The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 13,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
We’re taking a brief hiatus while we’re in Chicago for the first annual KidMin Conference, hosted by Group Publishing. We’ll be joining Patti Gibbons and a few others to provide Simply Soul Care for KidMin staff and volunteers.
Please join us this week in supporting those who serve our kids in their faith development. What you do is extremely important.
So, if you haven’t heard it recently…THANK YOU! We couldn’t do this without you!
The age of one-size-fits-all youth ministry is over. It has to be. We live in a dynamic time filled with diversity. This is an exciting time to be in ministry to youth. Our world is smaller than ever before. Cultures are not only clashing but blending to create new expressions of culture. In this new era of modern life(culture) context is king.
Think about your average youth group gathering. Think about the different elements that are present in your group:
Historically we would rush in with an attempt to connect with kids on our terms with our own personal culture leading the way (just a heads up, I’m pretty sure nobody listens to Petra anymore so don’t lead with that). In other words, just like early missionaries did, we would try to strip them of their own culture and colonize them to be, think, look, and act just like us. It’s no wonder they have gone underground.
Cultural Artifacts:
Instant digital music, iPods, YouTube videos, Facebook, etc.
What other cultural artifacts can you think of, as it relates to contemporary youth?
Values and Assumptions:
Individualism, consumerism, instant gratification, collaborations, cause-driven, tolerance, etc.
What other values and assumptions can you identify that are held by youth today?
Where did these values and assumptions come from?
Individual Personalities:
Jocks, emo, nerds, Queen Bee, bully, outgoing, shy, obnoxious, flirty, school spirit, etc.
What is the current dominant personality being presented by each individual student?
Is there a connection between the personality and behaviors?
Often, all we see are the cultural artifacts and we base our own assumptions on these.
David Livermore, in his book Cultural Intelligence, says:
“When measuring your Cultural Intelligence, a few questions to ask yourself include:
Is it fair to expect that we should be intentionally asking ourselves these questions as it relates to working with youth today? Can you image the amazing discussions you can have with your volunteers as you wrestle with these kinds of questions?
In an experiment, piranha were placed in a large tank separated from their food by a see through glass divider. After several days of ramming their heads against the glass divider the piranha learned that it was a futile effort to try and get the food.
The glass divider was then removed yet they starved to death while swimming freely in a place where there was food available. The piranha had learned that their efforts were useless and came to believe that their situation would never change so they just accepted the “reality” of their experience.
Youth are especially susceptible to limiting beliefs about themselves. When we make assumptions about students based on externals (i.e., clothing, music, language, behaviors, etc.) we often reinforce those limiting beliefs that they hold or are told about themselves.
Think for a moment how this might impact how you approach a new student. Think about your personal values and biases and how they impact the initial encounters with students you are trying to connect with.
Here are two scenarios illustrating this very idea:
1. John - He shows up to your youth group on Sunday night with some of the other popular kids from your church. He is wearing a football jersey and is relatively good looking. He appears to be very outgoing and has an air of confidence about him. You instantly like him and are drawn to him. In your mind you envision him being a primary influencer of other students and hope to get him on board with being a peer leader. You can see that potential within the first few minutes of meeting him.
2. Sarah – She shows up wearing dark eyeliner, dark clothes, and her hair is dyed with blond, pink and black highlights. He black cargo pants are too big and have babypins up and down on leg. She wears lots of bracelets on her wrists and her shirt is a concert tee from the band Rise Against. She moves slowly and doesn’t talk to a lot of other students. She has writing on her hands and arms as well. You assume she comes from a home where her parents don’t pay much attention to her (because who would let their kid leave the house looking like this, right?). She’s probably a cutter, which means she’s probably been abused or at the very least is depressed. This kid really needs Jesus and you will do your best to introduce her to the one that will make it all better.
These are pretty typical students to show up at youth group. And our biases and values play an unwitting role in determining how we will interact with each of them. Here’s what you don’t know:
1. John – He sells prescription drugs he gets from doctors from an old football injury. He sells his Vicodin to his friends so they can amplify their buzz while drinking. He also steals the Vicodin from his mother’s purse when she’s asleep to buy alcohol with. She sleeps so much because she has to work two jobs because John’s dad was recently layed-off and has been drinking to manage his depression. His motive for coming to your youth group was to find new customers to sell his product to. Nobody suspects him because he looks like the “All-American Boy” and is an athletic hero for your small community.
2. Sarah – She has an intact family that is supportive and allows her to be expressive of her identity. She is artistic and writes poetry, draws, and plays the piano. He heart breaks for her friends and she wants nothing more than to see them come to youth group and find and follow Christ. She has a prayer journal bigger than your bible and most of her prayers are for her hurting friends. She volunteers at the Special Olympics because her younger brother has Downs Syndrome and she is passionate about helping others. She sometimes feels alone but is usually emotionally secure. People tend to avoid her because of how she looks and dresses.
