• Undervaluing People in the Age of the Sawzall

    Undervaluing People in the Age of the Sawzall

    One thing that irks me is undervaluing a persons abilities in an organization.

    Here’s how it works:

    • A rising star gets hired for a starter role.
    • They dominate it. They do a great job and even make their job look easy.
    • A few years of domination go by.
    • A role opens up in leadership of that organization.
    • That person gets their hopes up that their dominance in their role will have drawn the attention of others.
    • They are passed over for that role.
    • They realize that they’ll always be seen as someone filling their current role.
    • They move on to another organization.
    • The original organization suffers twice. Once because they are no longer dominating at that one spot. Twice because they missed out on a rising star who was passionate about their organization but left feeling burned.

    “We just don’t think of that person in that way.”

    That’s what people say when you ask them about that rock star person in their organization. They got hired at a specific role, not as a “leader.” And so, in the people that matters’ eyes… they’ll always be that role. 

    Sawzall

    Kristen: “What’s that?”

    Me: “What?”

    Kristen: “That. What is that for?”

    Me: “It’s a Sawzall. Everyone has one.”

    Kristen: “Um, we don’t need that. We rent our house.”

    Me: “But it’s the 75th Anniversary edition. It’s limited.”

    Kristen: “…”

    Me: “Think of it like a hope chest. One day we’ll own a house and you’ll want me to take down a wall. This will be the perfect tool.”

    Kristen: “…”

    Me: “Are you saying you want me to put it back?”

    Kristen: “We came here for light bulbs.”

    There is No Ceiling

    Centuries ago you needed a lot of money to chase your dreams. That’s just not true today. Anyone can start a business with a laptop and about 45 minutes on LegalZoom.com. You can start a legit 501 3c in your spare time over a couple weeks. You don’t need an office, you don’t need a big staff, and you don’t even need a pile of special skills.

    My advice for those who wake up to the reality that their organization “doesn’t look at them that way” is simple: Buy a Sawzall.

    We used to have to wait for doors of opportunity to open. We used to spend decades positioning ourselves for the right moment.

    But today? You don’t have to wait.

    When all the doors around you are closed and locked to your dreams go buy a Sawzall and make your own door.

    p.s. If someone wants to buy me a Sawzall for me for Christmas. I’d appreciate it. 

  • The Whirlwind Weekend that was The Summit

    The Whirlwind Weekend that was The Summit

    Wheels down in San Diego at 3:00 PM Pacific time. Three minutes later, like a well oiled machine, Kristen pulled up in front of the airport at our designated meet-up spot, she slid to the passenger seat while I opened the back of our minivan, then got in the drivers seat.

    Exhale busy season.

    Inhale a season of rest, rejuvenation, retooling, evaluation, and planning.

    But first? Let’s party a little.

    Celebrating a Win

    I was way more comfortable going into The Summit this year than in previous years. I’m sure some of that is just repetition. But a lot of it is that we were better prepared than in years past and we’ve got high confidence in our teams. So, for me, that was a win right there. I enjoyed the event more as a participant than in years past.

    Another big win for me was the event felt like it gelled. We didn’t just fill the line-up with well known people who we were 100% sure would deliver. Instead, we built the line-up around a narrative of exploration… places of struggle & triumph, into the depths to discover new things about ourselves, and ample space for dreaming about future possibilities. In some ways that’s more risk than other events are willing to take. But I guess I don’t know why I’d attend an event without risk? 

    Three years at The Summit has taught us that producing is way more about art than science. If you saw it from our vantage point as organizers you’d see that there were nearly limitless combinations of speakers and topics, all told we probably considered more than 100 individuals for the final 18 spots. That’s what I mean by more art than science. We collaborate (and sometimes conspire) to create a painting with limited colors despite nearly limitless combinations.

    Co-Conspirators

    Another entire aspect of the fun that is The Summit is the people we get to hang out with. From our partners and sponsors to our host to our little tribe of volunteers who add so much… The Summit is so unique not just because of our work, but because we’ve got a whole pile of co-conspirators helping to make it happen.

    My Hats

    One of the things I love about the Cartel life, in general, and The Summit specifically is that I get to wear a million hats. Obviously, there’s all the pre-event stuff like marketing, registration, customer service, printing stuff, and working with all the presenters. On site, this actually expands instead of contracting. I lead a pre-summit session, I ran the onsite store, I did troubleshooting on registration questions, I spoke in session 2, I managed the hotel for our presenters, I checked in with our partners, I shot photography during sessions… and a whole bunch of other little things.

