Dan left after hearing and obeying God’s call to go back into pastoral ministry and he is taking the position of lead pastor for a church plant in Syracuse, NY. Dan shares in his blog;       

              “I was confronted by God’s Spirit that it was time for me to shake off fear, step out and trust Him. See for the last couple of years I’ve been stirring deeply with the vision and dream of planting a missional church in NY. I’ve been waiting and it has been a good season for me. But recently I’ve heard God through others and His Spirit that I need to move now, be strong and courageous and go for broke….So now the journey begins. My adventurous wife and I have decided to jump in head first. We resigned from our sweet positions, are selling our dream house and we are obeying.”

 It is a huge step for Dan and his family! We will miss them, but at the same time are excited to see them following the Lord!

 So, you ask, what’s next for the FLM youth department? We will continue to build on the ground work that Dan laid to continue to transition from Youth Action into a Youth Resource Ministry for leaders and volunteers as well as ministering to teenagers. For the summer, things will continue as planned with youth rallies, skates, festivals, camps and Back Yard Challenges.

 Change is not always easy to go through, but it is often good and although we miss Dan and everything he had to offer, we are looking forward to see what God has for us next in the FLM Youth Department!

Please pray for us and for the direction on what God has for our “next steps”.

Hello faithful few. Thanks for lighting up this blog to find out if I have anything brilliant or boring to say. Sad thing is sometimes we are so accustomed to being entertained or tickled by exciting speech that we think brilliance is only packaged in something shiny. I’ve been finding some brilliance lately in the boring. I was having coffee with a youth pastor recently who asked me how I came to teach the way I do. He asked “how do you know what to teach teenagers on a yearly basis.” Instead of answering right back, I asked what he teaches his teenagers on a yearly basis. He said “well you’re the expert I’d rather know what you do”. I said “well you love your teenagers in your ministry I’d rather know what you do.” “Well” he said “I think a lot about what it’s like to be a teenager, what it’s like to be facing what they’re currently facing, and what they will be facing when they leave our youth ministry, then I go dig in the Scriptures for spiritual food for them.” “Brilliant” I said, “really that’s exactly the place that I start at.” “I might use a different system or method but that’s the most brilliant thing you can keep front and center.” After we established that I was not the expert we were able to talk freely about things we’ve both learned and shared them without insecurity. Not everything brilliant is packaged in the shiniest book or presentation. So much of what I’ve acquired over the years is having an observant eye and a learner’s heart about everything. It doesn’t have to come from an expert or the publishing company that has the corner on youth ministry tools. Look around observe. Ask students, ask other youth pastors, ask your volunteers.

One thing I wanted to cover a little in this podcast is more of the nuts and bolts about teaching in the context of youth ministry. There is a lot of discussion and debate about methods of teaching and the role of sermons or small groups or discussion type groups. I think there is need for all of these modes in balance. I think one of the core pressing issues to be addressed no matter what your form for teaching is, is the dynamic of loyalty to Christian culture versus loyalty to Jesus Christ. In the last 13 years this pendulum swing has become a big deal to me and real point of concern, especially in light of the phenomena of truck loads of teens leaving the church only a couple years after they graduate high school. This phenomenon is forming the new post-Christian culture, which in raw definition is; young people who have an extended experience in the Christian subculture and decide it’s more of a turn off or decide it’s not a necessity for their everyday life. I was in youth group as a teen 20 years ago. I went every Thursday night and Sunday night. I was at every scavenger hunt, retreat, concert, and messy game night we did. I listened intently to most everything taught in our Bible studies, except when that cute girl visited. I had a youth leader I really looked up too. Somehow, I and many other youth group junkies extracted that the most important thing in our Christian life was committing to youth group and committing to “acting” like a Christian and being with Christian friends. I’m not sure if this was the message they intended to get across to us but really I’ve come to embrace that this shouldn’t be our central message as youth leaders. Maybe that flips your lid “committing to church, acting like a Christian and being with Christian friends is not our central and most essential message?” What are you drink’n Dan?

