slant33-blog

Brooklyn Lindsey

There are two sides to this coin.

There are the young leaders who emerge in our ministry because I have seen the qualities I’m about to discuss and we’ve decided to nurture those students into greater leadership (because most of the time they are already leading when we realize that they are leaders.)

Then there are the young leaders who catch us by surprise. They don’t display the qualities we look for; they may be on the fringe; they may not say a word to anyone. But one day, they bloom and everything you’ve been teaching and modeling clicks for them. A leader emerges.

With that said, I want to be clear that there isn’t a standard list of qualities to look for in young people when considering them for leadership. It’s more like signals you see that tell you that a particular person has potential to lead.

A Few Leadership Signals:

People already are following them. Leadership is influence. If a student has an influential presence around other students (good or bad), then there is potential.

They have a contagious worldview. Check out their Facebook pages or listen to the way they talk to their friends. You can spot leaders when they are able to share their worldviews and get others to subscribe as well. I identify this sort of person in our youth group as the one who is always bringing friends to church. They have a convincing nature—both in convincing their friends to come and convincing their parents to pick them up and bring them too.

They listen to leadership and desire growth. These are the ones I find in discipleship—they are committed to more than just crowd youth ministry. They want to go deeper (not just at church but usually at school and at home too).

A Few Christian Leadership Signals:

You see them meeting needs without being asked. There is a smashed donut on the floor. They pick it up. There’s a new student clinging to the wall. They try to connect.

They are inventive. They try to create ways to reach out to other students all the time. My leaders are always in my face with new ideas (or old ones they think are new). “Let’s plan a dance!” “I want to raise money for clean water in Africa.” “How can we help the senior adults in our church feel loved?” These are telling questions and statements coming from young people. We should spot leaders in them when we hear these questions.

They are consistent. They walk with Christ at home, at school, at church.

They aren’t satisfied. They want a growing faith for themselves, and they also want others to know about the hope they have found. They will look for ways to be a connection for others.

When we see these signals in our students, it’s important to identify their strengths and give them opportunities to use them. So often we pat them on the back and tell them we are proud of them, but we overlook giving them a task, a commission, a place to lead where they are safe to lead. When we overlook them in this way, we miss so much of the field that is ripe for harvest.

A great resource to help in nurturing young leaders is Leaders Are Learners, by Doug Fields. It’s a great way to start the nurturing process if it hasn’t already started.

Claire Smith

God has allowed me to be involved in the nurturing and equipping of young leaders over the years. However, I cannot say I have consciously looked for particular qualities. In my various places of service, young people have attained leadership in different ways. Sometimes it has been by the election of peers to particular offices, at other times by default when no one else was willing to take up the mantle, sometimes by volunteering for particular positions and/or functions, and sometimes just by accompanying a more experienced leader. I have worked with whomever has presented themselves, both formally in training sessions, etc, and informally, by providing guidance, nurture, instruction, and accompanying them along the way.

When I look back and think about the many young people who became leaders with whom I have worked, there are four main qualities and characteristics that stand out: openness, sense of responsibility, creativity, and a desire to grow.

When I speak about openness, I am talking about young people having a desire for God and for God to use them, the ability to listen and take advice, willingness to venture into the unknown, and respect for peers and their opinions.

With responsibility I refer to the ability to carry through decisions and execute plans, the willingness to admit failure but keep trying, and being accountable to those who are more senior.

In identifying creativity, I note bringing something new to the endeavor, thinking things through and proposing ideas and actions that are fresh and help to move the work forward.

A desire to grow in some ways relates back to openness but goes beyond it in that this young person seeks and grabs hold of opportunities for formal and informal training and learning.

All this is undergirded by prayer and confidence in God, which leads to a sense of having been called by God to do a particular task in a particular place. Thus, even when this person appears to be timid, he or she has a strong enough sense of call and self to press onward.

You may notice that I do not pick out people who might identified as assertive, commanding, outgoing, gregarious, or any other qualities along those lines. These are sometimes overrated as qualities intrinsic to leadership. Young people with these qualities may gain the spotlight and gain a following. However, solid leadership is less focused on the individual and more focused on God, God’s will, and God’s people. Solid leadership builds so that there is life and energy in the present and the future regardless of the leader’s presence.

As I mentioned earlier, I do not consciously look for openness, sense of responsibility, creativity, and a desire to grow before I am willing to work with a young leader. I will work with whomever God sends. However, when these qualities and characteristics are present, that young person will emerge as a leader through whom God builds a dynamic present and future.

Chap Clark & Kara E. Powell, Deep Justice in a Broken World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 58. Ibid, 93.

Kevin Farmer

One of the privileges I’ve enjoyed in my years of vocational service has been helping to nurture and equip leaders. This is not to suggest I’ve done a particularly great job with this task—only to say that I’ve counted it a great privilege to at least make the attempts to help. While it has been an incredible privilege to help leaders across age, gender, and ethnicity boundaries explore various aspects of leadership development, there has also been at least one aspect of this journey that has caused me significant angst—wrestling with the apparent differences between Jesus’ choices for leaders and the choices of the Apostle Paul.

Certainly we can easily give in to the temptation to oversimplify this subject and just reply, “Is this really an issue, is there really a difference, or are you just trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents?” I think there is a huge difference. In fact, the longer I’ve been in ministry, the more I’m convinced that the differences are not only subtle but also essential for our ability to discern prospective leadership qualities in both teens and adults.

Clearly we don’t know much about most of “the 12” of Jesus; only a select few. And unfortunately, there are not too many of us who usually have much good to say about the 12, especially while they traveled with Christ (most of our praise of the apostles comes after the Day of Pentecost). In fact, in light of Saul’s conversion to the Apostle Paul and his compelling admonition to both Timothy and Titus many years post his conversion, I wonder if even he would have counted any of Jesus’ 12 as leadership worthy. I’m rather certain I wouldn’t have!

