Elevate Info
April 30, 2009
Hey Parents, here’s the upcoming info you need to know about:
1. Vamos! Road Trip – Please go to the Registraion Page (www.shoalcreek.org/vamos) and check out the details of one of the most entertaining events Elevate has done yet to date. The Vamos! Road Trip is taking the place of the lock in this year, and I want to take 45 students on a charter bus for a daytrip to St. Louis for the Zoo, Sky Zone Trampoline Center, and City Museum. Any 6th-12th grade student is welcome, I’m definitely encouraging them to bring their friends. Registration and payment is due May 17th.
2. Musical Worship Night Wednesday May 6th – At 6:30pm next Wednesday, bring your family in for a night of musical worship in the SC Auditorium.
Elevate Info
April 21, 2009
Hey Parents, another update on what’s happening with the student ministries at Shoal Creek:
1. Thank you letters – I am still taking thank you letters from students for my volunteer leaders. I’m doing a dinner for them next Wednesday, so if you can maybe prompt them to write to a thank you letter to a leader or if they could write about a memorable experience they have had in the last year, that would be sweet! I need them this weekend.
2. Guys Night and Girls Night this Friday – This is a 6th-12th grade event, $3 per student, 7-10pm
Guys- at the Underground
Girls- at Erin and Justin’s house, 409 N Missouri St, Liberty, 64068
Please email me back if you know your student is attending so we can get the right amount of eats and drinks!
Note about Guys Night- we will be having Halo 3 available to play during this time. If you have a younger student you’d rather not have play this game (which is a shooting game), please email me so I can honor those decisions you’ve made as family.
Thanks Everyone!
New Book – Engaging the Soul of Youth Culture
April 20, 2009
New book that I’m working my way through–Engaging the Sould of Youth Culture by Walt Mueller. Here’s something to motivate anyone with a beating heart:
Chapter One, P.35 — “one out of every four teenagers in the US is currently ‘at serious risk of not achieving productive adulthood.’ Or, ‘about 21% [one out of five] children ages 9 to 17 have a diagnosable mental or addictive disorder associated with at least minimum impairment.’ “
Outside of wondering whether or not I, myself, have achieved a “productive adulthood,” I find the fact that one out of five adolescents have either a mental disorder or addiction quite disturbing. But then I think about it and I don’t.
This week I’m going to focus on the things that stuck out to me the most in Chapter One: Reality Bytes. The first:
“…adults have forced children out of childhood…and into premature adulthood.” Which kind of doesn’t make sense at first, right? Because nobody is forcing kids to grow up, right? In fact, it seems that kids are increasingly more immature and rebellious and childish in everything they do, right? It seems like our teenagers are moving in reverse, becoming less like “real” adults the closer they move to adulthood, right? They’re not moving out of childhood at all, right?
SYSTEMATIC ABANDONEMENT, defined as “an absence of healthy and involved adults in the developmental years of an adolescent,” a lack of nurturing structure surrounding an adolescent during their transformation between childhood and adulthood. The journey through adolescence is a pursuit of identity. Each youth trying to figure out who they will ultimate become. On the hole, our youth are being left to raise themselves on increasing independent levels. Our youth are REALLY smart. They can do things with technology that we will never be able to. Some students exist who have actually found the end of the internet. There’s nothing more they can search for, they found it all.
Lack of adults. That’s really what it comes down to. A lack of adults in the lives of our teens and preteens. Adults who are willing to listen and be patient and put up with the awkwardness that a relationship with a young, maturing adolescent can bring.
Adolescents don’t always express themselves to adults in ways that are “easily understood or make us feel comfortable” (Mueller). At some point, it becomes easy to just let them figure it out on their own and feel like we’re letting them have the freedom they need to really mature. Which really doesn’t work because adolescents don’t need us to be around less, but just as much, if not more, as they continue to grow up. They are facing an increasing amount of potentially harmful decisions, and therefore need even more guidance from people that have walked similar roads already–the adults in their lives.
Mueller says it this way about us: “In some cases, the family and the church are present but unaccounted for. In other words, we’re they’re but we’re not paying attention.” How do we know that we’re really giving the care that our youth need to become healthy and whole adults? How do we assess our ability to hear the meaning behind a teenager’s words? It’s like, I interact with so many youth, but am I really hearing what they have to say? Are my own thoughts, opinions and inner motives influencing me in a way that I can’t hear what they really have to say?
Like last night, at our monthly student worship service, I sat next to a student who was crying because his grandpa doesn’t remember who he is anymore. There was so much pain in his heart. The grandfather he remembered, the man who used to bounce his grandson on his knee, could no longer recognize him. He was heartbroken.
