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spiritual | cultural | technological life

Youth Ministry

bo boshers : cultivating healthy family & ministry

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these are my notes. make a comment if you have a question. i’ve
thrown in my participation thoughts into the mix. download breakout document boshers.pdf. pictures from this pilgrim experience.

bo boshers
home field advantage

Ecclesiastes 3
have you ever had a clear discussion about the season’s or changes in ministry? you need too if you haven’t.

  • know your boundaries
  • accept reality
  • have a plan

establish family values

Luke 10:41-42

  • values guide decisions. what values do you want to have? what do you have now?
  • values need to be modeled rather than taught. have energy for your family when you get home. value, every time someone comes in the home they are acknowledged. what values do you have in your home? i wish i had put more value about reading God’s word, in our home.
  • values help establish security and a safe place for your family. rituals or traditions that bind and connect family & others.

what four values do i want to establish with my family? (i actually put in things we are talking about)

  1. sustainability
  2. counter progress movement
  3. vacation/sabbath
  4. healthy living

spiritual disciplines
  there is a difference between "check-box" living and freedom

  • disciplines get you from desires to experience
  • avoid the check box living. disciplines are markers that help you train to be more like Christ
  • have fun, be creative & make it practical. family nights, prayer walks, memorizing scripture

what spiritual disciplines do you need to implement to help you, your spouse and your family train to be more like Christ? (stuff we’ve tried and are trying)

  1. compline
  2. better neighbors
  3. open theological dialogue
  4. participation in christian community

ask good questions, and be a good listener : James 1:19

how often do you ask good questions and listen before giving advice?
never, sometimes, all the time?

what would help you create an environment of patience and understanding?

create an atmosphere of encouragement : 1 Thessalonians 4:18

  • make encouragement a habit – become a good-finder every day
  • don’t lose your home field advantage
  • how would i evaluate the temperature in my family? cold, medium, hot
  • what action steps can i take to increase the encouragement atmosphere in my family?

bo is ending with a pep talk football style. it reminds me of this video.

darren whitehead : youth ministry 2.0

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these are my notes. make a comment if you have a question. i’ve thrown in a few thoughts into the mix. not to mention i wrote an article titled youth ministry 2.0 a few years back. pictures from this pilgrim experience.

darren whitehead
youth ministry 2.0 : how culture has changed what we do

the gospel message is timeless, but our strategies and methods need to change.

Acts 17: 22-28 (TNIV)

Not just Biblical Exegesis but also cultural Exegesis

  • we need to analyze how the culture thinks. we are also not just talking about youth culture. there is not just a generational shift, but a cultural shift.
  • the web has changed the world. we don’t have to tell stories anymore, we can just click and experience it together.
  • the largest consumer of porn on the internet is 12-17 year olds.
  • should we be talking to youth not just about two lives, but three now? there is your self, church self, internet self.
  • web 2.0 is a revolution. we are now living in the world 2.0. we cannot afford to be doing youth ministry 1.0.
  • the people formerly known as consumers are content providers.

Five Shifts in the way we do Youth Ministry

  1. from Passive to Interactive : user generated content rules now. why would they want to come in and sit passively. how do we get our students out of their seats (metaphorically) and into the content role. ownership. our students are no longer attending our ministry, they ARE our ministry. i remember doug fields talking about this kind of youth inclusion 6 or 7 years ago. our united methodist youth handbook talks of similar youth leadership
  2. from Resolved to Unresolved : did a topical series on war, homosexuality, myspace, and other hot topics. but didn’t tell them how to think or what to think. be committed to not giving neat little trite answers to complicated issues. there is room for discussion and you need to allow it.. we are going to be co-journers on your walk. we need to be prepared to not just be travel agents, but tour guides reminds me of derek webb’s song "a new law"
  3. from Immitation to Imagination : for too long we have promoted the four spiritual laws and quiet time as clones for spiritual people. we want to cultivate imagination. we teach youth to be dependent on us for spiritual nourishment. teaching people to feed on the scriptures themselves. create environments where they can interact with the scriptures themselves.
  4. from Informational to Experiential : trying to come up with new ways to engage in visual and kinistetic ways to teach. using cell phones & txting to do interaction. prayer stations. stations of the cross, blindfold with sound effects, the theater of the mind to experience. i know a great prayer station resource. &:~D
  5. from Confession to Compassion : students are not longer satisfied with what they believe they want to demonstrate and live out the gospel. moves of not just compassion, but also social justice.

scot mcknight : missional Jesus

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these are my notes. a lot was said and very fast. make a comment if you have a question. maybe we can get scot to jump into the conversion. pictures from this pilgrim experience. jake & aaron attended the same meeting & will most likely have some good notes.

