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church, youth ministry, youth work

junior high pastors summit notes, part 6 (final)

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each year, for the past 8 or so, about 20 middle school ministry specialists from around north america have gathered for a few days of fun and discussion. this year’s participants were: myself, Corrie Boyle (Mars Hill Bible Church, Grand Rapids, MI), Kurt Brandemihl (Sunset Presbyterian Church, Portland OR), Jeff Buell (McKinney Memorial Bible Church, Fort Worth, TX), April Diaz (NewSong Church, Irvine, CA), Ken Elben (Christ United Methodist Church, Memphis TN), Heather Flies (Wooddale Church, Eden Prairie, MN), Andy Jack (Christ Church of Oak Brook, Oak Brook, IL), Mark Janzen (Willingdon Church, Burnaby, BC), Kurt Johnston (Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, CA), Brooklyn Lindsey (Highland Park Church, Lakeland, FL), Sean Meade (Stuck in the Middle, Andover, KS), Alan Mercer (Christ Community Church, Leawood, KS), Jason Raitz (Willow Creek, S. Barrington, IL), Alan Ramsey (Fellowship Evangelical Free Church, Knoxville, TN), Ken Rawson (First United Methodist Church, Wichita, KS), Nate Rice (Forest Home Ministries, Forest Falls, CA), Christina Robertson (Journey Community Church, La Mesa, CA), Johnny Scott (Jr High Believe, Oronogo, MO), Nate Severson (Hillcrest Covenant Church, Prairie Village, KS), Phil Shinners (Mariners Church, Irvine, CA), and Scott Rubin (Willow Creek, S. Barrington, IL).

for the past few years, we’ve invited a guest to join us for a half day, to present some stuff that would become discussion fodder for the rest of our time. we’ve had chap clark, scot mcknight, an adolescent brain specialist, and christian smith.

this year, our guest was dave gibbons, pastor of newsong church in irvine, CA, and author of the monkey and the fish. we talked about third culture, adaptability, leadership, fringes and vortexes, and a variety of other stuff.

i’ll be posting edited notes from our discussions here in a series of posts. our hope is that these discussions will be helpful to others also…

this last post in this series is our discussion about R&D and ministry to/on the fringe:

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What are some of our swirling vortexes and/or what are some of the things on the fringe that we need to be fueling? R&D (research and development) – what would it look like to have an R&D department built into our ministry?

Define: Fringe = marginalized – R&D is a principle of “release early and release often” because often times we don’t do something until we have it all figured out and this tends to kill innovation. If we are to honor our past and not blow up all we are currently doing in order to change everything, we also need to have something coming that will sustain us when the vortex of what we are currently doing subsides.

Kurt J: We are talking about some change. The decision we made was to allow parents and kids to choose what type of small group they are in. Instead of having ten kids in a group who are all over the map, each group is formed around a “depth” and allow kids to choose the type of group they have. The first option will be a “connecting” group that will be about 20 kids that might be 70% hanging out and 30% growing in Bible study etc… The second option would be a “growing” group where there might be 30% hanging out and 70% Bible study. The idea is full of potential problems, but it seems like there are some benefits that we could gain from.

MarkO: Sure there will be things that are not going to work and problems, but how will we figure it out unless we try it. In some places not having it all figured out might be a problem, but in others it may be a struggle to do something without having all the kinks worked out before you roll it out.

Nate R: How much “R” did you put into this? If we do our homework, things like this can come off much better.

Kurt J: We don’t need a bunch of research to make a change. Our leadership trusts us enough to know what we should be doing. There are going to be issues, but the tension we feel is when our groups are filled with kids who are all over the map on how much they want to grow and even that seems to change weekly. Is there a way to give kids a better small group experience?

Jason R: One of the biggest struggles is communicating expectations because most parents would want a “growing” group for their kids when many of them should be in “connecting” groups.

MarkO: It sounds like we are talking about moving the vortex. But the whole point of working with the fringe is more about starting something small and allowing it to fail or succeed. The fringe idea is not if you are going to change ALL your small groups, but rather, will you change two of your small groups to see if what your idea is might work. It’s beta testing.

Johnny S: We just don’t do this well, we typically change everything.

*So who is doing something this fits this – is truly fringe?

Brook: We’ve started looking at our leaders more like “what can you give and how can I use that?” Rather than “this is what I want/need, will you do it?” We need to listen to what they are passionate about and plug that in.

*We need to talk about the process we use to get fringe things going, not specifically talking about what we are doing.

