Man, do I hate that! I'm sending out postcards as a reminder for a parent meeting and I came across one that says, "To the Parents of". When I see that all it says to me is "You don't know me or my family so why should I even read this?!"
Our team has to do a better job of knowing kids and thier families.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
NY TIMES: Teen sex on the decline
Interesting article today from the NY Times that says new statistics say that teen sex is declining.
Today, fewer than half of all high school students have had sex: 47.8 percent as
of 2007, according to the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, down from 54.1
percent in 1991.A less recent report suggests that teenagers are also waiting longer to have sex than they did in the past. A 2002 report from the Department of Health and Human Services found that 30 percent of 15- to 17-year-old girls had experienced sex, down from 38 percent in 1995. During the same period, the percentage of sexually experienced boys in that age group dropped to 31 percent from 43 percent.
The rates also went down among younger teenagers. In 1995, about 20 percent said they had had sex before age 15, but by 2002 those numbers had dropped to 13 percent of girls and 15 percent of boys.
“There’s no doubt that the public perception is that things are getting worse, and that kids are having sex younger and are much wilder than they ever were,” said
Kathleen A. Bogle, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at
La Salle University. “But when you look at the data, that’s not the case.”
I wish there was more documentation for the following quote. I've had youth workers vehemently profess their belief in lots of kids engaging in rainbow parties. I just don't see it. Here's the quote:
As for that supposed epidemic of oral sex, especially among younger teenagers:
national statistics on the behavior have only recently been collected, and they
are not as alarming as some reports would have you believe.
Again, I appreciate the quote, but would like documentation:
“I give presentations nationwide where I’m showing people that the virginity
rate in college is higher than you think and the number of partners is lower
than you think and hooking up more often than not does not mean intercourse,”
Dr. Bogle said. “But so many people think we’re morally in trouble, in a
downward spiral and teens are out of control. It’s very difficult to convince
people otherwise.”
Of course this begs the question as to what may be causing a decline. I'm sure abstinence groups will begin taking credit for part of this, and it'd be tough to argue that they don't have some sort of influence. Especially in an age of easily accessed pornography, I wonder what is happenning culturally as an influencer.
Leave your take and let me know what you think the cause is.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Funny way to introduce a difficult topic: body image
The issue of body image has typically been relegated to girls and has been a difficult subject for many to talk about. I've noticed that this issue is not just for girls anymore.
You may have heard the illustration of how rediculous Barbie's body is and that if it were made full size she'd have to walk on all four's, etc. etc. Here's one trainer's take.
Leave it to the Onion to give another take on it. And while it's tongue and cheek, it gives another great way to talk about a difficult subject and a great lead in to the Barbie doll illustration.
Bratz Dolls May Give Young Girls Unrealistic Expectations Of Head Size
You may have heard the illustration of how rediculous Barbie's body is and that if it were made full size she'd have to walk on all four's, etc. etc. Here's one trainer's take.
Leave it to the Onion to give another take on it. And while it's tongue and cheek, it gives another great way to talk about a difficult subject and a great lead in to the Barbie doll illustration.
Bratz Dolls May Give Young Girls Unrealistic Expectations Of Head Size
Monday, January 19, 2009
Becoming a Young Woman of God being used in Nicaragua
Found a cool story about Jen's book "Becoming a Young Woman of God" via Google Alerts (ht to Kirk).
Let me introduce you to "Maddie" a 17-year old college student who is spending six months or 171 days "living and teaching in rural Nicaragua for Project Chacocente."
Let me introduce you to "Maddie" a 17-year old college student who is spending six months or 171 days "living and teaching in rural Nicaragua for Project Chacocente."She is working for an organization called "Out of the Dump" that "moves families from the city dump of Managua, Nicaragua to the clean air and fertile soil of rural Masaya, where the people learn skills for living independently. Chacocente is a non-profit, integrated project that aims to transform people, not just give them food and/or housing."
In Maddie's blog she talks about how she was given Jen's book to lead some of the girls through a Bible Study and the tension of translating it culturally.
"I got the book from Omar the first day I got here, and most of it looked great.. the first chapter talks about our culture and what it expects of women, how our culture sees women, and how we can be who God wants us to be. All good stuff. There was, of course, the fact that the entire book is in English, so I'll have to translate what I want to get across to them, which will be a challenge. But what struck me as an even greater challenge as I read the book was that this was written for middle-school girls in the United States, which wouldn't be a problem besides the language.. except that it's all about culture. So the culture it's talking about is American culture. My challenge is finding some way to translate this culture into something that applies to them.