Scot McKnight
Missional Jesus

missional is today’s buzzword. buzzwords are good and sometimes they are bad. in the past discipleship became the buzzword. in the 80’s became ‘spiritual disciplines’ because of richard foster. then dallas willard shaped into ‘spiritual formation’ . people are nervous about evangelism that they use the word missional. evangelism has morphed into missional and is not as clear as evangelism so it is murky.

theology of the word missional

  • missional comes from mission literature, missiological studies. Missio Dei. there is a conviction that we have to discover what God’s mission in the world, and our responsibility is to participate in that mission. (acts1:8, talks of missional) what does God want us to do in this world versus what is our local church trying to accomplish
  • the church doesn’t do mission. the church is the mission. when the church isn’t missional it isn’t church. for a lot of people church is about sunday morning worship and a sermon. the mission of the church is to do what God’s mission in the world as God’s instrument
  • by talking about missional, we avoid simplistic evangelism. if you start talking of the mission of God as kingdom then evangelism is a lot more about what you do when you accept Jesus. it affirms holistic evangelism. it allows for justice and justice ministries. it requires ecumenical corroboration. increasingly denominations don’t matter and it is more about what God is doing in the local community. asserts the primacy of the kingdom of God.

Reading the bible:
What is God doing in this world in this text

Luke 1: 46-55 "Mary’s Song" (view on mary, we don’t have a good view on mary, just an anti-roman catholic view of mary) if you just had this text, what would you think Mary’s idea of what her son was going to do in this world. it is a mosaic of old testament hopes. you can see justice in here. do you see anything about going to heaven? Mary’s vision is that when the messiah came it would be the way God wanted it to be.
Luke 1: 67- "Zechariah’s Song" (is his view of his son john role similar?) "salvation from our enemies" who are the enemies? rome.. only after the end of all this does he turn to his son john the baptist. the vision is there is going to a society where there is going to justice and liberation. where they can worship God is holiness and righteousness.
Luke 3. looking at John the Baptist as he begins preaching. John gets to announce the coming of Jesus. verse 10, ‘anyone who has two shirts should share with the one that has none’.. a little like Mary. John’s first idea is about economic distribution. economic justice. verse 14, ‘don’t extort money and be content with your pay’. John is thinking of really concrete deeds.

if we just have Mary, Zechariah & John, what is the mission of God?

Society

  • Justice
  • Reformation
  • economic Justice
  • Revolution
  • Forgiveness
  • Liberation

Luke 4:14- Jesus Rejected at Nazareth, Jesus puts into claim these same things. he makes it really personal with saying "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your ears." (i learned it from my mother & uncle)

in the Beatitudes. he turns the knife on Herod. "whoa to you who are rich, you have already received your comfort." whoa.. whoa… check ’em out. it is almost exactly like Mary’s magnificat.

the mission according to these texts. Is to create a society of Justice.

Luke 7 : "are you the one that is supposed to come" the person from Malachi 3 & 4. Jesus say, "go tell him what you have seen and heard…"

What did Jesus expect? he had the same expectations.

Mary still had to learn this. in Mark she tries to rescue Jesus from himself. they call him to come home to mother and brothers and sisters.. and Jesus responds "who is my mother, who are my brothers and sisters?" ..

John 19 : Mary saw it coming. Jesus on the cross. he says, "take care of my mother. she has some dreams that have yet to come true."
Acts 1:14 : there is Mary with all the disciples, the brothers and sisters of Jesus. she is right there. then the Holy Spirit came and Mary was there.

all this. and Mary was right in the middle of it saying "this is what the magnificat is all about. the local church breaking bread together" imagine a society of Justice. a society of forgiveness, liberation, economic justice, reformation, and revolution.

the mission of Jesus, we are talking about the church as an alternative to culture and an embodiment of magnificat in place. it begins with you and me living it out daily. not by a mission statement. instead we have to live it out.

where the church went off-board

  • platonic dualism influenced the church
  • personal salvation, less on the church
  • slick marketing evangelism
  • i think Jesus used the language Kingdom for what God was doing in the world and Paul preached an aspect of the Kingdom..

four points on the missional community

  1. the mission of Jesus is to create the missional society, the missional community. it is a Jesus community Mark 3:31-35 it is the community of Jesus
  2. it is an alternative community. Jesus makes statements that are really un-believeable Matthew 17:24-27
  3. prophetic community, it speaks too and against the rest of society. Jesus had words for ceaser and herod and empire. he warned them and that things were not right.
  4. a moral community, the sermon on the mount is a moral map for the people who follow Jesus

scot mcknight : teaching the bible to emerging generations

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these are my notes. a lot was said and very fast. make a comment if you have a question. maybe we can get scot to jump into the conversaion. pictures from this pilgrim experience.

