It All Begins at Home (Part One)

by Jim Newberry

I have been recently reading in the book of Malachi – the last of the Minor Prophets. My mind / heart can’t seem to escape the prophetic words in Malachi 4:6: “He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.” There is no doubt that a restored relationship between parents and children is at the very heart of God. I can’t help but ask the question: what are we doing in youth ministry to help usher in that restoration?

Our student ministry recently hosted our annual Father / Daughter event. The teenage years can be hard on the parent / teen relationship, so we simply wanted to provide a “date night” for these daughters and dads to help them look back – and look forward. There is something about seeing dads and daughters all dressed up, walking along holding hands and laughing together that reminds us “the way it used to be” when these daughters were small – and “the way things ought to be” as God intended. There is also something about seeing these daughters carrying around flowers, being seated by their fathers, escorted around a room with a beaming pride that reminds us of the way things can and will be one day. As I observed this night, I silently prayed that these little girls who are now becoming young women would one day choose a man who would treat them with the same love and respect as their fathers were treating them. I also prayed that as they continue to seek Christ, that their relationship with their fathers would be a right picture of this relationship with Jesus.

Our evangelism efforts often seem to focus on events or programs. While the church is one of God’s primary institutions, the family came first. Maybe our efforts should focus more there? I still remember kneeling beside my bed with my father at the age of 10, as I accepted God’s invitation to a covenant relationship with him. The restored relationship between fathers and children seems pretty important to God and an often neglected area in youth ministry. We might do well to think a little more about this.

Jim Newberry is Pastor of Student and Young Adult Ministries at Christ Community (Evangelical Free) Church in Leawood, Kansas. He will be leading a breakout session at Shift titled Reculturing Evangelism / Discipleship.

Videos

If you haven't already, make sure to check out the VIDEOS section of the site.

Click on PODCASTS & VIDEOS and then click on the videos tab on the top of the screen.

There are videos of Brian McLaren, Mark Yaconelli and others, with new videos are being added all the time.

Have a great weekend!

Puppies (by Shauna Niequist)

I can’t think about the Shift Conference, or about Willow, or about student ministry without thinking of my small group. Eight years ago in Chicago, I began leading a small group of ten girls, which is a little bit oxymoronic, especially if you met these girls. There was nothing small about this group. Ten sophomore girls in one room multiply somehow, and you could swear there are a hundred of them. They were a blur of bright tank tops, flat-ironed hair, and Birkenstock clogs, and I always felt like I was in the middle of a tornado or a high-speed chase. To be honest, I planned to make it through one year and then quit, and find a new leader for them in the fall. But just before the summer, when I planned to quit, something happened. Something happened in me.

I began to love them, not because they were the finest, most-upstanding kids in our student ministry, because actually they weren’t. They had their moments of upstanding-ness, and they had moments of absolute insanity. I loved them because they were mine, because we were us, because of the funny and sweet and strange things they did and said.

In the last eight years, the eleven of us have lived together through first loves, breakups, parents’ divorces, parents’ weddings, one mother’s cancer, another mother’s death, an anxiety disorder, ADD, a learning disability, epilepsy, heartbreak, driver’s tests, SATs, one sister’s overdose, another sister’s suicide, and several funerals of friends. They threw me a wedding shower and put together our wedding programs and helped me throw my mom’s fiftieth birthday party. I went to their recitals and plays, and I watched them play powder-puff football, and helped them get ready for dates and cried with them over breakups and failed tests and college rejection letters.

When I think about how God made us to live, when people talk about true community or true intimacy, I think of them, this lovely, bizarre group of teenage girls who came over unannounced and never left when they were supposed to, who let me into their fears and their secrets, and cared about my fears and my secrets.

They taught me more than I ever taught them, and they gave me more than I ever gave them, and the best things they gave to me were ten gorgeous examples and all the permission in the world to love with that wide-open love, unmeasured and uncalculated, like a puppy in a box with all of her puppy-friends, right up close to them, feeling warm and safe.

Shauna Niequist is the author of Cold Tangerines, and will be teaching a breakout about storytelling and writing at the Shift Conference.

Holy Leisure (by Mark Yaconelli)

There is a way in which we in the West have relegated prayer to a type of service or religious duty that we perform--we pray for peace, we pray for courage, we pray for others. These prayers of intercession are important and intrinsic to the Christian life. Intercession is the way in which we companion God in spreading God’s healing love, and yet this is only one aspect of our relationship with God.

