In evolution, religious belief found "useful"

The Post-Dispatch, here in St. Louis, ran this story about researchers at Wash. U. who are researching religion as an evolutionary response:

Perhaps since the time of Galileo, science and religion have had a gentleman's agreement: You stay out of my business, and I'll stay out of yours. Not any longer. A cadre of scientists, including Washington University anthropologist Pascal Boyer, are trying to explain why, in almost every human culture, people choose belief in God over unbelief — why, it seems, the human brain is wired for belief.And the scientists are finding something that would please Charles Darwin himself: Religion may have evolved through the same rules that led to big brains and opposable thumbs. From an evolutionary standpoint, they have found, belief can be useful."Supernatural beliefs are, in general, very easy extensions from beliefs that are useful in everyday life," Boyer said...

"Believers say, 'You're showing how God interacts with my brain.' Atheists say, 'That's great because it shows that it's nothing more than activity in the brain,'" he said.But Boyer feels that he has been caught in the middle. Believers have accused him of trying to take the mystery away. And atheists have criticized him for not attacking religion enough. He has received hate mail from both sides.

An Open Letter to the Scientists

Dear Scientists of the world,

Please show us that the reason you came to be a scientist is because you wondered about something you didn't know, and that wonder consumed you and drove you.

When someone writes a newspaper article about a new discovery you made, please tell us how many wrong turns your investigation took, how many times you asked the wrong question or missed something. Tell us about how much you kept wondering through the whole thing.

Because when my students see an unbroken string of stories about how we've just proved something, they learn that it's the results that matter, and not the wonder. That curiosity is only good when it's leading to proof. That things we can't see, and don't understand, don't matter until we can, and do.

I love what you're doing for the world, making medicine and cool gadgets and the Showtime Rotisserie. And I know we-- scientists and ministers-- can play nice together, since all the things you're discovering are things God made work that way. So let's make each other's jobs a little easier, and give the world back the gift of wonder, of process, of saying "I don't know."

Thanks,

Isaac

It's a great time to be in ministry

...as this article from the Christian Science Monitor points out.

"The rising interest in spirituality has led many more students to enroll in religion courses or to major in religion, reports The New York Times. Many students choose to live in dorms that allow a focus on matters of faith. Often, these students were raised by baby-boomer parents who did not impose a religion on them, but when faced with difficulties on campus, the students search for answers to tough questions of life."

How do we make this happen?

I had a whole discussion this week with my small group about how they weren't going to read their Bibles. We had a dare, since we're in a series right now about how to use the Bible, which was to pick a number between 3 and 8, and read the Bible that many days between group meetings. The discussion then ran through some of the following comments:

Buddhist student and pastor's kid: "We already know everything about the Bible; we've read it before!"
Fairly reliable student: "What if reading it one time is pretty much impossible?
Me: "How is that impossible?"
FRS: "Well, I'm studying for finals."
Particularly obnoxious student: "Yeah, finals are way more important than the Bible!"
Struggling student: "What if I read the same thing every day?"
POS: "What if I read one word every day?"
Me: "You have to read more than one word at a time."
POS: "What if God was leading me to that one word?"

How do we overcome resistance to reading the Bible because it's too ________ (fill in: boring, old, weird, violent, irrelevant, hard...)? I really want my students to be excited about Scripture because every time I open it something jumps out at me, but they don't seem to be catching on. Help!

Bible will not be declared an "indecent publication"

From Reuters, this story:

HONG KONG (Reuters) - "Hong Kong's media regulator has rejected calls to reclassify the Bible as an indecent publication following more than 2,000 complaints about its sexual and violent content, including rape and incest...

Publications classified as indecent in Hong Kong can only be bought by people aged over 18 and must be sealed in a wrapper with a statutory warning notice."

Finally, a good answer

My students have been asking questions that have both stumped and inspired me in the last couple of weeks, and one that comes out especially often has to do with prayer, and it usually goes "Why won't God give me what I'm praying for?"