Most of the teens who I was in youth group with eventually went off to college or worked. That’s when things went south for most of them. When the youth group frenzied environment was gone so was the energy of their faith in God and the church. Now I know as youth workers we are not responsible for the decisions young people make after they leave us but I do think we are responsible to make sure we are emphasizing the essentials for loyalty to Jesus in a messy world not our Christian cultural/denominational hobby horses. For as much as church youth ministry has grown up and become more accepted and professional over the last 30 years, what we are teaching should always be at the core. I don’t just mean propositional teaching but what are we teaching or better yet what is being retained from our small groups, events, activities, worship and themes we choose to highlight. A good parallel example of retention comes from a conversation I had with a teen a couple of years ago while we both ate a slice of cheap greasy pizza, I had asked him if he came from a Christian home? He replied “it depends on what you call Christian.”  “We do devotions together and go to church every Sunday but my dad screams at us all the time, can barely make eye contact with us and my mom is never home and my brother is a mess but my parents never do anything about it, I’m not sure I would call that Christian!”

Teens pick stuff up. We do a similar thing in youth ministry circles. We assume our teens are being taught about a deep loyalty to Jesus because we’ve got events every month, Bible study, worship night and a dynamic retreat once a year but they may not be picking up the most essential message, they could be picking up an alternate message that deep loyalty to youth group and eventually Christian things is what we are about and will keep them spiritually strong. Jesus exampled that teaching the kingdom was at the core of his earthly ministry and his miracles were supporting elements to his teaching not the other way around.

After all that babbling I want to get back to my original thought. What is the content of our teaching and are we teaching for loyalty to our youth group culture or loyalty to Jesus?

Here are my top 3 personal disciplines or guardrails in teaching for loyalty to Jesus instead of loyalty to youth group/church culture. These three reminders became more present in my ministries and became internal convictions over time and probably outwardly more obvious in my last 5 years of ministry.

1. Place less emphasis on serving the church programs and more emphasis on serving the community. This might make some of you panic “that’s what teens do, they care for kids in the nursery and help in children’s ministry and serve on our youth ministry worship teams etc.” But here is what we are teaching young people that over time is biting us in the fluffy back side. We communicate that we care more about our programs than we do about the world we live in. This issue has shown to become a significant point of disillusionment with young people after they graduate youth group and start pondering what the church is really up to. Help your teens move into the world, into broken places in their circles of influence. Stop sounding the siren that serving God is serving the programs of the church. There is something that whiffs of a lack of authenticity and potential church culture narcissism that the world revolves around the activities of the church. Be careful you’re not sending this message. Practically you should be more encouraged if a teen is regularly volunteering at a local woman’s shelter than if they are attending one of your many youth outings. The beginning of youth ministry in the 60’s and 70’s was about providing alternatives to what the world offered. I still hear this all the time “we are providing a safe alternative.” This mode of thinking is increasingly finding less traction with teens nor is it intentionally building lifelong disciples of Jesus. Let me tell you why, eventually those Christian alternatives dissipate and a young person has to integrate into the culture and learn to love unbelievers, relate with unbelievers without living just like them and plug into needs within the secular world. But too often they were never taught to stick with Jesus they were taught more between the lines to stick with youth group, Christian events and Christian people. So if I were in your place I’d pull back on striving to gets teens to serve in the church and more to follow you into the world to serve the world.

