Should Youth Ministers attend seminary? – On The Gospel Coalition

[This was first published on the Gospel Coalition US Website here]

Should those called to work in youth ministry be required to attend seminary?

There’s a fight between two combatants that often goes into answering that question: in one corner is $60,000 worth of debt from training and diplomas. In the other stands the 12-year-veteran who’s been in the trenches gaining experience in youth ministry, but has no degrees.

Which should win out? Or is this a false dichotomy?

As youth workers, we’re charged to know God and his Word deeply so we can teach it relevantly in a way that brings hearts to life. In Luke 24 Jesus explains the Scriptures to two disciples on the Emmaus road. Afterward they say, “Didn’t our hearts burn within us when he opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32).

To teach something relevantly in a way that genuinely equips a young person to connect with God, you have to know it deeply. To know something deeply, you have to spend time with it. A good seminary seems to be a great place for that to happen.

Should They or Shouldn’t They?

This brings us back to the question about seminary. The answer depends largely on what you think a youth worker is. Many churches assume youth ministry is “ministry lite.” From the outside it can look like underpaid, entertainment-driven purgatory for ministers paying their dues until they’re let out for “real” ministry position. If this is true, seminary isn’t necessary.

Pediatric doctors train for years, as do nurses, counselors, and teachers. We see these as professions requiring the best training. We take them seriously because they’re involved with the care of vulnerable young people. But isn’t that exactly what we do in youth ministry?

Youth ministers aren’t just “playing at ministry.” They work with real persons, not practice dummies. Genuine pastoral ministry happens in Christian youth work, which makes seminary a serious option.

It’s worth asking, then, another question: why would you not train?

If you want to take ministry seriously as a calling, then you have to think of your life in decades rather than years. Preparing for the long haul should mean portioning out time to create a foundation for the decades to come. You can always build experience later, but you can’t build a foundation later—especially when you’re already several floors up.

You can always build experience later, but you can’t build a foundation later—especially when you’re already several floors up.

This takes us to the real question: whom is your ministry for? Ministry is not about us. It’s about Jesus and those we serve. If you have the opportunity, you should take as much time as needed for robust preparation. You owe it to your future congregation to build a solid ministry foundation.

Reasons the Answer Is ‘Yes’

There are plenty of obvious reasons to go to seminary—you’ll know more theology, you’ll learn to preach, you’ll perhaps meet a spouse—but here are a few less frequently articulated reasons:

1. You’ll learn without making a mess.

Nobody gets hurt if you get it wrong on paper.

2. You’ll engage a variety of views.

Considering a spectrum of perspectives helps you to make deliberate choices. And you’ll be less likely to run after every new thing.

3. You’ll learn to be reflective and careful.

Everything gets put under the microscope, making you more considered in your doctrine and practice.

4. You’ll do your thinking in community.

You learn to measure voices in a room and be sharpened by others. This makes you both more teachable and a also better teacher.

5. You’ll ask more questions.

Asking questions allows you to assess both your own ideas and also the ideas that surround you, bringing you to a deeper understanding of important doctrines and practices.

6. You’ll ask better questions.

You learn to draw a straight line between the information you need and the best way to get at it. You become a clearer thinker.

7. You’ll receive formal recognition.

This means you’ve been held accountable to a measured standard. A degree gives your potential employer confidence in your abilities, awareness, and dedication.

8. You’ll stick at it.

Because you invested in a foundation, you’re more likely to stick around for the long haul.

Potential Downsides, But Still Worth It

Yes, there are potential downsides. You might fall into a condition wherein students arrogantly imitate professors’ or older students’ views without having done the work to back it up. Real people become theological targets for practice swings, and hearts get clogged up by a good but sometimes delicate quest for doctrinal accuracy. There may be humane skills you start to unlearn in a vacuum of people who debate theology all day. You might need to learn to be normal again.

Nevertheless, I believe seminary training its worth it. Experience rounds and shapes you over years, but a foundational time of study is a goldmine you’ll draw on forever. It fills gaps you might not be aware of and teaches you to think critically in community.

