what do we do with the youth?

I’m now in the sixth year of being a youth pastor, and in that span of time I’ve thought and considered and observed quite a lot in regards to the place of youth within the greater church community.  Most of the time I have ended up completely frustrated and at a loss.

Occasionally I’ll pick up an issue of some popular magazine geared toward youth workers and ministries, and have read articles about how the youth of the church need to be integrated into the congregation, and not become some seperate entity that never interacts with the older generations of the church.  I’ve read various books by Emergent authors in which they talk about community, and how the generations needs to interact and the youth need to be valued and become an integral part of the community.  And it all sounds good.  Fantastic, even.

But exactly how does that happen?

I’ve just come on as a pastor of student ministries at a rural church and have already had multiple people approach me about various ”opportunities” for the youth.  All of the “offers” consisted of having the youth go somewhere to do free manual labor (chop wood, weed gardens, rake leaves, etc.).  And this isn’t anything new–at the previous church I served at, it was frequently the same. 

I live in a woodsy/mountainous area with lots of forests and lakes.  Subsequently there are numerous camps and retreat centers and lodges scattered throughout the area.  Yesterday after the church service, the director of one of them approached me and began by saying that a group that had planned on renting the camp a few weeks from now had cancelled, and that the lodge and cabins would be empty for that weekend.  I must admit that I was excited, and pre-emptively assumed that this person was going to generously invite the youth group to come use the camp for that weekend.  I had already thought of several things we could do up there over the weekend when they said it would be a ”great opportunity for the youth” to come up and chop wood and help clean the facilities. 

Now, I’m not at all against manual labor or getting students to engage in hard work.  In fact, I think it’s a great thing to help instill some discipline and teach them how to give of themselves and help people in need, etc.  But is that all people view the youth as good for…cheap labor?  Is that really the only place for youth within the church community, to be babysat and have their hands kept busy by raking leaves or pushing a broom?  How do we get beyond this pervasive mindset that they’re “too young” to really deal with serious matters and issues, to be an integral part of the actual rythms of the community and its gatherings?

I would love to hear from others how they have attempted this or what they’ve seen done, what worked and what didn’t.  Because I’ve heard a lot of people urging it to happen.  I’ve heard a lot of people hoping for it to happen.  But I’m not actually seeing it, and I’m having a hard time figuring out how to do it.

from rural to…more rural?

Look to yourselves, ye polished gentlemen!
No city airs or arts pass current here.
Your rank is all reversed; let men of cloth
bow to the stalwart churls in overalls:
they are the doctors of the wilderness,
And we the low-prized laymen.
In sooth, red flannel is a saucy test
which few can put on with impunity.
What make you, master, fumbling at the oar?
Will you catch crabs? Truth tries pretention here.
The sallow knows the basekt-makers thumb;
the oar, the guide’s. Dare you accept the tasks
he shall impose, to find a spring, trap foxes,
tell the sun’s time, determine the true north,
or stumbling on through vast self-similar woods
to thread by night the nearest way to camp?
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A couple weeks from now we’ll be moving to a new community called Plain.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it’s going to be like there, what the culture is about, who the people are.

This past winter we had some pretty big snow, and at one point some lines went down under the weight.  Plain was one of the communities that lost power because of it.  I was at a local Starbucks and heard a local lineman talking about the incident and how it took two days to fix the lines, primarily because they had gone down in a such a remote and hard to reach area in the mountains.  For two straight days the people in Plain were without power in the middle of winter…and there wasn’t a single phone call made.  They didn’t complain.  They didn’t freak out.  They just got through it.  Contrast that with a windstorm this last spring and some lines that went down in one of the biggest cities around here (and large sections of town remained with power) and the near countless phone calls the power company received.

It seems this new community has a sort of rugged independence about it.  I’m told that people live there because they want to.  They made a conscious decision to live there in semi-isolation from the larger towns and communities of the area.  I’m not sure how or if this will play out.  Will it be a helping hand in forming community, or a hindrance?  Will relying on other people (or even accepting help) be seen as a weakness, an affront to their very DNA? 

In previous entries I’ve talked about trying to create a center, a common space.  Even in the confines of my small town it seemed hard…but in a place like this?  How does that happen?  And does it need to?  Do you need to get everyone together regularly under one roof, or is a nebulous network of relationships enough?

I’m looking forward to serving with the pastor of the local church there (there’s only one, so it is very much a non, or should I say multi, denominational church) as he is really about community.  He doesn’t want to create a church community within the community…but a community.  To to live and work and serve in such a way that everyone benefits, and hopefully, many are drawn to follow the way of Christ and help in bringing about healing and restoration and new creation.