Heather: Our divorce care group would fall into this because we tried it for a short period of time. It started because of the number of phone calls I was making and the kids I was working with who all deal with the same thing. So, we “pilot” a three week program and if it works we keep it going and if it bombs, it dies. Our church is big into the “pilot” type thing. At the end of the three week gig we evaluated and decided to move it to Wednesday night before program because the three weeks went well, but that bombed. In the midst of this though we found some great things that were really helpful.

The idea was to start support groups and this was the first one. There are so many support groups for adults, but none for the kids.

Phil S: Kurt J has a system of “streams of feedback” so that people can really communicate with you.

Brook: Paying attention to signals and allowing people to speak and I need to listen.

Andy J: How do we get that feedback? Triangulate with students, parents, and your volunteers. Run ideas past all three groups and see where they come down on ideas.

Phil: That’s a different stage of R&D – that’s more focus groups rather than getting the ideas in the first place.

Kurt J: The trouble is I typically hear from the vortex, not the fringe. The fringe is hard to hear from because they are not the ones who are coming to speak up. Maybe the thing we need to do is take the vortex ideas and help people “not play by our rules” and use these ideas that might be good to reach the fringe rather than the vortex. Can we also find people who are thinking or can be pushed to think outside the box?

MarkO: Are we asking kids outside our “norm” what we can try that might be good for them?

Nate S: Do we have a boss that is really behind this? In our context we have a boss that is telling us he wants to “pull back the reins on what we try, not kick us in the pants to get us going.”

MarkO: Medici Effect is a book we should all read that can help us with this thinking.

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church, youth ministry, youth work

junior high pastors summit notes, part 5

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each year, for the past 8 or so, about 20 middle school ministry specialists from around north america have gathered for a few days of fun and discussion. this year’s participants were: myself, Corrie Boyle (Mars Hill Bible Church, Grand Rapids, MI), Kurt Brandemihl (Sunset Presbyterian Church, Portland OR), Jeff Buell (McKinney Memorial Bible Church, Fort Worth, TX), April Diaz (NewSong Church, Irvine, CA), Ken Elben (Christ United Methodist Church, Memphis TN), Heather Flies (Wooddale Church, Eden Prairie, MN), Andy Jack (Christ Church of Oak Brook, Oak Brook, IL), Mark Janzen (Willingdon Church, Burnaby, BC), Kurt Johnston (Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, CA), Brooklyn Lindsey (Highland Park Church, Lakeland, FL), Sean Meade (Stuck in the Middle, Andover, KS), Alan Mercer (Christ Community Church, Leawood, KS), Jason Raitz (Willow Creek, S. Barrington, IL), Alan Ramsey (Fellowship Evangelical Free Church, Knoxville, TN), Ken Rawson (First United Methodist Church, Wichita, KS), Nate Rice (Forest Home Ministries, Forest Falls, CA), Christina Robertson (Journey Community Church, La Mesa, CA), Johnny Scott (Jr High Believe, Oronogo, MO), Nate Severson (Hillcrest Covenant Church, Prairie Village, KS), Phil Shinners (Mariners Church, Irvine, CA), and Scott Rubin (Willow Creek, S. Barrington, IL).

for the past few years, we’ve invited a guest to join us for a half day, to present some stuff that would become discussion fodder for the rest of our time. we’ve had chap clark, scot mcknight, an adolescent brain specialist, and christian smith.

this year, our guest was dave gibbons, pastor of newsong church in irvine, CA, and author of the monkey and the fish. we talked about third culture, adaptability, leadership, fringes and vortexes, and a variety of other stuff.

i’ll be posting edited notes from our discussions here in a series of posts. our hope is that these discussions will be helpful to others also…

part 5 is a loose and rambly discussion of what “education and exposure” to third-culture might look like in middle school ministry:

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Education and exposure – what does this look like?

Define and clarify: Dave talked about this being the first step we can take to be more aware and sensitive (or help our students) to third-culture.

Part 1: How can we help expand our kids’ world view and see themselves as citizens of the world and the cultures that are right around them as well as those that are across the globe?

April: We do this with a lot of storytelling. What is happening in other places and what God is doing in other parts of the world? Email blasts, website articles, etc… That’s what the church is doing, but in MS we don’t really do a good job at this. It is hard work in the MS ministry. However, bringing people in and storytelling is still a big part of it. We’ll use our offering for mission and social justice type projects (things like sponsoring kids in Africa, praying for the kids we sponsor etc…. We just bought a cow in Africa). Our programs are regularly showing things that are happening in other parts of the world. At least one time a year we do a lesson series on third-culture topics.

Nate S: We support a missionary and we do mission trips with him and bring him in to talk with our students.