And actually, maybe what I'm talking about is not pop culture.. the stuff the book is referencing when it talks about how ¨the media¨ portrays women. What bothered me was the part about choices.. choosing who we want to be, the kind of careers we will have, etc. that I don't think fully translates into this culture. Because as much as I want to believe that these girls will have more opportunities than their mothers had and that I can make a difference in that, deep down I know that these are choices that have already been made for them. I want them to have dreams, but I'm not sure that their world can support them. I fear that there is not much I can do to guarantee that they can be all they can be, because of their educational level, economic status, and the world they are inheriting. Chacocente is helping with the first two as much as they can, but I know that it will take much more than a bible study to change the world situation they are already growing up in."
Wow. When I was 17, I wasn't dealing with anything like this.
Maddie brings a great question. And while Jen's book was written with the mindset of American Teens, even those dear sisters living in the garbage dump won't experience the life Jesus promised without finding thier identity in God and having a relationship with Christ.
Of course, I think the harder question we deal with is, what is God's dream for those girls? What if God's dreams for them aren't what we assume they are?
Join us in praying for this amazing 17 year old who is doing something amazing with the lives of people in Nicaragua. You can read the rest of her her post here.
Friday, January 16, 2009
A cool story from Marko's small group
Yesterday I blogged about a fun story from Marko's small group.
In November, he blogged a really cool story about his small group that is using my first book, "Becoming a Young Man of God."
When Marko was posting one of his Year in Review's, he put this one down as one of his favorite youth ministry moments of the year. Pretty humbling. (again, people don't really review curriculum on thier blogs, so this stuff is really cool to hear about.)
"awesome small group last night with my 6th grade guys. last week was a bit rough, so it was nice to have a night like this where it seemed we accomplished something (i know we accomplished something last week — we were building a relational foundation for the stuff to come in our three years together. but it’s still enjoyable to have a week where the conversation seems to be about more than farts, guitar hero, girls, and whatever else pops into their heads unannounced).
we meet at my house, in the little “guest house” in our backyard. when the guys were arriving, zach looked in the little kitchen and (seeing the teapot on the stove) asked, “can i make some tea?” “uh, sure, i guess so,” i responded, still trying to figure out if he was kidding or not. he went on to describe how he makes tea for himself every morning, and how he’s somewhat of a tea snob, and really only likes english teas. i decided to join him in a cup, thinking that might lessen the chances that the other guys would tease him. but, instead, it meant that everyone wanted tea.
when it came to choosing vessels to hold said tea, i went for a mug. but zach spotted jeannie’s old teacup collection (i used to buy them for her on international trips, but that ended long ago, and there are about 10 different frilly teacups with wildly variant designs, and they were all sitting on display on the shelf in that little kitchen), and said, “i prefer to use a teacup.” and, as i offered the other guys a MUG, or a teacup, they all wanted to choose a dainty little teacup. i had a green ginger tea, as did my 20-ish co-leader. the guys either had decaf mint, ginger peach, or green pomegranate tea.
we decided it needs to be a new tradition for us, that we have tea each week. one of the guys — bryson, the squirreliest of the group, one of the most wonderfully random middle schoolers i’ve ever met — even started saying “huzzah!” to everything.
we talked about whether a superhero is more really himself (or herself) when he’s in superhero mode, or in alter ego mode. interesting discussion about this, since the superhero mode often comes with a mask. but we all agreed that in a strange way, the alter ego is really more of a mask, and that the superhero is really being himself when he’s being a superhero (this is all stuff from ken rawson’s book, becoming a young man of god).
we said that we all have this outside “dude” we wear everyday — our alter egos. but the real superhero inside is our real identity. then i mentioned that we’re going to talk about the characteristics of that superhero over the next few weeks.
tonite’s superhero identity stuff was that we are loved and forgiven. we talked about wondering whether a girl likes us or not, and how that can go back and forth depending on the day (or hour, or minute). and we talked about how it’s easy to assume that god works the same way with us — that god loves us one minutes, but when we screw up, god doesn’t. back and forth. then i gave a quick little overview (with the guys filling in some of the blanks) about the old testament sacrificial system, and then about jesus as the lamb. i was surprised, as most of these guys have grown up in the church, that the idea of jesus replacing the sacrificial system of the old testament was a brand new idea to them. “I’ve never thought of that before!” and “No one’s ever told me that before” (which doesn’t mean no one has, of course).
i’d told them we were going to light things on fire later, and they were especially focused and engaged because of this, by the way. so i handed out pieces of paper with crosses drawn on them, and talked about what forgiveness really means in our lives. then they each took a few minutes sitting somewhere on their own and wrote stuff on the cross that they thought god might have a hard time forgiving them for. we gathered on a stone walkway in the middle of the backyard, with their papers wadded up, and stood in a circle. we prayed and thanked god for forgiveness. then, one at a time, we bent over and lit our paper wads on fire, saying, “my superhero identity is that i’m loved and forgiven.” each lit their own, but we watched as they all burned together into a pile of ash.
then we had lemonade and double-stuf oreos.
yeah. 6th grade guys. love it!"