    It’s a Wrap

    It’s hard not to think about Summit 15 already. There’s stuff we want to do better and we’ve already got a list of themes and possible presenters cooking.

    But the next few weeks is all about wrapping up 2014 first. We’ll be sending out evaluations to folks who attended, we’ll be doing an internal evaluation, and of course I still have audio and video of all the talks to produce and release.

    But, for now, it’s a wrap on Summit 14.

    High fives all around.

  • October 2014: Youth Pastors in the News

    October 2014: Youth Pastors in the News

    Here’s a list of headlines from the month of October for the Google News search term, “Youth Pastor.” I’ve deleted multiple links to the same instance.

    Archives: July 2014, August 2014

    Moral of the story: Don’t like the news? Make Good News in Your Neighborhood.

  • People of Transition

    People of Transition

    “Why do you like youth ministry so much? Clearly, you could do other roles in the church?” 

    I think it’s a conversation so many of us in youth ministry have had repeatedly. In this case, it was a casual conversation with another pastor on our staff while we attended a conference.

    “I love this time of life. They are in transition.” 

    But, when you think about it, it goes deeper than that.

    People of Transition: Students

    Middle and high school students are obviously in transition. There’s the physical impact of puberty. There’s the emotional and psychological emergence of all sorts of brain development. There’s the social convergence of developing friendships based on affinity versus proximity. There’s the sudden awareness of their sexual self, manifest in crushes and dating and all that goes with it. And, relevant to the church, this is an incredible time of faith formation.

    This is a tremendous opportunity for youth ministry because if you can point a teenager to Jesus in this time of transition they can and will do amazing things with this faith in Jesus. History has proven time and again that great movements of the church are fueled by teenagers and adolescents.

    People of Transition: Parents

    Not to be lost in the big and obvious transition of teenagers is the transition of parents of teenagers.

    Parenting a teenager is flat out different than parenting an elementary-aged kid. So that’s a transition right there… things that “worked” for a 5th grader just aren’t working, and parents have to wrap their heads around figuring out how to parent a child who is much closer to adulthood than infancy.

    At the same time, parents in this age group are dealing with their own transitions. They’ve left the educational years in the rear-view mirror, they are invested in their careers… for some it’s going great and for others its a disappointment. Moms especially, seem to be transitioning out of wrapping their lives up as a “mommy” and figuring out what life is like without kids needing her all the time.

    And, if married, there’s a whole myriad of stuff going on in that 10-20 years of marriage thing. It’s a marriage in transition.

    People of Transition: Youth Workers

    Lastly, let’s not forget our tribe itself. The past few weeks has been a reminder that we are a people of transition ourselves.

    • Since we trend younger, we tend to move around vocationally and educationally.
    • Since we trend younger, we tend to experience dating, engagement, marriage, babies, and all of that is transitional.
    • Since we trend newer in church leadership, we tend to be still sorting out things like organizational fit. And since we’re lower on the totem pole we tend to get bounced.
    • Since we trend younger, we tend to take more chances, see things as easier to fix, and are less likely to be effective leaders, meaning we get in over our heads or end up on organizational islands… which means we either get bounced or mess up so bad we need to bounce!

    Ministering to People in Transition

    As I’ve been reflecting on what it means for me to minister to teenagers, parents, and youth workers in transition I’ve been continually pushed back to stories of transition in the Bible.

    Over and over again I see this pattern: In Scripture, people who step out willfully (or are forced into) times of transition depend the most on God as their provider, protector and source of wisdom and strength.

    I’m thankful to God for putting me in the lives of people who are in transition. And I’m fully enjoying the irony that in His wisdom He’s placed me in a position to speak truth into the lives of transitional people.

    We just chose to label these groups of transitional people in the church as “youth ministry.”

  • Paris? As in France?

    As I write this, Kristen is on her way to meet me in New York so we can continue on to Paris, France (for Open Paris) and St. Andrews, Scotland. (to visit friends)

    That’s as weird a sentence to write as it likely is for readers to read. 

    It’s Always a Big Deal

    This year I’m scheduled to travel 93 days to 53 cities and 6 countries totally a little over 63,000 miles of travel.

    It’s weird for me to admit but I’m pretty much used to the routine of work travel. While this year has been particularly travel-heavy (thank you, Snapchat) this year has had large stretches where I’m not on the road at all.