2. Be careful of accepting and inviting decisions during emotionally charged environments. Careful. I know that God moves and the Holy Spirit pulls on us and on our affections to make an immediate choice. But I’m seeing more and more fallout from alter calls and the use of emotionally intoxicating environments to get responses from teens. We’ve swung too far with this. Teens begin to think that loyalty to Jesus can be widdled down to an emotional moment where they felt something. They begin to bank on these markers to stay close or feel close to God. But fast-forward to when they don’t feel something in the middle of their stressful college life, they equate that with not feeling God which then equates to not having the will power to stick with God. Let’s be honest, loyalty to Jesus is not sexy, most of the time it’s not publicly applauded, not too many people will recognize their obedience and when it comes down to it you don’t feel a big rush when you stick with Jesus. Jesus himself modeled that his loyalty to his Father God was not built on an emotional return. His loyalty was gritty, not understood by his friends, and he didn’t get high fives or fist bumps for his commitment. I call this Blue Collar spirituality (I’ll expand on this in a later podcast). I know the fear “if I don’t get outward responses (raised hands, crying eyes, someone coming down front, and signing a pledge) then how do I know they are choosing to change or that we are being effective. Sister, brother, it is not our territory to measure success this way. We trust Jesus and we hope to see him working his heart into them and we guide them to translate that into the way they make choices in their daily life.

3. In your teaching, avoid teaching only on topics that are trendy or current like: Sex, Dating, Friendship, or the internet. I did teach on those things but they need to fit into a holistic construction of what a Jesus Follower needs and looks like. Practically, lay out your cycle of teaching for an entire year put it down on paper. Try not to do one week teaching snippets and try not to go longer than 2 months on a subject. Create a rhythm in you teaching calendar. When you get it down on paper get some perspective on it. Does it have balance? Will a teenager get a lopsided perspective if they sit in your teaching a whole year? Youth Pastors have the tendency to teach their hobby horses or what they are doing for their own personal devotions. This is not a good rhythm to teach in. I know because I used to do it when I first started out. I meet quite a lot of youth leaders who pick one mode of teaching and park there; inductive Bible studies or teenage issues or what’s happening in culture. If you go with that approach I genuinely feel your setting up your teens for a really lopsided view on what God is concerned and passionate about. If you’re thinking long-term then this becomes compounded when they graduate and they realize they are only prepared for hot button issues or apologetics or how to study the Bible. Maybe that last one might bug you “how to study the Bible, that’s a good thing.” I’ve met a lot of young people who know how to study the Bible but don’t know how to navigate seemingly grey choices with wisdom or they don’t know much about the dynamic of trusting God when they can’t see him or feel him. 10 years ago I fell in love with the concept of the 7 checkpoints which is a book by Andy Stanley. I didn’t really ingest the book’s philosophy whole but I have to say the concept of teaching through the basic irreducible minimums over and over changed my youth ministry approach 10 years ago. Disciplining myself to hold a balance thematically I believe was instrumental in retention and transformation over the years. I purposed to lean less on a grenade type experience or moment and leaned more on the progressive formation provided by the Spirit’s work through biblically rooted principles. There are a lot of new helps and guides out there that have expounded on the 7 checkpoints type model.

There are a few other dimensions of teaching that are important pieces like; building a conversant environment and small groups. I’ll get to those another time since this blog is way too long and is challenging my own attention span. Next time I’d like to work out what Blue Collar Spirituality is. Let me know what you think, give your me feedback on something in this teaching blog ramble. Peace.

Director of Youth Resources,

Dan White Jr.

Dan

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/current-events/op-ed-blog/19845-don-miller-responds-to-pat-robertson

While most sophomoric attempts are hurried to promote a band’s fast growing success and sell records; Flyleaf has decided to take a different route. To state it plainly: This second attempt from one of Christian music’s most successful crossovers will become one of the best secondary albums of 2009. We have seen time and time again, band after band, release a second record to have it become a let-down from their previous success; not in “Momentos” case

Since Flyleaf’s breakthrough onto the scene in 2005, they have won the hearts of church and non- church kids alike. “Momento Mori” delivers 20 tracks of high power music and the production is of high-quality. The first track “Beautiful Bride” conveys the musician’s diversity in arrangement. The ability to thrash into the record immediately where their first one left off; then to hear Lacey Mosley travel into a melodic “hallelujah” could send the most unchurched soul into a spiritual whirlwind.