This small thought snuck into my mind the other day and won't go away:

We ask for anything we think would be good enough.

But God will only give us what is perfect for us to have.

But why do we have church?

A student came up to me last week and asked, "Why do we have church (meaning the regular Sunday worship)? Why can't we just have youth group and Bible study?

I explained it was because we needed to hear the Gospel and have Communion.

"But why can't we just do that in youth group?" he wanted to know.

I told him it was because we needed a priest to do Communion, and that we needed to hear the sermon.

"But why couldn't the priest just come to the youth group?"

I didn't have a good answer for him that day. But it made me think.

Well, J, the reason we have church is because we need the chance to worship with the whole community. By which I mean this:

If we had the Gospel and Communion in the youth group, we would end up having those things with people who were just like us: young, growing in faith, and without a lot of experience at anything. We would invite Jesus into our little circle and enjoy our time with Him all by ourselves.

We have church because we need to worship with people who are old. People who have a lot of stories to tell with their lives. People who are just beginning to wonder about God. People who are wrestling with Him. People who are different-- in their ages, in their faith development, in their involvement with the church-- from us.

Church is so we can talk to God together.
Church is so we can see the people we pray for.
Church is so we don't ever think we are the only ones who know God, because we're comfortable in our own little way of doing things.

An open letter to all of my students

My dear young friends in Christ,

No, I cannot personally prove to you that God is real. But at the same time, I cannot prove to you that any of the situations you see on reality television would actually happen if there weren't any cameras there, and you believe in those rather easily.

No, having never been there, I cannot personally prove to you that Heaven and Hell are in fact real places. I can also not prove that winning the county Little League championship in third grade will land you a spot on the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals, but you're talking about that as if it's going to happen tomorrow.

No, I cannot personally prove that the Bible records with complete accuracy the miracles Christ performed, since I wasn't there to see them myself. But neither can I prove that the tips you pick up in "Cosmo" will in fact lead you to Mr. Right, and you quote them the way I'd like to hear you quoting the New Testament.

No, it's not possible to completely understand the book of Revelation and Christ's second coming. But if Jesus had a band, and they were reuniting after many years, you'd want to know all about it.

Finally, no, I cannot prove that your friends, family, teachers, co-workers or that guy at the bus stop will understand why you want to live a life that is faithful to God, and not to yourself or to them. But no one understands you anyway.

I love you all with the love of Christ,

Isaac

Skittles: Steal the Rainbow

From MSNBC, this story:

"A man caught removing tires from a truck
has been charged with stealing the tractor-
trailer containing $250,000 worth of Skittles,
police said."

The most odd part of this story is that the Skittles in the stolen trailer were worth $250,000. The tires and rims he was trying to remove and sell were worth $500. I suspect there's a metaphor there, useful for youth Gospel messages.

The difference was, she did it on purpose

"As he went along, he passed a woman in the crowd who had been constantly bleeding for twelve years, and no one could heal her. She thought to herself, 'If I can just touch him, I will be healed.' So she reached out and touched the hem of his robe, and instantly she was healed. Jesus stopped and said to his disciples, 'Who touched me?' They laughed and said, 'Master, the crowd is pressing and jostling against you-- dozens of people have been touching you. How can you ask who it was?' He replied, 'I know someone touched me; I felt power go out from me.' Then the woman, seeing she could not go unnoticed, threw herself at Jesus' feet and in front of the whole crowd told how she had touched him and felt herself instantly healed. Jesus said to her, 'Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace.'"

At the evening prayer service before the Confirmation banquet, I had the honor of reading the Gospel lesson for the day, and the quote at the beginning of this post was part of it. After the service, the story got me thinking.

