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Methodism

theology of dog : other links

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i am with amy on her theology of dog. my coe is one of the best dogs in the world. my crimson, is a little neurotic, but she is fun and sensitive most of the time.

hey tennessee conference think tank : think about this

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in my on going conversations in light of our recent decision making from our bishop, cabinet, conference coordinator, and personnel committee (note that there is no youth, young adult, camping, children committee group represented) your think tank of seeing numbers that indicate people leaving the church might have wanted to ask us in the field, we could have alerted you to some myths that don’t show up in your data.

4. A strong healthy ministry WILL produce numbers!
Healthy ministry never guarantees spiritual growth let alone numerical
growth. Spiritual growth is solely a work of the Holy Spirit in a
person’s life. Numerical growth happens in both unhealthy ministries
and healthy ones a like. I know many healthy ministries that aren’t
growing numerically. Why? I guess because God’s plan for them right now
is be diligent in focusing on the few students who are already there.
Numerical growth can be an indication of health, but never a decisive
one.

dear gavin : youth ministry in decline

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Deargavin2

i get quite a few emails a month asking for some advice or follow up conversation on youth ministry. i am humbled to be asked my views on youth things and generally spend quite a bit of time writing. it occurred to me, so why not publish some of these.. they can be helpful to someone searching out there. so i introduce today, "dear gavin." feel free to email me your questions.

Gavin,
 
My name is Todd and I recently took on the leadership role
of our Youth Group at our church, First United Methodist. Our youth program has been in a state of decline over the past few
years. I did some research on the internet and came across the web site
for your Youth group. We are a small church with about 300 members
overall and an average Sunday attendance for service of 180 – 200. Our
Youth Group has shrunk from 25 – 30 kids to ten or less. I wanted to
contact you to see if you could give me some ideas or suggestions on
what we can do to bring back our youth as well as develop a strong
youth ministry. We have many people within our church membership who
would like to see this area of our church grow as it has been neglected
for far too many years.
 
Anything that you can suggest or ideas that you may have would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!!
Todd

hi todd,

got your email i am happy help impart whatever wisdom
that might help. so i’ll share a couple of things here and ask
questions as you like. did you find our youth website? or did you
stumble upon our blog? most folks find my blog, i’d be interested to
know what you thought of the youth site. it gets some isolated play.
back to your youth stuff

first thing i suggest for people is time of discernment and
examining what you do well and don’t do so well. by "don’t do well,"
you do all this, but it might be at a small number and might not be
very intentional. discernment as a group will get more people invested
into what actions you take on. you need as many youth ministers that
you can get. that said, they need a job to have validity. i would
suggest reading the UMY handbook by mike sellick.
it is kinda dated in that is not the most modern book, but i am
rereading it currently and finding a lot of reminding of some very
sound advice and teaching in youth ministry. plus it gives a lot of
steps to set up a ministry. it is more into youth leadership and youth
led, which is not the trend that is out there in worship based models
that are adult led. which, seem to grow numbers more, but arguable if
they grow disciples.

second, take that discernment group to set some goals. goals not
just as in growth of youth goals, but goals in getting youth leaders,
setting up some covenant group, strategic events, upping the budget,
youth council meeting times, choir, praise band, achievable weekly
programming, etc…  people want the perfect youth ministry with
numbers and perfectly functioning teenagers but they don’t want to
acknowledge the mess that comes with teenagers. it seems as children
everyone is okay with the mess, with teens they want out the mess and
the only thing i can think is different is that you cease to control a
teenager. they are like the rich young ruler, they have a lot, want to
know how to follow Jesus but when told (even by Jesus) they walk away
because it is too hard for them and you can’t control that. but that is
just my theory.. you need people, young old clergy laity, to outline a
plan, put some stuff in writing. your job is to help guide that
comprehensiveness. (nothing is cooler than having stuff written down
for a year and just rolling with that when you are tired or
uninspired.. then when you have the energy and inspiration change a bit
around.) then have these folks help you work that plan. don’t let them
leave.. their job might be in helping to recruit others to do the work
but that is work.

what we are doing.. i’ve been at this church for 2.5 years. we’ve
structured our programming that was already in place and added a few
elements and events to fill out places for the youth that are here, but
on a recent self-exam of where we are and where we will be, we do not
adequately facilitate leadership at the local level and discipleship is
more incidental than intentional. so we have a team of folks discerning
and planning for a long term plan of sustainable small group
development as the core of our youth community. we have around 90 youth
so i am guessing that our needs for youth ministers (i don’t ask for
chaperone’s or volunteers, ministers are invested in relationships)
range around the 16 to 20 depending on the size our groups will start
at. that will be set up for growth in the groups for the first year but
after that we might say our numbers would be to 120 youth and 25 youth
ministers. other markers would be those who made professions of faith,
confirmation, attended a second event, joined into a conference design
team, plugged into a ministry inside or outside the church, decided to
go into the ministry.. and those markers are also for adults not just
youth. adults make great leaps in their faith formation when they start
working with youth. i call that the "oh crap!" theology.

