Generation iY

I seem to have a perpetual stack of books that I keep hoping to get to that sits on my desk. The stack often gets interrupted by some other new entry into my reading whims, so sometimes books will sit in the stack for quite a while. Last year at Christmas time, one of the books I was wanting was Tim Elmore's Generation iY. I got the book in Decemeber, but it has sat for almost a full year, waiting...

The subtitle of the book "Our Last Chance to Save Their Future" may seem a little overdramatic, but when you think about what's really at stake for today's young people, it's not such a grandiose statement. The book does a really good job laying out a description of the Millenial generation (especially the younger half), the cultural influences that have shaped them, and what we as parents and teachers and youth leaders need to be doing to help them launch into adulthood.

It was a great reminder of the potential that lies latent in young people and the need for mentors to guide this potential into fruition. Sometimes, I can get distracted by so many secondary frustrations in my job that I forget... We have an incredible generation of young lives who are hungry for authentic direction as they emerge into adult life. They are hoping to mean something to the world around them, but too often we adults are doing a poor job helping them understand how to do so. I was reminded that a huge part of my job is to identify adult-student partnerships and construct frameworks to facilitate the unleashing of potential within those partnerships - making the most of our students' current gifts and opportunities and preparing them to launch into lives of ministry of their own.

If you work with young people or have them in your home, the insight Elmore shares from his years of experience developing young leaders is invaluable. Check out the book for yourself and get some practical strategies and ideas for parenting, mentoring, & employing Generation iY. Also check out Save Their Future Now for more.

Blogging Mojo Book Review

A while back, I came across this guy from Intercourse (PA) who posts pictures of Amish people, blogs a series of cartoon videos, drinks vinegar on camera, and mixes some of the most humorously random metaphors ever known to woodchucks. Bryan Allain is a funny guy with a funny blog. As I first read his blog, I shouted out, "Wow, this guy has some serious blogging mojo! I wish I could find my own blogging mojo like that." It was a big moment here in the office...

Ok, that last part is a total fabrication; I don't think I've ever actually said the word mojo because it confuses my mouth. Wait, was that a Spanish word, or are we just making stuff up now? Do you really think you're cool enough to pull off a word like that? Regardless, you should check out his blog. If you're a blogger, or if you just like funny stuff, you should also check out his new ebook - 31 Days to Finding Your Blogging Mojo. You can find it on the book's site as a pdf, or on Amazon in a Kindle edition.

Lost your mojo?

The books offers a 31 day walk-through before jumping into the big blogging game. Or maybe it's more of a quick series of timeouts in the middle of the game to remind you what the heck you started out to accomplish with this whole blogging thing. Either way, it's full of really good, practical blogging suggestions and ideas for making your blog better.

Allain begins by re-acquainting you with the core elements of your blog (the audience, the content, and... you'll have to get the book for the other one) - these are the foundation of what will make your blog something someone else will read and to which they'll actually return to read some more. He spends another 10 short chapters or so helping you tweak your content and focus in on what you really want to write, then fills the last third of the book with helpful tips on getting people to visit your blog and keep coming back for more.

Each chapter is only 2 pages and contains a short exercise that will help to put the idea of that chapter into practice on your blog. It's written to probably take about 10 minutes a day, plus another 10 to 20 on the exercises, but it's also pretty easy to read in longer chunks - you'll just have to be careful not to miss the benefits of the action points.

I've been thinking about shuttering this blog and restarting a more focused blog, so I was glad to sign up to receive a free review copy. I was really glad when I found out I was lucky enough to be getting one. Bryan Allain will be even more glad when lots of you spend a measly $4.99 for your own copy. That's like a couple boxes of really cheap cereal. Or one box of expensive cereal. The book's definitely worth it.

In fact, if it was cereal, the box would say: Great Stuff! Start your blog off right. Dig in and find your blogging mojo.*


*CAUTION: Contents will not stay crispy in milk.

