http://groups.yahoo.com/group/riverinaym_bookclub

Every 1.5/2  Months a new book will be chosen for participants to discuss online. If the group decides later on to change the time length that will be decided as a group. Books are purchasable through either Kentigern Books, Ridley Books or Koorong Books.

Group Rules:

• Participants will engage in discussion with compassion and understanding.
• All Participants are entitled to their own opinion but are asked to use this compassion and understanding when in conversation with others in the group.
• This is a book club discussion group, participants are asked to keep private conversations or advertisements about other activities off of the list.
• Any issues with the group shall be discussed with the moderator.

Book Titles and Dates:

• October 15 – November 30 2007: Contemplative Youth Ministry by Mark Yaconelli.
• December 01 – January 15th 2008:Growing Souls by Mark Yaconelli
• January 15th – March 01 2008: Exiles by Michael Frost
• March 01 – April 30th 2008: Deep Ministry in a Shallow World by Chap Clark and Kara Powell
• May 01st – June 15th 2008: Real Kids, Real Faith by Karen Yust

If you’re keen join up over at     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/riverinaym_bookclub

Buy the book: Contemplative Youth Ministry by Mark Yaconelli

The central problem in sharing the Christian faith with young people doesn’t concern words; it’s deeper than that. The real crisis facing those of us who seek to share faith with youth is this:
we don’t know how to be with our kids.
we don’t know how to be with ourselves.
we don’t know how to be with God.
pp19

Contemplative Youth Ministry is a book that’s been a long coming, a result of the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project (http://www.ymsp.org) which has been facilitated by Mark Yaconelli. For 8 years the YMSP put together research, articles, conferences and retreats for church communities and youth workers engaging people with contemplative practices, prayer and ministry. Mark has compiled much of the lessons from the project and placed them into this fantastic book so that others may also engage with the project and the opportunities that contemplative practices may offer their ministry.

I’ve been a fan of books by Kenda Creasy Dean and Dorothy Bass that have been encouraging youth ministry to explore the benefits of spiritual and contemplative practices, and have found that their writing have benefited and challenged my ministry with young people over the last few years, yet find that their work is not as widely read here in Australia as I’d like. This book I hope will break into those networks and ministries that haven’t paid much attention to the challenges of other authors to explore contemplative practices in ministry and open their eyes and minds to the benefits of such practices in ministry with young people.

What I like about this book is that it’s written partially as a text book for leaders as well as providing some practical input as to how leaders can learn some of the practices that are spoken about in the book. This isn’t about teaching people how to get their young people to participate in contemplative practices, it’s about sharing stories and exploring ways in which people’s youth ministry may benefit from contemplative practices.

One of the key learning points for me included Mark’s exploration into what I believe to be the root problem behind most youth ministries, that they’re more about addressing either adult’s fears and anxieties for young people or the fears and anxieties that young people have of the church.

adult anxiety about teens may be the primary reason youth ministry exists.
pp31

That if youth ministry is about addressing the anxiety that adults have about young people then it’s about control, about developing good morals, about teaching people how to act and believe. Youth ministries like this develop discipleship models and become restrictive and deadening.

The other direction that many youth ministries take is to address the fears that young people have of the church. Ministries that focus on these fears will tend to focus on entertaining young people, trying to address the fear that “church is boring” they also distract young people from the deeper rhythms of the Christian faith.

Mark continues the exploration into anxieties and shares some stories and lessons learnt from discussions with parents of young people asking exactly why many adults see the need to take their children to church. The suggestion being that parents really want their children to be alive, to know the presence and reality of God, although their expectations tend to lean towards learning morality and how to conform to the life of the community.

It’s difficult for parents to trust their children to God. Look what happened to Jesus! Look what happened to the disciples! Look what happened to his friends, those we point to as saints! Parents, church members, and youth might want Christian values and assurances, but we don’t want the life of Jesus.
pp42

Mark continues his book to explore the benefit of contemplative prayer, not only as a part of one’s spiritual life and being present with God, but also as a way for people to learn to simply be present with the young people that they minister with. As we learn to practice contemplative prayer so we learn to practice contemplative youth ministry, as he writes that contemplative prayer doesn’t move people into more silence, but instead into more authentic action.

