How sad

Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death

Tension grew as the 5 a.m. opening neared. Someone taped up a crude poster: “Blitz Line Starts Here.”

By 4:55, with no police officers in sight, the crowd of more than 2,000 had become a rabble, and could be held back no longer. Fists banged and shoulders pressed on the sliding-glass double doors, which bowed in with the weight of the assault. Six to 10 workers inside tried to push back, but it was hopeless.

Suddenly, witnesses and the police said, the doors shattered, and the shrieking mob surged through in a blind rush for holiday bargains. One worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede that streamed over and around him. Others who had stood alongside Mr. Damour trying to hold the doors were also hurled back and run over, witnesses said.

Some workers who saw what was happening fought their way through the surge to get to Mr. Damour, but he had been fatally injured, the police said. Emergency workers tried to revive Mr. Damour, a temporary worker hired for the holiday season, at the scene, but he was pronounced dead an hour later at Franklin Hospital Medical Center in Valley Stream.

Four other people, including a 28-year-old woman who was described as eight months pregnant, were treated at the hospital for minor injuries.

Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, who is in charge of the investigation for the Nassau police, said the store lacked adequate security. He called the scene “utter chaos” and said the “crowd was out of control.” As for those who had run over the victim, criminal charges were possible, the lieutenant said. “I’ve heard other people call this an accident, but it is not,” he said. “Certainly it was a foreseeable act.”

But even with videos from the store’s surveillance cameras and the accounts of witnesses, Lieutenant Fleming and other officials acknowledged that it would be difficult to identify those responsible, let alone to prove culpability.

Some shoppers who had seen the stampede said they were shocked. One of them, Kimberly Cribbs of Queens, said the crowd had acted like “savages.” Shoppers behaved badly even as the store was being cleared, she recalled.

“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’ ” Ms. Cribbs told The Associated Press. “They kept shopping.”

Wal-Mart security officials and the police cleared the store, swept up the shattered glass and locked the doors until 1 p.m., when it reopened to a steady stream of calmer shoppers who passed through the missing doors and battered door jambs, apparently unaware that anything had happened.

Ugly shopping scenes, a few involving injuries, have become commonplace during the bargain-hunting ritual known as Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. The nation’s largest retail group, the National Retail Federation, said it had never heard of a worker being killed on Black Friday.

Wal-Mart declined to provide details of the stampede, but said in a statement that it had tried to prepare by adding staff members. Still, it was unclear how many security workers it had at the Valley Stream store for the opening on Friday. The Green Acres Mall provides its own security to supplement the staffs of some large stores, but it did not appear that Wal-Mart was one of them.

A Wal-Mart spokesman, Dan Folgleman, called it a “tragic situation,” and said the victim had been hired from a temporary staffing agency and assigned to maintenance work. Wal-Mart, in a statement issued at its headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., said: “The safety and security of our customers and associates is our top priority. Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families at this tragic time.”

Wal-Mart has successfully resisted unionization of its employees. New York State’s largest grocery union, Local 1500 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, called the death of Mr. Damour “avoidable” and demanded investigations.

“Where were the safety barriers?” said Bruce Both, the union president. “Where was security? How did store management not see dangerous numbers of customers barreling down on the store in such an unsafe manner? This is not just tragic; it rises to a level of blatant irresponsibility by Wal-Mart.”

While other Wal-Mart stores dot the suburbs around the city, the outlet at Valley Stream, less than two miles from New York City’s southeastern border, draws customers from Queens, Brooklyn and the densely populated suburbs of Nassau County. And it was not the only store in the Green Acres Mall that attracted large crowds.

Witnesses said the crowd outside Wal-Mart began gathering at 9 p.m. on Thursday. The night was not bitterly cold, and the early mood was relaxed. By the early morning hours, the throngs had grown, and officers of the Fifth Precinct of the Nassau County Police Department, who patrol Valley Stream, were out in force, checking on crowds at the mall.

Mr. Damour, who lived in Queens, went into the store sometime during the night to stock shelves and perform maintenance work.

On Friday night, Mr. Damour’s father, Ogera Charles, 67, said his son had spent Thursday evening having Thanksgiving dinner at a half sister’s house in Queens before going directly to work. Mr. Charles said his son, known as Jimmy, was raised in Queens by his mother and worked at various stores in the area after graduating from high school.

Mr. Charles said he had not seen his son in three months, and heard about his death about 7 a.m. Friday, when a friend of Mr. Damour’s called him at home. He arrived at Franklin Hospital Medical Center an hour later to identify the body. Mr. Charles said he was angry that no one from Wal-Mart had contacted him or had explained how his son had died. Maria Damour, Mr. Damour’s mother, was in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, but was on her way back to the United States, Mr. Charles said.

About the time that Mr. Damour was killed, a shopper at a Wal-Mart in Farmingdale, 15 miles east of Valley Stream, said she was trampled by a crowd of overeager customers, the Suffolk County police reported. The woman sustained a cut on her leg, but finished her shopping before filing the police report, an officer said.

Anahad O’Connor contributed reporting.

Diocesan Standing Committee Passes Unanimous Resolutions

The following two resolutions were unanimously passed by the Standing Committee of South Carolina at our November, 2008 meeting:

1. Be it resolved that the Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina does hereby subscribe to as a standard of faith the Jerusalem Declaration as set forth at the GAFCON conference and affirmed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and further affirms the reforming voice of the GAFCON movement within the Anglican Communion.
   
2. Be it resolved that the Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina does not recognize the non-canonical deposition of the Right Reverend Robert Duncan and continues to recognize him as a bishop in Christ's one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

The Very Reverend John Burwell

President, Standing Committee of South Carolina

Why you need help in ministry

This article showed up as a piece on youth ministry, but I think it's relevant to all in ministry:

#1 You may not see that your ministry is disconnected from what God wants. In other words, what if your ministry stinks and you think its great because kids show up? Outside voices speak massive truths! You may know you’ve got some problems, but what if you’re headed towards failure?

#2 Your solutions may not make sense for your situation. Maybe you are trying something that worked at your last church? Maybe you are trying something that you read in a book, magazine, or blog? How do you know if those things will work today in your present situation? How do you know that you’re not going to invest time and money on something that just won’t work?

#3 You are trying to figure it out without any expert advice. Let’s face it, there is always someone who is smarter or has earned more expertise than you. Maybe you can learn from their experiments? Maybe you can avoid their failures or pitfalls?

#4 You have dug in. Are you at the point where deep down you know your plan is going to fail but you are so proud that you won’t admit it? Are you saying, “Either it’s my way or I’m not the right person for this?” Are you frustrated by a lack of success and reward but you’re banking on turning the corner any day now? Have you been saying that for a year?

#5 You’ve labeled some problems as unable to be fixed in your situation. Have you said that your plan would work if only the kids would rally around you? You’re telling your boss you just need that one thing or a little bit more money for more resources? Are you saying that if you had the right environment, building, weather, or soda machine everything would come together? Blaming curriculum? Blaming soccer? Blaming parents? Blaming the Holy Spirit?

November 14th, 2008 - Posted By: Adam McLane in Soul Care

Interesting Interview with John Stott

Read it all here:

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/8182.htm

Reading the Bible, by Rev. Rob Sturdy

If you’ve ever visited my office you will have noticed fifty-five red and black volumes to the right of my computer on a bookshelf behind my desk. Those volumes are the American Edition of Martin Luther’s collected works. Of the fifty-five volumes, thirty are dedicated to Martin Luther’s verse by verse exposition of the Scriptures. Martin Luther’s commentary on Genesis alone is eight volumes long. Luther’s exposition of the Old and New Testaments fills literally hundreds of thousands of pages, so who better to turn to for help reading the Bible than this German theologian who dedicated so much of his life to understanding it?

First off all, let us start with some practicalities.

