BishVid

As a bishop's offspring and Lost & Found apologist, I rather enjoyed stumbling across this YouTube video. I believe it's a promo for a Facebook group where you give the gift of your Lutheran Bishop to your friends. It's a little goofy -- but don't think for one second that I didn't add the application and send "my" bishop to 20 of my friends!

(video ht: George Baum, via Facebook)

Faith Lens

I think Faith Lens is the best (free!) lectionary-based resource out there. When I first got started in youth ministry, I was working with a microscopic program budget ($75 / month for grades K-12). I came across Faith Lens and thought I'd give it a try in our high school classroom. It wasn't complicated to teach, and required almost zero prep. The kids liked it (as much as teens will enjoy anything church-related at 9:00 a.m. on a Sunday) because it made connections with current events. It also gave kids - many of whom were not attending worship - an opportunity to discuss the appointed texts for the day.

And did I mention it's free!?!?!

Another cool feature is that Faith Lens is now set up as a blog...so you get receive it as an RSS feed, if you so choose. It's a great resource to give to your small group leaders...or, better yet, provide your young leaders with Faith Lens and let them lead the discussion!

* * * * *

In the interest of full disclosure, I occasionally contribute to Faith Lens...in fact, I did this week. I don't get any perks if a ton of people read / use my articles or not. So no conflict of interest, I promise.

So Now What?

Yesterday I wrote a lengthy post about how I'm trying to use technology more effectively in youth ministry.

Blah blah blah.

Irony gave me a chilly awakening this morning when I started the car and heard Radio Tradio on the local AM radio station. For those that are unaware, R.T. is like a garage sale that takes place on the radio. People from all over the state of Iowa (and beyond?) call in, wait on hold for a while, and then offer descriptive summaries of the stuff / junk they're trying to sell. The host (supposedly) writes these descriptions down, and encourages the listeners at home to do the same. I could go on, but I'm afraid I'd be snarky, judgmental, and pejorative in my discourse.


Here's the thing. My encounter with R.T. provides me with the perfect entry point to the sequel to yesterday's article.

How enormous is the functional communication / technology gap right now?

I'll pick on myself to illustrate the conundrum...

I'm sitting in a Starbucks, sipping a $2 cup of coffee while syncing my Blackberry Curve to my MacBook and writing on a blog. Twhirl, Gmail chat, and Facebook are all open just in case anyone wants to connect. Skype and iChat are also at the ready for video chat. (And creating hyperlinks like nobody's business!)

Suffice it to say, I feel like I've done a decent job of keeping up with the frenetic pace of change in suburban culture.

And yet I live in a world where people hock their old crap on a 50,000 watt radio station that covers a radius of 250+ miles. I just wanted to scream "have you not heard of Ebay...or Craig's List...or, for that matter, the flippin' INTERNET!?!?!" The R.T. peeps probably have never even heard of any of the linked items in the previous paragraph...and they don't even care. Their life is probably not made better if they hopped on the technological revolution that's happening around the corner in their local high school.

And yet, even as I admonish these people for their obsolescence, most of whom are significantly older than me, I realize that it's just as likely that the kids I work with might think the same awful things about me.

Let's face it. I'm almost 30, with three kids, a mortgage, and a minivan. I don't know how to make Bluetooth work, or even what it is. The van is 10 years old, and thus has no cool hybrid / GPS sorts of gadgets. I don't use Digg, Technorati, or Delicious. I just upgraded from a clunky flip-phone and 200 text messages a few months ago. (Several kids from church plow through 4,000+ texts a month). I can't figure out how to send email messages from said phone, no matter how hard I try. We don't even have cable / dish television at home.


So what's the point of this disjointed rant?


Perhaps there is none...other than to say that we're in a tricky spot right now as a culture. How do we live, share, learn, grow, challenge, and love in a world that is navigated in so many different ways? What can the Radio Tradio crowd contribute to the iPhone demographic...and vice verse? And (perhaps a more important question) - how do we bring those people together and facilitate that kind of communication when they don't even speak the same language?

hrumph....

