You may notice I don’t talk about the Bible much in these posts. There is a reason for that. Quite simply, I’m trying to keep my posts fairly short. I want these to be able to be read easily the first time you glance at it. I could write longer posts, but then you’d need to schedule reading my blog into your calendar. I don’t want that. (Nor do I think anyone would actually do that. Well, Brit might.)

So, I don’t have a whole lot of space to go into the biblical and theological basis of a lot of my convictions. For instance, you may be asking why in my recent post I think that local and contextual is better than big and pre-packaged. I have many a biblical and theological reason for that, I can assure you. My convictions are a result of a lot of reading, reflecting, discussing, praying, ministering, living, and all that. I refuse to simply quote a bible verse in every post in order to make it “biblical.” That does an injustice to the depth at which those of us in youth ministry need to be considering these issues. I believe my posts are already biblical because I think they line up with scripture, not because I stick a reference onto every post.

Perhaps one day I will make a series of posts on the biblical and theological basis of my convictions. But it would be too long to try and do that all at once right now. For now, you will just see the (current state of my) conclusions in the Neo-Youth Ministry Series.

While reading the book, I came to the realization that, to my knowledge, there is no youth ministry book that is as theologically deep and rich as Root’s. Kenda Creasy Dean and Ron Foster’s book The Godbearing Life is the only work close to Root’s in nature, but even it does not probe the depths of a particular theological subject like Root’s. In my estimation, Root’s book will be noted as being the first in a line of theological books written specifically for the context of youth ministry. With the publication of this book, a new (and needed) genre has been birthed.

Creating a new genre isn’t bad for a first book.

The reason this book excites me so much is that I believe this book is an eschatalogical event (okay, that might be a little bit of a stretch). Let me explain. Over a year ago I predicted that the next 50 years of youth ministry would see the theologizing of youth ministry. I said, among other things,

This is why I say that the theologization of youth ministry in the next 50 years will determine whether or not it will live or die. In order to be faithful to the gospel, and not bound to success, we must be able to discern when we are being faithful and when we are neutering the gospel. Among other things, theology is the practice of discernment. For those who are called as professional youth ministers, we must possess within us the ability to perceive the theological implications of everything that we do. Instead of seeing the goal and achieving it with any means possible, we must determine whether or not our means is theologically sound as well.

Yes, I do think I made that “theologization” word up.

For me, Root’s book is the expectation of the future coming to pass in the present. With Root’s book we are making the turn towards a new paradigm in youth ministry.

Yes, the book is a bit difficult to read for some; it is truly a theological work. Yes, we want to ask “but will this work?” Yes, sometimes it seems like there is a bit of practicality missing from the book.

But the reason this book might be so uncomfortable, so challenging, so unfamiliar, and so overwhelming for many of us is that we are reading it while still operating out of the current paradigm of ministry while Root is coming to the table with a completely different set of presuppositions. We would do well to listen to it diligently, since it will be our tendency to try and fit the book into our current paradigm. But to do so would be to lose the weight of the book.

This is the first book to my knowledge that is doing real theology for the sake of youth ministry. But I don’t believe it will be the last. The future of youth ministry is upon us.

• Large stadium (anywhere from 3,000-60,000 people)
• “National speakers” (whatever that means)
• The “hottest” Christian bands (if DCB isn’t on the docket, don’t even bother)
• Maybe some dramas or comedians (or both)
• Extremely expensive A/V systems, lights, lasers, smoke machines, etc.

Events like this bother me for a few reasons:

• The first problem is that for whatever reason these events tend to become normative for the Christian life. Students who go to events like this think that the Christian life is the most real, most alive, most vibrant at events like these. Faithfulness to God is associated with emotional highs and feel-goodyness. We are left thinking that God is not present in homework, chores, friendship squabbles, and other stuff of “real life.” (By the way, Eugene Peterson has been instrumental in helping me develop a theology of the everyday. You must read him. Everything he has written. No joke. I’m working my way through his stuff.)
• Because of the above, I am worried that these events are put on by organizations that must turn a profit in order to stay alive. When normalcy is determined by a group of people who must make X amount of dollars to sustain themselves, I get nervous. (I’ll take this point to say that churches are a little different in that they (should) rely on gifts, not selling things, to sustain themselves. However, I do believe that most churches operate at much too narrow of margins.)
• These events are divorced from local contexts. Identical events happen in Texas, California, Florida, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere.
• In my experience, these events appeal to the emotions, but not the passions, of teenagers. Teenagers are extremely passionate people, and we should be tapping into that passion. But passion is different than emotion. Emotions tend to be the end. People think the emotion is real. Passion tends to spur action and impact. (This isn’t very well thought out, but I’m leaving it in.)
• You shouldn’t have to pay $400 to get “recharged” once a year. I remember going on a certain trip every summer that was quite expensive, but my friends and I looked forward to it because it was where we got recharged every year. But recently I have been thinking about practicing sustainable faith. If our faith is based off of one yearly event, we aren’t sustaining ourselves throughout the year. There is something missing in much of our ministries when we and our students aren’t practicing the kind of faith that can sustain them in their everyday lives.
• Many of these events are quite repetitive in nature. They don’t change much from year to year and have almost identical messages. I know of one specific “national” youth event has been saying the same thing for the past 10 years.
• They all claim to change your youth group’s lives. If they really did, they would work themselves out of a job.
• These events create Christian celebrities. There is no need for Christian celebrities. Period. Yes, there are certain people whose wisdom and discernment can change the landscape of Christianity, but that is because they have been gifted by God, not because they are just “really cool.”

Instead of “outsourcing” our big events to organizations that don’t know us, our kids, our churches, and all the rest, we should strive to make our ministries local and contextual. My favorite way of going about this for “big events” is retreats. I think retreats planned by people in our churches are great ways to connect at a deeper level with our kids. You also get to spend a lot more time with your kids at a retreat than at a large event where your behind is stuck in a chair all day.

This might be a good time to make a disclaimer that I’ve probably made somewhere during this Neo-Youth Ministry Series: in no way am I questioning the purity of motivation of people who do the kinds of things that I tend to disagree with in this series. I believe most people love Jesus deeply and are trying to do what they can to follow him. I simply think that pure motivation isn’t enough. We aren’t given the scriptures for motivation, but for obedience (among other things).

Local. Contextual. Yeah, your kids might not get butterflies in their stomachs from being so close to the stage that David Crowder was spitting on them, but I think that’s a good thing.

My current intention is not to deal with Halo 3 specifically, but it provides a context for an issue that I had planned to blog on in this Neo-Youth Ministry Series: the bait and switch. The bait and switch originated as a marketing strategy. I tend to see it often at car dealerships: they advertise some fancy car at an unbelievably low price in order to get customers to walk in the door. Usually, they will only have one of those deals available, which is sold very quickly, so when subsequent people walk into the showroom, they are shown many of the other “great deals” on the lot that they hadn’t come to see in the first place. What baffles me is that this actually works and people will buy a car they hadn’t actually come in to see.

Well, if it works for marketers trying to swindle people into a car they don’t need, surely the church can use it, right? So, you have churches that advertise and push “fun stuff” (like Halo 3 on plasma TVs or a raffle for a free iPod) in order to get kids to come to church. While they are there, they also get to “hear the gospel”. They came for Halo, but they accepted Jesus while they were here!

Many things are troubling about this. First of all, means are separated from ends. The end result is a good one: introduce people to Jesus. Somehow, American evangelicalism has searched through the Bible in order to find biblical goals, but thinks that the Bible is silent on the means by which we achieve those goals. Thus, we think that we are in charge of finding whatever method “works best” in order to achieve our biblical goals. So, if the best way to get teenagers into a church building is to offer Halo 3 on A/V equipment costing thousands of dollars, so be it. We’ll do anything we can for the sake of the gospel, right? I don’t buy it. I mean, is the gospel really that weak? I believe that the scriptures not only tell us to make disciples, but also prescribes the kind of life that leads to accomplishing this goal: a life of hospitality, prayer, sacrifice, compassion, and love.

Second, such an approach short-changes the gospel. The gospel is more than a message that people come to hear. The gospel is something that the church bears in the way we live our life. Yes, that will include our speech and our telling of the hope of Jesus, but part of our message is how we embody it. To say that we will do anything to get people to hear a lecture on the four spiritual laws is to short-change a holistic, biblical understanding of the gospel. Scot McKnight’s book Embracing Grace is a good introduction into a holistic understanding of the gospel.