10ST - 6 More Stupid Things in Youth Ministry

I recently completed a series of posts reflecting on Geoff Surrat's book Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches From Growing, and how those stupid things relate to youth ministry. I want to add one last post to sum it all up and add a few extras. The book primarily addresses lead pastors and the stupid things they do, but we youth ministers do our fair share of stupid things, too. In the previous posts, I've noted how each of Surrat's 10 things may pertain to youth ministry, so I won't rehash all that, but I will add a few to the list for youth ministers:

1.  Thinking parents are 'the other side/team'. Youth ministers, please hear me on this: We are supplemental.

10ST - Committees

10ST is an ongoing series digging into Geoff Surratt's Ten Stupid Things that Keep Churches from Growing and how those stupid things keep youth ministries from growing as well.

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Ok, so technically, committees themselves aren't the stupid thing as this title may suggest, but "letting committees steer the ship" is. Surratt suggests that letting committees lead decisions ineffectively slows the decision making process so much that it qualifies for stupid thing status. I'd have to agree. Vision (which is critical to leading well) comes from God, not from a committee. Instead of having committees to determine direction, we need God to tell us where He's leading... then we need courageous people to step out and follow, and we need effectively led and resourced teams to implement action.

At least in the circles I've grown up in, this stupid thing may be one of the most common. Our churches strongly (and sometimes even to our own detriment) maintain the independence of each congregation and choose our own leaders. Our system of choosing leaders can (but doesn't always) lead to a multitude of committees and meetings and agenda items. Without a compelling vision from God, these committees often degenerate into meetings with little sense of the need to actually accomplishing something. We came. We met. See you again next month/week/year...

Surratt offers a four pronged approach to leading well in a team environment that will benefit about every youth minister & pastor I know. (Remember, the committees aren't really the problem; it's when the committees lead rather than implement.)

1. Get a vision. Be alone with God enough that you know what He wants. If you don't have a clear and compelling picture of what God is calling you to do, it will be nearly impossible to see the team/committee you're leading flourish and grow.
2. Share the dream. Once the vision is clear, begin to share it with key leaders in your ministry.
3. Define the mission. As the team understands and buys into the vision, you need to be defining the specific roles and pieces and how those play into that vision. It's awesome when a team is able to put people into service in areas where they are genuinely gifted and passionate about serving to reach the mission.
4. Empower the missionaries. Keep the vision fresh, keep the team on mission, keep the path clear, and give the team what it needs to accomplish the mission.

10ST - Mixing Ministry & Business

10ST is an ongoing series digging into Geoff Surratt's Ten Stupid Things that Keep Churches from Growing and how those stupid things keep youth ministries from growing as well.

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This stupid thing is a little tricky. It must have been difficult to write - mixing the business of authoring with the ministry Surrat was leading at the time. (He does mention writing on vacation time to avoid an improper mix.) I'm inclined to think that this issue isn't quite as black & white as the title implies (and the actual content of the chapter indicates as much).

The point is still valid: It's stupid to use your position in ministry to gain a business advantage for yourself. Many pastors work bi-vocationally and do so with integrity. A list of my favorite pastors would include people who also make money as authors, entrepreneurs, film-makers, and a geologist. But very clear boundaries have to be established in order to successfully mix business and ministry.

10ST - Discipline over Reconciliation

10ST is an ongoing series digging into Geoff Surratt's Ten Stupid Things that Keep Churches from Growing and how those stupid things keep youth ministries from growing as well.

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This chapter may have been one of the most obviously relevant chapters to youth ministry. How do we respond when discipline is necessary in our ministries? It's often tempting to give in to the knee jerk & tell them they can't come anymore. It would often make our lives easier to do exactly that.

I once had a couple guys start coming to youth group who had a reputation for being in trouble a lot. I thought it was awesome that these guys wanted to be there at all, and prayed they'd quickly find a deeper connection with God. But, the parents of some of the other kids in the group didn't want them around. Actually, they threatened to stop bringing their kids if I allowed these two guys to keep coming. There was a real fear that I was allowing the bad influences into our group.

