Archive for month: March, 2020
LAUNCH: The YouthWorkHacks YouTube Channel
With all the stuck-at-home youth workers, benched students, and digital revolution in ministry taking off, this seems like a pretty legit time to launch the new YouthWorkHacks YouTube Channel.
Who is it for?
I’m aiming all the content in this to begin with at new youth workers, or youth work students. It’s not made for the veteran practitioner. If you find it helpful too – great – but the idea is to stay simple and broad for a while, and just answer the questions students ask.
What’s the content going to be?
To begin with there will be three types of video put into three separate playlists:
1. Q&A
The Q&A videos will all be <5mins answering questions that I’ve heard directly from students, had suggested by teachers, or had emailed in. I’m not making these questions up, so I will run out unless people send me more. So tweet, facebook, email, PM, DM me your questions.
2. Training
The training videos will be longer, but still ‘digest’ versions of longer sessions I do as lectures or seminars. These should still be <30 minutes, but – if you were to do the exercises too – might take you a little longer.
3. Interviews
Coming soon! Staying in the vain of Q&A’s we’ll be doing ‘ask a youth leader’ sections with quality and experienced workers.
Who else will be doing it?
I’m not hugely comfortable on camera to be honest, so I’ll be video casting other voices and leaders from around the block. We’ll also have some of my Youth for Christ team too.
More later?
I will – at some point – expand the content for some deeper, postgrad level engagement, but we’re not there yet, and this is unlikely to ever become the focus. Sorry!
So… examples?
Life changing one-day reads for the self-isolated
With many of us spending more time working from home and less time on projects, I thought I would list off some of my very favourite one-day-reads. These are books that can easily be read in one day, with a few brew breaks, and should – every one of them – change how we think.
Please note that I’m not advocating for everything in them, but I am advocating for the effect they have on how we think.
Some are <2hrs, others will take up to 8 (average reading speed). So, in no particular order:
Theology
Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing, Søren Kierkegaard
On The Incarnation, St. Athanaisius
The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Director, Eugene H. Peterson
The Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis
The Reformed Pastor, Richard Baxter
Knowing God, Jim Packer
The Difficult Doctrine Of The Love Of God, Don Carson
God’s Empowering Presence, Gordon Fee
Gospel & Kingdom, Graham Goldsworthy
The Cost Of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoffer
Holiness, J.C. Ryle
The Wounded Healer, Henri Nouman
The Passion of Jesus Christ, John Piper.
Holiness & Sexuality, David Peterson (ed.)
Politics, Philosophy and Society
The Republic, Plato
Apology of Socrates, Plato
The Communist Manifesto, Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx
On Liberty, John Stewart Mill
Common Sense, Thomas Paine
A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf
In the Shadow of Man, Jane Goodall
Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes
Candide or Optimism, Voltaire
Existentialism and Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre
The Noonday Demon, Kathleen Norris
Psychology & Thinking
Syntactic Structures, Noam Chomsky
The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks
The Happiness Hypothesis: Putting Ancient Wisdom to the Test of Modern Science, Jonathan Haidt
Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman
Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, Daniel Goleman
Against Empathy, Paul Bloom
Fiction
1984, George Orwell
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Robert Lewis Stevenson
Photo by freestocks on Unsplash
How do we respond to CORVID-19 as youth workers?
Let’s start with the obvious: we respond with love, grace, compassion, selflessness, and hope in Jesus Christ. On Sunday I was invited to preach in a local church where I talked about the opportunities we have to shine as Christians in the middle of dark and scary times – and how having a God-perspective on these times lifts our eyes to see a bigger picture. You can get the recording here.
Closer to home, we made the decision today to cancel our meetings. Our team will work from home, and our projects will be suspended until further notice. This was absolutely the right decision in order to protect the vulnerable that we all know. However, before we move on too quickly, lets just acknowledge that this really sucks. I am really really going to miss seeing our young people, and connecting with them over the message of Jesus. I’m going to miss their sense of humour and fun – and the light they bring each week. It’s rubbish for us, for them, and for their parents not to run. It’s still the right thing to do.
Before we go any further lets remember to take responsibility as leaders in our community. Parents and young people are looking up to us for guidance. Let’s take that seriously, and lead with love and clairity. Motivation is not enough, we want to be clear guiding examples. Let’s not pose as experts, or take overly sketchy political lines. We need to lead with love and grace and set a godly, humble, clear, and assuring example.
With that in mind – and after canceling our usual projects, what are we doing. Here’s 6 things:
1. Streaming
We are going to stream messages, fun clips, and challenges through YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. These will be simple and straightforward, short and sweet, and aimed at staying connected.
Practically speaking this will begin by using two devices. A phone for Instagram, and a laptop for YouTube (which will be linked to Facebook). Both will be sat next too each other (the phone on a stand), recording the same thing at the same time.
