Jeremy Del Rio - Activism

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activism, jeremy del rio, shift conference, youth ministry

God took on flesh and moved into the neighborhood

challenge in Isaiah to perceive the new thing God is doing

"young people are closer to God's heart than anyone else" - defends this by quoting the "become like little children" verse

we've bought the lie that young people are the future. there is some truth in that, b/c children do have A future; but God trusts 13 year old david, a teenage virgin to birth and mother Jesus, a teenage esther is a "beauty contest winner" who helps save her people.

re-frames the story of Jesus into that of a teen who as an immigrant moves into a community...develops the whole story.
**my thoughts - interesting way to push me into how i can engage story, something we've been thinking through. why not write the story ourselves for our community? re-create, re-member the jesus story**

Luke 10 - v. 25, expert in the Law stood up to test Jesus. begins w/ a question - what must one do to inherit eternal life? Jesus doesn't respond w/a "sinner's prayer;" he returns the question: what does the Law say, and the lawyer says we must love god w/ heart soul mind and self, and love neighbor; Jesus says he is correct and do this; but he adds a twist, and says to love your neighbor as yourself. lawyer asks, who then is my neighbor (looking to justify himself); Jesus replies with - you guessed it - a STORY: the good Samaritan story.

"justice is more than compassion" - compassion would have been to give the guy a glass of water and leave him there; justice is the Samaritan picking up the guy, caring for his wounds, putting him on his ride, and prepaying his medical bills.

end of Isaiah 61: "I the Lord love justice"

justice is about righting wrongs; you give your life to right the wrong.

Mark Matlock - Technology

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mark matlock, shift conference, technology, youth ministry

as americans we love tech, we form bonds & relationships about/around tech. we have come to depend on tech devices.
have we been using tech to address the right problems?

launched planetwisdom.com 12 years ago.

can't just give us a list of the latest tools, websites, etc. b/c they change at such a rapid rate. but wants to get to the heart of the use of tech. cultural exegesis of tech. tech is not morally neutral b/c culture is not culturally neutral.
**connection interrupted**

employers of 50 frustrated w/ employees under 30. when 5 o'clock hits, they're off. vp's choosing daughter's recital over a late-night last minute session.

PS3 vs. Nintendo Wii - bigger better system and graphics; but nintendo has brought other generations into the gaming, brought physical activity into it.

Mac vs. PC - people don't care about computers, they care about living their life and sharing it.

5 Values
1) shift in IDENTITY - w/ mass production, Wal-Martization, there has been a push against it, against cookie-cutterness. people want to create things. it's beyond doilies, now there are microchips and servers. use of YouTube to share who they are and what they create.
kids looking for a place to be who they are w/out having to wear a mask, who they are on the inside; they aren't finding it in the church. mark likes to see it, loves how MySpace brings out the real student, wants to take part in their struggles. if only they could be as real in church as they are on MySpace.
2) shift in CONNECTION - believes connections no longer have to be physical. real connections can be made online. adults use internet to maintain existing relationships, where as kids do that AND use it to form new relationships. story of a 4-year online relationship w/an atheist youth in the UK who came to believe, when he traveled here and they met, it was not as if meeting for the first time.
25% of born-again kids say they've had an experience online that is worship to them.
3) shift in understanding of RISK - an outdated concept, if you are teaching kids the danger of strangers. b/c once they've met once, they're no longer strangers. teach kids to look for strange behavior and alert others.
4) shift in making space for what MATTERS MOST - blew over this to get to the last one b/c of time
5) shift in WHO WE CAN CONNECT WITH - those on the margins can seek out others to connect with. online 24-hour prayer vigils. "where 2 or more can gather." thinking diff'ly about the body of X - not just the local community, it is a global body. beyond america. maybe we need the churches in the world more than they need us.
shift in mission trip thinking - from taking something to them to realizing that they have something that we need and we receive it when we meet them.

it's a DESIRE TO CONNECT, to be in relationship with others.
why shouldn't the church be the "killer app?"

