New Friends..

Fuzz Kitto recently wrote this piece which talks about Trust.

“Trust is essential for relationships and communities. It is essential for ministry and mission. It is essential for families systems and organisations. One of the root causes for mistrust is that so many of us don’t trust ourselves! We say we will do things and then the stress pressures and struggles mean we don’t get around to doing it or doing it to a level that we are satisfied with. With this has come increased expectations on people’s lives (look at sporting identities and the codes they must now live under. We have such increased expectations on productivity. Put lack of self trust with these expectations and we have a mixture that causes ill health – mental and emotional – and I would like to suggest spiritual health.”

Yesterday was a great opportunity to sit and share some time and space with Fuzz Kitto, forming what I hope will be a new and sustainable friendship. Yay.

He recommends Steven Covey Jr. and his work “The Speed of Trust” which also features on Marko’s blog at the moment. Just in case you were thinking about Christmas.

What Marketing Can Teach Us About Youth Culture.

Much of my daily activity is centred about youth culture and market research – it’s indefineably valuable to my work and my ministry, especially over the last 3 years. I find that when you line up the increasingly available research and ideas on adolescent development with the emerging research into youth culture and marketing strategy, there are some unique insights that when applied to your specific community can really help you identify key aspects of success as well as methods/insights to simply help us talk better to young people. For example, the following articles/studies have been really stirring my brain activity just recently.

Youth No Longer Defined By Age

“Contemporary youth should now be defined as ‘the absence of functional and/or emotional maturity,’ reflecting the fact that accepting traditional responsibilities such as mortgages, children and developing a strong sense of self-identity/perspective is occurring later and later in life.”

“The study identified three distinct stages of youth: “Discovery” (16-19 years old), “Experimentation” (20-24 years old) and “Golden” (25-34 years old), and found that the youth market has grown to include all three as the differentiation between traditional demographic groups has become blurred through lifestyle choice and spending power.”

Questions:
What are the implications of these changing sectors for our youth and young adult ministries?

In fact, it could be said that these studies support by inference, my hypothesis that life-stage ministry to the young adult sector is misplaced, that in fact it could nurture stasis & stagnation rather than helping transition young people through the extending corridor of youth to adulthood.

What can we identify as key issues for this market from our ministry perspective considering the conflict between ‘common sense’/social expectation and actual desire?

Tool:
We are not in it alone : there is a wide pool of sociological, communication, psychological and human behaviour theory available from reputable sources in practical, digestable form. Think about how to apply the information, patterns and understanding gleaned from these resources, alongside our theological, communal and hermeneutical practices. The pool of knowledge is wide, enjoy it, don’t limit the resources that may provide helpful lenses and unique insight.. instead apply discernment liberally and grace generously.

27 is the ideal age to buy a house (25 in the UK, 33 in Japan).
22 is the ideal age to buy a car (20 in the US and UK, and 29 in China).
26 is the ideal age for love (25 in Saudi Arabia and 28 in Mexico).
23 is the ideal age to get a credit card (20 in the US)
19 is the ideal age to travel without parents (25 in Saudi Arabia).
27 is the ideal age to be a parent.
20 is the ideal age to lose your virginity (no differences by region).
22 is the ideal age to move out on your own.
26 is the ideal age to start saving for retirement

Youth Trust – How To Lose And Abuse It is a another great piece of brand wisdom that has great implications and insight for working with communities and groups of young people.

Brands lose it with young people when they:

* (1) Value inconsistency:
* (2) Saying not doing:
* (3) Took consumers for granted:
* (4) Failed to control: (the market – brand is overrun by affliates) – ??
* (5) You got lazy:
* (6) Your marketing was merely a sweet topping on an unpalatable dish.

Communication & Community

Updates
I’m still preparing for Thursday night at Blueprint .. but with some more structure at least which is helpful. I’m still caught up working through much of my own journey in this area of working for the Kingdom… others thoughts are welcome in fact necessay… Rich, Skip, Stu, Sam, Marko… heck, all of you.

Kate Tristram says:
The life of a saint is not the life of a great man or woman, but of God’s life in an ordinary man or woman. Saints’ days are not all about that saint: but about a celebration of Christ. …Remembering the saints gives us a bigger idea of the things of God. When Elisha’s servant saw the enemy chariots (2 Kings 6:15-16), he had to have his eyes opened so that he could see God’s chariots of fire. It was such a big view of God that Elisha had, and now his servant could share in that. This is exactly how the saints can help us: if ever we feel outnumbered, remember that we never get to see the whole church.