2. Video Conferencing
We are going to have a weekly discussion / Bible Study using video conferencing software for those young people who want to go deeper. We’re going to think of some innovative games and challenges too.
We’re still deciding between Google Hangouts and Zoom, although leaning towards Zoom because we can use breakout groups, and you don’t have to have a specific account. Nick Farr has provided a great tutorial for how to set this up here.
There are some safeguarding concerns, but after talking to the amazing thirtyone:eight this morning, they have sportingly put a document of advice together which I’ll upload a bit later today and link here.
3. Family packages
This is one I’m really excited about! We’re going to come up with loads of ideas to share with families so they can get the ‘most’ out of their extra time together.
This will include games, ice-breakers, activities, challenges and thoughts. We will do this in pdf form with maybe some prerecorded videos and send them out through email and social media.
4. Mobilising the healthy!
We’re going to help young people identify those in need, put together care packages, and (safely) delivery those to local people. We will also encourage families to connect (again, carefully) with their vulnerable neighbours and do some good Samaritan deeds for them as a family. Neat eh?
5. Informing young people
We are aware how much fear and misinformation is about. So we have come up with a short FAQ for young people – answering their questions such as, what does Coronavirus feel like? And am I at risk? I’ll upload this here for free once we’re happy with it.
It’s super important that we both inform and assure young people – who are going to be both nervous and bored for a while.
More to come!
We’ve got lots of ideas and you probably do to. This is a serious time, and we want to lovingly help people generally, and serve young people particularly. We’ll add more ideas as they come – but please comment, or send us yours.
This is an opportunity to innovate and there is a real necessity for us to lead. So lets do both!
All the best!
Photo by Kamil Feczko on Unsplash
Why I don’t post many book reviews
Over the last twelve months I’ve been sent about twenty-five books from publishers hoping for a review. This is always a hard call for me because I take book reviews very seriously. I think there’s an inherent responsibility to the book, the author, and the audience (intended or otherwise) that a reviewer on a public platform needs to respect. That tends to come with more time than I have.
Here’s a few reasons why book reviews take me so long, and why, therefore, I don’t review many books on YouthWorkHacks.
I have to live it to know it
A ‘book reviewer’ should never be your intended reader. In that vein, I need to try and put myself into the shoes and experiences of those that any given book is intended for, and frankly, I find that difficult. I’m not a typical youth worker to begin with, and beyond that I’m not an undergrad student, a parent, or a young person. Reading a book with a different perspective in mind takes a little more mental aerobics that I usually have the time or brain power for. I find writing to a specific audience much easier than reading one into something that already exists. It’s usually easier to just stay in my own head.
There are real people behind a book
I’ve gotten to know a few authors since writing my own book and the main thing I’ve discovered is their skin is no thicker than mine for having published more (and mine is pretty thin). Book reviews – especially done badly – can really stink for an author in more ways than just affecting their sales. They can hurt deeply and personally in ways that the reviewer, hidden behind a keyboard, can be either woefully unaware of, or tragically unconcerned about. Beyond the author there are also designers, editors, and publishers, all of whom own a project, are invested deeply in it. They know it inside out, and also get a sharp slap from a misplaced review.
I can easily read things wrong
Over the last eighteen months I started a lot of ‘objective reading.’ This has included marking essays for universities, editing booklets for publication, and peer-review for journals. This has been a whole new experience for me, but these all have something that keeps me accountable: they all have moderators! A moderator is a professional who reads my comments and checks that I really did understand what was written. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I get things wrong, and sometimes I completely mischaracterise what has actually been said without even realising it. Book reviews on my blog just don’t have that same formal line of accountability. If I review anything, therefore, I tend to read it through at least twice, and then try to be immensely careful that I’ve read it correctly. That’s just hard! If I’m going to post an unfavourable review – usually I’ll send a copy to the author, the publisher, or just an honest friend to comment first. I’d always rather err on the side of care and caution. I don’t want to ever mischaracterise something that means so much to somebody else.
My biases can slip through
Before I wrote my own book, I spent years wanting to write a book. I saw some authors write books that I wanted to write, and others who wrote books that I thought at some level were simply ‘unworthy’ of writing a book. I was so upset and frustrated that it wasn’t ‘me’ that I found it far too easy to lash out. Knowing that, I think it’s much too convenient to inadvertently use a review as a retribution platform – to try and readdress a balance or put a new slant on something accepted; to arbitrate our own justice, or even just to vent. Any review with high levels of bias – especially bias that the review reader might not be aware of – drains a review of all its integrity and credibility. I don’t want to be that guy.