    I like to say my day-to-day life is “big” and “small.” I’m either on the road, speaking or hosting an event… something “big” or I’m at home, where my normal day consists of a 25 foot commute to the living room and trip to the post office.

    But travel, even normal work travel– is a big deal to me. I hope it’s always a big deal to me. In some ways I hope it’s always something special, otherwise it’s not really worth doing.

    • Going new places is a big deal.
    • Meeting new people is a big deal.
    • Getting the opportunity to train youth workers is a big deal.
    • Talking with students is a big deal.
    • Doing a workshop for parents is a big deal.

    These things are privileges and, not to sound cheesy, I’m honored to get to do it.

    Circled in Red

    But this trip, these next 7 days… are special. Every trip is special. But this trip is extra special.

    Earlier this year we landed on dates for Open Paris. The plan on all the Open events is that I’ll go the first two years and hopefully after that they’ll be self-sustaining enough where I don’t have to go. In hopes of keeping Open organic and simple we’ve made the decision that any travel for our (The Youth Cartel team) is a personal expense, meaning even though it’s “work” we’re paying for our travel out of our personal funds and not company money. Our logic is that if no one is getting paid or getting their expenses paid for by speaking, we should do the same for everyone… even our team.

    At about the same time I was invited to speak at Kellenberg High School in Long Island, NY. So the trip got a little more complicated because I could just fly to Paris and back quickly. (Which sounds weird, but I really am trying to be home as many days as I can.)

    Then, basically that week, Kristen got a letter from an old employer in Chicago, letting her know that they had sold their business to someone else and had to liquidate her 401k. A 401k we’d completely forgotten about! So, instead of just rolling those funds over into our IRA, we decided Kristen (by far the most frugal person in my life) should get a little bit of a slush fund to do whatever she wanted with this unbudgeted windfall.

    You see where this is going. I asked Kristen if she wanted to go with me to Open Paris… because… Paris. Shortly after that, we decided to add-on a 3-day excursion to visit our friends in Scotland.

    That all happened casually and always seemed like something way off in the distance until about 2 weeks ago when Kristen and I were on a date. She said, “Hey, in two weeks we’ll be in Paris.”

    Wait. What?!?! How did that happen.

    Kristen and Adam… on a trip to Europe… without kids.

    Giddy

    I’ve spent the first half of this week in Long Island, speaking at Kellenberg and enjoying (greatly) the opportunity to learn a bit about this ministry.

    And now, I’m super excited to spend this time with Kristen. Such a treat. And oh yeah, we’re going cool places, too.

  • How can a pastor help families with social media?

    How can a pastor help families with social media?

    “How can I help families with social media?”

    I think this is something that lots and lots of churches are wondering. While culture is ever-morphing and hard to understand– the way people are communicating and integrating technology into their lives is big/obvious and churches feel the need to offer help.

    The flip side is that most recognize that they are not experts on social media, much less experts on how social media integrates into adolescent life. And so they either do nothing… which is common. Or they try to provide their congregation access to “experts“… which is rare, but appreciated. (No really, thank you.)

    But I want to present to you a plan that is right down the middle and plays into your expertise as a pastor.

    How to Help From Your Expertise

    As I’m out doing seminars and workshops with people I end up speaking out of two different postures about social media.

    1. I’m speaking out of specific, long-term research I’ve done on teenagers and social media.
    2. I’m teaching and answering questions using skills learned and refined in my ministry training and life as a pastor.

    In other words, half of the skill set that I have, every pastor has.

    Lean on Pastoral Counseling

    Often times I’m asked about how social media impacts the home relevant to children and teens. And just below the surface of those questions are questions relevant to family life and marriage. It’s pretty normal that a spouse will attend a workshop and then make mention of their spouse being “the one with the problem in our home.” So, as a pastor, I can see that issues in the home might be flowing from a lack of communication about how the device makes his spouse feel or maybe that he’s using the device because of a larger marital issue or even that they aren’t have sex as often as they’d like because they are staring at their phones in bed instead of each other.

    You don’t have to be a social media expert to talk about these things, these are pastoral counseling issues that you, as a pastor, really are an expert on. These are things you can deal with in informal counseling in your office or make a referral to a professional counselor.

    Social media might be the presenting issue. But often social media is the symptom of something bigger, it’s a family problem with which you can provide counsel.