Few people who say they’ll study later do, and fewer youth workers who begin their career without training stick around. Growing in experience after training tends to be more efficient and results in fewer mistakes than trying to build experience without training. You’ll spend less time scrambling around in the dark.

Seminary or experience? It’s a both/and, not an either/or. But if you have the choice, don’t skip training.

[This was first published on the Gospel Coalition US Website here]

My response to the Steve Chalk – Phil Moore debate

This was first published on Premier Christianity. Read it here.

Back in 2004 I attended a public debate held by the Evangelical Alliance in London. The purpose of the event was to discuss the atonement as presented in Steve Chalke’s book, The Lost Message of Jesus.

Steve didn’t so much defend his book as he talked passionately about social justice and widespread judgementalism in the church. It was a masterclass in winning over a hostile crowd. It was incredibly hard to disagree with a man who had sat by so many bedsides, visited so many prisons, and who spoke so passionately about the love of God lived out. Anything said against him was an unreasonable attack against an immensely likeable figure. Even then however, as a young theology student, something about Steve’s approach bothered me.

Yesterday I watched the recent episode of Unbelievable? where Steve Chalke debated Phil Moore over the themes of Steve’s new book The Lost Message of Paul.

As Steve’s book is largely a popularised version of the New Perspective on Paul, I was hoping the debate was going to dig into questions about the accuracy of scripture, the reality of hell, the nature of faith, and what exactly salvation is. I have a real interest in these topics and was looking forward to a lively debate on the issues. I was sadly disappointed. What prompted me to write this, was not the content but rather the manner of the debate itself, and specifically how Steve carried himself.

Coming out swinging

To be fair to Steve, some of Phil’s early swings were overreaching. He made an entirely unreasonable remark about the cover of Steve’s book, for instance. At the beginning, Phil came across a little aggressive and he made some sweeping statements that he was never fully able to shake off. With an opponent like Steve, you’ve got to be very careful not to shoot yourself in the foot with a misplaced word. It was a poor start from Phil, and one that perhaps prompted Steve go in guns blazing.

Steve dominated the discussion, and I mean dominated. He took at least 80 per cent of the airtime, interrupted almost every sentence Phil began, and regularly hijacked partially made points to springboard off into something else entirely. Phil struggled to articulate his arguments under the constant onslaught of brash, lengthy interruptions and possessive, arresting noises.

Justin had his hands full to say the least. I have never seen a guest take the show away from him like this. Steve, just like a media-hardened politician, controlled the narrative.

Controlling the narrative

Steve said several times that he wanted a “conversation”, however he continuously tried to hold both sides of it. He attempted to get Justin to move on from a point when he got close to the ropes, and he hijacked the times Justin attempted specifically to give Phil a moment to frame an issue. On several occasions he immediately started speaking when a question was very pointedly addressed to Phil. He even told Justin not to “butt in”! At one point, Phil called him on this saying “you want a conversation as long as no-one disagrees with you” and when Phil tried to find common ground, Steve cut across with “endorse the book then.”

It was painful. Steve simply couldn’t keep quiet for more than just a few seconds. It felt toxic and uncomfortably authoritarian. He neutralised the moderator, silenced his conversation partner, and got on with his own agenda. Frankly, Steve came across as a bully. A very defensive bully, but a bully, nonetheless.

Fighting study with soundbites

I don’t know Phil, but his scholastic credentials outstrip Steve’s by some margin. This was a genuine opportunity, then, to critically converse on the contentious themes of the book in front of an engaged audience. Rather than respond constructively to the few points Phil managed to raise, however, Steve suggested that Phil’s problem was that he hadn’t read widely enough. It was a case of “your point isn’t worthy of discussion because you haven’t read all the nonspecific stuff that I have.”

At other times Phil was dismissed more cavalierly by name-calling, a few of which were “liberal”, “imperialistic” and “capitalist”. For someone who constantly criticises the judgemental nature of the church, Steve was labelling Phil with all kinds of broad generalities and then hanging him with them.

