Identity Formation Creates Gospel Opportunities

We are all involved in processes of becoming. We are being formed as we grow and develop and as we respond to the changing environment around us.

The challenge we all face is to become increasingly aware of these processes and to take whatever steps we can to ensure that there are good outcomes for us and for those around us.

During early childhood our involvement in these processes is largely passive. Our understanding of what is happening around us is very limited. We are given a particular genetic make-up and born into an environment where decisions are made on our behalf. But over the years we take a more and more active role in determining how we will respond, which parts of our character we will choose to work on and which parts will be left unchallenged.

As far as our own culture is concerned this makes the teenage years a particularly significant period. This is when the world of the child collides with the adult world. It means that these are the pivotal years during which identity formation takes place. And it means that for the youth minister that there is an unprecedented opportunity to speak into the life of an individual to ensure that those good outcomes are the best outcomes.

In the paper I will present at our upcoming Theology of Youth Ministry Conference, I will look at how Paul sets out to build a Christian identity in his audience. Since his ministry was chiefly one of taking the Gospel into new territories we will look at how he engages and overturns identities which have been grounded in a pagan past and how he challenges and shapes his audience to become "rooted and built up in [Jesus], strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness".

We will go on from there to consider what the implications are for ministry in the post-Christian world.

If you're interested in attending the Theology of Youth Ministry Conference, click here for more details. Early bird discounts end August 6.

Four On A Couch Game

With over 100 graduates serving in children's and youth ministries in all sorts of places, we often hear good tips on what people are doing in youth ministry. Here's something from Michael Hyam, one of the bunch of inaugural students at the College.

Mike Hyam - "I have been playing this new mixer for a few weeks at youth and it is really good fun with a little strategy. Seems complicated at first but give it a go!"

Four on a Couch

Depending on the size of your group, this game could work as an Up Front Game (for a large group—the group watches while a few do the activity in front of the group, entertaining the rest) or as a Mixer (for a small group—in a group of 8-12 kids you could involve almost everyone).

Create a circle with chairs and one couch, enough seats for everyone playing plus one extra seat. 2 girls and 2 guys start off by sitting on the couch, while everyone else sits in the chairs. Give every person playing a paper to write their name on. They are to turn their names in to you.
Mix the names up and redistribute them back to the youth, making sure no one gets their own name. They are not to tell which name they have.

The purpose of the game is for the guys to get all 4 guys on the couch and the girls to get all 4 girls on the couch.

The person to the left of the empty seat calls out a name of someone in the circle. Whoever is HOLDING THAT NAME (not the one whose name it is, i.e John calls Amy's name, and Jeff is holding Amy's name) gets up and sits on the empty chair.

The person who called the name and the person who sat on the chair, then exchange papers with names on it (that way the same name does not stay with the same person, it makes it more challenging).

The person to the left of the new empty seat calls a new name. (the same name cannot be repeated twice in a row).

Again, the purpose is for the guys to get the 2 girls off the couch and vice versa. This is a really fun game but it can last a long time.

Sexual Expression: A Basic Human Right?

I've been in conversation recently with a colleague in youth ministry education in the UK - sharing notes on how we go about certain aspects of our training. Recently Sally asked me how we equip youth workers to help young people who are confused or exploring their sexuality.

Here are some of my thoughts ...

I think that part of the reason that struggles over sexuality are so difficult for young people (whether same-sex attraction or frustrated opposite-sex attraction) is that our world has made sexual expression into a basic human right. We want to help students realise for themselves as well as encourage those they're in ministry to, to realise that their identity is wrapped up in who they are in Christ - not who they have or haven't had sex with, who they're attracted to, or what they wear, what they've experienced etc.

We need to have that sort of general 'climate', one where all of us are being told that Christian freedom doesn't mean we always get to do what we want, but that the path to freedom to really be who Christ has redeemed us to be lies in saying no to the desires of the flesh and yes to the fruit of the spirit.

So we're not just focussing on gay sex as if this was the only moral issue God is concerned about! Instead, we're talking about God's holiness, and his promise of the sanctifying work of the Spirit in each of us that transforms us to be more like Jesus. Therefore, if someone is struggling with a same-sex attraction that Jesus is asking them to say no to, the 'answer' for them is the same as that for the young person who hates their parents or who shoplifts, or who buys too many shoes - that is, God loves you, Jesus died for you, the Holy Spirit is renewing you, do you trust God in all this?

