• Understanding & Reaching Wireless Students

    Whether you are a high school teacher, a high school pastor, or the parent of a high schooler we all have the same problem. How do we understand and reach the teenagers in front of us with messages that matter? 

    I’ve found that this lead in question is often the problem.

    1. We are a generation of adults who likes to talk and pretend to be experts on things we don’t understand, we over-assume.
    2. What matters to you isn’t necessarily something that matters to the students in your life.

    That said, there is plenty of research available which will help you better understand what’s important and how to reach those in high school right now. Why is there so much research done on this age group? Because bagillions of dollars in spending are influenced by them! (What? You thought researchers just liked them? Maybe so?)

    Here’s what’s on the menu for understanding those who just graduated high school:

    • Soup of the day – The Beloit Mindset List for the Class of 2015. We start things off by recognizing the world they have grown up with. They’ve never had a home phone, they’ve never dialed up the internet, they’ve never known a world without terrorist plots or going to the gate to pick up a friend at the airport. This list provides context.
    • Chef’s salad – The cost of college is on the forefront of their minds. Most high school students live with the adult assumption that they need to attend college. They are marketing savvy enough to ponder, “Do I need to go to college or do adults depend on me going to college?” They are asking good questions to count the cost like, “Is college right for me? Why do I want to go to college and spend all of that money if I don’t know what I want to do? Am I going to make enough money in the long run to afford the debt it will take to graduate?” This is why the gap year is so intriguing to them. (This is a massive opportunity for entrepreneurs)
    • Featured entree` – 5 Ways to Friend the Class of 2015. Research start-up Mr. Youth has published a powerful marketing whitepaper which dove deep into the forces that move them. The five ingredients of this dish include: Help them express their personal brand, Integrate organically into their world, Get in good with their friends, Become an on-demand brand, Get to know them before assuming what they want.
    • Dessert – Millennial Donors 2011 Executive Summary. Today’s students are motivated to change things. According to the second year study called Millennial Donors, 93% of those surveyed gave money to charity. 79% actively volunteered their time. But 90% of those surveyed said they would stop donating (time & money) if they didn’t trust the leadership.

    What does this have to do with my role in students lives? 

    • To reach students we have to understand what makes them tick instead of trying to get them to understand our point-of-view.
    • The world they have grown up in is vastly different from the one you grew up in. They already have a million adults in their lives that lecture to them, your best opportunity for reaching them is through listening.
    • Instead of asking students to get on your team you’ll need to help them see how your team and their team can collaborate. The concept of personal brand isn’t narcissism, it’s an opportunity.
    • Understand that a recommendation is their most powerful motivator. They simply won’t go somewhere or do something that’s not recommended to them.
    • They are hard-wired to give back, volunteer, and contribute their fair share. But the key component is trust. If you aren’t transparent and honest they will just move on.
    Do you work with high school students? Do you agree or disagree with what I’ve pointed out? What are areas you’d like to explore more? How could this research impact your day-to-day interactions with high schoolers? 

  • Desert Man Trip

    I’ve been around a few types of “manly men” in my lifetime.

    1. Dude’s who hang out at country clubs, play sophisticated sports, and have sophisticated tastes.
    2. Dude’s who smoke big cigars, enjoy fine beverages, and gamble big bucks. (Either gambling or on business deals)
    3. Dude’s who shot guns, kill things, and could live for months self-sustained from things in their garage.
    Not a good place to sit

    I wouldn’t consider myself firmly in any of those camps. And I’d hardly consider myself a manly man. I’m more of a floater man who likes all of those things but never enough to go all in.

    This past weekend I spent 3 days with group #3 while serving at the Encounter mens retreat. All told there were 57 young and fully grown men in the desert for 3 days of playing hard, eating good, and playing with fire. (Bonfires, flame-throwers, explosions, shooting range, paintball, and more explosions.)

    As we were packing up I told Brian… “This is clearly the most red neck thing I’ve ever done.” I’m a city slicker whose idea of country boy is a bike rack on his car. I’m not really a big fan of guns– much less teaching young men how to shoot them. There was lots of irony in that I spent the last three years in an urban high school ministry trying to show young men that loving Jesus meant putting guns down (gangs) and now we were going to do just the opposite.

    I had convinced myself to come into the weekend with an open mind. I have huge respect for Brian- a top 5 nominee for the brightest youth ministry veteran I’ve ever rubbed shoulders with. On top of that Encounter is a ministry to high school students in East County of San Diego. (For those not familiar with San Diego, anything east of La Mesa is referred to as “East County.” East County San Diego bears more reflection on ranching than it does big city. If we go 10 miles from our house you quickly get into horse, cactus, and big pick-up truck people.)

