Putting words to experiences with God
March 25, 2009
As the spiritual guides to our youth, after we take the time to help our youth notice God, we are also responsible for helping our youth to name their experiences with God. That means helping students to understand and process and dialogue about what their God-experiences mean. Helping them to figure out what significance a God-moment (really all moments) have in their lives.
Tradition would try to label these moments “teaching moments.” Moments where we try to give interpretation of experiences to our youth. Moments where we attach meaning to experience. As Mark Yaconelli writes about in Contemplative Youth Ministry, our role in helping students name their experiences, he suggests we invert the teaching paridigm. If we want to teach our youth the significance of their God-experiences, then our first priority must be to listen. Couple quotes to this point:
“Possibly the most important skill when ministering with youth is knowing when to talk and when to listen.”
“Being a listening presence to youth and God are foundational skills in ministry.”
If we want to truly teach our students how God is continually reaching out into every moment and every experience in our lives, we have to listen. We have to shut up before we can speak. We shut our own mouths so that we can hear God’s voice in our own hearts. We shut up so that our motives don’t guide our actions, but so that God’s motives can guide our actions. We normally speak out before listening for that God voive, that God inspiration. We speak out before we give God a chance to speak truth into our hearts.
We always want to be in control of any given situation. If we haven’t been organizing our lives in such a way to consistently hear God, then we will speak into the life of another and let our motives dominate.
We see the lives of our youth, and automatically, without even trying, we can already envision the path they should take. We feel like we really know what they should be doing, how they should be acting, what course they should take according to whatever specific circumstances they might currently be in.
When we try to speak into the life of a student, what is the primary motive inside of our hearts? Is it to get them to the “right” answer? Or to communicate God’s plan to them, even if it’s contrary to what may be going on inside of us?
Like a student that sees a homeless person on the side of the road holding a beat-up McDonald’s cup. The student wants to empty his wallet and give all that he has at the moment to this guy on the street, while the whole time we may be thinking of how that money is going to go to waste. We want to warn the student, “Be careful not to do that all the time, I mean, once in a while it’s ok, just not all of the time, cause they’re’ll always be another homeless person and then you’ll always be given your money away.”
I think if we don’t take the time to listen to God, and if we don’t take the time to really listen to the souls of our students, we’ll speak words that are more for us and our comfortability than words that are meant to draw our students closer to the Living God.
Helping our students notice God – part II
March 18, 2009
(thoughts coming from Mark Yaconelli’s book Contemplative Youth Ministry)
I read the next part in how to help students notice God in their lives.
1. We Point. We point out the ways that God is already involved in the life of a students and we actually say to them things like, “Wow, that was a really kind thing you did, that’s a lot like what Jesus would probably do.” Or, “That’s a really sad situation that you’re in. I think God is probably sad about it too.” We point out how God’s character is similar to their character. We connect the dots that their lives are actually like God’s life. We act as a mirror, showing them their image, and then we figure out ways to show them how their image is connected to God’s image. All good things come from God, and when we see the good present in their life and we make sure they see it to, we show them how God is already active.
2. We Question. We ask simple questions directly to our youth. Simple questions that bring God into the conversation. When they are hurting over a broken friendship, we ask “Where’s God at for you right now?” When they’re getting nervous before a game or recital, we ask “Do you believe that God has everything under control, no matter what happens?” We ask direct questions about God’s involvment in their life because that forces them to think of an answer. They have to answer something like, “Well, I’m not sure where God is right now?” And then, we the adults, get the privelage of asking a follow-up question, probably along the lines of “Well, what do you think? If you had to give it your best guess, what do you think God is trying to say to you right now?”
3. We Invite. We invite our students into having a direct conversation with God through prayer. It is so important to invite students to pray on their own because though it may seem fruitless now, their will be a sad, sorry, and lonely night in the future, where they are by themselves on their bed in the middle of the night, and perhaps at that moment, it will be prayer that the fall back on. We have to invite our youth to initiate their own conversations with God because we can not will them into a relationship with God.
