Okay, I have been thinking for a while about writing a more normal style blog post. You know, the ones that are conversational and rant about something or share a story or just play online diary. Well, I wont do the latter (cause that’s way too scary and not as manly) but I have been waiting for the right thing to enter the brain and I got it tonight.
Tonight my kids were watching the Disney channel for the umteenth time run this typical kid movie where the pipsqeak becomes the cool guy and saves the day. It portrays all that I hate about kids movies, like parents are dorks, authority figures are either stupid or cruel, bullies are actually just big babies, etc, etc. In the movie, Max figures out how to get even with everyone just before he is set to move away and then on moving day, his parents decide not to move so he has to figure out how to get everything straightened back out. What does this have to do with youth ministry?
After the movie and a delicious piece of raspberry pie that my wife baked today (rare treat from a wonderful woman), I head to the garage to work on restoring a chair (odd hobby I can tell you about sometime). I get thinking about an article I want to get published in a magazine. Now, I have had a few things (very few) in Youthworker Journal, which I enjoyed writing and heard positive things from. It is something I like to do but it also scares me in a big way. Trouble is that the magazine I want to submit the article to has never even nibbled at my ideas. Then it hit me. The most powerful people in our field are the guys who edit magazines and journals, publish books, and put on conferences. They choose who the voices of youth ministry in America will be! They decide who gets heard on a national level. So I then wondered if all that power goes to their head. Oops, a few scary memories pop into my mind and I realize the answer to that one. Yes! They do know how much power they wield and some of them have an agenda. I could go further on that, but won’t.
So then comes Max Keeble to my mind. Why don’t the little guys (aka the youth ministers in the trenches who are not in mega churches) rise up and make things right again? Think about the history of youth ministry. YS started with two guys selling ideas books out of the trunk of their cars. Young Life started when a guy opened up his living room to gather teens from the local high school. Heck, everything starts with an idea and a few people pouring their souls into that idea. Maybe it is time for a youth ministry movement to begin outside of the big resource organizations! It could be that a few youth ministers in a ‘rebel’ diocese of a dying denomination who are trying to figure out how to work together, raise up a generation of Biblically literate people to lead the church and change the world… maybe, just maybe these folks would be key players in the movement. Where would be a more ideal starting point? I know I am biased, but we have a lot of amazing youth ministers in this diocese and God has given us a huge vision!
Anyone want to talk about this over a cup of coffee?
Leave a Reply