I’m not a very good referee
Reviews can often tribalise and polarise Christians even more than they already are. Reviews that bleed into social media spaces can create bloodthirsty frenzies which feed on authors without nuance or care. This is particularly damaging when the person you’re reviewing is a committed follower of Jesus, so someone that you’ll probably know in Heaven. A respectful and wise reviewer knows how to temper and guide their audience without further propagation of ill-will. I just don’t think I’m that wise, humble or clear-tempered enough to do this. It would be too easy to use comments as a way to boost my own fragile self-esteem, rather than grow healthy conversations about resources. I’d rather just stay out of it!
They’re effective
My blog sees quite a bit of traffic now, and there are some who would read an endorsement or rejection by this blog as carrying a lot of weight. That’s not to show off, it’s just the reality. I’ve spent years very carefully cultivating a very particular audience and I have a responsibility to make sure that I model a language which reflects Christ in this very public, free-for-all internet arena. If I care enough to push back on, or endorse any book, then I want to make every effort, take every care, avoid every integrity stumbling block – and make darn sure that I’m writing in a heart that reflects the faith I live for. I often can’t do this – so I often don’t write reviews.
So, there it is! If you’re a publisher that’s been sending me books, thanks, but I’m sorry I don’t review a lot.
If you’re an author who wants me to review something specific – do get in touch with me, but don’t feel rejected if I say no (or if I take forever). I’m trying to honour your book and your audience – and also mine. So, forgive me!
I might try and review a bit more – probably beginning with books that I already know well or really care about – but don’t hold your breath. 😛
Thanks 🙂
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Should Youth Ministers attend seminary? – On The Gospel Coalition
[This was first published on the Gospel Coalition US Website here]
Should those called to work in youth ministry be required to attend seminary?
There’s a fight between two combatants that often goes into answering that question: in one corner is $60,000 worth of debt from training and diplomas. In the other stands the 12-year-veteran who’s been in the trenches gaining experience in youth ministry, but has no degrees.
Which should win out? Or is this a false dichotomy?
As youth workers, we’re charged to know God and his Word deeply so we can teach it relevantly in a way that brings hearts to life. In Luke 24 Jesus explains the Scriptures to two disciples on the Emmaus road. Afterward they say, “Didn’t our hearts burn within us when he opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32).
To teach something relevantly in a way that genuinely equips a young person to connect with God, you have to know it deeply. To know something deeply, you have to spend time with it. A good seminary seems to be a great place for that to happen.
Should They or Shouldn’t They?
This brings us back to the question about seminary. The answer depends largely on what you think a youth worker is. Many churches assume youth ministry is “ministry lite.” From the outside it can look like underpaid, entertainment-driven purgatory for ministers paying their dues until they’re let out for “real” ministry position. If this is true, seminary isn’t necessary.
Pediatric doctors train for years, as do nurses, counselors, and teachers. We see these as professions requiring the best training. We take them seriously because they’re involved with the care of vulnerable young people. But isn’t that exactly what we do in youth ministry?
Youth ministers aren’t just “playing at ministry.” They work with real persons, not practice dummies. Genuine pastoral ministry happens in Christian youth work, which makes seminary a serious option.
It’s worth asking, then, another question: why would you not train?
If you want to take ministry seriously as a calling, then you have to think of your life in decades rather than years. Preparing for the long haul should mean portioning out time to create a foundation for the decades to come. You can always build experience later, but you can’t build a foundation later—especially when you’re already several floors up.
You can always build experience later, but you can’t build a foundation later—especially when you’re already several floors up.
This takes us to the real question: whom is your ministry for? Ministry is not about us. It’s about Jesus and those we serve. If you have the opportunity, you should take as much time as needed for robust preparation. You owe it to your future congregation to build a solid ministry foundation.
Reasons the Answer Is ‘Yes’
There are plenty of obvious reasons to go to seminary—you’ll know more theology, you’ll learn to preach, you’ll perhaps meet a spouse—but here are a few less frequently articulated reasons:
1. You’ll learn without making a mess.
Nobody gets hurt if you get it wrong on paper.
2. You’ll engage a variety of views.
Considering a spectrum of perspectives helps you to make deliberate choices. And you’ll be less likely to run after every new thing.
3. You’ll learn to be reflective and careful.
Everything gets put under the microscope, making you more considered in your doctrine and practice.
4. You’ll do your thinking in community.
You learn to measure voices in a room and be sharpened by others. This makes you both more teachable and a also better teacher.
5. You’ll ask more questions.
Asking questions allows you to assess both your own ideas and also the ideas that surround you, bringing you to a deeper understanding of important doctrines and practices.
6. You’ll ask better questions.
You learn to draw a straight line between the information you need and the best way to get at it. You become a clearer thinker.
7. You’ll receive formal recognition.
This means you’ve been held accountable to a measured standard. A degree gives your potential employer confidence in your abilities, awareness, and dedication.
8. You’ll stick at it.
Because you invested in a foundation, you’re more likely to stick around for the long haul.
