Comprehensive Youth Ministry

Ifound this on the net. I find it to be a very helpful framework:

Essential Componets of Comprehensive Youth Ministry

Ministry of Advocacy: As a church, we need to provide strong moral leadership, to stand up for adolescents, especially those who are voiceless and powerless in society. We are called to use our resources to shape a society more respectful of the life, dignity and rights of adolescents and their families.

Ministry of Catechesis: the ministry of catechesis assists adolescents in learning how to connect Scriptures and Tradition of the Church with real life. It helps youth develop their relationships with Jesus and the family community. Genuine faith is a total response of the whole person and catechesis addresses all dimension -- mind, heart and will.

Ministry of Community Life: Community life is developed by activities that build trust, encourage relationships and are age appropriate. Communal life is nurtured when the atmosphere is welcoming, comfortable, safe and predictable -- youth ministry calls all young people, as valued, gifted and cared for, to their rightful place in the community.

Ministry of Evangelization: Evangelization calls young people to bring the good news of the Gospel into every human situation, through witness, outreach, proclamation, invitation, conversion and discipleship.

Ministry of Justice and Service: Our faith is profoundly social. Justice and service are essential to who we are as God's people and how we live our faith at home, in our community and in our world. We are called to work for justice, serve those in need, pursue peace, defend the life, dignity and rights of all our brothers and sisters. This is the call of Jesus, the urging of the Spirit, the challenge of the prophets and the living tradition of the Church.

Ministry of Leadership and Development: Every person is graced with certain gifts and talents. It is the role of youth ministry to help young people gain the skills needed to make the most of their God-given gifts for the service of the human community.

Ministry of Pastoral Care: The heart of pastoral care is most fundamentally a relationship -- a ministry of compassionate presence. As young people face life's decisions and make moral choices they need loving and caring adults who will walk with them. It is the role of youth ministry to make available the resources needed to help young people move toward wholeness.

Ministry of Prayer and Worship: All of us search for ways to experience God. Youth are no exception. Communal prayer, participation in the sacramental life of the Church, especially Eucharist, celebrate and deepen young people's relationship with Jesus Christ. Young people are called into active participation in the liturgical life of the Church.

Forming Students in an Evanescent World-- Part 2

It took me a while in my ministry life to realize how important Christian adults are in student formation. I had a cognative knowledge of the importance of an "in-the-know" adult mentor; however, it has been over the past two years that I have watched the remarkable effects of such an approach. During this time, we have made slow changes to orient our entire youth ministry to have an intergenerational involvement focus-- having our students share stories with the oldest people of the congregation; having our students work together with our children in VBS, wrapping Christmas gifts, etc.; having our students interact with many volunteers, mentors, and small group leaders; involving our students in significant conversations with our governing elders; having our students paired with an adult in the church who is their prayer partner; having our students participating and partnering in the leading of all-church activities in ways that do not exploit and market them; and finally having our students participate in BBQs, service projects, etc. with their families. I have watched as these experiences have signficantly shaped our students, our families, and our congregation. Our congregation also has developed a very healthy view of our students and our ministry because of their interaction with our students. My church is the only one in our area that had an increase in the number of students that were going to summer camp-- one of the reasons I think this has happened is because of the volunteer leaders that counsel our students at camp. We send volunteers who love being around teenagers, who know the right balance of freedom and boundaries, who know how to listen and get kids to open up, who know how to encourage and exhort kids rather than be hard on them. Intergenerational involvement is key to youth formation both corporately and individually. The thesis of Chap Clark's book Hurt is that this generation is an abandoned generation. Erik Erikson's classic work on adolescent identity makes the case that teen identity formation rests on a good undergirding of adult involvement in students' lives. Christian Smith's now very famous study sounds the alarm very clearly-- in order to form teenage faith identity both now and for the future, intergenerational involvement is the key.

2 Years In One Community

It's easy to get caught up wondering if you are making any impact in youth ministry. It's even easier when you bounce from church to church. I have now been at my current congregation for 2 years. When I first started in ministry, I would never have imagined myself where I am currently-- Fresno California, 30 students, a traditional ministry setting, focusing on "Christian" families, etc. I imagined myself having a youth ministry of 300 at a contemporary mega-church putting on youth ministry programs that were cutting-edge and had a "wow" factor. Over the years my ideas of youth ministry and church changed. I love my 30 students. I love my traditional ministry setting. I love my "Christian" students. I love my role as a spiritual director in their lives-- forming, shaping, framing, languaging them into being-- converting them into true disciples while they convert me as well. This was highlighted for me over the past few weeks as my high school seniors graduate-- hearing the voices of parents who are deeply appreciative of the time I have invested in their kids, seeing students on the cusp of adulthood beaming with delight as I walk into their backyards for their graduation celebrations.
Somewhere, sometime, ministry became ministry for me instead of programming. I am not sure exactly when it happened. I have always had an angst about me regarding consumer church culture. I was even aware of the slow shift in my life. But as I am typing here, I am deeply aware that at some point I became a pastor to my students and families-- not always great, but always there.
My goal is to be a professor. However, I have less anxiety about getting there as quickly as possible the longer I am in this community of Christ followers. I am enjoying my time among these people. Enjoying even though I am not always sure what I am doing. Enjoying even when I have no idea how to form students. Enjoying even when my students stare back at me with a hazy look. I have been called to be a steward, a guide, a pastor. I think it is this enjoying that has helped me to actually pastor rather than perform. 2 years in one community and many more to come.