Scott: I wonder what lingo I would use with my students. At Newsong you might use the term third-culture because it’s part of the culture of the church. It might be really hard to communicate that concept with our students.

Alan R: Reach Global, Reach local

Phil: The best example we’ve heard of all this is Alan R’s adoption story and the integration of that process with the students and how much they have taken hold of and come around that story and project. My question is “where am I, outside of my responsibilities in the church, connecting with people very different from me?” If I am not doing this, how can what I teach be sustainable.

Alan M: We talk more about living the missional life and how our students and be thinking and living a life of mission that would include loving our neighbor. We just don’t do a good job of including the fact that our neighbor might be someone who is not like us or someone we don’t like, so it’s not really third-culture as we’ve talked about it today.

Phil: I just don’t like the fact that we tend to approach this as a program. That does not seem very real.

Christina: We have two guys come in from an African American church and talk about a rally that they were doing and invited our band to participate. They were the only white people at the event, but it was really cool.

Andy J: We’ve been doing all these things like the 30 hour famine and yet our kids wanted to know the people they were raising funds for, so we scrapped the projects that we were doing that were not relational and connected to us and we started focusing on the things that are right around us that our kids could really know.

Alan M: I’m not sure it can be a program because the program is so hard.

MarkO: One of the things I am hearing is when we consider junior high students and where they are developmentally there has to be a tangible or an ongoing reminder of what their involvement or money will bring. When we were doing 1Life Revolution stuff it was so-so, but when I came home with pictures and told them stories etc…We raised a ton more money than we anticipated because the kids were more involved and we put a real tangible face on it. We need to concretize these concepts with our students.

April: The practical stuff comes more naturally. We teach the theology of the practical and then give them a lot of examples that they can understand where they can apply this.

Ken R: Yet this is hard because most will not do the hard things that this might require.

MarkO: Remember that developmentally they are self-centered

Brook: A lot of this can be done in small groups and helping our small group leaders live this as well so that in smaller groups we can get the encouragement we need and challenge we need to get this done.

Corrie: The small group is a much better place for this because they can really get behind something together and really talk about it together. Each of our small groups have done projects that they came up with and have talked about and processed. The education of third-culture and the application can happen in a small group. They can walk together and learn together and experience it in a different way than the large group.

April: Margin has got to be a part of your life as well as the walking slowly so you have time and energy to put into the messiness of all this.

Alan R: Sometimes it seems like our girls and our female leaders get this better or are better prepared and equipped to do this more naturally. I struggle with how much we do this with our boys and why we don’t do this more often. Not sure why this is, if it’s a reflection of my personality or if it’s really a gender issue.

Brook: Even thinking about our volunteer team and the fact that we have so many more women than men on our team.

Kurt J: Going back to the program side. Just because something does not leak out of us does not mean it’s not valuable and/or I shouldn’t expose my kids to it. I may not be good at it, but I can still present a program opportunity to our kids even if I am not really excited about it. Programs can help us care when we can’t care on our own. For example, when we write a note to a kid who has not been at church, does the kid care how we know they were not at church, or do they only really care that we knew they were not there? How we know is a program, but they benefit from that program in a real way.

When kids hear about an opportunity in a large group, experience it in a small group, maybe one will grab onto it and do it without me. If that happens, it’s a win.

MarkO: Even for all the kids who don’t go back, there is still education and exposure and there might be a substantially greater chance for a student to see and meet needs in other contexts because they went to and were exposed to a place where they saw needs in other people.

Kurt J: If I were to quantify this a bit, I would say a LOT of exposure and a little bit of education. This stuff is caught.

Johnny: I think a part we need to consider is the follow up and the processing of these experiences after the event.

MarkO: One thing to think about is how we often times are very much stuck on the same experiences. Do we not really want to expose our kids to a whole bunch of different issues because our kids are different? Why do we constantly go to the same place every month when it might not connect with a bunch of our students?

Ken E: Racism in Memphis: People are seen as projects. Our church has this thing called SOS and it’s fantastic, but our kids come in and then forget about the people they serve for the rest of the year. This is a church, family, and personal issue. We need to befriend these people through the rest of the year so we can really know how to better serve. Our youth staff is now going downtown to tutor so we can get to know them.

We are tired of the project mentality. People are people, not projects. There are a lot of cool things happening and our church is doing a lot of great things. Just this last month we had a network meeting with people from all over the area and all different races. It’s a start.

MarkO: One thing I’ve tried to do is to try and develop a friendship with people that we are different from. It feels like we are developing a friendship that is not based on the goals or agendas of either of us, but rather just a friendship.

Scott: I’m wondering if there is some way to get this done other than what we are currently describing. How/why are we doing something or educating something that we are not doing ourselves?

