Workshop 5: Relationships and Youth Ministry

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faithful practices, youth ministry

Andy Root - Relationships and Youth Ministry

"relationships aren't about fixing, they're about being with" - parable of andy trying to fix his wife's problem when she's suffering, and she blows up and says don't you know i don't want a fix, i want you to just be with me...

why relationships at all? why are they significant in YM?
YouTube clip about NoLimit worship (NoLimit Youth Ministries)
-desire to be a part of kids' lives, and the desire of kids to have relationships w/ people

Crisis of relationship
-pre-industrial family encompassed basic needs (made/grew food), education, work, relatives, recreation (balls enclosed in the circle of a family
-industrial family, the balls fell apart and separated (dad gets up, goes to work, family has little idea what he's doing; kids go off to be educated at schools...); pluralization of life worlds
-split continues to happen. specialization continues to become finer and finer

field of cultural totality (change in each context, but each culture has them): family-economy-gov't-society-religion

family and religion have shrunk to small pieces of the pie, where the economy and society have grown greatly; this creates crises of relationship

the high school is actually not that old...only since after the great depression that it became the norm. institutionalizing children in a structure - the high school. meant 2 broad things...
1)young people remained in their parents' homes much longer
2)yet they spent fewer meaningful hours with their parents

crisis of relationality arrived in the mid-20th century, led to...
-backlash to technological advance (every advance comes w/ a backlash - higher pollution...)
-technical rationality (determinations of how people are treated made by the bottom line...filters into relationships - why stay married to you, it doesn't benefit me; why should i stay in this church...?)
video clip from the office (michael giving his presentation to corporate on "the faces of scranton")

this led to an emphasis on The Self-Chosen relationship
-up to the individual to negotiate all relationships (no longer the family or tradition or location)
when a kid walks into the doors of a hs, and sees a sea of people, how does he determine what relationships to have?
-only in a modernized world is relational interconnection optional and open to ??

how do you choose?
-tradition/family no help
-"cool" vs. "uncool" (consumerism plays a part, but it's largely b/c of intimacy): label to say "you're safe to develop a relationship with"
-indian caste system and american h.s. operate in exactly the same way (milner reference "freaks, geeks, and cool kids")
-jim rayburn (founder of Young Life) understood this; decided to do YM by going INTO the high school. by becoming friends, them trusting him, they would come to his events. he had to become "cool." organization's strategy was to go into the HS and develop relationships w/ the "cool" kids.

Relationship Focus
1) relational/incarnational ministry of personal influence
-using relationships as a means to an end
-relationship less important than the thing you're trying to achieve/get them to do
-focusing on the "third" thing
-the person isn't important, only their decision (will)
-the Incarnation was not about influence: jesus didn't come into the world to lead us into the safe barn; but instead about coming and sharing our place, suffering with us...
-the koinonia of the trinity is not built on influence: the father isn't trying to influence the son or the spirit to do this or that, but simply IS, in relationship
(video clip from A&E, steve discerning whether to enter seminary, is a college missionary...) (YouTude blip, green day's american idiot, empty relationships, leaves them alone, finding some comfort in all the wrong things, missing the peace that passes all understanding..."loving them into a responsive relationship" - why not just loving someone? - b&w video of kid doing all these activities usually needing 2 people but he's doing them alone...a ministry called Emmanuel?)

2) relational/incarnational ministry of PLACE-SHARING (bonhoeffer)
-means to stand in for; to be there
-to concern oneself for the other's full person (not about influencing)
ARE YOU BRAVE ENOUGH TO JUST STARE IT DOWN, the ugliest thing in someone's life; will suffering destroy you? or, will it connect your heart to someone? doesn't mean you say it's good.
-therefore it means to suffer with (whereas the conditional relationship means that you don't have to; or that i'll suffer with you if it then means you see i'm right)
-it's ethical (Christologically) - caring for the wholeness about their humanity; demands that you confront. all relationships demand judgment and confrontation, but judgment and confrontation cannot lead to relationships
-Incarnation is its fullest picture (the word became flesh and tented among us)
-the trinity is based on mutual giving love; being with and for (each person points away from itself and towards one of the other) (moltmann/volf, dance of three in one...)
video clip from "little miss sunshine" (when son finds out he is color blind)

personal influence compared to place sharing
"how" v. "who"
"programmer" v. "theologian" (dancer)
"for cultural conflict" v. "narrative of the incarnate, crucified, and resurrected"

What would this look like, how would this be practiced?
The Shape of Faithful Place-Sharing
-Open (identification) AND Closed (Differentiation): being able to be open, but to say stop, i am a human being, you will not exploit my brokenness (ref. to good will hunting, will trying to break down robin williams's character in their first session); recognition that one can not be categorized, boxed in, etc.
-Barrier (presence demands confrontation/judgment)
-Correspondence w/ Reality: jesus christ has become reality (jesus christ is in the world); suffering w/ and yet confessing that...
-Mutuality in Freedom: freedom is always freedom FOR, not freedom from (Christological bondage?)

As a paid YD, can't be a place-sharer w/ all the kids. it is an invitation to the congregation to be place-sharers with the kids. a bridge btwn the kids and adults; point back to the church, the family as saying, "you are the ones who ought to be in relationship w/ these kids"