In November, he blogged a really cool story about his small group that is using my first book, "Becoming a Young Man of God."
When Marko was posting one of his Year in Review's, he put this one down as one of his favorite youth ministry moments of the year. Pretty humbling. (again, people don't really review curriculum on thier blogs, so this stuff is really cool to hear about.)
"awesome small group last night with my 6th grade guys. last week was a bit rough, so it was nice to have a night like this where it seemed we accomplished something (i know we accomplished something last week — we were building a relational foundation for the stuff to come in our three years together. but it’s still enjoyable to have a week where the conversation seems to be about more than farts, guitar hero, girls, and whatever else pops into their heads unannounced).
we meet at my house, in the little “guest house” in our backyard. when the guys were arriving, zach looked in the little kitchen and (seeing the teapot on the stove) asked, “can i make some tea?” “uh, sure, i guess so,” i responded, still trying to figure out if he was kidding or not. he went on to describe how he makes tea for himself every morning, and how he’s somewhat of a tea snob, and really only likes english teas. i decided to join him in a cup, thinking that might lessen the chances that the other guys would tease him. but, instead, it meant that everyone wanted tea.
when it came to choosing vessels to hold said tea, i went for a mug. but zach spotted jeannie’s old teacup collection (i used to buy them for her on international trips, but that ended long ago, and there are about 10 different frilly teacups with wildly variant designs, and they were all sitting on display on the shelf in that little kitchen), and said, “i prefer to use a teacup.” and, as i offered the other guys a MUG, or a teacup, they all wanted to choose a dainty little teacup. i had a green ginger tea, as did my 20-ish co-leader. the guys either had decaf mint, ginger peach, or green pomegranate tea.
we decided it needs to be a new tradition for us, that we have tea each week. one of the guys — bryson, the squirreliest of the group, one of the most wonderfully random middle schoolers i’ve ever met — even started saying “huzzah!” to everything.
we talked about whether a superhero is more really himself (or herself) when he’s in superhero mode, or in alter ego mode. interesting discussion about this, since the superhero mode often comes with a mask. but we all agreed that in a strange way, the alter ego is really more of a mask, and that the superhero is really being himself when he’s being a superhero (this is all stuff from ken rawson’s book, becoming a young man of god).
we said that we all have this outside “dude” we wear everyday — our alter egos. but the real superhero inside is our real identity. then i mentioned that we’re going to talk about the characteristics of that superhero over the next few weeks.
tonite’s superhero identity stuff was that we are loved and forgiven. we talked about wondering whether a girl likes us or not, and how that can go back and forth depending on the day (or hour, or minute). and we talked about how it’s easy to assume that god works the same way with us — that god loves us one minutes, but when we screw up, god doesn’t. back and forth. then i gave a quick little overview (with the guys filling in some of the blanks) about the old testament sacrificial system, and then about jesus as the lamb. i was surprised, as most of these guys have grown up in the church, that the idea of jesus replacing the sacrificial system of the old testament was a brand new idea to them. “I’ve never thought of that before!” and “No one’s ever told me that before” (which doesn’t mean no one has, of course).
i’d told them we were going to light things on fire later, and they were especially focused and engaged because of this, by the way. so i handed out pieces of paper with crosses drawn on them, and talked about what forgiveness really means in our lives. then they each took a few minutes sitting somewhere on their own and wrote stuff on the cross that they thought god might have a hard time forgiving them for. we gathered on a stone walkway in the middle of the backyard, with their papers wadded up, and stood in a circle. we prayed and thanked god for forgiveness. then, one at a time, we bent over and lit our paper wads on fire, saying, “my superhero identity is that i’m loved and forgiven.” each lit their own, but we watched as they all burned together into a pile of ash.
then we had lemonade and double-stuf oreos.
yeah. 6th grade guys. love it!"
Thursday, January 15, 2009
As close to a review as I'm gonna get
When it comes to writing books, an author LOVES to have people review thier books on thier blogs. When it comes to curriculum, most people don't review it. I mean, it is a book...but it's not really. It's curriculum. It's a book of teaching plans.
Nevertheless, here's as close to a review as I'm gonna get for the second book, "Living as a Young Man of God." Marko had a fun moment last night with his group and blogged about it last night:
"last night, at my 6th grade guys small group, we were getting ready to talk about how jesus is a man we should want to emulate (we’re doing a series called “living as a young man of god“). leading up to that, we first talked about favorite superheroes, and what their strengths and weaknesses were. then i had each guy think of a man they really respect, and would like to be like (at least in some ways). we went around, and each guy talked about the man they respect, a few of that man’s strengths, and at least one of his weaknesses.
but here’s the classic middle school guys part of the story. i have four guys in my small group; and here are the four men they listed, in order:
- “my dad”
- “my cousin’s boyfriend”
- “my grandpa”
- “eddie van halen”
yes, that’s right. eddie van halen.
gotta love it."