Potential Downsides, But Still Worth It
Yes, there are potential downsides. You might fall into a condition wherein students arrogantly imitate professors’ or older students’ views without having done the work to back it up. Real people become theological targets for practice swings, and hearts get clogged up by a good but sometimes delicate quest for doctrinal accuracy. There may be humane skills you start to unlearn in a vacuum of people who debate theology all day. You might need to learn to be normal again.
Nevertheless, I believe seminary training its worth it. Experience rounds and shapes you over years, but a foundational time of study is a goldmine you’ll draw on forever. It fills gaps you might not be aware of and teaches you to think critically in community.
Few people who say they’ll study later do, and fewer youth workers who begin their career without training stick around. Growing in experience after training tends to be more efficient and results in fewer mistakes than trying to build experience without training. You’ll spend less time scrambling around in the dark.
Seminary or experience? It’s a both/and, not an either/or. But if you have the choice, don’t skip training.
[This was first published on the Gospel Coalition US Website here]
Is there any satisfactory alternative to the Western-epistemological method in our youth ministry?
If ever you needed evidence that click-bait isn’t really my thing, this title might be it. So to the four of you who clicked on this, hi! This is a very brief summary of my thoughts on something I’ve been both pondering for a while – namely, how should we model to young people how to think in what methods we use to teach them. We’ll get to juicier, more applicable thoughts in later posts (or you can find some old stuff here, here, here, and here!), but if you’re interested in the dry, note-form background, here it is. This has also been at the heart of some of my lectures on youth work and philosophy. To the two of you who are left, thanks for sticking around!
While studying Philosophy with Oxford University I wrote a paper entitled ‘Is there any satisfactory alternative to epistemological scepticism’. My answer was largely yes, but no, but yes, but no, but. So here we are.
Youth ministry comes with the expectation of teaching within conversational frameworks. Open Bible studies, Q&As, small groups, one-to-ones are all more common practice in youth ministry than regular church ministry. There’s an enormous plethora of resources available to help us do these practices well, however, in my experience they suffer from the simple problem of not being personal. None of these resources – as good as they are – can predict the attitudes and personalities of the people in my groups on any given day.
What’s needed, therefore, is not a new resource, but rather a new method. Most of our resources are based in a classical Western analytic method. Each question has a narrowly defined parameter for an answer, and the answers all point together towards an increasingly specific point. Teaching times are designed to have a cutting edge every time.
What is an epistemological method?
For starters, I’ve been quietly and glibly calling myself a ‘lay epistemologist’ for quite a few years. The subject that fascinates me more than any other is ‘what is thought’, and how should we, do we, could we, think. Epistemology then, at its most basic, is the theory of knowledge. How we obtain and distinguish between types of knowledge (as truth, facts, opinions, hyperbole, applicable, abstract etc.), is the place of our epistemological method – or the practical filter, or lens that we use to view and process cognitive stimulus. So, you see/perceive something – run it through our method – and then decide what to think as a result.
Most of us are only really familiar with the analytic method – so much so that you might believe it’s the only natural, de facto, method. Therefore, we’ll start there.
Analytical methodology
The Western analytic methodology (as made famous by philosophers such as Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein, Reichenbach, Frege, and Searle) follows exactly the pattern seen in our resources and most common teaching styles. It begins with a lot of information on the table, then slowly whittles it down, disregarding ideas and views, until only one ‘indisputable’ thought remains. It breaks ideas down into concepts, turns concepts into premises, and uses premises to prop up a single conclusion. It’s the basis of deductive logic. The key values of this method, therefore, are precision, clarity, and actionable qualities. This looks for ‘proofs’ and tests hypothesises in a largely mathematical fashion. This is usually the same pattern we follow in our talks: exegeting a piece of scripture down until we have a single sentence application.
I’m not against this idea out of hand. It certainly has its place. The problem, however, is that a lot of what gets cleared off the table is useful – and can often include the nuances needed to understand the more complex dramas of a passage or of human life more generally. Also, ideas are not always well-prepared to be reconceptualised into purely premise-type forms. The concept, although helpful as a way of distilling or summarising information, or as a way of moving quickly to action points, can miss out on a huge amount of truth.
When I first went to Bible College, everything we were taught came through this particular methodology which could make one assume that the Bible was written with pure logic and reductionist form in mind. This makes poetry, story, metaphor – frankly a lot of the Bible’s literature – feel rather redundant.
The analytic method makes us feel safe as it is supported by the idea that truth is singular, and that we have all the necessarily tools needed to distil it. It gives us the power. This isn’t just a Bible College thing as almost all of the English-speaking world has learned everything in this way since the 17th Century. It’s largely underwritten into all our major community processes: Education, politics, law, culture, entertainment. Most of us evaluate everything based on this method (some being more naturally gifted at it than others) without even realising that it’s a method not a de facto natural state of reasoning.
So, what can we do?
