like a fire

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.

holyphil: I itch there actually Holyphil wrote a great article about the church and felt needs. It talks about how often the church tries to do many things to serve the people in it’s area that don’t scratch the itch that they feel.

I saw a really great cartoon on Dave’s cartoon church blog the other day. It was of a man with two arrows pointing at him. The top arrow pointed to his left shoulder and the caption said: “The church scratches here.” However, the other arrow coming up from the bottom right pointed to his stomach and the caption read: “But I itch here!”. My heart jumped when I saw it as it seemed to sum up everything I have been feeling about the church for the past 6 years.

I think this sums up the mindset of many postmodern church-goers. They have wants and needs that many just don’t even realize. They see things in a different way than others, and need someone to affirm their perspective. It is a great reminder to people in the church to look beyond yourself.

However.

It is sometimes not the role of the church to scratch all itches. There are many itches that in fact are caused by wayward hearts that don’t need affirmation but instead accountability. I often see people who are frustrated with the church and very judgmental of it who are “thirsty yet cursing the clouds with their face to the rain.” They blame the church for their thirst. They blame God for their dry weary soul. They blame the modern view of church leaders for not understanding their needs. I would love to hear a sermon titled “God supplies my every need.”

It seems like I disagree with Holyphil, but I actually don’t. Just another perspective.

Lately my ideas in youth ministry have been challenged by a phrase I heard somewhere in a blog. It goes something like this:

“People don’t go to a hardware store and buy a 3/4″ drill bit because they need a 3/4″ drill bit. They go get the bit because the need a 3/4″ hole.”

I have been thinking long and hard about the way I do ministry. Often I will put together a proposal for a new event with certain objectives and outcomes to justify what I am trying to do. This is necessary, of course, because we always need to justify change (that’s another blog). It is very outcome based. I program events to reach x number of people, so that y number of people will hear the gospel, and z number of people will respond to the gospel. While this is a general practice of ministry, it falls far short of ministry from a kingdom perspective.

I have been thinking instead of Philippians 3, where paul talks about pressing on. What if we focused on the process of glorifying God instead of an outcome that we can’t achieve ourselves? We can water, plant, weed, but we can’t make it grow.

Enter SOAP. Or the Service-Oriented architectural pattern.

SOAP is based on a standardized way of making resources available to others through a network. Think peer-to-peer in Web 2.0. Actually, for ministry, think creating a process that met people where they are, provided them with what they need and the resources and tools to fulfill those needs. Sound like the church? Well, at least that’s what it could/should be.

So my challenge to myself is to focus on and develop a process that will accomplish this. I would love to hear thoughts about this. I am even dedicating a forum to it. You can find it here.

Recently, I read a blog that listed the authors favorite blogs. It was especially telling of what the author likes and it gave me some new resources as well. So, in the spirit of the original:

Presentation Zen - This is the best blog/site that I have ever seen on honing your presenting skills and especially getting your slides to look good.

Church of the Customer Blog - This site is not what it seems. It actually uses the church and its jargon in business models. The analogy is too close to the church to not be used by anyone trying to think outside of the box about it.

Church Marketing Sucks - This site is the call it like it is site about how poorly we communicate the gospel. It amazes me that the church is even still around with how poorly we communicate.

Think Christian - This multi-blog is a greta place to hear about some new ideas and exchange thoughts with some great people.

Ypulse - Though not a youth ministry site, this is a great place to hear about what is happening with generation y and hear some possibilities for their future.

I hope you enjoy these links. Please respond with your favorites if they aren’t here.

News-Leader.com | Nation/World Apparently teens really do want to explore their faith and they are willing to find it on the internet over actually going to church.

Two in three teenagers say religion is important to them, but they don’t want only to go to church, synagogue or mosque to express their spirituality, according to a study of teens’ attitudes toward religion released Wednesday.

This is something I thought was coming, but I never saw any evidence for it. It says something about church. There is a negative connotation with the whole idea of church. It is judgemental and hypocrytical in many people’s eyes. The internet is a great place to be able to be free from that. If someone is on your case about something, just don’t visit their site. Since there isn’t much of an investment to visit, then it’s no big deal to leave. It’s also a really great way to hide from others and yourself.

This is where myspace is playing on egosurfing. It is very easy to pretend to be something your not. Or just reveal a limited view of yourself. It’s fun in a way and yet can be very alienating, too. What fringe possibilities does the church have here? I’m lloking into it. More later maybe.