Techno backlash: Cool kids are leading a technology revolt and unplugging gadgets in order to reconnect with one another, says major British newspaper The Independent. This has been predicted for sometime.¹ But the thing that is important for youth ministry, the thing I want to highlight, is something that The Independent article glosses. What’s happening here is NOT a backlash against the disconnection produced by things that plugin; this is a backlash against the disconnection that our society fosters whether plugged in or unplugged. The 20th century was largely about assuming that technology is the answer to societal woes. It’s not, but neither is disconnecting from technology. The technology isn’t the issue.

The church gets caught up in this frenzy as well: Should we include or exclude technology from ministry and worship? Even Emergent churches get caught in this trap. Unfortunately, inclusion and exclusion discussions aren’t the heart of the matter because they’re responses to the wrong issue. The real issue is a matter of disconnection from self, others and the divine. The real issue is much deeper than technology; it’s one that the church in its true missional fullness is called to respond to by offering communion with God and others — something which technology or the exclusion of technology can’t fix. Unfortunately, we’re often too busy arguing about Powerpoint backgrounds and whether there should be a projection screen in the sanctuary to take notice of the deeper longing of the human soul that the church has been divinely equipped to respond to.

Sunday School for Atheists: Just when Christians were all but ready to give up on Sunday school (actually I gave up long ago), atheists are jumping on the bandwagon offering children lessons in humanist thought and apologetics. Read the Time magazine article.

Emerging Adulthood: Books and Culture has an interesting essay by sociologist Chris Smith on Jeffrey Arnett’s proposal of a developmental phase between adolescence and full adulthood called emerging adulthood. The concept is a few years old, but it really appears to be taking off. Emerging adulthood appears to be the new de facto way of referring to 18 to 25 year olds in recent articles I’ve read in the Journal of Adolescence and elsewhere.

1. The last time I heard a prediction like this was by Zach Suchin, CEO of College Tonight during The Millenials conference in NYC. Also, keep in mind that this involves a minor subset of youth and is a trend that’s not likely to go mainstream. One of the things I know well from my days in journalism is that the status quo doesn’t sell newspapers, so as journalists we have to cover the new and novel regardless of how minor the movement may be. [↩]

Every good youth minister has occasional need for the fresh stock photo, desktop wallpaper image, or worship background. And since clip art went out of style with parachute pants the need for quality images for newsletters, promos, and the like is never ending. Here are my recommendations for finding the best (cheap or free) images available on the web: (more…)

Presence-Centered Youth Ministry: Guiding Students into Spiritual Formation by Mike King. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006, 192pp., $15.00, paper.

My Thoughts in a Nutshell: First, this is a great book, but King stumbles into giving us a new aesthetic for youth ministry (candles for couches) in places that he thinks he’s instilling a new theological outlook. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some serious rethinking of youth ministry going on here — it’s a book that should be read — but it leaves some serious theological work to be done lest we find that practices are just the latest and greatest way to attract teens. If the primary rationale for incorporating practices into youth ministry is that they work with this generation (an instrumental argument), then these “heirlooms of the faith” will be quickly discarded when they no longer seem to hold the allure of fresh and new. King shows us what the latest youth ministry fad is — presence-seeking practices — but he doesn’t make a strong argument for why this must not be a fad and why we cannot afford to let the incorporation of practices into youth ministry rest merely on instrumental grounds. That work is yet to be done, but if it doesn’t happen quick, the whole practices movement is going to be discarded like last month’s Group magazine.

Review

The sweeping shift in youth ministry from programs to practices is brought to an evangelical audience in Presence-Centered Youth Ministry as Mike King delves into a re-visioning of evangelical thought on the subject. The book begins with an autobiographical glimpse of King’s adolescent experiences in a mainline church and follows him through his “conversion” to Christian fundamentalism and ultimately a tempered evangelicalism. Along the way we get a glimpse of King twenty and thirty years ago as a fundamentalist youth minister trained to draw teenagers to the altar with “psychological methodology” in order to reduce “sales resistance for the Holy Spirit” (19). In a confessional tone King admits that many of his “efforts were actually detrimental to the Christian formation of adolescents” and he sets out on a new “journey to pursue God” in a refreshed evangelicalism (21). (more…)

Sleep, Teens and Cognitive Development: From NY Magazine, “Overstimulated, overscheduled kids are getting at least an hour’s less sleep than they need, a deficiency that, new research reveals, has the power to set their cognitive abilities back years.” Not a whole lot new here if you’ve been watching the news on sleep and teenagers, but this one of the most comprehensive articles I’ve seen (props to YSMarko).