What am I supposed to be listening to, or what should I be hearing in a situation like that? What words could I possible offer? Is it even appropriate to bring up Jesus right then, or am I just trying to hijack an emotional moment to inject the Gospel into? Do I really even long and yearn to bring healing into his life in that vulnerable moment? Or do I let uncomfortable feelings win out? Do I just let him continue to cry beside me without saying a word, or do I try to come up with some kind of answer that will make him feel better?
What does God want for that student in a moment like that? Am I even in tune with God enough? Enough to actually hear God speak to my heart about this young boy?
The inability of myself, and other adults, to listen to God first, and to listent to the vulnerable hearts of our young ones, has left this newest generation of youth feeling isolated and on their own. They don’t trust us becuase we are unwilling to listen without offering judgement. They feel safest when they are the furthest from us, because they’ve experience an adult population that would rather “fix” their problems then just “be there” with them through it.
Possible Restructuring of Buya Grade Levels
April 16, 2009
Hey Families, I wanted to throw out an idea I’m pursuing with the student ministry and the way the grade levels are structured. I’ve been talking with the staff about it, and I’ve also been discussing it with the small group and team leaders in Shoal Creek.
I’m trying make small groups with the students, by grades, the most important and effective piece to the Elevate student ministry. Doing so wouldn’t really change much of what we’re already doing now, it would just mean me reorganizing the way I split the grades up on Sunday mornings and Monday nights. This is what it would look like:
6th and 7th grade, and 8th and 9th grade small groups on Sunday mornings during 11:00 service (divided by gender of course)
10th-12th grade on Monday nights (nothing changing there at all)
All the 6th-9th grade students would still collect in the Underground from 10:45-11:15 before splitting up and going to their small group rooms with their leaders.
Any reactions to this??? I would like to hear anything you have to say about it. Talk to your students about it and be a voice for them. We’re going to start talking to them about it on Sundays and trying to hear what they have to say, but we know that sometimes they’re scared to voice their opinions right then and there (and sometimes they’re definitely not! lol)
I would like to see it happen becacuse I feel the maturity levels within the students naturally fit those pairings, making the discussion time during our Sunday morning groups more relevant to their age group. This is especially true with Crash, because there’s quite a bit of difference between a 9th grader and a Senior when it comes to life stage and life experience.
It’s also really hard to get 9th graders to our Monday night Crash (HS) small group because they can’t drive yet and are dependent on rides. I’d rather form a small group for 9th graders when I’m going to have the best chance at being able to get them to it, and Sunday mornings fits that better since they’re coming with their parents already.
Right now we have just enough small group leaders to cover the students that we have coming regularly. I’d love for some of the parents that have students coming to look at this as an opportunity to become more involved in what we’re trying to do with the students. I’m convinced that small groups are the best way to pursue spiritual transformation in the lives of our students at Shoal Creek. Any parent who would want to build relationships with students and be a part of our ministry team I would like to speak with personally (justin.talley@shoalcreek.org). Right now, 5/9 of my leaders are parents, so I know there’s no such thing as a generation gap that can keep this from working.
Elevate Upcoming Events
April 16, 2009
1. Plunge (monthly student worship service) is this Sunday night from 6-7pm @ Shoal Creek. Send your students to the Underground when they show up, we’ll then go to the attic instead of the Auditorium.
2. ParenTeen will be meeting again during Plunge in the SC Offices. ParenTeen is a meeting time that happens once a month during Plunge, where parents can talk about coming struggles that happen while trying to parent teenagers. Tim Backs is the facilitator of ParenTeen.
3. Guys Night/Girls Night is scheduled for next Friday the 24th, 7-10pm, $3 per student. Any 6th-12th grade student is invited and any of their friends. The Guys will be at the Underground at Shoal Creek for that time. The Girls will be with Erin at our house hanging out: 409 N Missouri St, Liberty, 64068 if you need to mapquest it. Please RSVP back to me!
4. Replacing the Lock-in this year is the Vamos! Road Trip to St. Louis, MO. It’s a non-stop trip starting at 7:30am and lasting until 12:30am on Saturday May 30th. This is a big trip and the first time we’ve ever done something like this, but I’m way excited. All 10 interns will be traveling with us as chaperons. All details and registration info is only at www.shoalcreek.org/vamos. Please go there before sending your questions my way. It’ll cost $40 per student and I have a limited 45 spots, first come, first serve. You MUST to apply online, print off two forms, and get those forms to me along with your payment to guarantee your students spot.
5. If you have chosen to do the Avon fundraiser, order forms are due to me Sunday April 26th.