Jim Hampton

Dave Rahn

Andy Root

This is a confession of a mind-wandering TV-holic: I find most of what we do in worship gatherings boring (see, I said it). I know your response: Well, when was worshiping God supposed to be entertaining? And why in the world would your boredom be the criteria for a good worship service?

I heard the story about a man who was really into Jesus, was passionate about Jesus, but confessed that he was bored stiff by worship at his church. The passionate follower of Jesus was asked if he would be willing to die for Jesus, if he believed enough that he would die for his beliefs. After thinking and pausing, he responded that he would, that he thought he would be willing die for his love of Jesus. The inquisitor then said, “You mean you’re willing to die for Jesus but not be bored for him?”

Snap (wait, is that now lame to say?). The point of the story is to show the inconsistency in this person’s commitment and to make a point that we shouldn’t make being entertained the criteria for good worship.

I guess I agree, but in a digitally saturated context, boredom and death are somewhat synonymous. What I mean is, in a culture like ours, we are used to being creators—creating things on our social networking sites, creating things by interacting with them. We create and interact to construct meaning. There was a time when the church’s job was simply to give people meaning, and the people in the pews simply swallowed the church’s pill. But this perspective no longer holds. The church is now not the only meaning-creating, pill-popping show in town (to push the analogy too far). In late modernity, meaning has become liquefied, allowing us to create, construct, and rework meaning for ourselves (of course, this has its risks and negatives).

The problem with 9 out of 10 worship gatherings isn’t that they’re necessarily boring; the problem is that they become boring because the worship gatherings don’t invite people to make meaning, to be involved in something meaningful in the worship gathering.

Now, you might say this is just cultural accommodation. Maybe. But theology and ministry have always been a dialogue with culture. But there is also a theological rationale. To confess God as trinity and the Spirit’s continued work calling us into the redemptive work of the Son and creating work of the Father is for us to ourselves participate with God in the process of creation, of wrestling with our humanity and with our God, to live into questions like, What is lifetime, and why do we live it? or Who is this God? What’s missing in worship gatherings is the opportunity to create meaning, to construct theological means.

But how do you do this without it falling into some kind of subjective chaos? In our little church, we are trying to make the prayers of the people the place were the whole congregation is invited to create meaning and do theological reflection. We create this meaning by engaging and seeking God in each other’s narratives of joy and suffering. So we invite anyone to come forward and share their prayers with the congregation, and together we pray. But they are not invited to simply provide a prayer request, like you would provide a list of the needed ingredients for a recipe. Rather, they are invited to share these prayer requests in narrative form. It is one thing to say, “I pray for people without jobs.” It is quite another to say, “I pray for people without jobs because my brother lost his job, and the hurt in his eyes hurts me, and his kids…I worry about his kids.”

In narrative shape, we all are pulled into constructing theological meaning, seeking the action of God next to the stories of suffering and joy. And in the end I think this is what our worship gatherings are missing: an understanding of where God is present and how God moves in our process of creating meaning together. (For more on this, see The Promise of Despair).

Jim Hampton

What I almost never hear from them is that the way they care (or don’t care) for the environment is as much a justice issue as any of these other items. For too many people, our tendency is to hear the word environment and immediately think of tree huggers, environmentalist wackos, or eco-terrorists. And just like with any issue, there are those on the far fringes who give a bad name to the majority of those who are in the mainstream.

The reality, however, is that both Scripture and orthodox theology are unfailing in their reminders that all Christians are called to care for the environment. “God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth’” (Genesis 1:28). It’s clear that “dominion” here clearly means stewardship or nurturing management, not selfish exploitation.

As stewards, we are called to serve God. The garden is his, and humanity is given the opportunity to rule it, to subdue it, and to nurture it in such a way that it continues to thrive in the way God intended. God’s good gifts are given to humanity to oversee. These gifts are not merely for the sake of humanity. They are God’s gifts, given as part of his created order and expressive of his very nature.