I’m looking at the idea of hands, open hands and the bridge between Church/church and how that impacts our idea of what working for the sake of the Kingdom looks like. The last thing I want to do is portray an image of tentmakers as those that simply choose their workplaces as missionfields.. but something bigger and more and grander and greater – something that embodies unique DNA shaping. Modern day sainthood – inspired by Paul Newman more than Mother Teresa. Is this heresy?

More On Communication, Momentum & Community

“Something shifts on a large scale only after a long period of small steps, organized around small groups patient enough to learn and experiment and learn again. Speed and scale are the arguments against what the individual and communal transformation require. They are a hallmark of the corporate mindset. When we demand more speed and scale, we are making a coded argument against anything important being any different.” (emphasis my own)
– Peter Block

Youth ministry is historically a ministry of change – very rarely do we expect things to stay the same. In fact, we are so change-oriented in our culture, that if we don’t see ‘progress’ or momentum, shifting of structures.

Especially when a new ministry leader arrives on the scene, there can be enormous communal pressure and expectation of ‘change’ being implemented on numerous levels. That pressure can be motivated by all sorts of things – ministry effectiveness, values, shifting cultures, changing personnel, style is a big factor. Sometimes, it’s easy to move smaller things and keep the PR machine going whilst implementing smaller, slower, significant remodelling.

The Necessity Of Communications
So in navigating our way through this whirlpool of expectations, change, re-structuring.. what’s important? Something key that cannot be underplayed, is the role of communication. With GenY expecting and appropriating more and more ownership over their consumable product (yes, church communities fit in here), communicating what’s going on is crucial. Not just for GenY who desire ownership, but for GenX constituents who need something to rebuff and Babyboomers who are still paying for it all.

This vital role of PR is really doing several things within the community
1. Creates and highlights awareness of movement, responsiveness of leadership and the community, opening passages for dialogue and reassurance of activity. It’s election time, so never have we been more aware of the importance of a good report card. It’s better to be seen doing something, rather than assumed you’re doing nothing.

2. Answering questions asked and unasked ie: communicating the values, vision, thrust of a community. Talking about the implicit things that are crucial to the community you’re establishing. Using all the metaphors/storytelling you can to paint the bigger kingdom picture of what’s happening within the community. At every point you have the opportunity to remind people of the bigger story they are part of, and inspire them again.

3. Advancing inspiration and creativity. In the rise of the creative class (a turn of phrase but also a book you should read), never has the language of creativity been so important to a Western culture dominated by youth tastes(15 – 35years). Every opportunity to communicate is a chance to do so in a language that births warm feelings of sensuality and goodness. Do this alongside telling great stories and you’ll be inspiring people. Inspired people get connected.

Debunking The Myth Of Church Notices
Often undervalued because they are often done poorly or haphazardly.. find the people who really know how to tell great stories and get them doing your church notices. Great communication is 80% great storytelling, great emotion, great inspiration and 20% information. Church notices are a great time to catch up on the family stories, not simply communicating what’s on when. Look for the people that instinctively tell great stories and there you’ll find your great communications experts. Add some creativity and flavour and this will become a highlight of your community gatherings. Employ technology like blogs, Facebook and email – but not to simply expound dates and calendar bookings… opensource sermons, gatherings, big ideas, discussion forums… open invitation gatherings with no purpose but celebration and play.

Communicating And Implementing Change
The bigger the community, the longer it takes communication to flow, move..the more you have to rely on secondary and tertiary parties to communicate your message and to do it well. But, we know that Millenials excel at taking messages they care about and brands they feel ownership of and communicating in a ‘pass it on’ fashion. Dialogue potentially becomes open-ended and channels through multiple layers of community. It may be that for a time, when a new idea or leader surfaces/arrives in a community – there’s a holding pattern, a glorious time of courtship and wooing. Then the change management kicks in.

Great communication recognises always, that it’s all about what the receiver hears and that happens by way of what you say, how you say it, when and where you say it and taking into consideration how the receiver feels about the subject you’re talking about. Nevermore so than in widely owned communities with multiplestakeholders .. So truly great, Kingdom communication within communities has to allow for :

1. rarely is an opening statement final with GenY. your opening position is the starting point for their interaction with you. therefore, be cautious with the overarching finality of your opening statements. young people do respect your position and authority, but they also expect to be able to interact with the dialogue before the final conclusion is reached – they are upwardly mobile and self-assured in regards to their role and contribution.