[dis]connection

I spent this past weekend in Seattle.  The first night in the city I stayed with an old friend from high school, and we spent the evening catching up, hopping from one of his hangouts to the next.  My friend is single, and I asked him how the search was going for a relationship and whether it was easy or hard to meet a girl in a city.  My assumptionn was that it would be easier: with so many people coming into contact with one another, it seems logical that you would run into more people, have more opportunities for meeting people and getting together.  But my friend said that he only tends to frequent a handful of places, and a lot of other people tend to do the same…so you end up seeing the same people all the time.  In the midst of this, mini-communities tend to form around these places (even if not everyone there knows one another).

By the end of the night we ended up at an English-style pub called The George and Dragon.  My friend mentioned that this, too, was a place he frequented.  He told me that during the week there are actually quite a few older British folks that frequent the place to hang out, converse with others, watch a football (soccer) game.  During World Cup season it’s almost standing room only.  But on Friday and Saturday nights (which is when we were there), a younger crowd tends to fill the place.  As we were sitting there, surrounded by white walls and dark wood trim and a vintage poster of Winston Churchill above my head, I started thinking about what a center of community a place like this serves to be.  It’s a gathering place.  It’s a place where people show up regularly and networks of friends and people brush together and interact and sometimes interconnect.  It’s a space that allows people to come together, that encourages it.

The next day I was with some different people, and one of them made a comment about how the suburbs “kill your soul.”  They talked about how seperated people were there and how disjointed everything was. 

“It’s just stripmalls and houses.  There isn’t any culture there.”

Within twelve hours I went from a place where people were regularly coming together and creating a culture of interaction and art and music, to a place where everyone keeps to themselves in a culture of uniformity and individualism.  You might know the person living across the culdisac from you, but you don’t actually know them.  And it somehow feels empty, hollow.  It drains you.

So as I drove back over the Cascade Range to rural home and community, I thought about how that applied generally to where I live, but specifically to how the Church functions in that sort of a place.  Where I’m from, we don’t have places that you can just walk a few blocks to.  Sure, there’s a small downtown, but nothing that really creates a common space for people.  People are forced to drive into nearby towns and smaller cities to find this sorts of places.  Everyone here is spread out, distanced.  We live in a small river valley, surrounded by the same mountains, but we go somewhere else for connection.  Outside of high school sports, there isn’t really any sort of culture that people seem to be apart of.

So in this kind of culture, one of rurality and distance, both among and as one of “the hill folk”…how do we create times and spaces for connection?  How do we help facilitate the genesis of a connection culture, one that encourages and helps give birth to a shared creativity and vision of what it means to be a certain type of person in a certain type of place? 

what I didn’t give up

The other day a friend asked me what I gave up for Lent.  My answer?

Nothing.

I had actually been pondering this for the previous couple days before he asked me.  I thought about giving up coffee, but I wussed out on that (ironically, though, I’ve been drinking less).  I thought of others things I could give up…but nothing really worth it. 

But leading up to this point I had been getting more and more stoked about spring.  The final bits of snow had finally melted in our yard and I was able to spend a couple days pruning some shrubs and just hanging around the yard.  Despite all the wind and still cold air, I could see that some of the trees were starting to bud.  I was ecstatic.  I was tired of snow and sleet and cold and staying inside all of the time.  I wanted spring.  I wanted life and green and newness and the music that pours forth as flowers open up to the sun.  I was more excited for a changing of season than I ever have been in my life. 

So then I woke up on the first day of Lent…and it was DUMPING snow outside.  And it didn’t stop all day.  And the next day it snowed some more.  And my soul sunk.

I was actually caught off guard at how this affected me.  I had been anticipating this for so long, and it seemed so there and so tangible and I had actually tasted just a bit of life…and then this cold blanket of nothing smothered it from my sight and senses.  And that day I realized that I didn’t need to give anything up for Lent, because what I truly yearned for was out of my reach.  The snow would be my bit of personal darkness for the next 40 days.  In the wilderness.  In bondage.  In expectation of life and redemption and exodus and renewal.

This season, my Lent is everywhere.  It’s in the driveway.  It’s on my steps.  It’s on my windshield.  It’s tracked in on my shoes.  But eventually it will recede.  Eventually it will give way to an event that is inescapable…and so will I.  As the tips of bulbs break free from their dark sleep, so will my soul unfurl and instinctively turn its face toward that light which is truly Light.

So no, I technically didn’t give anything up for Lent, because this year, my longing comes from something that I received.

anti-fundamentalist fundamentalism

From what I can gather, the global community is increasingly becoming one of funamentalism.  There is of course religious fundamentalism, with each group and it’s militant religious patriots doing whatever is necessary to show the world and the other religions why they are ‘the one.’  But I’ve also been thinking about other forms of fundamentalism here in the U.S.  What about the political arena and its extreme polarization between ‘right’ and ‘left’…’conservative’ and ‘liberal?’  Recently I’ve had thoughts about consumeristic and anti-consumeristic fundamentalism, as well as environmental fundamentalism.  Here’s how it seems to play out:

Someone doesn’t completely agree with the current ideology and/or methodology of something.  The reaction is to then so completely dismiss or act against said ideology that they jump to the polar opposite and establish it as the proper way against the other way.  By doing so, they reject the excess of the previous model…but completely bypass the more healthy place of being, moving beyond and settling into a form of fundamentalism that may be different, but just as completely distorts reality and misses the mark. 