4. We Create Circumstances. We create circumstances because all students are experiential learners. Students learn the best when they are out on their own two feet serving others. The take the most in when they are on their knees in prayer. I believe that giving a sermon is the least effective way to communicate God’s truths to our students. They need to practice a relationship with God before they will ever fully buy into it. It’s up to us adults to create meaningful experiences.
Creating Circumstances is the most important step. It is the most important step because when we create a meaningful experience, we create a context for us to point, ask questions, and invite students to pray. And honestly, and circumstance can become meaningful. Every moment is sacred and can be harnessed to help students notice the Living God.
Car rides. Trips to the grocery store. Soccer practice. Fishing outings. Family dinner. Any experience can be used to unveil God’s presence. Our job is to use any and all God’s creation to direct students to Him. I think I fail here because I think on some level I kind of expect my students to notice God on their own. It’s very easy for me to fall into the trap of having some really awesome, some truly great students that love God. It’s easy for me to just assume that I’ve pointed God out enough, that I’ve asked enough God-centered questions for them to “get it” by now. As my students continue to mature, the responsibility will still fall primarily on me, the one pursuing a more mature relationship with Christ, that I will never stop needing to point out and ask where does God fit into their life? This is my responsibility as one who is trying to teach them all that Jesus commanded (Mt 28:20).
Helping our students notice God…
March 12, 2009
I pretty much can’t count the times I’ve had to ask myself, “What am I supposed to be doing to help the students I serve grow closer to God?” Like really, what am I supposed to do. I know that I’m supposed to help students in their spiritual journeys, but what does that look like and how do I put practical steps in front of me to achieve that goal?
My guess is that if you have any investment in the youth in your life, you want to help to. I’m going to be doing posts each week for the next couple months trying to give us all some practical steps for helping students in their spiritual journeys. I’m going to be using Mark Yaconelli’s book Contemplative Youth Ministry to do so. I’ve read like 80% of it so far, and now I’m at the part that it narrows down and defines our roles in helping youth in their spiritual journeys.
Yaconelli says there are three ways we can keep our students moving in the right spiritual direction. The first is noticing. Noticing is “helping youth become aware of their relationship with God.”
That means that my first task, my first priority when trying to help a student find their way to God, is to simply helps students become aware of their personal experience with God. It’s helping them to open their eyes to the God moments that are happening to them every single day. God really is all around me every day and I rarely take the time God deserves to recognize Him as the God of my life. I suck immeasurably at that. I feel like my first step in helping studetns notice God in their lives is for me to find a way to notice God more in my life.
Yaconelli goes on to say “our role is to help youth recognize the ways in which Jesus is already near, already seeking trust and friendship.”
It’s so easy for me to look at a teenager and NOT see any trace of God in their life. What I feel I normally see falls more into the categories of ADHD, attention-driven, and hopelessly irresponsible, God love ‘em. I don’t take the time to see God in their faces. I don’t take time to see God in their actions, therefore I miss ways that I can notice God already in their lives. I miss how cool and special the really are. I don’t see them as God sees them–full of potential and ready for forming.
If my primary job is to help them notice God, then I have to be willing to notice the true them first. If I can’t see them for who they are, God’s children, then I won’t be able to see God’s work currently in them. I will only be frustrated that they aren’t developing at the rate which I desire.
My goal this weekend is to notice a student, to see the real them. Before I can point them in the right direction, and before I can help them notice God in their life, I have to notice what God’s doing in their life. My goal is to understand a student well enough and pay close enough attention to what they are saying and what they are feeling that I can maybe discern what God is wanting for them in their life.
ParenTeen
March 12, 2009
To all the student parents at Shoal Creek:
“Is the struggle to raise your teenagers driving you nuts? Do you
nd yourself having irrational arguments with your kids? When
parenting gets tough, where can you turn for support? Come
nd some quiet in the storm of adolescence at Elevate’s monthly
ParenTeen as you trade war stories and nd hope in
moving forward.
