Youth ministry....?

If you have ever been involved in youth ministry or a youth pastor; these two video's will make you laugh. If you have been on the receiving end of youth ministry, you'll relate.
Lifted from Thinklings

A new kind of youth ministry....

"This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come." Mark 4:26-29

Before we joined the Lord in the birth of a new church, Jacob's Well....we were youth pastors.

I love young people, always have, always will. There are days that I miss the craziness, the unpredictability, unending drama and sheer joyfulness of working primarily with teens. It's a wild ride but some of my most treasured memories of ministry and friendships are centered in youth ministry. Young people are open, inquisitive, willing to stretch, bored with the normal, love a challenge and charged full of God ordained, puberty inducing stupidity that makes them perfect for the life and message of the gospel...they are just dumb enough to actually believe and follow the truth...it's a youthful wisdom, we lose as we grow wiser in age.

As a new church plant, we wrestled with how youth ministry would unfold. We had a lot of ideas and we tried to "plant" those programs...and none of them "took root". Leaving this old youth dude, fairly angst'd about the situation but too overloaded with new responsibilities to take on that role as well. As a father, I was also concerned that my kids were not going to get the full meal deal of youth ministry that I had served up for everyone elses kids in years gone by. I had poured out my most energetic, zeal filled, caffeine juiced, spirit amped years on the spiritual lives and schools of the churches youth and now my kids were going to get zilch. It's was a grave cost of this new work that I didn't fully grasp until we got into it. Not to mention that pastoral challenge of figuring out the youth angle for incoming families with tweeners and teeners...no ministry...usually means no stay-ey. It's a tough start up predicament. Then there is the multitudes of teenagers that roam our neighborhood...that will pang the calloused of youth workers hearts.

It's been a deep matter of prayer and desire, that continually ascends from this pastor parent's heart and soul.


But God has been faithfully at work in the night of my youth pastoring inactivity. Since my older kids had to start new schools and a new church they poured themselves into music and school. This forced a new missional opportunity...the salt got shaken out of the youth church and into youth culture. They were not able to get comfortable and cared for in a way that inoculated them from being in the world and reaching out for their own relational survival. It took "evangelism" and stripped it of its "churchy" duty and it became friendship based, natural and more engaging with teens that were not church kids.

With their music taking off, it meant we were surrounded with lots of teens...in our home, at the rock shows, at their schools. I found myself in and among the very kids my heart yearned for and I saw God at work through my kids...vs. a youth program. I discovered a way of ministry that was organic, built out of the lives of the teens instead of a structure built for the teens. It's revolutionized my thinking and its shaping my understanding of ministry in many new ways.

I find myself very glad they are playing in the city's clubs now instead of the city's youth rooms. I am deeply won over by the fruit of being outside of the church instead of chained in the sanctuary. I see, hear and experience a fresh expression of youth ministry that is more effective than many models I have perpetuated in the past. Not that I would never want a youth ministry among our youth at Jacob's Well...but it would have to be one that responded to the youth ministry that is already growing. We do not need a youth person to "start" a ministry now...we need people who will tend and cultivate what is already growing among us. That is a liberating endeavor.

Last night our church threw a fundraising show for my son's band Nothing To Gain (formerly known as: Raw Nerve). As they were shredding and the teens were dancing, laughing, screaming and basically just having the time of their lives...I saw God at work among us.
Last night I saw teens coming into a church, mingling with adults, free to be themselves and let the evening unfold as they saw fit...they danced, hung out, banged their heads, smoked, drank too much mountain dew and made a mess of our sound board and church sanctuary...and I loved it! We served their agendas..they didnt serve ours. I connected with their parents...a very rare opportunity in my past youth pastoring days; parents hardly stepped in the door of the church back then. But now, they are right there, listening, supporting and enjoying our hospitality.
I met over 10 kids that I had never met before and that I would only meet in this kind of venue. Teens that are not followers of Jesus...the kids I would want to get to know and now can, thanks to my sons love for metal, artistry and loud amps.
I got to see young people lead from their gifts and their hearts and support them, give to them and show them they matter. It's a opportunity that church planting opened up for me to do, in ways that I probably never would have otherwise. For that I am extremely grateful.