Journeying through the record, the listener can hear influences of King’s X, Red Hot Chili Peppers, which proves that the members of Flyleaf have an extended record collection. Mid-way through the record, the song “Tiny Heart” takes a spin to pop-friendly radio. With 4 years between releases, Flyleaf has decided to put out a record with 20 tracks (on the extended edition). With the attention spans of most listeners being minimized over the years with albums of 8-11 songs, and usually an E.P to follow-up, the length may be the shortcoming of the record. To lose the attention of the listener by having no specific song stand out may affect the chance to be played over and over again.

The songs “Treasure” and especially my personal favorite “Arise” will keep a diehard listener coming back to this record and even possibly to a tour date or two this winter. Flyleaf is grasping at hope straws as Lacie beautifully sings lines such as “Hold On, to the world we all remember fighting for, there is some strength left in us yet.” Whatever may be going on in the world, the brains of the members of Flyleaf, or my life, listening to Mosley sing about the end of the world is incredibly soothing.

Stars: 4/5

Favorite Track: Arise / You can check out Flyleaf at www.flyleafmusic.com

Hey…welcome back to the funkiest, freshest thoughts on youth ministry.

As I cast this pod, I’m sippin’ on a piping hot coffee in a black mug…which I must say…may lend a certain amount of inspiration and inerrancy to what’s coming up.

Okay…pickin’ up from where we left off….

Now, before I jump full feet, let me just tell you about my weekend. Probably the most drama-filled weekend we’ve had in a while – including my wife, Tonya….and my little guy, Daniel. We were tested – most definitely.

Our family’s in the process of adopting a little girl. Everything’s going along fine and then…BAM…hit by a mack-truck.

Everything collided when the birth-mother got upset and a string of events unfurled that put us in a tough spot. I mean, thing felt dangerous, like we may not have been safe in our own home.

Soon after the scare, we alerted state troopers and they set up some boundaries and safety precautions. Everything has cooled since, but God and I had some rich conversations about this difficulty, and pain, and why he’s allowing it.

Here was God’s gracious answer through The Spirit: “This is a good thing for you right now.”

So I’m sitting with that answer, and Tonya and I are dialoging a lot about what Christ is massaging into us. I’ve noticed something about God: He’s usually after the core of our character.

Just thought I’d share what’s going on with me.

Now let’s turn the corner. This is Part Two, so if you missed Part One, check that first before listening on.

You know…it’s funny how youth ministry has always been about being on the “cutting edge” for the sake of the Gospel. It’s the one avenue of the church that methodologically morphs with an unchanging message to reach a dying culture.

Back in my early twenties, I was a youth leader unwilling to change or adapt. I was cool as long as things were exciting…or “hot n’ heavy” so to speak…..

(no that could get me sued)

I was happy as long as teens were buzzing….

(no that could get me sued, too).

Basically…I was set on my youth ministry formula. Content with programming that produced excitement and pseudo-belonging to Christian bullet points.

Shame on me.

Well, in my last podcast, I told you about “my spanking.” A Holy Spirit spanking, if you will. (Wow, I might have just invented a new sign gift.) (Ha! Can I receive an impartation?)

Anyway….God took me to task. I was not preparing my students for a mission of love, selflessness, or an allegiance to Jesus.

Okay…here comes a relevant tangent.

One thing that jogged my heart and mind back in 1999 was what was happening in the UK.

Not sure if you’ve heard of this thing called Soul Survivor. It started in the UK in 1993 when Mike Pilavachi, the youth pastor of an Anglican Church near London, was released to pursue his vision.

Much of the impetus behind Mike's vision came as a result of living in a time when the British Church existed in a post-Christian era. As a youth pastor, Mike was well aware of the church studies that showed a consistent exodus of young people, with thousands of teenagers leaving youth groups each month.

