Kennywood

So I finally did it: I went to Kennywood.

For those of you don't know, Kennywood is an amusement park here in Pittsburgh that I have avoided going to for the two years I've lived in Pittsburgh.  But last night, our youth group went, (18 kids, 4 leaders) so I finally went.  And for the record, I had fun.

It ended up being basically six of us (four adults (yes Patrick, I even counted you as an adult), three high school kids) who bummed around together for the night.  I even went on the Jack Rabbit (Twice even!) and the Thunderbolt.  Now, mainly my parents, will confess that me and roller coasters have had a up and down relationship.  I used to love the log flume at Darien Lake, but as I got older the whole "stomach dropping" thing became less fun.  Now, in all honesty, the Jack Rabbit and the Thunderbolt are not intense roller coasters at all and I did wimp out of going on the Phantom.  But none the less, I was proud of myself for getting on them and even having fun.  What was funny was that Sean and I crammed into one car on the jackrabbit which prevented us from really flying around much.  The second time I went on the jackrabbit I was alone in the car and when we hit the double dip (where the cars literally leave the tracks for what feels like a few seconds) I came flying out of my seat, it was pretty cool.

Anyway, that was my excitement for a Friday night.  I guess it’s a good sign when my idea of fun on a Friday night is going with a bunch of kids to Kennywood rather than go out to a bar.      

Danny

Normally my blog entries are full of rather dense entries with my reflecting on something I've read.  Today's blog entry won't be like that, I promise.

Everything I'm about to tell you is public knowledge so I'm using his real name.  I want to tell you a story about a little boy and a marvelous family.  Danny is a sixth grader in our youth group.  He is the foster child of a family who have been long time members of the church.  The mom and dad have a reputation for being excellent parents, and I have observed this for myself in their other three children.  So really, Danny couldn’t be with a nicer family.  But Danny has a lot going against him.  He was adopted from a Russian orphanage, but the family that adopted him abused him by locking him in closets, etc.  So, he was put in foster care and this family from our church took him in, at least for now.

Now, don't get me wrong Danny is not an angel by any means.  Last week at the end of youth group I had had enough of him, and when he gets wound up he gets out of control.  But the thing is that Danny is a child of God, who despite all the suffering that he has endured, God has worked in this child's life to bring him through.  Right now, he is with an excellent family and he has found a place in our youth group.  I have "adopted" Danny so to speak when it comes to youth group.  I make it a point to sit with him during youth group, and to talk to him every time I see him in church.  He knows that I mean business when I speak to him (it doesn't mean he always listens) but we're working on things together.  

The first week he was in youth group Danny volunteered to close the group in prayer.  He got about two lines into the prayer and was praying that he could get over everything that had happened to him and he simply broke down in tears.  I had to finish the prayer for him.  But, last week he was able to tell the group about the abuse he had suffered without tears, and turned to me afterward with this huge smile on his face and said, "I did it!  I talked about my other family without crying!"  It looked like the kid had just been given a huge candy bar.  Even though the moment before and the moment after that I want to string him up (he was really acting up last week) at that moment I saw a glimpse of what life is supposed to be like, what kids are supposed to be like, because the whole group was silent when he was talking.  Dead silent, I mean really, dead silent, and that is saying a lot for a group of 20 middle schoolers.  They recognized that something special was happening, that a moment of transformation was occurring in this kids life and they could be witnesses to it.  Also, in Danny's eyes I saw the joy of a child, and there is nothing better than that.  

Kids like Danny are the reason I'm in youth ministry.  You see, there are kids I love to work with – they're the kids who read their bibles every day, pray often, and show up in church all the time.  Why do I love to work with these kids?  Because they want to go deep in their faith, they want to learn more, and they want to be disciples.  But the kids who really need to be loved are kids like Danny, who have been wounded and need to know that they are loved by a lot of people.  Frankly, I doubt very much Danny will remember me, and honestly that's okay.  I know for a fact that I am making a difference in this kid's life and helping him along, and that's what really matters.  

Postmodern Evangelism?

Its funny how all the sudden two worlds combine.

This term I am reading, albeit slowly, Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics III.4, the Doctrine of Creation.  In this volume Barth lays out his ethics.  It wasn't my choice to read III.4, but I wanted to do an independent study with Dr. Burgess reading something related to Barth, and he chose III.4.  Since I haven't taken anything but the basic intro to ethics course, I thought it might be good to read, and it has been.  While I am hoping to shift to something else next term, it has definitely been worthwhile.

All this is only a set up for my main point.  Lately I've been thinking about what Evangelism looks like in the Postmodern context, and on Sunday my Sunday school class talked about the issue of evangelism.  The end result of that discussion was that most people are rather uneasy with evangelism, because of the connotation that it brings with it.  And to be honest, as discouraging as that is to hear, I think I have to agree.