Third, such an approach is ecclesiologically weak as well. Drawing from above, the assumption is that the goal in evangelism is to bring young people to us in order to hear our message. So, instead of living creatively and missionally, evangelism becomes nothing more than a function of the size of the youth ministry budget. The more money at our disposal, the cooler things we can use to attract youth to hear the gospel. So are poorer churches not in a position to spread the gospel? Are plasma TVs necessary for the Spirit to move? Instead of relying on our budgets, I think we need to rely on the creativity and discernment of our youth and adults to–through the Spirit of God–see into the lives of those we know who do not know Jesus and share with them the hope that we have in him.

The rebuttal against my argument usually goes something like: that sounds great, but it doesn’t work in real life and ministry. My guess is that when people say, “doesn’t work,” they are saying, “such an approach would get me fired” or, “that would shrink our youth group.” That may be right. But the problem in such case is not with the methods or the results; the problem is in the expectations of parents and congregants (and even ourselves) we are supposed to live up to. I fully acknowledge that such a Neo-Youth Ministry approach might cost many people their jobs or shrink a youth group for a period of time. Youth groups could very well benefit from such pruning. I do believe the eventual result will be sustainable faith practices in our teens that nourish faith and commitment to Jesus and his church. Anything else is just video games and cool toys.

A common desire of teens (in my experience) who are ready to “take their faith to the next level” is to participate in a more “in-depth” Bible study (usually in Romans). My response to them has been to say that when they actually do the things that characterize “shallow” teaching (like love your neighbor, forgive your friends, get along with your parents) then we will begin that more “in-depth” Bible study.

A Neo-Youth ministry will not measure depth by Bible study, but by action. We cannot exist in order to fill the brains of our students. We exist in order that lives may be transformed. One of the key cultural myths in American that the church has bought into is that knowledge is the most important factor in affecting life-change. Well, I disagree. If that were the case, tobacco companies and fast-food chains would go out of business, 16 year-olds wouldn’t speed, and people wouldn’t take on more debt than they could afford. It is a factor, but not the factor. No, education alone does not change people. The Holy Spirit does, and the means by which the Holy Spirit works is the church.

Instead of studying educational techniques and theory, a Neo-Youth Minister will study practices and seek to ingrain spiritual practices in the lives of their teens.

Guy Davies: In the Drama of Doctrine, you suggested that the theologian is a “dramaturge”, whose task is to enable the pastor -director to understand the biblical script. But not all pastors make time read great works of theology. They are too busy preparing sermons, visiting their people, organising the church’s evangelistic programme and so on. Why should pastors make the effort to become pastor-theologians?

Kevin Vanhoozer: Both parts of the Great Commission, evangelism and making disciples, require theology. Theology is a form of the ministry of the Word; specifically, theology is a the ministry of Christian understanding. We need theology in our evangelism because theology is about preserving the integrity of the word, the message of the gospel an evangelist proclaims. We need theology in our disciple making because theology is about reminding us who we are and what we are to say and do as followers of Jesus Christ in this or that situation.

The world is filled with therapists and managers. What the church needs now is people who can (1) articulate from the Bible the truth about God, the world, and ourselves in terms that are faithful to the Bible and intelligible in the contemporary context (2) exhort their congregations to say and do things that corresponds to the truth of Jesus Christ as attested in the Bible.

