the    sides

This is the first part of what I presented at Oasis this week.

Just opening questions for us to start talking around the tables…

What’s been the most significant technological advancement you’ve seen in your life?
How has that affected youth ministry?
How could you leverage that technology in your student ministry?
How do you normally deal with change? Pioneer, settler, suburbanite, resistor?

Pioneer - lead the change, scares most people
Settler - first to accept and adapt to change
Surbanite - when change is easy and useful, then we’ll make change
Resister - change is painful, last to adopt

How do you think most teenagers deal with change? Most teenagers may be pioneers or settlers in how they interact with technology but in every other aspect of their life - they land on subarbanite or resister. If you don’t believe me, change how you do youth this week and pay attention to the reaction. It’s an odd paradox but it’s the perfect snapshot of today’s student culture.

I love teenagers. I think they are the most awesome frustration on the planet. That’s the same reason you guys do what you do. And change is just part of working with teens, right? Change is the only constant of student culture. But the last 5 to 8 years have been ridiculous…seismic.

And like all changes and shifts - some of it has been good, some of it has been bad, some of it has left us scratching our heads.

If I had to use one word it would be - complicated paradoxes.

Right - can’t use one word…here’s what I’m talking about.

Many paradoxes:
Huge sense of entitlement YET concerned about environment, Africa, and local needs.
Intensely TRIBAL in their focus (their own worlds, needs,ect…) yet GLOBAL.
More open and friendly, YET cliques are more than ever.
Jesus is cool to talk about, YET Christianity is NOT.
Value excellence YET raw, authenticity.
Truth is important but it must WORK, have teeth and compassion.
Hates fakes and hypocrites YET impossible for themselves to live a wholistic life.
Busier than they’ve ever been YET more bored than they’ve ever been.

The iTunes Approach to Life.
Not Wholistic in anything. You don’t have to buy the whole album, just what you want. Same approach to religion, family values, politics.

Money is tighter than ever YET there is always SOME available for entertainment of some sorts.

Authority and Experts are determined by relational proximity, not title or education.

How it’s playing out in student ministries?
That’s part of what we’re going to unpack the rest of the day. How is this playing out? What does all this mean? How can I stay focused and fed in the middle of this?

Let me throw out a couple observations to start the ball rolling…

First, there are no more experts. This past year Saddleback turned their entire youth ministry upside down, Kurt Johnson and the staff blogged about it all summer long. They punted some summer camps, started a life group/small group focus - spent the summer training volunteers to do small groups…launched them this month. Even the Big Boys are rethinking everything.

Second, the silo ministry model - where youth ministry functions as an island - it’s probably always been counter-productive at some level, but now it’s not even attractive to teens. They (students) need more than just entertainment and other teens and THEY know it.

Second, they love smaller/intimate because they can “try it before they buy it” BUT there must be a compassion/global flavor to it.

What this practically means is this - the front door to your church is not the front door. It will be compassion, Beautiful Day, mission projects or your Wednesday night (relational) context. Where ever you have an arena for conversations and interactions - that will be the heaviest attended function.

Lastly, now more than ever we need sages, not directors. I’ll unpack this in more detail this aftenoon - but teens have everything they ‘need’ from their culture except deep, meaningful relationships.