{"id":247,"date":"2009-03-01T09:05:55","date_gmt":"2009-03-01T09:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/2009\/03\/youth-pastor-fight-club.html"},"modified":"2009-03-01T09:05:55","modified_gmt":"2009-03-01T09:05:55","slug":"youth-pastor-fight-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/03\/youth-pastor-fight-club.html","title":{"rendered":"Youth Pastor Fight Club!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Dallas, youth pastors are being trained in street fighting techniques in order to, um, &#8220;take care of their flock.&#8221;&nbsp; <\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"vitstorybody\"><span class=\"vitstorybody\"><\/p>\n<p> Jeff<br \/>\nMcKissack is spreading the Batman gospel to youth pastors in Dallas and<br \/>\nacross the country. He hopes to convert them into followers of the<br \/>\nKeysi Fighting Method, the street fighting style used in recent<br \/>\ncinematic blockbusters. <\/p>\n<p> McKissack figures that pastors<br \/>\nwho know how to defend themselves against thugs can help protect the<br \/>\nchildren they lead at church &#8211; or on field trips to amusement parks or<br \/>\non mission travels. <\/p>\n<p>       &#8220;It&#8217;s a sign of the times,&#8221; he said     <\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Because, as the youth pastor says, &#8220;you never know what&#8217;s going to happen when you take the kids out of these four walls.&#8221;&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>OK, first of all, I was a youth pastor for 20 years, taking kids to some pretty sketchy places like Lima, Peru and Juarez, Mexico.&nbsp; And, while I occasionally felt that we were threatened, never once would the Keysi bob-and-weave have come in handy.<\/p>\n<p>Secondly, I think we can safely say that teenagers are often just as threatened within the four walls as without.<\/p>\n<p>The erstwhile youth pastor goes on to say, &#8220;<b>I don&#8217;t think as Christians that we&#8217;re meant to be just stomped on.<\/b>&#8220;<\/p>\n<p>Really?<\/p>\n<p>(Jesus: &#8220;<b>But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.<\/b>&#8220;)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sharedcontent\/dws\/dn\/latestnews\/stories\/022809dnmetkeysi.3bce954.html\">Read the story and watch the<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sharedcontent\/dws\/dn\/latestnews\/stories\/022809dnmetkeysi.3bce954.html\"> video.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Dallas, youth pastors are being trained in street fighting techniques in order to, um, &#8220;take care of their flock.&#8221;&nbsp; Jeff McKissack is spreading the Batman gospel to youth pastors in Dallas and across the country. He hopes to convert them into followers of the Keysi Fighting Method, the street fighting style used in recent&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Youth Pastor Fight Club! - The New Christians<\/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\/tonyjones\/2009\/03\/youth-pastor-fight-club.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Youth Pastor Fight Club! - The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In Dallas, youth pastors are being trained in street fighting techniques in order to, um, &#8220;take care of their flock.&#8221;&nbsp; Jeff McKissack is spreading the Batman gospel to youth pastors in Dallas and across the country. He hopes to convert them into followers of the Keysi Fighting Method, the street fighting style used in recent&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/03\/youth-pastor-fight-club.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-03-01T09:05:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tony Jones\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Youth Pastor Fight Club! - The New Christians","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\/tonyjones\/2009\/03\/youth-pastor-fight-club.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Youth Pastor Fight Club! - The New Christians","og_description":"In Dallas, youth pastors are being trained in street fighting techniques in order to, um, &#8220;take care of their flock.&#8221;&nbsp; Jeff McKissack is spreading the Batman gospel to youth pastors in Dallas and across the country. He hopes to convert them into followers of the Keysi Fighting Method, the street fighting style used in recent&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/03\/youth-pastor-fight-club.html","og_site_name":"The New Christians","article_published_time":"2009-03-01T09:05:55+00:00","author":"Tony Jones","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/03\/youth-pastor-fight-club.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/03\/youth-pastor-fight-club.html","name":"Youth Pastor Fight Club! - The New Christians","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-03-01T09:05:55+00:00","dateModified":"2009-03-01T09:05:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/a5d6dffe0f41c25b4bd8136be22c4074"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/03\/youth-pastor-fight-club.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/03\/youth-pastor-fight-club.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/03\/youth-pastor-fight-club.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Youth Pastor Fight Club!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/","name":"The New Christians","description":"Tony Jones on Christianity and the Emerging Church","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/?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\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/a5d6dffe0f41c25b4bd8136be22c4074","name":"Tony Jones","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d50\/d50708c3731048719806adf9c6f6df30x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d50\/d50708c3731048719806adf9c6f6df30x96.jpg","caption":"Tony Jones"},"description":"Tony Jones is the author of The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier and several other books on Christianity and prayer.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/author\/tjones"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}