It’s fairly easy to look at Paul’s list in his letters to Timothy and Titus and determine what type of qualities we should be looking for in potential leaders. But then you look at the selected 12 of Jesus and think, Why in the heck would he pick these guys out individually? (Not to mention, he picked these guys out to somehow work together.) But this is what he did! And perhaps he did it in large part to show us that we need to pay close attention not just to the rock-solid qualities of leadership Paul appears to value but also to the precarious qualities in which God himself seems to show interest.

Maybe this is, in fact, a blueprint for how we look at those teenagers whom we would never consider for leadership—you know, kinda like that embezzling, sellout, tax-collector Matthew; and those nondescript fishermen, Simon, Andrew, James, and John.

I can honestly say I’ve tried to stop looking at the list—whatever that list is—as a starting point. Instead, I’m trying to develop the habit of asking one question with one follow-up response: Lord, is this a person for whom you have a specific plan of leadership? If so, show me what qualities you see in this person that you want me to help develop or nurture.

This is not to suggest at all that Paul’s list gets thrown out. This is merely to say that Paul’s list becomes an accessory after the fact. It becomes a tool to develop those leaders God has already revealed. But if I start with Paul’s list, I might just miss that piece of coal that God wants to transform into a diamond. And to be certain, I can only help nurture and develop those qualities the Lord has already imparted. That’s how it happened with virtually all the leaders of Scripture, isn’t it? I certainly know that’s how it happened with me!

Kevin Farmer has been working with children, teenagers, college students and their families for more than 15 years. Over these years Kevin has been invited by schools, churches and other ministries across the country to provide teaching and offer inspiration to students of all ages, as well as to the people who serve them.

Kevin currently serves as the Pastor of Equipping and Empowerment at the Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis, MN where he helps create spiritual formation opportunities that grow people of all ages on their life-long journey with God. Because Kevin has a tremendous desire to see people grow into the fullness of all God desires them to be, he also helps people get connected to meaningful opportunities to serve, especially within their area of giftedness.

Kevin received his BA in Africana Studies from the University of Pittsburgh, his Master of Arts in Christian Education from Bethel Theological Seminary and is ordained in Specialized Ministry in the Evangelical Covenant Church. Originally from Philadelphia, Pastor Kevin now lives in South Minneapolis with his 3 favorite people; his wife Lynn, his son Noah and his daughter Maya.

Claire Smith

Interestingly enough, this question takes me back to a hymn from my childhood, a few lines of which I’ll share:

thy people owned thy goodness, and we their deeds record; and both of this bear witness; one Church, one Faith, one Lord.

It seems to me that the academy, as far as religious studies that are particularly concerned with Christianity and hence the church, is not separate and distinct from the church. Many members of this academy are part of local congregations and are often relatively active. Some institutions are denominational in nature, while others have their genesis in various denominations. Even while serving a wider cause, the mission of the church remains at the forefront. In thinking of the relationship between this aspect of the academy and the church. Therefore, it seems that in considering how we learn from each other, one of our primary tasks would be to hold each other accountable as proclaimers of the love and reign of God. Thus, it is a mutual, reciprocal relationship.

In looking at the church, I’ll speak in terms of local congregations, where the concept of the church becomes more concrete. It seems at times that at the congregational level, the big push is to go out and act, to do something. This is especially so as many congregations face declining or stagnating membership in the face of rapidly changing neighborhoods and a world that has suddenly arrived on their doorsteps. The academy faces these realities as well and has to deal with them, though from the perspectives of its various disciplines. What the academy does is to help us to prayerfully pause and reflect and bring larger concerns to bear as we apply other frameworks—such as sociology, theology, biblical studies—to better grasp our realities. In this way our practice is considered rather than merely reacting to what we face.

I think here particularly of the missional church movement, which combines reflection on the church and God’s intention for it with practice. The congregations’ actions, therefore, become rooted in knowledge of missio Dei and God’s reign. The rich conversation between congregations and the academic discipline results in a more prayerfully considered and consistent practice.

The academy and congregations need each other for greater faithfulness to God’s mission. Youth ministry is one area that has made great strides in this direction of mutual encounter and learning. The more accessible nature of recent scholarly publications in this and other subjects suggests that the concern of mutual engagement is being addressed. The ongoing issue is not so much whether the academy and congregations are thinking about the same thing but how they can find a common place for conversation so that they are in an ongoing relationship, constantly learning from each other.

How does the congregation become aware of the academy’s research and findings in particular areas, and how does the academy better hear the concerns of the lives of the congregations so there is a greater dialogue between the two in which critical reflection and thinking informs and is informed by how the church encounters the world? Therefore, we need to ask, How do we serve together as proclaimers of the love and reign of God?

Chris Folmsbee

An acquaintance of mine named Bryan Bademan is the executive director of the MacLaurin Institute in Minneapolis. The MacLaurin Institute’s mission is to build bridges between the “church and university in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, bringing theological resources to the university and academic resources to the church. Our goal is to strengthen Christian intellectual life in this region by creating public space for leaders in the academy and church to address enduring human questions together.” (Visit http://www.maclaurin.org/ to learn more.)

When I was a youth pastor in Minnesota a few years ago, I was moderately engaged with what the MacLaurin Institute was doing. I went to a few events and forums with a couple of my colleagues, and that was about it. If I were back in Minneapolis today, I’d be more deeply occupied by what they are trying to accomplish.

More than at any other point in my life, I now think it is enormously significant that the church and university (academia) continue to seek meaningful ways to work collaboratively to stretch each other theologically, relationally, socially, academically, etc.