10ST - Copycat Church

10ST is an ongoing series digging into Geoff Surratt's Ten Stupid Things that Keep Churches from Growing and how those stupid things keep youth ministries from growing as well.

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Taking anything out of context is always a risky endeavor. Perfectly worded phrases in one book become nebulous mantras in another, devoid of the clarity that once was present. Appropriate attire for one occasion becomes awkward and even out of line for another. Best practices of one organization become the unexamined tradition of another.

In the church, this is stupid. We simply can't expect what God is doing in one place to function identically in another. Just because Rick Warren wears Hawaiian shirts on the West Coast doesn't mean the masses will come flocking to me in West Nebraska.

10ST - Bad Location

10ST is an ongoing series digging into Geoff Surratt's Ten Stupid Things that Keep Churches from Growing and how those stupid things keep youth ministries from growing as well.

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The 6th Stupid Thing that Surratt suggests will keep churches from growing is clinging to a bad location. He has some great examples of how location has hindered the growth of several churches he's known. A location that's difficult to find or located far from where the people of the church and those they're seeking to reach actually live can be a huge obstacle for a church to overcome. Inadequate, shoddy facilities, or even those that are simply not designed for the ministry the church wants to do can keep the church from moving forward.

The problem for most youth ministries is that we'll have very little input on location and facilities issues.

10ST - Promoting Talent Over Integrity

10ST is an ongoing series digging into Geoff Surratt's Ten Stupid Things that Keep Churches from Growing and how those stupid things keep youth ministries from growing as well.

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Marking the mid-point of our excursion through 10 Stupid Things is the promotion of talent before the reinforcement of integrity. Short version: if you make a habit of ignoring character flaws in the people you're working with, you'll cripple your ministry.

10ST - Settling for Low Quality Children's Ministry

10ST is an ongoing series digging into Geoff Surratt's Ten Stupid Things that Keep Churches from Growing and how those stupid things keep youth ministries from growing as well.

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Chapter 4 of 10 Stupid Things handles the topic of children's ministry. I think that a church who is willing to settle for a mediocre children's ministry is wasting one of the best opportunities it will ever have to shape lives. If the children's ministry is essentially babysitting church kids so the adults can have 'big church' without all the fuss and noise - then 'big church' has largely missed the point. I know that there are very few who would actually SAY they want their children's ministry to just keep the kids out of what's left of the adults' hair (though I have met several) but there are many more who functionally treat their children's ministries this way.

10ST - Doing It All

10ST will be an ongoing series digging into Geoff Surratt's Ten Stupid Things that Keep Churches from Growing and how those stupid things keep youth ministries from growing as well.
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Surratt starts off with what may be the most common of all the stupid things that keep churches from growing: the pastor trying to do it all. Just to be clear, it's not the pastor himself who is the stupid thing, but rather the action of trying to do it all that's the stupid thing... well, usually at least. For a variety of reasons, many pastors are compelled to do way more than what is healthy, both for themselves and for the churches they serve. It didn't take long in ministry for me to get a harsh introduction to this stupid thing.

Presenting

I've been reading Presentation Zen for a class I'm taking this Spring. Don't let the title scare you, I'm no more Eastern mystic today than I was last week when I celebrated the astrologically heralded birth of a Middle Eastern man who grew up to calm nature and to claim to be "the way" and to tell people they could live forever if they ate his flesh. Dang! Maybe I am a little mystic...

Anyway, the book is a great look at some of the basics of putting together a presentation that people will actually gain from, enjoy, and remember - a presentation that matters. If you have something to say, and you have the opportunity to say it to a bunch of people at once, this book could help you present your message more effectively. And that's pretty important, unless your message doesn't really matter. If that's the case, just skip the book and keep doing what you would have done anyway.

