Last week, Marko on the Slant33 blog asked the question of:

We have learned that teenagers live in a world isolated from adults, and unfortunately, most of our ministries perpetuate this.  How are you addressing this problem?

My thoughts:

Students in the American church are experiencing a loneliness epidemic known as systematic abandonment. So what are some responses when addressing abandonment?

In my youth ministry experience it has been my mission, joined with the Holy Spirit, to intentionally respond to this systematic abandonment issue. I have responded in two approaches: 1) Proactively assimilating students into the church body; and 2) Getting more adults in the lives of kids through the small group model.

(pic brought to you by:  Miss Blackflag)

As a youth worker, one of the nastiest teen bullying episodes I encountered was on facebook.  I knew cyber bullying was happening, but I didn’t know it got so mean, dirty and out of control.

I quickly learned:  Students can leverage their social media influence to bully students they don’t like.  And the scary thing is that the cyber bully can easily frame any student by easily manipulating and destroying their online presence in a matter of seconds. Students are more inclined to be really unkind online.

So how do we (parents, peers and pastor) help kids who get caught in this social media bullying crossfire?

Parents:  The youth ministry needs to not only educate but enroll parents to help protect and monitor their student’s social media presence.  The monitoring of the parents will greatly help when you (the youth pastor) hear and/or see the online bullying happening.  When others would tell me about online bullying or I would see it for myself I would simply shoot the parents an email/text saying:  ”You may want to look at your student’s facebook page”.  The biggest advantage to online bullying is that it is public domain, so everyone can see it and help stop it.

According to Pew research (Pew’s research ran a series of seven focus groups with teens aged 12 to 19):

77 percent say they’ve (the parents) checked a website that their child has visited. Two thirds have searched to see what kind of data showed up about their child.

86 percent of teens said they’ve gleaned “general advice” from their parents on using the ‘Net safely’.

58% of teen internet and cell phone users told Pew that “their parents have been the biggest influence on what they think is appropriate or inappropriate when using the internet or a cell phone.

More than six in ten teens report that they know their parents have checked their social media profile, and 41% of parents of online teens have friended their child on a social network site

Parents are key when trying to prevent online bullying.  They can stop it before it gets out of control or it is too late.

Peers: friends are obviously a huge part of a teenagers life.  So it may be wise to get other trusted adults to lean into the peer network when confronting cyber bullying.  We can invite the peers (of the one being bullied) not to join in on the cyber bullying and also stand up to the bullier by asking him/her/they to stop.  Ask the friends to stand up for what is right when they see their friends getting bullied.

According to Pew research:

But over half (55 percent) said that most of their peers ignore the bad treatment or bullying of others. Nineteen percent admitted that they “frequently see others join in the harassment.”

The role of the friend is very pivotal because how he/she responds, determines if the online bullying continues.

Pastor:  As a youth pastor, I think it is our responsibility to help assist, correct, confront, discipline, encourage and equip our students’ online lives.  Students always need more help in how they navigate their online world.  Also don’t hesitate to confront the cyber bully.  I had no problems confronting the cyber bully who was bullying students in the community.

Plus if parents know they have another trusted-committed-online savvy adult looking out for their teen online, then parents will automatically love you.  I am a big advocate for youth pastors pastoring their student online.  This online pastoring not only protects their students, but invites students to be like Jesus in their online relationships.  A student simply needs to be taught and modeled how to conduct their offline and online presence.  Essentially both the online and offline Christian teenager needs to love and reflect Jesus in every  ”space” of their life and they may be looking to their parents and youth pastor for help.

According to Pew research:

70 percent of teens said they’ve gotten advice from teachers or other adults at school and in the community.

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Questions For the Youth Pastor:

How do you educate parents about social media?  Do you feel like your parents are checking their students online profiles?

How involved should a youth pastor get in “pastoring” their students online?

Do you find in your context that online bullying is a happening frequently?  Why or why not.

What other ways can youth ministries stop online bullying?   How have you dealt with online bullying in your youth ministry?

I know this may seem weird but I am always worrying about what an unchurched student thinks when he/she attends a “church youth ministry program”.

For example, a few weeks ago, I observed two new middle school students attend and enter a church environment for the very 1st time in their life.  I just sat back and watch them process their 1st “church experience.”  They were really quiet and non-responsive.

I wondered:

-  What are they thinking?  Are they overwhelmed?  Do they think church youth group is stupid and irrelevant?

-  Do they think the Biblical message matters for how they live their life?  In fact do they even respect the Bible?

-  What do they think about the worship, especially the lyrics they are suppose to sing along with?

-  Do they feel included or judged?

-  What adults have greeted them and made them feel important? Did any other students meet and greet them?

I am learning more and more that it is okay to constantly be considering the unchurched student who shows up to our  church youth group environments.

As youth workers I think it is wise to be asking the question of:  How can our youth ministry create an environment that will be safe for a student who says No to church and No to God?

