My wheels have been turning this week on the topic of global youth ministry, especially as I head into mission trip mode on Sunday. Today I stumbled across a book that has been foundational and motivational for me as we work to bring the students in our youth ministries together on a local level, as well as provide them chances to interact and serve the world.
The Revolution: A Field Manual for Changing Your World (Edited by Heather Zydek). Below are some questions it begged of me a few years ago.
Perhaps it would be good in the conversation to know that what I’m referring to here isn’t just an openness to other world cultures but an openness to understanding the differing plights of our world and how we, as youth ministers in America, can respond to them by giving our students a chance to think in opposite ways of our culture and offer Christ to a world in diverse and imaginative ways.
Listed are a few of the things that grabbed me, things I am still working through:
P. 4- Head to hands
How are our mission trips working? Local outreach? How do very young middle school students relate to missional experiences? How do they process them? What are the outcomes. Kara Powell’s materials might be able to help us here.
p. 8- Reshaping worldview
How do guide the adolescent worldview to a place where they begin to see and respond like Christ may have responded? How do we do this organically? What’s the most important thing? Bible study? Experiential learning? Modeling?
p. 14- Prayer
What’s the role of prayer in our youth ministries? Is it often overlooked and undervalued?
p. 17- Violence
Are our eyes becoming immune to violence? What stories can we tell to help our students see pain found in violent acts? How do we tell these stories without being manipulative?
p. 35- Susan B. Anthony
How are are we expressing this radical kingdom message to our students? Are we comfortable with the status quo? Are we willing to take risks to articulate the message?
p. 67- Hunger
Do we give our students opportunities to empathize, to enter into the pain of another and experience solidarity at their own level? Is it important? Can things like the 30 Hour Famine become more than a weekend, but a way of life? How do we do that?
And finally, how do we break all of this down? How would this blog be different if I were writing it for a 13 year old? Maybe that is what I should do! Nevertheless, these are the questions as of late.
Maybe you have thoughts of your own?
