Youth Ministry

A colleague of mine said of youth ministry “I’m ready to tear the whole thing down and start from scratch.” This is a sentiment that isn’t all that uncommon these days and it is one that we’ve heard for a few years now.

Now, I have no problem with re-thinking or “re-imagining” (to use the trendy word) youth ministry. In fact, I think we need to be constantly reforming which (hopefully) requires a certain amount of thinking. Here’s what I have little patience for: Acting as if those who came before us were stupid, shallow, unspiritual or wrong. Just because a model needs changing now, doesn’t mean that the model was never useful. I also have no patience for those who would stand up ala an AA meeting and confess that their ministry, in need of change, had little to no impact for X years. This is the Balaam’s Ass principle. If God can speak through Balaam’s ass, he can use me too. With that, then, I'm thinking I'll rethink youth ministry a bit.

So, I’m hoping by throwing this entry out into cyberspace, it will force me to reflect some on youth ministry in general, and mine in particular. I have noticed some changes over the years, but I'm not sure how intentional I was in making some of those changes. Anyway, as I said, I hope to get some thoughts together and throw them out there. (BTW, I’m about 70 pages into Mark Yaconelli’s book, which I think I will like a great deal. It has also been the catalyst for me to ponder changes, though some of what he talks about, or what I anticipate he talks about, I've been doing/ noticing for 9 years or so now.)

In the meantime, if any youth pastors (or former youth pastors) (yes, you LEN!) stumble onto my little blog, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the current state of youth ministry and changes that need to happen or changes you’ve seen in your ministry.

In the meantime, rock on…with a new and Everlasting Rock, of course.

Movies I've Never Seen

And so I wonder if this makes me a bad youth pastor. (Okay, I don't really wonder that...well, maybe just a little.)

1. The Princess Bride- Never seen it, never will. I was almost forced to watch it last summer, but I played ratscrew instead. Good move, if you ask me.

2. Napolean Dynamite- You get to the point where you hear about it too much, ya know? I actually heard about this one fairly early on. Then I heard about it more and more and more and now I feel like I've missed the boat entirely. You know what I mean? I feel like if I go rent it the clerk will say something like, "I'm sorry sir. You're just too darn late." (They'll call me 'sir' too, just to make me feel old.) Oh well...I'll probably get to this one, if they let me, eventually. Maybe.

3. Saved. I'll see it...eventually.

These next two fall under, "Well, I tried to watch them but...well...fell asleep." (More signs of aging.)

4. The Lord of the Rings. I think there's more than one of these, no? Tried watching the first one...fell asleep.

5. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Once again. I'll probably try it again, though. Eventually.

So, any others I may have missed?

(It occurs to me that I should probably post links to the movie sites or whatever, but I figure I'm really busy, and besides, if you're savvy enough to know that I should have posted links, you're savvy enough to not need said links, okay? Keep on rocking in the free world.)