Emotional overreaching

Some of Phil’s other comments were used as dangerous springboards into some rather wild rebuttals. At one point, Steve refuted a textual comment on a Greek phrase as discussed by Martin Luther as oversimplified. But rather than say why he thought this, or contrast it with a more complex idea, Steve bounced off to Luther being republished by the Nazis. He came very close to suggesting that the imperialist misreading of Paul (which Phil was apparently complicit in) was largely responsible for the murder of millions of Jews. Dangerous, dangerous ground! At very least it was attacking the person rather than refuting the point.

Steve regularly reached for big guns and tugged heartstrings in ways that are just not appropriate when ‘weaponised’ (using his word) in a debate. Within the very first few moments in response to “why did you write this book?” Steve had brought up suicide, misogamy, and Apartheid, as well as the phrases “weaponised” and “used to crush people”. Not long after that he reached through a point to label Phil’s ‘type of church’ as alienating women and LGBTQ+ communities – a point that came up at least once more without adding anything to the conversation other than arbitrarily putting Phil on the unpopular side of every issue.

A missed opportunity

Rather than show Phil any respect for stepping up, and without asking a single genuine question, Steve wrote him off as a product of his upbringing who simply hadn’t read enough. He wouldn’t even allow him the grace to articulate his own thoughts without constantly hijacking and painfully interrupting.

Rarely do I call people out publicly, but we must consider the amount of influence Steve has. Steve’s commitment to social action and his incredible success in that arena has afforded him a sizable platform. However, a greater platform comes with greater responsibility.

Steve, your social action – as amazing as it is – doesn’t put you above brotherly accountability. I would suggest that you need to consider the manner in which you engaged with this conversation. You came across – at least to me – as judgemental, authoritarian, egotistic, and rude. The lack of respect for someone who had stepped up to discuss these ideas did not serve your position or reputation at all.

Even in high energy debate, there are ways brothers and sisters should talk and listen to one another. Maybe it’s worth a phone call to Phil?

 

 

 

How to develop a healthy team culture – on the IVP blog

This was first published on the IVP blog

One of the most memorable fairy tales from my childhood was ‘the princess and the pea’. The way I remember the story, an overly-entitled bratty millennial princess couldn’t get comfy enough to fall asleep, and so her wealthy, avocado-farming parents called upon every dashing bloke in her kingdom to fix it.

They tried specialised ear-plugs, whale song, white noise machines, hypnosis, and even narcotic massages. Eventually, however, they resorted to dumping her on a huge pile of old mattresses. The problem came to light when they discovered a tiny pea under her sheets. #middleclassproblems

An unhealthy team culture is very much like that pea. In the vastly rich landscape of leadership dynamics, the culture (that’s the tone or the mood) of a team may seem tiny and insignificant, and yet – left unaddressed – it will leave you awkward and unsettled. When projects aren’t working, you can almost always trace source of the problem back to an unhealthy team culture. Whatever else you try to fix in your leadership style or projects, the pea will remain an issue until you tackle it directly.

What is team culture?

Team culture is basically how the team ‘feels’ to be part of. What does it mean to belong to that team? What are the banter levels, how included do you feel, how easy is it to raise objections or provide ideas? All of this is subversively managed by the team culture. Some kind of culture will always develop in a team, the question is whether that culture will be healthy, and if it will genuinely serve the people involved.

Some team cultures are highly collaborative, with lots of opportunities given to develop ideas together. Others are more authoritarian, with a superhero leader driving the motivation. Some team cultures place a high value on initiative, giving each person a spot in the driving seat, whereas others place a high value on compliance, making sure everyone is pulling in the same direction without mismanaging resources. There is no ‘globally ideal’ culture, only the best fitting culture for the needs of a given context.

When a team culture works, you find much greater synergy between members, conflict resolution will be more natural, recruitment will be easier, and – for want of a better way of putting it – it will just ‘feel’ better. People need to belong in order to commit, and it’s much easier to belong in a healthy team than an unhealthy one.