MarkO: I guess I push back on the thought that this may not need to be something we need to do. If we don’t value third-culture how can we ask students to do it?

Kurt J: I think you can value something without it flowing out of you. It does not have to flow, but it is way more effective and genuine when it does flow from within us.

MarkO: Am I willing to minister to people that are not like me? Am I doing things outside of my role as a MS pastor that helps me to do this more effectively as a MS pastor? Does the flow of my ministry come from my life, or is the only thing I am doing because of my role as a MS pastor?

When I do things outside of the MS ministry, it impacts my ministry with the student and how I talk about the Gospel and how I talk about difficult ministry opportunities.

If my heart is not formed toward that through trial and error, I don’t have a lot of ground to stand on in challenging them to live that way.

Nate R: We are leaders and when we are passionate about something, because we are leaders we impact people when we talk about what we are passionate about.

Jason R: The guys in my small group are ready to hear, but they are not ready to jump in partly because parents are not talking about this at home either, so how can we help parents learn this stuff too?

Jeff B: We’ve seen an increase in getting kids involved outside our ministry because we have invited parents to join our small groups in serving. When a parent serves alongside a student, sometimes it’s easier for the kids to get involved.

Ken E: We are doing a parent/child mission trip this summer.

next up (in the last of this series): R&D, and ministry on/to the fringe…

church, youth ministry, youth work

junior high pastors summit notes, part 4

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each year, for the past 8 or so, about 20 middle school ministry specialists from around north america have gathered for a few days of fun and discussion. this year’s participants were: myself, Corrie Boyle (Mars Hill Bible Church, Grand Rapids, MI), Kurt Brandemihl (Sunset Presbyterian Church, Portland OR), Jeff Buell (McKinney Memorial Bible Church, Fort Worth, TX), April Diaz (NewSong Church, Irvine, CA), Ken Elben (Christ United Methodist Church, Memphis TN), Heather Flies (Wooddale Church, Eden Prairie, MN), Andy Jack (Christ Church of Oak Brook, Oak Brook, IL), Mark Janzen (Willingdon Church, Burnaby, BC), Kurt Johnston (Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, CA), Brooklyn Lindsey (Highland Park Church, Lakeland, FL), Sean Meade (Stuck in the Middle, Andover, KS), Alan Mercer (Christ Community Church, Leawood, KS), Jason Raitz (Willow Creek, S. Barrington, IL), Alan Ramsey (Fellowship Evangelical Free Church, Knoxville, TN), Ken Rawson (First United Methodist Church, Wichita, KS), Nate Rice (Forest Home Ministries, Forest Falls, CA), Christina Robertson (Journey Community Church, La Mesa, CA), Johnny Scott (Jr High Believe, Oronogo, MO), Nate Severson (Hillcrest Covenant Church, Prairie Village, KS), Phil Shinners (Mariners Church, Irvine, CA), and Scott Rubin (Willow Creek, S. Barrington, IL).

for the past few years, we’ve invited a guest to join us for a half day, to present some stuff that would become discussion fodder for the rest of our time. we’ve had chap clark, scot mcknight, an adolescent brain specialist, and christian smith.

this year, our guest was dave gibbons, pastor of newsong church in irvine, CA, and author of the monkey and the fish. we talked about third culture, adaptability, leadership, fringes and vortexes, and a variety of other stuff.

i’ll be posting edited notes from our discussions here in a series of posts. our hope is that these discussions will be helpful to others also…

part 4 is our discussion of our own leadership, in light of the concepts dave presented:

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Personal leadership – how do/can we live out third-culture? 70%/30% – How do we really do what we say we are about?

What do we need to think about in terms of our own leadership:

Scott: This is the whole thing. Our churches will not see into people’s souls, we need to do this. People see people, organizations do not.

Christina: People give all sorts of things that are not supposed to be given or helpful, but it meets their own need to feel like they did something.

Ken E: We need to stop looking at the people we serve as projects.

Heather: We bring people what we think they need without asking them what they need.

Ken E: We need to choose to be uncomfortable. I’ve spent a ton of years being really comfortable.

Jeff: What we value is going to come out in where we spend our time. We need to really shift to a place where we really get to know the people we are trying to serve not just doing what is easy or convenient.

Brook: We need to deconstruct and do the timeline and other tools. We are astounded by what we find and it shapes and impacts us. These are really important and we need to change and respond to what we find out about ourselves. How do we change our language and do something different that can really help propel us into something better.

MarkO: We have done something like the timeline with our team and it was really helpful

Nate S: The idea of walking slowly is powerful. When “I” Fail “we” fail.