1. Luther would tell us first to buy a good translation that you can read and understand. One of Luther’s immediate goals was to translate the entire Bible into the language of the people. However, this did not simply mean that Luther translated the Hebrew to the German, but he translated the Hebrew into the popular German of the time so that it could be easily read by all. For modern day North America, I would recommend to you the ESV or NIV. Sadly, it might be time to hang up the ole’ King James Version until Elizabethan English makes a comeback.
2. Luther would also tell us to spend a lot of time in Scripture. It is said that Luther was so saturated in the language of the Bible that he often quoted it without even being conscious of it (Pelikan, Exegetical Writings, 49). Luther would be an advocate for spending hours upon hours in the Scriptures. Maybe you don’t have hours upon hours. Well, how much time do you have? Fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes? Don’t fritter them away by pushing the snooze button for thirty minutes. Get up early and get in the Scriptures. Let them saturate you.
3. Finally, Luther would say if you want to understand the Bible better you need to sit under the feet of a good preacher. Luther once said, “the church is not a pen-house but a mouth house!,” and also “Christ did not command the apostles to write, but only to preach.” Luther thought that one could read the Bible many times over and yet fail to understand it or apply it. But when it is was proclaimed by another, Spirit inspired insight, clarity and personal application followed.

So how did Luther read the Bible? Of the many things we could focus on, let us look at two that may help you as you read the Scriptures. These two things have typically been identified as “Law and Gospel.” To keep it simple, the “Law” is anything in Scripture that brings awareness of sin, fear of judgement, and affliction of conscience. The “Gospel” is anything in Scripture that causes us to trust in God to forgive sin, forego judgement, and relieve conscience. In Luther’s understanding, the passages that were “law” were meant to drive us to the promises of the “Gospel.”

Reading the “Law”
For Luther the “Law” accomplishes many things, but I would like to hone in on what it does to the heart while we read Scripture. Luther writes on Romans

“The chief purpose of this letter is to break down, to pluck up, and to destroy all wisdom and righteousness of the flesh. This includes all the works which in the eyes of people or even in our own eyes may be great works. No matter whether these works are done with a sincere heart and min, this letter is to affirm and state and magnify sin, no matter how much someone insists that it does not exist” (LW vol. 25 pg 135).

Luther understood that as humans we have an aversion to recognizing sin in our life. We either cover it up or explain it away with weak justifications. That is why Scripture is so valuable. It magnifies the hidden sin in our life and shatters belief in our weak attempts at righteousness and justification. So what impact does this have on our reading of Scripture? When we come across a difficult and convicting passage ( Rom 3.9-18 for example) we do not seek to explain it away or say “that’s not me.” Rather, we apply that passage to our hearts and let it reveal our sinfulness in ways we had not previously imagined. In other words, we allow Scripture to magnify our sin, making it both real and known to us.

Reading the “Gospel”
As the reality of sin in our life begins to dawn on us through those passages of Scripture that are “law”, we begin to become fearful before God and in despair over the reality of our sinful nature. It is at this point of fear and despair that we must intentionally turn our hearts to those passages of Scripture that Luther described as “Gospel.” Concerning this skill Luther writes:

“When I see that a man is sufficiently contrite, oppressed by the Law, terrified by sin, and thirsting for comfort, then it is time for me to take the Law and active (works) righteousness form his sight and to set forth before him, through the Gospel, the passive (faith) righteousness which excludes Moses AND the law and shows the promise of Christ, who came for the afflicted and sinners. Here a man is raised up again and gains hope.” (LW vol 26. pg 7).

How then does this affect the way we read Scripture? We must not let ourselves stop at the convicting passages and wallow in despair or set forth with a renewed sense of determination. Rather, as we read convicting passages of Scripture we must intentionally redirect our hearts to Christ on the cross and his saving righteousness. As we read Scripture and come across especially comforting passages (1 John 4.1-11 or the Doxology of Jude for example) then we must make a great effort to apply them to ourselves and appropriate them to our hearts. When I come across passages such as these I make a point to memorize them, so that when the knowledge of sin convicts me I might turn as quickly as possible to faith in Christ.

While by no means comprehensive, I believe these are a few of the things near and dear to the heart of Martin Luther and his study of the Bible. I hope they were a help to you!

Setting the Tone for Effective Meetings

The start of the meeting generally sets the tone of the meeting. If people trickle in slowly, engage in extended small talk, and don’t have a plan, you’ve just set the tone for a bad meeting. Today, we’ll talk about how to set the tone for an effective meeting.

* Assign a start time and honor it. If you don’t start on time, you’re communicating that the meeting isn’t important.
* Ask your team to refrain from emailing, texting, or taking calls during the meeting. If you have everyone’s full attention, you can make significant progress quickly. Emailing, texting, etc. is very rude to those who aren’t.
* Set an agenda. You might want to establish the agenda with a group ahead of time, set it yourself, or open the floor for agenda items. However you arrive at an agenda, make sure you have one.
* Make the agenda visible. Write it a white board. Project it on the wall. Email it to your team members. Whatever you do, put it in writing and follow it.
* Decide what topics you’re communicating and which needs decisions. Part of the meeting will be devoted to communicating and part to deciding. I like to cover communication first, then devote specific time to making decisions.

By Craig Groeschel

Network

Watched this great movie last night thanks to the recommendation of Micah Mood. It's a satire on network news. Couldn't believe it when I got to this part and realized this was made 30 years ago!

Top Ten Stupid Things Americans say to British People, by Ricky Gervais

What if Starbucks Marketed Like a Church? A Parable

Great expectations

Nov 6th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Barack Obama has won a famous victory. Now he must use it wisely

Reuters

NO ONE should doubt the magnitude of what Barack Obama achieved this week. When the president-elect was born, in 1961, many states, and not just in the South, had laws on their books that enforced segregation, banned mixed-race unions like that of his parents and restricted voting rights. This week America can claim more credibly than any other western country to have at last become politically colour-blind. Other milestones along the road to civil rights have been passed amid bitterness and bloodshed. This one was marked by joy, white as well as black (see article).

Mr Obama lost the white vote, it is true, by 43-55%; but he won almost exactly same share of it as the last three (white) Democratic candidates; Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry. And he won heavily among younger white voters. America will now have a president with half-brothers in Kenya, old schoolmates in Indonesia and a view of the world that seems to be based on respect rather than confrontation.

That matters. Under George Bush America’s international standing has sunk to awful lows. This week Americans voted in record-smashing numbers for many reasons, but one of them was an abhorrence of how their shining city’s reputation has been tarnished. Their country will now be easier for its friends to like and harder for its foes to hate.

In its own way the election illustrates this redeeming effect. For the past eight years the debacle in Florida in 2000 has been cited (not always fairly) as an example of shabby American politics. Yet here was a clear victory delivered by millions of volunteers—and by the intelligent use of technology to ride a wave of excitement that is all too rare in most democracies. Mr Obama showed that, with the right message, a candidate with no money or machine behind him can build his own.

Hard times and a bleak House

With such a great victory come unreasonably great expectations. Many of Mr Obama’s more ardent supporters will be let down—and in some cases they deserve to be. For those who voted for him with their eyes wide open to his limitations, everything now depends on how he governs. Abroad, this 21st-century president will have to grapple with the sort of great-power rivalries last seen in the 19th century (see article). At home, he must try to unite his country, tackling its economic ills while avoiding the pitfalls of one-party rule. Rhetoric and symbolism will still be useful in this; but now is the turn of detail and dedication.

Mr Obama begins with several advantages. At 47, he is too young to have been involved in the bitter cultural wars about Vietnam. And by winning support from a big majority of independents, and even from a fair few Republicans, he makes it possible to imagine a return to a more reflective time when political opponents were not regarded as traitors and collaboration was something to be admired.

Oddly, he may be helped by the fact that, in the end, his victory was slightly disappointing. He won around 52% of the popular vote, more than Mr Bush in 2000 and 2004, but not a remarkable number; this was no Roosevelt or Reagan landslide. And though Mr Obama helped his party cement its grip on Congress, gaining around 20 seats in the House of Representatives and five in the Senate, the haul in the latter chamber falls four short of the 60 needed to break filibusters and pass controversial legislation without Republican support (though recounts may add another seat, or even two). Given how much more money Mr Obama raised, the destruction of the Republican brand under Mr Bush and the effects of the worst financial crisis for 70 years, the fact that 46% of people voted against the Democrat is a reminder of just what a conservative place America still is. Mr Obama is the first northern liberal to be elected president since John Kennedy; he must not forget how far from the political centre of the country that puts him.