Here are five keys I think the church and university should consider when attempting to learn from one another.

1. Build on ideas. It is critical that both the university and the church trade ideas in a way that builds on the ideas of others rather than exchanging ideas for the sake of being right. The opportunity to exchange ideas for the sake of deeper levels of understanding helps push one another to a more full-bodied generosity that can often lead to deeper conversation and shared experiences.

2. Multiple perspectives. In the same manner that we might seek to build on ideas rather than settle on any one that is “right,” so too should we seek to allow multiple perspectives to influence the thinking and living of one another. Although it can be difficult to remain consistently open to others’ perspectives, it is critical in order to more fully understand each other as human beings. A commitment to embracing multiple perspectives can stretch us and mold us into people of open-handedness rather than people of close-mindedness.

3. Respectful debate. Building on ideas and allowing for multiple perspectives will inevitably lead to debate. There is a good chance that it won’t lead to respectful or healthy debate unless we are intentionally guiding it in that direction. I have noticed, however, that groups of people that allow for ideas to be built upon and allow for multiple perspectives grow closer to one another through steady conversation and inclusivity. Respectful or considerate debate that stimulates thinking or spurs one another on to more deeply comprehend a particular contrasting issue or even to broader realization of a shared thought is critical for the university and church to collaborate for greater learning opportunities.

4. Practicing situational thinking. I don’t have any firsthand experience with this as it relates specifically to the church and university. However, in my experience leading teams and working collaboratively with others, I have noticed that reliably positioning a thought or concept beyond where you currently are helps establish a forward momentum. Any time we can build scenarios or imagine for the sole reason of further thought development, I think it can help the dialogue to remain active and provide the energy for continued discussion when conversation seems to pause.

5. Practical and positive evaluation. Self-evaluation and peer evaluation in an encouraging and truthful environment are hugely significant. How do we know if we are growing in our ability to live generously, think more ecumenically, or be more accepting of one another and our individual ideas if we don’t practice evaluation? People will disagree with each other, no doubt. It isn’t about whether we disagree. It is about how we choose to disagree. Evaluation can mark our growth in thought as well as our expansion in how we choose to relate with others.

The church and the academy need one another to effectively engage the mission of God to restore the world to its intended wholeness. Consider your involvement or role in organizations such as the MacLaurin Institute. Is there a place for you to engage the conversation and help build bridges of shared theological and academic resources in your community?

Scot McKnight

One of my favorite pastors used to say something that irritated me, and time has only eased my irritation slightly. He used to say, “The dumbest farmers grow the best potatoes.” Our community had lots of farmers, and I’m not sure how any of them tolerated the pastor’s comment. Well, perhaps I do know: They too were caught up in an anti-intellectualism that often found its scapegoat in the professor. (I haven’t said this yet, so I’ll say it now: I’m a professor, and I take offense.)

The stereotypes, were we to use them of other jobs (say, a woman’s decision to stay at home or a Mexican immigrant working a landscape job or a Korean working at a dry cleaner), would require scorn and denunciation. But for some reason, one can insult intellectuals for being well-nigh useless or so egg-headed they are of no use to anyone but God and a few philosophers.

I happen to love knowledge and the intellectual life, and there’s nothing quite like reading a gifted writer who can in one paragraph tie together some intellectual heavyweights that both expand the mind and make intelligent readers aware that they are standing on the holy ground of the discovery of truth. My favorite writer like this is the Jewish writer Joseph Epstein, who has the singular gift that ties together breadth of knowledge, uncanny bits of juicy information, a cynical distrust of big claims, and a biting humor that turns the page on its own.

Which brings me to the first thing churches learn from the academy: critical distance. My own 25 years of leadership in the church leads me to think that the arena in which churchgoers are least capable of critical distance is politics, with one’s theology and one’s family tying for second place. Academics have learned to be critically distant. We can examine an argument and then present the alternatives in such a way that our students often clamor for what we personally think.

Every time I sort out some options for students—say, on how to understand the Lord’s Supper (real presence, sort of real presence, real “absence”—and we often call these transubstantiation, consubstantiation, and symbolism), and some student says, “Which do you believe?” I rock back on my heels momentarily and say, “Yes, critical distance permitted me to give each view its fair hearing so the student could sort it out.”

By the way, sometimes I refuse to tell the students, and sometimes I do tell them. It depends on the gravity of the issue. Recently we had quite the discussion about hell and universalism, and I sorted through some options and then said, “If you want to know where I stand, I’ll tell you, but you’ll have to ask me.” (Yes, a student asked.)

Which now leads me to what I think the academy can learn from the church, and I will use words that balance “critical distance” but which might not make sense until explained: uncritical proximity. One of the distinctives of the church is passionate commitment to the gospel, to God as Trinity, to the Lord Jesus Christ, and to historic faith—even, at times, when it isn’t completely obvious. And what makes the church durable is its willingness to stand with the church and let our “faith seek understanding.”

The academy essentially teaches us to believe only what we understand (and can demonstrate). The church teaches us to believe and that faith will open our eyes to even more understanding. C.S. Lewis famously said this: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

And there you have it: the alternatives that need to exist together. We need those folks who say, “I believe what I can understand,” and we need those folks who say, “I believe in order to understand.” We learn from the academy in the former and from the church in the latter.

I’m not sure we can put these together: critical distance in order to understand and uncritical proximity in order to understand. But as a Christian I believe in the gospel story about King Jesus, and it is through that story that the world and the Bible make sense. As an academic, I am compelled to make sense of texts and history and ideas through critical distance, but that form of knowledge will never lead to me to the depth or the mystery that uncritical proximity grants me through the grace of God’s gift to us in Christ.