I now see that God is at work, the seeds are growing and the Spirit of God is always at work in the fields of youth culture and often in ways and places, we simply cannot see or are unwilling to go.

This old youth pastor has a lot to learn about the many ways God does youth ministry...

All before I was 18...

"Our friday night, no strings attached, events. No strings attached means we're not preaching, we're not going to do cool stuff only to make you sit through a cheesey 10 minute epilogue at the end. We've got rid of all of that and cut it back to just the cool stuff. - a local Church in Spokane

I read this statement today on a church website, I was looking for some info on some resources I knew they were providing for the practical needs of the poor in our community. In the process, I read this on the "youth" site. It's a ministry philosophy like this that breaks my heart as a former youth pastor. It's youth ministry like this that makes me fall on my face and pray to God for a movement of grace and power among the youth of our city. A harvest gathered through gospel preaching laborers, not just game guru's. I understand all the arguments and tag lines that are offered up in these kind of discussions but in the end...I think about the many young people I have seen in the streets, the jails, the schools and the churches that need more than sanctified goofiness in the their lives.

I simply have no understanding of that world as a teenager. I remember what it felt like to put a razor blade to my wrist and contemplate cutting into my flesh and pouring out my numb life, after a night of frying hard on LSD. I remember the lostness, the emptiness that consumed my soul and the helplessness that I felt as I realized that no amount of partying or getting laid was ever going to fill the ache inside.

The smell of puke, urine and dirty clothes from nights of sleepless partying is familiar to me. The cold of sleeping in a dumpster and having to try to start a fire to keep warm. Running from police, getting a gun drawn on you and feeling handcuffs clip over your wrist or the hard plastic of the backseat of a cop car. The fear, the anger and the blood of fist fights, watching someone get pummeled and not letting them run from their antagonizer, all for the fun of watching it. I can still see the tears of girls being rejected after being used and watching them realize they are just a moment, a sexual experience, an appetizer.

I've meet drug pushers, with their sexual conquests pictured in Polaroid's on the wall...liars, abusers, evil people that prey off the addicted or the naive. I know what is like to not graduate, to fail, to be a loser. I've sat in circles, watched blood being leeched from an offered hand over a religious symbol, while music played that hailed Satan, mocked Christ...I've seen frightening devils.

I've found a suicide attempt, wrists slit, naked, bloodied and floating nude in a bath tube. I've watched some one shove a needle into their arm and beg for more and more and more and realized that they would kill themselves for that high. I've felt drugs squeeze out your breath, I've gasped and lost consciousness....thinking that I was dying from a drug overdose. I know what it's like to stumble into a hospital and ask for help because I can't breathe.

I saw all this before I was 18.

Where are the youth ministries for those kind of kids?

"While women weep, as they do now, I'll fight; while little children go hungry, as they do now, I'll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I'll fight; while there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I'll fight - I'll fight to the very end!"-William Booth

Open letter to the youth of my youth "churches"....

In the end no matter how smart the monkey looks...he is still a dumb ape. So as an ape...I write this letter to all of you that I have pastored for good and for bad.

I am sorry for not giving you the gospel, in the way and in the clarity that you deserved. The gospel is about Jesus...so much of what I gave you was about you. The true gospel focuses on what He has done, who He is and sets people free from themselves...both their sins and their "righteousness". It is liberating. The other gospel...has man and what he does or doesn't do at it's center. It creates bondage and encourages sin...both the good kind and the bad kind. Looking back, I know I sincerely wanted the best for you. To see you grow in Christ, change the world, reach the lost, draw close to God, become more prayerful, remain pure, lead others, find God in worship, know your bibles, reach your campuses, love the lost, be good kids, obey your parents, sacrifice for God's kingdom, touch the nations and a host of other "good" things.