The gifts that contemplative practices encourages in us naturally feed into our ministry with young people, allowing us to learn to just be present, to truly see the young people that we’re working with, to really be able to listen to them, to build a ministry of nurture and most of all to learn just to be present with those who have learnt that they will never get an adult’s full attention.

As I read the New Testament it’s clear to me that people felt seen by Jesus. It’s also clear that Jesus’ willingness to openly see people (particularly those who often went unseen and unnoticed) was at the heart of his ministry.
pp106

What’s so special about this book is that it’s telling us stuff that we already know to be true, i mean we allready know that young people are looking for adults who know how to live lives of love, but we still find it difficult to live it. Mark has written in a way that inspires us to take it on and be energized about altering our approach to our ministry with young people, our own personal spiritual journey and the way in which we see, nurture, notice and be with young people and with each other.

This is a youth ministry resource that needed to be written and needs even moreso to be read, I’m hoping that what we’ll see out of this is a number of youth ministries being revitalized, a number of youth workers being inspired, a number of churches being transformed and a number of young people with a new generation of ministries that is all about introducing them to the deeper rhythms and practices of the Christian faith, and the alternative life that Jesus calls each of us towards.

What does a contemplative approach to youth ministry look like? It looks like youth engaged in centering prayer as well as body surfing. It look like kids doing lectio divinia as well as critical study of the bible. It looks like solitude as well as service projects, contemplative worship as well as disco karaoke. As Jesus points out again and again, it’s not the method but the spirit – the love and awareness behind our activities – that make them Christian.
pp232

“if the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it?… A book must be like an ice-axe to break the frozen sea within us” – Kafka

I’ve been reading Eugene Peterson’s latest release “Eat This Book” and I’m thinking of making it the first book in my yet-to-be-created online book club, it’s quite literally a book thats made me drool and crave more of as I’ve been reading.

He starts the book by likening the growling and playing that a dog does with it’s bone to the growling that Isaiah’s Lion does over it’s prey and then reflecting on the word “hagah” which is used to describe this growling. Hagah is also the same word that we usually translate to mean “meditate” quite obviously the image of a dog with his bone and one meditating on the scriptures would usually bring up two different images, but in bringing them together we start to see how Eugene would like us to view the scriptures, as a bone that we chew on, that we joyfully play with and gnaw on for ages, burying it and coming back to it in an almost ritualistic fashion.

The book’s primarily a sales pitch for the use of Lectio Divinia as a form and pattern of reading and “eating” the scriptures, opening up the abilit for us to accept the metaphors and start to play with the text.

I’ve used some of the book as an introduction to a session on Lectio Divinia as a Spiritual Practice for young adults in year 11, 12 and first year university. The session went rather well, although I’m constantly reminded that when one trys to introduce something that is so different to the normally scientific/scholarly way that we read the bible it can scare people, and that Lectio Divinia is something that needs to be practiced in order to become comfortable with.

One of the great things about this latest series from Eugene is the addition of Study Guides which means that churches or groups could use it over a period of 9 sessions to go through the book and explore it’s questions and wisdom.

Eat this book is a text written to people who have become acutely aware of the ways that the words, poetry and metaphors in scripture have lost their life becoming just ink on a page and even more aware of the need for us and the Spirit to resurrect the words for our generation and world.

Jamie wants to be the real thing. From the roots of her dyed blonde hair… There are a lot of things Jamie hates about her life: her dark hair, her dad’s Stone Age Charter of Curfew Rights, her real name – Jamilah Towfeek. For the past three years Jamie has hidden her Lebanese background from everyone at school. It’s only with her email friend John that she can really be herself. But now things are getting complicated: the most popular boy in school is interested in her, but there’s no way he would be if he knew the truth.

Then there’s Timothy, the school loner, who for some reason Jamie just can’t stop thinking about. As for John, he seems to have a pretty big secret of his own… To top it all off, Jamie’s school formal is coming up. The only way she’ll be allowed to attend is by revealing her true identity. Will she risk it all? And does she know who she is… Jamie or Jamilah?

