The last two weeks have been exhilarating! They have also been very exhausting — all of us who work with youth this time of year (or any other time of year really) find ourselves quickly consumed by the work and we are left tired hoping to recover sometime before the fall.

Two weeks ago we hosted Merge at our South camp and this past week we hosted about 250 high school students from Lee’s Summit, MO, a suburb of Kansas City. In an effort to accomplish their vision to bring restoration to their community, about half a dozen youth pastors from Lee’s Summit bought out a week at our camp to strategically inspire, equip and challenge their students to live deeper and lean further into God’s story. It was amazing…

At Youthfront we are longing for more of these types of relationships with youth pastors. We love to see students gathering at our camps from the same community, brought by a network of concerned and committed youth workers. We love knowing that students are coming from the same geographical area to experience God together and that they’ll go ‘home’ with one another as well.

There is no scientific data to prove that this is a stronger use of our camp and a more effective outcome of the environments of spiritual transformation we yield to the spirit to create and sustain — but I believe it is. It just has to be.

As a result of that belief, at Youthfront we are becoming more intentional about linking up with youth workers in our region first — and ultimately throughout North America. We do this through our training initiatives, our camps and other events — all of which are most effective when connected to a youth worker and their faith community.

We are passionately positioning ourselves as an organization that’s using it’s camp(s) as a gathering place for thousands of youth workers and students from the same area and faith community to come together to experience God is new and amazing ways — a place of expedition and experience where communities come from and go back to the place where they can be most effective extending God’s love and restoration to their worlds.

While marketing our camps directly to students might prove to be better financially, we don’t believe it is necessarily better for the Kingdom. In the coming months and years, we’ll continue to be intentional about serving and working directly with youth workers to bring youth into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

Were hosting Merge this week at Youthfront South. So far — it has been a great week. We are three days into it and it has been fantastic to participate with the youth workers and students in the challenge of throwing ourselves into God’s Story. I have enjoyed very much listening to students share what God is teaching them through their interaction with The Story.

I have been moving this week also so it has been a hectic week to say the least. I have, in between unloading moving trucks with some of our staff, had the privilege to lead the morning gatherings as well as one night of the evening response times. I am always blown away by the creativity, candidness and the humility of the students as they articulate how they are merging with God’s mission and way of life.

Today we are deep into Episode 4 — God-With-Us — and it has been powerful to observe the students as they work their way through a “Kingdom” excersice designed to converse about the mystery of the Kingdom through six different interactive and experiential stations such as, The Upside-Down Kingdom, The Kingdom of the Forgotten, The Emerging Kingdom, The Agents of the Kingdom, etc.

Tonight we’ll be exploring Luke 4 as we reflect on the mission and message of Jesus!

My family is in transition. As many of you already know, we packed up our moving PODS last week, said goodbye to our friends in IL and have made our way towards our new home in Overland Park, KS.

We are waiting for our new home (rental) to have all the necessary things done such as carpet cleaning, etc., before we move in. We are also awaiting the delivery of our belongings which we hope arrive sometime this coming week!

In the midst of all this waiting my family has had some much needed connection time. We’ve been staying at one of Youthfront Camp West and my kids and I have just had a blast playing indoor kickball, going down the water slide, eating ice cream in the snack shack, swimming in the pool, etc.

I hate the waiting, but I love the family time! I have been taught over the last couple of days that the waiting is all worth it. I have also learned that I need to be in “waiting” mode a whole bunch more. By waiting mode I simply mean putting aside everything to focus on my family. How are you doing with focusing on your family? Recently, I haven’t been doing well…

Similarly to allowing students to doubt (part 2 of this series), we ought also to allow students to discover truth on their own. I am not saying that we allow them to discover their own truth. Rather, I am saying that we allow them to come into truth via their own understanding and practice. I contend we are far better off in the shepherding of our students if we allow them to believe that something is true in their own time and through their own unearthing and articulation of the particular truth.

Truth is not something that can be understood and practiced simply by passing on what we have come to know through words alone. I mean, how have we ‘come to know’ what we do? Was it simply because someone told us that a particular thought or concept IS true and so we believed them? C’mon. There is no way have you come to the place you are with God right now in this present moment because someone convinced you that something was true simply by using words. Language (words that give meaning) is very important in the process of discovering truth but it is not THE process. The process of practice, reflection, observation making, abstract correlating and tested experience all come together to help students ‘come to know’ what is true. (i.e. Kolb, Experiential Learning).