    This kind of trip made me nervous from a city slicker perspective but was completely culturally relevant to the young men Encounter ministers to.

    To the desert

    Getting stuck on the way in

    We drove out to Ocotillo and quickly got off paved roads and into the back country. (Map) Just getting back to the canyon was an adventure. We got there about 30 minutes before it got dark and quickly established camp. You can’t even call this area a campsite as it was completely undeveloped. (No electricity, no cell services, no water, no toilets… just a cool canyon in the desert.)

    It’s all about the content

    In reality, while this trip is über manly man it really is a youth group retreat about calling these young men to follow Christ. Our culture does it’s best to emasculate young men and treat them like boys. This was a wake up call for them that becoming a man is up to them. We are ready to look at them as men… maybe the first time they were told that?

    The content for the weekend was wrapped up around this central thought: You are dangerous and you can use that danger for good or evil. Topically, we reenforced that with lessons (and sweet object lessons!) about danger, their mouth, sexual purity, their choices, and perspective. It was a great chance for them to wrestle with the reality of their personal decisions.

    It’s all about being hands on

    Where is Starbucks?
    Where is Starbucks?

    We live in a world where we are in community only when we choose to be in community. Moreover, we can walk away from anything that makes us uncomfortable. While that is safe and lawsuit conscious it is leading to the neurosis of a generation.

    God never intended us to be lone wolves, the enemy did. (Look at Genesis 3, it’s always been a divide and conquer strategy) Satan builds strongholds as we delve further and further into isolation. We don’t think our actions have consequences. We want to talk about blowing things up but not the people who are harmed. We want to say nasty things to other people through a video game. We want to look at pornography and pretend that doesn’t hurt anyone. We want to focus on our friends and not our community. On and on, culture pushes us into being alone while God calls us to something more complete.

    Isolation is the enemy of communion. Jesus’ call for communion was never a call for individuals to come to Jesus as individuals on their own terms. That’s a perversion of our individualistic culture. Faith that lasts is almost never “just Jesus and me.” Our culture lies about that, our church culture lies about that, and youth ministry (too often) preaches that.

    Sharing communion in community under the hoppa

    So 57 men of all ages went to the desert for an encounter with Jesus. To be communal, to live in commune, and to commune with their Creator.

    My prayer is that as we shot, burned, and blew things up that those were symbols of the battle against the enemy. Three days per year of communion is not enough. I hope that for some of those young men they walk in communion with one another, in rejection of individualism, for the rest of their lives.

  • Sticky Faith Book Club, Chapter 3

    This is part 3 in an 8 part series on Sticky Faith. Join our book club by signing up here. (part 1, 2)

    Kristen – Chapter one hit me hard as it exposed several weaknesses. I admitted that I while I had a ‘sticky faith’ parenting goal in mind, I had lost sight of important steps defining ‘how’ to get there. I knew that I needed to respond to what God was saying to me during the first chapter. In the past two weeks I’ve made progress towards that end. I’ve been consistent and intentional about praying out loud with the kids (note, I’ve never stopped praying for my children but I’ve not been consistent in leading them in prayer). I’ve helped Megan and Paul complete their church take-homes sheets – looking up, reading, and discussing Scripture. We’ve even had “God Talks” (as the book calls them). Specifically, talking about justice and how God calls us to act and stand up against people who are mistreating others (using the example of a current event). I started including this situation in our prayer time at the beginning of the week and updated Megan and Paul each day. Interestingly, it wasn’t until their Sunday school teacher talked about the situation that they really started asking questions. We had a great conversation that probably wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t been praying all week. As we all move into chapter three, I’d love to know what kind of actions (if any) you have taken as a result of this study.

    Adam – Last week, I ended the book club with a question for parents about goals. I asked, “Have you ever stated goals for your children’s faith development?” and most of us kind of winced a bit in responding to that question. (Myself included) It was an easy question to write but the fact is that it’s really hard to articulate what we would like our children’s faith to actually look like at specific life stages.

    I reflected on that tension as I read chapter 3 of Sticky Faith. As a parent I have a hard time defining what faith development looks like at specific life stages of my own kids. But when it comes to my professional life? That’s like standard operating procedure in the church! I remember working on a document called “A description of a discipled person” and reviewing that with high school parents for years. How is it that I can run a parents meeting and describe in detail what a students faith should look like upon high school graduation but I can’t even articulate what that looks like in my own home?