Another book ive read recently is “10 Things I Hate About Me” by Randa Abdel-Fattah, its a great book to follow on from her last novel “Does My Head Look Big In This?” 10 Things follows the life of Jamilah, a Lebanese girl who has, for quite some time now hidden her real identity from her friends at school for fear of them attaching any number of racist stereotypes to her and her family, so now with blonde hair and blue eyes Jamilah lives her school life as Jamie.

As this year goes on it’s becoming increasingly difficult for Jamilah to hide her identity from those that are close to her, and she’s beginning to ask some serious questions about the friendships that she once thought important and those which she once thought unimportant. She also has to deal with family life, her cultural identity and the feeling that almost any young woman I know has, that her father just does not understand her.

Quite simply a beautiful book, truly Australian, etched in our history as the book begins with people talking about the riots in Cronulla in 2006, 10 Things is more than a coming of age story, its about identity, family, friendship, self awareness, confidence, of learning to be one’s self without any fear of retribution.

I’d recommend this book to any young person, particularly females aged 13+, I enjoyed reading the book and I’m 31!

Interestingly enough, while both books come from different starting points they both also seem to end in similar places, calling for a revolution (of sorts) in the way that the church practices it’s ministry with young people.

What I liked about Mike’s writing was that I was able to get the impression that he was sharing something about himself with the reader, that over the space of reading the book I was able to hear the testimony of a youth worker who has been there and done that, and who has learnt through experience and reflection and prayer.

He explores what I like to call the Mal-Practice of youth ministry in a remarkable chapter titled “dysfunctional evangelical youth ministry” a chapter title that could quite easily offend people. In this chapter and beyond we are challenged to think over and over again about our role, about our definition of success, our mission in our ministry with young people. Are we there to change people or to provide a space where they can be changed by the Holy Spirit, are we Spiritual directors or program directors?

Mike not only asks some of the hard questions as he shares some of the insights from his many years in youth ministry, but also starts to give instruction and descriptions of a number of spiritual practices that could be used in order to introduce our youth ministries to spiritual practices. Mike speaks of Lectio Divinia (which I note has become the flavour of the month, even Tony Jones has written a new book on it) and the spiritual practices of Ignatius as both prayer practices and ways to use the scripture in our ministries. This book is not just a list of things that we should do, but it’s also a book that provides instructions on how to start doing many of the things that he speaks about.

Presence Centred Youth Ministry is more than a quick fix to many of our youth ministries, infact it’s anything but a quick fix to anything, instead its a recognition that our ministries are for the long haul, that we need to see further than the short term, fast food, quick fix ministry. This is what Mike calls the art of the long view, this book is almost the anti-mcdonalds based youth ministry which many people still subscribe to and still wonder why it fails…

And with people supporting this book like Kenda Creasy Dean, Walt Mueller, Mark Oestreicher and now myself this book should be on the bookshelves of all youth workers, sitting right beside “Contemplative Youth Ministry” and “Practicing Passion” and “Deep Ministry In a Shallow World” and “Tune In Chill Out” and “Way To Live” and Eugene Peterson’s new book “Eat This Book.”

Check Out Mike’s Blog: Mike King
Check Out Mike’s Ministry “Youth Front”: Youth Front

The Other Side of Blue is an anthology of autobiographical stories written by a diverse range of Australians. Each story addresses hardships that the writers have faced in their lives. These stories give a personal dimension to the challenges faced and show how the individuals got through.

The issues covered are considered relevant and contemporary to life today.  Some of the topics explored are: surviving childhood sexual abuse, family break down, ‘coming out,’ dealing with depression and the death of a loved one.

The stories are powerful and personal – and show readers that others have also faced life’s difficulties and been able to get through to the other side of blue. Many contributors relate important lessons that these experiences taught them – especially that they were not alone and that others cared. The writers reflect on what they learnt by experiencing such tough times and so help us understand many issues that face us all.

Although the large majority of stories are from everyday Australians, a number of well-known personalities have also contributed their stories, illustrating that hardships spare no one. Some of the many contributors to the book include: Jess Hardy (Big Brother 2); Kyle Vander Kuyp (Australian Olympic Hurdler); and, ‘The Living End’ front-man, Chris Cheney.