When we understand that the environment is really an issue of caring for and nurturing God’s gift, then we begin to understand that it is much more than just about being green. It really comes down to an understanding that, as my former colleague Sandra Richter says,

“the garden belongs to Yahweh…[and humanity] was given the privilege to rule and the responsibility to care for this garden under the sovereignty of their divine lord. This was the ideal plan--a world in which [humankind] would succeed in constructing the human civilization by directing and harnessing the amazing resources of the planet under the wise direction of their Creator. Here there would always be enough, progress would not necessitate pollution, expansion would not demand extinction.¹

When we understand our role as stewards in this way, we view creation care not just as the work of a few but “as an integral part of the faithful following of Jesus Christ and the worship of the Holy Trinity… We are to serve and honor God by caring for his creatures; to worship and glorify God by our work and our enjoyment of the garden God planted.²

So what does this mean for those of us in youth ministry? Let me suggest a few items to think about.

1) That we be intentional about teaching our students (and sponsors) what it means to be stewards of the earth. Our teenagers are idealistic, desperately wanting to make a difference in the world. They may not yet see creation care as a justice issue, but if we show them what the Bible has to say about their role, it may well become one of the most important issues to them, since it affects not just them but the rest of humanity as well.

2) That we be intentional about reducing our impact on the earth. Think about the typical youth group party or activity—lots of paper plates, napkins, and Styrofoam or plastic cups—all of which end up in the landfill, most of which takes a long time (hundreds of years) to properly degrade. In what ways can your group practice recycling or even using plates and cups that can be washed and reused?

3) That we be intentional about renewing the earth. Look around your community and find areas that need the nurture and care of your teenagers. Invite them to see this as an act of justice as they create (or renew) something that benefits others as well as nurtures God’s good gift.

In short, being good stewards of the environment is a justice issue. Love of God requires respect for God's gifts and for God's will for creation. Love of neighbor requires justice, which prohibits the selfish destruction of the environment without regard for those in need today or for the needs of future generations. ³

Mike King

God’s creative work was good and whole, so God ceased creating on the seventh day. Shalom saturated all of God’s creation, a shalom of wholeness, peace, and beauty. This shalom was to be the state in which all of God’s creation existed and flourished. But as the creation narrative unfolds, we are told that human beings sinned and disobeyed God, introducing a brokenness that would bring destruction and interruption to God’s shalom for all creation. Human beings are not the only part of creation to bear the consequences and brokenness of sin. In Romans 8, Paul tells us that creation itself is in bondage to decay and that the whole creation has been groaning.

Francis Schaeffer wrote, "...nature: it is not our own. It belongs to God, and we are to exercise our dominion over these things not as though entitled to exploit them, but as things borrowed or held in trust.

We are to use them realizing they are not ours intrinsically. Man's dominion is under God's dominion" (Pollution and the Death of Man, 1970, p. 69).

God’s mission is to redeem and restore creation to shalom. God is liberator and has invited the people of God to join as co-agents of restoration. Unfortunately, we have not cooperated very well with the Spirit of God. In fact, for the most part, it seems that we have worked against God’s plan. Wendell Berry declares, “Our destruction of nature is not just bad stewardship, or stupid economics, or a betrayal of family responsibility; it is the most horrid blasphemy. It is flinging God's gifts into his face, as of no worth beyond that assigned to them by our destruction of them”(Cross Currents, Summer93, Vol. 43 Issue 2, p149, 15p.). In response to Berry’s assertion, I pray, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy upon me, a sinner.

How can we, God’s children, participate in such sloppy stewardship (at best) or flippant destructive behavior (as the norm) toward God’s wonderful creation? Yes, I understand how a whole generation of our fathers and mothers were turned off to environmental issues by tree-hugging crazies, but we must get beyond that stereotype and get on with recovering a theological and scriptural warrant for engaging in environmental justice.

Using the phrase “environmental justice” works for me for several reasons. First of all, our world belongs to God, and to misuse it is an injustice toward God. Secondly, it is often the poorest and most marginalized people who experience the greatest harm from a sick environment.

