{"id":4590,"date":"2009-03-05T06:34:35","date_gmt":"2009-03-05T06:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2009\/03\/re-thinking-mission-in-youth-m.html"},"modified":"2009-03-05T06:34:35","modified_gmt":"2009-03-05T06:34:35","slug":"re-thinking-mission-in-youth-m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/03\/re-thinking-mission-in-youth-m.html","title":{"rendered":"Re-Thinking Mission in Youth Ministry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Through a variety of influences I have renewed my own commitment to the utter significance of youth ministry today — and I mean by that from junior high until adulthood (and that might mean 12 to 30!). Our future churches are rooted in what happens in the next decade with this age group. I have asked a dynamic young youth minister, Chris Folmsbee<\/a>, to guide us in some conversations about youth ministry. And I’m urging you to join us in this conversation. Today Chris helps us think about “mission” — and he’s got a thoroughly up-to-date approach to mission.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"ChrisFolmsbee.jpg\"<\/span>I’m certain that many of the people engaged in youth ministry think
\nregularly about the mission and work before them.  Our unsettled
\nculture and its itinerant nature require ongoing strategic thought and
\npractice.  <\/p>\n

In order to avoid being characterized by what Nietzsche referred to as
\nthe “fundamental form of stupidity” (forgetting what you were trying to
\ndo in the first place), I am sure that many of today’s youth ministers
\nhave a variety of mechanisms to keep the mission of their
\nministry somewhere on the dashboard in bold, bright font. They are reminding
\nthemselves just what they are meaning to accomplish.  <\/p>\n

I’m wondering, however, just what the thing we are “trying to do in the
\nfirst place” is, exactly. What is our mission?<\/b>  It appears that the mission of most youth
\nministries just might be as unsettled and itinerant as the culture to
\nwhich it is attempting to impart the great good news.  <\/p>\n


\n
My recent experience has led me to believe that we are in many ways “on hold” between a season of deconstruction<\/b> (with a residual number of feelings including angst, ambiguity and hesitation) and a future season of renovation<\/b> that I hope will largely be comprised of a new commitment to a narrative approach to ministry that will result in a greater devotion to God’s mission.
 
Specifically, I’m hopeful that many of us who’ve been longing for a fresh wave of thought and practice to emerge might sincerely consider what Chris Wright in his book,The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative<\/a>\"\"
\n<\/strong><\/em>, refers to as our mission. There, Wright defines it as “our committed participation as God’s people, at God’s invitation and command, in God’s own mission within the history of God’s world for the redemption of God’s creation” (page23). Perhaps this ought to be the bold, bright font placed strategically on our dashboard as the thing we are “trying to do in the first place.”<\/p>\n

So I am curious to know: have we forgotten what we are “trying to do in the first place?”  Am I the only one feeling like we are on hold?  Is the pendulum swinging from deconstruction to construction?  As we move towards a fresh wave of thought and practice, will the “committed participation as God’s people, at God’s invitation and command, in God’s own mission within the history of God’s world for the redemption of God’s creation” be the mission that we embrace?  As it relates to youth ministry, what will be the strategic ways we embody the gospel in an unsettled and itinerant culture?
<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Through a variety of influences I have renewed my own commitment to the utter significance of youth ministry today — and I mean by that from junior high until adulthood (and that might mean 12 to 30!). Our future churches are rooted in what happens in the next decade with this age group. I have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-youth-ministry"],"yoast_head":"\nRe-Thinking Mission in Youth Ministry - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/03\/re-thinking-mission-in-youth-m.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Re-Thinking Mission in Youth Ministry - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Through a variety of influences I have renewed my own commitment to the utter significance of youth ministry today — and I mean by that from junior high until adulthood (and that might mean 12 to 30!). Our future churches are rooted in what happens in the next decade with this age group. I have…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/03\/re-thinking-mission-in-youth-m.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-03-05T06:34:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/ChrisFolmsbee.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Re-Thinking Mission in Youth Ministry - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/03\/re-thinking-mission-in-youth-m.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Re-Thinking Mission in Youth Ministry - Jesus Creed","og_description":"Through a variety of influences I have renewed my own commitment to the utter significance of youth ministry today — and I mean by that from junior high until adulthood (and that might mean 12 to 30!). Our future churches are rooted in what happens in the next decade with this age group. I have…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/03\/re-thinking-mission-in-youth-m.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2009-03-05T06:34:35+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/ChrisFolmsbee.jpg"}],"author":"Scot McKnight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/03\/re-thinking-mission-in-youth-m.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/03\/re-thinking-mission-in-youth-m.html","name":"Re-Thinking Mission in Youth Ministry - Jesus Creed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/03\/re-thinking-mission-in-youth-m.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/03\/re-thinking-mission-in-youth-m.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/ChrisFolmsbee.jpg","datePublished":"2009-03-05T06:34:35+00:00","dateModified":"2009-03-05T06:34:35+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/03\/re-thinking-mission-in-youth-m.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/03\/re-thinking-mission-in-youth-m.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/03\/re-thinking-mission-in-youth-m.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/ChrisFolmsbee.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/ChrisFolmsbee.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/03\/re-thinking-mission-in-youth-m.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Re-Thinking Mission in Youth Ministry"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith for today","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0","name":"Scot McKnight","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","caption":"Scot McKnight"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/author\/smcknight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}