Jesus HEART U on your bumper…

So today on my way home from school I am listening to CBC radio – like the geek that I am. The feed is from Calgary so after 3pm I get to hear about Calgary traffic woes – which all seems a little pedestrian…

The traffic reporter comes on with her litany of fender benders, tow trucks this and that and a handful of road closures. Turns out today the weather  and not the usual ineptitude of Calgary’s drivers that is the worst enemy of the homeward bound commute. It is some freakishly cold temperature and blowing snow – etc, etc. Apparently, there are several hills in Calgary that can in these conditions get quite icy and make progress up the hill largely impossible. This is not a reasonable calculation to many Calgarian drivers as they unheedingly attempt to rocket their way up these inclines (let’s be clear these are not really challenging grades except for Albertans whose predilection for flat open spaces seems to hinder their judgement of rudimentary principles of physics). Squiggling and swerving out of control as they were the traffic stacks up behind them.

“It seems a group of high school boys are out there on Center Street helping to push cars up the hill”

The traffic reporter barely even squeezes the words out – but my mind is popping. i know that area of Calgary and I know that there is a small Mennonite church sitting basically at the bottom of that hill. I know too that there is a volunteer youth worker at that church who has led small groups of high school boys for years. Its weird but somehow I know the number of the church and after I call it my hunch is confirmed: his small group of boys had not even gotten down to doing their Bible Study they had spent the whole time pushing cars up the hill.

I told him his group had made the traffic report. “Shoot,” he said, “we didn’t want to get noticed.”

Sometimes, I hear evangelicals debating evangelism over service formerly known as the Social Gospel. I think that argument ought to be put to bed at least for a good long rest. The answer is simple.

I wonder if sometimes this debate is entertained because we are just looking for the easiest way to appease the guilt we face when we encounter the servanthood that characterized Jesus ministry. Some people argue that there is little point to good deeds if we can’t somehow communicate the reason for our good works. Rubbish! Jesus didn’t teach us to do good deeds because they will allow us to do some other more important thing. Jesus did good things – he served people – because it was the best thing he could do for them. That’s it! No other agenda!

Could it be that we somehow think that the ‘telling’ will allow us to get away with doing less for people? I mean follow the logic. Maybe our desire to share the gospel with people is actually a result of the fact that we really are not that interested in serving them wholeheartedly. Maybe we think well if THEY have Jesus they probably will pull THEMSELVES up by the boot straps and put their lives back together. Or maybe we think – I’m not totally willing to serve THEM (you Jesus called this bringing Kingdom of Heaven to the earth) so I will at least make sure that I seal their eternal fate by telling them about Jesus. Or maybe worst of all we think that some flimsy act of randomish kindness that cost us very little is actually meaningful to the receiver of that gift and that adding the phrase “because Jesus loves you!” really cuts the mustard. Dude! Let’s give our heads a shake if that is where we are at!

That’s what I thought about when I heard about these boys. Okay so in some ways maybe their service was not the deepest most engaged action they could have taken. Who knows? But I do know that when they saw a REAL problem they rolled up their sleeves and pitched in. Done. No – hey I am gonna push you up the hill and write Jesus hearts U on your dirty bumper as you drive off. These guys were even bummed to get mentioned on the traffic report!

Look all I’m saying is until we are willing to serve people in as much depth as Jesus was we should probably SHUT UP about claiming to do things in his name – THAT’s ALL!

Retreats

In many recent conversations I have heard youth pastors wondering aloud about the merits of youth retreats. Many have expressed serious questions about whether these retreats are the right approach in helping students grow in their faith. Now retreats can come in two basic types – the spiritual growth type or the social bonding type based on the objectives of the leaders. To be fair both spiritual growth and social bonding happen at both types of events but each one has some basic expectations. You hardly expect to take kids to YC in Edmonton and not come away with some report of kids changing their lives (the church board chairman would like that report on his desk tomorrow Paul). It the 'spiritual growth' type of retreats that most of the questions have centered on in my discussions. Here's the questions I have heard - -

Do we do more harm than good by isolating these kids for a weekend completely void of the natural stimulus around them in their normal life? Does a decision made at one of these retreats actually seem less likely to 'stick' with the kids?