Other potential methodologies
Eastern/Oriental
We could, instead, reach across the globe to an Eastern methodology (Confucius, Rumi, Laozi) where all ideas remain on the table and arriving at limiting conclusions are almost entirely discouraged. The focus tends to be how can you live your best life rather than what is true. Considering the nature of ministry – there’s a lot to respect here. Whereas Western, analytical philosophy breaks ideas into pieces and travels in a linear way towards a single idea, Eastern philosophy tries to grasp the whole, seeing ideas in a circular, repetitive way.
I certainly have a lot of patience for the Eastern method because it sees things as a unity, rather than breaking things up into segmented parts. Most of nature requires togetherness rather than separation, and things work in large eco systems, not separated echo chambers. Wholistic medicine is making enormous leaps forward using this approach, as is unifying, cross-discipline education. These are based in the Eastern method of approaching ideas.
The issue is that Eastern philosophy as a method is just less interested in truth (or at least in facts) and can have us going around in circles indefinitely. As a method it can at least turn us inwards so far that we lose our connections to the world outside or any notion of God’s plan for the future.
Continental
We could delve then into the phenomenology and existentialism prevalent in the Continental method (Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Sartre, Foucault, Heidegger, and Deleuze), looking instead at mostly personal experience and spending more time in purely abstract, a priori thought experiments in the hope at reaching more subjective yet personal applications.
As a general rule, analytic methodology reaches for mathematics, logic and the science, whereas Continental looks at the overlap of history, space, time, culture, language and experience. Kant, famously said that natural sciences rely on ‘pre-theoretical substrate of experience’ thus cannot be seen as the most accurate way of arriving at truth.
I like Continental approaches to thinking, as they allow us much more time in abstract complexities, rather than tying us down to minimalistic, highly questionable, reductionist soundbites. They also look for an ‘ultimate’ that exists beyond the ability of human reasoning, leaving us with less scope for the idol of human knowledge.
The problem, however, is the subjective nature of this as a method means it often overrides, bypasses, or side-lines absolute truth or authority. Not to mention you could spend long days swimming around in purely dizzying epistemological mush – leaving everyone in a small group feeling lost, confused and vulnerable.
Rabbinic
This is an odd one, because it sits really as a subset of the Eastern approach, and – if you wanted to be really pedantic – it’s more of a hermeneutic key than an epistemological method. The rabbinic method depends on a question-driven technique that orbits an eventual answer but requires scriptural knowledge to get there. It’s also known as textual reasoning or discourse. Questions are asked, then answered with questions that lead to and from various parts of the Torah, letting the question, the answer, and the text all dialogue together to arrive – hopefully – as deeper interpretations.
I like this a lot! It allows the Word of God to speak particularly into the situations of people in our groups, while still holding it accountable to itself. It also opens things up more than closing them down, and keeps pointing back to the text. That’s quite cool! If you know what you’re doing (by which I mean you at least have a solid grasp of the Bible, and know how to mediate conversation) then this method can work immensely well in small groups or one-to-ones, as well as think-tanks and seminar groups.
This method, however, also comes with its problems – especially in a culture where knowledge of the Bible is practically non-existent, and simply answering questions with questions is categorised as chronic avoidance. It also places a lot of trust in the ‘rabbi’ (or group facilitator), giving them arbitration authority over what’s true or objectionable.
Socratic
Similar to the rabbinic method (in fact it probably largely informed it), is the Socratic method. This is again odd, because those in the analytic tradition would at least claim this as part of their approach. It is, after all, based in Plato – the Father of philosophy and the Hero (along with Aristotle) of all Western thinking.
The Socratic method is largely dialectic, relying on answering deeper and more specific questions, opening options up, while at the same time narrowing ideas down. It usually starts with a hypothesis or truth statement, then probes it by asking a series of challenges. It’s largely interrogative demanding the why behind every answer and exploring how far the why-answer goes. It chips away (like the analytic method) but does so with far more exploration and open-handedness.
This is a tool which I use a lot in Bible studies with young people. We explore concepts and probe ideas with a series of why questions and challenges. It allows us to explore nuance, apply directly, and remove taboos around what we should and shouldn’t talk about – or know.
The problem with this is less about whether it helps us arrive at truth, and more how it does that. It becomes very hard to falsify a truth claim when ideas or suggestion are constantly thrown back indiscriminately at the learner. This method makes it very easy to manipulate people into certain contortions of truth and can easily drain the room of the curiosity it needs to feed it. Questions become weaponised, and all dialogue becomes defensive dialogue.
Did we find an alternative?
All these methods have problems, so what do we do then? Are we stuck with the analytic method which gets to at least some truth, even if it glibly bypasses much of it, and is somewhat accountable, even if it’s only really accountable to our interpretations?
The answer, like in many things, is awareness, moderation and variety; not blinkered reliance without examination. We should be aware of our methodological biases as we teach and draw truth out from others. We should employ strategies from different epistemological methods (which could be as simple as asking both closed and open questions), drawing threads together – remembering that the method is a way to get at truth, the method itself is not necessarily truth.