Mr Obama’s victory, in fact, is almost identical in scope to that of Bill Clinton in 1992; and it took just two years for the Republicans to sweep back to power in the 1994 Gingrich revolution. Should President Obama give in to some of the wilder partisans in Congress, it is easy to imagine an ugly time ahead—and not just for the Democrats in the 2010 mid-term elections. America could fatally lapse into protectionism, or re-regulate business and finance to the point at which innovation is stifled, or “spread the wealth” (to quote the next president) to the extent that capital is prudently shifted overseas.

Our mutual friends

Mr Obama will not take office until January 20th, but he can use the next ten weeks well. A good start would be to announce that he will offer jobs to a few Republicans. Robert Gates, Mr Bush’s excellent defence secretary who has helped transform the position in Iraq, ought to be kept in the post for at least a while. Sadly, Richard Lugar has ruled himself out as secretary of state; but Chuck Hagel, senator for Nebraska, is another possibility for a defence or foreign-policy job. Mr Obama might even find a non-executive role for John McCain, with whom he agrees on many things, especially the need to tackle global warming and close Guantánamo. Another pragmatic move would be to announce that his new treasury secretary (ideally an experienced centrist such as Larry Summers or Tim Geithner) will start working closely with Hank Paulson, the current one, immediately.

Whoever he appoints, Mr Obama will be constrained by the failing economy. He should not hold back from stimulus packages to help America out of recession. But he has huge promises to keep as well. He has pledged tax cuts to 95% of families. He has proposed near-universal health care—an urgent reform, as America’s population ages and companies restrict the health insurance they offer. He proposes more spending on infrastructure, both physical and human. But if he is to tackle all or any of this, he must balance his plans with other savings or new revenues if his legacy is not to be one of profligacy and debt. He has to start deciding whom to disappoint.

Non-Americans must also brace for disappointment. America will certainly change under Mr Obama; the world of extraordinary rendition and licensed torture should thankfully soon be gone. But America will, as it must, continue to put its own interests, and those of its allies, first. Withdrawing from Iraq will be harder than Mr Obama’s supporters hope; the war in Afghanistan will demand more sacrifices from Americans and Europeans than he has yet prepared them for. The problems of the Middle East will hardly be solved overnight. Getting a climate-change bill through Congress will be hard.

The next ten weeks give Mr Obama a chance to recalibrate the rest of the world’s hopes. He could use part of his transition to tour the world, certainly listening to friends and rivals alike but also gently making clear the limits of his presidency. He needs to explain that, although his America will respect human rights and pay more heed to the advice of others, it will not be a pushover: he must avoid the fate of Jimmy Carter, a moralising president who made the superpower look weak.

Like most politicians, Mr Obama will surely fail more than he succeeds. But he is a man of great dignity, superior talents and high ideals. In choosing him, America has shown once again its unrivalled capacity to renew itself, and to surprise.

The Problem with Relational Ministry

Andrew Root

Andrew Root is assistant professor of Youth and Family Ministry at Luther Seminary, and he’s on the advisory board of The Journal of Student Ministries.

Why Relationships Can’t be Solely about Influencing Young People

“Get the f--k away from me!”

That’s the reply I got when I approached a kid I knew and asked, “Hey, what’s up?” while he was talking with his friends.

Of course the circumstances were atypical. I’d just started at a Los Angeles church as outreach minister, charged with building relational bridges between our congregation and the kids who lived in the neighborhood but never set foot in the sanctuary.

What’s Wrong?

Although I’d just finished three years with Young Life in suburban Minnesota and understood the power and potential of influencing adolescents through relationships, I was decidedly unprepared to reach out to these kids.

I kept trying to influence them, and though I succeeded at getting them to actually come into the church building, I was clearly failing to get them to commit themselves to the importance of the church and (more significantly) the faith.

How could I impact them? I knew all about classic relational youth ministry. I’d gone through Young Life training, earned youth ministry degrees, and read all the most important books on relational youth work. But it seemed in this context such perspectives didn’t fly. Still I did as I’d been trained, meeting these adolescents on their own turf, trying to start conversations with them, and focusing on things they liked.

Missing the Mark

Get the f--k away from me!

I mean, what do you do when an adolescent who only a half hour before—through long, sad faces and shoulder shrugs—expressed how deeply it hurt to never see his father ... and is now calling you “a rapist” for expressing any care for him?

How do you influence a group of young people when they return your favor of a ride and burgers by tagging your car windows with gang signs—rival signs of the gang territory you’ll have to drive through after dropping them off at home?

How do you influence young people who refuse your care but nevertheless continue to ask for it with their constant presence?

And how can you be a relational bridge between adolescents and a congregation when these teenagers steal money from the church, tag the sanctuary, and use the church parking lot to sell drugs, exchange sexual favors, and harass elderly church members?

And what do you say to a congregation when its commitment to these kids has turned from honest desire to all-out fear, frustration, and new assertions that teenagers must earn the right (by good behavior) to be at the church?

“More Difficult than I’d Thought”

I started to realize that relational youth ministry was much more difficult than I’d thought. It appeared that because of their deep suffering these teenagers were unable to be influenced toward the ends I desired for them. Their deep wounds of poverty, abuse, abandonment, and violence kept them from trusting me.

But it wasn’t just these adolescents. As I recalled my ministry in suburban Minnesota, I remembered many kids who seemed beyond anyone’s reach. They, too, refused to trust my relational approaches. The only difference between them and the adolescents I was trying to reach in L.A. was their middle-class decorum, which softened the way they avoided me or rejected my attempts at influencing them toward faith.

“Just Be with Me”

Then, in the middle of an argument with my wife, it all started to make sense. Frustrated with me for continually trying to make things better between us, my wife turned to me, exasperated: “Stop! Stop trying to make things better! Relationships aren’t just about making things work; they’re first about being together in the crap of life. It’s only when we’re together, really together, that things can get any better. Just stop trying to fix things and just be with me.”

Okay, if it’s true that relationships aren’t first and foremost about making things better, getting them right, or making them work, then what was I doing with these neighborhood adolescents?

I had to be honest with myself.

I was trying to influence them. I was trying to get them to accept, know, trust, believe, or participate in something—believing that was best for them, believing it would fix them.

Still, my desire to influence them was keeping me from being with them in a truly relational way. The influence-centered relational youth ministry I’d learned was more about my agenda for these adolescents than it was about them. As my wife had reminded me, when two people are in a true relationship, they set their own terms for interaction rather than letting only one person define it.

Sensing the Problem

It was no surprise when I heard some voices in youth ministry calling for a move beyond relational ministry to something they called “post-relational ministry.”¹ It sounded interesting; yet the argument made no sense to me.

The call was to focus on community practices more than one-on-one relationships. But community itself is a network of relationships, and surely focusing on community practices wouldn’t solve the issues I faced with these kids.

It was also odd that these voices seemed to imagine that adding post before relational freed it from the “scandal” of modernity. Yet, as any good postmodern theorist will tell you, the turn from modernity to postmodernity (or whatever you want to call the milieu in which we now find ourselves) is characterized by an acknowledgment of our interconnections, whether in physics (Einstein), culture and economy (globalization), psychology (object relations theory), or theology.

Therefore, they couldn’t possibly be calling youth ministry to become truly “post” (i.e., “after”) relational, could they? Surely they weren’t calling us to do ministry without relationships, were they?

Rather, what I suspect these voices wished to say—and what my own ministry experience most definitely did say—was that youth ministry needed to re-think what it really believes about relationships.

What’s needed isn’t a post-relational ministry but a truly relational relational ministry—a ministry that’s truly incarnational by being truly relational.

We’re Sorry

It may be that we owe a great many adolescents (and now adults) an apology. We may have talked about wanting to be in relationships with them, but upon deeper association it became clear that we were more concerned about influencing them. We cared more about getting them saved or confirmed or involved in positive activities or abstaining from negative activities than we cared about truly being with them in the midst of their deepest joys and sufferings.

