‘E-mail is, like, soooo dead’ is the headline at News.com, where a piece looks at youth attitudes towards communication mediums. A group of teenage internet business entrepreneurs confessed that they really only use email to ‘talk to adults’. Primarily, these folks are using social networks to communicate. ‘More and more, social networks are playing a bigger role on the cell phone. In the last six to nine months, teens in the United States have taken to text messaging in numbers that rival usage in Europe and Asia. According to market research firm JupiterResearch, 80 percent of teens with cell phones regularly use text messaging. Catherine Cook, the 17-year-old founder and president of MyYearbook.com, was the lone teen entrepreneur who said she still uses e-mail regularly to keep up with camp friends or business relationships. Still, that usage pales in comparison to her habit of text messaging. She said she sends a thousand text messages a month.

Article summary taken from slashdot.org.

I think it would be helpful to have four broad training modules, which would link together as shown in the diagram below. There would be a number of training topics that would make up each module.

Youth leaders do not progress through the modules in order, as if they first gain a complete understanding of the bible and then move on to think about culture. Rather, the arrows show how each module provides foundational material for others. We should aim for youth leaders who are consistently maturing in each of the four areas.

I’ll post some thoughts about what topics might be covered under each module over the next week or two.

And as an added bonus, I’ll post a free copy of ‘The Danger of Raising Nice Kids’ to the first person who asks for it (email to youthatnowrabaptistdotasndotau)

The Danger of Raising Nice Kids
By Smith, Timothy, IVP Books (Downers Grove, Illinois: 2006), 202p. ISBN 0830833757 (pbk).

Timothy Smith, author of The Danger of Raising Nice Kids, has written numerous books to equip parents to raise their children and teenagers. In this book, his underlying assumption is that most parents are not raising their children well, not out of neglect, but simply because ‘they don’t know how’ (p13). Smith takes the role of a parenting expert, promising that his advice will take readers to ‘the next level of parenting’ (p12).

Smith outlines his thesis in the first two chapters, which he summarises as ‘nice is not enough’ (p12). That is, socialising children to have nice exterior behaviour is not an adequate parenting goal. Rather, parenting should be seen as discipling a child (p28). Moreover, parents should aim at moulding the heart and mind of their children. Smith proposes nine virtues, or traits, that ought to be fostered by parents. These nine virtues are vision, authenticity, listening, empathy, compassion, discernment, boundaries, contentment, and passionate love. The majority of the book comprises discussion about these nine virtues, with a chapter devoted to each. In each chapter, Smith shares a number of anecdotal stories about teenagers, interspersed with his own observations and practical tips about how parents might nurture the particular virtue under discussion.

The Danger of Raising Nice Kids displays several strengths. Smith’s central thesis is helpful. I am sure all youth ministry practitioners would agree that ‘nice is not enough’ and also with the goal of fostering virtuous young people. Moreover, Smith’s writing is often warm and easy-going. The range of practical tips he provides is both helpful and empowering to parents. He even includes three appendices with a range of worksheets and activities for families to do together. Personally, I believe that one of the most effective ways youth ministry practitioners can care for young people is to care for their parents. Therefore, resources such as Smith’s book can have a helpful role in building up parents, and consequently strengthening young people also.

Despite the outlined strengths, the Danger of Raising Nice Kids has a significant overarching weakness. Smith has aimed to write a Christian book, and refers God and the Bible at numerous points. However I felt like the central truths that ought to orientate all of the Christian life were missing. Smith has no discussion about how Christ’s death and resurrection, the certain hope of his return, or any other significant Christian truth, should be shaping parental goals for their children. Having proposed that ‘nice is not enough’ Smith moves immediately to a list of virtues. Whilst each of these virtues may be noble, I was left wondering why he chose those virtues in particular, and not others such as humility, patience, or hope. Moreover, I wonder why obvious biblical material such as Paul’s virtue lists go unmentioned. Smith’s list appears to be the nine virtues that came to mind when he was writing the book, rather than a list of virtues self consciously driven by a Christian worldview. Indeed, some of the traits Smith promotes, such as vision and boundaries, appear to be drawn more from fashionable pop-psychology than biblical Christianity.

To be fair, Smith may have done a significant amount of groundwork in deriving his virtue list from Christian doctrine, but if so, left his working out of the book. In its current form, I fear that all The Danger of Raising Nice Kids has succeeded in doing is presenting parents with a better way of achieving nicety in their children. That is, by focusing on virtue rather than external behaviour, parents may encourage children to be nice all the way through, rather than only nice on the exterior. However I don’t think that even ‘nice all the way through’ is enough. In my opinion, if young people are going to become culturally radical disciples of Christ, then they must know why virtue is important, and how virtue is grounded in Christian truth.