The whole crowd touched him. Anyone close to Jesus, wanting to hear what he said, bumped up against him and pushed into him on all sides. Some of the crowd was behind him, pushing him forward. Others were in front, trying to hear and lead the way at the same time. They all touched him, but one woman reached out to him. One woman touched him on purpose, knowing that if she could just contact Christ, something would happen to her life.

In this story, where am I? I'd like to automatically say I was with that woman, reaching out to touch Jesus on purpose, but there are some days when I know I'm so familiar with Him that I know I'm probably bumping and pushing, maybe even getting ahead and trying to get Christ to follow me. How do I avoid that state?

And where are my students? I know they're reaching out, but there are many times when I know they're reaching out in the wrong direction. How do I keep them in the crowd so they can hear Christ, and hear from Him which direction they should be pointing?

Above all, I pray that they and I will learn to do all these things on purpose, conscious that something will happen when we contact Christ, even if we underestimate it.

There's a light at the end of this tunnel

...and someday our students will get there, and do things like this: (AP, via NYTimes.com

"Twenty years later, Wiese hauled [her] diary out of storage and read it to a bar full of strangers just for laughs.
''Cringe readings,'' these exercises are called, and they are growing in popularity around the country.
Groups in New York and elsewhere convene to relive what most would rather forget: the depths of their teenage angst. Participants get up on stage with their ragged, old diaries and are instructed to read only material embarrassing enough to make them cringe.
It turns out that embarrassing is also funny. When Wiese appeared at the reading, held monthly at a Brooklyn bar, the room was packed beyond capacity. The 33-year-old fundraiser may have been cringing, but her audience was cheering."

What does this say about my small group?

One of my students brought a friend to small group night this week and shared the following conversation:

"So [my friend] said, 'At my youth group, we watch Rob Bell videos.' And I said, 'yeah, at my church we watch Will It Blend'!"

Doing a bit of thinking

One of the reasons I choose to call myself a rookie, and plan to for my whole career, is to keep me from being arrogant. Yes, I want to be the best youth minister in the world. But that doesn't have anything to do with me, or whatever status might come along with that. It's because God called me to this ministry and He, (and my students) deserve nothing less than that from me.

It's struck home this semester how much I need to avoid arrogance. I've been taking an "Intro to classroom teaching" course and part of the course was a classroom observation series in local schools. I saw some amazing teaching that inspired me to go back to my youth group and immediately start using some of the things I saw. I also saw some really poor teaching; teachers who didn't care, and didn't stretch themselves, so their students stayed right where they started. And I saw some teachers who were right in the middle, doing the very best they could and not seeing many results.

It's easy not to be arrogant in the presence of great teachers, because they are so obviously better at it than me and I am eager to learn from them. It's nearly as easy to avoid arrogance when I'm watching bad teachers, because my thoughts get extreme enough about how much better than that I want to be that I can identify them and stop them right away. But in the middle is the hardest part. In the middle I'm caught between my incredibly high ideals, that get boosted by my education professor, and knowing the reality of how students can often seem callous and non-absorbent.

So in that place, I need to be the most careful. I need to consciously watch for what a teacher cares about. I need to see the small ways (often very small ways) the students show their respect and interest. And however long I'm there, I need to ask myself, "What would make me do the same thing this teacher is doing?" rather than "I can't believe she's doing that... I have a much better plan!"

Arrogance is one of the great killers of great youth ministers. And great teachers. And only when we break through it can we keep on learning.

Don't nobody mess with my radio...

Reverend Fun cartoon used under terms found here.

(C) 2007 Gospel Communications, Inc.

Cheddarvision

www.cheddarvision.tv-- the link goes to a webcam from England that shows a wheel of Cheddar cheese aging. Live.

Here's the YouTube timelapse too.

This is a neat idea. Not only because I love cheese. But also because not everything happens in an instant.

I've been waiting four years (the number of years I've been working directly with confirmation classes) for this to happen. My senior pastor in Michigan used to tell the class it was an option every year, and said he'd never had anyone say it either.