Of course it’d be way too simple (and inaccurate) to say that every relationship in youth ministry has been more about influencing adolescents than being with them. We can all recall relationships with a few kids that have been truly relational, that were sincerely about being together in the mess of life. But the problem is that when it comes to the history and theology of relational (i.e., incarnational) youth ministry, relationships are used for instrumental purposes.

More Than Just a Tool

In other words, we’re often taught—and thus teach our volunteer leaders—that relationships are tools to make ministry more effective. And if these tools are used correctly, they can provide us with the leverage we need to influence adolescents in the direction we desire. (It doesn’t sound as bad when we say that what we desire to influence them toward is “a relationship with God.”) But is “influence” really what relationships are for? Is this really what the incarnation is about?

I’m certain my wife wouldn’t be happy if I viewed our relationship as a tool that allowed me to get what I desired from her or to influence her to behave a certain way. And by extension, I have trouble believing that God sent Jesus because Jesus was the most effective tool to get us to do what God wanted us to do. (As if we actually do everything that God wants us to do anyway!)

I believe there’s a deeper theological motif.

Theology of Influence

The depth at which “influence” has been wed with relational/incarnational ministry is found in the writings, for example, of Doug Fields, one of youth ministry’s most well known leaders. In Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry Fields’ discussion of relational ministry exudes an influence focus.

“I’m thrilled that youth ministry has become more professional…but it isn’t rocket science—youth ministry is about adults loving students, building relationships with them, and pointing them to Jesus.”²

This quote would work wonderfully at the top of a leadership-training manual, but is it true? Are relationships really as cut-and-dried as Fields asserts?

I imagine it would be so if we ignored the deep messiness of our lives. It may be that relationships are actually more difficult and complicated than O-rings, countdowns, and shuttle landings. Just ask a parent driving his son to drug rehab, a woman packing her bags with a broken wrist while her drunk husband sleeps, or a seven year old waiting at the curb for three hours for her once-a-year visit with her father who has yet to arrive.

It appears that, for Fields (who is only one example of many who espouse such relationship, relationships are more important than programs because they’re a more effective tool to influence youth to commit to the church and its faith. Relationships are what grow a ministry, he says. When discussing the need to include leaders in relational ministry, Fields notes, “If you’re the only one connecting with students, you’ll be a bottleneck to any potential growth and [he adds] genuine care.”³ Yet when this is all boiled down, a problem emerges.

The Influence Equation

Imagine for a moment that this is a math class and the following is a word problem:

Relationships are a more effective tool than programs to get young people committed to the church and its faith. Relationships are what grow a ministry.

Now imagine that you’ve been asked to turn this word problem into an equation. What would you have? Maybe something like:

Programs ≠ Influence

Relationships = Influence

Therefore: Relationships + Influence = Growth of the Ministry (as measured by commitment to the group & conversion to the faith)

What becomes clear when it’s broken down this way is that relationships aren’t the answers—they’re just pathways to a goal. The goal is the growth of the ministry as seen in the commitment level to the church and the number or depth of conversions to the faith.

But what happens if after two days, two weeks, or two years an adolescent is unable to be influenced? Maybe something stands in her way, such as deep suffering (like the adolescents I knew in L.A.) or an unknown reason. If the goal of the relationship is growth, commitment, and conversion, eventually I’m completely justified in abandoning that relationship. I can say, either through words or actions, to an adolescent, “Let’s face it, this isn’t working. I’m moving on to someone more receptive to my efforts (i.e., easier to influence).”

Not Real Relationships

Within this influence equation, the very humanity of an adolescent, the fullness of her person (dreams, joys, pains, fears), isn’t as important as her ability to know, admit, believe, and commit. In the end I really only care about her dreams, joys, pains, and fears so I can use them to help get her to know, admit, believe, and commit.

Maybe this is cynical and harsh; Fields or others may say that it’s only by getting her to know, admit, believe, and commit that all of her dreams, joys, pains, and fears find healing or fulfillment. But this answer only works on paper, in math problems—not in real relationships.

True Incarnation

Just ask my wife. I must learn to make her dreams, joys, pains, and fears my own; I must enter them with her, and she must enter mine. To love her, I can have no other agenda for her but to know her through the windows of her dreams, joys, pains, and fears. If I ignore them in order to convince her to be what I want her to be, I have effectively ignored her. I’ve decided that what matters is only her will and not the beauty and depth of her fragile-yet-powerful humanity.

Or worse, I could use my knowledge of her dreams, joys, pains, and fears to manipulate her. But then I’m not in a relationship with her, but with an idealized form of her that we’ve both agreed she will be. She’ll then live as a stunted person, ignoring the depth of her existence, snuffing out the flames of her pains, fears, dreams, and joys. Or eventually the embers of her dreams will grow and warm her, thawing her from what I influenced her to be, and she’ll realize that I never loved her—all I loved was an idea of who I thought she should be.

Don’t we face this same kind of danger with the adolescents in our churches? We must be brave enough to ask ourselves, Have we convinced them to be who we want them to be? Have we tried so hard to get them saved or changed that we’ve ignored their deep dreams, joys, pains, and fears? Have we somehow told them through our influence-based relationships that there’s no room for the messiness of human existence in the Christian faith?

And how many have awakened after the divorce of their parents or their first stressful semester in college to realize that we don’t really care about them—just about their abilities to know, admit, believe, and commit to the faith we’ve offered them?

How many realize, before we do, that a relationship built on influencing another is not a relationship at all, and is therefore unworthy of reflecting God’s own ministry in the world through Jesus Christ?

¹ See “Post Relational Youth Ministry: Beyond youth work as we know it,” by Dave Wright and Dixon Kinser from the September/October 2004 issue of Youthworker.

² p. 84

³ p. 86

Bible-Based Youth Ministry Bumps Out Pop Culture

Sugarcoated, MTV-style youth ministry is over, Time magazine reported. The current trend that is packing teens in pews: Bible-based worship.

Youth ministers have tried to engage teens in the church with a message wrapped in pop-culture packaging to initially attract the young crowd. The approach has successfully drawn a large number of youths to the pews. But it has failed to keep them there.

Research groups have tracked a dropping percentage of young adults still participating in church activities or attending church at all since their teenage years. A Barna survey showed 61 percent of peo! ple in the 20-29 age group had participated in church activities as teens but are now disengaged. Youth Transition Network coordinator Jeff Schadt preaches an even higher proportion of youths - as high as 88 percent - falling away from the church, especially when leaving the nest for college.

The sugarcoated Christianity that was popular in the past few decades was found to be causing growing numbers of kids to turn away from youth-fellowship activities and the Christian faith altogether, according to Time.

"The vast majority of teens who call themselves Christians haven't been well educated in religious doctrine and therefore don't really know what they believe," Christian Smith, a University of Notre Dame sociologist and author of Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, told the magazine.

"With all the competing demands on their time, religion becomes a low priority, and so they practice their faith in shall! ow ways."

Teen Mania, one of the nation's largest youth ! organiza tions, openly rejects the MTV culture. More than 200,000 teens just this year attended the organization's new Battle Cry stadium-worship events that feature top Christian music artists while grounding teens in Scripture.

Stadium events run like a Christian Lollapalooza, as Time described it, but founder Ron Luce knows the significance of a strong foundation in Scriptural teachings. He aims to raise up "serious followers of Christ" and his approach has been a huge success with teens and youth leaders.

Today's teens are more drawn to Scripture and desire to get a better understanding of what they believe.

One surprising finding that Fuller Seminary's Center for Youth and Family Ministry revealed in an ongoing study was that teens attend youth group because they like their youth pastor and to learn about God. Those reasons were listed by the majority of the surveyed students. The Barna Group found the top reason listed among teens for attending church w! as to "understand better what I believe."

Students also said they wanted to have more time for deep conversation and also desired more accountability in their youth groups. Games or other activities were not a desired priority.

Time reported churches now focusing more on Scripture and less on entertainment are actually growing. Youth attendance numbers are at least doubling at such churches as Shoreline Christian Center in Austin, Texas and Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Md.

And teens are happy with the traditional approach as they're understanding what it means to be a Christian.