Brooklyn Lindsey

What a complex question! I find it hard to know where to start. Except to say that we could improve on all areas and I’m not sure if there is one that is more lacking than the others.

Many learned and deeply spiritual people have tried to help the church see its blind spots in the area of seeking the kind of justice God calls to. These are usually some of the most selfless and sacrificial people you will ever meet. Their voices are compelling and loaded with the fullness of the gospel.

Why is it, then, that it seems like they are some of the most difficult lessons to learn and actively live out as we receive them? This is why I often feel inadequate speaking to the church on where it needs improvement when my position has tended to be stranded in postures of learning than entrenched in devoted praxis. At the same time, I believe that when we learn what God is calling us to do, both individually and corporately, we have a responsibility to do it—if we love Jesus, we will obey his commands. Even if we do so a little bit at a time.

One such leader has been my long-distance mentor in this area. She will continue to mentor me for the rest of my life. Her advice on how we can improve in the area of justice goes without argument. She proved with her life that it’s possible to live out justice with the greatest of love and care for every human and creature God has created—one person, one moment, one opportunity at a time. The church would do well to seek justice in the same way, to see every program and gathering of worship as a chance to seek justice and show mercy. Her name is Mother Teresa—I’m sure you’ve heard of her.

There are a few things she has said over the years that the church would leap from mediocre meandering to fearless participation if we (and by “we” I mean we leaders) could get our heads, hearts, and hands around these biblical ideas. God help us all.

Most of what I’ve learned has come from one compilation of her works, titled No Greater Love.

A good foundation: “God has not created poverty; it is we who have created it. Before God, all of us are poor.”

The church needs to see itself through the lens of the Creator. We’ve all sinned. We all deserve the penalty. But we’ve been rescued. Sometimes we become so focused on those who have received the gift of life that we forget that they too were lost before. Some are lost in debt; some are lost in poverty; others are lost in lies and competition. Whatever it is, we all start in the same place. Knowing this can change the church’s outlook on where our responsibility exists—with all people.

Where to begin: “Strive to be the demonstration of God in the midst of your community. Sometimes we see how joy returns to the lives of the most destitute when they realize that many among us are concerned about them and show them our love. Even their health improves if they are sick. May we never forget that in the service to the poor we are offered a magnificent opportunity to do something beautiful for God…for He Himself said, ‘You did it for me.’”

The church doesn’t need to go far to learn how to actively alleviate injustice. There are days when I feel like our local radio station does more for our community than the churches in our community do. That shouldn’t be the case. We are rooted and built up in Christ. This knowledge should compel us to see those who live in oppression—whatever kind that may be—and to reach out with hands of love. Stay involved, stay informed, and respond when opportunities come. The culture will grow as we respond.

Where to rely: We have to model and teach the church to rely on God’s strength—we are human and subject to leaning on our own strength and ideas—lending ourselves to temptation and all sorts of evil. We must pray. And I confess, this is the hardest part for me.

“I don’t think there is anyone who needs God’s help and grace as much as I do.” (Brooklyn may have you on this one, Teresa.) “Sometimes I feel so helpless and weak. I think that is why God uses me. Because I cannot depend on my own strength…my secret is very simple: I pray. Through prayer I become one in love with Christ.”

What to remember: Jesus had to remind Paul of this important truth. “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9, RSV).

The church has a long way to go in our weakness in this area. May power be made perfect in it as we rely on his grace. May we respond to the daily invitations to respond to injustice, and may love, justice, and grace be seen in the children of God.

Claire Smith

Each time we limit our witness to handouts, we constrict justice. Each time we drive an hour to feed the hungry and ignore the racial profiling in our own neighborhoods, we ignore justice. Each time we treat a short-term mission trip as a way of building the faith of our youth with the hope that it will “stick,” as they help “those poor people” and discover how fortunate they themselves are, we thwart the possibility of seeking justice on behalf of the oppressed.

The thing is that much—though not all—of the church needs to open its eyes and heart to the God of justice that the Scripture portrays and understand justice as the Bible does. For too many congregants, justice is something associated only with the judicial system. The word in its broader biblical sense remains unknown. Yet when we read the Old Testament, it is clear that the absence of justice among God’s people is abhorrent to God and brings God’s wrath and judgment as Isaiah 1 makes clear.

On the contrary, Jesus, the suffering servant, proclaims and brings justice in Isaiah 42:1-4 and Matthew 12:18-21. Jesus’ justice puts people first. The healing and salvation of persons came before laws, institutions, and customs, which Jesus was quick to critique when human interpretation robbed these of compassion and the fair treatment of all. What is different now?

Frequently, like the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day, we tithe and give to the church and are concerned with its upkeep and superficial efforts at outreach while neglecting “the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith” (Matthew 23:23). We fail to grasp how our existences and preferred lifestyles may affect others adversely, and frankly, we too often do not care. Relatedly, we don’t quite get why laws should protect the vulnerable in the land and get lost in our own agendas without grasping that God expects us to look out for the least in society’s eyes. This looking out is not simply a pat and a bowl of soup, as critical as those may be. It also entails engaging, critiquing, and changing the situations, laws, institutions, and customs that oppress, beginning at home in the church.

This broader view of justice calls for experiential teaching that is grounded in the good news of God’s reign. It requires teaching that is action/reflection based and centrally located in the reign of God. This is teaching that justice as an aspect of holy living that is personal and communal. It is simply educating from and living out the Bible.

Danny Kwon

As a youth pastor working with adults and students, I have found that missions has been a wonderful way to promote justice, both locally and more broadly. Our youth group is a big proponent of all types of mission trips and service opportunities. Every summer, our youth group takes four short-term mission trips domestically and internationally, serving in various ways, such as building homes to running youth camps.