It doesn’t matter what youth outreach strategies you adopt: Inside/Out approach (go on to the unchurched students’ turf) or the Outside/In approach (unchurched students come to our turf (church)).  But what does matter is architecting places and spaces where unchurched students feel comfortable with Jesus following students and leaders.

When I was in Los Angeles, CA (circa 2004-2005) I was on mission to figure out how to architect warm, nonjudgemental, accepting and inclusive environments that communicated to unchurched students that they could BE in “church environments” and not feel weird or judged.  In my pursuit, I stumbled upon Mosaic Church (aka Erwin Mcmanus’ church) where I learned (by visiting Mosaic and taking a class with Erwin) how they were able to create spaces and places that highly encourage both believers and nonbelievers to fellowship together.  The major value that Erwin injected in Moasic’s culture was architecting places where unchurched people didn’t have to believe in order to belong. Erwin articulated that the church/youth group is often a 1st space where no outsiders are allowed.  The 2nd space is a generic set of relationships where not everyone is like you, yet there’s still relationships.  The 3rd space is where there’s no relationships, and there won’t be unless invited.

Third spaces are when nonbelievers feel included in “neutral” spaces.  Third spaces allow students to belong before they have to believe.

The problem is…..  we (myself included) immediately want unchurched student to behave before they “officially” belong.  I get it… it is so much easier not paying attention to the unchurched student because they don’t talk like us, believe like us, pray like us, behave like us, dress like us, and think like us.  Unchurched students make professional paid Christian church youth pastors feel real uneasy because unchurched students don’t know the church rules and their worldview and behaviors are way more risky.

But………

Could you imagine if students felt like they already belonged before they had to  behave? And these unchurched students were immediately  surrounded and greeted by adult who care?

Chap Clark writes in Hurt:

“Today’s adolescents are, as a lot, indescribably lonely.” (p. 69)

“Midadolescents believe that few if any adults genuinely care about them.” (p. 68)

“Adolescents have suffered the loss of safe relationships and intimate settings that served as the primary nurturing community for those traveling the path from child to adult… (50)

Today’s postmodern students long to belong!  They need places where trusted-committed adults genuinely care for them.

My point is:  create 3rd space(s) that communicate to an unchurched student they belong and that they will be cared for before they have to believe.  Create a place for others – where people different from us feel welcome.

How To Create 3rd Spaces in Youth Ministry:

-  make all service mission trips open to all students.

-  recruit and train leaders to be incarnational witnesses who unconditionally love and accept any type of student.  It is important to teach leaders how to think incarnationally.  Feel free to read my posts about the theological understanding of incarnational outreach and strategies in youth outreach.  I highly recommending reading Pete Ward’s book:  God at the Mall to better understand how to create environments that will engage any student.

-  look for neutral places and spaces in the community.  i.e. coffee shops, mall, school campuses, beach, bowling alley, restaurants

-  intentionally create time in youth ministry programs that acknowledges, affirms and invites unchurched students to belong.

-  create church environments that are relevant to any teen.  Think through your teaching style (especially your language) and environment athesetics.

-  visit a local young life club and observe how they program around the unchurch student.  Essentially their programming is centered around the non-believer.  Young life is brillant in how they create Third Spaces.  Their third spaces are highly relational.

-  do events outside of the church walls and invite every student in the community.  i.e. concerts, BBQs, bowling nights, dodgeball tournaments, sporting events, laser tag, arcades, etc. Remember the goal is building relationships with unchurched students not whacking them with Bible verses.  I love third spaces in youth ministry because it highly encourages FUN and CRAZINESS!!!!!!!!

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Questions I Want To Ask Youth Workers:

-  Do you also worry about what unchurched students think about your “youth ministry environments”?  What is the general feedback when an outsider attends your youth group?  How often are you thinking about the unchurched students in your youth ministry programming?

-  Do you also have a tendency to get students to believe before they officially belong?  Or do you allow unchurched students to fully participants in your youth ministry before they accept Jesus?

-  What other third places examples would you recommend that encourages the unchurched and churched students to intersect?  What are some neutral spaces in your church environment and in your community?

(middle school sign pic brought to you by:   Some rights reserved by mrjoro)

Over the years, I have really grown to love working in Middle School Ministry.  Middle schoolers have taught me an enormous amount about how to follow God.  Middle schoolers just have this tenacious way to ran after Jesus.  They simply just don’t care and have no problem expressing how they are feeling towards God.

I have immersed myself back in the Middle School ministry context and one thing is clear:   my knowledge and skills in middle school ministry are pretty rusty.

When I realized I was rusty, I immediately begin to (re) learn, observe and research how to best minister to early adolescence (11-14). Once I have observed and retained book knowledge; I begin to experiment and iterate (over and over again).

Everything is always changing in youth ministry and it is up to the youth worker to keep current and experiment or else you will also become rusty, flat and out of date.

In this post, I thought it would be fun to share what I am (re)learning about middle school ministry, so here you go:

 General info:

Middle school ministry evolved in 1970 and is extremely different than High School ministry (this is why it is important to separate each age group).  Middle schoolers are: concrete thinkers, very intuitive (they feel life) and super dependent.