The book “UnChristian” by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons talks about this phenomenon in our postmodern era. Great read. Check it out. Anyway…

The first Soul Survivor event was in 1993 and attracted a modest 2,000 young people. The annual festival has since become the biggest of its kind in the UK.

It came down to simple training on two touch points: 1) stay anchored in Jesus despite a shifting culture, and 2) keep a mission-mindset that’s modern and socially conscience.

(That’s fancy language for serving people with your hands and heart.)

Get this: Today an estimated 225,000 young people have attended Soul Survivor events in the UK, South Africa, Holland, Norway, Australia, Canada and the United States of America.

In August of 2000, Soul Survivor led an estimated 11,000 young people out to the streets of Manchester for a ten day outreach. The BBC later called this "one of the most ambitious volunteer projects ever seen in this country..."

Through worship events, cafes, sports venues and social action endeavors, the aim of “The Message 2000” was to serve, love and saturate some of Britain's poorest and most disadvantaged communities with authentic love and real hope.

In this, they won the backing of the city's Police force who ran transport logistics for the event. Something about this stirred teenagers to action, causing them to really care for their surroundings. The byproduct was unbelievable unity across denominations and races.

I remember reading this and being bothered.

Bill Hybels calls this a Holy Discontent. Have you ever had a gut check for God? You sit back and think, “Something ain’t right about the way were making disciples.” Then you apologize to God for any participation you had in it and start dreaming of what could be, what should be.

Then the age-old question surfaces: Now what, God?

Then He led me to water. Water surrounding two simple, but nonnegotiable things: First, raise up students who bare burdens for their surroundings.

…Not in a popular “we-fight-back” kind of way. Or ways that demand “we-take-back-our-country”…the rights of Christians in public schools and all that overdone junk…

Not these things at all. Here’s a word for you: Grace.

Let’s assume a servant’s posture. Jesus embodied this. He didn’t come “Holier than Thou” with his fists swinging. Just the opposite, actually. He came low, winsome, meek, and sacrificial….but confident in the Father. Jesus displayed the Gospel. He was the Gospel. That was His platform.

I tell you… a teenager who is hurt or cares more for their circle of influence more than they care about how their hair looks, weather they are the star of the team or even if everyone thinks they are a solid Christian with no struggle is the real battle. (Dan – I’m not sure what you’re getting at here, so I left it alone.)

Narcissism - spiritual or worldly - kills genuine faith. But a teenager who feels The Kingdom Agenda….who wants to love, serve, and live out truth to their peers and to people with needs...Now that’s a potent force.

That’s why I love Philippians Chapter 2.

The second thing I had to instill in my teens was allegiance to Jesus. During my travels, I began to meeting kids and realizing how so many of them were disenfranchised former youth group kids.

An array of things rattled them:

Christian leaders letting them down…or they got burned by the church somehow

There were derailed by different temptations

The church seemed irrelevant

…or my personal fav… (not sure if it is, but would be funny to say…)

They got tired of hearing obnoxious Christians spout off on hot button issues

This stew of realities is understandably hard for a teen or young adult to handle maturely.

But at some point you wonder, “Where is their allegiance to Jesus?” You shouldn’t ditch your commitment to the son of God just because Christians can be lame. (Ha!)

To be authentic, we need an unwavering submission to Jesus. In talking with these kids, I noticed this had not been a major point of discipleship. Everything in youth group was about commitment to the experience, the leader, the Christian culture, or to a group of friends.

Now here’s the sad reality: the chance of those things collapsing at some point is fairly good.

What are you left with then? With your faith and affection for the church community in shambles?

I just recently read an interview with the band Kings of Leon. (They’re a guilty pleasure for me right now…I admit.)

During that interview, Caleb Followill, the lead singer, gave his disheartened and bitter outlook on the church. He shared how, as a kid, the church and Christian leaders let him down in a big way.