In general, I am a huge proponent of the short-term mission trip, even though I know there are pros and cons to these trips, especially for the participants and churches. To help combat these cons, our church has considered how we can improve these trips, which directly correlates to how our church wants to improve in the area of justice.

Overall, when it comes to these short-term mission trips and considering how we can more effectively serve in the area of justice, our church has really sought to think long term. It’s almost an oxymoron. Tangibly speaking, this means always asking the question of why things are the way they are in each context and then doing something about it. Subsequently, it then means seeking out solutions that will combat injustice for a “lifetime.” Ultimately, when it comes to this type of justice, we always remind ourselves to try to practice the justice Martin Luther King, Jr., talked about when he stated that “true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars need restructuring.”

Hence, with our short-term trips, we have actually developed long-term relationships. This means teaming up and supporting the efforts of the local missionaries. Internationally, we continue to have and nurture partnerships with specific missionaries and churches so we can foster long-term change and development in the places where these churches are located and in step with the local missionaries.

Locally, when it comes to service projects, our youth group has partnered with three inner-city ministries in long-term relationship. It has meant teaming up and supporting the efforts of the local leadership, not just one time or once a year. Ultimately, this means that justice is not just a fad, but it is seeking long-term solutions even though we may be serving in short-term time periods.

I cherish this long-term philosophy. It is a vital way for churches to rethink and improve what it means to do justice. One benefit it has on our youth group students is that they see that doing justice is not just a summer or short-term-mission thing, but it is a lifetime thing. In fact, doing justice is a calling each believer has for a lifetime.

Sarah Arthur

Short answer: change your zip code.

Yep. Move into the neighbor-’hood (to loosely quote Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of John 1:14). Radical? Yes. Feasible in this moment for everyone reading this post? No. But imagine what kind of incarnational transformation might take place if every American Christian—including the youth we work with—had the goal of downward mobility.

Change your zip code, and suddenly injustice is the pothole you hit on the way to work each morning. Would such a pothole have lasted very long in the typical middle-class suburb? Not likely. Will the city respond if you call about this particular pot hole? Don’t count on it—at least not the first time. But keep calling.

Change your zip code, and you now have a personal interest in news about the grease recycling plant possibly moving into the empty lot across the street. If you don’t show up at the city council meeting to object—(you have learned that your neighborhood will smell like dead chickens for the next century)—no one will. Not because your neighbors don’t care but because they gave up trying to claim some dignity a long time ago. But you try anyway.

Change your zip code, and the 911 dispatchers will get to know you personally. Gunshots around the corner? On Christmas Eve? While there are small children in the house? You will pick up the phone. And you will pick it up again tomorrow and again in the oppressive heat of summer (when gang violence increases) and again when the air conditioning unit at a nearby church is destroyed by someone seeking the valuable copper inside. You will become a pro at telling the dispatchers up front exactly what they need to know. Because someone has to remind the city that this neighborhood is not off the grid. People live here. Children live here.

Change your zip code, and you are now more aware of the injustices in the world. Because they mess up your day.

It’s sad but true. When these issues are out of sight, they are out of mind, no matter how passionately we might claim to want to serve “the least of these.” But put them front and center—make them the first things you see when you step out of your front door every day—and they aren’t so easily forgotten.

Or at least, that’s what happened to me.

Several years ago, my husband and I moved into an intentional Christian community. It was a household created in the spirit of the Catholic Worker and New Monastic movements—and thus intentionally situated in what is often considered the ghetto of northeast-central Durham, North Carolina. It is a community of poverty and crime, gangs and violence. It is also a community of corner churches and little grandmas who have been praying longer than most of us have been alive.

My husband and I had been living elsewhere but attending a church in that neighborhood when we met our future housemates one Sunday morning. One thing led to another, and soon we found ourselves backing a moving truck up the driveway. We moved into the neighborhood.

And they were some of the most transformative three years of my life.

We slowly got to know our neighbors, most of whom experience more injustice in one week than many of us do in a lifetime. We made those calls about the potholes and the disintegrating railroad tracks. My housemates and neighbors went to the city council meeting about the grease recycling plant. I called 911 on Christmas Eve and said that gunshots were unacceptable, there were small children in the house, and could a patrol car at least come by and give the impression that the city cared.

Injustice was in my face, and I couldn’t ignore it. Changing my zip code, an act of incarnation, meant that the suffering of the world became my suffering.

My husband and I now live in a parsonage in the suburbs—not by choice but in submission to the pastoral appointment system of the United Methodist Church. We have made a different kind of incarnational move. And trust me, there is plenty of brokenness behind the perfectly painted doors on my street. But now, every time I see a pothole (look fast: they don’t last long around here), I am very, very aware that not all communities are created equal.

“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood” (John 1:14, The Message). Where will the moving truck take you next? Where will it take your youth?

Jim Hampton

I have to admit that when I saw this topic, I immediately thought, What do I have to say to this? This isn’t really my area of expertise.

But after I got over the initial shock and actually gave some thoughtful reflection to the question, I realized that I just might have a few things to offer based on my own experiences and what I’ve read in Scripture.

Perhaps the most important thing we can do is first to recognize our own self-centeredness. I find it fascinating that almost all of the world’s major religions emphasize the need to look beyond ourselves in order to help others. Christianity makes it clear that the only way this happens is through a complete reorientation of our heart and mind as we allow God to radically transform us.

Christians are called to “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). We’re also called to “look not only to our own interests, but to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4). We do this because Jesus himself first loved us (John 13:34-35). And if becoming like Jesus is not enough of a goal, Jesus reminds us that “not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Scripture is clear that “the Lord loves righteousness and justice” (Psalm 33:5), and therefore Christians are called to be engage in activities that promote justice: “Hate evil, love good; maintain justice” (Amos 5:15). When we do this, we are blessed (Psalm 106:3). Given our sinful nature, this will never happen in our own strength but only as God begins to change our hearts and minds.