(1)  Relationships

-  middle schoolers need consistent adult relationships because they are so dependent.

-  middle schoolers are emotional basket cases.  Their emotional world consists of many highs and lows.  So let the drama unfold and be the stable adult that anchors them in reality while affirming their crazy emotions.

-  when a middle schooler is stressed out they will most likely resort back to childhood behaviors.

-  middle schoolers need more adults to have more fun with.  The best way to build trust with a middle schooler is by demonstrating to them you know how to have fun at any given moment.

-  middle schoolers need adults to proactively contact them outside of church.

(2)  Environments

-  middle schoolers need a warm, structured, supportive, safe and welcoming environments.

-  middle schoolers need a lot of affirmation because they are just beginning to ask the questions of:  Who am I?  Where do I fit in this crazy world?  How do I matter?  Intentionally go out of your way to say something nice to a middle school student.  Make sure to use direct non-verbal behaviors.  I.e.  use direct eye contact, face them when speaking to them, smile, etc.  Middle schoolers need to believe you that you really believe in them and that they can really truly change the world.

-  middle schoolers need a family like environment.

-  middle schoolers need sugar in whatever church environment they are in.

(3)  Theology

-  middle schoolers need to know God 1) pursues them 2) values them and 3) loves them

-  middle schoolers need to experience the affective side of God’s character.  They need to feel Jesus, than just learning about Him.  This is why worshipping through music is such a big deal for middle school students.

-  middle schoolers adopt an outside-in approach to evangelism.  Basically middle school students will share their faith if they are at church.  Get a middle school student excited about their church environment and they will bring their non-Christian friends to church.  This is another reason why I love Middle School Ministry—- if they love church, then they will love inviting all their peers to church.

-   when teaching middle schoolers use NARRATIVES within the Bible, especially the many stories about Jesus and the stories Jesus told aka parables.  Try to stay away from using metaphors and analogies.  Try to communicate in black and white terms.

-  make sure middle schooler know that they are members of the Church body now!  Connect middle schools to the rest of the church body.

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I am always open for more tips and insight, so please feel free to answer these questions in the comment section:

-  What other musings about middle school ministry would you like to share?  What other great insights do you have about how to best minister and relate to middle schoolers?

-  What have you found NOT to work in middle school ministry?

-  Who has some really good insight about middle school ministry?  Any recommended book, magazine articule or blogs that I should be reading that are middle school ministry focused?

-  Why do you love/hate middle school ministry?

As of late, I have been thinking a lot about why doubt needs to be an integral apart of our youth ministries.  During the Orange Tour, Joiner has been talking about the insane importance doubt plays in the spiritual life of a teen.  He concludes that where there is faith, there is doubt.

The book Sticky Faith, authored by Dr. Kara Powell and Dr.  Chap Clark from the Fuller Youth Institute, discusses how some studies have shown that those who face their questions and doubts emerge with stronger faith in the end.  Stronger faith does not happen when a students stifles doubts or pretends it does not exist. Students need to know and feel like that at any point they can ask any question about life, the Bible, church, Jesus, theology, Christianity, other world religions and God.

(Faith/Doubt photo brought to you by:   All rights reserved by Joe Cavazos)

Getting our students to doubt their faith is not only backed by research but it is being accepted as a common practice in youth ministry.

This is so liberating.

I still remember very clearly back in 2004 when I gave my 1st youth group sermon on doubt.  I was so scared to give the talk.  I felt like a heretic because I was encouraging students to question their faith.  Students loved it but parents hated it.  The parents were worried because their son or daughter were asking questions they didn’t know how to answer.  P.S.  If you need a great series on Doubt– XP3 Students has a most excellent series that will get your students to embrace doubt, which will pave the way to belief.

The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, whose questioning approach to the deep notions of existence and knowledge help keep us and our youth ministries halfway humble.   This is why we have to train our students to have a deep questioning approach to their faith journey.  It not only keeps us humble, but us on our toes.

Here are 10 questions youth workers need their students asking by 10th grade:

(10)  Why Do I Have To Listen To A Sermon?

(9)  Why Is Church Important?

(8)  Why Is There Evil In The World?

(7)  If We Can’t Work Our Way INTO Salvation, How Can We Work Our Way OUT?

(6)  How Can We Escape the Love of God?

(5)  How Can We Identify Christians if We lgnore God’s Law?

(4)  Is Profession of Faith Enough, or Do Our Acts Also Count?

(3)  Does God Answer Prayers of Sinners?

(2)  What Can Possibly Interrupt Christ’s Dominion?

(1)  Why Shouldn’t Christians Become Civil Rulers and Enforce God’s Law?

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Do you encourage doubt in your student ministry?   If so, how do you do it?

What doubts do your students have?

Do you have a difficult time answering your students questions?

Do you doubt when your students doubt?  How does doubt fit into your spiritual growth process?

How do your parents respond when you teach on doubt?