Let Christians Vote As Though They Were Not Voting

Download:

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By John Piper October 22, 2008

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Voting is like marrying and crying and laughing and buying. We should do it, but only as if we were not doing it. That’s because “the present form of this world is passing away” and, in God’s eyes, “the time has grown very short.” Here’s the way Paul puts it:

The appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. (1 Corinthians 7:29-31)

Let’s take these one at a time and compare them to voting.

1. “Let those who have wives live as though they had none.”

This doesn’t mean move out of the house, don’t have sex, and don’t call her Honey. Earlier in this chapter Paul says, “The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights” (1 Corinthians 7:3). He also says to love her the way Christ loved the church, leading and providing and protecting (Ephesians 5:25-30). It means this: Marriage is momentary. It’s over at death, and there is no marriage in the resurrection. Wives and husbands are second priorities, not first. Christ is first. Marriage is for making much of him.

It means: If she is exquisitely desirable, beware of desiring her more than Christ. And if she is deeply disappointing, beware of being hurt too much. This is temporary—only a brief lifetime. Then comes the never-disappointing life which is life indeed.

So it is with voting. We should do it. But only as if we were not doing it. Its outcomes do not give us the greatest joy when they go our way, and they do not demoralize us when they don’t. Political life is for making much of Christ whether the world falls apart or holds together.

2. “Let those who mourn [do so] as though they were not mourning.”

Christians mourn with real, deep, painful mourning, especially over losses—loss of those we love, loss of health, loss of a dream. These losses hurt. We cry when we are hurt. But we cry as though not crying. We mourn knowing we have not lost something so valuable we cannot rejoice in our mourning. Our losses do not incapacitate us. They do not blind us to the possibility of a fruitful future serving Christ. The Lord gives and takes away. But he remains blessed. And we remain hopeful in our mourning.

So it is with voting. There are losses. We mourn. But not as those who have no hope. We vote and we lose, or we vote and we win. In either case, we win or lose as if we were not winning or losing. Our expectations and frustrations are modest. The best this world can offer is short and small. The worst it can offer has been predicted in the book of Revelation. And no vote will hold it back. In the short run, Christians lose (Revelation 13:7). In the long run, we win (21:4).

3. “Let those who rejoice [do so] as though they were not rejoicing.”

Christians rejoice in health (James 5:13) and in sickness (James 1:2). There are a thousand good and perfect things that come down from God that call forth the feeling of happiness. Beautiful weather. Good friends who want to spend time with us. Delicious food and someone to share it with. A successful plan. A person helped by our efforts.

But none of these good and beautiful things can satisfy our soul. Even the best cannot replace what we were made for, namely, the full experience of the risen Christ (John 17:24). Even fellowship with him here is not the final and best gift. There is more of him to have after we die (Philippians 1:21-23)—and even more after the resurrection. The best experiences here are foretastes. The best sights of glory are through a mirror dimly. The joy that rises from these previews does not and should not rise to the level of the hope of glory. These pleasures will one day be as though they were not. So we rejoice remembering this joy is a foretaste, and will be replaced by a vastly better joy.

So it is with voting. There are joys. The very act of voting is a joyful statement that we are not under a tyrant. And there may be happy victories. But the best government we get is a foreshadowing. Peace and justice are approximated now. They will be perfect when Christ comes. So our joy is modest. Our triumphs are short-lived—and shot through with imperfection. So we vote as though not voting.

4. “Let those who buy [do so] as though they had no goods.”

Let Christians keep on buying while this age lasts. Christianity is not withdrawal from business. We are involved, but as though not involved. Business simply does not have the weight in our hearts that it has for many. All our getting and all our having in this world is getting and having things that are not ultimately important. Our car, our house, our books, our computers, our heirlooms—we possess them with a loose grip. If they are taken away, we say that in a sense we did not have them. We are not here to possess. We are here to lay up treasures in heaven.

This world matters. But it is not ultimate. It is the stage for living in such a way to show that this world is not our God, but that Christ is our God. It is the stage for using the world to show that Christ is more precious than the world.

So it is with voting. We do not withdraw. We are involved—but as if not involved. Politics does not have ultimate weight for us. It is one more stage for acting out the truth that Christ, and not politics, is supreme.

5. “Let those who deal with the world [do so] as though they had no dealings with it.”

Christians should deal with the world. This world is here to be used. Dealt with. There is no avoiding it. Not to deal with it is to deal with it that way. Not to weed your garden is to cultivate a weedy garden. Not to wear a coat in Minnesota is to freeze—to deal with the cold that way. Not to stop when the light is red is to spend your money on fines or hospital bills and deal with the world that way. We must deal with the world.

But as we deal with it, we don’t give it our fullest attention. We don’t ascribe to the world the greatest status. There are unseen things that are vastly more precious than the world. We use the world without offering it our whole soul. We may work with all our might when dealing with the world, but the full passions of our heart will be attached to something higher—Godward purposes. We use the world, but not as an end in itself. It is a means. We deal with the world in order to make much of Christ.

So it is with voting. We deal with the system. We deal with the news. We deal with the candidates. We deal with the issues. But we deal with it all as if not dealing with it. It does not have our fullest attention. It is not the great thing in our lives. Christ is. And Christ will be ruling over his people with perfect supremacy no matter who is elected and no matter what government stands or falls. So we vote as though not voting.

By all means vote. But remember: “The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17).

Voting with you, as though not voting,

Pastor John

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© Desiring God

John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Interesting new book

Product Description
In this practical book for church leaders, you’ll discover how to develop a healthy and sustainable student ministry that includes encouraging your youth pastor, engaging teens, and involving parents. Whether you already have a youth pastor or are just beginning your search, this book will help you set up your student ministry and youth pastor for health and longevity.

From the Back Cover
The teens in your church are impacting their world today and they’ll be the leaders of tomorrow. As a leader in your church, you understand the importance of an effective youth ministry. But it’s not as easy as simply putting a person in charge of the youth ministry in your church.

Some of the most important steps in building a sustainable youth ministry happen even before you begin looking for a youth pastor. And once you have a person in place, there are several key things you can do to help develop a healthy student ministry that includes encouraging your youth pastor, engaging teens, and involving parents.

In this practical book for church leaders, you’ll:
• Set goals for your student ministry that inform your search for a youth pastor.
• Facilitate communication with your entire church ministry staff by using the included discussion guide.
• Discover how to implement a ministry that supports families and their involvement in the youth ministry.

Whether you already have a youth pastor or are just beginning your search, this book will help you set up your student ministry and youth pastor for health and longevity. Make sure you understand what’s going on inside the mind of your youth pastor—whether he or she is a veteran, a volunteer, or an inexperienced new pastor—so that together, you can create a life-changing student ministry that reaches teens and draws them to Jesus.

The Lockbox Theory

By Meredith Miller

As a youth worker, you have probably noticed that teenagers live the seasons of the year differently than the rest of the population. Whereas the rest of the United States marks the year with fall, winter, summer and spring-or perhaps Labor Day, New Year’s, Tax Day, Memorial Day, and the end of the fiscal year-those in high school use other markers to commemorate the passing year. The teenage calendar marches through the first day of school, homecoming, winter break, spring break, prom, and the first day of summer vacation.

For our juniors and seniors, though, we need to add one more marker along the way: college season. That additional layer of online searches, college applications, entrance exams, and campus visits sets them on a course for post-high school life and learning.

The college season also brings new challenges and opportunities to us as youth workers: will students’ faith thrive or fizzle? After graduation, will our kids go out of their way to engage or disengage with a faith community? Regardless of students’ particular circumstances-their choice of school, how far away they live, whether they will be working in a job-we as youth workers have a limited amount of time to hopefully and prayerfully set students on a trajectory of lifelong and passionate pursuit of Jesus.

The Myths of Collegiate Spirituality

Perhaps some of your students’ parents voice the all-too-common fear that college students will abandon Christianity once they enter an academic world that is hostile to their faith. Yet is that really true? Does research back that up?

At the Fuller Youth Institute, the research from our three-year College Transition Project indicates that 70% of youth group graduates disagree with the idea that their college professors make them confused about their faith. Almost three-quarters of students report that other students respect their beliefs. At least in our study, it does not seem that the vast majority of students experience college as an overtly threatening place for their faith.