Formative Experience

"The heart will gravitate toward whatever offers adventure and significance." [from Joiner/Neiuwhof in Parenting Beyond Your Capacity: Connect Your Family to a Wider Community (The Orange Series)]

I really appreciated this book's overall approach to parenting, but this quote really stood out to me. Our primary responsibility as parents isn't just to keep our kids safe and cozy and above the influence of a cold, hard world. It's to lead our families to tell a story so great that people want to know Who wrote it. If we don't foster experiences that really matter, our kids will look for them somewhere else.

These experiences of "adventure and significance" help to form a faith that is deep enough to share. They lead kids to the realization that God can accomplish something meaningful through them. They lead them to tell the compelling story of God's restorative, redemptive work in them and in the world.

I'm curious, as a father and a youth minister... I'm always trying to create experiences that are formative for the faith of the young people I'm with (those who are 'mine' and those who are not). What experiences have been most formative for your faith? Are there ways we could work together to craft some similar experiences for another generation?

Fatherless Generation

One of the toughest issues I've dealt with in my years in youth ministry is the absence of fathers for so many of my students. I grew up with my mom and dad and big hairy case of being sheltered, so I remember being pretty floored within my first few months on staff at a great small town church, when I was confronted with the fact that so many of the students I was working with didn't know their dads. Unfortunately, what was foreign to me then has become a theme today. The particular struggles that are associated with growing up without Dad around have become all too familiar.

When I heard about The Mentoring Project several months ago, I was immediately excited about what they're doing.

Mad Church Disease

Anne Jackson has a new book out called Permission to Speak Freely that looks really interesting. I haven't read it yet, but I did finally pull Mad Church Disease from my pile of books waiting to be read. The book digs into the struggle with burnout that so many pastors feel from the perspective of someone who's been there (Jackson grew up as a pastor's daughter and has worked in a number of ministries as an adult) and offers hope in "overcoming the burnout epidemic" (the book's subtitle).

She points out some of the environmental factors inherent to ministry that contribute to burnout, but spends the bulk of the book seeking to give the reader some good tools for dealing with the stresses and expectations of ministry.

No one ever makes it alone.

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell makes a strong case for examining the way we think about success. He weaves together  wide ranging episodes from plane crashes to academic failure to Asian rice fields, & highlighting successful technological juggernauts, child prodigies, corporate takeover lawyers, inner city Middle school students, Junior National hockey teams and even the Beatles (yes, those Beatles). The common thread in these otherwise disparate stories is Gladwell's tip of the hat to the support players and circumstances that made success possible for those people who seem to stand above the crowd.

"No one - not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses - ever makes it alone." This is the recurrent thought of Outliers. No one makes it alone. The "self-made man" is a myth. For every individual that has seemingly risen above the rubble to achieve success, there is a litany of opportunities that made the hard work even possible. Bill Gates became "Bill Gates" because he was afforded a series of opportunities not offered to everyone, and he seized those opportunities in order to make the most of the exceptional intellect he'd been born with. The Beatles became great through a series of very fortunate events that allowed them to hone their craft in a way that wasn't possible for most young Liverpool musicians.

The question for me, then becomes: What am I doing to build a culture of success in which my students can thrive? Am I offering blank pages upon which they can paint the dreams God has planted in them, or merely teaching them to stay inside the lines? Will my students be able to one day look back and see a door I held open for them, or will they wish someone had given them the opportunity they needed?

What are you doing to prepare the young generation to succeed? How are you building an environment that builds them up and offers opportunity? Who's standing on your shoulders?