Good times. I know of a few people who have used our books and found a couple on the internet. I'd love to hear if you have or are using them and what you think!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Get "Becoming" and "Living" for half off during the next 50 hours!
Youth Specialties is at it again!
For the next 50 hours (till Friday at 11 am PST) you can get all curriculum, including Jen's and my books, for half off! What is that? $7.50 or something?! And you can get any other curriculum too. Pretty sweet deal!
Just enter Coupon Code YSHTC9 and you'll save 50% off your order!
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
More thoughts on Riddle's book
I was skimming Mark's book again tonight looking for a certain paragraph when I remembered another couple things that I like about the book:
~The book is split into two sections. The first one is all about staffing for a youth pastor. Really great thoughts on here. Most of my review was based off this section of the book because it really resonated with me.
~The second half is basically an inside look at what a youth pastor feels. And it's really great. I mean a lot of this stuff...this is stuff I have dealt with for years. Feelings of frustration based on assumptions...made by the senior pastor, and if I'm honest, many made by me.
The chapters on making youth ministry the butt of jokes, loyalty vs. disloyalty, and the need for loyalty FROM the senior pastor...THIS could be something that would really help relationships.
Of course, I get frustrated thinking, "Look if my SP has been in ministry longer than I have, they should know this stuff, value it, and be practicing it." But, we all get into our own worlds, I suppose, and we forget.
On the flip side, maybe the SP is practicing it...but the youth pastor can't be sure if she can trust it.
It would be interesting to see the reversal...a book for youth pastors written by a senior pastor that gives insight into their world as well.
~The book is split into two sections. The first one is all about staffing for a youth pastor. Really great thoughts on here. Most of my review was based off this section of the book because it really resonated with me.
~The second half is basically an inside look at what a youth pastor feels. And it's really great. I mean a lot of this stuff...this is stuff I have dealt with for years. Feelings of frustration based on assumptions...made by the senior pastor, and if I'm honest, many made by me.
The chapters on making youth ministry the butt of jokes, loyalty vs. disloyalty, and the need for loyalty FROM the senior pastor...THIS could be something that would really help relationships.
Of course, I get frustrated thinking, "Look if my SP has been in ministry longer than I have, they should know this stuff, value it, and be practicing it." But, we all get into our own worlds, I suppose, and we forget.
On the flip side, maybe the SP is practicing it...but the youth pastor can't be sure if she can trust it.
It would be interesting to see the reversal...a book for youth pastors written by a senior pastor that gives insight into their world as well.
Monday, January 05, 2009
Resource Review: Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors
Mark Riddle has written a really interesting book called Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors and I was lucky enough to get a copy of it in the mail a couple weeks ago because I signed up for an experience Mark is leading in April called "Leading Church B." I've been looking forward to this book so I was pumped to read through it.
The short chapters and life stories make the book a great read. Mark is a church consultant/coach and I felt like I was getting an insider's view on what he shares with a lot of church leaders. Most of the book is really written to Senior Pastors with at least one chapter written specifically for the youth pastor. However, throughout the book there are notes to the youth pastor.
Here is what resonated with me:
Mark talks about two churches: Church A and Church B.
Church A is the church that hires the youth pastor and it's her job to do the ministry. The ministry is centered, focused, and based on her. When she leaves...the ministry stops until the church can hire her replacement.
Church B is in no rush to hire a youth pastor as thier ministry to youth is not dependent on a personality. When and if they hire a youth pastor, it will be to help guide thier church in ministering to the teens. Mark doesn't say this, but in some ways the youth pastor becomes in some form, a consultant for thier team, but still part of the team.
Here is where the rub for me is: All I have ever known and experienced as a youth and as a youth pator has been Church A.
I have seen for a long time, that Church A doesn't work. It's unhealthy and unbiblical.
This begs a lot of questions:
Can Church A make the change to Church B? (I'm sure the answer is yes...but I'm skeptical. thus...)
Does Church B have to be planted?
How does "Youth Pastor A" make the change to "Youth Pastor B"? (My terms, not Mark's.)
Don't most Church A's THINK they are Church B's? I wonder if most would be humble enough to consider if they are Church A.
How will Church A respond when Youth Pastor B refused to do Church A?
One of Mark's points in the book is that most church's go through so many youth pastors because they are Church A. Can the youth pastor who wants to lead Church B, transition the youth ministry to Church B? I don't know. I'd like to think so. I am probably too cynical but I think most churches don't care what the youth pastor does as long she keeps the parent's happy.
My one critique is that the book ends abruptly. I wish there had been one more chapter as kind of a summary of sorts. But maybe that says more about my needs than about the book's needs.
Thanks Mark! Looking forward to the end of April.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