Therefore, the environments that we create and sustain become essential. Without an effective environment or a collection of various environments we are simply left to assume that just words that define ideas and concepts about God help students ‘come to know’ what is true. So, as youth workers, we are not solely the passer on of truths as we are environmentalists that help create a culture where truths can be unearthed and applied. We, as youth workers (parents, coaches, teachers, etc), are key to the entire unearthing truth process but our role ought not to be the carrier of what is “right” as much as it ought to be the designer in which the truth that we have come to know might also come to be known by others.

The inevitable question I get asked when I talk about this is always something like… “So… then… what constitutes an effective environment?” My answer is usually something like this… “I think there are three critical elements of an effective environment. The three elements are time, space and content.”

Time — moments to discover God and instances to punctuate the time.
Space — freedom and breathing room to discover God in the time the individual feels is exact.
Content – the substance or the material used to help the individual do the things I have already stated are important. Things like practice, reflection observation making, abstract correlating and testing by experience.

(BTW- I am not sure where I got those three elements. I can’t remember if it was one particular author or seminar speaker or who but they are something I have been using as a template for a while now.)

My premise (for those of you who are confused by these ramblings on) is quite simple. Here it is… Don’t tell students what is true and expect them to just live it (truth) out. On the contrary, guide or shepherd your students into environments comprised of time, space and content that allow them to ‘come to know’ what is true through their own understanding and practice. Be and environmentalist as much as you are an evangelist.

A few months ago I posted re: my son’s recently identified hearing loss. You can read the post HERE.

Thanks to all of you who have prayed for him! I am happy to say that Luke is doing just fine. He is adjusting well. I am very proud of him. He has been attending school each morning where he works diligently on his speech and interaction with other students.

It is amazing how much difference a hearing aid makes! His world is completely different. Again, thanks for all of your prayers and the many emails inquiring about how he is doing.

Remember the phrase, “There are no dumb questions?” When we were kids teachers, parents, church workers, tutors, coaches, etc. wanted us to ask questions. Emphasis was put on the “no dumb” in the phrase above which means that the “there are questions” part of the phrase above was essentially a given. So, maybe a better way to go about making such a statement would be, “There are questions. None of them are dumb.”

Where did that line of thinking go? Why do so many who work with youth get spooked when students ask questions or express doubt? We’ve been telling students, ‘there are questions’ and ‘there are no dumb ones’ then when they have questions about faith issues many feel like they need to suppress those questions in favor of a more certain method of making known – absolute condescension. Meaning, some holding to an anti-doubt way of learning faith hold the key to all wisdom and meaning and therefore why would anyone doubt? After all, THE answer is this, that or the other thing. There is no doubt about it. “So why all the questions?”, some ask.

A few weeks ago I was invited to sit on a roundtable of sorts at a local Christian school here in the greater Chicago area. I didn’t want to go as I those types of arrangements usually make me more frustrated than is good for my spirituality. I said yes, however, because I had some connections with some of the other panel participants.

As I suspected, the ‘moderator’ had an agenda. The questions asked were not to spark conversation and healthy debate. Rather the questions put forth were to prove the moderator’s point – that the ‘lack of faith obviously visible’ in their students was a direct result of the many years that the school of allowed students to ‘question their faith’ and therefore, the students weren’t taking faith seriously. Needless to say, I stopped getting questions a few minutes into the conversation.

Doubt is good and so is dancing with it. Guiding our students in the process of their own belief is imperative to their ongoing spiritual development. It is imperative because in some way, shape or form doubt will always exist. Even something as simple and real as doubting oneself does indeed doubt faith, no? If we doubt elements of and within our stories, we doubt faith.

I realize that for many of you allowing students to doubt what I am talking about is not necessarily dangerous. I contend, however, that many of the parents of the students you work with most likely don’t feel the same way you do about faith and doubt. On a similar note, perhaps it might be a healthy exercise for you to measure how your volunteers feel about allowing students to express doubt. Oh yeah, and allowing students to doubt and allowing students to express their doubt are not the same thing. Most people who work with youth are okay or at least semi-okay with an internal conversation of doubt. However, when it is expressed verbally to the entirety of a group, it creates an often-unwanted environmental dynamic. A dynamic that encourages doubt to surface and can sometimes lead others to doubt upon a topic they haven’t yet doubted upon. Some of us just avoid the topic of doubt altogether knowing it isn’t always explainable and never controllable.