A Few of My Favorite Things of 2009

No raindrops on roses here, or even whiskers on kittens... but since the year is winding down, here are a few of my favorite new and not so new things from 2009:

Experiences:
Lucid -WestWay hosted the 2009 rendition of the Spring Thing youth rally this year. The rain was incessant, and the attendance was low - but One Time Blind was awesome and God was simply amazing. It was a great weekend of worship and being challenged to deeper faith. Here's a post with some after thoughts regarding the weekend.
Catalyst West Coast - Immediately following Lucid, I headed to the west coast for Catalyst with my good friends, Jimmy and Rodd. (No that's not a euphemism for a couple travelling goodies packed away in my suitcase, it's the two names of two guys that I drug to California in April.) Catalyst was a great experience from which I took away so much that I'll spare you a rehash here.  But check out my posts from late April to see what we were gleaning from a great rented Mustang ride, Andy Stanley, Perry Noble, Guy Kawasaki (and the rest of an incredible speaker lineup), as well as In-n-Out, Jack in the Box, and Chick-fil-A induced euphoria.
The Coldwater Mission - This was the summer when I finally was able to pull together a group of students and adults to go on a mission trip to an unknown location with an unknown job to do.  We depended on God and got to see Him work in some exciting and wall-paper-scraping ways! Most of these posts from August revolve around Coldwater.

Books:
Sustainable Youth Ministry - A lot of youth ministry is not sustainable. It just can't keep going the way it's going. Youth ministers burn out, volunteers flame out, and students check out. This book will go a long way toward helping a church that wants to build a youth ministry with a larger view than the next big event. Any church looking for a youth minister needs to have the search team (or whoever is responsible for the selection) read and discuss this book early in the process.

Primal & Wild Goose Chase - Goose Chase is a challenging look at the Holy Spirit as the guiding force of our lives. We don't need to be in control as much as we need to be responsive. Primal digs into what is really at the essence of Christianity - and what is all too often deficient in our day to day living: loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, & strength. I really appreciate how Batterson pulls together so many different fields of interest in illuminating Scripture.

An Unstoppable Force - The first book by Erwin McManus I came across several years ago, I still think it's his best. I don't re-read very many books, but this one is one of my annual favorites. The church can (and should) be so much more than what most people (even many of those on the inside) think it is. I gave away my copy this year, but will definitely be buying another in 2010.

Tribes - This book was a freebie from Catalyst this spring. Glad I got it! Lots of great stuff about how a group of people can come together with leadership. I'm still not completely comfortable with calling someone my "tribe" but there is a lot of wisdom to be found here.

Jim & Casper Go to Church - Henderson and Casper let us in on a great experiment: church guy and atheist visit churches together all across the country and share perspectives/observations with each other. Lots of eye-opening stuff.

They Like Jesus, But not the Church - Kimball shares the stories of a generation who has grown very skeptical of the church, but still have a pretty high opinion of Jesus (even if it's based on an incomplete perception of him). Enlightening thoughts about some areas where we (the church) may not be reflecting Jesus as well as we think we are.

UnChristian - Completing the "take of the insider-blinders" trifecta, this book, based on solid research, shares what young people outside the church see when they look at the church. Perception is important, and younger generations are not perceiving the church in a very healthy light - we need to do better.

Crazy Love & Forgotten God - Are we really in love with Jesus? Does our faith make too much sense? Francis Chan opens his heart and shares a glimpse of what it looks like to really love Jesus in Crazy Love. Forgotten God focuses on the "third person" of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit. Why is it that we don't seem to talk about Him near as much as the Father and the Son? Is He really just a "silent partner" in the Godhead? I don't think so, and Chan does a great job leading the reader into a deeper walk with the Holy Spirit.

Music:
new worship music - Steve Fee led a number of the sessions of worship at Catalyst West Coast with the Hillsong United crew leading a couple times. The passion with which these guys approach their craft sparked something within me that's been a little dormant for way too long. The church needs to continually create great art that is an expression of worship given to our Creator.