The third Sunday of every month from 6:00-7:00pm in the SC offices”
That paragraph came right off the flyers I’m passing out this Sunday and the eNews. Each night that we have Plunge, we will alway offer ParenTeen. ParenTeen is an hour meeting centered on connecting with other parents of teens. Tim Backs is going to be leading this hour long session in the SC offices.
Here’s the hope for ParenTeen: to connect parents to other parents that also have no idea how to parent teenagers, finding strength in relating to each other. Parents can share advice, ask questions, and learn that they’re not the only ones going through the ups and downs of parenting teenagers. It happens at the same time as Plunge so that you can drop your student off at Plunge, stay for the hour, and then head home as a family.
If you can, RSVP to justin.talley@shoalcreek.org to let us know you’re coming.
An email to my Buya Leaders
March 6, 2009
I decided to post an email I just sent out to all the Buya Leaders that lead on Sunday mornings in Buya AM. I’ve never done this before, but thought it would be appropriate because the email reveals a lot of the purpose and vision of what we’re wanting to do with our students on Sunday mornings in Buya AM, and I hope families can see how big of a role the small group leaders are for our middle school students.
“Hey Everyone,
I wanted to give you a heads up for this coming Sunday and some following Sundays. I’ve decided to purchase 8 weeks of small group curriculum for our Buya AM Conversations time. I’m doing this for a couple of reasons.
One, in trying to balance all the HS Fusion topics/discussion, events, serving opportunities, contact work and planning, Buya AM is getting the least amount of my time. I feel sad to see the thing I used to spend most of my time on become the least prioritized, but I feel that’s a little ok because of all the other stuff I’m working on. Buying curriculum helps a lot because it looks to be pretty stinking good and more thought out than what I was coming up with, and it’s actually cheap. 8 weeks for $24. We can stretch that to 10 weeks by adding our own flavorful things in there too.
Second, I want to value experimentation in what we do, and I’d like to just see what happens with our MS students when we try to “up” the depth-level. I think this forward-looking, 8-week thought out curriculum could keep adding to the consistency we’re trying to build with our students on Sunday mornings. From what I’ve heard from most of you, the decision to split up by grade has been a positive one. I hope that maybe by adding a more solid curriculum than what I can come up with in my head week from week will continue to add consistency and depth to the relationships you’re building with students. If not, let me know! We’ll pull the plug if it doesn’t work! That being said, I think we should give it a full 8-10 weeks to see.
Thirdly, I think that the move to continue making Buya AM deeper is a good thing because I think students long for depth in their lives, even if they put up huge walls at first. There’s no way for us to ever be as entertaining as MTV, Google, or the myriad of other flashy, poppy, explosive marketing tools that suck our students in. Even though the majority of our students that walk through our doors have no idea what a relationship with Christ looks like, and therefore have thicker walls up to the True Gospel, I want to see us pushed to awaken that Thirst inside of them. We give them time to socialize and hangout and play, and that’s good, but I want to figure out if there really is a way to awaken that Thirst on Sunday mornings. I feel we’re getting closer to that with all the step we’ve been making. This is another step in what I hope will be that direction of deeping relationships and awakening students to a relationship with Christ.
Lastly, and we might even be a little ahead of the game in this one, other churches are starting to move away from “programming” on Sundays and moving to straight up small groups. Here’s an article that came out today from the Fuller Youth Institue, and here’s another one from them about a month ago. The FYI leads the way in putting theory to practice in youth ministry, and they’re going to attempt to do what we’ve been moving towards for some time now.
So, I’ve attached the first weeks for you to look at ahead of time. I’ll do that each week so that you can know what’s coming your way and not be surprised. I have not anticipated every little thing that could happen, I don’t know what all we need to be prepared, but I’m excited to see where this goes!
Thanks for all you continue to do!
Justin”