The sale of The Other Side of Blue will also raise money for Reach Out!

by large young people are mere spectators in a middle age church… In these cases young people live on the margins of the church…

The Strategic Approach to youth ministry is probably my favorite model out of the four described in the book, I like it because it’s probably the most removed from the traditional church view of youth ministry, it sees youth ministry as about creating a faith community rather than spiritual daycare. In this model we move beyond the typical factory based ministry in which we see young people passed through the church as a car would pass through a manufacturer’s conveyor belt. In a factory an item is passed from one area to another as small pieces are added or tightened or checked until the finished product is complete, similarly in a factory-like youth ministry we see children passed from preschool to junior school, into youth group, into the young adults ministry and then out of the factory floor comes a fully completed mature Christian.

“factories utilise an assembly line to create a product, an automobile moves along the assembly line, workers contribute towards the finished product by inserting a part, tightening bolts or welding a joint into place. At the end, a car rolls off the conveyor belt ready to be sold.”

The problem that a factory-like approach has is that the youth ministry only gets to work with young people for a particular length of time, the discontinuity of this approach will sometimes see young people come off of the factory floor and find themselves without a community that accepts them and leave the church .

“The church must view youth ministry not so much as a means of turning out models of Christian living in order to perpetuate existing church ministries, but as the best opportunity to launch a vital Christian witness to shape the faith community for the next generation.”

The strategic approach starts with the vision of planting a community of faith, it starts with a youth pastor and ministry team that works with a group of young people as they grow up through primary and high school ages to disciple, train, encourage, apprentice, mentor them into a mature faith. Unlike the factory floor the youth ministry doesn’t pass the young people from one station to the next, instead the youth pastor and their community works with a specific group of young people over the space of time until which time they are able to move from the parent congregation to plant another church/faith community.

“Youth pastors should become spiritual midwives and assist in birthing new churches. They would begin as age group specialists but would be chosen to work with a group of students from the time the young people entered high school until they reached their mid-20s. The primary objective would be to develop a team of spiritually mature young adults and plant a new church”

Rather than youth ministry’s role to be to look after a number of young people until they can join the rest of the congregation the ministry’s aim is to nurture leadership, faith, mission so that those involved can assume roles of leadership in a new church plant. Rather than being on the margins young people are seen to be completely involved in the life and growth and mission of a church.

One of the possible outcomes of this kind of approach is that leaders and young people may pick up a sense of something greater than just the normal youth group activities. In a program based ministry young people and leaders may start to wear out, but if the end journey is that of a church plant then ministries may find that leaders and young people may make choices to stay at local universities and work places so that they can participate in the vision. People in a factory ministry however may see a better option, or get tired of their job and seek to leave.

“Church leadership has treated youth workers as novice adults rather than permanent parts of the church’s strategy of discipleship and evangelization.”

This model also sees the role of the youth worker/pastor as something more than a caretaker of young people, instead it sees them as a minister in training, an apprentice in the ministry team who will soon be sent out to pastor and plant a new congregation.

If this model is adopted by congregations then these are a few changes that will need to happen…

• Adult congregations, like parents must prefer to sacrifice their own lives so that the next generation might live and grow
• Youth ministry must not be seen to be at competition with the existing church
• Youth Workers must be viewed as Pastors/Ministers
• Young people must be seen as people who are shaping the church and being shaped
• Young people must lead in mission efforts

It’s possible that the strategic approach could be seen as giving up on reforming the existing church… We’re talking about pouring new wine into new wineskins…

Well, I think that lists many of the strengths, weaknesses and mutations of this particular model of youth ministry, if you really want to dive into it more I’d suggest giving the book a good read.

“So, what do we want to happen in our youth ministry? Honestly, as a church we have treated young people like foster care, not family. They’ve become problems to deal with, rather than flesh and blood to love. We keep thinking that they have to change to fit into our church family. Instead we should be adapting the family to include them, just like we did as children were born into our own families.”

The inclusive congregational approach to youth ministry is a holistic approach in which young people are an active and participating members of the community in every aspect of it’s life and mission, they are infact partners in the congregation’s ministry. It’s emphasis is on inclusion, finding ways that young people can be included in the church’s worship, politics, ministry, studies, training, education…

In this model we’d not see separate youth churches, youth groups, youth council, youth bible studies, instead we’d see a community who try to do everything together. There may be some need for age-centred activities, but they would be as a part of the whole and not the norm in this community.