The advantage of this is that for the young person who IS struggling with same sex attraction but who has not / will not share this struggle with you, you're still ministering to them as you teach and model identity in Christ. Of course the other thing that needs to be emphasised is that the searching stage of faith development might mean that a young person is trying on all sorts of personas as they try to find a 'self that fits' - and one of those might be the sexual explorer or the homosexual lifestyle (which may or may not include actual sexual activity).

Where the role of the youth minister is to communicate and model the grace of God in Christ, the challenge for the youth minister is to continue to love and care for these young people, while at the same time being clear on the challenge to our self-determination that comes from Jesus' offer of freedom.

Reaching Our Youth Through Hip Hop

Youthworks College has intensive teaching blocks at the beginning of each year prior to the beginning of Semester 1. During these intensives I was teaching Youth Ministry 1 – a subject outlining the principles and practices of ministering to young people in churches. Each year we get extra students as well as our full-time students who just pick up the intensive.

The intensive at the beginning of this year was excellent, great group, stimulating discussion. During the course we shared ideas and resources. Again I was reminded of how important music is to many young people. We had a Mum in the course, who had children who are moving into adolescence. She had taken up the challenge to begin a ministry for young people at her church and she particularly wanted good music for her own children and the young people that she will serve.

As we talked about this I shared an issue that arose in one of the churches where I was youth minister. I’d visited a family who were concerned about the attitude that their son had toward them as parents, particularly to the mother. They felt that some of the hip hop music that he was listening to was very derogative toward women. They wanted his attitude to change and asked me what to do about it! They’d tried banning him from listening to one particular Hip Hop artist.

(N.B One thing that will not work for a 16 year old is banning! For example, Les Murray, the Australian poet once was asked how to get young people enthused about poetry. He said “Ban it!”.)

I said that I think redirecting interest away might work. So the next Friday night we had a “Culture Vulture” segment where one of the leaders promoted a hip hop/ roots CD by Michael Franti called “Everybody Needs Music”. Franti is not Christian, but going with the principle that we can use certain things in our culture that God has given us generally through people’s creativity, we were happy to promote this CD. And it worked! It’s a great album with more depth than some Christian albums.

As I got into listening to “Everyone Needs Music” I found I was uplifted. Most importantly he speaks well of women as opposed to some of the other Hip Hop singers. At the time I was also reading G. K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. I read an interesting assessment of the popular expression of poetry that was coming out in his day and made a connection, all be it obtuse, to one of the songs on Franti’s album.

In Orthodoxy there is an essay called "The Slavery of Free Verse" in which Chesterton is weighing in heavily on the new poetry that emerged in the late 19 century – i.e. Free Verse, which is uncadence or unrhyming. The call was to free oneself from the strictures of poetry that held to cadence and structure. Chesterton didn’t agree. Even though the effect or the content of the poem may be good, or even be impacting, he upheld some eternal principle in the order and the rhyme. He had a way with words and found that trusting in the ‘fag-end rather than the principle’ was abhorrent. (Reminded me of a T.S. Eliot line but that's another story...). Rather than being liberated by such free verse, he felt it was enslavement. He said that if humans were truly free, we would talk in ‘rhythm and even in rhyme’.

I wonder what Chesterton would have said of hip hop and Franti’s style of music and poetry. Franti sees himself as a poet and hits the spoken word circuit at times. So reading Chesterton and the line ‘I have always had the fancy that if man were really free, he would talk in rhythm and even in rhyme’ reminded me of this line out of Franti’s song ‘If I were the words, then everything that everybody said would rhyme’.

Here are the first couple of verses from the song for anyone who is interested:

What I Be - Michael Franti off “Everyone Deserves Music”

If I could be the sun
I'd radiate like Africa and
Smile upon the world
Intergalactic love laughter and
If I were the rains, I'd wash away the whole world's pain and
Bring the gift of cool like ice cream trucks on sunny days and
If I was the earth I'd be like mountains bountiful
And if I were the sky so high, I'd be like wind invincible and
If I could be a seed, I would give birth to redwood trees and
If I were the trees, I'd generate the freshest air to breathe in

(chorus)
What I be, is what I be
What I be, is what I be
well, well, well, movin on!
well, well, well, movin on!
Do you love someone? Do you love somebody?
Love that one!

If I could be the leaves, then like jade I would stay evergreen and
Spread my limbs out wide and pull love so close to me and
If I could the roots, I would dig deep like ancestry and
If were the fruits, you'd make the sweetest cherry pie from me and
If I could be the night, my moon replace all electric lights and
Magic music would transmit from outer space on satellites
If I myself could be the ocean, you would feel emotion all the time and
If I were the words, then everything that everybody said would rhyme