Communique 2 - The Conversation Continues
You all should have received a list of delegate information and my request for a couple of paragraphs by February 23 on two questions.
Jacques Ellul says: “in listening to questions of this age, we can more relevantly discern God’s will for this time.”
Feel free to connect with others in your “relational web”. You may receive more questions, than answers – that’s alright. Speaking from your experience:
1. Describe the ideal Salvationist young person who is discipled and engaged in mission? What does he/she look like?
2. How are youth given opportunity to cultivate gifts, minister within their setting corps/church setting?
For your information we will be looking at six other questions. Each will be championed by two delegates. They may be connecting with you.
STRUCTURES, ROLES: Brian Wheeler, Donna Simms
3. How do DYS disciple and engage youth in mission? What are creative options for the DYS role, job description could facilitate this?
EQUIPPING LEADERS, DISCIPLES: Dave Allen, Clint Houlbrook
4. How can we best train/equip Youth and youth leaders to be discipled and engaged in mission?
DISTINCTIVES, CURRICULUM: Wanda Vincent, Kevin Slous
5. How effective are present SA Curricula in discipling and engaging youth in mission?
THE LOCAL CONGREGATION: Darlene Burt, Jeff Penney
6. What is the role of the Corps officer, of the local body in discipling youth? How can they make this happen?
IMPACTING OUR COMMUNITY: Aaron White, Dave Drinkwalter
7. How effective are we at recognizing and responding to the needs of the young and children in our community and world (including children at risk)?
YOUTH PASTORS: John Berard, Stephanie Peddle
8. What is a youth pastor? What qualifications are required? What are the essentials for the job?
The schedule for our days will be posted next week. It would be wise to send out word to your prayer-partners to pray for this event, your participation. If you don’t have prayer partners, now is a great time to start. It’s just a group e-mail away - cost, negligible, reward - priceless!
posted by Agent of Renewal at 2:05:00 PM
11 Comments:
My leave has been approved! AND the school board has "deemed it apprpriate" enough to grant me leave with pay. I would have settled for an unpaid leave... but I guess God has other plans.
I can't wait to share with you guys! Although my ministry as a teacher is not conected to a church, I feel that I have an amazing potential to rech my students and community through my vocation. Teachers have the power to build or destroy dreams. It's such a tall order... but God is blessing me through it.
Great questions... I'll try my best to respond!
6:39 PM
Very cool...what other plans does God have.....
7:05 AM
Those are really great questions Dave. My brain is already starting to mull over each of them in turn coming up with new and creative ways of doing things.
"Describe the ideal Salvationist young person who is discipled and engaged in mission? What does he/she look like?"
The first thing to come to mind was the question of soldiership. For many years that was the real driving force of our youth program. Should it still be?
Is the 'ideal youth' a soldier? (Thinking of course of the plege itself not the uniform wearing.)
Anyone have any thoughts on that?
Peace,
Peter
7:10 PM
As I look at the questions posed, and the group gathered, I am encouraged to see such a wide range of youth ministry "specialists" from varying settings and backgrounds.
It should make for a terrifically engaging forum. The make-up of the group as well as the issues to be addressed - and how they interrelate - shows a thoughtful progresssion that is getting us off to a good start.
Too often youth ministry in general, not just the Army, is accused of "making it up as we go". We are often too concerned with "running the machine" to take the time to make sure "the machine" is producing what it was intended to.
I am encouraged to be a part of a process that "takes a step back" to look at the inner workings and outer trappings of "the machine" we all get ourselves caught up in from time to time.
Revolutionary landscape change sometimes comes in incremental steps rather than cataclysmic events. It is my prayer that we don't rush through such critical areas of concern to the discipleship of our youth. At the same time we must still feel the urgency to ensure that we "make disciples" effectively, not just produce a program - a different looking "machine" - efficiently. The two do not always equal one another.
The task ahead seems to be a "revoltionary incremental step" in the right direction.
1:29 PM
I too like what I see in terms of questions to wrestle with & through.
My comment is for Peter as he asked for thoughts/feeback.
Peter's question "Is the 'ideal youth' a soldier? (Thinking of course of the plege itself not the uniform wearing.)"
I would say yes and no. Allow me to explain.
Yes in that a Salvationist young person who is discipled & engaged in mission could be a Soldier.