Drawbacks may be that since a lot of energy is focused on inclusion of those already in the community there is less energy and interest in the evangelization of those who are outside the congregation.

Youths themselves are a part of the total congregational ministry and not a separate entity. It is an integral part of the congregational whole, in that the whole is never complete without youth ministry”

Mutations of this model might include churches who haven’t completely understood the model of inclusion, this may lead to young people being given token roles in the church, it may also lead to young people feeling left out if there are a number of activities for adults that don’t include or interest young people. Young people may also start to long for separate activities/programs, especially if they are seeing other communities offering a consumerist approach to their ministry and offering a large number of social events.

Some mutations may end up looking more like the preparatory approach while, and other mutations may look like a church where the young people have long since left due to lack of participation and ownership while the rest of the church professes to hold to the model of youth ministry…

“Youth ministry is not about finding an extra place for yet another ministry, but about finding a place for young people to serve within every ministry and amongst the people that the ministries are designed to serve…”

Implications for churches that adopt this model include:

• Young people will not become a separate group within the congregation
• In any decision of the church the wellbeing, opinions, faith life and needs of the young people will besought after and considered
• Young people will never be neglected or ignored
• The congregation will never think of the faith life of young people separately from the faith life of adult members.
• Young people will be the congregation’s responsibility, not merely the responsibility of the “youth leaders”

It has to also be understood that the entire congregation has to be involved in the adoption of this model, this cannot be a vision that is adopted by the pastor, or teh church council without consultation with the young people in the community, that would be an incorrect way to kick off an inclusive congregational approach. Perhaps this is one of the more difficult models to hold to and understand, but I’ve seen it work in a number of cases, particularly in very stubborn, all aged family churches that have stuck to their vision like fly to flypaper forever asking how young people are participating in the community…

“Leadership and parents must return to the drawing board – this time with the young people. Together, an Inclusive Congregational approach and it’s consequences must be thought through and worked out…”

“the church that ministers to young people must embrace the culture in which the adolescents live…The goal is not to simply focus on those who already are involved in a given church’s youth ministry program”

I figured that I could use some more of my sick day to continue the series on 4 views of youth ministry and the church, this time by looking at the missional approach to youth ministry, those who have seen the powerpoint presentation I uploaded a while ago might recognize that the Missional Approach sits in the mission now / fellowship later section of the scale, so it wouldn’t be hard to see where it’s emphasis sits.

“this approach recognises that there are cultural barriers that separate adolescents from adults. This is not only true of the secular world, but also the world of churched young people”

The missional approach recognizes that the church has long thought that it’s program, music and ethos is enough to convince young people to attend and overtly disagrees with these assumptions. The missional approach understands youth ministry as mission and is focused on going where young people are and working with them in their community, in their culture.

This model is more concerned with those who the church has no contact with rather than those already in the church and sees its ministry as a part of the great commission. It’s strengths are that it’s usually grown out of a strong passionate response to the scripture to go into the world and make disciples. It’s passion tends to attract other young leaders who are equally as passionate about reaching the community and culture around them.

“Missional youth ministry seeks to present the community of the church as the end, not simply another (and often less desirable) community…

A missional ecclesiology must clearly identify and resist all attempts to equip the church merely for its maintenance and security”

Para-Church organizations like Young Life and Scripture Union (at least in Australia) are prime examples of a missional approach, as their mission is to the schools, campsites and community around them. Similarly these organizations seem to attract young leaders from a variety of churches and denominations who are passionate about reaching young people where they are. Other examples would include churches that have intentionally set up programs or mission workers inside schools, skate parks, music venues, shopping malls or other places where young people frequent.

In a perfect world we’d see these approaches linked with a congregation as a “welcoming destination” for those who have been reached by these organizations and missional outreaches, unfortunately this is not normally the case. A mutation of this model might see young people never leaving the missional program, or even leaving the missional community when they grow up and not connecting with another faith community. In these cases the model has mutated in a way as to remove the “fellowship later” from the ministry model.