Back to the piranha, when we respond to students, based on our perceptions, biases, values, and expectations there is the possibility that we will play a role in limiting who they were created to be. If the case of John, people can unintentionally reinforce his sinful behavior by acting only on their assumptions that his is the “All-American Kid” and worthy of our praise. The result is that John learns that all the bad stuff he is doing is ok so long as he continues to play the roles we want him to play.
In the case of misunderstood Sarah, it won’t be long before she submits to the preconceived ideas and expectations that other hold her to. It’s hard for a solitary teenager to stand up underneath that kind of force, regardless of how supportive her family is. Her joy and confidence will leak over time.
As we approach students in an effort to connect let’s check our biases and expectations at the door and just allow the students to be who they are, the good, the bad, and the ugly, because that is honest. It is authentic. It is transparent and it’s a great place to start.
Immaculate was a foreign exchange student from Kampala, Uganda. She was new to our country and culture. When asked about how she felt when people noticed she was different she responded:
“It’s okay to ask. People sometimes notice something special about me – my accent, the way I look – and that’s okay. It’s just normal. When they ask, they can learn from the things that are different. If they don’t ask about it, I worry that they don’t like me.”
Kids can smell feigned interest like a fart in a car. They sense genuiness like a sixth sense. They know if you are truely interested in them and seem to be able to tell if you have an alterior motive for paying attention to them. (we’ll address motives in a later blog)
Historically, many of the kids in our youth groups have felt like projects. Projects that we were trying to fix. We’ve long suspected this was the case but our focus groups support this theory. One of the many reasons kids are dropping out during and afer high school is beause they don’t feel like the adults (or peer leaders) accepted them for who they really are just what they can do for them (bolster our attendance, serve on a project, increase our outreach efforts, etc.). They often express feeling like they were a means to an end, like any information they gathered about a student was just to be used later to make them do something, even something determined “good”.
Youth workers are a curious lot to begin with but when we become curious about the students we interact with it communicates many things to them. When we show interest, real interest, we are saying to them that they are interesting, important, valuable, worth my time, that they belong, that they matter and are wanted, that we are interested in their uniqueness, and that this is a safe place/space to be their true self as they explore the challenges of adolescence.
Curiosity is inherently friendly. Because our attention is outwardly focused, curiosity sets us up to be successful in connecting with students and moving towards real authentic community.
“We cannot love issues, but we can love people, and the love of people reveals to us the way to deal with issues.”
“When peacemaking is based on fear it is not much different that warmaking.”
“Only those who deeply know that they are loved and rejoice in that love can be true peacemakers.”
“Prayer – living in the presence of God – is the most radical peace action we can imagine. Prayer is peacemaking and not simply the preparation before, the support during, and the thanksgiving after.”
“Prayer is not primarily a way to get something done. In prayer we undo the fear of death and therefore the basis of all human destruction.”
Peacework (unpublished)
One of the Apostle Paul’s most famous speeches took place at Mars Hill, the Areopagus, in Athens. He noted that they appeared to be a very religious lot of people due to the sheer number of statues they had to their gods. In a brilliant move he identified the one statue that was for the “unknown” god and he saw his bridge. Paul then launched into his epic sermon about the “unknown” God and described our Father to the Greeks. He masterfully used a technique called bridge building to connect with his audience.
Kids today are completely enmeshed in pop culture. We could, and should be aware of what is shaping our youth today and much of what we see and hear impacts them more than we know. But I’m not simply talking about knowing what the newest Katy Perry song is blazing up the charts, what I’m talking about is building a bridge with a language of the soul.
In order to connect with young people they first have to know that you’re interested and trustworthy. They are most likely already suspicious of adults anyway. Too often we have an agenda for them and they know that. It’s what drives them underground many times. What we’re talking about here is a fundamental belief that we have something in common with the young people we love and hope to reach.
If we say things like, “Teens today are just so much more _________ than we were.” or “Kids today are just lazy and apathetic.” we create distance between us and them. If we fail to see that they have the same longings that drove us then and drive us now there will be no bridge to walk across. All we will have to work with is a shallow relationship and all the change we’re likely to affect is shallow compliance to an empty belief system. We have to find common ground and that common ground should be our shared humanity.
In his ground breaking book Hurt: Inside the World of Today’s Teenagers, Chap Clark identifies six intrinsic longings of all students. Those longings are: to belong, to matter, to be wanted, to be uniquely ourselves, for a safe place, and to be taken seriously. Who among us can’t relate to those longings? I work with drug addicted emerging adults. Daily they express to me their desire to satisfy those very longings and that much of their behavior was an attempt to do just that.
After some small talk I usually ask a student where in their life do they feel they belong. Where do they and what do they do that makes them feel like they matter? Who takes you seriously? Where are the safest places for you to just be yourself? These are the questions that matter to students even if they don’t have the language to articulate them.
What the Apostle Paul did was provide an opportunity for those in the crowd to have their longings satisfied in a permanent manner by depending on the One true God. A civilization that worships everything is an empty civilization desperately searching for meaning. They apparently hadn’t found that in the many false gods they worshipped.