**We are all really bad at this**

Kurt B: It is really hard to walk slow because of our ministries and the expectations we live within. There needs to be a system set up that allows us to accomplish this goal with more than just me.

MarkO: I am not modeling this. I have always said this was a good idea, but I don’t do it. So do I really value it?

Margins – how does Dave G do this? How does he take two days a week to be fluid?

Kurt J: This is the biggest thing I suck at. I don’t walk slow. I wonder if this is a leadership thing that we have been ingrained into us. I have tried to start thinking of myself more as a pastor not a leader. It seems that pastor/shepherd helps me to slow down because it seems like we have more permission to go slow when we are a pastor. When we are a leader we have things to do and people to lead and that means run fast.

This is really hard, but it is a both/and. We need to be available, but we also need to set boundaries.

MarkO: The core issue is “do I really care about other people?” Often times my heart is not in it and I would rather be doing something else than spending time with this person.

Alan R: I agree it’s a heart issue. I was praying last week and asking God to give me a heart for others. I asked myself if I really love my volunteers and God just overwhelmed me and my heart with how much I may not love like I say I do. Do I really have a pastoral heart?

Brook: How do we stay connected to this as our core issue?

Alan M: It will look different for different people because we all struggle with different things.

MarkO: If I am going to have a heart for other people it’s because God is going to give me that kind of heart.

Kurt B: How do I really love everyone and keep up the machine? If I keep up the machine I am seen as not relational.

Jason R: I disagree – my role is to point kids to their own pastor (their small group leader).

MarkO: I think seeing someone and knowing someone is different. I can “see” someone in a minute and not really know them. I suck at this because I can’t even stay focused with eye contact when I talk with someone.

Scott: We all know people who do this well. What do we see in them and how can we learn from them?

Heather: I am really good at this when people take the initiative with me, but I don’t take the initiative well. My senior pastor is great when I call him, but he does not call me often.

Ken E: I see this valued in my new church. My new senior pastor is in the room all the time and knows what we do and what we are about.

Part 2: 70/30 – what does it mean to rearrange our schedules and priorities to be reflective of what we say is important.

April: this is really hard for me. We have a culture that says “spend 3 days a week with people” and I don’t always do this and it is really hard.

Most of us are not in a system that allows us to do this. Most of us are in places where we could do this as long as it’s in addition to what we are currently doing. Yet, if we really could blow up everything we do in order to do the kinds of things that really connect with our students and change them our ministries would be really different and really powerful.

Christina: If the 70% is really more what energizes us, can we find out what our 70% is and go to our leadership and fight for this.

marko: The 70% was not about what energizes us, but rather what our ministry is about.

next up: a rambly discussion on what “education and exposure” to third-culture might look like for middle school ministry…

church, youth ministry, youth work

junior high pastors summit notes, part 3

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each year, for the past 8 or so, about 20 middle school ministry specialists from around north america have gathered for a few days of fun and discussion. this year’s participants were: myself, Corrie Boyle (Mars Hill Bible Church, Grand Rapids, MI), Kurt Brandemihl (Sunset Presbyterian Church, Portland OR), Jeff Buell (McKinney Memorial Bible Church, Fort Worth, TX), April Diaz (NewSong Church, Irvine, CA), Ken Elben (Christ United Methodist Church, Memphis TN), Heather Flies (Wooddale Church, Eden Prairie, MN), Andy Jack (Christ Church of Oak Brook, Oak Brook, IL), Mark Janzen (Willingdon Church, Burnaby, BC), Kurt Johnston (Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, CA), Brooklyn Lindsey (Highland Park Church, Lakeland, FL), Sean Meade (Stuck in the Middle, Andover, KS), Alan Mercer (Christ Community Church, Leawood, KS), Jason Raitz (Willow Creek, S. Barrington, IL), Alan Ramsey (Fellowship Evangelical Free Church, Knoxville, TN), Ken Rawson (First United Methodist Church, Wichita, KS), Nate Rice (Forest Home Ministries, Forest Falls, CA), Christina Robertson (Journey Community Church, La Mesa, CA), Johnny Scott (Jr High Believe, Oronogo, MO), Nate Severson (Hillcrest Covenant Church, Prairie Village, KS), Phil Shinners (Mariners Church, Irvine, CA), and Scott Rubin (Willow Creek, S. Barrington, IL).

for the past few years, we’ve invited a guest to join us for a half day, to present some stuff that would become discussion fodder for the rest of our time. we’ve had chap clark, scot mcknight, an adolescent brain specialist, and christian smith.