Dancing with doubt provides our students with an opportunity to…

…see God reveal himself in bigger ways than humanity can even imagine
… grow beyond the doubt; only to doubt something else
… joyfully cling to what is hopeful not to what is joyously hopeless
… establish a rhythmical critical thinking process that can lead to experiencing God more fully
…guide others toward and through the same doubt(s)
… trust God and others in immeasurable ways
… become more aware of the difference between confidence in things and trust in God
… experience the peace that comes through trust as along with the anxiety that comes with doubt; learning to experience them simultaneously
… listen to and learn from the authentic faith of others
… let failures in life be as significant as successes knowing that failure can lead to doubt and doubt can ultimately lead to more trust
…continue or begin serving others even when their faith isn’t all ‘worked out’
… see the world for what it is—a broken, messy, conglomerate of endless questions about what’s real – and in due course what’s restorable
…avoid the cynicism of those to whom doubt is wrong and inappropriate
…be patient with their peers who may struggle with the claims of God’s story

“Doubt is probably a permanent feature of the Christian life. It’s like some kind of spiritual
growing pain. Sometimes it recedes into the background; at other times it comes to the forefront, making its presence felt with a vengeance.” Alister McGrath, Doubting: Growing Through the Uncertainties of Faith

Check out Doug Jones’ post over at Perigrinatio HERE.

Tony Myles is a great friend. I met him a few years ago when he was discovering what God had next for him and we were discussing some possible roles with Sonlife. It never worked for him to come on our staff but Tony and I have done some writing together on a few projects including a soon to be released resource pack based on our Enroute training called, Virtues of Jesus. He also co-wrote a great devotional for us called, The Miracles of Jesus. You can check that devotional out HERE.

Tony is the pastor of Connection Church near Akron, OH and there is a great story about him and his church in the Beacon Journal that will undoubtedly warm your heart. You can read the article HERE.

(ht to Marko)

I have decided to hold off on posting my follow up thoughts to the “Five Dangerous Things” post (click HERE) for a couple more days. Reason being, I have decided to include Doug Jones over at Perigrinatio to post along side of my thoughts hopefully giving our fellow readers more to think about.

Let this also be an open invitation for any of you who also want to post your thoughts. I think this is a fundmental yet important line of thinking so the more voices to help us all sort this out the better! If you plan on posting with Doug and I, post your thoughts by 6/18 at 5PM or so…

“Facts and reason alone do not stand a chance against a story because both depend on story for their power. It is naive to think one has arrived at one’s views and values solely through unbiased consideration of objective data. Data are never objective because they are always gathered by story-breathing human subjects. All facts are inert and useless until they have been interpreted, integrated into this narrative or that.”

From Daniel Taylor’s “Tell Me a Story: The Life-Shaping Power of Our Stories” (Bog Walk Press, Page 80)

I am a fan of Gever Tulley. Gever is a brilliant guy. He is a computer scientist by trade but is the founder of The Tinkering School, a summer program that helps kids build the things that they think about and dream up.

I first learned about Gever Tulley through TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. If you are not familiar with TED you should go HERE and intake as much as you possibly can.

Gever has a about a 10 minute presentation called, 5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do. You can watch it HERE.

The 5 dangerous things that Gever puts forward (he is actually writing a book of 50) are to let our kids:

1. Play with fire
2. Own a pocket knife
3. Throw a spear
4. Deconstruct appliances
5. Break the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)
5.5 Drive a car

Despite the provocative title, the talk is really about safety. Essentially, Gever is saying that if we eliminate everything “dangerous” from the life of our kids then the first time they come into contact with dangerous things they will undoubtedly hurt themselves.

If we are walking with our kids, however, through the experience of such dangerous things then we can help them be creative, confident and aware of and adapt to the environment around them.

I contend that the same is true for those of us helping students grow into a deeper relationship with Jesus. I think we can take Gever’s assertions and draw principles to the spiritual formation of adolescents. That being, if we don’t ever let our students (and our own children) do “dangerous” things within the realm(s) of faith, we aren’t helping them with a real sense of “know-a-bility” — what they come to know through shared experience.
So, here are five dangerous things I suggest we should let our students do (feel free to comment and add to the list!) Like Gever, I really have 6 but I think that 4 and 4.5 go hand in hand…

1. Dance with doubt
2. Discover truth for themselves
3. Disengage from reality every now and then
4. Dispatch their story, not someone elses
4.5 Determine their own future
5. Deconstruct what they are told, see and come to “know”

Over the next few days I will be breaking down each of these 5 ‘dangerous’ things we should let our kids do. In the meantime, I would encourage you to join TED and, at the least, watch the presentation by Gever Tulley. You can view it HERE.