It wasn’t that long ago (40 years) when throwing trash out the car window wasn’t that big of a deal. But today, few people would even consider littering. The young people in our youth groups are much more environmentally aware today than the older generations of their youth workers. We have a wonderful opportunity to help them see that this is more than a political issue. This is a theological issue. This is a biblical issue. This is a spiritual issue. We must help our young people see how environmental care is a significant part of the narrative of God’s work of restoration.

I remember being mesmerized by the enchanted planet Pandora in the movie Avatar. The 3D animation allowed the flying creatures and animals to escape the screen and enter the movie theater. The luminescent fauna and flora were exotic. It hit me, as I watched the ground illuminate around each footprint of Neytiri and Jake as they navigated the mysteriously beautiful rainforest, that the planet I live on is equally enchanted. The beauty of creation is all around me—trees, flowers, clouds, sunsets, rainfall, thunder and lightning, waterfalls, mountains, streams, deserts; plus, creatures of all shapes, sizes, and kinds too numerous to count. What a wonderful world we live in, and what an amazing Creator we have. We have been blessed to live on such an amazingly beautiful planet. For the glory of God, let’s steward well that which has been entrusted to us by our Creator.

Dave Rahn

I’m pretty sure the weight of the argument for promoting justice comes from Micah’s (6:8) succinct summary of what most of the prophets had to say: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

“Deep justice” conversations (spotlighted by Fuller Youth Institute) have become all the rage in youth ministry; this is clearly a wonderful corrective to shallow ministry approaches. It is clear that the favored son in this question is the idea of practicing justice. But is this critically important concept worthy of being elevated to a status previously reserved for only the grandest purposes of God—to love God and our neighbors with all our hearts, souls, and minds; to participate with God as agents of reconciliation until all things are right in the created order; to glorify God and make him known throughout all the world?

I confess that I wish the key word in these discussions were reconciliation instead of justice. Something powerful and almost exclusively related to my systemic social obligations as a Christian gets watered down when I press the concept of justice into larger service.

On the other side of the equation, I feel I have to reframe the idea of justice to accommodate my interpersonal service and truth-telling obligations. I believe that justice is a strong and demanding arena of obedience for Christians. We ought to be careful that we don’t dilute the strength of justice by stretching it too far and asking it to carry too much.

Caring for the environment is part of what it means to be an agent of reconciliation. Every relationship in the universe—including how I interact with creation—has been fractured because of sin. Jesus’ grand plan is to reverse the trajectory of this spiritual and moral Big Bang, uniting all things in him (Ephesians 1:10). I fully embrace this vision of what it means for me to follow Christ.

Having said that, I still stare with appreciation into the heart of this question. It introduces me to a connection I’ve never made before. Given the definitions I would prefer (but not insist on—I’m a pretty amiable fellow on such matters!), it is still likely that my own choices to care for the environment have ripple effects that extend to social systems and their impact on the poor. Recycling is probably not a first-generation justice issue, like, say, cheating the poor out of their due wages. But a planet that is sick affects everyone, and it is almost a certainty that those who are weakest have the least capacity to stave off their demise. In God’s ultimate design of an interdependent world, I can either victimize or help rescue others with every choice I act upon—including those that are green.

The question on the table infers that we might engage in justice-practicing strategies that focus on environmental care. I want to humbly suggest that this is an unnecessary roundabout. Let’s practice justice and care for the environment as matters of personal obedience and simple trust in God. We should not feel the need to do advanced mathematical calculations about the way he connects the dots.

Chris Folmsbee

Before I list what I believe are some very important genres to be reading and interacting with, let me first give a few reasons why I think reading helps youth workers. For many youth workers it isn’t so much a question of which genre to be reading but whether one chooses to read at all. Last week I asked a youth worker if he had read a certain book. His response? “I don’t have time to read.”