i have a few years of collect youth ministry thoughts, links & ideas on the blog. the link is to the youth ministry section.

hope this is somewhat helpful for you.

shalom
-gav

note: these are the simple thought of me, the author and are not always applicable to every context. i mostly write out of a united methodist youth ministry background and model, which can be very different from other faith expressions.

 

what i told a youth : what ya think?

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one of my youth david has made a post on his myspace about shopping for books at the towns new B&N. when they were in the "christian" section a man got on their case for believing in god. if you can’t read his blog for one reason or another. a quote from it was something like, ‘too bad christianity is a load of crap. it’s nicely presented crap but it doesn’t mean god exists.’ he was bothered by it and one of his buddies, who is a cool kid i like a lot, but as i know is agnostic or atheist brought up the "contradiction" word for the christian faith.. so i got into rant mode.. for my better educated friends? anything i need to eat my words on or did i do okay for a non-academic to a teen audience response?

what i find funny is that if it is nicely presented, but it isn’t real and it is total crap & as jody mentions full of "contradictions" then i wonder what we are talking about? God? Science? the Economy? Patriotism? Politics? Faith? Global Warming? Atheism? Agnosticism? etc..

honestly, these argumentations seem to only have a magnifying glass on faith.. why? i don’t know, no one has ever told me they just shrug their shoulders..

eg. science has only been around since the 18th century (the scientific method as it is generally known, though some practice can date to middle ages), so in the idea of the world, it is a baby and has made many mistakes, contradicted it’s findings, and failed to deliver the goods in it’s aim to explain all things in a logical /explainable & repeatable manner. truth is they pull back on things all the time, contradicting oneself.

eg. economics obey certain "laws" but they are always conditional. if the economy operated under exact laws that never contradicted or moved on itself then we could tell everyone "this is how to ensure that all the economy will provide riches for everyone" (or provide stable living at the least) but no one is able to provide that because it is in-exact.

eg. agnosticism is contradicting of the self in many ways because you claim a diety or god, but you don’t know what that god is. so therefore you are in a position to contradict yourself on every whim of what that god looks like, acts like.. note: i say that lovingly for folks who claim agnosticism, i could claim that about once or twice a month, as well as atheism, for my faith falls on trying times..

so someone tell me why we always pick on those of the christian faith?..

is is cause we don’t do things we say we should do? is it that we hate when are told to love? is it that we care for ourselves when we are told to care for others? we got some old book that says some crazy stuff? things like that??? sure, we do that, but it is we as a people not God.

i cringe, and get really pissed off, at what some of my christian brothers and sisters say & do. i want to beat people who are a-holes in our church buildings and outside them & claim the same faith as i do then only remembering that i am supposed to love them too. i want to do all i can for the poor or marginalized get pissed at those that don’t share my same passion, but then i go and do very little or nothing at all for the cause i feel so "passionately" about. but this is me.. i am a person just trying to live my life

and in my life i have found, though i have given myself every chance, time and time again i have been unable to claim that their is no God or even that God is less significant than he is. this is my story.. and that book we claim is full of the same type of people living with the same struggles, contradictions, frailty, humility, care for the world, and desire to come to know this God they can’t get out of their soul.

so for people who want to impose those viewpoints, as christians will sometimes impose their own on others, i’d say "you need to earn the right to be heard" & a chance meeting in the bookstore is a bad way and only shows your brokeness and need to justify your own identity as a person.

you see david, all this to say. it hurt, and we as christians hurt others, because when you attack or disrepect a persons views on things like this you are attacking their identity as a person. and people have a natural need to defend their identity because in todays world more than any other.. it might be all they have. wars are fought over it & relationships are broken because of it. it is powerful.

ps: i have the same book on my shelf as my to be reads.. not sure when i’ll get there, but i am looking forward to reading it myself.

we have been confirmed

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erin & i just arrived home from our church’s confirmation retreat. erin helps as a mentor and being the youth person i help in some of the teaching spots. due to some scheduling stuff, i taught my usual advent but also lent. i felt scattered and tired most of the weekend, but erin said things went well. i did some twitter updates while gone, not sure what they were, but i know i did.

back now to take a nap first, after that.. i don’t know