Practicing Passion: Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church

If you are in youth ministry or are a church considering to hire someone for youth ministry you should read this book. It presents a method/mindset of ministry that centers youth on the passionate (suffering) love of Christ. Kenda Creasy Dean does an excellent job of exploring issues that are unique to adolescents, and presenting a ministry and church mindset that values youth and their unique role in the body of Christ. It also explores areas of theology that are particularly suited for adolescents. I love how Dean bluntly states that youth ministry isn’t about youth, it’s about Jesus and that the standard for self-sacrificial Christian living that she sets forth for youth is really a universal standard for followers of Christ. A good part of this book is a call to the church to ignite passionately by refocusing on the “pathos” (suffering love) of Christ as showed through his sacrifice on the cross. The concept is that if the church is burning for Christ, then the gift of passion in youth will draw them to Christ through his bride. She also rightly states that the primary relational question facing youth today is a question of fidelity and faithfulness (“Will you be there for me?”) to which Christ is the ultimate answer (“I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Mt. 28:20b). Overall I give this book very high marks and suggest it as an excellent resource for those interested in being educated for work with adolescents in Christian settings.

Signs of Maturity

As I was thinking and talking with a friend recently five areas of life that evidence Christian maturity came to mind:

1. Generosity – Giving where there is need

2. Hospitality – Welcoming in all who come

3. Humility – Serving others, considering them better than yourself

4. Gratitude – Being thankful in all things at all times

5. Suffering/Sacrifice – Loving in a way that risks and suffers gladly

What would you add to the list? If you are a believer, how have you seen these displayed in your life and Christian community? Where have they been noticeably absent?

Trying to Define Healthy Community

Community should be

…where you trust enough to admit that you don’t trust fully.

…where you can admit your current failings – not just your past failures.

…safe for voicing pain, anger, grief, annoyance, depression, and brokenness.

…dangerous for maintaining pain, anger, grief, annoyance, depression, and brokenness.

…open, honest, and real.

…a space where listening is more valuable than speaking and silence is more valuable than noise.

…playful and serious.

…passionate in how members suffer for one another.

…where truth is spoken and grace is extended.

…a group that accepts members based on humility, submission, and brokenness.

…a group that rejects members based on hardheadedness, unrepentant pride, and divisiveness.

…forgiving of those it rejects.

Jesus seems agitated. (Using relational language to explore scripture)

My last post proved to be the basis of my Sunday morning lesson with the youth at my church. Following the time for imaginative prayer I asked for gut check reactions to how Jesus seemed in the passage (a question I stole from the practice of spiritual direction). The answers were great and opened the door to a deeper relational exploration of scripture. Jesus seemed agitated and firm. The words felt like discipline. The students felt nervous and worried. One student articulated how the words both brought hope and dread because they revealed the reality that our circumstances and death can not be tied directly to our sin. In other words, “we’re not in control”.

Then I asked if they could imagine Jesus saying this with tears in his eyes. Somehow in the hardness of the words they were the fullness of love – not only for those who listened but for those who had died. Jesus was saying that worse than tragic death was the failure to repent. This is about when I stopped asking questions and poured my heart out about the reality of hell and how if we truly seek to have God’s compassionate heart we must not ignore the fact that some will perish apart from Christ and will suffer eternity for it. Those words hurt me to say and still hurt me to write. Yet they are truth and I can not imagine living life in ignorance to them.

Mildly related tangent:

I think my aversion to teaching on eternity has been my experiences with people who ignored the damage they did on Earth because all of their energy was focused on the afterlife. But we as Christians have the strange reality of following the ever-present God. The great I Am. So we are called, once again, to tension in the Christian life. A tension between this life and the next. A tension between the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth and the Kingdom of Heaven afterwards.