The foundation of prayer, the fundamental expression of our humanity, and the basic expression of our life in God is found in what the early monastics referred to as “holy leisure.” Holy leisure isn’t the idleness and laziness that Western society is so disdainful of, nor is it the opposite of work or activity. Leisure, in the spiritual sense of the word, is “a condition of the soul.” It is a receptivity and gratefulness to the mystery and wonder of being alive in the world. Leisure is a spiritual attitude that seeks to behold the mystery of God’s life and creation beneath the activities and roles we perform. It is an embodied trust in God.

It is this holy leisure that we see embodied in Jesus as he sleeps amidst a stormy sea, teaches amidst resentful and antagonistic authorities, leaves good and healing work in order to spend time in solitude and prayer. This holy leisure is the experience of faith. It is the way in which we allow ourselves to be enfolded by God’s life and presence in the world. It’s this kind of rest, that allows a person to be a person, rather than a function, a role, a resume’ of activities.

Leisure is experiencing the gift of being human; it is a willingness to take in God’s grace and mercy. Leisure is coming home to oneself—with all the goodness and brokenness that we contain. Leisure is stepping out from the limited boundaries of our work and relational roles, and entering into the wide mystery of what it means to be alive and in the world. Leisure is the relief and strange happiness and contentment that arises when we finally stop all our striving and bargaining and simply allow our real selves to come before the real God.

Youth and youth workers are desperately in need of holy leisure. How can our ministries invite youth into a culture that slows to God speeds? This is the question I hope to explore at the Shift 2008 conference. See you there.

Mark Yaconelli

Imagine... (by Bo Boshers)

For the last few months, each day I have been reading the book of Galatians. Some days I read a chapter or two, and some days just a single verse. This simple discipline of slowing down, taking my time and not being rushed when reading the scripture, has increased my desire to know God and to become a more Godly man. It also revealed how short I fall at times at letting God produce the Fruit of the Spirit within me: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, and helped me realize that without continual growth in my life, there is no fruit.

Have you ever felt this way? That what you are doing in student ministry is not making a difference, or when you look back at the last season of ministry, you realize that you personally have not grown in becoming more like Christ? I often wonder if one of my students, volunteers, or staff members were asked, “What is Bo like”, would they use words that would describe evidence of the Fruit of the Spirit in my life? I know we all want to bear much fruit and make a difference with the one life God has given us. We all want to see our youth ministries prevail. But this is not easy. Youth ministry is hard work.

That’s where reading Galatians has been so encouraging to me. Paul must have known we would feel discouraged. In Galatians 6:9, he writes; “ Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” I love how Paul uses the words; “let us” and “we will reap” and “if we do not give up”. It reminds me that I am not alone, that we are in this together and that we all need encouragement.

Imagine if youth leaders all around the country did not give up and become weary. Imagine the harvest of this young generation that would be reached. Imagine if this started today by all of us sending a personal word of encouragement to another youth worker. I believe it would make an eternal difference and my hope is that you do too. We can all do this! Be encouraged and I look forward to seeing you at the Shift Conference.

Bo Boshers

Podcast 1 Now Online!

Our first podcast is now posted on the Podcasts section of the site. It features an interview with Dan Kimball, who will be the closing main session speaker at Shift 2008. Check out the podcast here. You can also access it (and subscribe to the podcast) via iTunes by clicking here.

Podcast 01: Interview with Dan Kimball

Our first podcast features an interview with author, pastor and Shift 2008 speaker Dan Kimball.

I Am Loved

Another track from Brandon Grissom from the Elevate album Scattered Around.

The Shift Experience

Welcome to the Shift Experience, the newly designed web site, blog, and podcast of Shift 2008, the student ministries leadership conference hosted by the Willow Creek Association.

We're so glad you stopped by the site, and would love it if you let others know about it.

Make sure you visit the site often, as it will be the hub of all of the latest event info and news, blog postings by Shift 2008 speakers and artists, and a monthly podcast. Our first podcast will be posted this week, and features an interview with Dan Kimball, who will be speaking in our closing main session at Shift 2008.

Thanks again for visiting www.shiftexperience.com.

See you again soon!

Father of Glory

Stay tuned for the first installment of the Shift Experience Podcast. Until then, enjoy this song ("Father of Glory") from worship leader Brandon Grissom.