    Social Media as a Window to the Soul

    The more I talk and write about social media the more I realize that the behavior itself is a window to a persons soul. In a normal healthy adult situation, social media usage is congruent to their life. They say things and do things with social media they would do in real life. And where there is incongruence, it’s often from a place of dissatisfaction or unhealthiness.

    That’s a two-way street, right? If someone is projecting perfection on social media but you know they are a mess, that’s incongruence. Likewise, if they are a mess on social media about their job, but happy-go-lucky at church… you know that incongruence means something.

    I share that because, again, you don’t have to be an expert on social media to notice this. If you’re sensitive to knowing your congregants you’ll be able to see that plainly and ask hard, yet obvious, questions. “Tom, how is everything going at work? You seem… I don’t know… grumpy when you post stuff on Facebook at work. Can we get together and talk about that?”

    Use Resources to Maintain Baseline Understanding

    Let’s say you want to do a seminar about social media for parents at your church, but you can’t afford to bring someone in? Well, if you take my book A Parent’s Guide to Understanding Social Media and reverse engineer it… you’ll see my presentation. Voila! Start there and add/edit it to fit your context.

    Subscribe to my blog, iParent.tv, and Common Sense Media and keep those resources in your back pocket as things come up. But don’t feel like you need to become a social media expert in order to help the people in your congregation.

    Wrap-up

    Don’t get caught up in the trees to miss the forest when it comes to social media usage and helping families within your congregation. Focus on your expertise, lean on it, and allow the natural love a pastor has for her congregation and your expertise in pastoral care to overcome what you do or don’t know about how to use the latest social media app.

    And when you need more help, ask me. That’s what I’m here for.

  • Invoking the P Word

    Invoking the P Word

    So let’s just call this thing what it is. Christian persecution. Right here in the good ‘ole USA. Right here in the Lone Star State.

    It’s happening all over the world. We just aren’t used to dealing with it in our own backyards. But the tide has turned. I have no doubt it is only going to get worse.

    —

    Today, I pray for those Houston pastors and their congregations who suffer for the name of Jesus. (See previous post “10 Things to Pray for Christians in Iraq.) May God use their persecution to strengthen their faith and bring glory to the name of Jesus. I also pray for myself. May I be counted with those who stood firm to the end no matter the cost.

    Source

    This blog post popped up in my Twitter timeline this morning. And I’ve seen similar sentiments pop up on Facebook and other social media this week.

    To date, all I’ve seen is people going “Wow, can you believe this?” This is the first I’ve heard of someone calling what’s [allegedly] happening in Houston “persecution.” It’s quite a leap to switch from “Can you believe this mess?” to “This is persecution, just like in Iraq.”

    Americans friends… Let’s be careful about the ” P” word.

    I’ve got 3 thoughts, feel free to disagree in the comments below:

    1. We all know that this isn’t going anywhere in our legal system. A city ordinance cannot overrule free speech– the First Amendment of the Constitution. Unless these pastors have been ordering hits on people in the gay community, they’ve got nothing to worry about.
    2. This story is about leverage, not persecution. Remove the storyline elements and you’ll see that some people are embattled with their local government and they are gaining leverage by creating public outcry. The more you tell this story the more leverage they gain. And you know what? You have no idea whose side you’re really on! It’s politics. You might actually agree with the city if you knew all of the facts. But repeating this story without really knowing the facts definitely advances one parties case.
    3. Real persecution happens. And I’m sure it happens in the United States. But be careful to not devalue our brothers and sisters disowned by their families, imprisoned, tortured, and killed around the world by invoking persecution in Texas over a city ordinance. The worst that would ever happen to those in this case is they’d get a fine, which would be tossed out by any judge at any level.

    But Adam! Isn’t it a form of persecution?

    In the most technical definition and sense of the word “persecution“– I suppose it is. But let’s not compare a local city ordinance issue with murder, torture, and false imprisonment.

    And, to give context, these churches are experiencing no more persecution than your average 5th grader wanting to read his Bible at recess.

    Yes, if this is really happening, you should be upset about it. All I’m saying is to be careful not to couch what is [allegedly] happening with a few churches in a city you don’t live in with violent persecution around the world.

  • 200,000 More Reasons to Delete Snapchat

    200,000 More Reasons to Delete Snapchat

    Since news of this broke on Friday I’ve received at least 50 texts, emails, and other messages about it.

    I’m a little torn. I don’t want to say “I told you so.” More like– “NO!!! I tried to warn people.”