“we have become convinced that our programs, music and ethos of youth ministry are enough to reach the lost, uninterested and disenfranchised…

Very few churches see youth ministry as their missional mandate…”

One of the drawbacks of this kind of approach is it’s reliance on training leaders in “appropriate” or “incarnation” models of mission and faith formation. These approaches also tend to be finance and leadership intensive and rely on a constant growth of leader numbers to coordinate and staff programs in order to continue the ministry.

“Every youth ministry must constantly ask itself… Who are our targets? How do we best reach out to them? Where do we want these students to end up after they leave the program?”

Well, I think that lists many of the strengths, weaknesses and mutations of this particular model of youth ministry, if you really want to dive into it more I’d suggest giving the book a good read.

The next model I’ll explore is the Inclusive Congregational Approach to youth ministry…

“A specialized ministry to adolescents preparing them to participate in the life of existing churches as leaders, disciples or evangelists”

The church becomes a laboratory in which young people are inited to experiment, practice, learn and be educated as disciples in training. The youth ministry in these churches revolves around a number of mentors and educators who work with the young people as they develop from apprentice to disciple and also member of the worshiping community. Programs in this model are to develop disciples, and so they may include mission trips, bible studies, courses, prayer groups…

“Youth ministry is a laboratory in which disciples can grow in a culture guided by spiritual coaches…

One purpose of a laboratory is to allow learners to fail in a safe context and discover specific skills in the process. A lab is a hands-on place where involvement is essential to learning.”

I guess the strength of this model is that it’s aimed at the faith and spiritual development of the young people within it’s ministry, it’s reliance on mentoring by other members of the community and providing spaces for the young people to practice their faith and learn makes the model attractive to many congregations.

The drawback for this model seems to be that young people who want to be seen as a part of the community and mission now may begin to feel left behind, another drawback is the model’s reliance on programs. The model also seems to be focused more on those who are already a part of the church and doesn’t focus as much on the evangelization of the community, and as young people are usually separated from the life of the community until they “graduate” from the laboratory, so lacks a community of people who worship together as a whole.

I think that this tends to be the default model of youth ministry for most churches, however I also think that it would be rare for most churches to actually be operating on a mutated version of the model.

I say mutated as these churches rarely move from “the youth are the future” to handing the church over to them, in a mutated model young people are rately able to graduate from being “young” to being a fully fledged participant in the life and ministry of the church. It might be common to see young people graduate into young adults who are then encouraged to become a part of the youth ministry as leaders of the program that they’ve been a part of for the past number of years…

A mutation of this model could also include a program based model of youth ministry that has long since been focused on the development of leaders and disciples. These kind of ministries seem to be more focused on entertainment than being focused on ministry, and as such rarely produce disciples or leaders who are able to participate in the church as the preparatory approach would have them.

“The activity based approach is built upon a series of youth activities, a programming approach…

A ministry based approach is radically different in key areas. It grows out of the ministry of the church and is consequently related to the purpose of the church…”

In these mutations the phrase “the youth are the future of the church” can be translated to “the church is ours and we’ll give it over when we’re through with it.”

So, to add to the list of drawbacks is the ease at which the model can mutate within a community that doesn’t adopt and own the ideal preparatory model.

In order for a church to really adopt the preparatory approach to youth ministry their:

• Youth ministry must become comprehensive
• Youth ministry must become a shared ministry, the entire church communtiy must adopt it, it’s goals and the young people…
• Youth ministry must begin to bridge the gap between church and home, we need to realise that faith formation is not done apart from the home, but as a part of the home life, we must involve parents and family.
• Youth ministry must become ministry based… It’s easy to mutate into an entertainment based ministry, and while social interaction and entertainment is good it’s important to make sure that it doesn’t take over the youth ministry.
• Youth ministry must begin including the parents, family, minister and the church… as in all ministries with young people “Anything we wish for among our young people must first be true among our adults” our ministry needs to be a part of the larger community.

Well, I think that lists many of the strengths, weaknesses and mutations of this particular model of youth ministry, if you really want to dive into it more I’d suggest giving the book a good read.

The next model I’ll explore is the Missional Approach to youth ministry…