I’ve come to realize that one of the primary ways we become more aware is simply by asking God to give us his heart for the other. As this happens over time, our eyes and ears slowly become attuned to the needs of those around us. I remember watching the evening news once when the focus was on a country that had been been ravaged by a tsunami. As I watched the images, my heart literally broke for those affected by this disaster. I had never been to that country. I didn’t personally know a single person who lived there. Yet I found myself openly crying as I watched this tragedy unfold.

As I reflected on why I was crying, God gently reminded me that my prayer in recent days had been that I develop his heart for others, that I begin to see people the way he did. “You see,” he seemed to say, “how painful it is?”

Another way I’ve become more aware is by listening to those around me. That sounds simple, but in reality, really listening is difficult. Most of us listen just long enough to figure out the thrust of what the conversation is about then immediately begin to formulate our responses. True listening involves listening with our heads and our hearts, taking time to consider what the person is sharing and why. When we begin to listen like this, we become safe places where people can share things they might not share otherwise.

One such conversation with the Hispanic pastor at our church really helped me come to better understand the real needs of and the injustices often perpetrated on migrant workers. Whatever your take on the illegal immigrant issue (which itself is a major theological issue the church needs to respond to), the reality is that there are tens of thousands of migrant workers, both legal and illegal, who are regularly taken advantage of, often working horrendous hours for incredibly little pay. And there is often no recourse they have for fear of being deported (for the illegals) or fear of being blacklisted by the farms for causing trouble (for the legals). This conversation helped me understand the incredibly wide systemic nature that contributes to and perpetuates the injustices imposed on this group of people.

The third way I’ve become aware is by simply exposing myself to issues I generally ignored previously. For instance, I had always considered slavery to be an issue “over there.” It didn’t really impact me, so I didn’t really think too much about it. I recognize now that I was intellectually aware of the injustice of slavery. But that was the extent of it.

Then I read a story about a young girl from Cameroon who was brought to the U.S. with the promise of living with a couple from Cameroon who would send her to school. This would be a major life improvement, so her parents readily agreed. However, once the girl arrived, she was turned into a slave, working 18 hours a day and unable to have any contact with others outside the household. Slavery isn’t an “over there” issue, for the place where this story happened was just 60 miles from where I used to live! This moved me from intellectual awareness to emotional awareness.

But the reality is that the awareness wasn’t enough. Don’t get me wrong. Being aware is important. It’s the first step. But my great concern is that far too many of us simply stop there and don’t do anything more than just be aware.

This bothered me considerably, so I started reading other articles and books on this topic, having conversations with those in the know, and generally trying to educate myself about the extent of the problem. And the more I learned, the more I felt the need to act. I think this is the biggest issue we have to address here: being intellectually or emotionally aware of injustice and fighting injustice are two very different things. Unless we then choose to be engaged in finding ways to fight the injustices and help people find justice, we are withholding justice, and the Bible makes it clear that when we do this, we are cursed (Deuteronomy 27:19).

So in the end, I want to rephrase the question to ask, “How do we become more aware of the injustices around us and the world and then act on them?” For it is only when we act, Jesus seems to say in Matthew 25, that we actually are doing the work of the kingdom.

Claire Smith

When I see a question like this, I’m tempted to say: “Open your eyes. Injustice is all around.” But it is never that simple, is it? Yes, injustice is all around us, but unless we have the right filters, it goes clean over our heads. This is especially true of systemic injustice.

The texts we read are important in recognizing injustice. There is the Text. The Bible talks a lot about justice and injustice—a lot. Deuteronomy 16:19-20, as well as other passages, is clearly against bribes: “You must not distort justice; you must not show partiality; and you must not accept bribes, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of those who are in the right. Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue, so that you may live and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”

Questions to consider with our youth around this text could be: What is a bribe? How do people give and receive bribes in our society today? How are those who cannot afford to give bribes affected as well as those who receive bribes? What makes the practice unjust? How do we see institutional bribery in our time?

Jeremiah 22:13-14 addresses the issues of just and unjust wages and living well at the expense of others. What is a just wage? What should a just wage be able to do for a person, a family? How does that compare to what many people receive in our society? How are people who receive unjust wages viewed when they seek better conditions? Who is living well at the expense of others?

I’ll take a final sample from Isaiah 58, a passage we often turn to when we think about and discuss fasting. The chapter addresses unjust wages and feeding the hungry, providing shelter for the homeless, and clothing those in need of clothes—not just in a distant, sanitary way but in a fashion that impacts our space.

So how do we become more aware of the injustices around us in the world? We can start by taking the Bible seriously and checking our lives and what happens around us in its light.

There is also the text of society. We are inundated with lots of news. Unfortunately, many of us only seek one source for our news. We need to seek several sources so we can get a more well-rounded picture of what is going on. Seek views that do not coincide with ours and that are not comfortable for us. Always ask why. Why have they said this? Why did they give the story that particular slant? Ask who as well. Who benefits? Who loses? Who is not even mentioned, and why are they left out?

Finally, we can check out texts that help us gain a better understanding of the ways in which privilege and power create injustice and systematically exclude significant numbers both in the United States and in the world at large from ever participating equally in society.

Justice is about everyone having fair access and therefore a share in society. It is about equality and value of those God has created. It is something God demands. Let’s open our eyes, read the texts, ask the questions, and—as we become more aware—make the change.

How should we be rethinking short-term missions?