Some soldiers are engaged in mission (yet to be determined what that means) and are being discipled (also yet to be determined what that means). We could say that mission is loving others & discipled is some form of self & group learning of God, His word & service/shared experience.
No in that a Salvationist young person who is discipled & engaged in mission could be an non-soldier.
My experience is that there are plenty of non-soldiers who are embracing mission & discipleship.
Who is a Salvationist needs to be thought out. Only a soldier? Only a soldier living out the covenant? Non-soldiers living out a lifestyle & attitude reflected in the covenant?
It may be wise for us to focus on the identifying the type of person who would foot the bill to fill missional & discipled (heart, character, attitude, actions VS role, name, position). Just a thought.
concern is less about
5:16 PM
Nice, thanks for the comments guys. I am almost done putting together all my responses, and its always great to get feedback first.
Peter
www.lublink.ca
12:12 PM
I agree, the ideal young salvationist need not be a soldier but must show the love of God. They must be open to the needs of the area they are in. For example, in the village here we have dial-a-meals and ask for funds from different organizations and sometimes have to go to the parents for some monies to get their children to camps and to get them to different events. It can be a hassle at times but that's what it takes. One can't just sit back because a parent or organization doesn't cooperate or the help isn't there. They have to push themselves and be open and ready for whatever comes their way. There are some good responses here, it's a good read and helps to open my mind a bit more. I'm really looking forward to meeting you all in 3 weeks.
1:19 PM
More on soldiers...
Just checking to see if I am reading this the same as you guys.
Essentially we are putting together an IDEAL, perfect (and impossible) person for the sake of discovering our direction with youth. right?
Because the ideal doesnt exist in fact, it can only ever be something we strive for (hence we are not perfect).
So, you guys came up with the same kind of stuff I had thought of for a 'great' youth worker, which there are many. But as to the ideal, I still think if we could have EVERYTHING we wanted in a young person, it would be a soldier. Unless of course that is no longer a goal for us in general... What do you think, do we still want to encourage people to become soldiers, or is that a thing of the past.
Thanks for the awesome input, this weekend is going to be a great learning experience for all of us.
1:12 PM
I think the concept of the ideal youth being a soldier is important if not essential... I agree with Aaron that some are too young to be soldiers but all need to warriors so I guess what the more important thing is is what soldiership represents...
Soldiership represents a covenant with God and that is powerful stuff. I'm not saying you can't make a covenant with God outside of soldiership but we are an army (it just seems to fit).
I think it is extremely important for our 'ideal youth' to be in covenant with God. A covenant gives us accountablity, direction, and passion... it requires being sold out to our cause.
The covenant of soldiership makes us accountable and sells us out to God first of all... TSA & soldiership are just the avenues.
We need a tangible avenue of personal covenant with God for our youth and soldiership seems to fit the bill... perhaps not traditional soldiership as we exactly know it now but soldiership just the same.
8:36 AM
The talk of soldiership brings to mind the common slogans or "saved to serve", and "saved to save"... In thinking along those lines I would suggest that the "ideal 'Salvation'ist" looks like the One who brought us salvation. As I threw this question out to a number of colleagues, one suggested... "they might look like Jesus".
The more I think about it, the more I realize that sometimes we get caught up in the trappings of 'what makes a soldier a soldier'... or 'what makes a soldier a warrior.' The reality is, we're called to "make disciples" of Christ - he is the model for us to uphold. (I realize that probably throws open another discussion on what he looks like in and to today's culture...)
I'm not suggesting we throw out tradition or the terminology of 'soldiership', or anything of the like... (We are an army.) I simply wonder sometimes if we have - in the past and present - been more concerned about the 'outward appearance' of a soldier, than the 'heart' of a disciple.
This is a lot more intangible than 'who signs on the dotted line', and even than who views themselves to be sold out to the war... It does, as Terence said, have everything to do with a covenant with God. And it throws a ton of responsibility back on us as leaders to take on the huge responsibilty to disciple our youth, and not just provide them with the outer facade of what might look like an "ideal salvationist" within our rich heritage of salvationism.
10:56 PM
I think it's a given that when we are talking about soldiers or warriors here, we are referring to the inner reality, not the outer expression (though that has some importance).
I would rather 10 soldiers who were truly disciples of Christ (or non-soldiers, for that matter) than a thousand nominal soldiers.
Grace,
Aaron
11:58 PM
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