5 Very Simple Reasons Why Youth Workers Should Read

Reading can ignite your imagination. We all know the importance and effects of an active imagination. I speak to youth workers who often tell me they are bored with their jobs. While working with people is different all the time, the ways that these youth workers work with people is often ordinary and repetitive. Reading can help lift you out of the mundane and inspire you to new ideas and practices.

Reading can help you become a better communicator. Regularly interacting with the thoughts of others through reading can help you develop a better vocabulary, better understand how to construct sentences, provide examples of ways in which to bring new definition to an old word, etc.

Reading can help you become a better communicator simply because you interact more with language and words. Experiencing the use of words through others can help you build a meaningful array of useful words to use in your own context.

Reading can help you stretch you. We’re all lifelong learners, or at least should be. So reading the thoughts, ideas, etc., of others can often lead you to think about topics you might not normally think about. For me, it is often the ideas of others that lead me to thinking beyond myself. Most of the time I am forced to think about new and challenging things through reading the thoughts of others, not through my own discovery.

Reading can be a stress reliever. Because so many of us take on the stress of others and pile it on our own stressors, we need to have direct outlets of relief. Some fish, hunt, golf, or play Wii. Some read. Reading can stimulate your mind and at the same time be a creative and healthy way to relax. Some of you already know this because this is how you relax. Others of you have never tried it. If you haven’t tried to read for relaxation’s sake, give it a try. You might be surprised how it helps you.

Reading can help you do your job better. A lot of what we read is either directly or indirectly the experiences of others through story. Often the experience of others can help us realize our strengths or weaknesses. You can learn about yourself through reading, and you can learn a lot about how to do your job better through the successes and failures of others. The most recent example of this for me is the book Rework, by Fried and Hansson.

Book Genres Youth Workers Should Read:

• Theology: because youth ministry is a theological endeavor.

• Leadership: because we all need to be better leaders.

• Education: because so much of what we do is teach.

• Sociology: because the world and people change, and we need to know how and why.

• Religious: because other faith traditions have good thoughts on life too.

• Art/Culture: because the creative expressions of others can help you be more creative yourself.

• Politics: because youth workers are citizens too.

• Anything else that makes you smile, laugh, or just plain have fun and relax: because if you don’t, one day the stress will become so overwhelming that you’ll think throwing in the towel is the best solution. It may be the best solution, but let it be because you decided it, not that another factor or set of circumstances decided it for you.

Mike King

One of the recent books deserving the must-read label for youth workers is Andy Root’s Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry: From a Strategy of Influence to a Theology of Incarnation.

With that out of the way, I will organize my response to the question above into two categories.

First Category: Books that help you become a better youth worker.

I believe there are books that should be read by youth workers who are involved in the Christian formation of young people in the realm of an ecclesial context. Yes, this category includes books written specifically for youth workers directly, but I believe this category should primarily be made up of books not written specifically for youth workers. We should be reading books that help us think more deeply about faith, ecclesiology, anthropology, sociology, adolescent development, culture, history, business, leadership, communication, economics, psychology, and above all, theology.

Books like Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization and Edwin Friedman’s A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix helped me to become a systems thinker and shaped me as a leader of a complex youth ministry organization.

Reading books about the developmental theories of Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, Erik Erikson, and others help me gain a fuller understanding of the dynamics of adolescent development.

Books like Life Together, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and anything by Lesslie Newbigin broaden my horizon concerning the church and the mission of the church in our culture.

The books in this category broaden my understanding of how the world works, how people interact with one another, how I can communicate better, how conflict is resolved, how to organize, how to interpret the changing landscape of culture, how to think about what it means to be a faithful church in the culture in which we live, and on and on.

Second Category: Books that help you become a better human being.

These types of books should inspire you to be a better person, to be more fully human and more fascinated with life, love, and faith. What are the subjects and interests that make you feel alive? What fires your imagination and fills you with passion? Read books that inspire you. Maybe it’s science fiction, a compelling biography, the beauty of poetry, or the classics that stir your soul. Keep reading. Be a lifelong learner.