• Culture. A Neo-Youth Minister must be able to make sense and extract meaning out of the cultural phenomenon that drive society forward at such a rapid rate. Interpretation is needed in the following cultural areas:
  • Technology. What is the prevalence of the iPod doing to our kid’s awareness of the world around them? How does social networking effect students’ ability to have a conversation? How does Wikipedia impact study habits? I am a firm believer that use of technology is not spiritually neutral. We must interpret the effects of the various technologies in our lives and the lives of our students.
  • Magazines. This probably lies more in the realm of females than males (since teenage boys pretty much don’t read anything longer than a box score). But, what are magazines like People and Cosmopolitan doing to influence our teenagers? What behaviors are they normalizing? What behaviors are they undermining?
  • Books (or lack thereof). What does the abysmal reading rate of today’s teenagers mean?
  • Television. Television has been ushered into a new age. Shows like Heroes, Lost, and 24 are very different than shows that dominated the previous ten years. Why are these shows thriving and what does it mean to our teenagers?
  • Music. Teenagers are still the music generation. Many teenagers have music playing whenever possible, made all the more common by technological innovations. What does this constant exposure to music do to our kids?
  • Education. Education is a cultural phenomenon. How our kids are educated and their experience of school has an immense impact on their worldview, values, and definitions of success. Does the gospel have anything to say about this?
• The Bible. On this, I will simply say, “Duh”.
• Personal experiences. When things happen in the lives of our students, we must be able to at least provide clues to what those experiences might mean. How are these experiences (or lack of experiences) shaping the lives of our students? Is God trying to say something in the midst of all this? Are there deeper issues going on that the student is trying to repress or unaware of? Will we have an answer when they ask why? Do we have the ability to help them make the difficult decisions?
• Corporate experiences. When things happen in the lives of our ministries, will be know what significance they hold and how to handle it? Sometimes a student’s personal experience might become a corporate experience (the unexpected death of a parent, for example). Or these might be “planned” corporate experiences, like a mission trip, Bible study epiphany, or congregational struggle. Will we see the significance in all of these different situations? Will we be able to make sense of them or just try and keep the ball rolling regardless of our situation?

An interpreter is one who speaks theological significance into all of the above. The above are not just random things that happen to occur in our lives and our students’ lives. No, the kingdom is at hand and in our midst and will speak significance and truth into the events of our lives. A Neo-Youth Minister must be such an interpreter.

Where this act of interpretation really gets important is in the act of synthesis. To put it simply, as I understand it, synthesis is the interpretation of multiple interpretations. We must take the sum total of our interpretations of all of the above and make some sort of coherent interpretation of them as a whole that will effect the future direction of our ministries. With that, the task of prophetic imagination will begin.

I believe this will be my final post in regard to the characteristics of a Neo-Youth Minister. Fear not! This is not the last post of the series. I will continue the series with some Neo-Youth Ministry Methods.

• Speak well of his or her young people. The passion of youth gives them the ability to do amazing things. These acts of amazement can inspire horror (through things like terrorism) or delight. A young person will have the courage to do something whether it has ever been done before or not. This inherent risk-taking will often produce awe-inspiring stories of faith, depth, and altruism. By telling adults of these things they will learn that youth are not always concerned only with whatever is on YouTube or the Billboard Top 40. We must show them that the young people in our congregations are often our most untapped resource. As we are called to be prophets and imagine a youth ministry we have not yet been able to imagine, so might our young people be the prophetic catalysts for change in our churches.
• Provide opportunities for young people to do “adult” things. Rather than relegating youth to the youth room, youth band, or youth Sunday, youth should have the opportunity to serve the body of Christ just like the adults. Whether that is playing in the band on Sunday mornings, reading scripture, or going on “adult” retreats and trips, we should extend the invitation to all in our congregation, not just those who are married with children.
• Integrate young people with the rest of the congregation. This is a little different than above in that this might occur intentionally (like adult vs. youth dodgeball) or by heavily incorporating adults in youth events, activities, or programs. This last weekend, we took seven kids on our Confirmation Retreat. We could have easily gotten by practically with only two adults. But discipling young people is not about practicality. So, we took five adults. And honestly, I don’t feel like we had too many or that some of our adults were just twiddling their thumbs. Connections were made, relationships cultivated, and conversations were had. You can never involve too many adults in your events.
• Fight for their youth to be more than sentimental figures or cheap labor. Too often youth are either put on a sentimental parade (“Youth Sunday” or the Sunday after the annual mission trip when they share for 30 seconds about this supposedly life-changing experience) or they are only called upon by the congregation to do things that no one else wants to do (“hey, we need some chairs moved for…”). We must fight this inclination by saying no. I told our pastor that we would not give a “report” to the congregation the Sunday after our mission trip because there wasn’t enough time to convey the depth of our experience. Those who were interested could come to our Mission Trip Lunch that we were hosting that allowed us to have an hour and a half to tell stories and reflect on this year’s mission trip experience. I’m having trouble figuring out how to get around being the cheap labor for the church without sounding selfish and spoiled (because many of our adults give a lot in terms of time and money to the youth ministry and I like doing things for them in return), but some sort of criteria needs to be set.

