The Vision: The "Why's" Part 1

As you've probably heard, the new vision that we talked about in Sunday's annual meeting involves converting the parsonage into a center for youth ministry, Sunday School, and counseling.  My family and I would move to a different house, clearing space for those ministries to flourish.  We'll talk about what such a center would look like plus the steps we'd need to take to get there in subsequent posts.  For now, let's just cover the "whys" of this vision.

Those present at the annual meeting saw a short film showing some of the youth who come to our church in order to participate in its ministries.  We only caught the ones who were there when we were filming our Sunday School movies.  We still managed to catch 17 youth on camera.  Very few of those came specifically to do the movie project.  We just recruited kids who had come to hang out and do other things.  That's 17 youth picked up more or less randomly in just four months of filming.  We actually have contact with more.

Why do these youth come to be with us?  Over the years people have attributed it to me.  I'll take some of the credit, as I've made this a priority...seeing the great need.  But really, it's not my personality that draws them.  It's our theology meeting their need.

Our teenagers are growing up in a world we never imagined.  They have more information, more choices, available to them than we ever did.  Their lives are also more organized, scheduled, and goal-directed than ours ever were.  This combination means they also have less real, human interaction than we ever got, especially with adults.  Much of their time is spent in isolation, in front of a screen of one sort or another.  They have a connection to a game or social network or what have you but it's through electronics, not face to face.  They also have adults aplenty in their lives but all of those adults want something from or for them.  Parents are parents...they want what's best for their children and feel the responsibility to raise them right.  Teachers are under pressure to get these kids to meet standards.  Coaches are under pressure to get them to win games.  Bosses are under pressure to get them to learn their jobs well.  None of this is wrong.  But put it all together and every relationship with adults kids experience comes freighted with performance expectations.

Now consider that kids nowadays are involved in one or another of these pursuits non-stop, as society has decided that "idle hands make the devil's work".  Imagine this was your life:  get up, eat breakfast quickly, shuttle to band practice, school, after-school activity, sports practice or game, home, eat, do homework, try to find an hour or two for leisure (staying up late to get it), collapse into sleep, get up and do it again.  Imagine every adult in your life was in the business of making sure you stay (and succeed) on this treadmill.

What would you need or want most?  What would benefit you?  Where would you find God in a different, meaningful way?

What if your church made God into one more demand on your time?  Come on Sunday.  Worship. Learn this.  Serve there.  Sit down and memorize, there will be a test.  Would that God be meaningful to you?  Likely he'd be the equivalent of your latest math assignment.

Here's what we tell the kids.  Come.  The door is always open.  When you have free time--on your schedule and not just ours--text and you're welcome to come over.  Sit down.  Relax.  Grab a pop...you know there's always some there for you.  Now, what do you want to do?  Play a board game?  D&D?  Computer game? Just shoot the breeze?  Watch a movie?  It's all good.  Oh, and bring your friends too.

In the course of this the kids get a chance to relax.  As they relax they open up, chat about their days and lives.  There's an adult there, relatively expectation-free, just to interact with them and enjoy them.  They're accepted.  They're loved.  They're home.

In this process, they learn more about what it means to be in relationship with each other, with me, and ultimately with God.  We don't sit them down in a classroom and teach them things about God (except in Confirmation and Sunday School, where that's exactly what we do).  Instead we show them God in the welcome invitation, in the gathering of friends, in the safe environment, in the unconditional love, in sticking with them through troubles and celebrating their successes.

We don't teach them about God in a classroom with a chalkboard because they won't spend most of their lives in a classroom in front of a chalkboard.  We teach them where God is in the things they do every day.  In this they learn that being holy and living well doesn't mean giving up everything that you love, it means finding ways to do the things that you love in godly fashion.  Godliness is woven in the fabric of their actions:  learning to play together, talk together, laugh and cry and fight and fear and explore together.

This method of evangelism takes longer than traditional methods.  What a classroom-person tries to teach in 45 minutes takes me years of patience, listening, walking with these kids.  But coming out the other side I believe we have more to show for it...not a God who lives in a building apart from their lives but a God who's with them every day just like that pastor was.

I get calls several times a year from folks who have now gone on to college and beyond, asking for advice or confessing troubles or needing help.  The lesson isn't over when class ends and neither is the connection.  It continues for a lifetime.

I'm firmly convinced that this is the best, if not the only, way to reach out to and nurture youth in today's environment.  The fact that most of them love every minute of it, seek it out and invite their friends, bears that out.  When we really get rolling I simply can't keep up with it all.  At certain times during the year I'll have four separate semi-formal get-togethers with kids during a week and then one or two spontaneous ones.  It's hectic, it's exhausting, it's a blast, and it's so worth it because it makes a difference.

There's seldom a single moment where you can point and say, "Aha!  I see what they're doing there!"  Mostly it just looks like doing normal stuff...which is the whole point.  But string along that normal stuff long enough and meaningful relationships grow.  A leaf just looks like a leaf, but step back and you'll see the whole garden growing around it.

That's how we do youth ministry here.  That's why it works.  Recently we've been given yet another opportunity, another influx of young friends knocking at our doors asking if we have time for them.  We need to say yes...for their sake, for the sake of our church, and most of all for the sake of God who invited them to knock (whether they know it or not).  This vision is that "YES!"

Next:  The "Whys" Part 2:  Why this vision?  Why the parsonage plays a crucial role in this ministry, how it's worked so far, and why things are changing.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)