Is the answer to consumerism to reject buying anything, especially anything of substantial monetary value?  Do we physically transplant ourselves outside of the society so obsessed with it?  Does rejecting a consumeristic fundamentalism have to look and be so extreme?  Can I ever buy something at Wal-Mart without being guilty of hopping in bed with Empire and Oppression? Does the rejection of something always mean acquiring its exact opposite?

This morning I was thinking about this issue in regards to religion (specifically Christianity) and wonder how fundamentalism, in light of an increasing fundamentalism around it, may seek to even more compare/contrast itself and prove itself right.  This was specifically in regards to apologetics, which seems to always be fueled by the desire to ‘prove’ something to someone, forcing them to make a decision.  These seemed to me to be very fundamentalist in nature.  I started thinking about how the emerging conversation and church seems to focus more on being missional and incarnational, rather than adhering to a correct form of rhetoric. 

It seems to me, if the world only continues to become extremely more fundamental in how it works and functions and deals with itself, with each group and faction trying to be louder than the others,  the Christian’s natural response would be to enter into that feud and try to drown out the competing voices (unfortunately by employing the same tactics it seems to abhor in others).   But what if the way you function is more subversive, more like yeast in a ball of dough or a vine creeping throughout the garden?  What if, to avoid the dangers of fundamentalism, we worked and lived on a different level that skirted and hopefully bypassed those pitfalls altogether?  But this begs the question:

In an age where the battle cry is, “You’ve got to stand for something…and then let everyone know beyond a shadow of a doubt what it is you stand for!” …what does it look like to stand for something but not in that way?  And what if you do it in that different way, but the reason is primarily to simply distance yourself from the ugly bellowing of that scene?  Is that enough?  I’m sure some (namely fundamentalists) would say that those who did were simply being ‘ashamed of the gospel’ or something similar.  Various small groups have started up at my church and are going through a recent curriculum put out by a popular ministry company.  The foundation of the series is that “truth is on trial,” and it’s our job as followers of Christ to stand for truth in a postmodern world (where the term ’postmodern’ seems to simply mean ‘relativism’).  The videos take place in a university type atmosphere, with the ’professor’ discussing areas of philosophy and science and everything else, and how the world has always been out to attack the truth (for example, by creating ideas like evolution).  From my perspective, this is the very thing we need to be avoiding, not only because I disagree with such simplistic and binary thinking, but because it just enters into the same vicious circle that everyone else is apart of.  You’re rejecting someone else’s fundamentalism by engaging in your own.

So what does a life look like that is about keeping quiet for the sake of Christ?  What does a life look like that doesn’t reject something by accepting its polar opposite, but simply shedding the unhealthy aspects and attempting to walk a more difficult (but proper) alternative path?  What does a life look like that grabs the attention of the world, not by its ability to shout, but by its inistence on remaining quiet and not lifting yet another voice in the cacauphony?

among the hill folk

The word pagan is from Latin paganus, an adjective originally meaning “rural”, “rustic” or “of the country.” As a noun, paganus was used to mean “country dweller, villager.” In colloquial use, it would mean much the same as calling someone a ‘bumpkin’ or a ‘hillbilly’. From its earliest beginnings, Christianity spread much more quickly in major urban areas (like Antioch, Alexandria, Corinth, Rome) than in the countryside (in fact, the early church was almost entirely urban), and soon the word for “country dweller” became synonymous with someone who was “not a Christian,” giving rise to the modern meaning of “pagan.” This may, in part, have had to do with the conservative nature of rural people, who may have been more resistant to the new ideas of Christianity than those who lived in major urban centers. However, it may have also resulted from early Christian missionaries focusing their efforts within major population centers (e.g. St. Paul), rather than throughout an expansive, yet sparsely populated, countryside (hence, the Latin term suggesting “uneducated country folk”). [for more, go here.]

A lot of the authors of the books I have read, as well as church planters and house church planters, seem to be situated in urban areas.  I read about lots of emerging churches and liquid churches and new communities and I visit their websites…and they all seem to be contained in urban/metro areas.  

I, however, am not. 

I would say the environment I am in can best be described as ‘pagan’…in the most original sense of the word.  People here aren’t all that keen on new ideas and worldviews.  What they’ve done for years (and decades…or even generations) works, so why mess with it?  I’m sure I could be making a gross generalization here, but I would venture to say this is a long step away from more urban areas, which I would say can still be classified as environments where new ideas are hashed out and tried out and people are quick to jump on the newest and latest philosophy or ethos.  But this doesn’t happen where I live.