Dangerous Opportunity

Dangerous Wonder
Critical concerns course with Rich VanPelt and Jim Hancock
Some thoughts:
First of all the presentation is very thorough and like they said they have anticipated many of the questions that the material involves. The presentation seems a little too slick though. The way the two ot hem play off each other seems too scripted and precise. It’s clear to me that Jim and Rich are not disingenuous but I am thinking that in a context where their ministry experience and reputation was not assumed or well known they might come off as such. I also understand their intention with the presentation being as seamless as it is – the material will be covered (less time wasted on rabbit trails).
That said I have appreciated the material and the presentation a lot; especially in light of the recent Risk and Threat Assessment seminar I attended.
There were a few areas that I would have liked to push back on:
-with regard to referrals: they very strongly emphasized the need for youth pastors/workers to refer to outside sources. Now this is actually something I think that I do quite a bit of already. And for the most part I agree with the principals that they are teaching. But this is the statement that bothers me. Youth workers are not counsellors they are disciple-makers. Now I realize that we have many volunteer youth workers and other non professional youth workers and for these people referrals make sense as many situations of interpersonal interaction with kids are going to be out of their depths. But the statement seems to make disciple-making sort of an exclusionary function to counselling. Almost as if counselling is beneath disciple-making. And for me I guess this seems like a false dichotomy. How can we expect to be effective in disciple-making if we are not willing to deal with the baggage that kids bring to the table? We communicate a subtle but powerful message that Christian discipleship is about solved problems and issues when our response to kids baggage is to send them away to get fixed. Now Rich and Jim were clear that we were to stay involved in the kid’s lives but… …If we (youth workers) are the ones being approached with the complexities of counselling situations why is the is it that the best we can offer kids is a professional stranger. I guess I am wondering why there are not stricter demands (especially on paid youth workers) to have counselling qualifications in ministry positions. When we train our volunteers, we should make counselling strategies and objectives a part of the package. I think we only heighten the stigma of counselling by making it the kid of thing that only experts can do. Not only that I think we do communicate to kids that we have more important things to do than to deal with their problems.
That said I have and do refer a lot. I think it is crucial to give kids the best resources to deal with the problems that I can – and there are wonderful people who can deal with these things with greater expertise and experience. I wish there might be more collaborative work between various areas of counselling services. My aim is to find ways to ‘sit in’ on counselling sessions with experts.
I also think that this is an area where a severe disconnect has occurred between secular and ‘religious’ counselling. Because so much of religious counselling has been conducted out of ignorance and lack of training, I think many secular organizations (school counsellors, etc.) are suspicious of collaborating with pastors in counselling situations. With good reason they should be reticent of working with people who are going to be largely ill trained and inexperienced.
With regard to setting up a safe community:
One of the statements that came out was that we need to get rid of all sexual, gender, and racist joking. I agree. Here’s a place where I wish I could push back a bit. First of all they said that in order to create be the type of person who people will approach with problems you need to develop a sense of humour. Last spring I ran a wildly successful overnight trip to SABC with my senior high guys. I made a conscious effort to use the language and idioms that I hear from the boys informally in my teaching on male sexuality. The session proved to be quite funny actually. Now I didn’t make any sexual jokes directly but used all the terms and references that are often made in the joking context. What has been weird is that out of that talk alone I have had so much interaction with guys about male sexual issues.
My point is that we may actually benefit from dealing with some of these issues in a humorous way. Humour has a way of speaking truth and intention that ‘serous’ cannot. I am never interested in derogatory ridicule but I think there is a place to allow the power of humour to unlock the door for honesty, transparency and, actually, safety.
With regard to reaction:
At the R&T Assessment training, we told that you should and can never under-react to crisis. Jim and Rich thought that there might a place where an overreaction might be more damaging. That is an area that could warrant some further discussion/investigation. I realize that in the context of the R&T Assessment Training it does not seems reasonable to under react when the schools population is at stake.

A few other notes about the convention so far…
Hooked up with Darren and Judy and saw their offspring. There is a lot of personal pride I feel when I see Darren in ministry for 5 years now.
More tomorrow