO Ambassador, and moved to Uganda in September 2007. She is directing HALO programs in three orphanages in Kenya, three programs in Uganda, and one orphanage in India. She is also expanding HALO’s scope by accessing needs of additional orphans and developing project proposals for HALO’s future. Kristen will also oversee construction of our HALO House Orphanage in Uganda.

If you have a chance to check out the Halo Foundation or Kristen’s blog, do so.  There is amazing work going on all around the world and I’m challenged by Kristen’s choice to serve.

Dove has been doing some amazing things with their Real Beauty campaign.  I’ve been quite impressed with the campaign to show the beauty of real women over the last couple of years.  Women do come in all shapes and sizes and America has a completely unhealthy addiction to physical "beauty".  Ironically, what many Americans describe as beautiful is not what most of the world defines as beautiful.

This new video from Dove is beyond words.  It is powerful, heart-breaking, gut-wrenching and sickenly revealing about the destruction and damage done to our young girls. Women – we should know better!! And we should do all we can to fight our young girls having to endure this same torture.  My niece is 3 months old.  I grieve the day that is coming when someone or some ad or some song robs her of her innocence and tells her she isn’t beautiful. I will do everything I can to fight that day.

Everyone needs to pay attention to this and pass it along.

Some Important Stats: (Thanks to YSMarko for stats.)

- The average person sees between 400 and 600 advertisements per day – equivalent to more than one message for every waking minute.

- The average US girl has the opportunity to see an estimated 77,546 commercials by the time she is 12 years old.

This growing phenomenon is having a direct impact on girls’ self-image and even causing some to engage in destructive behavior. The Dove Self-Esteem Fund/Seventeen Body Image Survey also revealed:

- 93 percent of girls and young women report feeling anxiety or stress about some aspect of their looks when getting ready in the morning

- This could explain why more than 70 percent of girls and young women avoid activities when they feel bad about their looks including giving their opinion, attending school and even going to the doctor.

- 76 percent of girls and young women admit to partaking in unhealthy activities when they feel badly about their bodies

- 58 percent of girls describe themselves in negative terms, including words like “disgusting” and “ugly,” when feeling badly about themselves.

- Nearly four out of 10 engage in unhealthy eating behaviors, such as anorexia or bulimia.

- More than one out of 10 girls has used cutting or self-inflicted injury as a coping mechanism.

I’m reading a great book right now entitled Contemplative Youth Ministry by Mark Yaconelli, son of youth ministry guru, Mike Yaconelli.  It is amazing!  In fact, I read about two-thirds of the book this evening which is evidence of how good it is and also evidence that I am not taking the necessary time to really engage the text which is a shame.  I am going to have to slow down and journey through it again. It is a must read for anyone that works with youth – minister or volunteer, paid or unpaid. I’d been happy to loan my copy if it will allow you to read it.

For a great review of the book (which has been out in the US for over a year), click here to read it on Jonny Baker’s blog.

I really resonate with what Yaconelli shares in this book and it affirms in many ways my philosophy of youth ministry as well as challenges me about the way I’ve been approaching and worrying about my ministry to youth.  It is very easy to be misguided by self-expectations and the expectations of the church. When you listen to these voices over being in the presence of God and loving out of that presence, well…. things get messed up. This book helps you get back to the heart of why we love teenagers and desire to share life with them.