    More than 4 million people have read my post, “Why you should delete Snapchat.” The PDF of that post has been downloaded 45,000 times. It’s been taught as an example of a persuasive argument in just about every state in the United States.

    But here we are. My efforts weren’t enough.

    Somewhere, in the ether of the internet, are 200,000 images posted online without permission. That’s on top of the countless number of Tumblr blogs and other websites dedicated to sharing captured Snaps.

    The facts of what I wrote about Snapchat in August 2013 haven’t changed

    1. Snapchat is built on a lie that digital images disappear. They don’t. Once you take a picture with your device and send it to another person you’ve given up control of that image. It might get deleted. Once you send it via text, email, or upload it to an app… you lose control.
    2. You think you’re anonymous online, but you aren’t. Whether it’s Snapchat or Yik Yak or an online forum, everything you post online points directly back to you. Everything. That happens at the device level with metadata. It happens with your ISP or mobile provider. And it happens with app developers at the server level. The only one who doesn’t know who everyone is on an anonymous app are the actual users. And, as we’re about to learn with the Snapchat leak, facial recognition is a double-edged sword.
    3. Snapchat was created as a safe way to sext. In the past year since the January 2013 uproar, Snapchat has done a very good job navigating further and further away from it’s genesis story of a safe sexting app. I’ve acknowledged that publicly. They introduced some new features, they’ve said all the right things in the press, they’ve educated users, and– even for me– they truly have done a good job trying to pivot Snapchat from the salacious history, which indeed fueled the initial popularity, to something better and more mature. But they can’t get away from their history or the subset of users who use the app as a safe way to sext. As Mitt Romney learned in 2012… you can’t “Shake the Etch-a-Sketch” and just tell a new story sometimes. If they were serious about getting rid of the subset of users who sext with the app they would invest a few million dollars to develop a feature that detected nudity and blocked it. (ala facial recognition in Facebook or iPhoto.)
    4. The Snapchat leaders seem more interested in blaming others than blaming their app. When they settled with the FCC, it was a misunderstanding and they didn’t own responsibility. When user names and passwords were leaked, it wasn’t their incompetence as developers– it was unscrupulous people wanting access to an unlimited treasure trove of private data. And in this latest leak, it’s not the fact that Snapchat has an open unofficial API that even an untrained developer can crack into within a few minutes then build and release iOS and/or Android apps on the official marketplace— it’s these 3rd parties who are to blame. We all know people like this. Whether it’s entitlement or immaturity or arrogance, they can’t simply admit that their leadership failed, that Snapchat is bigger than they are capable of leading, or that their skills as a developer are not up to snuff. Instead they play the “Hey, I’m just a kid, I make mistakes” card. Snapchat is valued at anywhere from $2 billion to $10 billion. (Though with existing and pending litigation I can’t see it.) Isn’t it time for the leadership at Snapchat to be held responsible? Shouldn’t the board, likely full of VC investors, make a decision to remove the founders and put in place someone capable of finishing the job? Surely, if the eventual goal of Snapchat is to sell it to Google, Apple, Yahoo, Facebook, or whoever wants it– the maximum value of Snapchat will never be achieved with a bumbling leadership team who can’t publicly own failure. Duh.

    If anything, what I wrote in August 2013 has been validated time and again. Which only leads me to the same conclusion: Delete the app.

    Do not trust an app built like this. And do not trust people like this.

    There are white hats and black hats in this world, Snapchat wears a black hat.

    Beyond “I Told You So”

    Right now, nearly every hour, a story is coming out blaming Snapchat for this leak. And they are 100% to blame. No doubt many will join me in calling the Snapchat board to remove Snapchat’s founders for their incompetence.

    But, emotionally, I’m just not interested in “I told you so” any more than I truly care about who is the CEO of an app people should just delete.

    Just like there wasn’t anything in it for me when I wrote the original post in August 2013, I am not somehow filled with pride that this has happened and I was right all along. (If you didn’t know, I wrote the post in response to requests from a group of moms at a seminar. I couldn’t answer their question about Snapchat sufficiently on the fly, I told them to watch my blog and I’d write some reasons you should delete it.)