this year, our guest was dave gibbons, pastor of newsong church in irvine, CA, and author of the monkey and the fish. we talked about third culture, adaptability, leadership, fringes and vortexes, and a variety of other stuff.

i’ll be posting edited notes from our discussions here in a series of posts. our hope is that these discussions will be helpful to others also…

part 3 is our post-dave brainstorm of topics we might want to explore further, and our responses to the validity of the third-culture ideas dave presented:

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Brainstorm possible discussion topics for the rest of our time:

1. Rather than trying to “get” kids to be third-culture, there may already be a pre-disposition to be third-culture, how do we cultivate this in our students rather than trying.
2. Is there validity in talking about third-culture in MS ministry at all?
3. Role of parents and kids and the third-culture.
4. Education and exposure – what does this look like and how do we convince parents/boards etc… to do a vision trip and see the value in this?
5. Personal leadership – how do/can we live out third-culture?
6. Middle leadership – how do we lead within an organization that is not third-culture? How do we affirm others who may not get third-culture or may not do what we think is important?
7. Re-writing the metrics. What are the metrics of measurement in a third culture MS student?
8. Transitioning to third-culture. How do we kill old churches and old ministries or can they be transitioned?
9. What are some of our swirling vortex’ and/or what are some of the things on the fringe that we need to be fueling?
10. Who are the marginalized in MS ministry?
11. What does it mean to “see” our kids in the way he meant it?
12. Pain: How do we figure out how to include our own pain as well as help our leaders know how this plays into ministry? Also, what are the places where spiritual transformation takes place (community, life altering experiences, victory & success, and pain & failure). We have not done much in seeing pain as a spiritual formation opportunity.
13. R&D (research and development) – what would it look like to have an R&D department built into our ministry?
14. 70%/30% – How do we really do what we say we are about?

Responses on the validity of this topic:

Phil: When Dave talks about loving others that are not like us, I was thinking that we have a long way to go in the world because it seems that non-believers do this so much better than we do. We actually are in the hole and need to catch up in valuing other cultures before we can show others what this might look like.

Nate S: We do a bunch of stuff in New Orleans and we see the opposite and are affirmed that the church is doing so much.

Phil: a practical example is my daughter’s kindergarten class who seem to genuinely love on each other even though they are of different races.

Alan M: But is your daughter’s class really third-culture or is this just people loving people who are like us in every way except skin color?

Phil: Yes, but even having a person of a different skin color in my home is a big step. This is all so new to me.

Brook: Context has a lot to do with how well you receive this and how valid it is. To me it seems so right on and something others have been saying for so long and being bashed for it. He seems to put it in a palatable way.

Mark J: In our context, we have ministries for different languages and such, but our main service does not reflect these ministries and the people they work with.

Kurt J: I certainly came here with a bit of resistance. When you come from a place where you feel like things are going well and you’re doing well, you are a bit resistant to the new ideas. Is the question and conversation valid – YES! But I feel like maybe the conversation might not be as big as I thought it was. This is really a lot more about the both/and and honoring the old as well as the new than I originally thought.

Ken R: Is this really just ministry to the marginalized?

Kurt J: I don’t think so

MarkO: It seems like this is more about fluidity and adaptivity and change not ministry to the marginalized

Scott: Isn’t this really just the next wave of what we have always been doing? i.e. the next wave of how the church will adapt to the culture and the needs it finds much like the seeker model did years ago.

Alan R: I feel like this is a simple call to live the Gospel out in a new way to a new world. A simple understanding of what it means to be a follower of Christ.

MarkO: One thing I think Dave was trying to get at was that for the past 50 years we have been so focused on the individual component of our faith. We may all agree on the fact that we went somewhat too far on this. Recently, people are starting see their identity connected more to the world, and to their local community (glocal). People in China are as much my brothers as the church down the road as much as the people in my own local church. There seems to be a lot of implications for us in MS if this is true.

Johnny: I felt like this was a Christian worldview appendix to “The World is Flat.” The church has the opportunity to be the vehicle to help jhigh students to be more glocal and we are missing it. Other places like schools, facebook, media are getting this and are helping and we are not doing what we can.

