Hardly the Last Word

Return to the Arena part 1

Return to the Arena part 2

Return to the Arena part 3

It’s now been twelve days since I departed that fateful Friday afternoon for my return to the world of great-hall youth ministry and thirteen since I came back.? Whereas I couldn’t have told you a phrase from any of the unfamiliar songs they played, I found myself a week after the conference humming the tunes, the words appearing magically in the front of my mental activity.? (I’m pretty sure some kind of subliminal conditioning had to be involved.)? I also took the week after the conference to go to bed without setting an alarm on non-teaching days (years of sleep dep have deprived me of the ability to sleep past 7:00 AM, so I still got a fair bit of work done), so I’m caught up on sleep, or as close to that as I get.

I hope that folks who read these little posts can take them in the spirit I write them, namely a global praise of the practice of teaching and listening to junior high kids and a few, pointed criticisms of moves people make within that game.? I hope that youth ministers and the folks who administer church camps and weekend conferences will make moves away from the rock-concert aesthetic and the anti-culture of multitasking and trust our young with the grand mission of tending God’s creation and enjoying the grand task of life as redeemed human beings.? And I think CIY, in its partnering with artists and activists, is heading that way.

The analyses that I offered in the second and third posts come, obviously from the kind of person who would write a blog called “Hardly the Last Word.”? I’d be glad to read arguments in favor of the rapid-fire visual stimuli and the constant presence of high volume electronic sound, and if anyone wants to do so in the comments section of this series, I would welcome the discussion.? That said, until someone does produce a convincing argument for those things, I remain convinced that there are better ways to do youth ministry, ways that take into account the kind of humanity that we envision when we think of Christ’s reign ushering in and signaling forwards towards a new creation.

To reiterate once more my position on youth ministry as a missionary activity, I agree with those who advocate an intelligent study of and the framing of the Gospel within the polyglot multi-culture that we call middle school.? (I keep reverting to junior high because partly because I attended a junior high and partly because that’s how CIY divides the universe.)? I think that we ought to attempt to speak in manners that junior high kids (there I go again) understand and tell the story of Jesus the Messiah in terms they would understand.? My basic difference with the approach that I witnessed two weeks ago is that I think they understand more than those kinds of approaches give them credit for.? Perhaps I’m just behind the times as a person who’s never attended a Sunday morning service especially for teens, but I’ve seen young teens at the same communion table as their grandparents, and I’ve had conversations with them afterwards, and they’re capable of handling it.

I realize that I’m now dipping in someone else’s snuff box, but I would like to see, in general, for all ages from childhood to adulthood, more of an effort to maintain the common character of Christian worship.? I’d like to see more congregations small enough that anyone could reasonably hold conversation with the preacher afterwards about the sermon.? I’d like to see song services that privilege the congregation’s voices rather than the amplifiers.? I’d like to see Christian teaching happen in ways that move in networks between people rather than from one celebrity teacher across jumbotrons to the masses.? And frankly, I don’t see why, with all of the educated and dedicated youth ministers and sponsors in the hall that weekend, why they couldn’t have decentralized things more.? I realize the Anabaptist is coming out of me now, but if we really believe that our young will one day be the Church’s old, I’d rather see them apprenticed in the art of being Church rather than disciplined into new kinds of being Consumer.

I think that many things CIY is already doing travel in that direction.? And my plea to all the youth ministers in the house is to keep that up, resist the ways of the world, and continue to serve faithfully.? And wherever I land, so long as folks ask me, I’ll be there to help you along.? Perhaps I’ll even drive the van again.

by ngilmour