His reasons were legit. His immersion in the church was genuinely mixed with fakes, moral hypocrisy and bad theology. I can see why he was angry. But with this came the dumping of Jesus Christ too. I’ve seen this over and over. Dare I say this is an epidemic in teens coming through our youth groups? Is there a way to teach, disciple, and mentor a loyalty to Christ even when cruddy stuff happens to us by Christians and within the church.

I think there is? Or let me say it this way.

There has to be or we’re in the toilet.

The pulse of a thriving young faith, I believe, comes down to two things: a missionary’s heart and a loyalty to Jesus…no matter what the Bride of Christ looks like.

These are the non-negotionables of discipling teenagers. These are the culture pressure points.

Now let me ask you this: Are you teaching this stuff?

Or…..

Do distractions get in the way of your ministry? Is it clouded? Are you loaded down in activities and “spiritual hobbyhorses?” Because all this can keep your kids from truly absorbing the DNA of a Jesus Follower.

Evaluate. WHO is Christ? Meaning, what are HIS QUALITIES…HIS CHARACTERISTICS?

Okay, so for next time…..I’d like to share how to teach and create environments that immerse teens in these touch points.

How to keep loyal to Jesus…

And how to be missions-minded in way that’s socially-conscience and authentic.

Let me know what you think. Peace.

This is my first official podcast for the Family Life Ministries. I am hoping that every 2 or 3 weeks I can give you something fresh to chew on. I really want it to be packed full of insight into the youth ministry front, grounded feedback on ministry literature, commentary of cultural shifts, applicable tools for the youth challenges you face, authenticity about the difficulties I faced as a youth pastor

This first entry into the cyber world as well as the second one I wanted to be about me… all about me because I’m an ego maniac and think the world revolves around me. Well that’s not really the reason it’s more I just wanted to share my ministry journey a little so you can judge whether I’m youth pastor poser. I’m not a fanatic about podcasts. Sometimes they can be bloated with exaggerations and spin. But in the last 2 years or so I realized I had to stop fighting the way we receive information and context. I now follow a few podcast myself. I’ve had to exercise wise judgment with who I read because there so much shmoo out there. Maybe you’ll give the flow of stuff coming out of this podcast a chance and not judge it as shmoo. Let me know.

I’ve been in youth groups settings for over 13 years as a youth pastor. I’ve watched the changes in approach and have tried to get my hands on every youth ministry book I could eat up. I remember my first few years as a youth pastor. I was fully convinced the routine of youth ministry was about hopping from one event to the next. If I was having fun and they were having fun then that seemed to be enough. It’s funny how I used that youth ministry term “Fellowship” to legitimize in mind endless events. Back then I was influenced by some national youth organizations that seemed to summarize a healthy youth group down to 2 things; keep teens attention with crazy games and get teens on to be on Fire for God. It seemed simple enough. Who can argue with that? To be honest I didn’t really know how to quantify “on Fire for God’ except seeing them talk kind of Christian, pledge to not have sex until marriage, listen to Christian music and display a hyper activity about doing evangelism. Those were my measuring sticks. I kept my teens coming back with fired up messages, pep rally type events and Christian versions of everything that the secular world offered. Teens loved it, parents loved and even my overseers felt good about the fullness of the program.

But something inside me was trip’n. I’m not sure what it was, I’d like to say it was the Holy Spirit trying to get my attention but I knew something wasn’t quite right about my approach. So I decided to experiment with the worship movement approach but I felt like something was out of balance with this phenomenon as well. Now I know the worship craze on the surface was about worshipping God. Give attention to only one audience “God”. But I noticed how top heavy this ministry philosophy was. I’ve heard it said “If a man is good with a hammer, to him everything looks like a nail.” Proponents of the P&W movement see praise and worship in just about every scripture in the Bible. In my opinion they place a higher emphasis on the subject than the Bible does. This obsession with worship, worship, was creating worship junkies. They were not necessary feeding on God they were gorging on just the experience, the band, the volume the emotional return they received. It was teaching my teens that God only comes down and showers us with blessings, gives us spiritual victories and changes our hearts when we engage in worship service type environments. I would hear things like “I only feel God in worship” “that worship changed me” or “God is so real when I worship”. Something did not settle well with me biblically nor emotionally about the fruit I was seeing this approach produce.