Danny Kwon

I will admit it. I am a short-term mission trip junkie. I love going on short-term misson trips, and I love going on them with the students in our youth group. Whether it’s fixing up homes in our own state of Pennsylvania, building a home hundreds of miles away, doing evangelism in Mexico, building a school in Kenya, or running a youth camp in Kazakhstan, I can honestly say that every short-term mission trips I have taken with our youth group students has been a blessing. We have made short-term mission trips the focus of our summers in our youth group.

In all this, there has been some great rethinking about short-term missions over the years by many leaders and churches that I have been happy to see. I am thankful that leaders are speaking out against short-term missions arrogance, where short-term mission trip participants go with a savior and superior mentality, as if they know everything and are the only ones who can save the world. Rather, more and more leaders are understanding and teaching how short-term missions participants need to be humble, culturally sensitive, open to learning; need to understand the importance of supporting the local, long-term missionaries and need to understand that often the greatest benefactors of the short-term mission trips are the participants.

Similarly, I am glad to see that many leaders are considering and practicing pre- and post-trip training and debriefing, to equip students before trips and enable long-term spiritual growth and fruits after the trips are completed. Like we say in our youth group, the mission trip begins when we get home. Thus, we want to make sure that missions becomes a lifestyle and not just an activity that has happened for a few days in the summer.

For the past few summers, some other thoughts have crossed my mind as I consider how our youth group and perhaps other groups could be rethinking short-term missions.

First, rethinking the cost of short-term missions. Because the economy has affected everyone, the cost of the mission trips has increased. Even the trips within our state cost money for travel, accommodations, and materials. For our group, rethinking this has meant that these past two summers, we teamed up with urban churches and created urban-suburban partnerships. In doing so, we created mission trip opportunities for our youth group students and adults that were a week long, but we met at church each morning and returned home each night. Sure, we lost some of the bonding of sleeping overnight at a location together. However, many students who could not afford to go on an overnight/out-of-state/out-of-country mission trip could now go and have a powerful short-term missions experience.

Second, rethinking the purpose of short-term mission trips. In 1996, members from our church built a church in a rural location in Vera Cruz, Mexico, after the son of one our families tragically died during a mission trip there. While it still remains a tragedy in our church history, God has used it for his good and glory. The family decided that the savings they planned to use for their son’s college education would be used to build a church in his memory. That church has become a center for refuge during the winter months in Mexico, when great flooding hits the area. Moreover, 11 other churches have been planted in the area. Our primary ministry over the years has been to encourage the local church there, as well as do Vacation Bible School (VBS) for the local children. However, in recent years, the local economy has also grown. The church has done its own VBS ministry in the few years we could not go back. And the local, rural area has given way to modernization. In all this, with the indigenous church and economy flourishing, I have begun to think during our recent trips, What is our purpose for coming here now?

Chap Clark and Kara Powell, in their book, Deep Justice in a Broken World, helped me consider this question even more deeply and how it relates to our short-term mission trips. I want to be clear that I am not saying that VBS is not an important ministry. However, what Chap and Kara are talking about is youth ministries that are “willing to do whatever it takes, for however long it takes, until the systems that perpetuates brokenness are fixed.” They talk about the idea of not just doing service but really asking the why questions of injustice and then doing something about that. Moreover, they are asking ministries to consider more than just service that helps others but rather, having a goal of justice that removes obstacles so people can eventually help themselves.

For our groups, this has meant rethinking our short-term missions to go to areas where there is a “greater” need for VBS ministry, such as Haiti. Moreover, we have worked with local missionaries in Kenya and Tanzania to build schools so that long-term change and benefit can be provided for these areas. Even building homes with Habitat for Humanity has been a powerful ministry for our group in trying to help alleviate the perpetual cycle of brokenness for some people. Our urban-suburban partnerships have been developed so that continual, long-term relationships and partnerships would be nurtured rather than just a one-time summer service trip.

Finally, we have strategically been to and are planning more short-term trips to places where “the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few” and trips to “the ends of the earth,” where the gospel is rare. Ultimately, we are trying to rethink so that we are not making repeated trips to the same places and doing the same things but are considering short-term mission trips where we can contribute to working on helping to fix the systems that perpetuate brokenness.

Helpful Resources:
Bleed Out: Stories of Christlike Compassion

Brooklyn Lindsey

Writing this slant puts the pressure on because change is what we need as we continue to pack students up with money and medical release forms for weeklong trips to serve, but change requires movement and work and a lot of intentionality.

We jump in with willing hearts and a desire to make missions a lifestyle but quickly get pulled away by the loudest things in our ministry to douse water on fires, answer phone calls from people who have the solution to all of our fundraising needs, and attend meetings that may or may not have much to do with the method and praxis of our youth ministries.

Changing the way we do short-term missions can be difficult because we’ve grown accustomed to getting by with the basics; because we know that in serving, there is power, and someone’s life is going to get changed by it regardless.

However, it’s hard to ignore the findings that say we may be off on this assumption. The work that Fuller Youth Institute did in collaboration with The Global Learning Center and Bethel College (at summits that convened with experts on short-term missions) tells us that short-term service trips might not be producing the spiritual and relational growth spurt we might expect for the long term1.

The research2, as cited in Deep Justice and Short-Term Missions curriculum, sheds some light.

• The explosive growth in the number of short-term mission trips among both kids and adults has not been accompanied by similarly explosive growth in the number of career missionaries. • It’s not clear whether participation in service trips causes participants to give more money to alleviate poverty once life returns to “normal.” • Participating in service trips does not seem to reduce participants’ tendencies toward materialism.

My husband, a thinker and a problem solver, has said on many occasions, “Why not take the $10,000 that we raise to fly us all to Mexico and send it to the locals to build 10 houses instead of us going to build one?” We raise money to travel and do work that locals could be doing, and it would benefit a lot more in need.