We should be less defensive, therefore, of our methodologies. We should ultimately rely on God for his direct and indirect revelations, remember that He is so much bigger than our abilities to reason and that he inhabits our thoughts – He doesn’t just inform them.
For those on the neo-Reformed end of the theological spectrum (who I imagine would have the most problem with this), I’d ask them to consider the exegetical approaches of our heroes, such as Calvin, Melanchthon, Zwingli, and Luther. They reached wide and broad, rarely closed things down, and drew massively complex threads together with several conclusions, not just one. They reached for God to overrule their interpretations, and left things up for him to examine, inform, and convict.
So, what’s the best method? It’s using all of them as tools, with an underlying faith in God to uphold His truth, supported by a constant language of prayer. Seems legit to me.
Therefor youth workers need to be critical thinkers and conversational mediators – not just presenters of resources or leaders of material. Honed skills will always outperform the best resources.
Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash
Music, Moshpits, Psalms and Young People – An excerpt from Rebooted
When I was 16 I had the single most rock n’ roll experience of my whole and entire life.
I was sat in a Christian camp for young people with a friend when we heard that there would be a ‘battle of the bands’ that very evening. This would be a mix of local talents and traveling, well established Christian bands from across the UK. The announcer said that there was room for just one more band. We looked at each other. There was no way we were going to miss this opportunity.
That afternoon we tracked down a bass player, a drummer, and a singer. We went to a music shop and ‘rented’ guitars. In reality, this meant buying the cheapest guitars we could possibly find with the intention of returning them the next day. We then sat in the coffeeshop and acoustically practised Matt Redman’s ’Blessed Be’ at the table over triple shot mochas, while I penned out a horrendous Christian rewrite of Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.
We borrowed drums, a bass guitar and amps from the house band, plugged in (without a sound check) and played to nearly a thousand people. We rocked straight through Blessed Be easily enough, then we brought out our Nirvana rewrite which we had christened ‘Sounds Like the Holy Spirit.’ I got a couple of random guitar solos wedged in, and the drummer threw together a blinding tom-tom solo.
It didn’t matter that we weren’t in time, or in key, and no-one cared how incredibly cheesy we were. It didn’t matter that we had no dynamics and had no idea what the other musicians were doing. We were on fire! We played two songs, and were the only gig that conjured up a full scale mosh pit. I think we might even have scored crowd injuries!
We called ourselves ‘Holy Moses’, and we were terrible!
We were also awesome!
There were ten bands: nine high quality, and well established, talents – and then our rabble. Yet we were voted to come second! It doesn’t get much more rock n’ roll than that.
I will never forget that experience of creativity, community and chaos all rammed harmonically together. I did return my £75 guitar the next day, but I’d like to think it was a little endowed with the spirit of rock.
Music is incredibly important to the human spirit, as well as being vital for the creation of culture within community. Music is also incredibly important to God; it is a fundamental part of His creation with specific purposes.
The Prevalence of Music in the Bible
God’s people constantly used songs in their daily lives and worship. They were essential to the worshipping life of Israel, so much so that God appointed specific people to write and lead these songs.
God’s people, as you’ll probably know, were broken into twelve distinct tribes, each named after its own original ancestor. Each tribe had specific roles to fulfil within the body of Israel. The tribe of Judah, for instance, tended to provide the Kings and politics, while the Levites were responsible for all things Temple and Tabernacle. The Levites were divided into three parts: the Kohanim, who were the Priests, the Temple Guards, and the Musicians (1 Chron 6:31-32). These musicians were exempt from all other duties and, much like surgeons today, had to be on call day and night (1 Chron. 9:33).
The use of music to worship and to proclaim truth was commanded by God across the whole Bible (Ps. 33:2-3) right through into the New Testament (Col. 3:16). In fact, Luke gives four examples of songs being sung at pivotal parts of Jesus’ early story (Elizabeth in Lk. 1:42-45; Mary in Lk. 1:46-55; Zechariah in Lk. 1:68-79; and Simeon in Lk. 2:29-32). Jesus himself sings with his disciples (Mk. 14:26 and Mt. 26:30) quoting Psalms 114-118. He also quotes the words of a song from Psalm 22 on the cross.
The Power of Music in the Bible
Consider that it was song that threw the enemies of God into confusion so that they ended up destroying themselves in the story of Jehoshaphat in 2 Chron. 20:1-29, and it was during song that the chains broke and the stone rolled away in the jail in Acts 16.
