Introducing Inward, Outward, and Beyond-yond-yond-yond-yond!!! (echo affect). Or, abbreviated, I.O.B, if we need a name that lends itself to teens pitching their new youth ministry to friends…”Yo you check out dat I.O.B…it tight!” Behind the name, I encourage anyone to read Inward Outward Journey by Elizabeth O’Conner. Primarily, to have your paradigm of spiritual formation radically challenged, but I suppose also, if you want to know where we ripped off this name.
After an amazing Summer Internship with teens/ young adults this summer, the question pressed into the minds of our ministry team was, “What now with these young people?” Our much beloved Christine Brinn had gone deep into relationship with a group of girls for the last two years (many of whom participated this summer). Upon transitioning out of her two year internship to Fuller Seminary a few weeks ago, nurturing and intentional as she is, with the help of my lovely wife, she set these teens up with mentors.
But, we all knew, especially after this dynamic summer, that part of being church, is being church together as a larger community. Jesus wants us to catch him INWARD within our own lives and hearts, and within our dynamic webs of relationships. But not to stop their, to find him OUTWARD as this large community encourages, envisions, energizes, and activates us, to discover him once again outside of our corporate life through piggy backing on his work in the world. And to find him BEYOND doing things “we couldn’t ask for or imagine.”
With the young people God had given us, we knew this meant extending out the experience of our summer into the school year in some sustainable way. Also personally, I knew that it was time to form a community that would allow me to invite students from Hoover, who I know through all my activities there, to find a safe place to explore faith in Jesus. Introducing Inward, Outward, and Beyond!!!!!!
Before we arrived here though…I surely didn’t want to go back to being the guy who would “make it happen,” as “the youth guy.” That guy is someone I admire, someone I can slip into being, but someone who exhausts every introverted fiber of my body. In fact, I don’t even think that guy or gal really exists, except among those willing to leg press the facade until it topples on them, like it does everyone else who plays that game. I knew that God had to assemble a team with someone to direct it who had more focused passion than myself.
Enter Kathy Pham! Notice her with the confident youthy peace sign on the right of the picture, with a look on her face like “Peace is so RAD!!! Its what you neeeeed!!! Kathy (tall girl with glasses, black shirt) was amazing as a summer intern this summer. She thought she was merely exploring a call into urban ministry, she ended up falling in love with teens and young adults in our community, and doing such a good job loving them, that our ministry team took notice and then began to petition the Lord to put her in a half nelson and drag her into our community.
Kathy is now raising support for a position as Director of Youth and Young Adults. Oh yes, I will shamelessly ask some of you not only to give to Anastasia and I, but to give to her as well, because she is the real deal. Kathy is from Westminster, the largest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam in Orange County (an omen for her joining up with a Presbyterian church? I think so…theology nerds only please.) She has found that City Heights feels like home, with a Vietnamese business every 10 ft., yet she trips out like all of us, at how people are mish-mashed together into this strange diversity casserole called City Heights.
Kathy has a background in the corporate world, and therefore moves on everything so efficiently and intentionally, she makes me feel SLOOOOW. Somehow, she has figured out how to incarnate herself into cyber-space, and through the strange power of Facebook knows what teens are thinking before they think it themselves. Kidding aside, her entrepreneurial and gregarious nature make her uniquely fitted to direct our new youth ministry. Interestingly, she happens to have run a tutoring center, which we beforehand had said would be a vital aspect of a ministry intent on loving the whole person, rather than just” saving their soul.” Coincidence? I think not.
Enter Adam Mclane. Adam, the white guy with glasses with the “Oh crap, am I really doing this” smirk, was one of those youth guys I was talking about who had the facade topple on him. He works for Youth Specialties as a resource to other burned out youth guys, and as their computer boy genius inventing an array of online tools to help resource youth pastors. He and his family happened to land in our church awhile ago, but if you mentioned doing ministry of some sort, he would bare his teeth like a wary dog, knowing that the kind hand of a stranger can end up with him back on the ministry leash. Thank God Adam is ready to go! He will play an incredible role in teaching, resourcing, and generally helping us to envision a youth ministry that doesn’t fall into the same tired paradigms that lend themselves to hollow entertainment-based ministry, that fails to offer the costly but full and compelling invitation to follow Jesus in sacrificial ways.
Enter Erin. My first memory of Erin was of her bailing out of my house in the first days of our church plant, needing some breathing room from the suffocating worship and God-talk that spooked her and challenged her at the same time. Once our token skeptic, she is now living out her new-found faith by taking a risk to with work young people from a world very different from her own. Erin brings authenticity, someone well aware (as we all should be) that she is along the same journey with the young people she will work with. The value of an older person who is not settled and secure in their beliefs, is immense. Young people need to see examples of other seekers being used by God, even though they have not fully “arrived” at rock solid conviction.
Where am I in the picture? Fittingly, I was on my back in bed, after an awkward and humbling procedure which will make Maddie and Toby the only children I will father again (I think.) Isn’t it beautiful! Our first youth night, and I, literally and symbolically am out of the picture!!! When I was grinding my teeth, timid about moving forward, because I thought that all of this would somehow fall on me, God said, “Yo Chris, I am going to put you on your back with some awkward soreness, just to let you know that ministry is not about any load you carry my friend.” Thanks God, I needed that.
I invite you to pray for us, as we moved forward….