Scot McKnight
Teaching the Emerging Generation to Read the Bible
Shift Conference 2008

aspects of postmodernism emerging generation reading the bible

  • science is not the only story
  • science is dethroned, subjective reality is enthroned
  • they embrace their local story
  • epistemic humility
  • acceptance of myth, as an acceptable form of telling the truth.

this is small, but it has long term implications.

is it okay that adam is eve is not true but tells a narrative story

cultural products

  • come through pluralism, tv, increasing number of experiences with foreign countries
  • teaching of youth to read Jesus through the hebrew world
  • students are not bothered by a cultural expression
  • they like the ambiguity of different stories because it is part of their world

"I don’t have answers to these questions. I’m a college professor."

the emerging generation is experiencing "ironic faith"

the emerging story is the development of "ironic faith" .. people believe "but" .. etc. so there is a certain amount of irony in their faith that becomes intolerable therefore they leave. the emerging group has crossed a certain threshold. they will either become part of a new thing or they will not be christians at all

first element that feeds this

  • a doctrine of scripture that they can no longer accept. in-errancy or infallibility they can’t accept. it worked for modernity, but not for now. "is the bible true?" yes.. but they just wouldn’t use that word
  • science. an increasing number of emerging types believes that science tells a lot of truth. they might say that evolution happen, so then how do i read the bible if this is the way that God allowed the world to be created. they don’t say that they should change their view of science.
  • the doctrine of hell. we will face it in ways we have not faced it before in the next 15 – 20 years. you don’t have to have the answers, but you need to let the question be asked
  • the God of the bible. people believe in a open theism. students read the bible that we encourage them too. and parts that we do not know much about.
  • homosexuality.. they know what the bible says, and it is pretty clear. but they have close friends, brothers & sisters who are gay and lesbian and they seem like good Christians. there is a realization that there are homosexual Christians and there is no place for them in the church. it is not about morality or sexuality, it is about group identity

they are finding Jesus for the first time who grew up in a paul-ine world. they are choosing, which of these gospels am i going to follow. and they are not all the same
recognition that all theologies are language bound

this is scary stuff and destabilizes traditional evangelicalism. must be willing to listen to the questions.

short cut approaches

  • some people read the bible like a Rorschach inkblot. they open up the bible and they see what they want to see. breaking of the bible into verses has helped this.
  • morsels of laws. some people look at the bible as statements of things we are supposed to do.
  • people read the bible as a hallmark calendar of blessings. "i have never seen a hallmark card filled with wrath passages." the bible is laced together with blessings and hard things. there are hard parts and need to get beyond reading the bible to just find blessings
  • puzzlers. a lot of us do this instinctively. these people almost envision the bible as verses and cut them up and scatter them all out. if you know how to piece them together then you will know what God had in mind. if you can put them together you will know how to read the bible. when we come to scripture to read we already know how to read it, because we already have our theology figured out. out systematic theology, reading the bible as a puzzle, can be a dangerous way to read the bible. God didn’t give us systematic theology.. more people tend to believe the system than the story itself.
  • maestro approach. i think a lot of us read the bible through a maestro’s eyes. reformers picked Paul. mainline liberals picked Jesus, as well the Anabaptists.

"i think we should teach people to read the bible that is.. and not teach them something.."

a model of how to read the bible

we need to read the bible as a story. not as myth or fiction. the way God revealed the bible. every author is a wiki story of the story. if you believe scripture to be the inspired word of God you have to be willing to take in

the creator creates Eikon’s. we are made with four relations God, Self, Others, World. we cracked the Eikon’s in four relations, with God, Self, Others, World. covenanted Eikon’s the whole bible is about covenanted Eikon’s, the covenanted people are the very foundation of the story. reformers grown in a Pauline context want to go from Genesis 12 to Romans 3. new covenant with Christ is the climactic dimension. the consummation.

we should read book by book or author by author. look for these five themes. map how these five themes come up in the wiki stories. we have to let the wiki stories do the work for us.