MarkO: I think the average 23 year old sees themselves more as a citizen of the world than a nation or national org (like a denomination). But I like the both/and because it really is both

Ken E: Because of the pain I have gone through this year, after reading this book, I am wondering if maybe I went through all this so I can minister to others in our economic reality and the pain others will feel in the years to come. I think this is a very valid form of where the church should go in the future. We need to help people think more outside the box. I am not sure how the church in America will survive unless we do something. If our junior high students can understand this, I think it will impact the world.

next up: considering our own leadership…

youth ministry, youth work

Junior High Pastors summit notes, part 1

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jhpastors1each year, for the past 8 or so, about 20 middle school ministry specialists from around north america have gathered for a few days of fun and discussion. this year’s participants were: myself, Corrie Boyle (Mars Hill Bible Church, Grand Rapids, MI), Kurt Brandemihl (Sunset Presbyterian Church, Portland OR), Jeff Buell (McKinney Memorial Bible Church, Fort Worth, TX), April Diaz (NewSong Church, Irvine, CA), Ken Elben (Christ United Methodist Church, Memphis TN), Heather Flies (Wooddale Church, Eden Prairie, MN), Andy Jack (Christ Church of Oak Brook, Oak Brook, IL), Mark Janzen (Willingdon Church, Burnaby, BC), Kurt Johnston (Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, CA), Brooklyn Lindsey (Highland Park Church, Lakeland, FL), Sean Meade (Stuck in the Middle, Andover, KS), Alan Mercer (Christ Community Church, Leawood, KS), Jason Raitz (Willow Creek, S. Barrington, IL), Alan Ramsey (Fellowship Evangelical Free Church, Knoxville, TN), Ken Rawson (First United Methodist Church, Wichita, KS), Nate Rice (Forest Home Ministries, Forest Falls, CA), Christina Robertson (Journey Community Church, La Mesa, CA), Johnny Scott (Jr High Believe, Oronogo, MO), Nate Severson (Hillcrest Covenant Church, Prairie Village, KS), Phil Shinners (Mariners Church, Irvine, CA), and Scott Rubin (Willow Creek, S. Barrington, IL).

for the past few years, we’ve invited a guest to join us for a half day, to present some stuff that would become discussion fodder for the rest of our time. we’ve had chap clark, scot mcknight, an adolescent brain specialist, and christian smith.

this year, our guest was dave gibbons, pastor of newsong church in irvine, CA, and author of the monkey and the fish. we talked about third culture, adaptability, leadership, fringes and vortexes, and a variety of other stuff.

i’ll be posting edited notes from our discussions here in a series of posts. our hope is that these discussions will be helpful to others also…

part 1 is from dave’s talk to us:

————–

Intro to Dave Gibbons:
Dave comes from a biracial family; his mom is Korean, his father is Irish. He came to states at 3 and grew up in a white middle class church. Things started to unravel for him in the machine of church. He was wrestling with things in a place where it was really hard to change. He decided to investigate the world and has seen how much the world has really shifted and how much we often times do not really see it. Currently there are 1.5 billion dollars shifting from the West to the East every day. The intellectual power is shifting in the world. Students in America study for a few hours a day where Eastern children are studying for eight to ten hours a day – they study hard for their families to survive. If they don’t study, their hopes and ambitions will die. They think more communally rather than individualistically. If they fail, they see themselves as failing not just themselves but also their family and country. They also think generationally (“how is this going to impact the generations that follow me?”).

International students now come to America for an education and then go home because the opportunities are so much better. America is behind the curve on almost every angle. Even some of the things that we see as large, like the Passion movement, are very small in comparison to the church in the world. The largest churches in the world are in Korea. We’re talking 1,000,000 members, not 20,000 like our big churches have.

Time warps every culture. We have suburban or urban enclaves. Although things are shifting all around us, it is very easy for us to be stuck in the past. Honor the past and feel the fringe. We don’t want to get stuck, but we don’t want to forget our past either.

How do we honor the past and feel the fringe? We need to affirm what is going on in our culture and congregations. Immigration patterns of the past – when people like the Swedes came to America – were preservation oriented. They wanted to keep their family together. The next generation wants to branch out. When we work in the church, our work is love, learn and serve, not change the church.
When we understand the wineskin principles we can do well. You can’t put new wine in old wineskins or it will explode. If you let each go its way, both will be preserved. We need to lift up the old wineskin, but we must also create new forms for the new wine. We must be geared to R&D and innovation. We need to try out new things or we will start to vortex around the center. When you do this, you lose the fringe. How do you affirm the zealots and the fringe players who really help keep you going? That’s the liquid idea. The ability to adapt is often very painful.

Let’s not knock the form of things like the mega church. They don’t need to be bashed because they were (or maybe still are) innovative. The question is more “what are the forms?”

Three form questions that should drive us
• Context you live in
• Calling of the leader
• Capacity – do you have the tool set to do the work?
o Mindset
o Knowledge
o Skill set or tools

Things that might help us navigate the epic shifts that are coming (mindsets – when you get the mindset, the how-to’s fall into place).
• It’s more about your pain than it is your strength – do you see your pain as your strength? We have commoditized our people to a point where our pain is something viewed as weak not strong.