On the flip side, perhaps you’ve heard the claim that collegians are highly interested in spirituality and spiritual practices. Tim Clydesdale, associate professor of sociology at The College of New Jersey, conducted 125 in-depth interviews along with a year of field research on high school seniors as they entered their first year of college. ¹ In the course of Clydesdale’s research, he found almost no evidence for these claims.²

Christian Smith, sociologist at University of Notre Dame and co-author of Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, agrees. As Smith interviewed teens and asked them to self-describe their religiosity, “spiritual” never entered the conversation; the word “spirituality” isn’t even a part of adolescent vocabulary.³

Instead, Clydesdale’s research pointed to a trend he describes as an “identity lockbox.” As youth workers, the identity lockbox theory gives us great insight into the religious lives of college students and helps us strategically consider how to prepare students now for what they will face tomorrow.

Defining the “Identity Lockbox”: What Is It and Why Do Students Use It?

If collegians are neither abandoning their faith because of a hostile college environment, nor deeply interested in spirituality, what are they experiencing? College students seem to be following a third path of storing their religious beliefs, practices, and convictions in a sort of “identity lockbox” as they develop other parts of their identity (e.g., vocational identity, relational identity). Clydesdale explains that the lockbox “protects religious identities, along with political, racial, gender, and civic identities, from tampering that might affect their holders’ future entry into the American cultural mainstream.”⁴

In other words, while there are parts of students’ identity that are indeed free to develop, most of their identity is locked away. Those aspects that are developing are limited to the ones that fit into the American cultural mainstream. In general, their religious identity doesn’t fit in that mainstream and is therefore stowed away. Similarly, any other portion of the student’s identity that is threatened by the American cultural mainstream is also stored away.⁵

Both religious and non-religious freshman students use the lockbox. Religious freshmen use the lockbox because they are compartmentalizers, stowing their religious identity as they enter emerging adulthood. Nonreligious freshman stow their religious identity because they are generally uninterested in religion. In either case, by locking away their religious identity, students can navigate the remainder of college and reopen the lockbox at a later phase in life, only to find their faith supposedly unharmed and unchanged, but tragically also disengaged with their actual lives or the wider world.

Does Anyone Open the Box?

By and large, students do not open their lockboxes in college. However, there are three exceptional types who tend to periodically make the effort to explore their religious identity during the first year out of high school:

a) future intelligentsia—aspiring thinkers and leaders of the academy and social sciences,

b) religious skeptics and atheists—those who think religion prevents the achievement of social justice and equity, and

c) religious emissaries who engage their faith with the world.

According to Clydesdale, this final group constitutes about 10-15% of college students, and is most often found in religious schools. These are the students who say, “Here is my Christian faith, and here is the world around me. I can let these two interact with each other.”

About 1-2% of college freshmen are atheists or religious skeptics, while 1% are future intelligentsia. All combined, these three categories account for only 12-18% of all students.⁶

So What Does That Mean for Youth Workers?

The identity lockbox theory indicates that our problem as youth workers is not Christianity vs. College. The problem is that the current script for American college students dictates that rather than risk their secure future role by exploring their own identities (including, but not limited to, religious ones), students lock them away. Emerging adults seem to care more about fitting into society than about exploring who they might be. It’s Identity Development vs. Mainstream American Culture. “The enemy of a thoughtful and lasting religiosity among college students,” writes Clydesdale, “is not their pursuit of college education-but their widespread use of identity lockboxes.”⁷

Ultimately, this is a much bigger challenge for us. We are challenged to form students who utilize their faith to write a life script that is different from the one our culture writes for them. They don’t just need to survive their college years with their faith intact, they need to survive the push and pull of the culture that surrounds them and fully engage their faith during college.

How Should We Respond to the Lockbox?

One response that will not help is trying to plead with students to swim against the tide of culture. “Freshmen interviewees were quite aware of these appeals, and had long developed immunity to them,” comments Clydesdale.⁸ Instead, Clydesdale recommends that we suit up for the game we have on the field in front of us. We can’t look for a different team to play against, or bemoan the size and strength of the opposing players. Historically, successful religious communities have suited up for the game instead of running from it or categorically rejecting it. ”Religious communities thrive in American pluralism because they engage it thoughtfully, not retreat from it,” Clydesdale writes.⁹

Remember, some students do look in the box. So the question we must now ask is: How can we increase the percentage of students who will engage faith with the world and look in their boxes in college? As youth workers, we should be encouraged that most students who do look in the lockbox have gained critical skills and perspectives before they arrive at college, making our role all the more important.

Our first step as youth workers, then, is to model healthy engagement with culture ourselves. Similar to the Young Life model, Clydesdale states that we must “earn the right to be heard” by engaging with our culture clearly, calmly, and with sound evidence.

As we succeed in being heard by students and thereby encourage them to explore their identities, we need to also be prepared for the second step of helping students critique the culture around them as they go into the world. This means developing students’ abilities to engage with culture, including engaging people with different religious, moral, political, or ideological perspectives. As a result, students will learn to converse in such a way that they, too, earn the right to be heard by others who see the world differently.

How can we cultivate both a critical perspective on American moral culture as well as give students the skills they need to explore their identity lockbox? Kara Powell, Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute, discusses these and other questions with Tony Jones, National Coordinator of Emergent Village. To listen to the full interview online or download it, visit this link: http://fulleryouthinstitute.org/2008/10/tony-jones-interview/.

FYI: Have you seen instances of students using lockboxes in college? What did you notice about those students?

Tony: I think something happens around the middle of students’ time at college and they start to look inside that lockbox and mess around with the contents therein. I know a couple of faculty members at one Christian college who have been called into the Dean’s office several times in the past few years to explain why so many philosophy majors lose their faith during their time at this school. Of course those professors try to explain that maybe the faith students are losing is a faith they should be losing, and they are growing into a new kind of faith.

For each one of us-and our students-the faith that gets us through elementary school isn’t big enough for us in middle school. We kind of have to be “born again” again into a bigger faith, and the same thing happens in midadolescence in high school. I think the same kind of thing happens in college, too, as students start to think about a different level of questions. They’re trying to figure out the world and their place in it. Most often, their high school faith isn’t big enough for that 20-year-old faith.

FYI: As you think of youth workers who have helped students grow into a bigger faith, what does that look like?

The youth pastors I know who best prepared their students for college and university settings are those youth pastors who understand that you do grow into new iterations of faith, and they have somehow taught students that that’s okay. They’ve given students permission to put away childish things and put on the more adult-ish things. To start to question all of the things you held as absolutely true in fifth or sixth grade doesn’t mean you are turning your back on Jesus or that you can no longer understand the authority of scripture. It means the way you embrace the authority of scripture is more nuanced, more complex than when you were in middle school.

FYI: So how exactly do youth pastors give students those kinds of opportunities?

Tony: It’s probably less easy to do in the typical unilateral monological speaking that youth pastors tend to do a lot of the time. It’s much easier in dialogue and in modeling. If youth pastors start to talk openly about the rhythms of their own faith and periods of doubt-even if they admit current periods of doubt-that can be extremely powerful for students.

So say a kid is struggling with some of the stories of the Old Testament and whether they are literally historically and factually true or not. That’s a struggle most Christians go through. Would you rather have them start to ask those questions in your basement in a small group when they are seniors in high school or in an English literature class taught by a Marxist philosopher at university? I would have them first start to wrestle with those in the small group.

Finally, it’s really about the posture of the youth pastor or the volunteer leader. It takes a lot of discipline not to have an immediate knee-jerk response to every question, every crisis of faith, or every time a kid questions the authority of scripture. Ultimately, if students don’t really come to conclusions on their own, but they just take what I say and regurgitate it, that’s not discipleship-that’s almost like building robots.

FYI: How do you think a youth worker can influence a student towards the “critical perspective on popular American moral culture” that Clydesdale describes?

