Open Source Youth Ministry

Cartoon by David Hayward

Emergent, missional, organic, house churches, Kingdom building, global world-view, post-modern, open source, discipleship, multiplication, church planting… all sorts of wonderful buzzwords that have been on my mind in recent years. I have realized, almost to my own surprise, that I’m still evangelically minded at heart (*please read that by the biblical definition of evangel: “good news;” not the relgio-political culture I have grown up in). Of course this means that I have organized the materials available on these topics around me—that is, I read and listen to people like Hirsch, Frost, Cole, Cavey, Viola, Campolo, Wright, Newbigin, Nouwen, and others—and rarely am I not affected and deepened in my thinking as a result of listening to wise voices. With some (like Cavey) I don’t actively seek out materials related to my train of thought for the time being but end up hearing contemporary messages that zap straight to my heart. I’ve often thought of (and actually have, though not quite as sardonically) sending some of these people letters to stop following me for the purposes of tailoring their messages to the context of my life and thought {insert smiley emoticon}.

Most recently I have begun listening to the latest Meeting House series about—wait for it—evangelism, missional community, and organic multiplication. This makes me feel a little bit paranoid since I’ve been devouring Neil Cole’s latest work, Church 3.0, which is about—do I even need to say it—evangelism, missional community, and organic multiplication. Well, that’s not the first time Bruxy has done that to me. So then I arrived at our district assembly and heard a message from General Superintendent Dr. Jerry Porter. Any guesses as to what his message was about? Yup. I made sure to tell him afterwards and about my impending paranoia, to which he chuckled and highlighted the witness of the Holy Spirit (so I guess He’s stalking me too!).

I must say, as much as I’m trying to be funny in all this (and furthermore that this all represents a departure from what is familiar and safe) I am exceedingly encouraged when I discover that where my thoughts, passion, and desires are, though it often feels like I’m going there alone, the Spirit may just be prodding others—wiser, more influential and effective people—with the same desire, passion, and clear message to build the Kingdom.

This is good. Encouragement and passion for the future are two things we definitely need right now. We are in the midst of transition, which isn’t really new for us, but this time around we’ve got a little family (and I’m getting older). In the context of local youth ministry and service to a congregation I’ve been wrestling with questions about the Missio Dei and how on earth we intend to align with God’s missional purpose in a religious system that is so rigid and unspoken. I guess it connects with my non-conformist hippie personality to question the status quo, but I just can’t seem to shake this idea that we can do so much more and be so much effective and experience so much more grace if we are willing to leave the precipice of the building and the rules of the structure and schedule behind. And, as risky as the upcoming move is for us (entailing about 5000km of driving, graduate studies, possible career shift) it is encouraging to know that I’m not really paranoid and that, really, the opportunity to truly test out these ideas is now upon our doorstep (well, at least it will be when we have a place to live).