like a fire

Nine Big Ideas for Exemplary Student Ministry (p1)

I just got this email from Lifeway with this article in it. Nine really good things to be reminded of every so often. What struck me the most is not the nine things that they thought were so important, because would agree for the most part. What really struck me is how far we can drift from those things. I don’t think there was anything that extraordinary about the nine points in this article, but I am floored that as basic as they are, I am inconsistent in staying on track with them.

a life journeying with Jesus….

I came across this bolg the other day and spent way too much time on it. There is a lot of great stuff on there from a person who is in youth ministry and has some great thoughts. If you are in youth ministry check it out. This is the best blog I have seen for youth ministry.

I am currently taking seminary classes and it has been a real challenge for many reasons. The biggest is the responsibility of the students to absorb an infinite number of new ideas with little or no thought given to ability to amount of information that will be retained, used or be useful. One of the ideas I always had about education is the idea of teaching. From my previous training and experience in education, I saw many students who were capable of learning who didn’t and many less capable who excelled. I often wondered if I was really teaching, or if the students taught themselves. Can anyone ever truly teach someone else? It is a worthy idea. On the one hand, you could say that it is impossible to teach someone anything unless they teach themselves. This isn’t a new idea, in itself. The best situation teachers can hope for is that they have students motivated to learn what they are teaching. But is this really teaching? Students motivated to learn about a subject are likely to learn about that subject themselves apart from a teacher. Looking at education from this perspective reduces teachers to information merchants.

There is one other possibility, however. Following the previous train of thought, if students learn through the motivation of ideas, then teachers become motivators. If the role of the teacher is to motivate learning, think of how that affects teaching or ministry. The ability to receive knowledge (especially spiritual knowledge) is not affected by the teacher. The desire to receive knowledge certainly is though. Would we need teachers if all students were completely self motivated? I think we would, but the role of teaching would become more refined in the process. Instead of shoveling information, the process of learning becomes the focus. What is the best way for students to learn? What motivates them? How do students process information into usable content? All of these questions are the plague of churches today.

Consumerism is rampant in churches. This is the evidence the need for more than just information. If the world could be saved through the perfect information in the Bible, then it would have been a long time ago. People need more than information. The cry of the Christian is motivate me, encourage me, walk beside me. Many people look at this as consumerism, but isn’t it taught in the Bible that we should do these things? Shouldn’t we sharpen each other as iron sharpens iron? Shouldn’t we encourage each other?

Fortunately I work in a field that is a pioneer in churches to do this. Youth ministry speaks to the issue of motivation more than any other part of the church I know. In youth ministry, there is a daily confrontation in the teens that want to be there for the right reasons, those that want to be there for the wrong reasons, and those that just don’t want to be there. Hopefully we are more than information merchants.

Dance Dance Resurrection - A new Concept in Christian Electronic Entertainment

Well, I guess it was just a matter of time. The craze of dance, combined with the inherent evil of video games, and of course satan’s music has brought us:

Dance, Dance Resurrection

If you are not familiar with the DDR thing, then you are really old, or just not very cool. Seriously, this is one of the biggest movements in teens. We have many games video to ping pong and DDR is the one that always has a line of people watching and waiting to play.

Now I feel even better knowing that I can take away all the elements of humanity, namely sin, from this very satisfying phenomenon and make it completely lame by making it a part of Christian culture. I’m sure they will have classics like As the Deer, Lord I lift Your Name On High, and my favorite Havenu Shalom Alechem.

Someone said this was a joke. I can only think that if it is, then please don’t tease me with my hearts desire (I live by the three S’s, one of which is sarcasm).

Thanks Lev

Street sermons of fire and boycott
I saw this and couldn’t help myself. The idea is just too radical and funny. The faux evangelist “preaching” that consumers not consume. These are the ideas of “Rev. Billy.”

Talen has been arrested many times and, by court order, is barred from entering any Starbucks in California. He has identified Mickey Mouse as his own personal anti-Christ and routinely launches into fire-and-brimstone diatribes about corporations using “sweat-shop labor,” busting unions and generally ruining all that is good in the world.

While I can understand our need to take Christmas seriously and that it is not the consumer driven spectacle that merchants try to make it, it seems a lot like the cries I here around October about another holiday unholiness because of its origins. How can we get something that has such “unholy” origins wrong just the same way we get Christmas wrong with its “holy” origins?

Either way, shopocalypse is in my new word list.