I need another cup of coffee...

It's How You Use It

I had a good chat with Ellen today. She's a part-time youth minister, full-time student, part-time salon diva, and full-time rockstar. Ellen is a fellow PK (pastor's kid), so we speak the same goofy language.

We got to talking about the ways that technology has impacted youth ministry in the past few years. We surmised that the primary form of communication with teens is text messaging, followed by Facebook. (This is not an earth-shattering observation, I realize.) We boasted about how lucky our churches are that we have unlimited texting plans that we pay for and about how awesome we are at using Facebook to connect with kids. Good for us...

But then we paused. Are we really using these tools in the best possible way?

I hearkened back to Andy Root's excellent book Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry:

Ministry, then, is not about "using" relationships to get individuals to accept a "third thing," whether that be conservative politics, moral behaviors, or even the gospel message. Rather, ministry is about connection, one to another, about sharing in suffering and joy, about persons meeting persons with no pretense or secret motives. It is about shared life, confessing Christ not outside the relationship but within it. This, I learned, was living the gospel.

I wonder if maybe the same principal applies to our use of technology in relational ministry. Maybe instead of using texting and Facebook to get kids to come to youth group, we should use those tools to bring the presence of Christ to those young people through the communication. Let's look at the other members of the Unholy Half Dozen. Anne carries on conversations that span several days through text messaging. Jake uses Tatango to send a daily text message devotion to his high schoolers. Angie and Megan are constantly posting comments and messages on kids' Facebook wall.

In the scenario of technological incarnational youth ministry, the question is no longer "how many kids came to youth group", but instead "how many kids did you text this week"?

It's a slippery slope. My friend Eric always says there's no such thing as a solitary Christian. In essence, faith is both a private belief and a corporate confession. We are always driven to a communal expression of our faith through worship and acts of lovingkindness. It's easy to allow the digital communication we have with young people to become their primary connection to the church. This is not good; not only because of the Pied Piper Syndrome, but because it robs young people of the richness of Christian community and sharing the sacraments.

I might play around with this a little in the coming week. I'll continue to use texting and Facebook to remind kids of upcoming events (youth group, Easter Breakfast, Youth Gatheirng meetings, etc.) -- but I also might try to devote some time each day to intentionally make more frequent connections with kids through the use of these technological media.

I just hope these kids have unlimited text messaging plans, too!

Oops...

ht: Paul Kedrosky

I Am Your Father

Evan and I were watching Sesame Street earlier today. He left...I continued watching. (Don't ask me to explain it.) I heard him playing with toys in the other room, so I knew he was safe. But I wasn't prepared for what foul creature emerged a few minutes later...

It was none other than Darth Vader himself!



I ran for my light saber, in the hopes of vanquishing the evil lord of the Dark Side.

As I was about to turn and engage him in a duel of the fates, I heard him utter the famous words - "help me take...this mask off." But, oddly enough, he didn't sound like James Earl Jones with an asthma problem. He sounded like a two-year old with a precocious disposition, adorable personality, and unmanageable hair.

Turns out, it was just Evan.




Disaster has been averted once again. Peace, justice, and security has been restored to Vividell Lane...and to the rest of the galaxy as well.

Sacred Practices

My friend Dwight over at the Center for Renewal has been working on a pretty sweet continuing education experience called the Sacred Practices Series. You can read more about it at sacredpracticeseries.org. In short, the series consists of six, 3-day events over the course of two years that focus on growing excellent leadership among congregational leaders. It's relatively inexpensive, too. ($1,900 for the whole thing...and you can apply for a $1,000 grant!)

As I listened to Nadia Bolz-Weber yesterday on the Praxis Podcast, I was reminded why sacred practices (especially liturgical sacred practices) are so important and meaningful. It connects us to the billions of faithful Christians that have come before us. There is also an element of mystery that can be difficult for us headstrong Lutherans to wrap our heads around. This is why Nadia's church does a lot of a cappella chant during their worship. I dig it...