I remember I had enough and knew I had to getting away to a cabin or something. So I packed some peanut butter and jelly and white bread, a gallon of water, and my journal that I just bought at the dollar store for this occasion. I went to this cabin to wrestle to the ground the unsettled feeling I had about my youth ministry. The quiet of that cabin for those 3 days was glorious but a little frightening. The first day I pressed in. I had decided that first day I was just going to clank around in my heart and search for everything I could find. God went to town addressing and cleaning out the crustiness of sin unconfessed, motives unchecked and clutter acquired in my heart. I remember being exhausted and feeling like I couldn’t do another day if it was going to be like this. The Second day something began to settle on me, in started with reflection on God’s story, his word on what he was really up to. I tried an exercise (not a physical one although I probably should have back then, I could eat anything I wanted without gaining weight, little did I know that would change soon) it was more of an exercise in charting out the overarching themes and movements (no not those movements) more like the storyline and ebb and flow of the plot lines through out the scriptures. I started seeing an overarching epic that I’d never seen before. I remember thinking “how did I miss this in all my studying and Bible college training.” It’s kind of comical but embarrassing how being in Bible College makes you think you’re the greatest theologian since J.I. packer. But during that exercise in plotting out scriptures motif. God was teaching me and humbling me. I realized I had been taught to slice and dice up the scriptures over the years to fit my ministry needs and message points all the while missing God and what we was up to, where he was going and what I passionate about. A key theologian that mentored me through his writings in that season in my life was N.T. Wright. A great read is “Evil and the Justice of God”

I started to see that the divine story was about gathering a people who continually remembered how lavished with grace they were which compelled the purpose of blessing and affecting their surroundings. God’s mission was that his people would move out, in humility, hands open, loyal to Him alone while influencing their current culture. He wanted his people to be generous, divinely hospitable, submitting to Him and sacrificial in the name of Jehovah in the Old Testament and in the name of Jesus in the New Testament. This gave glory to God. Most of the time God’s people got in trouble it was because they horded their blessings, became obsessed with their own needs physically, naval gazed spiritually and slowly meandered away from the original mission. I began to realize on the third day (by the way I think their best record was Conspiracy no.5) I began to realize that I was potentially teaching and modeling this lopsided message of; just look out for yourself spiritually, feed on the experience, stay out of sin and make sure other people stay out of sin. My ministry philosophy was one filled with consuming which was leading to certain narcissism. My teens were addicted to consuming worship music with out worshipping with a missional life. My teens were waiting for the next event that scratched their itch. They were loyal to the Christian youth subculture and me but not necessarily to God. I have to say this was a real temptation in the early days. To have teens love what I’m doing and how I do it. I also noticed I was emphasizing a concern with looking Christian more than being connected to Jesus. No wonder the stats were showing that a generation of teens did not own their faith once they left the youth group world (check out some of the Barna groups research on their website) For many teens that eventually turn into young adults; the worship fad fades, the events leave them wanting more, their loyalty crumbles under pressure because it was in a culture of people not in their Master Jesus and looking Christian and avoiding worldliness falls off because it was only skin deep. So here I was facing this reality in the face of what my ministry was contributing too.

If I’m honest there was a point were I wanted to just stay the course and keep the energy high around my programs. But I broke or better said I was broken by God’s careful hand. So now what? Well that was 9 years ago and things changed, they had to change. Come back in a couple of weeks and check out part B to find out what changed and is changing.