The old puritan writers would say that music lifts our affections so that we can see truths about God in ways that could not be grasped purely intellectually. We might more easily say that music helps stuff move from just our heads down to our hearts. The Psalms consistently display music as a powerful emotional expression of love for, and dependency upon, God. William Law famously said,
“Just as singing is a natural effect of joy in the heart so it also has a natural power of rendering the heart joyful… There is nothing that so clears a way for your prayer, nothing that so disperses the dullness of heart, nothing that so purifies the soul from poor and little passions, nothing that so opens heaven, or carries your heart so near it, as these songs of praise.” [ Law, W. (1827). A serious call to a holy and devout life. Glasgow: William Collins. pp.318-318]
The Bible is far from a simply didactic or intellectualised book of Words. The scriptures are alive with music, poetry, art, story and incredible imagery. It would be easy for us to go so far in one direction that we end up making the Bible sound two dimensional and static, when it is in fact living and active (Heb. 4:12).
Full Coverage
If you’re going to buy car insurance, full coverage is probably the safest way to go. In the UK, we have something called ‘Third Party: Fire and Theft’ which is the cheaper option, and basically means that you’re covered if your car gets stolen, or if it spontaneously combusts. Anything else is on you, buddy! Proper full coverage, however, gives legal protections, property and bodily injury liability, collision cover, rental reimbursement, and even windscreen replacements. Looking back at my track record with cars, full coverage has certainly been essential for me.
That is exactly what the Psalms provide – full coverage. They are not just a limited and small part of the Christian life (or Third-Party insurance) – The Psalms cover the entire emotional spectrum of the human condition. Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that all the Psalms are simply about praise – when in fact these are the minority.
Psalms gave voice and expression to the fullness of the human life and they accompanied all the activities that made God’s people distinct in the world, and then even ubiquitous ones, like eating. Psalms were used to teach (Deut. 31:30), and to mark occasions (Ex. 15:1-21). There were specific Psalms to accompany all acts of worship including sacrifice (Ps. 27:6), parades and processions (42:15), entering the Temple (24), pronouncing blessing (4:6), giving thanks (50:14), confessing sins (51), teaching (1), and praising God (147). God’s people used The Psalms everywhere! And they provided full coverage in two very specific ways:
Emotional expression
Because humans have an incredibly wide emotional spectrum ranging from carnal fear and desperate hopelessness, to majestic joy and giddy excitement, God’s songbook needed to provide for all these occasions. This is why we have Psalms that express fear (22), beauty (Ps. 27:4), gratitude (30:11-12), hope (33), longing (42:1-2), joy (42:5-6), stunned silence (46:10), grief and regret (51:17), desperation (63:1), confession (71), contentment (73:25-26), lament (86), fury (109), and anticipation (144). The Psalms give voice to the widest range of emotional turmoil and satisfaction in our lives. Full coverage!
Propositional truth
The Psalms don’t merely express, they also teach. In the same way that popular music has always provided a liturgy for, or commentary on the culture of the times, the Psalms provided an expression of propositional theology. More simply put: They tell us lots about God. The careful theological content of the Psalms safeguard against purely emotional responses, which can easily marginalise God’s words, exalt musicians, and increase division.
The Psalms, therefore, provide a multifunctional tool that both elevates and expresses our deepest emotions, allowing us to receive genuine propositional truth from different perspectives. There is sometimes truth that we just can’t fully embrace, receive or even understand without the elevation of our hearts through some creative media like music.
Today, music tends to be one of two ways we learn our theology (the other being the sermon), making the content incredibly important. As creative and professional as many of our modern songs are, I’m not convinced that we always put enough effort into the content. I also think that we need to explore a much wider emotional spectrum than just joy and praise.
What does this have to do with youth work?
‘Lots’ would be the pedantic answer. However, you may have already noticed from its omission, that the Psalms themselves contain very little that specifically addresses young people. Rather than shoehorn something in, the applications here will be a little broader and also applicable to the wider church. This, however, will make these ideas no less essential in our youth work.
Creativity and young people
The first thing we ever learn about God is that he makes stuff, and that he does this through the expression of His voice. God is immensely creative, and He made us in His image to also be creative.
I don’t believe there is any such thing as a non-creative person. Not everybody is a fine artist but everybody has a divine innate ability to create stuff. One of the fundamental parts of creativity is the ability to see and solve problems – something humans have to do on a daily basis. Some people do this with more flare, while others are perhaps more modular. I believe that as we grow, however, we have a habit of keeping our creativity in carefully acceptable tracks, and keep the more vibrant artistic side suppressed and under wraps. Children and young people haven’t learned that unfortunate habit yet!
Have you noticed, for instance, just how much children love to dance? I’ve never met a young child that didn’t. I’m part of a fantastic church that has carefully created a safe community where children can gather near the front and dance together during the songs. I remember on one such occasion when we were singing the bridge to the song Your Love Never Fails, which repeats ‘on and on and on and on it goes, and it overwhelms and satisfies my soul…’ During the ‘on and on’ bit, a little boy ran to the front and just ran in a continuous circle until he fell down dizzy. I remember thinking what a beautiful expression of the truth of the song his dance was – and realised that I had been led in worship by that small boy.