    For me, that revelation gave me a lot to reflect upon.

    Identity formation, intentional friendships, the power of ritual

    Our kids are 8 months, 8 years, and 10 years old. Each is full of personality. And it’s fun to imagine what they will be like as adults. Chapter 3 was a great reminder that my role as a parent has great importance in their identity formation process and I shouldn’t take that for granted.

    We aren’t quite at the point where they wrestle with “Who am I?” questions. But I know that the words and actions we pour into them help them know that they are God’s beloved child. As Kristen referenced above… we can begin things in them today which will help them not only know who they are in God’s eyes, but also know that God’s Word is bedrock for figuring out who they are and where they fit in this world. It’s one thing to guide my child towards whom I want them to become. It’s an entirely different thing to help guide them on a path of discovering who God wants them to be!

    Rituals and relationships are so important to this process. Ministry has lead us geographically far from our physical family. And yet God has, in His benevolence and providence, provided families and friends who deeply impact our kids. I love surrounding them with people in our life and saying, “Yes, I hope those adults rub off on my kids!” We have a lot of rituals in our house. From Saturday mornings at the Farmers Market to going to ball games to hiking Cowles mountain, we have established things that we, as McLane’s, do. But as Kristen mentioned above, we need to be more intentional about helping them connect the dots between what we are doing and why we are doing it. Megan and Paul could each tell you that we go to the Farmers Market so that they can learn where their food comes from. But I wonder if they would so quickly articulate why we worship Jesus at church?

    For discussion

    1.  What are some ways you identified yourself growing up? How were they helpful to you as you grew older? How were they harmful?
    2. Of Nouwen’s three answers to the question, “Who am I?”, which of these are you most prone to rely on? Describe what that looks and feels like. Which of these does your child rely on? What does that look like?
    3. On a scale of 1 to 7, 1 being easy, 7 not so easy, how hard is it for you to see yourself as the beloved child of God? How easy is it for your child? Describe what you mean.
    4. Name some ways you can emphasize who your child is (a beloved child of God) rather than what your child does. How would this emphasis change your approach to your child’s extracurricular activities or academic achievements?

  • Dip your toe in the river

    Create in me a pure heart, O God, 
       and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 
    Do not cast me from your presence 
       or take your Holy Spirit from me. 
    Restore to me the joy of your salvation 
       and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

    Psalm 51:10-12

    The river of God’s activity is real. You don’t know it really exists until you are there. And when you are there… you just ride the current and smile. 

    How do you get there? There’s no formula. Just walk humbly and boldly and it seems to find you more than you find it. Like the wandering Israelites found Kadesh, sometimes it takes some hardship to find it.

    But other times? You just step your toe in it.

  • Are you having fun?

    Surely he took up our pain 
       and bore our suffering, 
    yet we considered him punished by God, 
       stricken by him, and afflicted. 
    But he was pierced for our transgressions, 
       he was crushed for our iniquities; 
    the punishment that brought us peace was on him, 
       and by his wounds we are healed. 
    We all, like sheep, have gone astray, 
       each of us has turned to our own way; 
    and the LORD has laid on him 
       the iniquity of us all.

    Isaiah 53 (excerpt)

    Here’s a newsflash friends. This is about Jesus and not you. 

    There are a lot of miserable ministry people right now. They strongly identify with Jesus as a suffering servant as they languish in a role they hate. They cringe when their boss talks to them. They quietly look for jobs all day at their current job.

    Sometimes these suffering servants even have a chip on their shoulder about it. As if their having a job they hate is something we’re supposed to be impressed by? 

    True, suffering is part of life. And some of us are called to suffering in life. But I don’t think a ministry job in the United States qualifies.

    Advice for people who hate their jobs

    Quit. If it isn’t fun anymore, quit. If you find yourself whining about budget or your salary or stuff that needs to be fixed but the leaders won’t fix it, quit. If you have day dreams of the day you get to walk into your bosses office and say, “Take this job and shove it!” Quit now.

    Quitting might seem insane. But it just might lead you to something fun.

    Don’t let Satan win.

    The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
    John 10:10

  • The gradual transformation of evangelical eschatology

    Those raised in evangelicalism were taught to believe that the world will only get worse until the Lord returns. Culture degrades, morality disintegrates, and the world falls apart to the point that only Jesus can rescue us from certain self-destruction.