I'd messaged a student to ask for some feedback on our confirmation class, and my student wrote back to me, "I just don't want to be confirmed."

I'll tell you why I was thrilled about this.

Confirmands make promises. It's not just what they promise their youth minister that matters, it's that they promise their congregation and their God that they will, among other things, "continue in the apostles' teaching, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers," something that new members have promised to do since the church in Acts.

Every year, at least one confirmand makes those promises without intending to keep them. Every year, a few of them drift away after confirmation, without really thinking about what a serious breach they're creating between their promises and their actions. Especially in mainline churches, the temptation is to see confirmation as just another ritual, and go through the motions to make your parents happy. (That's a whole separate problem, by the way, not something I'm happy about or working to allow.)

So I'm thrilled because someone finally said, "This just isn't for me." We're not going to lose track of this student. But admitting honest doubt is, even if the doubter doesn't realize it, a step toward honest faith. Someone who says, "No" isn't always saying "Never" but often "I need more time."

One of these things is not like the other...

More hilarity from classroom observations, in the middle school. The lesson talked about the structure of the early church, and how the church modeled itself on the hierarchy of the Roman Empire, with laypeople, then priests, then deacons, then bishops, then archbishops, etc. One student had a question.

Student: A bishop... you mean like a jester?
Teacher: No... bishops and jesters are two completely different things.

Then one student identified the top of the hierarchy, the Pope.

Teacher: That's right. Are you Catholic?
Student: No, I'm Episcopalian.
Other Student: What's an Episcoponian?

Empowerment or worse!

So how's this for an idea that could start out healthy and turn bad in just a few heartbeats?

Mommy and Daddy's Little Life Coach (NYTimes)

"Parents have long depended on their children to be in-house experts on fashion, technology and pop culture, to introduce them to fresh music, purge their closets of ghastly apparel (“mom jeans”) and troubleshoot household electronics. And generations of parents have encouraged their children to weigh in on family decisions like choosing a winter vacation spot or a replacement for the belly-up goldfish.

But the nature and pervasiveness of child-to-parent advice has reached new proportions for a variety of reasons. Many parents — who have shed their status as old fogy untouchables and become pals with their progeny — are treating their offspring as worldly equals. They think of their computer-savvy, plugged-in children as confidants, and so they look to them for advice on life decisions, as well as major purchases: cars, computers, vacation packages, real estate, home décor. "

When I pray in school, it's for more comments like these...

The other day I was observing a middle school social studies classroom on a day when they were hearing a lesson on the early Christians, as part of a unit on Roman history.

Teacher: "Why might Roman roads have helped spread the Christian message?"
Student: "Maybe they had pictures of Jesus on them...?"

Christos anesti! Alethos anesti!

Welcome to a new season of blogging with the Rookie Youthworker! I took a fast from writing on it over Lent for a couple of reasons:

1) I was feeling really pressured to keep putting up awesome useful content, on top of work and school, and needed to step back and rest for a little while.

2) I didn't really know what the blog was for anymore.

God gave me an excellent season during Lent to sit and think and pray about it. Although most of the real progress didn't happen until the end of Lent, the whole time was worth it.

To deal with the problem of pressure, I've decided to re-instate the posting rule I had when I first started the RYW blog in December of 2005. I will post "major" content, aka serious essay-type posts or technique ideas or something to wrestle with and use, three times every week. That way I'll have time to think on them and make sure they're coherent and helpful.

To recover my sense of direction, God and I realized that the blog has three main purposes:

1) To glorify God by serving as a place where youth ministers can wrestle with theology and philosophy of ministry, to make sure the things we do are faithful to His commands.

2) To contribute to the overall state of youth ministry by offering ideas that we can work on, tweak, debate and remodel.

3) To share both humor and information from the world around us that helps us keep our perspective and appreciate the unique context we're working in today.

May God bless you through this blog and we strengthen each other in conversation this year!