• The old school system is a system based of strength, gifts, passion, and assessments. When we live in this kind of a world and system our outcomes tend to continue in a place where ten to twenty percent of our people are the radicals.
• If we use our assessments not as an end, but as a beginning, a window into the soul – we can really see what a person is all about. We tend to use the assessment as a quick way to get people plugged in. We don’t have the time to really hear the soul beats. We just use them to see strengths. What we need to use these for a way to really see the pain in a person because people will really work hard within their pain. Pain is a launching pad. If you don’t have pain in your tone, you are seen as inauthentic.

next up: the questions we asked dave…

books, music, personal, youth ministry, youth work

monday morning update, march 9, 2009

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the weekend that was: rather a nice weekend, again, at home. i’m getting spoiled with these!

clarity_cdfriday night was a memorable treat. i’ve gotten to know zach lind a bit over the years (mostly through emerging church world and blog and twitter world), and he plays in this little band called jimmy eat world. they were playing the house of blues in san diego friday night, and liesl and i went down and met zach for a drink prior to the show, then went to the show. liesl was a little star-struck (which was cute, and i think scored me some ‘my dad isn’t as much of a dork as i thought’ points). zach is really a genuinely good guy, and likely one of the deeper thinking rock drummers out there.

we also had a funny moment when, during the middle of the opening act, someone came up to me and said, “aren’t you with youth specialties?” we chatted a little (nice guy), and it was no big deal; but, once again, a middle aged dad needs all the help he can get when it comes to his 15 year-old daughter not thinking he’s a tool.

i stayed up so stinkin’ late friday (watched tv after the concert), that i slept in until 11:15am on saturday. i NEVER do that, and it was a great treat. saturday was a slow-ish day, with some errands (mostly shuttling liesl and her friends around), some work (had to finish my expense report), and some hangin’ with max and jeannie. we rented a movie and got pizza in the evening, while liesl and 3 friends (one of whom is moving to australia this week) watched movies in the back house.

sunday: church, a couple errands, then i drove up to “the inland empire” (that’s what they call the area east of LA). our annual junior high pastors summit started last night with dinner at the yard house (we needed a gathering point, since people were driving, or flying into one of three different airports). after dinner, we drove the short distance up to forest home camp, where we’re being hosted this week.

where i am at the moment: at the junior high pastors summit, at forest home camp, NE of LA. this is a cool little gathering (about 22 of us) of long-term, veteran middle school youth workers. we’ve been meeting for about 8 years in a row, and have developed a great love for each other, in addition to having great discussion.

on my to-do list this week: the junior high pastors summit through wednesday; then, i’m staying at forest home in a cabin by myself for the rest of the week for a silent retreat. i’m WAY overdue for one of these, and GREATLY looking forward to it. i drive back to san diego early saturday morning, in time to participate in a parent training day at my church. i’ll be offline and out of touch all week, which is always a bit hard for me, but really healthy for me. there’s no internet OR cell phone coverage up there.

procrastinating about: i suppose i need to start writing “taxes” here every week until i get them done.

book i’m in the midst of: still trying to finish the know it all (this week!), and are you there, vodka? it’s me, chelsea. i’ll get them both done this week. but i also started reading the manuscript for a book coming out later this year by an old friend named jim belcher. the book is a “third way” book, trying to find a place between the reformed tradition and the emerging church (jim has one foot in each). i’m taking a few more books with me this week, for my silent retreat. really looking forward to some reading time.

mollyjensonmusic that seemed to catch my attention this past week: WOW, what a GREAT music week! very rarely have i had such a great music week. the highlights:

– i got sent a copy of molly jenson‘s new cd (which release the same day as U2’s cd). i’ll need to blog about this seperately, but it’s really, really good.
– i downloaded U2‘s new album from amazon during their first-day $3.99 deal. i’ve seen that some people aren’t digging it; but i’m loving it. the lyrics are particularly stunning, and show so much depth.
– then, i was listening to jimmy eat world in prep for the show friday night, and found out — last minute — that the show was something of a 10 year anniversary tour for their “clarity” album, which i hadn’t realized i didn’t have; so i downloaded that beauty also.
– OH, and lucas leys (ys’s spanish director) found out recently that i dig this band called “gotan project“, so he sent me another cool cd of tango/lounge fusion stuff, called bajofondo tango club. oh, man, it’s so sweet.

mmm. tasty and varied week of musical licks.

next trip: well, i guess i should call it my silent retreat, since it’s later this week!

how i’m feeling about this week: really, really stoked about both halves of this week, but not stoked about being gone all week.