This thought was solidified as I read the study3 done by Dr. Kurt Ver Beek from Calvin College (after Hurricane Mitch in 1998), also noted in Deep Justice, that tells us that those receiving new homes, while overwhelmed and appreciative, would rather the money be sent in order for more homes to be built.

At the same time, youth ministers know that short-term missions are a valuable tool that help us—by way of experiential learning and cross-cultural interaction (even if it’s at an assisted living center across the street)—make a deeper and more formative impression of God’s kingdom on the hearts of our students.

So what do we do? A good start would be to use well-researched and practical help that’s been provided through others who think about missions more than we do.

I’ve been using the Justice Mission curriculum with teenagers since I was 21 years old. I’ve immersed myself in the words of Jesus and am convinced that God requires us to walk humbly, seek justice, and love mercy.

So when we are encouraged to do a better job by way of walking with students long before a trip happens, doing a better job of reflection and interaction during a trip, and making efforts to extend our debrief into our “normal” lives for ongoing transformation, we have a difficult time actually doing it.

Isn’t our problem just that? We often listen, subscribe, and hope, but we leave the concepts sitting on a shelf, lost in the past.

The apostle Paul had this same struggle. He often wished to do other things but never could seem to do them. The things he wanted to do he left alone and often did the things he didn’t want to do. Wow. Isn’t that all of us?

Where do we start? Where do I start?

We have to start with the question of why. I learned in college while studying for ministry that we must always ask, Why do you do what you do when you do it? What’s the objective? What are we after?

Why are we involving our teenagers in service and justice work? Our answer to this question will help us plan in advance for a short-term trip. It will help us teach these lessons throughout the year as a foundation for the experience we hope will have the impact.

The second and equal starting point is investing this understanding of why in our parents. Most of the time, students who come from families who understand what it means to serve tend to understand it themselves. Let’s start conversations with our parents.

Finally, it would be good to dust off our social justice shelves. Find the resources that are rich in helping us. They are there, waiting for us to customize and use to incorporate justice learning and lifestyle before we even think about painting a house or reading books to kids.

May we have grace as we grow on this journey, and may we always help each other along the way, regardless of where each youth ministry finds itself. There’s always room to grow.

Further Reading:
The Justice Mission
Deep Justice: Journeys
Deep Justice In a Broken World
The Kingdom Experiment
The Kingdom Experiment: Youth Edition
The Revolution

1. Brad Griffin, Kara Powell. Deep Justice Journeys. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 2009.

2. Robert J. Priest, Terry Dischinger, Steve Rasmussen, C.M. Brown, “Researching the Short-Term Mission Movement,” Missiology Volume 34, no. 4, October 2006, 482-483. Volume 34, number 4, October 2006, 431-450.

3. Kurt Ver Beek, “The Impact of Short-Term Missions: A Case Study of House Construction in Honduras After Hurricane Mitch,”

Claire Smith

There’s a fine line we walk when it comes to short-term missions. That line is between selfless serving and self-gratification; between overbearing and/or subtle patronizing ways of relating and relationships of mutuality as equal members of God’s creation; between seeking a lesson for youth to learn how privileged they are and finding an opportunity to live out God’s love; between a romanticized trip and being a part of what God is doing in the world.

I find it alarming when people think a good incentive to get others to participate in short-term missions is that you get more out of it than you give. When this is the primary lesson with which we return, it’s called self-gratification. Similarly, but in some ways differently, we can fail to see the people to whom we go as equally valued creatures of God who may need our support and empathy rather than our pity. Oddly enough, those less fortunate materially can make us feel superior and better about ourselves, often at the subconscious level. Thus, we return with the story that begins, “Imagine, they did not even have…”

It is no wonder parents and youth workers use short-term missions as a way to teach students how privileged they are so they can better appreciate what they have. There is also the romantic glow that surrounds short-term mission and prevents us from seeing ourselves as laborers together with Christ—God’s servants. In these cases, mission is about us and not about God and God’s people. In other words, we have de-centered God.

There is a way, however, in which we can go on short-term missions (call it a different name, maybe) to witness to God’s love and join in what God is already doing. We then share, learn, value, dwell with God and God’s people, seeing ourselves as God’s servants.

Mission begins with God. It is about God and God’s people. Mission is characteristic of who we are as Christians rather than periodic activities for self-centered reasons. Here is my definition of mission: Mission is the witness of God’s people to God’s love as seen in Jesus Christ as they respond to God calling and sending them out in the power of the Holy Spirit to participate in God’s mission.

This means that who we are, what we say, and what we do individually and collectively in our congregations and youth groups should always reflect the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ demonstrated the love of God through loving God and others, reconciliation, right relations with God and people, forgiveness, and newness. Furthermore, we witness in and through the enablement that comes from the Holy Spirit and not in our own strength. Jesus, by his own confession, did and said nothing on his own (John 5:30). Can you see why God has to be at the center of mission?

Rethinking short-term missions, therefore, begins with questioning and challenging our understanding of mission to see if it lines up with Jesus’ statement: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21). It means studying the life of Jesus Christ so that we understand our pattern. If we engage in short-term mission, it should be a natural part of who we are as a congregation, as a youth group. We’ve already been witnessing at home. We are now extending our call to witness to God’s love further afield. If we are not witnessing at home, why are we bothering to go somewhere else?

Why do you want to do short-term missions? Is that an appropriate name?

Reference: Smith, Claire. “Mission: Avoiding Fragmentation, Living in Love.” Loving God, Loving Neighbor: Ministry With Searching Youth. Sondra Matthaei, ed. Xlibris, 2008, 127-144.

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