Search results for: “good news”

I wrote this week’s YouTube You Can Use about the smallest independent state in the world, Sealand. In the course of writing that I found this little documentary about it’s inhabitants.

On the one hand I love it. There’s something so completely hacker culture about finding a loophole in something the government was doing, literally planting a flag, and declaring yourself your own country.

On the other hand I shudder. You can imagine the first few weeks in early 1967. It was exhilarating. They were taking on the British Navy and there wasn’t anything that the Navy could really do about Sealand, they had established legal authority over the property. But, let’s say a year in, the adrenaline had to wear off and they had to come to terms that they were now living 6 miles offshore in the North Sea. You can’t exactly make a grocery store run or stop off for some fish & chips on your way home from work. “Holy crap. We’re all alone here.”

As the documentarian questions… Is this freedom or is this a prison? 

Creating Our Own Islands

Watching this video brought up recollections my life in youth ministry. I identified a little too much with whimsy found in loneliness. Not to mention turning make-shift solutions into permanent ones.

Too often, we are organizational and literal islands within our organizations. We have our own ministry identity and norms, barely fitting in much less surviving regular staff meetings. Physically, we are often islands as well. With offices at the end of the hall or on another floor, or even building, as the rest of the staff.

Just like Sealand fights for recognition and credibility to find long-term sustainability… so does youth ministry.

And Yet…

It’s become popular to organizationally fold youth ministry into an umbrella called family ministry. As I’ve said before, my hope for the future of youth ministry is something far better than becoming a branch on an org chart… just another age-divided ministry falling between kids min and college min.

You see, much of what drove us to become an organizational island is absolutely necessary for youth ministry to thrive.

We thrive because we are different.

Youth ministry flourishes among renegades.

When there’s an understanding that reaching teenagers has got to be about more than getting the parents to show up to church, youth ministry reaches all the wrong people in the best possible way.

Youth ministry has always been about growing the Kingdom and growing the church as a less important by-catch.

The fact is that if we lose our anti-establishment attitude, exchanging it for getting along organizationally and nicely fitting into the polo and khaki world of church establishment– if we give up that nature within us that bristles against apathy and takes over that abandoned piece of crap in the middle of the parking lot and claim it as our own– If we lose that than youth ministry will cease to exist.

My Fear

My fear is nice.

My fear is filling youth ministry exclusively with church kids and calling that a victory.

My fear is losing all the bad asses of the church to going into church planting because it’s the only place they can be a bad ass.

My fear is youth ministries where the most edgy thing that happens is a service project feeding the homeless and not the heart-pounding joy of leading your best friend to a new life in Jesus.

My fear is trading an MBA approved org chart for reaching the lost.

My fear is being so busy integrating with kids ministry that we forget to go to where teenagers are.

My fear is that we trade reaching the lost for servicing the bored church kid.

We Need Sealand

I know it’s not popular. But in some places, with some people, we need Sealand. We.need.Sealand. Some organizations are so ill-equipped to reach teenagers that the most healthy thing they can do is to well-resource a group of renegades who built that thing out in the parking lot that’s reaching teenager who would never in a million years come to church for a worship service.

So, I tip my cap to you. Leaders of Sealand near and far. Those who endure inhabiting their little islands. Those who cope with loneliness and isolation. With clenched jaws you sit through yet another meaningless staff meeting about child check-in or a 45-minute debate on 3 songs before the sermon or 4. T those who dodge a boring church function to go to a freshmen soccer game.

I praise God for you.

As a former knuckle-headed, non-churched, desperate for good news kid… thank you for enduring Sealand to bring the Good News of Jesus to people like me.

Some look at you and think you are crazy. But I look at you and say you’re a great kind of crazy. Peter, John, Paul, Thomas… all of the apostles… people thought they were absolutely insane, too.

I praise God for you.

Photo credit: Sealand from a helicopter by Ryan Lackey via Flickr (Creative Commons)

“The administration needs to deport these families and children,” said Labrador, who appeared on the show [Meet the Press] after [DHS Security Secretary] Johnson. “I know it sounds harsh and difficult, but it’s better for the children. Send these children back in a humanitarian way. We can do it safely and efficiently.”

Rep. Raul Labrador, Idaho (R) July 6th, 2014 – Source

Right. We’re going to round up minors and deport them?

The US government predicts that 90,000 unaccompanied migrant children will cross the US-Mexico border in fiscal year 2014, more than 10 times the number who crossed in 2011. Thousands more children have crossed with a parent, also an increase from previous years.

Human Rights Watch, June 25th, 2014 – Source

While the media wants to use this wave of border crossings as a political football about border security, no one seems to be asking the question, “Why are 90,000 kids risking their lives to cross the border?” (Fleeing violence? Hoping for protection as Dreamers? Better labor conditions?)

These Aren’t Numbers. These Aren’t Problems. These Are People.

I think it’s easy to get caught in the rhetoric and forget we’re talking about actual people. We all have opinions on contemporary issues like immigration. One thing I love about our country is that we’re all allowed to have an opinion, voice it, and be heard. Yet we also acknowledge that some folks, myself included, have an opinion informed not just by ideology but by relationship with people in our lives. After watching a documentary last weekend on immigration I posted on Facebook, “It’s impossible to love your neighbor and want them deported.” 

For me, immigration policy isn’t just something I can debate as a thing, like say organic food policy. Immigration effects people in my life like neighbors, classmates of my kids, people at my church, etc. I want to see a pathway to citizenship created for the people in my life who really want and need it. (At the same time, I don’t pretend it’s a simple cut & dry issue either.)

All of that was why I was so bummed out to see protestors lined up in Murietta, CA.

I watched this and wondered, “What are those kids thinking?” Some are teenagers who might have some sense that they are merely pawns in a political thing. But younger children… do they really think people hate them?

See, it’s easy to watch a news story and react. But let’s not forget that 90,000 minors crossing the border in 2014 isn’t a problem to be solved, these are real people coming here for real reasons. 

I can’t help but look at this and scream: This is a youth ministry issue! Where are my friends in this? 

Youth Ministry as an Advocate for Teenagers

As a youth worker… all of this this leads to the broader question about the nature of our work:

Do we exist as advocates for the students who attend our youth group or can youth workers see themselves in a broader sense, advocating for the teenagers in their community regardless of whether they attend youth group or not?

Youth workers tend to be very insular. We think about the best strategies for engaging teenagers on a Sunday morning. We look for small group tips and tricks. We refine our upfront teaching. We read books and blogs about our job all the time. But maybe, just maybe… our biggest problem isn’t skill development it’s that the students in our lives don’t see as caring about the things they care about? Maybe they look at our ministry and think, “That’s Good News for Adam. But that’s not Good News for me.” 

I see the protests in the CBS piece above and I also see the Christians, not covered in the news, who are on the opposite end of that. People who are bringing this out of rhetoric and into a reminder of the humanity of the situation.

• People who hold signs saying, “I was a stranger an immigrant and you welcomed me. ~ Matthew 25:35″ (see more)
• Friends like Jon Huckins, who are gathering church leaders next week to learn about issues on both sides of the border, in San Diego and Tijuana.
• Groups of San Diego churches who are coming together to be a voice to the voiceless while meeting the everyday needs of those being detained.

Sometimes we don’t need more bible studies, camps, small groups, and worship music. Sometimes… teenagers need to see youth workers sticking their neck out to advocate for the teenagers in their community with desperate needs for compassion, grace, and a roof over their head.