Youth Specialties Blog
Deep Justice Stories
By Adam McLane on May 14 2009 | 2 Comments
Great stuff is continuing to come out of Fuller Youth Institute on their Deep Justice research project. As we mentioned a few weeks back, they have a brand new training curriculum for short term missions. Of course, it’s not just about selling books and curriculum. Kara Powell points out, “We intend to spur a movement — one we believe God is already stirring among youth ministries and families nationwide — toward missions and service that draws us all deeper into the true shalom-wholeness of God’s kingdom work.“
Here are a few things I want to point you towards.
- First, contribute a story about what God is doing in your neighborhood or worldwide through the efforts of teenagers in your ministry. Go to their stories page to learn how your story can add to their project via video, images, and text.
- Second, join the Fuller Youth Institute’s Facebook group. It’s a very active group. They are making a great effort to connect youth ministry practitioners with youth ministry academia. I’d suggest you get engaged with them.
- Third, join in the discussion! Kara and Brad are posting some fantastic discussion questions on their Facebook group. The other day Brad asked the provocative question, “Short-term missions or Spiritual Tourism?“ You know you want to chime in on that one.
By Adam McLane on May 14 2009 | 2 Comments
YS Mystery Box!
By Adam McLane on May 01 2009 | 8 Comments
In about a month Youth Specialties is relocating a few miles to the east in El Cajon, California. As part of the move we have to purge a lot of books. And when I say a lot of books, I literally mean tons of miscellaneous Youth Specialties resources!
Typically, a company would just fill a dumpster with this and send it to a landfill. But we looked at this mountain of books and DVDs and recognized that we could give them to people who would use them AND we could help benefit a Christian organization in San Diego that is doing amazing things mentoring inner-city students to become first generation college students. (If you went to NYWC 2008, you may remember when we highlighted their Seriously Ridiculous story.)
With that, the idea of The Mystery Box was born.
How it Works
- Make a donation of $20 (or more) to Reality Changers. [Learn about Reality Changers here. Make your donation here.] <— WIN FOR REALITY CHANGERS!
- Youth Specialties will mail you a box of at least 4 resources. (May include books, curriculum, DVD, or other YS resource.) <— WIN FOR YOUTH SPECIALTIES!
- Your donation helps a student participate in a mentorship program that prepares them to be a first generation college student. <— WIN FOR A STUDENT!
- You get at least 4 Youth Specialties resources. <— WIN FOR YOU!
Our goal is to ship at least 100 mystery boxes and raise
You guys are amazing! We reached our goal in just 5 days. You keep donating and we’ll keep shipping mystery boxes!
Youth Specialties isn’t making a dime on this. 100% of the proceeds of the after-shipping costs of the sale go directly to Reality Changers. Which is why we’re shipping everything as cheap as we can! (More money for Reality Changers) Also, we’re only guaranteeing you will get 4 Youth Specialties resources. We can’t guarantee which ones, sadly we can’t fulfill special requests.
How Can You Help?
- Make a donation and get a Mystery Box!
- Blog about this, share this on Facebook, make a video about it and post it to YouTube, email other youth workers this blog post… help us spread the word!
By Adam McLane on May 01 2009 | 8 Comments
2.93 Steps Back
By Adam McLane on April 27 2009 | 6 Comments
The other day we posted a new video about our newly-released short-term missions curriculum Deep Justice Journeys. In the video, Kara makes the statement that when we return from many short-term mission (STM) trips, it’s like taking 3 steps forward and 2.93 steps back.
2.93 steps. Indeed, far short of the transformation we hope for when we invest so much time, energy, funding, and expectation into a week or two away “getting our hands dirty for Jesus.” But let’s be honest: have you ever felt that way before?
I sure have. I remember the time we included a particular student on a team who had shown incredible promise that this would be transformative in his life. Apparently we were wrong. It was quite a trip, but within a few months that kid was stealing cold medicine from the local pharmacy and selling pills at youth group. That was one of his tamer moves over the next couple of years.
Research by folks like Kurt Ver Beek and Bob Priest have been stirring up conversations for the past few years on whether STM is really leading to long-term transformation, both among those who go and those who host them in their homes and communities. As we, along with research partners Terry Linhart and Dave Livermore, summarized some of that research when we were developing this project:
- The explosive growth in the number of STM trips among both kids and adults has not been accompanied by similar explosive growth in the number of career missionaries.
- It’s not clear whether or not participation in STM trips causes participants to give more money to alleviate poverty once life returns to “normal.”
- Participating in a STM trip does not seem to reduce participants’ tendencies toward materialism.