Tony: All of us are complicit in American culture. I don’t think it’s that easy to say “let’s be a counter-resistance to the culture.” In every youth group I’ve been to, the kids have been wearing clothes, and so they are cultural beings when they’re wearing clothes, and they have their glasses and their backpacks on with their ipod in the back. Whatever your particular shtick on all of that as a youth pastor, you are making a cultural choice, too. So I’m uncomfortable with making statements like “standing against American culture,” because I don’t know that that’s even possible anymore.

FYI: So what language would you use?

Tony: I’d say as a youth worker to students, “How do we mix it up? How are we part of this culture? How are we contributing to this culture?” I’m much more fond of the language of Andy Crouch’s book on “culture-making”. Somewhere during the Enlightenment, the Christian Church lost our role as patron of the arts. The Church backed away from that as “cultural”. Andy’s book talks about getting back into the business of culture-making, so we shape culture from within. Not outside or over against it, but from within. So I would use the language of, “We’re in this thing. We’re neck-deep in culture, so how can we roll up our sleeves and get some dirt under our fingernails and get busy in the culture?”

An analogy that just occurs to me because I’ve spent a lot of time in the summer taking my kids to a public pool. The way some Christians talk about culture is like, “You’re standing on the deck, and there’s the pool with hundreds of kids swimming around in it.” We look at that and say, “How can we make that water move the way we’d like it to?” The only way to do it is that you jump in the pool and start splashing around with your kids. Suddenly you’re part of shaping the way the water moves around in that pool and the waves that are created-only by being in it. I think that kind of language is probably much more attractive to most teenagers than the posture of standing outside of American culture and judgmentally looking at how horrible it is.

FYI: But the danger of that is actually drowning in the waters of culture. What about the parents and youth workers who are so scared of what will happen to students once they graduate?

Tony: Back to the research, it doesn’t bear out that students get totally deconstructed, at least not the first few years. The other thing is, speaking theologically, to be so afraid of what’s going to happen to your students, and even to withhold an adolescent from swimming in the culture, shows a great lack of faith in the Holy Spirit and the Spirit’s ability to guard the faith of the young.

For those of us who believe in the Holy Spirit-which I believe few Christians actually do-I don’t think it’s my responsibility to bring a kid to faith or to keep a kid in faith. It’s the Holy Spirit’s responsibility. A lot of parents think it’s the responsibility of the youth worker they’re paying to make their kids stay Christian. But no, it’s the responsibility of the Holy Spirit.

Hindu Threat to Christians: Convert or Flee

The New York Times

BOREPANGA, India — The family of Solomon Digal was summoned by neighbors to what serves as a public square in front of the village tea shop. They were ordered to get on their knees and bow before the portrait of a Hindu preacher. They were told to turn over their Bibles, hymnals and the two brightly colored calendar images of Christ that hung on their wall. Then, Mr. Digal, 45, a Christian since childhood, was forced to watch his Hindu neighbors set the items on fire.

“ ‘Embrace Hinduism, and your house will not be demolished,’ ” Mr. Digal recalled being told on that Wednesday afternoon in September. “ ‘Otherwise, you will be killed, or you will be thrown out of the village.’ ”

India, the world’s most populous democracy and officially a secular nation, is today haunted by a stark assault on one of its fundamental freedoms. Here in eastern Orissa State, riven by six weeks of religious clashes, Christian families like the Digals say they are being forced to abandon their faith in exchange for their safety.

The forced conversions come amid widening attacks on Christians here and in at least five other states across the country, as India prepares for national elections next spring.

The clash of faiths has cut a wide swath of panic and destruction through these once quiet hamlets fed by paddy fields and jackfruit trees. Here in Kandhamal, the district that has seen the greatest violence, more than 30 people have been killed, 3,000 homes burned and over 130 churches destroyed, including the tin-roofed Baptist prayer hall where the Digals worshiped. Today it is a heap of rubble on an empty field, where cows blithely graze.

Across this ghastly terrain lie the singed remains of mud-and-thatch homes. Christian-owned businesses have been systematically attacked. Orange flags (orange is the sacred color of Hinduism) flutter triumphantly above the rooftops of houses and storefronts.

India is no stranger to religious violence between Christians, who make up about 2 percent of the population, and India’s Hindu-majority of 1.1 billion people. But this most recent spasm is the most intense in years.

It was set off, people here say, by the killing on Aug. 23 of a charismatic Hindu preacher known as Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, who for 40 years had rallied the area’s people to choose Hinduism over Christianity.

The police have blamed Maoist guerrillas for the swami’s killing. But Hindu radicals continue to hold Christians responsible.

In recent weeks, they have plastered these villages with gruesome posters of the swami’s hacked corpse. “Who killed him?” the posters ask. “What is the solution?”

Behind the clashes are long-simmering tensions between equally impoverished groups: the Panas and Kandhas. Both original inhabitants of the land, the two groups for ages worshiped the same gods. Over the past several decades, the Panas for the most part became Christian, as Roman Catholic and Baptist missionaries arrived here more than 60 years ago, followed more recently by Pentecostals, who have proselytized more aggressively.

Meanwhile, the Kandhas, in part through the teachings of Swami Laxmanananda, embraced Hinduism. The men tied the sacred Hindu white thread around their torsos; their wives daubed their foreheads with bright red vermilion. Temples sprouted.

Hate has been fed by economic tensions as well, as the government has categorized each group differently and given them different privileges.

The Kandhas accused the Panas of cheating to obtain coveted quotas for government jobs. The Christian Panas, in turn, say their neighbors have become resentful as they have educated themselves and prospered.

Their grievances have erupted in sporadic clashes over the past 15 years, but they have exploded with a fury since the killing of Swami Laxmanananda.

Two nights after his death, a Hindu mob in the village of Nuagaon dragged a Catholic priest and a nun from their residence, tore off much of their clothing and paraded them through the streets.

The nun told the police that she had been raped by four men, a charge the police say was borne out by a medical examination. Yet no one was arrested in the case until five weeks later, after a storm of media coverage. Today, five men are under arrest in connection with inciting the riots. The police say they are trying to find the nun and bring her back here to identify her attackers.

Christians driven from their homes by fears of forced conversions prayed at a refugee camp last week in Bhubaneshwar, India.

Given a chance to explain the recent violence, Subash Chauhan, the state’s highest-ranking leader of Bajrang Dal, a Hindu radical group, described much of it as “a spontaneous reaction.”

He said in an interview that the nun had not been raped but had had regular consensual sex.

On Sunday evening, as much of Kandhamal remained under curfew, Mr. Chauhan sat in the hall of a Hindu school in the state capital, Bhubaneshwar, beneath a huge portrait of the swami. A state police officer was assigned to protect him round the clock. He cupped a trilling Blackberry in his hand.

Mr. Chauhan denied that his group was responsible for forced conversions and in turn accused Christian missionaries of luring villagers with incentives of schools and social services.

He was asked repeatedly whether Christians in Orissa should be left free to worship the god of their choice. “Why not?” he finally said, but he warned that it was unrealistic to expect the Kandhas to politely let their Pana enemies live among them as followers of Jesus.

“Who am I to give assurance?” he snapped. “Those who have exploited the Kandhas say they want to live together?”

Besides, he said, “they are Hindus by birth.”

Hindu extremists have held ceremonies in the country’s indigenous belt for the past several years intended to purge tribal communities of Christian influence.

It is impossible to know how many have been reconverted here, in the wake of the latest violence, though a three-day journey through the villages of Kandhamal turned up plenty of anecdotal evidence.

A few steps from where the nun had been attacked in Nuagaon, five men, their heads freshly shorn, emerged from a soggy tent in a relief camp for Christians fleeing their homes.

The men had also been summoned to a village meeting in late August, where hundreds of their neighbors stood with machetes in hand and issued a firm order: Get your heads shaved and bow down before our gods, or leave this place.

Trembling with fear, Daud Nayak, 56, submitted to a shaving, a Hindu sign of sacrifice. He drank, as instructed, a tumbler of diluted cow dung, considered to be purifying.

In the eyes of his neighbors, he reckoned, he became a Hindu.

In his heart, he said, he could not bear it.

All five men said they fled the next day with their families. They refuse to return.