One of the keys that I've seen in the Postmodern age in which we live, especially among youth is this: "Truth is only truth that I've experienced".  In other words, if a Postmodern student hasn't lived through something, it isn't true for them.  Now, to be honest I'm not sure how different that is from the "Modern" era, but its something I've noticed.  Here is where Barth's comments are helpful.  

Barth basically says in the opening of his section on the Active Life that the primary duty of the Christian is to co-operate with the Christian community in service to God to the community.  A few quotes
"If we want to show men the kingdom of God, we must prove that we care for them just as they are, that we regard them as fellow-creatures in distress, and that we feel bound and obligated to them as such because of the kingdom which has already appeared, because of the salvation which has been declared to them, because of the fact that Jesus Christ has been born and has acted as their Brother, because of the fact that this has been done to their advantage"
"If this neighbour experiences opposition, hatred, contempt, or even indifference from this circle (Barth is referring to the circle of Christian live which connects those within the church), if he is attacked by it, if a different wind from that of genuine human freedom blows on him, how can he attend and listen to the testimony of the freedom of the Spirit, of the kingdom and grace, which is supposedly born to him?"  (CD, III.4, Pg. 503)

Basically, if Christians don't show love to someone outside the church, if we don't prove that love through service, which includes but is not limited to speaking, then we cannot possibly expect them to listen to the testimony of the Spirit.  So what of those Christians who are unwilling to do love men?
"They can only prove thereby that they are not too sure about this (whether or not they themselves are loved by God) themselves, and perhaps that they are not even aware of."

Then Barth lays out a few presuppositions that must undergird this service.  This one I especially like:
"Their decisive presupposition in respect to every man can be only that Jesus Christ has died for his sin too, and for his salvation."  (Don't mind the lack of inclusive language, Barth wrote in an age before that was a big deal).  
So Christians must view everyone in the eyes of Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ died for that person too, and Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior whether they know it or not.  

In summary: "The whole credibility of the Christian service of witness as a human act depends on whether the work of active human love precedes and follows it, accompanying and sustaining it as the commentary and illustration of an eloquent parable".
The Christian act of service is a "symbolic action" of the Word of God (understood both as the person of Jesus Christ as well as the promises delivered in him) made real in a person's life.  As I've heard many times from kids, "show me" or "prove it!".  Barth is saying that Christians show the gospel to be true when they live it in service to the community.  

All of this leads to the conclusion that my next paper (for this class) will be the something along the lines of the follow: Service as Evangelism: Karl Barth's theology of The Active Life as a model for Evangelism in the Postmodern Context

Worship Materials

I’ve posted the material I used last night (the PowerPoint slides) on my website.  They are available either as a PDF or as a PowerPoint file.  Please feel free to take them and use them in anyway you want to.  The prayers were all written by me, and the call to worship came from the Book of Common Worship of the PC(USA) Psalter.  The images were all taken off the web.  I did leave just empty slides that said “Song” where we put a song.

Enjoy!

Northmont goes Participatory!

Tonight I tried something completely new at the SON service.  The SON service is a contemporary worship service we have every Sunday night, but the people who attend it are quite flexible and willing to try new things.  So tonight I threw something new (to them anyway) that looked a little something like this.

Call to Worship
Song
Prayer of Adoration/Thanksgiving
Song
Prayer of Confession
Song
Scripture Reading
Sermon
Offertory
Communion
Time of Response with stations
Pastoral Prayer
Closing Song
Benediction

It was a mix of traditional liturgy that one would find at many traditional Presbyterian services, combined with the contemporary music that we use normally at the SON service.  Another twist was that my PowerPoint slides weren’t just words, but also including various images, mainly Eastern Orthodox icons.  Even the slides that just contained the scripture passages were fancied up a bit with differences in college, font, and size for the key words in the passage.  The sermon itself was pretty standard fair (although I didn’t bother to print it out and I just preached from my laptop tonight).  After that we did the normal Offertory and then communion (which we do every week).  But immediately following communion I had set up a couple different stations for people to go to.  One was a station where they could light a candle and say a prayer for someone, another was a station where they could take a rock and drop it into water, to symbolize letting go of a burden that they were carrying.  At another station people could fill out a prayer request card that would then be included in the pastoral prayer, and finally if a person wanted to be prayed for individually I was standing off to the side, out of the way.  The key station for the night was one where people were invited to take pencil and a piece of paper and write a letter to God or their neighbor (the Sermon was on the greatest two commandments).  

I have to say this group of pretty typical Presbyterians did a really great job with participatory worship.  A number of people commented they liked the mix of liturgy and music, and the response stations were a real hit, as I almost ran out of candles to be lit, and there were quite a few rocks in the bottom of the bowl.  I think when I preach in a couple weeks I’ll try something similar, but change a few stations to provide some variety as well as make at least one station that is specific to the message of the night.  It took a little more work to get everything set up, but I think it was worth it in the end.  