Donald Miller - Evangelism

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donald miller, evangelism, shift conference, youth ministry

Evangelism - Donald Miller

"in one part this is ministry, and in another it's penance"

mystical element to the experience of Jesus that is hard to explain

how has XNY hurt you (recent survey on college campus)?
:: crusades (muslim v. XN, not billy graham)
:: religious TV (these people are goofy; say shocking/mean things, often about oppressed groups of people)

hesitancy to talk about XNY b/c of its perception in the world

feels normal to talk about XNY when it's "just us," but it gets weird when others join in

when a culture becomes so insular that it only interacts with itself, it becomes weird and goofy (acknowledges biblical notion of not being of the world). but the gospel message is to go out into the world and often not come back alive. why do we try to protect and insulate ourselves and our kids so that we're not influenced/taken over by them?

what's the best movie you saw this last year?
blood diamond, the prestige, little miss sunshine, eragon, happy feet...

what is your favorite aspect of the nicene creed? (laughter)

why are we so quick to want to talk to narrative, to story...but we don't really get interested (people are often threatened) by the propositional truth of creeds, belief, etc.

jesus tells story after story after story after story...there are propositions (james), but they are encompassed by narrative.

jesus seems fulfilled just to tell the story

if we went to see Rocky, and on the way home, i said, hey guys, can we pull over a second. what do you think was the meaning behind Rocky? what was the point? (laughter)

human heart DESIRES story. STORY SPEAKS FOR ITSELF.

story tells us what to live for, what to die for, what a hero does, what a villain is...

culture is hungering for a story, and we're not telling ours very well.

teens want to live inside a great story, they want to play a role. (story of dad/daughter clashing over her lifestyle (goth, blah blah); dad at wits end; donald challenges him w/ this idea; dad comes home later with a challenge for his family: an orphanage needs built in mexico and if we don't do it, xxx # kids are going to be uneducated, probably end up in abusive relationships, etc.; kids catch on (dad, i could use my myspace to try to get my friends to held; daughter recognizes her dad's call for her to be a hero...))

a great story has Ambition, Conflict (God loves conflict, he embraces conflict), Protagonist (if protagonist dies, that cause may die, too)

Paul in Acts 17 goes out and meets "at their meeting place" to discuss...

assumption of church marketing is that it's a corporation; "be profitable for the Kingdom of God." fear of being fired.
***connection interrupted***

Paul acknowledges the religious interest of the Athenian community; notices the shrine marked to "the god nobody knows." takes the time to observe the culture and see how his story can speak into it. sees the longing for a god the people can be near, touch, etc. and sees how the people are being taken advantage of by those running concrete shrines, people paying and running errands to have the chance to come close to god. and paul says God is near...

kids see 3000 commercial messages everyday. we need to tell a story other than, "attain what you can to be comfortable and avoid conflict. so go out and earn and spend..."; acknowledge what is positive in culture and name that which is not.

*book by Robert McKee about stories*

QUESTIONS from the "war room" (i'm not really happy with this label!):
is the loss of story universal? do other religions use them better than us?
:: not a universal thing; it's an american thing (i'd say a western thing)
:: heart doesn't respond to lists; yes, other religions use stories b/c they work on the heart.
:: story in some ways has been overrun in the church by some sort of american story (example of church that decides to encourage members not to run up christmas gift debt, published a 60-page catalog of "make your own gift on the cheap" ideas, the church gave instead of buying (1500 person church), gave $100,000 for well-drilling in Africa, no christmas pageant, etc.)

Shift! Conference

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shift conference, youth ministry

I've been invited to live-blog via internet stream some of the sessions of Willow Creek's Shift! Conference. I'll probably be posting my notes here, too, but the conference blog (which features other live-bloggers) can be found at shiftnow.typepad.com. Check it out and follow along.