In another village, Birachakka, a man named Balkrishna Digal and his son, Saroj, said they had been summoned to a similar meeting and told by Hindu leaders who came from nearby villages that they, too, would have to convert. In their case, the ceremony was deferred because of rumors of Christian-Hindu clashes nearby.

For the time being, the family had placed an orange flag on their mud home. Their Hindu neighbors promised to protect them.

Here in Borepanga, the family of Solomon Digal was not so lucky. Shortly after they recounted their Sept. 10 Hindu conversion story to a reporter in the dark of night, the Digals were again summoned by their neighbors. They were scolded and fined 501 rupees, or about $12, a pinching sum here.

The next morning, calmly clearing his cauliflower field, Lisura Paricha, one of the Hindu men who had summoned the Digals, confirmed that they had been penalized. Their crime, he said, was to talk to outsiders.

Can't get over how good these EPs are

Jon Foreman of Switchfoot has released 4 EPs, Fall, Winter, Spring & Summer over the past year and I have just downloaded them all. It's funny to think that this is the guy who wrote Switchfoot songs as these are pretty different. Think more Sufjan Stevens and Derek Webb. You can listen to some of the tracks here:

http://www.jonforeman.com/

(Not) Making it Happen

I got off the phone this morning with John, a youth pastor, who will leave his church in 20 days because of the church’s financial situation. He’s built a big youth ministry with lots of kids and very few volunteers. “The church isn’t interested in working with teens,” he tells me. John is truly heart-broken for the kids and is reaching out to me to see if I can help the church in some way after he leaves. He doesn’t want to see it all fall apart and he knows it will after he leaves.

I didn’t tell him this. It’s probably for the best.

You see, somewhere along the way we youth pastors bought into a lie. We believe our job is to make things happen, to build programs, to attract youth all in the name of ministry, or building the kingdom. We bought into the idea that our job, our ministry is to make things go. We believe that somehow, our success or failure as a pastor is dependent upon our ability to motivate people to follow through and implement our plans and our dreams in the name of vision. In fact, we in the church are infatuated with visionaries who make it happen. The lie is pervasive these days.

Chances are this is a small reason why you love being a youth pastor. You have ideas, and you get to inspire and envision people to produce your programs. Chances are you are evaluated by how efficiently you bring others on board with your vision and how well you produce the goals and objectives you declared.

But this is a deeply flawed understanding of leadership and is destructive for church staff, and those within the church as well. This is a flawed perspective because it has unintended consequences. This kind of thinking is highly colonial and creates a level of isolation, entitlement and passivity that enables congregations to abdicate their responsibility to the leaders, who often gladly take it.

The leaders become strangers and distant from the people they are called to lead in this environment. In extreme cases people can become cogs in the details of a leaders mechanistic plans. Service is reduced to volunteer positions that must be filled.

It’s important for you to understand something.

You aren’t called to make things happen in your church.

Oh, you may be paid to make things happen, but it’s not God calling you to plan, lead and pull off all that unsustainable stuff. It’s not God calling you build it all, or convince others to build your vision either.

You will always have more ideas, more dreams, more hopes, more plans than your church should pull off in your ministry. You will always see more than can be done right now. You must learn to live with this tension.

• Your job as a leader isn’t to make plans and then have others buy into them.
• The role of a leader is to declare the mission, and create an environment in which people can dream and live into it.
• By making things happen you are robbing people from the God given responsibility they have to children in your church.

The difference is in the level of commitment of the people you lead. Take John for instance. John created a lot of great experiences, but the people within his church weren’t committed to it outside of a paycheck to a staff member. When John leaves in 20 days, his ministry will crumble and it will be a beautiful thing for his church. Because it will force them to make a decision about how engaged they will be for teens.

I know what you are thinking. His church won’t step up. They will lose kids.
Could be. It’s pretty common.

This is the commentary on how well we lead in the church though, not so much on the church itself. The people of the church are being faithful to how they were led. They are living out their ministry teens the way it’s been expected of them.

How many of our churches are this way and how many churches would lose people if the staff stopped making things happen? There is an entire culture of leadership within the church rising up based on this faulty understanding of leadership.

You see, not only is top-down leadership often manipulative, colonial and patriarchal, but it’s also reactive. It only creates more of the same problems that it’s trying to solve.

Whereas leadership that declares the mission and then cultivates an environment within which it can happen is restorative. It produces energy, not hype. It confronts people, and forces accountability. The kind of leadership creates accountability, without directly calling for it.

So is this the end of visionary leadership? Absolutely not. It is simply a change in the way churches approach the role of staff and the way the mission blooms within your church. There’s a difference between helping your community imagine a world beyond their currently reality (vision) and convincing them to live it your way.

What kind of leader are you? Do you feel the need to make things happen? Have you always been this way? If not, what taught you that this was the right way?

Or do you cultivate an environment in which people can engage deeply, or superficially? An environment where you let go of the implementation to the people of your church?

Mark Riddle is a Youth Ministry Consultant and founder of The Riddle Group. He is a frequent speaker at NYWC and author of The Inside Mind of Youth Pastors which is due to release in January 2009.

Tell No One

Went to see this film with Melissa last night and would highly recommend it:

Pediatrician Alexandre Beck still grieves the murder of his beloved wife, Margot, eight years earlier. When two bodies are found near the scene of the crime, the police reopen the case and Alex becomes a suspect again. The mystery deepens when Alex receives an anonymous e-mail with a link to a video clip that seems to suggest Margot is somehow still alive and a message to "Tell No One."

A musician I am currently enjoying a lot

http://www.joshgarrels.com/

10 Blogging Commandments

Ten cyberspace commandments are to be posted online to give bloggers a moral edge in a virtual age.

Based loosely on the real Ten Commandments from the Old Testament, the revamped version for guidance in online communication emerged from an event reflecting on the ethics of today’s most popular form of public comment.

The commandments are intended to cause bloggers to consider the social impact of their blogging.

1. You shall not put your blog before your integrity.

2. You shall not make an idol of your blog.

3. You shall not misuse your screen name by using your anonymity to sin.

4. Remember the Sabbath day by taking one day off a week from your blog.

5. Honour your fellow-bloggers above yourselves and do not give undue significance to their mistakes.

6. You shall not murder someone else’s honour, reputation or feelings.

7. You shall not use the web to commit or permit adultery in your mind.

8. You shall not steal another person’s content.

9. You shall not give false testimony against your fellow-blogger.

10. You shall not covet your neighbour's blog ranking. Be content with your own content.

Godblogs, a gathering held by the Evangelical Alliance on 23 September, was designed to give Christian bloggers an opportunity to network face-to-face and think through a Christian approach to blogging. The group, aged from 18 to 87, reflected on how to honour God with their blogs and in their relationships online.

Krish Kandiah, Churches in Mission Executive Director said: “During the Godblogs event, we discussed ideas about how to communicate a code of best practice to Evangelical bloggers. As we talked it through, the Alliance decided to write a tongue in cheek set of commandments for the wider blogosphere, based on the original Ten Commandments God gave his people.

“Unlike the original, these commandments are virtual rather than set in stone, but are offered to the blogging community as a way to link the Ten Commandments with the art of blogging.

“In the ever-changing information age, what we need is wisdom for life, and God communicates wisdom to our culture through the Bible on every issue from social justice to social networking.”

He added that the Alliance is inviting bloggers to feed back on the commandments, which are on the Alliance website, www.eauk.org, and make suggestions for improvement.

Rev Mark Meynell, Senior Associate Minister for All Souls Church, Langham Place said: “The internet is merely the latest step in the evolution of human communication - and so like any other new medium, it presents us with huge opportunities as well as challenges.

“It is essential that Christians make the most of it, not least because we believe we have good news that is as relevant to those in cyberspace as it is for those in real space.”

Rev Meynell began the day by taking the bloggers through a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Christian blogosphere, followed by talks about relationships in invisible communities by lead elder at North Shrewsbury Community Church, Phil Whittal and Web 2.0 and the Bible by Peter Sanlon, an Anglican Ordinand from Cambridge.

A Blogging Relationship Commitment for Christians has also been produced as a result of the day to encourage Christians to think through how they can communicate in cyberspace in a Christ-like way and promote good relationships between Christians.