The next great task will be making the worship here at PTS on November 3rd participatory.  That actually may prove to be a greater challenge, we’ll see.

My latest idea...

So somewhere during this weekend's National Youth Workers Convention it struck me: Youth Ministry is in desperate need of a new theological paradigm from which to operate.  As I heard stories from various burned-out over-worked stressed-out "I know I can do it myself" youth workers I realized that the problem was at its core theological.

Don't get me wrong, its not that these are bad people.  On the contrary, most of the youth workers who were like this that I talked to were like that because they were pouring their lives out for their kids and become frustrated at the seeming lack of results from their efforts.  Honestly, who can blame them?   Here they are doing everything they can think of and still kids aren't responding to them.  

So the question now becomes… what can be done?  Last year I took Pastoral Care from Andrew Purves and he presented to us a model for ministry that is profoundly Christological (Christ-centered).  The central element is that the role of the pastor is to bear witness to what Jesus Christ is doing for a person or a community.  So, in essence the focus is on pointing the way to Jesus rather than taking the burden upon oneself.  I took that model and as well as I could I applied it to youth ministry in a paper I wrote for my Foundations of Youth Ministry paper.  (While there is much in that paper that needs to be improved the central theological work in the first part is a basic introduction to what I am thinking.)  While I struggle to apply the model in practice, it has gotten easier with time and I now find that using his paradigm to think about ministry is quite freeing.  

This spring Dr. Purves is going to be teaching a new class based on his book including reading the background texts which shaped that book.  So, I am going to take it in hopes that it will continue to help me develop this project more.  While it would be presumptuous to say that I will someday publish a book, it is my hope that whether published or not (the beauty of the internet is that you can self-publish if needed) I can help relate his work which is quite monumental in its own right, to the area of youth ministry.  I also recognize that I really need to get a few more years of experience in full-time ministry under my belt before I'll have the credibility or experience to write such a book, so I'm not talking about a short term project by any means.  But it’s a plan right now.  

This Weekend

Well, this weekend was just too busy to really unpack everything that happened.  But I want to share some thoughts here briefly.

The first is that Sunday October 16th officially marked 1 year of my relationship with Renee.  It has been a wonderful year with a wonderful friend, the first of many many more for the two of us.  June 3rd 2006… Sometimes God works things out in marvelous ways that honestly, if you tried to plan it out, you'd never even think of a brilliant plan like God will.  That's the case with Renee and I, and it's worked out better than I ever expected.

The second is an anonymous thank you.  A friend of mine is a youth director and has just been having a heck of time handling a very difficult situation.  I've talked with him/her quite a bit about it to be honest, he/she is doing a marvelous job in my opinion.  At the National Youth Workers Convention I heard a lot about how youth workers are called to pour out their lives into their students, and he/she is modeling for me what that really means.  You see, I'm a theoretician, which means I love to sit and think about how to do youth ministry.  It's part of my personality really, being a TJ (thinking-judgment type person).  I love analyzing books like Purpose-Driven Youth Ministry and Postmodern Youth Ministry.  I love thinking about how I can related the work of Andrew Purves in Pastoral Theology specifically to the context of youth ministry.  While all this is essential to youth ministry (because there is no proper praxis without proper theology) the praxis is equally as important, but in many ways far more time consuming, difficult, and draining.  But that is exactly what he/she is doing; pouring out his/her life his/her kids, and it remarkable to watch.  So, thank you for all that you're doing in these kids lives, because you are making a difference.  

National Youth Workers Convention I

National Youth Worker’s Convention Part I

So I entitle this Part I because I am sure there will be many more postings to come.  Needless to say, I’ve had a wild weekend so far.  

Thursday afternoon I took Doug Fields’ “Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry” course.  It was five hours long and it was worthwhile.  While I don’t agree with Doug on everything, I find it hard, if not impossible to argue against his five purposes.  While one might be able to add to this list, worship, evangelism, fellowship, discipleship, and ministry is a pretty good list.  While I might not agree with how Doug implements these five things, he never asks you to do that.  He says that you take the principles and implement them in your own context.  

Friday morning I had to miss the second part of Fields’ presentation because of a Hebrew midterm.  It wasn’t as bad as I expected and there’s even a chance I did quite well, but I’ll find out next week.

Friday afternoon and evening were back at the NYWC and what a time.  Jars of Clay, David Crowder Band, Doug Fields, Mark Yaconelli, and David Kimball.  Kimball’s presentation was on New Questions that our Postmodern Context is asking was really good and I thought he had some excellent points to make.  Doug Fields talked about the need to say no, in order to save ourselves and also our families.  