    Listen to almost any traditional evangelical voice and you’ll hear this language peppered in. Things are getting worse, of course they are getting worse, things have to get worse for Jesus to come back. (This implies that they kind of WANT things to get worse so Jesus can come back.)

    This isn’t a historical eschatology of premillennialism and the general belief that Jesus would return to establish his Kingdom. Currently, much of this vantage point seems to be seated in a dispensational premillennialism which took root in the early 1900s, but was originally penned by John Darby in the 1830s.

    How did this become popular?

    The atrocities of World War I radically shifted people’s worldview. While the industrial revolution seemingly made life better and better, the Civil War brought an end to modern slavery, and modern medicine went about ending disease had elevated people’s general perception that the world was getting better. Those same technologies were used to kill hundreds of thousands of people in Europe– which dramatically flip-flopped the worldview the other way.

    People began to look at science, invention, and modernization with a new lens. We enjoyed the benefits while always giving a suspicious eye to how evil men and women may use this against us. (This is alive and well today, isn’t it? Read Christian advice on any technology and you’ll see them dance this line of benefit versus danger.)

    Evangelicalism became popular in that environment. People generally had a negative view of the world’s future and dispensationalism provided an explanation for it. It was the right message at the right time and lead to the rapid growth of the evangelical movement and the continued degradation of the mainline denominations we continue to see today. (Most of the mainline denominations rejected dispensational)

    Much of how we view the world today as American Christians is heavily influenced by a a relatively new eschatological view (non-historical) and one which relatively few Americans understand or hold dear. (dispensationalism)

    What does this have to do with me?

    As a student at Moody Bible Institute I was taught dispensationalism and pre-tribulational, pre-millennial eschatology as bona fide fact. (I always felt it was a little weird to be taught the future as fact. I guess I was alone in that!) We were all required to take classes which indoctrinated us in the tenants. We all passed tests. And to graduate we all had to sign that we believed in a pre-tribulational rapture. Yes, every graduate of Moody has signed this… forever!

    In a school that was so well-rounded in almost every other area this was the one thing they held onto as a distinctive! (And some silly rules about dancing, because we know dancing leads to amillennialism.) Moody isn’t alone. This is a core belief for traditional evangelicals.

    What does this have to do with you?

    I’m not saying dispensationalism is bad. And I’m not saying there’s no way there is a pre-tribulational rapture. (Though I do find the hermeneutics and evidence which lead to this conclusion as thin) Technically speaking, I’ve always affirmed premillennialism while holding views of a rapture at arms length… I’m not betting the farm on that one.

    This is important to you because it impacts the tone with which so many traditional evangelicals approach issues of the day. There is an implied negativity. You’ll hear phrases like, “This is really a shame. Of course we expect it to continue getting worse until the Lord returns.” It’s a tone and a stance that they don’t intend to do anything to make it better– because that’s the way it has to be for Jesus to come back!

    The shift to something else…

    Most evangelicals seem to be softening on this hardline view. Even as you read this you probably felt like there was a shadow of truth there but it isn’t really how things work in your life or ministry. That’s because we’re seeing things change in evangelicalism. The rise of the neo-reformers (Piper, Driscoll, Keller) has introduced a Reformed theological perspective, which flirts with the notion of things getting worse while affirms that Jesus makes things better in society when his people are at work in society.

    It doesn’t feel like people have landed, yet. But it it is clear that the traditional evangelical view of eschatology is having less and less impact on the ministry churches are doing on a day-to-day basis. In my view, this is great!

    Here are a few facts that might shock you:

    And just like the scary things of World War I brought about the rise of one theological perspective… The end of the Cold War and drops in these big, scary things are impacting how Christian view their place in the world.

    Where is this going? I’d love your thoughts.

  • Inside out youth ministry

    A couple Sunday’s ago our senior pastor, Ed Noble, was talking about the inside out revolution underway at Journey. He gave an example about an area of the property where the church used to meet weekly for a big, family dinner. Now that space is used to run a food pantry for families in our community.

    It’s not that the big family dinner thing was bad. Quite the opposite. For where the church was at it was just what was needed. A lot of good was done in that room over those meals. The fact that the room is now used for a food pantry is not a more noble use of the space– it’s just a strategy that reflects both the needs of the community and the heart of the congregation and where we are at today.

    When Ed gave that example it got me thinking about youth ministry. Because, to oversimplify and generalize, youth ministry is typically a “come and get” kind of thing. (Like the family dinners) Volunteers come to serve students who show up. And the church puts on the program because they feel like it’s ultimately good for the church. It’s good, it’s noble, it serves a purpose.