Websites/Tech:
NewSpring Community Church - After being so encouraged by their pastor in April, I began to dig into the website of this church in South Carolina. These guys are doing awesome stuff with technology and teamwork. Check out their services sometime (either live or archived).
Twitter - I'm usually way too wordy for only 140 characters, but decided to give this a shot earlier this year. It's a fun and interesting way to share thoughts. I've especially loved getting a peak into the everyday workings of some leaders I greatly respect. You'll find me as 6drews on twitter if you're dying to see if I can really say anything with such a restricted word count! One thought that twitter has brought to mind is that if I can't tweet a sermon (summarize it in 140 characters), the people I'm talking to probably don't know what I'm talking about either...
Friends Starting Blogs
Several friends have started blogging this year - some often, some not quite so often. I'm excited to see what will develop as my WestWay friends share what God is doing through this forum. I've gained a great deal from blogging and am praying they will too. Check the "Blogs of Local Friends and Family" area on the left side of this page to see what they're saying.  Feel free to castigate any of them who have not posted lately!

Family:
Mine is awesome! No additions this year, but Liz turned 3, Josiah is still hilarious, Dakota is the coolest 1st grader I know, and Emily is closer to the age I was when I got married than to the age she was when she started to walk! Their mom spent the year being incredible. She is definitely my favorite.

Primal Book Review

A few months ago, I caught an invitation on Mark Batterson's blog to review his upcoming release Primal as part of a blog tour for the book. I signed up with the publisher, then sort of forgot about it. Over the next several weeks, Batterson had giveaways on his blog of his book to various groups; campus pastors, worship pastors, lead pastors... I eagerly waited for the book to be offered to youth pastors, but to no avail. Then an e-mail came from the publisher and I remembered I did indeed have a free book on the way, anyway!

I've enjoyed Batterson's blog and the other two books I've read from him, so I had high expectations for Primal. The subtitle of the book (A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity) really struck a chord with me. As a youth minister, I work with a lot of people who's faith seems to have lost (or never really found) its soul... so many people acting out what they think they "should" be doing and not really fully living.

The book digs into the question, "What is the primal essence of Christianity?" and discovers that at the heart of our faith is the Great Commandment: to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. "We need to be great at the Great Commandment."  Batterson dives into what it means to love God in 4 parts within the book (heart, soul, mind, strength). In each segment, he weaves Scripture with research and stories from a broad range of topics to explore loving God completely.

All of this, for Batterson, leads to a new Reformation of the church. A reformation not led by powerful personalities or creedal figures, but by "millions of reformers living compassionately, creatively, and courageously for the cause of Christ. It will be marked by broken hearts and sanctified imaginations. And the driving force will be the love of God. A love that is full of compassion, wonder, curiosity, and energy."

I looked back over the year and found that the first book I read in 2009 was Batterson's Wild Goose Chase. It was a great place to start the year. Primal is a great place for you to start 2010. Rediscover your primal love for God.

An UnChristian Church...

I've mentioned here before how I grew up in the church. "If the church doors are open, we're there." was inscribed on the family coat of arms that hung above the fireplace, just below the swords and muskets. Ok, there was no coat of arms, but if there were... Being at church all the time shaped my view of Christianity very early. When I graduated HS, I got married and went to Bible College. Not too long after graduating there, I got my first 'real job' - in youth ministry, in the church. About 7 years after that, I moved to my second 'real job' - in youth ministry, in the church.

Being 'in the church' as long as I can remember has continued to shape my view of Christianity. I've always seen it from the inside. The church is my family. The church has been the environment where my greatest friendships have developed. I love the church. Even when the church misses the mark with crazy rules about where donuts and cupcakes belong, and with silly songs from the 70's, and with a deficiency of sugar in the VBS Kool-Aid... I will still love the church.

I just finished reading unchristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. Based on extensive research of people with a very different perspective, the book offered hard data to verify some of what I've noticed for a long time: A lot of people outside the church do not see what we should want them to see. At the risk of furthering misunderstanding, I will agree that "We have an image problem." When young people look at the church from the outside, they don't see God - and that is a problem that is not entirely their fault.