    So here’s what I’m feeling about the Snapchat leak:

    • I feel terrible for the people who will now pay a penalty for their lack of understanding on how the internet works. Yes, we should hold Snapchat responsible. And I believe that the FBI will hold those who have leaked images of minors will be arrested for distribution of child pornography.
    • For those who have had images leaked, I hope they seek and get justice. What was done to them was wrong, it’s against the law, and the perpetrators may have had a good reason (to expose Snapchat’s vulnerability) but that’s not reason enough to violate the law.
    • I hope the public learns from this leak. For those who will have images posted, I hope they’ve learned that no matter what is promised, anything shared online is ultimately public. Take solace in knowing you aren’t alone. But make a correction in your behavior, as well, so that it never happens to you again.
    • As a Christian, I believe all humans are ultimately fallible. This isn’t about Snapchat– it’s about us. (Ourselves and the people we thought we trusted.) We make mistakes, people we trust betray us, and we all live in a space between blaming ourselves and blaming others for a lot of stuff. (Not just this leak) This is what we do as humans. While we all have good in us, as we’re made in the image of God, we also have evil in us. Last week I wrote about a new research study about teenagers and sexting. In talking about this with some friends I came to this conclusion: 100% of us are susceptible to sexting. The reason many haven’t is that the opportunity hasn’t arisen in our lives. The hormones of sex and the dopamine rewards of our inborn reward system are simply stronger than us. We all need Jesus. We need his strength to resist. We need forgiveness when we mess up. And we need His hope (and the actions of His people) for freeing the world of sexual exploitation. But I don’t see myself any better than those who have leaked images or had images leaked. And neither should you.
    • Let’s not forget that the leak is about sexual exploitation and the power of shame in our society. In the coming days it’ll be easy to throw people under the bus and blame them for taking these images. But there’s a big difference between exchanging these images with someone you trust (or are flirting with) and having them published, perhaps with their usernames or real names. Trust me, those affected will feel terrible enough as it is. Let’s not forget that the release of these images is illegal. (Do I even need to say it… DON’T LOOK AT THEM!)
    • These aren’t 200,000 images. These are 200,000 people. That’s a lot of hurting people out there. Ugh, my heart hurts.
    • I’ve got more work to do. One thing that’s become clear over the past year is that there aren’t a lot of people actually trying to educate teenagers about social media in a useful way. Scaring them doesn’t work. Instead, I’ve found that helping them understand how basic principles of social media play out in the real world as well as creating some common language with the adults in their lives really, really helps. In so many ways– I’m sick of talking about social media. But I also don’t feel like I can stop because the need is so great.

    Why Have You Deleted Snapchat?

    I’d love to hear from people who have had enough and deleted Snapchat. Now that you aren’t using it, what are you using instead?

  • Speaking Opportunities for 2015

    Speaking Opportunities for 2015

    With the latest round of social media leaks making waves today, this time impacting Snapchat users, I’m in the odd place of looking like an Old Testament prophet.

    I’m not a prophet.

    I simply applied long-standing principles of social media to the current wave of ephemeral apps popular today.

    And here’s the deal: I love to share those principles of social media with anyone who will listen– teenagers in school, teenagers at church, teenagers in a social club, teachers, parents, youth workers, etc. 

    In 2013-2014 I spoke in dozens of classrooms, school assemblies, youth group meetings, parent groups, conference, and even a farm safety day. I’ve spoke to grandparents trying to sort out what their grandchildren are doing on their phones and I’ve spoken to kindergartners about picking games that are fun and safe for them.

    If you’d like me to come to talk to your group… let’s chat.

    Here’s What I Don’t Do

    I’m not a “scared straight” speaker. I don’t find that trying to scare teenagers or parents about all the bad things that can happen with social media affects any change.

    Here’s What I Do

    But what does help bring change is two-fold.

    1. Build understanding
    2. Create common language

    When adults learn both how social media works and why it’s important to the teenagers in their life with some common language that everyone can use to talk about it… they can bridge the gap to get beyond behavior management and into a conversation about shared values.

    It’s much more productive to lead people to a place of “Who are we trying to be as a school, family, church and how does social media impact that?” instead of “Why do you take selfies?”

    Got Some Samples?

    I’m not systematic about getting recordings of every talk, but I do allow groups to record me… so there are plenty of YouTube and Vimeo links out there.

    Here’s a few:

    Teaching in Church

    Leading a Parent Meeting

    Conference Presentation for Youth Workers

    How to Book Me

    If you’d like to have me out in 2015 (or even late 2014) drop me a note on my contact form. I’m willing to work with your organizations needs, budget, schedule, etc.

  • The American Teenager: A Sexting Machine?

    The American Teenager: A Sexting Machine?