2. their feedback is valid and needs to be taken into consideration.. move as far from the modes of behaviour modification as you can and trust the intuitively ‘core’ of people within the community. become one with the people, eliminate as much of the leadership barrier as you can.

3. allow space and time for the Holy Spirit to interact. my position or hope is that we can establish modes of communication and change that enpower both leadership and communities to have ‘ownership’.

You have to be careful moving chairs. Communities tolerate and participate in plenty of structural and idealogical change willingly, until the changing structures require them to move. Literally you can rebuild the house around them until you need them to move their seat. If you remove choice and/or opportunity/willingness to partipate, those

who are comfortably independant can feel affronted. So what are the chairs? Dialogue, identify and be fair and honest about why chairs must move, what benefits lie ahead, acknowledge the cost or sacrifice involved. But don’t expect that you can move the chairs without explaining, reasoning, working through. This isn’t making mountains out of molehills, rather it’s demonstrating that there is only a limited budget for experimentation & autocratic leadership choices. Egalitarian leadership choices will inevitably be smaller and slower as well as wider in process, but hand in hand with great communication strategies be way more productive and gentler.

All of this… thoughts that are mostly unfinished.. but I’ve been thinking about them. And, recently added to the blogroll, Mark Riddle. I really really appreciate Mark’s thinking and am desperately awaiting the arrival of his new book “Inside the mind of a youth pastor.” It should be on the pre-order list for anyone truly wanting to engage with intelligence and positivity towards healthy staffing for youth ministry. His thoughts here on commitment are great starters and flicked well with me this morning while ruminating on all this…

Riffing on Commitment from <a
href=”http://theriddlegroup.com/blog/”>Mark Riddle

i think this is often about community as well.
I have a couple theories on this, tell me what you think.
It’s something of a chicken or egg thing.

Engagement and responsibility it at the core of commitment. People who aren’t engaged by feeling a sense of belonging and responsibility for what happens at youth, or the church but do feel that way in other areas of their lives will be more engaged in those other activities. If I’m missing from my basketball team, or cheerleading squad then the team simply can’t function as well with out me. I serve an essential function on that team, a unique role and when I’m not there, the team struggles. Whether be a point guard or the person a the base of the pyramid, i feel a sense of responsabilty to be there. In churches were leadership is taken care of, and people give up their responsibility to others, then it gives them space to no longer be engaged.
Youth, families and individuals within our church who aren’t engaged in community or see themselves as responsible for their own spiritual well being and the nurture of others quite simply aren’t committed to your church. The question then becomes why?

Scenario 1:
On one hand it’s a followership issue. People just won’t do what we want them to do, or be engaged to the level we think a healthy individual, family, etc should be engaged. In this scenario the leader talks about people outside the room a lot. The leader’s job is to somehow leverage influence or to persuade youth, families, indivuals of the benefits of life in the church, or with God etc. This leader either talks like a vicitim a lot, or like a visionary. The victim wonders why everyone outside them won’t align with the way things should be, at least from their perspective. The visionary attempts to conform the world to their (read: God’s) vision for the church and the world. It seems that only difference between the the victim and the visionary is the amount of confidence and force. I suppose this really isn’t a followership issue, it’s more of a leadership isn’t it? I suppose people value what we teach them to value and if our leadership style is victim or visionary then people aren’t really valued in either. The victim resents the people for not going along with their idea. The visionary sees people as cogs in their plan. “Those people will be in community and love each other if it’s the last thing I do! WE will be a beautiful church that loves each other and their neighbors!” What people really value, or are committed to doesn’t really matter in this view, with the exception of lip service. The visionary church leader sees people as sheep, dumb and in need of serious direction.

Scenario 2:
On the other hand, it’s a followership issue. For real this time. That people actually value things, and some might actually value your youth group, and your church. Just in the way’s you’ve taught them to. People who see themselves as responsible for something have a choice. They will either hold on to that responsibilty or they will pass it off to someone else. To hold on to responsibility is be a disciple, to be human to be how we were created. To give away the power and responsibility to someone else is the act of a consumer. The parent who drops their teenager off at your activities but never talks about God might be an example of this. They have give you the power and responsibility to spiritual form their child. They have become a consumer. But before you go off on a “How consumeristic people are…” rant, it should be noted that it takes two people to make a transaction like this and that the more you talk about it, the more you sound like the victim listed about in scenario 1 above. I guess I’m just saying that you freely encourage their action by your action, and probably by your church’s action.