    But what would it look like if we turned our ministries inside out? 

    What would it look like if youth ministry in the local church weren’t seen through the lens of “what’s good for the church” and was built around “what’s good for students needs in this community?”

    That’s no indictment on how we do ministry or even challenging the assumptions upon which our profession is built.

    That’s turning the coin over and asking, “How could this same space, same staff, same budget serve 95% of the population of students in this community alongside of the 5% who currently are engaged?”

    If we believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ is for all students– what should that change what we do?

    “The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.” We all nod our heads in agreement. But what would it look like for youth ministry to truly embrace that?

  • Sticky Faith Book Club, Chapter 2

    This is part 2 in an 8 part series on Sticky Faith. Join our book club by signing up here. (part 1)

    The Heart of the Matter

    I read chapter 2 with a heavy heart. As a lifelong youth worker I had a hard time fully concentrating on what the words had to do with my family. Instead, my imagination ran wild with examples of students, core students, who walked away from their faith. Great students from great families whose seemingly solid faith evaporated in college.

    Like you, I know families who have zero of their children walking with Jesus. (Or one out of four; two out of five, etc.) I’ve drank that bitter coffee with those tearful parents. I’ve heard their lamentations. I’ve even seen some of them start to doubt Jesus because “he wasn’t there for their kids.” Those are tough meetings and we’ve all had them. We wish we had answers but all we can offer is compassion and shared frustration.

    If you are like me those meetings end and you get in your car and cry. Sure, those are tears for those students. But they are also tears of resolve. “Not my kids. What do I have to do? How can I do things differently? I can’t afford to go 0-3 in my own home.”

    That’s the heart of the matter. Am I wiling to change the trajectory of my parenting for the sake of their faith? Am I willing to forego my “non-negotiables” for the sake of my children wrestling with their faith in my home? (As opposed to pushing that until college.)

    Inarticulate, sin managing, parent pleasers

    Kara and Chap were too nice to put it this way but that’s essentially what their research reveals. Their research showed that Christian students can’t articulate in their own words or testify from their own lives what walking with Jesus means. And since we’ve elevated the role of rules to a place higher than faith, our children know how to act like a Christian without knowing what it means to truly have faith in Christ.

    We assume that if our child walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, and acts like a duck they must be a duck. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works with trusting Christ.

    Kristen’s thoughts

    Trusting God is a discipline necessary for sticky faith development. Reading this chapter has helped me realize that I need to be a stronger communicator. In not wanting to over-share certain decisions or events in our lives, I’ve missed opportunities to articulate how decisions are made based on my trust in Christ. As our children grow older, I see the value of creating discussions and activities to help develop their framework of trust.

    I specifically recall a conversation last year when I asked Paul if he had ever made a decision to trust Christ. His response – “every week!” Digging deeper, what he meant was that every week in Sunday school his teacher made the class pray with along with her to “accept Jesus”. Defining what it means to trust Christ is a challenge after sorting through all the do’s and don’ts thrown their way, even (and perhaps especially) at church.

    Discussion Questions

    1. Sometimes it helps to start with a goal and work backwards. Have you ever stated goals for your children’s faith development? What is the goal of toddler faith? Of elementary-aged faith? Of middle school faith? Of high school faith? Or college faith?
    2. As ministers our kids feel extra pressure to perform as “professional Christian kids.” What are ways you’ve seen your children practice “sin management?”
    3. The book stated that “obedience is a response to trust.” Why is it better to begin with trust and then respond through obedience? Is it ever good to go the other direction: obey first and hope that trust follows? Have you ever experienced either of these in your faith journey? If so, what was it like, and what happened?
    4. How do you see your child’s faith in light of this chapter? Where do you see them growing in what it means to trust Christ, and where do you see them living out the do’s and don’ts of Christianity?

  • Worship Song or Love Song?

    Worship song or make out anthem?

    Maybe I’m just weird? But have you ever noticed that most worship music is really just one noun or pronoun away from being a love song? And if you aren’t careful… change the name from an object of worship to an object of affection… and a whole lot of worship songs get PG-13 real fast.

    There is a razor thin line between worship music for church and really weird love song. I often wonder what these songs must sound like when people are new  to church. They see words on the screen and go, “Whaaaaaa?”

    Just for fun, I’ll give you a couple of examples and let you suggest the rest in comments.

    (more…)

  • Look ma, no hands!

    I love this video. But not as much as when Kermit did it back in the day. “Look ma, no brains!“