Today featured a presentation by Holly Rankin Zaher (formerly of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry) that dealt with the topic of Evangelism to/with Postmodern Students.  Then another general session, followed by long workshops of which I chose to attending Dan Kimball’s “Worship beyond Singing and Preaching” which was excellent, but the room was so cold and I was just getting tired of sitting in workshops all day long.  Tonight we had a wonderful general session to close the night.

Tonight was “Late Night Theology Discussion” with Tony Jones.  This was quite interesting to say the last as people were from all over the map when it came to theological perspectives.  

By far the hit of the conference so far has been the David Crowder Band who has been leading worship for the past two days.  They are absolutely marvelous.  They are done as of today, but Chris Tomlin takes over tomorrow, and tomorrow night is the special Third Day concert.  The conference wraps up on Monday around 1.  

The fun part about this conference has been the great sense of confirmation that youth ministry is where I am called.  I worried, and still do worry, that I want to do youth ministry more than God is calling me to do youth ministry and that I am trying to control my own destiny, but things in my life continually point to youth ministry as where I am supposed to be right now, and that makes me happy.

Update

So things have been a tad nuts since I've gotten back from D.C.  I got back late on Sunday night (around 11) and then went to class in the morning.  Since then I've been studying for my two midterm this week as well as getting ready for the National Youth Workers Convention which I'm attending this weekend here in Pittsburgh.  That starts on Thursday (from 1-6) and then continues on Friday morning.  I decided tonight that I am going to skip the Friday morning session because of my Hebrew midterm rather than try to take it Thursday morning, which would mean certain failure on my part.  I also have a paper due next Tuesday and I'm not real sure when I'll tackle that.  Anyway, after next week my slow should slow a bit and I should be able to return to my normal blogging routine.  

Generous Orthodoxy

Note: The content of this post hasn't changed, but the original formatting made it entirely unreadable

Blogging live from the Generous Orthodoxy Conference (literally live... I'm sitting in the sanctuary of the church in the middle of a plenary session)The conference has been really good, maybe the best two day conference I've ever attended.  I guess part of what I like is that people here are thinking in entirely different paradigms than I'm used to.  The traditional world of Presbyterianism is a wonderful world, but its not much when it comes to new ideas, let alone brand new paradigms in how to do church.

A couple thoughts
1) Why is the Session in the Presbyterian Church the chief administrative body while we deploy "mission" to the "Mission Committee".  Shouldn't the Session be the chief "missional decision making body" in the church?  Also, why do we have such a small view of "Mission".  Mission is the holistic task of the Christian church: We are called to participate in the mission of God in the world.  Mission starts with discernment of where is God working in the world followed by a plan toward effective holistic participation in that mission.  So what is the mission of the church?  It can't be put into a one line universal mission of all churches.  There are a number of concepts that need to factored in (Great Commission, Greatest Commandment, etc.) but it needs to be discerned individually within the given framework of a church.  For example, the mission of a suburban church in the North Hills of Pittsburgh will be different than a urban church in downtown, which will be different than a rural church in Butler County.   But regardless, in the Presbyterian system the session ends up making administrative decisions which could easily be delegated to an administrative affairs committee, thus freeing the session to talk about the church's mission (which will change not only every time a pastor changes but in fact month to month).
2) Where is Pittsburgh Seminary in the midst of this?  I am listening to a presentation from three seminaries (George Fox, Mars Hill, and Biblical) and these seminaries are on the forefront of addressing the issues that are being discussed here.
3) I've had the chance over the last day and a half to spend a fair amount of time with Dr. John Franke of Biblical Seminary and (although I fear he might read this) I’ve been really impressed.  I started reading his book last week so I’d have a better grasp of his thinking and while there are parts I am still wondering about (because as the publisher put it he uses a Post-conservative Evangelical approach which entails new language, especially about language itself) I’ve been impressed.  He builds a great deal on the work of Karl Barth (which is always a good thing).

Anyway, I need to get back to paying attention and not blogging in the middle of a seminar.          

Update

So in the midst of the next two weeks my life goes from relatively calm and serene to hectic.  Why?  Well, tomorrow I leave for Maryland to attend the Generous Orthodoxy Conference.  I come back from there on Sunday.  The good news is that I don't have a Hebrew quiz Monday, but I do have Church and Sacraments midterm on Tuesday.  Then on Thursday morning I need to take my Hebrew midterm, because starting Thursday afternoon until the following Monday I will be attending the Youth Specialties Conference here in Pittsburgh.  The day after the conference ends I have a paper due in Church and Sacraments.  After that… I have… well, nothing really.  

Hence, my blogging will probably slow considerably.  Alas, it'll all be worth it when its done.