. . . Blame it on Junk Sleep: Also, why aren’t teens getting the sleep they need? Stress and overscheduling to be sure. But this article also blames it on Junk Sleep — the kind of sleep teens get when cell phone calls and text messages arrive at all hours of the day and night. (It’s also the kind of sleep you get with a new baby in the house. I’m looking forward to this in the days to come. . . NOT). Here’s another article on Junk Sleep from Reuters.

Archbishop of Canterbury “Attacks” the United States: Well, that’s how Reuters puts it in this article. Rowan Williams has some harsh words for the United States in an interview given to a Muslim magazine. I think his assertion that the British took the moral high ground during colonization is a bit off, but his assessment of the United States may not be. Either way, it’s causing a firestorm.

Philosophy Major? We Want You: Apparently philosophy majors are all the rage in the U.K. Yay! My undergrad degree is finally worth something. Although, I didn’t pay attention much in college, so I tell everyone I have a B.S. in philosophy. (There’s a joke in there, sit with it a moment.) In other news, youth ministry degrees are still worthless.

At the behest of the Pennsylvania State Pastor’s Convention I’ve been toying recently with the question, “How does online social networking affect adolescent understandings of belonging and membership?” I think it’s an interesting question, one that I ultimately broadened to include issues of both belonging and identity as they relate to a variety of technologies, not just social networking like MySpace and Facebook. Text messaging, blogging, MMORPG’s, and virtual worlds all contribute to how youth understand community and personal identity. These were the issues I tackled during a plenary session at the convention in Harrisburg earlier this month. I don’t have a recording of the PA event, but you can see my first stab at the issues in a lecture (video) I gave November 1 at Princeton Seminary. It’s rough, but gives a good glimpse at some of the thoughts I’ve been exploring lately. Luckily, I was able to refine the lecture for the pastor’s convention, and I figure that after I present this material another 8 to 10 times I might actually like what I have to say.

Delinquent Virgins? This one will likely create some hot discussion in the weeks to come. “A new study by University of Virginia clinical psychologists has found that teens who have sex at an early age may be less inclined to exhibit delinquent behavior in early adulthood than their peers who waited until they were older to have sex. The study also suggests that early sex may play a role in helping these teens develop better social relationships in early adulthood” (from a UVa press release). The UVa site carries an audio interview with lead researcher K. Paige Harden. A Washington Post article on the study is here. Newsweek has also carried a (meandering) opinion piece related to the study.

Facebook Drops “is”: The word is out that Facebook is dropping the mandatory verb from the status field. (And there was much rejoicing.)

Games as Religion: Mother Jones includes a photo essay of teenage boys in poses that bear striking resemblance to religious imagery. Saints in the making? No, teenagers playing video games (props to YSMarko).

Intimacy and IM: New survey results from AP and AOL show that 43% of teens have used IM to say something they would not say in person (props to Ypulse).

I lectured recently on neuroscience and youth ministry for Kenda Creasy Dean’s Advanced Studies in Youth, Church and Culture. Yes, teenagers and brains. Everybody seems to have a joke about the teenage brain, or the lack thereof. In more than a decade of youth ministry I’ve heard my fair share of snide comments from pastors and laity alike about the mental ineptitude of the youth I work with. You mean they have a brain? The teenagers in my house are brain dead. And the comments keep coming.

Of course, contrary to popular conception, neuroscientists are finding that the teenage brain is a place of incredible activity. There are roughly 100 billion neurons firing away within the human brain, and teenage brains are no exception. In fact, teenagers appear to have more neurons than they will by the time they turn 25. But one difference (among many) between teen and adult brains is that there is an incredible plasticity to the teenage brain. It’s being shaped and moulded in amazing ways. The 100 billion neurons of the teenage brain are still in the process of forming synaptic connections to other neurons. Key areas of the teenage brain have not yet become all that they will be. In light of plasticity and the 100 billion neurons of the teenage brain, it was with interest that I stumbled upon this: (more…)

Morning came early today as Evan and I caught an express train to NYC for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Last year we braved the parade in frigid temperatures and rain, so we were looking forward to today’s forecast of sun and sixty degrees. Apparently, we weren’t alone. The sun turned out along with one of the largest crowds in parade history. (more…)

I’m grading youth ministry midterms tonight and Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy spun its way into my iTunes rotation. The words are oddly apropos, so I’m making it my new Ph.D. theme song:

Yeah, I was out of touch
But it wasn’t because I didn’t know enough
I just knew too much
Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Probably