Young people are seeking to be expressively creative in times of worship. Once every semester I cover the floor of my hall in plastic sheeting and give every young person a canvas and access to big buckets of paint along with brushes, sponges, pallet knives and squeegees. I tell them to paint something of their relationship with God. The only rule is that it shouldn’t be representative; so it shouldn’t look like an object or a person. This allows them to think about motion, shape and colour in more abstract ways. This always produces a profound experience of worship, and provides a way into talking about where their relationship with God currently is at.
The Psalms are sometimes very abstract, and can connect with different people for different reasons. They give room for expression, and create a conversational context where young people can engage with the various aspects of both their individual and communal relationship with God.
Teaching through creative media
Jesus was a storyteller through and through. He also regularly used object lessons from drawing on the floor, asking for coins off the crowd like a street magician, and pointing directly to people and landmarks.
There are many ways to teach the Bible. Proclamation is important, and didactic intellectual engagement needs to happen for sure, but that should be balanced with performance, participation and conversation.
For the past few years I’ve gotten to be involved in something artfully named ‘The Easter Transition Project’ for a local High School. This is how it looks:
- Stage 1. Myself and a small team teach the Easter Story to a group of 14 and 15-year-old students during their regular Religious Studies lessons for six whole weeks. We do this through teaching them drama. They learn various acting styles and techniques, they take the Bible home to study the source material for homework, they write their own scripts from it and turn it into short plays.
- Stage 2. These students present the Easter Story through several narrative short plays to younger pupils from across our region who are about to move up into that High School. Armed with iPads, the younger pupils watch each play taking notes, then have a group discussion pretending they are on the ground journalists. They are given physical evidence to handle, and fake facebook pages are preloaded onto their iPads for each of the characters they have seen on screen.
- Stage 3. After the plays are performed, the key characters from the Easter story that have been on stage walk to various different locations around town. They stay in character constantly. The younger pupils go out with their iPads, filming them and asking them questions. This means that every 14 and 15-year-old actor has to intimately know their character and fully inhabit their role.
- Stage 4. The younger pupils go back to their various schools and create news reports to give to their classes. The school inherits the evidence boxes we have made (that included things like rubber severed ears, nails, and crowns of thorns), and keep talking about them.
The stories are read in the Bible, passed down to the older students who then creatively bring them to life in plays, then inhabited by the actors, are passed down to the younger pupils, who then pass the story down to their classes. This is a wonderful representation of the most important story every told, being continuously retold creatively to hundreds of young people.
We need to be creative in our teaching, and use all the tools we have available to us to bring the message of the Gospel to life! The Psalms celebrate the creativity of both God and humans, and give us licence to explore his word creatively – as long as we stay accountable to it.
The Psalms give full coverage, and so must our youth ministry. If our youth project strategies only cater to certain narrow expressions for specific personalities of young people going through particular stages of life when we simply won’t be relevant. This means that we won’t be able to walk with them consistently through all the various aspects of their journeys. Engaging creativity and applying it to the broad spectrum of life is part of what makes the principles of the last three chapters work and come alive!
Young People and Worship
Worship is a lifestyle, not just a sing along and our times of corporate worship should reflect and support this. It’s important to invite young people into these times of worship often, and not guilelessly segregate them from the experience.
These times of worship should give room to express and experience a wide spectrum of emotions before God. Communal worship teaches us to live our lives in light of God – in every occasion. This means we need songs and liturgy that take us through grief and hope, struggle and confidence, confusion and dependence. We need to make sure our worship is experiential so that it engages our whole hearts and reflects the lives we live.
Worship should not, therefore, just be propositional, but raise our affections and engage our emotions. This doesn’t have to be limited to intellectually grasping content. Instead we can embrace all the artistic and creative tools available to us to express the content. I am not a fan of ‘performance’ worship where the band is basically the focus rather than God. I do not, however, have any problem with the careful use of media, lights, volume, or even smoke machines, as long as they have been carefully put together to engage the worshipper, and support the content.
I remember one evening at a large Christian youth festival. I had brought my group to an evening session which turned out to be very powerful. God was speaking clearly to many people on the importance of surrendering pain to Himself, and letting go of historic hurts. God was moving among people, healing old wounds, and bringing the beginnings of reconciliation. There were floods of tears, and heaps of awkwardly entangled hugging young people everywhere. It was emotional, and it was heavy. At that point, the band came on stage, and we all expected they would bring some continuity to the sense in the room. Instead came an enormous 4-4 drum and bass beat, and the singing started up with ‘dance, dance, everybody dance!’ Unsurprisingly no one got up, and no one danced.
The music should always embrace the worshippers healthily and support the Spirit’s movement and the content being taught.
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Photo by Eric Nopanen on Unsplash