That said. You’re probably asking the how question by now right? How do we change this pattern? How do we make parent’s more responsible? How do we stop enabling them? How do we make people commit or be more accountable.

Friends, How is the wrong question. At least at this point in the game.

How only leads to more of the same. Why? Read the questions I just listed. They are all victim or visionary oriented. They are about people out there, people who must be manipulated or persuaded to fall in line with what I think. More of the same. If you like where you are now, keep asking how. You will never see change, other than superficially.

It begs the question:
What is the role of leadership in the church?
What does engagement look like in the church?

Whoops.

What a week so far. There is plenty of fur flying in lots of directions.

Postive Intent
These are words that I’ve been using regularly but Marko gave me the phrase – in regards to working through conflict and resolution, postive intention. You have to assume positive intent. My positive intent is never to use this blog as a passive-aggressive method of communication.. but nor do I want to feel bullied about it’s content either. My daily observations of life and all things inclusive are the fodder for this blog – not necessarily earthshattering ideas nor are they always right. But, they deserve a forum surely – because where else should they go or be?

So what are the rules of common decency? Even now, I’m talking about something that has happened but in the context of the broader idea – therefore does that make it safe fodder? Other, far more political situations of my daily life I have left well alone… so what is my positive intent?

To Learn and grow from a situation I cannot change.

Slow Discipleship.

I’ve been ruminating around some ideas with discipleship now for a while, and a coffee break with Rich helped me to find the phrase I was looking for…

Behavioural Modification vs. Awareness Nurture
A traditional model of both youth ministry and discipleship in broader terms, boils down to a set of objectives easily rendered into bahavioural modification theories. Ultimately running the risk of producing ‘disciples’ who are only equipped for navigating through previously simulated experiences or lessons and produced socially acceptable choices. Perhaps a 50% attrition rate has been experienced in my own youth community relying on these more traditional ideals and ways of thinking.

Example: Sex Education
Traditional: Here’s why Christians Don’t / Here’s why you shouldn’t / The Line
Recently: Let’s teach and encourage healthy sexuality & awareness with young people regardless of faith precepts focussed on healthy choices, identity awareness and social cognition of influences, pressure and expectations.

What if youth ministry and discipleship addressed it’s core principles on the long, slow, developmental tasks of emotional/spiritual awareness, social awareness (implications of my community & community identity), self awareness?

One of the ongoing issues we face within our own community is the insistent pressure fo the discipleship timeline.. a series of measuring sticks that address behaviour as guides for spiritual development along the lines of baptism, spiritual information and outcomes like mission service etc.

We introduce people to the character of Jesus and then his behaviours and teachings as a model of behaviour before we teach or encourage the fostering of Wisdom. Jesus, as the embodiment of Wisdom .. only ever pointed us to the Father, yet in the Western church, we find Jesus at the apex of our teaching and worship, rather than the Truth. (I’m not 100% concrete on my ideas here yet, so bear with me).

Slow
Around the world the “slow” movement is gaining momentum (haha). But what if we took a slow approach to discipleship. One of the more significant seasons in my life was underlined by a daily reading of Proverbs. A chapter a day, of every month for about 5 years. Once you begin to understand and recognise Wisdom, all of sudden the person of Christ makes more sense.

I guess, I’m really exploring the idea of saying, ok, if Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life – how are we introducing people to Truth in such a way that it becomes part of their being, rather than part of their behaving?

So – instead of pushing kids into the Gospels when reading Scripture.. pushing them into the wisdom books, illuminating Christ through that lens first. My understanding being that by manner of approaching wisdom and truth so dominantly we might resettle the scales in favour of a Father-centered worship, through Christ, than worship of Christ.

Slower, longer but hopefully deeper? Wisdom ways of living that help young people or any disciple to navigate their way through any waters, because they are underpined in wisdom teachings rather than behavioural concepts? Jesus’ actions are only truly revealed to us through our understanding of the Truth he was in flesh, and the Father he points us toward.

My suspicion is that too much emphasis on Christ-like living started as a great idea but has lead us to far into Christ the man, rather than Christ the Divine, who never points to himself, but only the Father.