    (if the clip doesn’t show up in your browser, here’s the link)

    In her latest movie, “Men, Women and Children,” Jennifer Garner plays an overprotective mom who obsessively monitors her daughter’s every keystroke, reading all her texts and even deleting objectionable ones.

    Source

    I’m over it.

    The media invented the term sexting out of thin air. They linked unrelated stories together to create a term. And their scary “warnings” for this term were, essentially, the promotion of sexting until it actually became a real-life problem. Way to go! 

    And it all feeds the thing Americans are best at: hysteria.

    Mainstream media built a myth about the American teenager and their cell phone: Leave a high schooler alone for more than 15 seconds and they’ll pull down their pants and send a photo of their junk to their girlfriend. 

    So of course there will be a movie about it. And now we need to try to normalize over-protective parenting. Because if your kid does that thing that you fantasize that they might do… it’s not about the damage to your child, it’s about your failure as a parent.

    Conversely, there’s no doubt that sexting does indeed happen. There really are teenagers who sext. There really are teenagers who engage in sexual behavior.

    But we need to be reminded of some basic facts:

    1. There have always been teenagers who have had sex. Chances are very high that you are alive and breathing today because two teenagers back in the day did the humpty hump. (married or unmarried)
    2. Fewer teenagers are engaging in sexual activity than when you and I were teenagers. Just like violent crime is way down, so is teenage sexual activity. Embrace it as a reality. Fewer kids today have sex than did when you or I walked high school hallways.
    3. Adults have always been obsessed with and hysterical about teenage sexuality. I would describe teenage sexuality as a primary worry of parents of teenagers. But it’s not just parents… generally speaking, adults in our country are obsessed with teenage sexuality. Anything that has to do with teenage sexuality is going to draw attention.
    4. There are larger societal forces at play, which get pinned on teenagers, but aren’t exclusive to teenage sexuality. (Extension of adolescence, delaying marriage until the late 20s, normalization of cohabitation, the internets impact on the popularization of non-normative sexual behavior, the impact of mobile devices on relationships, on and on)

    Correcting the Headlines

    Clickbait is the name of the game on the internet. News agencies are desperate to grab readers attention. And so, the American teenager is just a victim of this.

    For instance…

    An update to a longitudinal study was just published by The American Academy of Pediatric that is studying a possible connection between teenage sexting and teenage risky sexual behavior. This is as salacious of a study as there is… it hits on every parents fear and activates our societal obsession.

    The update on the study shows that within their sample [in Texas, not nationally], not the final findings, that 72.4% of teenagers studied have never sent a sext. (Defined as a nude image)

    And what did the Chicago Tribune run as a headline?

    “Sexting is the new normal for high schoolers, study finds”

    Source

    How is it that 72.4% of those studied DO NOT engage in sexting but the headline reads that “sexting is the new normal for high schoolers?”

    I’ll tell you how. Even in the study itself, though researchers point out a clear, definitely link between sexting and risky teenage sexual behavior has not been proven among their findings, the researchers write in their conclusion:

    Although additional research is needed, current data indicate that sexting may precede sexual intercourse in some in- stances and cement the notion that sexting behavior is a viable indicator of adolescent sexual activity. That we did not find a link between sexting and risky sexual behavior over time may suggest that sexting is a new “normal” part of adolescent sexual development and not strictly limited to at-risk adolescents.

    Source, emphasis mine

    See, the data didn’t say that, but the researchers still assumed it to be the case.

    And where does that assumption lie? Not in science, but a culture obsessed with and hysterical about teenage sexual activity.

    Correcting the Narrative

    I’ve spent my adult life investing in middle and high school students. It bothers me, to the core, that there is a powerful cultural narrative that assumes that teenagers are amoral, sub-human, incapable masses of hormones just waiting for an adult to leave them alone long enough so they can drop their pants, commit a violent crime, or otherwise act as a deviant.

    That narrative is false. We all know it. And yet we are silent when our teenagers are stereotyped as such.

    We believe teenagers are incapable until they aren’t. We celebrate them when they sail around the world or climb Mount Everest or win gold medals. But we don’t celebrate our teenagers when they are normal, when 72.4% of them aren’t sexting, when fewer and fewer of them are engaging in risky sexual behavior.

    And, ultimately, that’s a narrative about the perversion of our society (church culture included) more than it is a narrative about the American teenager.

    Stand up, friends. Defend and advocate for the teenagers you love.

    And let’s write a story together of the new normal.