When you look at the problem from the point of view of classical conditioning – we need to raise some important questions. We know that kids some to these retreats full of crappy coping mechanisms to deal with the dysfunction in their lives. Their coping strategies are played out in what we would call defeated Christian discipleship (in the case of pre-followers we might even call them their sinful ways). Kid's behaviour is typically challenged at these retreats. Stop sleeping around, stop smoking, stop being a dick to your friends, stop and follow Jesus. Do the stuff he wants you to do – be nice to your friends, treat others with respect, help poor people etc… Kids normal behaviour doesn't measure up to these convicting pleas from the front/preacher/pastor so they naturally feel guilty – often confess their sin and promise to live a more devoted life. A week or two after the retreat it is not uncommon to find these kids right back in the old groove – doing the same old things – and often worse. Defeated lots of kids wander away. Psychologists can identify this easily as a result of classic conditioning. Kid's normal world conditions them to respond in a certain way. The retreat is an opportunity to eliminate the regular stimulus and give a person the opportunity to cease the bad behaviour. What is tough is that according to classical conditioning we know that merely one exposure to the original stimulus can trigger a recurrence of the original behaviour. Add on top of that the new found guilt that the kid has just acquired on the retreat and we can compound the effect of the negative action with the added stigma of broken promises etc etc.

Of course classical conditioning is not the only thing at work at these retreats but sometimes I wonder if we don't recognize it and respect it enough to develop more effective strategies of discipleship training that can actually help kids deal with the stimulus they find themselves in every day normally…

Mmmhhmmm

thanks to Everette for turning me on to this one

I was right.

I think.
The most valuable tool that we can give adolescents as they grow is the ability to value questions. More specifically, it is crucial that we focus not on giving them the information that will guide their lives but the appropriate tools to accommodate the knowledge they will acquire throughout their lives. This is especially true with regard to any spiritual training we seek to engage in.
In my classes already I have noticed a systematic, both subtle and overt, rejection of Christianity as viable in comparison to scientific understanding. Rejection of spirituality in general has been strong but Christianity has suffered more derision. I think this is due to the fact that Christianity, in general, is perceived to be rigid – portraying itself to be infallible and dogmatic. This is especially true since I am taking mostly courses in the humanities – I think.
As an aside: I wonder if the reason some of the humanities seem to be railing against Christianity is due to their own feelings of illegitimacy within the intellectual pursuits of academia. Almost like, “At least we are not so naïve as those Christians who believe in superstitions.”
The attack on Christian belief has been ardent. And I can imagine that students who adhere to ‘the faith’ might find themselves struggling with the often black-and-white nature of the faith they have been given to adopt. And I suspect the hand wringing at the local Christian women’s league is duly justified when they hear of little Tommy or Cindy losing their way spiritually due to the big bad world of university. This only serves to heighten the fear factor that motivates most Christian churches to concentrate their education with filling their children with information.
Instead over the last few years I have been convinced that far more important than giving children and adolescents the information of faith (quantity), they need to be given the tools with which to engage in the discovery of the mystery of faith. My experience in the first few days of university seems to quantify my convictions.
As a result I think a shift needs to happen. A) We need to work extremely hard to allow wonder to be a central part of our programming. We need to establish a safe place where kids can feel free to discover and test ideas about faith without being rushed, accused or pacified. B) We need to actively teach spiritual methodology. We need to foster the ability to debate important theological and doctrinal issues within the context of a loving community. We need to build the tools like discovery, research, literary criticism, historical contextualization, and original languages way earlier in the process of spiritual pedagogy. Along side that, we need to convey to kids, the disciplines and mystical practices that lead to revelation and affirmation of truth. C) Above all we need to help make these things priorities for parents to practice with their kids.
I remember hearing the alarm from one of our Bible College personnel regarding how terribly illiterate kids were about the Bible as they entered Bible College. It seemed alarming at the time that churches did not seem to be doing a good enough job of downloading the contents of the Scriptures into the minds of children in such a way as to be able to spew it out on command. And it’s probably true that local churches have become lax in their approach to Christian education. But I think that target outcome is skewed as well. I think we miss the mark if we aim to give kids all the information about faith without the tools to really appropriate it personally and practically in the context of real life.
So when we give room for open and careful discussion. When we wander away from the script and play in the margins while honoring the narrative of the text - we do a more honest job of conveying real faith than if we do it the way it has been done for years. And when professors and teachers and pastors take seriously their role as disciplemakers you end up with students who can lean on the learning passed on to them. So thank-you Gil, Mark, Ryan, Jeff, Andre, Gord, Mike, Paul, James, and Mom and Dad for being just that sort of person…

more scandrette

To go with my comments over here about decision making here is what I read from Scandrette this morning:
“Are we apprentices of Jesus when we say we are, or when we begin to do the things he taught? Are we willing to take Jesus seriously as the kind of teacher he intended to be? Hearing the message of Jesus in a way that can be good news for us in the here and now begins with an appreciation for the fact that he spoke with authority. Very simply, Jesus expected to be obeyed. He did not present an esoteric theory of God or the afterlife merely to stimulate the intellect. He believed he held the words of eternal life and that people would ignore his teachings at their own peril.”