Forming Students In An Evanescent World-- Part 1

I haven't blogged in a while due to the large but wonderful burden of working on my thesis for my Masters degree. Now I have a little more time, so I am feeling the urge to blog again. Over the next few posts, I want to explore the topic of student formation in a temporary age. Here is the intro...Last week I was having lunch with a wonderful group of youth pastor friends from my denomination. Some of us are from small churches; others of us are from larger churches; some of us are full-time; others are part-time; some of us have been at this for many years; others have been at this for a few months. We discussed the formation of students. This of course is something very important to me. One of the observations that I made was that most youth pastors don't have the skills to correctly evaluate themselves and their programs. Through my education-- both formally through my Masters degree and informally through my pastor Chris Erdman, I have learned ways of reflecting on my experience. Slowly over the past few years I have completely transformed my way of pastoring students and their families. As my friends and I continued our conversation, I soon found myself in the spotlight-- with fear and exhilaration pumping through my veins all at once. Exhilaration because I know that my experiences thus far have given me some insights that I think can be helpful to all in similar positions. Fear because I know that I am unable to be an expert or even great at enacting these insights on a daily basis. Yet, I was in the spotlight because the things I was saying were refreshing-- because the ways we have normally practiced ministry normally drain us rather than refresh. Over the next few posts I want to explain some of these insights. The most important thing in all of this is that it recasts the concept of youth pastor into being an equipper rather than multifunctional, multitalented star of the show that it is normally cast into. Hopefully in writing about these it will also help me be able to articulate these things that I am trying to live in everyday a little better.

Dominant Scripts in the "Christian" Home

I am doing research for my master's thesis regarding the co-opting of the church by consumerism. Here is a reflection that I made recently: my students from non-Christian homes know that they live in two worlds: one framed by the gospel and one framed primarily by consumerism. However, my students from Christian homes are often very unaware of this. A reason I see for this is the syncretism that has been created in today's Christian home between gospel and consumerism. Christian parents go to the church and are often morally upstanding people; however, they seem to lack the the critical skills to assess other areas of their lives in light of their faith such as social policy issues, money issues, the stereotypes of others, etc. Because of this, many of my students from Christian homes believe in a "bent" gospel-- one that is about them (heaven later, forgiveness now for my moral faults, and the pursuit of the American Dream). I see this playing out in our so called "Christian" churches as well-- do we speak against the dominant script of consumerism. How much of so-called Christian ideas are truly formed by the gospel rather than consumerism? I see the social policies that so many Christians seem to endorse and vote for and wonder what gospel so many have believed in.

My Crazy "Economic" Viewpoint of War

It may be interesting to look at Iraq and ask, who is the one with power and who are the people being oppressed? We have spent approximately 247 billion dollars on Iraq. The population there is approximately 26 million. That is 9500 dollars per person. The average Iraqi makes appoximately 1000 dollars per year. We could have given every Iraqi their annual income for 9 1/2 years. Not that I think giving everyone their financial dreams is a wonderful idea-- too materialistic and consumeristic for my soul-- however, I would imagine that the people of Iraq would have done better with such a strategy over the current violence, lack of electricity and clean water, and lack of access to jobs.

The Satiation of God's People in America

Last Sunday, I preached out of Amos 2:6-16. This was the text that I was assigned to speak out. It is mostly a text about arrogance and social justice. I have been reading Walter Brueggemann's renown book Prophetic Imagination in which he discusses what he calls "royal consciousness" as opposed to the alternative community of Moses. One of the more important sections is his discussion of the satiation of God's people so that they no longer are concerned about creating this alternative community. Here is a quote from page 37 of his book:

The royal consciousness with its program of achievable satiation has redefined
our notions of humanness, and it has done that to all of us. It has created a
subjective consciousness concerned only with self-satisfaction. It has denied
the legitimacy of tradition that requires us to remember, of authority that
expects us to answer, and of community that calls us to care. It has so
enthroned the present that a promised future... is unthinkable.

I find that we seem to be in a similar situation today. Our faith has been hijacked by American consumerism. Our dreams have been taken captive by "2 cars in every garage and a roast in every oven" type of thinking. We have confused the present with the future God is dreaming. What we need is repentance-- a change from one way of living life to another way.