Smith’s book may be helpful to the youth ministry practitioner. The practical parenting tips and activities in the appendices are resources that encourage healthy families, and healthy young people. However, Smith leaves too much unsaid for The Danger of Raising Nice Kids to be a solid stand-alone resource.

I rekon the easiest, but least reliable, way to measure is by counting numbers.

I rekon the most relible, but difficult, way to measure is by the growth of God’s kingdom as kids come to Christ and grow in Christ.

What do you think?

• Beyond a Godless Understanding of Youth: Why Exegesis Matters of Youth Ministry
• Towards an Adolescent Hermenutic
• Faith in Networks: Religious Education of Dutch young adults in a ‘post-ecclesial’ era
• From ghetto to communitas: Post-Soviet youth ministry and leadership on a pilgrimage to Emmaus

It’s an interesting journal, like no other in youth ministry, that helps me think outside the square.

Fact 1: In the area I minister there are several great intensive leadership training camps and courses aimed at volunteer youth leaders. Things like Leaders in Training (LIT) and Katoomba Youth Leadership Conference (KYLC), as well as a range of smaller regional events.

Fact 2: Whilst intensive leadership training is great, I think it’s important to keep our leaders growing throughout the year. Week to week it can be easy to always be focused on organising the next event, or writing the next talk. My hope is to spend half an hour of the weekly leaders meeting on growing the Christian character, knowledge, and skills of the youth leaders, before we become immersed in week-to-week details. (By the way, half an our a week, for 36 weeks of the year is 18 hours spent developing leaders over the year! It would surely be time well spent.)

Fact 3: At the moment I don’t have enough time and creativity to effectively plan half an hour of leadership training each week.

Fact 4: I don’t know of any published material I can just pick up and use. There are lots of good resources, but many of them are not really formulated to be used in half hour bits, or for training youth leaders.

Therefore…

The plan is to gather a few people and together write one year of youth ministry training material that can be used in half hour blocks at a weekly youth leaders meeting.

So…

What do you think of the idea? If such a resource existed, would you use it?

Or perhaps you have some resources you have already developed that could be contributed?

Pulse Myspace Guidelines

The Purpose of Pulse Myspace

The Pulse myspace does not exist simply because it is the latest cool thing to do. Pirating music might be cool, but we don’t do that. Rather, the Pulse myspace exists for the specific purpose of supporting and building up Pulse. That is, the purpose of the Pulse myspace is to contribute to the goal of young people from Nowra becoming Christians and growing in Christian maturity. There are at least three ways the Pulse myspace can contribute to this goal.

1. To be an accurate reflection of the face-to-face Pulse community in the online world. Deep community and friendship is formed through relating and spending time with people face-to-face. Communication technologies such as the telephone, email, instant messaging, and the web can support, but not replace face-to- face friendships and community. Thus the Pulse myspace should not be something separate from other things Pulse does. Rather, the Pulse myspace should be an extension of who we are and what we do when we get together in person. A few of examples of what this practically this means are:

• The Pulse myspace must be easily identified as Christian.
• Pulse shouldn’t be listed as male or female, because we are not a single sex group. Nor should the myspace look really ‘boyish’ or really ‘girlish’.
• People who request to be friends, but who are not part of Pulse or the Nowra Baptist Church community should be denied (we are not trying to start a separate online community).
• If photos, videos, or quotes from Pulse are used, they must be used to build up and encourage, not to tear down or ridicule.
• Any comments left on the page, which are not appropriate, should be deleted.

2. To direct interested people back to the main Pulse website. The main Pulse website (http://youth.nowrabaptist.asn.au) is the source of all up to date and detailed information about Pulse. The Pulse myspace should not try to duplicate the main Pulse site. Rather than list lots of details, the Pulse myspace should simply tell people what Pulse is, who it is for, and that they can find more info at the main Pulse site.

3. To help those who are part of Pulse and Nowra Baptist Church express their Christian faith online. It’s easy to pretend to be someone you are not online. However, Christians must be truthful and authentic in the online world as much as the offline world. The Pulse myspace hopes to make it easy for those who are part of Pulse, and have their own myspace, to declare their involvement in a Christian group. This may be done through the myspace ‘friends’ system, leaving comments, etc.