But in the end...I encouraged you to work hard...but I didn't teach you to rest in the work of God.

The simple gospel is: "...knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 2:16)

I am not sure if you would have come to that knowledge under my ministry. For that I ask your forgiveness. Looking back, I see more and more that "ministry" was more about me...than you. It was more about the growing drive to reach more, grow bigger, impress people, make a name, go farther than others in the spirit, have a more "spiritual" youth group...in fact, drop the "group" and put the word "church" in there, because we were going to be better than other "groups" we were going to be a youth church. So much of that, though sincere...was sincerely wrong. It divided. It put some in and others out. It put undue strain on teens who should of been enjoying just being teens instead of gathering the world onto their shoulders.

You were good enough for God but not good enough for me...and that was wrong. I see now that so much of youth work is really in vain. It's like trying to wash out the stripes of the zebra. The gospel accepts our sinfulness, our humanness, our immaturity...in fact to truly understand the gospel, you have to start with: the truth that...you are not able to save yourself.

So much of church ends up teaching you that you can save yourself, improve yourself, control yourself, restrain yourself, beat yourself, trust yourself, harness yourself...and when life teaches you that you are not able...a deep disillusionment can settle in. I have seen this happen in many of you. Some of that is simply believing a false gospel that is centered on human work instead of the work of Christ.

For some of you...it was too much. I was too much...to intense, to raw, to strict. I was to legalistic in my drive to help you "give it all to God". I was hyped up on too much world changing charismatic shit. I was to young to see the difference between growing something and producing something.
A large anything is usually unhealthy...but the pressure to perform is innate in the systems of church, the world, academics and relationships. We are plagued with a cancer of human potential thinking that sounds so good to hear but when you come to the end of it...you realize that Christ and you are two very different realities. One opens up life like a flower and the other portrays life like a dark chore to endure and change.

I hope and pray that in your struggle to grow up that you are finding Christ. My hearts desire is that you would be consumed with the rest of enjoying Him, walking with Him and serving Him in a humble and sincere way. That you would see your life as a gift to live gratefully and in doing so, you would see that your life glorifies the One who gave it to you.

I wish you would of encountered more of Jesus and less of me...but, in the end, that is the trouble of this world...seeing Jesus in the midst of so much other crap. I hope you do better than I have done.

I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke. Everyone there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light. But they do not call it goodness. They do not call it anything. They are not thinking of it. They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes."
- C.S. Lewis

You are loved...in all your youthiness, in all your imperfections, in all your teenish ways...in all your failures and accomplishments. I think of you with love and grace. I pray for you and dream of the day when all of us can walk gently and humbly in love and in grace for the glory of God.

youth churchin

a youth church service
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

A lot of faces in this pic that bring back a lot of memories...God busted through so many doors in this old room...shook the walls, soaked the carpet, opened the eys of hearts and birthed destiny. Praise God many of these kids are still following Jesus.

Student leaders swimming

Student leaders swimming
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

Looking back on the youth pastoring days...there is a whole lot I miss. Like being able to call up a bunch of teens in the summer and go to the lake. A lot of ministry and memories happened on days like this. Just chilling, laughing and talking as we enjoyed God's beauty and helped kids grow up. How anyone wouldn't want to serve God this way escapes me.

The scrambler...

P. Eric given Derek the groin shot
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

As a previous youth pastor, I had to be skilled in various pool martial arts. This is the move called "the scambler"...it involves an elbow and...well, I will let you fill in the rest. It amazes me that I was paid to rough kids up for a living...

memories...

P.E. and Mel
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

One of my favorite pics from back in the youth pastoring days...this is Mellisa and I hanging out somewhere. Oh the pains of youth pastoring...suffering for Jesus by the pool or lake. Good times.