Emerging Generations: I

During my six years of ministry alongside George Mercado, all of the youth leaders who worked with George were introduced to Sonlife Youth Strategies (as it was called then); Sonlife is a ministry that flourished big time in the 1980's, with its focus on developing a discipleship-based approach to youth ministry that was aimed at training youth leaders to train youth to be people of impact in their high schools.

A lot of churches adopted Sonlife's approach, with varying results. It's success (or failure) seemed to largely depend (surprise, surprise) on the hearts of the leaders who were involved. (Not forgetting that if God doesn't move, then any of our efforts, no matter how well-intentioned and strategized, won't count for squat.)

Some of you may be ready to -- as my dad likes to say -- "run screaming into the woods" because I've mentioned an 80's ministry model. "Lord have mercy! Is he going to suggest something so modern as a ministry model???"

Try to relax. With some creative reconstructing, it can still provide a framework (NOT a program) that may be helpful.

First off, Sonlife challenged us as youth leaders to think long and hard on what was called a "Description of a Discipled Student" (DDS). Simply put, they were asking us, "If you 'successfully' disciple a high school student, what will he/she look like after being discipled by you? What are the marks of discipleship? How will you know if you're being effective in disicpling or not?"

The old saying -- "aim at nothing and that's what you'll hit" -- is still true in a postmodern context. What does discipleship (spiritual transformation) look like for teenagers, and what is your role?

When I was taking the training, oh so many years ago, it was terrifying to see some of the incredibly long lists that some youth leaders (not any of George's crew, thankfully) were coming up with: verses to memorize, activities to do, testimonies to give, Sunday School classes to teach, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

I had only two things on my list:

1. That each young person learn how to dig into the Scriptures for themselves, and learn to let the Holy Spirit guide them into truth, and
   
2. That each young person be able to thoughtfully critique whatever they hear, from Christians or non-Christians, and evaluate what they're hearing.

I still stand by those two statements; if we can accomplish this, we've equipped them for life, not just rammed them through some church-ified program that may make them look good but hasn't really equipped them for life in the real world.

So, I would encourage postmodern youth leaders to start there: what does a discipled teenager look like, and what is your role (as you work hard to NOT usurp the Holy Spirit's role in their lives) in the journey of spiritual transformation in a youth community?

Sonlife had what they called the "Six Building Blocks" of effective youth ministry. No matter how many ways you try to re-package or re-invent ministry paradigms, most people end up with the same six. So, rather than re-inventing the wheel all over again, I'm going to attempt to put the Six Blocks into pomergent-speak in the next few posts.

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The first area that Sonlife always stressed was the "Atmosphere of Love & Acceptance"; we've often used the term "a safe place to take risks" in more recent ministry settings with teenagers and 20-somethings.

To summarize:

What makes our home group a "safe place"? How will people who attend the groups be able to tell?

It starts with us. What we model, becomes "normal" for the group. Youth leadership means risk-taking in the areas of being transparent and vulnerable with the group. If we act like "having the right answers at all times" is the greatest importance in a group setting, that is what our group will learn from us - act like you're all together even if you're not (you don't want to look unspiritual, do you?). We are always communicating, even non-verbally; the question is what are we communicating in our words, actions, and the ethos that we set for our group(s)?
Ongoing checklist:

• Evaluate our own lives - do we honestly love those God has called us to? Or are we just "chaperones"?
  
  
• Are we "above" the youth, or do we share the same spiritual journey? Do the youth believe that we don't see ourselves as "above" them by the way we talk to and treat them?
  
  
• Evaluate your own ability to communicate love. Key question: do THEY know we love them? How can they tell?
  
  
• Create situations in which love can be expressed. Is love flowing in the group, or not just from leaders or just from group members?

The last item in that list could raise the issue of authenticity in youth ministry -- ie. "create situations" could come across as fake and manipulative. Without going into a long diatribe about it, allow me to suggest that there's a difference between 'manipulation' and 'influence'.

Manipulation is orchestrating events (and attempting to force people) towards a pre-determined destination. Influence, on the other hand, means that we can clearly set what our personal direction is (based on the words of Jesus), but it's an invitation to the youth to respond to; no coercion involved. It's still their decision as to how they will respond.

More to follow...