The subtitle of the book offers an explanation of what a new generation really thinks about Christianity... and why it matters. 10 years ago in my youth ministry, I determined that one of the biggest obstacles that I faced in trying to engage young people in the church was that many young people thought that church is boring. (To be fair, 'boring church' is all that many young people have ever encountered.) I have learned in my life that being connected and directed by the Holy Spirit of Jesus is anything but boring... so I determined to set about correcting that misconception. I still fight it, and will probably fight it until the day I die. Following Jesus is not boring... if the church is boring, you're not doing it right! {Note to students - I know I'm not the most exciting guy all the time, and I'm sorry for every moment I've ever bored you. Please dive deeper with me into Jesus and I promise HE will not bore either of us!}

When the young people I know think about the church, I want them to see Jesus. I want them to know the living, breathing Body of Christ that belongs to the mission of God. Unchristian is full of evidence that that's not what they see at all. I would like them to describe the church as compassionate and caring, loving and life-affirming, vibrant... Survey says... XXX

The most commonly used descriptions that Mosaics and Busters (the generations surveyed - generally between 16-29) used fell into 6 themes that are explored in the book:

-Hypocritical - Christians say one thing but live something entirely different.

-Too focused on conversion - Christians are insincere and concerned only with converting others.

-Anti-homosexual - Christians show contempt for gays and lesbians.

-Sheltered - Christians are boring, unintelligent, old-fashioned, and out of touch with reality.

-Too political - Christians are primarily motivated by a political agenda and promote right-wing politics.

-Judgmental - Christians are prideful and quick to find faults in others.

If "perception is reality", then this is a problem. Before you succumb to the knee jerk reaction, remember, these perceptions have come from somewhere. Real people have seen hypocritical Christians slam sinners, only to be revealed indulging in the very sins they railed against. Real people have felt like targets who were quickly dismissed by Christian 'friends' when it didn't look they'd convert. Real people have seen the churches holding 'God hates fags' signs - and rolled us all up into that same stereotype. This isn't always fair to all of us, but it's happening. And even if the perceptions are not true, we can't just let them persist... we have to give evidence that the perceptions are false.

Kinnaman and Lyons offer a great deal of hope for the future here. Each of the objections is buffered by a new reality - a new perception that we, the church, should work to create. We should be letting people see:

-"We are transparent about our flaws and act first, talk second."

-"We cultivate relationships and environments where others can be deeply transformed by God."

-"We show compassion and love to all people, regardless of their lifestyle."

-"We are engaged, informed, and offer sophisticated responses to the issues people face."

-"We are characterized by respecting people, thinking biblically, and finding solutions to complex issues."

-"We show grace by finding the good in others and seeing their potential to be Christ followers."

I hope you'll join me in revealing a church that is more like Jesus than many people are seeing right now. We can't just say it... we have to live it.

Sustainable?

This summer schedule has killed my reading. Once camp season hit, I basically only read a chapter here and there. I did, however, manage to finish a literary youth ministry trifecta:

Youth Ministry 3.0 from Mark Oestreicher, Sustainable Youth Ministry from Mark Devries, and Simple Student Ministry from Eric Geiger and Jeff Borton. Each of the three had their merits, but the one I'd most recommend is Sustainable Youth Ministry. It addresses the church as much as the youth leader - every church looking to hire a new youth minister should require the search team to read this book before even taking resumes.

DeVries tackles a lot of the church systems issues that can cripple youth ministry. He doesn't just bash the adult oriented church, however, these are issues that can be resolved to enhance the ministry of the whole church.

SYM also addresses the long-term nature of youth ministry. Many churches focus on the short-term when thinking about youth ministry. We only have them for a few years, right? But healthy youth ministry doesn't really stop when a student graduates, and the things we do that may bring short-term "success" may do little to develop long term disciples. Devries offers helpful wisdom to churches who want to do more than graduate a bunch of shiny, happy faces into a life they are not equipped to handle. He offers help to those churches and youth workers that want to build environments in which young disciples can thrive. This is one that I will definitely return to.

*DeVries also has an organization called Youth Ministry Architects that does consulting to help churches build youth ministries that are sustainable.