So what now? While we certainly hope our Deep Justice Journeys model will impact STM in youth ministry, our much bigger Kingdom dream is that the conversations and changed practices that emerge from many, many more voices will help reduce the number of steps we take back.
Maybe a few years from now, we’ll all be able to say that our trips lead to three steps forward, then three more after that, and three more after that…
What about you? How have you seen growth in the practices you’ve incorporated around missions and service in your ministry? We’d love to get some conversations stirring!
Brad Griffin is the Associate Director of the Fuller Youth Institute, where he gets to develop research-based training for youth workers. A native Kentuckian, Brad now lives in Pasadena with his wife Missy and their three children. After 13 years in youth ministry, he now volunteers in student and worship ministries at NewSong Church.
By Adam McLane on April 27 2009 | 6 Comments
Leading a Deep Justice Journey
By Adam McLane on April 23 2009 | 6 Comments
As a youth pastor I always struggled with short-term trips. It wasn’t that I couldn’t get students to go. It wasn’t even that I had a hard time raising the money. The thing I’ve always struggled with was to focus my group on the questions of why? Students and parents have a natural tendency to focus the pre-trip, trip, and post-trip on the wrong questions… “What are we doing? How are we getting there? How much is it going to cost? Will they be safe?” While those questions need to be answered they aren’t the primary reason for the trip, nor are they what the take-away from a short-term mission trip should be.
Kara Powell and Brad Griffin have broken down tons of research from the Fuller Youth Institute into a brand new short-term missions curriculum that will help you focus your students on discovering Deep Justice Jouneys on their short-term trips.
On Monday, Brad has a guest post which explores more about Kara’s statement in the video, “On mission trips they seem to take 3 steps forward and 2.93 steps back.“
Until then I’m curious, what has been your biggest struggle with leading short-term mission trips?
By Adam McLane on April 23 2009 | 6 Comments
Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors blog tour
By Adam McLane on April 07 2009 | 1 Comments
Check out the book. Follow the tour at these stops. (More coming!)
Monday- April 6th: YS Blog interview with Adam McLane
Tuesday- April 7th: Dan Mayes and Tim Schmoyer
Wednesday- April 8th: Tash McGill
Thursday- April 9th: Marko and Patti Gibbons
By Adam McLane on April 07 2009 | 1 Comments
Inside the Mind of Mark Riddle
By Adam McLane on April 06 2009 | 3 Comments
The other day I had a chance to sit down via iChat with Mark Riddle, the author of Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors. In this interview you’ll get the chance to learn a little more about Mark Riddle as well as hear his heart for youth pastors. Since Mark serves as a senior pastor and consults with churches about their youth ministries, I think you’ll really enjoy his insight.
Note: Sorry about the audio, it didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped. If you know of an easy way to capture these types of interviews better, please let me know.
By Adam McLane on April 06 2009 | 3 Comments
Secret Survivors
By Adam McLane on February 20 2009 | 0 Comments
I spent nearly 10 years as a youth pastor. And many times I would meet with students who had a lot on their minds. I could see it in their lives, they knew I could see it, but finding the right words or time was just awkward. These students struggled to find me safe enough to talk to about their secrets. I always hoped that there were be a place or a resource that I could refer them to where they would feel safe faster. Eventually, most of those students found someone in our ministry, whether it was me or someone else, yet I always hoped for something better.
Secret Survivors touches on many struggles that students often deal with behind a veil of secrecy.
Jen Howver, co-author of Secret Survivors, said this “We know there are people out there with secrets; people who are hurting deeply and feel alone. We wanted to give them a place where they could go to find other people who might understand their pain and offer hope for healing. Knowing the power of stories, we’re hoping that on the YouTube channel people will feel encouraged to share their own secrets and take steps towards becoming survivors themselves.“
As a youth worker, I have a feeling this is right up your alley. Let me tell you about two things you can do.
1. You can plug your students into the Secret Survivors channel on YouTube. This morning I talked to a youth leader who was going to read the books with her students and get them talking. The YouTube channel is an awesome way to take that interaction from theoretical to real world.2. You can join the blog tour. Starting on April 6th the YS Blog will be hosting a blog tour for Secret Survivors. If you want to join, buy the book and shoot me an email [adam@youthspecialties.com] letting me know you want in. I can connect you to the authors so you can ask a few questions about the book, and then I’ll link to your blog post here on the YS Blog.
Jen and Megan have set-up a website as well, you can check out the Secret Survivors site right here.
By Adam McLane on February 20 2009 | 0 Comments