A lot of this isn’t very new (or “Neo”); many youth ministers are already doing much of this. But I believe this will be a necessary aspect, along with the many others, of a Neo-Youth Minister. As those called to be with and know our teenagers, we have a responsibility to spread the proper perception of our students in our congregations. We cannot sit idly by while the majority of our congregations misunderstand and misuse the teenagers in their midst. We must be advocates of those whom we are called to pastor.

• Knows the heart of God for his people. This is where the importance of theology comes in. We must be students of the word of God and deeply cultivate our relationships with him. We must think deeply and carefully about the implications of what we do as children of God. A defining characteristic of a Neo-Youth Minister who takes the role of prophet seriously will be evident in the frequency of usage of a single word: no. This no will be the first step in repenting from popular youth ministry methods and expectations. We may have to say no to buying youth group t-shirts. We may have to say no to pizza at every event. We may have to say no to printing calendars that people don’t read anyways. We may have to tell the youth band no to particular songs they wish to sing. We may have to tell that parent no who wants to add yet another event to the calendar. We may have to say no to certain programs. We may have to say no to well-intentioned ideas. And we say no out of both our theological conviction and also out of our second characteristic.
• Imagines an unimaginable future. This is why the role of prophet is so vitally important. Many today are well aware that youth ministry is in need of changes. The problem is that often we cannot even imagine the proper possibilities before us. We have been conditioned to think, act, talk, lead, and expect in certain ways; our minds have been captivated by the status quo. We are incapable of thinking beyond the limitations imposed on us by the pop-youth ministry culture (What is even more alarming to me is that the pop-youth ministry culture seems to have been captivated itself by the Empire, which might be a whole other series of posts one day). So, though the problems of current youth ministry practice might be staring us in the face, at least they are staring at us. When we attempt to think of the alternatives, nothing comes to mind to stare back. The Neo-youth minister must be able to think outside the proverbial box and imagine what a theologically grounded people of God might look like. Otherwise, we are left to the norms that have got us in this situation in the first place.

Indeed, the role of prophet is a true necessity to lead us into a neo-youth ministry. The unfortunate thing is that not everyone is called to be a prophet. One can study diligently, pray sincerely, read widely, and discuss deeply and become a decent theologian. Not so with a prophet. The skills of a prophet are not cultivated and developed, but they are given. God is the one who calls prophet. I honestly don’t know if I possess the prophetic imagination. Right now, I am having trouble seeing a sustainable and vibrant alternative to current youth ministry practice. I do know something must be done. May God give us some prophets in our midst who will lead us into a future that we are currently incapable of even imagining.

• Spiritual Maturity. It is already difficult to discern the working of God in the complexity of someone’s life. It is impossible to do it if your relationship with God doesn’t receive the proper care.
• Patience. Spiritual direction usually does not produce any brilliant “ah-ha!” moments instantaneously. Instead, the value of spiritual discipline can usually be measured by its cumulative effect over a period of time. Hoping to radically change someone’s life in a few sessions is not spiritual direction.
• Attentiveness. First of all a spiritual director must be attentive to the person whom he or she is directing. The director must listen deeply. Paying attention not only to the words that are said, but also to the words that are not said, the inflection of one’s voice, breathing habits, and mannerisms will allow the director to truly hear what a person is trying to communicate. And within that attentiveness to the other person, the director must also be attentive to God. In reality, a spiritual direction session is a prolonged time of paired prayer. The director will be in a spirit of prayer as he or she listens. This will allow the director to discern where God might be active in the lives of those that he or she directs.

Now, I am not saying that a youth minister must be a spiritual director to every youth in their church. There will be times when you play the role of spiritual director in the life of an individual person. But I am talking about being the spiritual director for the whole ministry. Our goal should be to see God at work and shape the ministry in the direction he is leading. In order to see, hear, and discern God at work, we must be spiritually mature, tending to our own lives. We must be patient and realize that success will not happen overnight nor is it measured by overnight success. We must be attentive and notice when God is moving in a new direction in order that we may follow him.

This is a far cry from copying the latest methods of successful youth ministries. Such a youth minister will lead a contextual ministry that follows in the footsteps where God has already been walking.