Often the two categories I’m using to classify what youth workers should read overlap for me. I find few things more deeply moving and spiritually energizing than reading theology. Athanasius’s On the Incarnation, Walter Brueggemann’s The Prophetic Imagination, Jürgen Moltmann’s The Crucified God, and N.T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God challenge my faith and move me deeper into love and life with God.

I find that often when I feel closest to God, I’m drawn to poetry. English Poet William Wordsworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility."

It is really sweet when I find treasure in a book that combines several of my interests into a feast of literary delight. My favorite novel accomplished this for me. I was in my early twenties when I first read The Source, by prolific American novelist James Michener. The Source is an epic novel tracing the history of the Middle East, beginning in the Stone Age and going up to the modern state of Israel. The story unfolds through fictional characters who are creatively linked to archaeological artifacts that are uncovered at various levels of a modern-day excavation of an ancient tell by a group of archaeologists. This book is absolutely fascinating, exploring such themes as the development of monotheism, culture, religion, politics, etc., over millennia of history.

The Source fired my interest in history, archaeology, the geography of the land of the Bible, world religions, Scripture, and much more. In my office I proudly display my collection of archeological antiquities I’ve gathered over the years. I’m passionate about the history, politics, and cultures of the Middle East. In 21 trips to the Middle East, I’ve taken hundreds of young people and youth workers with me in hopes that they would become as fascinated with this part of the world and its connection to our heritage as I am. Pretty powerful ramifications emerged for my life and ministry from “just a novel.”

Read, read, read…

I saved the best for last—Scripture, the Bible, Sacred Text, the Word of the Lord—whatever you want to call it is okay with me. Just read it, love it, live it, study it, meditate on it, embrace it, embody it, rediscover the beauty and power of the story of God at work in the world. God’s story is not for yesterday. It is the continuous unfolding of the Spirit’s transforming narrative in our current reality.

Dave Rahn

It’s still important for me to read something from God’s Word every day. I don’t beat myself up when I miss, like I once did. But this is the intake that trumps all other reading as nourishment for my soul, which is, by the way, my chief reason for reading. I don’t want my innermost Dave to shrivel up for lack of sustenance.

There is another category of books I recommend for constant nibbling. Some books are rooted in Scripture and aspire to teach, coach, and encourage me. Tim Keller’s The Prodigal God and Counterfeit Gods are both new titles that accomplish this end. Whatever John Stott writes also gets me there, as do the works of Watchman Nee. I come away from this sort of reading having been taken on a deep-dive tour guide through some portions of the Bible, satisfied because of the unique power of God’s Word and more prepared to live faithfully.

I think God also enriches our vision when we read books that are theologically upstream from our current assignments. Ron Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger messed me up at a time when I thought all I was supposed to do with kids was attract them to meetings where I could challenge them to begin a personalized relationship with Christ. Howard Snyder wrote a few books, including The Problem of Wineskins, that both anchor and stretch how I understand a local church’s form and function. Though these books are not directly written for youth workers, they can help us move into the mature depths we need to lead well.

I happen to be a student of leadership formation, the process of change, and organizational culture. Books in this category are often not explicitly Christian, but they have sure been relevant to my world. A while ago it was Peter Drucker and Chris Argyris; now Patrick Lencioni, Stephen Covey, Tom Peters, Peter Senge, Jim Collins, and Seth Godin crank out books I value. I’m not sure everyone should share these particular interests of mine, but I do think it is wise to cultivate diverse reading interests that have professional application.

When the rare research-based book is published with youth ministry relevance, I am eager to pore over it. Christian Smith has made fabulous contributions lately. (By the way, I don’t tend to put Barna in this category—he does solid research but overreaches too often for my taste when it comes to implications.)

I also love reading a few books each year that are pure fun. These need to be page turners, books I have trouble putting down, wonderful stories of escape. There was a day when fantasy novels did the trick. More recently, John Grisham mysteries are my taste.

I don’t know about you, but the creative part of my soul enjoys the chance to soar over varied landscapes now and again.

Jim Hampton

Brooklyn Lindsey

Dave Rahn