We have the same opportunity to connect the kids in our community to the very God that Paul preached about to the Greeks but first we must take to time to build a bridge by learning about them and their longings. There is ALWAYS a bridge and it’s up to us to find it.
After a workshop I facilitated on working with kids who have been abused, an elderly woman approached me to ask me a question. She shocked me with the simplicity and depth of the question. Here’s what she said,
“I love the kids in my community but I don’t know how to connect with the. I want to reach out but don’t know where to start. How do you do it?”
I can’t really remember what I told her, probably an overly simplified answer. I never thought about it to be honest. I just did what felt natural when reaching out to others. Plus, I have the added benefit of being pretty simple, if I didn’t know someone I would just introduce myself and talk to them. It wasn’t until I talked to my wife that she opened my eyes to the idea that for some this comes easy. For others though it is an anxiety inducing event. Imaging, you long to reach out to this generation, a generation that is slipping through the cracks right before your very eyes, but the words escape you when needed. You don’t know how to connect beyond a simple “Hello, how are you today?”
My wife and I talked about this for several hours over the next few days. We explored what is involved in connecting with these kids that seemed so different from us. Asking me how I connect with fringe kids is like asking a fish to describe water. I spend so much time out there on the fringe that it has become normal. I have developed, over the years, skills to navigate those waters. But many others haven’t and don’t know where to start. That’s what this series in aimed at doing, equipping willing adults to connect with a generation where the gap is ever increasing. Our thoughts are not exhaustive and it is my hope that other voices will chime in with their experience, wisdom, and insight.
We will cover the following over the next several weeks:
I hope you will contribute to this discussion because at the end of the day it will close the gap between us and the adolescents that reside in the world beneath…
It is not enough for a youth ministry program to simply be ready to serve the Disabled Youth Community. Rather, the ministry should be proactive in making the Disabled Youth Community aware of it’s accessability. It is hoped that any ministry targeting youth with disabilities will be in contact from the outset with any known families or organizations serving them. It would not be a bad idea to contact such agencies to present your willingness to provide ministry opportunities for students and families that are interested, thereby providing a person contact for any of the referring staff. Of course, the best promotion for your youth group are students with positive experiences of interacting with your youth group.
Outreach
Outreach material should assure potential students that your ministry gatherings are able to provide accessible, age appropriate youth ministry experiences for persons with a disability. In addition to stating that accommodations and alternative communication strategies can be provided as needed, you may wish to assure the students with disabilities that they are welcome by including the universal accessibility symbol on your literature or website.
There are many facets of an outreach ministry that can be modified to accommodate the needs of youth with disabilities:
Every ministry should expect to have students for whom they will have to make accommodations, but many of these accommodations will not require extensive or expensive changes. Perhaps even more importantly, making accommodations and adapting your ministry for youth based on their functional limitation should create and environment in which they can be restored to community. Often these disabilities carry with them stigmas that separate and isolation occurs. God’s purpose for all of us is to participate in the restorative activity of God in this world. This is just one of many ways we can do that.
As a general modification to the typical youth ministry gathering, it is necessary to accept different types of body positioning for people with disabilities – some people may need to stand up or move during group, and this activity should not be considered rude. Youth workers may have to keep group meetings short or schedule frequent breaks to help people who lack physical stamina and make allowances for increased travel time to gatherings for people who use wheelchairs or rely on public transportations.
Sometimes students with spasticity or other motor problems, such as those associated with quadriplegia, have voluntary or involuntary movements that are sudden and unusual for people not familiar with them. The youth worker should ensure that group members are not distracted by these movements and understand that they are a normal manifestation of some disabilities.
Youth workers are weary, and rightfully should be, of personal boundary issues (e.g. the side hug with members of the opposite sex). With a student with a physical disability that sense of what is proper may need to be modified for some in need of assistance, such as adjusting a wheelchair, etc. When the proper course of assistance is not apparent, ask the student of family for guidance.
The relative height of the youth worker and disabled student, when seated and talking, may also be an important consideration when working with a student who has a physical disability. Disproportionately great differences in seated height can hinder communication, especially relative to body language.
If a student with a disability has limited transportation options, the creative youth worker will find ways to minster to them and their family. Often visiting them at home or at an alternative site is will allow the youth worker to gain valuable insights into a person’s life and ultimately facilitate effective ministry. It also communicates to the student that they are valued enough to make the effort (we’re hopefully doing this to all students). Going to the residence of a student with disability also provides invaluable information about that student’s lifestyle, interests, and immediate environmental challenges.
Lastly, we must take into consideration not only the physical limitations the student might have, such as; playing certain games or traveling over certain terrain, but also the psychological and social consequences of the disability. Issues that may need to be addressed can include impulsivity, social isolation, low self-awareness relative to medical or psychological needs, anger, feelings of hopelessness, or outright fear at living life with the disability. These issues are hardly new to a seasoned youth worker, nor are the unique to persons with disabilities; however, a disability may exaggerate the severity of these conditions or their impact on your ministry efforts.