When a team culture doesn’t work, the resulting traits include lethargy, apathy, a revolving door or short-term volunteers, an undercurrent of gossip, and possibly even safeguarding risks.

Starting to steer the health of culture

Team culture is organic rather than mechanical, which means it needs growing rather than building. Thus, intentionally cultivating a healthy and functional team culture should take real time and genuine patience. However, here are a few ideas to begin to steer the ship into the wind, and get your team culture going in a healthy, direction:

1. Communicate better

Volunteers need information in four main areas: what’s happening when and where; what’s expected of me; what’s the overarching purpose; and what’s the plan for my development? It’s your job to provide answers to these in a flow of communication that is clear without being bombarding. Consider the frequency of communication carefully, and gear the methods towards the people involved, not just your favourite app!

2. Resolve conflicts

Ignored conflicts don’t go away and dominating in conflicts creates stalemates. Learn healthy methods of conflict resolution and deal with problems appropriately, amicably and quickly.

3. Supervise

Find time to meet individually with each team member a few times a year over coffee. Ask direct questions about their struggles and fears, show specifically where they add value, and make a plan for their growth.

4. Train

A regular expectation for training helps team members stay teachable, while giving you a platform to directly address weaknesses in the projects.

5. Let socials be socials

It’s great to get together as team socially, but these pizza nights and bowling tournaments should be free from business. Don’t mix them with strategy meetings and use the time to informally propagate healthy relationships. When socials remain social, you should be able to more clearly define the purpose of your other meetings and stick to your agendas with greater focus.

6. Run briefings

Briefing for fifteen minutes before a project and debriefing afterwards can provide a weekly project with twenty-five hours of carefully facilitated team training and conversation a year. A quick check on who is doing what, how things went, and whether there any things that need to be watched out for provides both security for the team and objectivity for the projects.

7. Say thank you

Small cards, gifts, and quiet affirming conversations go a long way, as do annual public acknowledgments and prizes. Your team are valuable – make sure they know it!

Setting the tone for a healthy culture

All of these tips rely on you approaching your leadership position with your game face on. If you come to projects and meetings with a bad attitude, poor preparation, or a wildly different set of expectations for your team than they have, then it will bleed through like chocolate ice-cream in a sock. If your attitude stinks, so will your team culture.

It’s important to be authentic and genuine, but equally important to take your role as leader seriously. Be a servant, learn active listening, stay teachable, work hard, and trust Jesus. The rest will follow, and your team culture will thrive.

Mental Health and Youth Ministry – on the IVP Blog

This was first published here on the IVP blog.

When I was 14, one of my best friends was Daniel. I didn’t know Daniel was clinically depressed or that his random outbursts were actually early signs of bipolar disorder. I didn’t understand that it wasn’t normal that Daniel’s room only contained a mattress, a guitar and a pile of black hoodies. All I knew was he was fun and unique to be around, and that he had an unusually broad talent for music.

We drifted apart over the years, so it came as a huge shock to me when he was found in a flat, dead at age 23, after swallowing a mix of alcohol and methadone.

Daniel was a disruption to the classroom environment. He was always in trouble and – as far as I know – had no-one working with him to identify or work with his root causes. To me though, Daniel was just a mate who I’ll never see again.

I’d like to think that I’m a passionate advocate for mental health. At least I believe that we neither spend enough or research enough to develop treatment for those who really struggle.

The NHS says that one in four adults and one in ten children will experience mental health problems, however only a small amount of the NHS budget has been historically set aside for mental health research, diagnosis or treatment. This is getting better (£11.9 billion in 2017/18), but the waiting lists are still too long, and the medical opinions between departments are still too rampantly inconsistent.

Could we, as youth workers and as Church, develop programs that genuinely support young people with poor mental health? After all, this is not something we might encounter as youth workers; we will encounter it and we should be prepared.

This is a vast landscape, and anything we can do needs focus, so let’s start with what we are not.

1. We are not doctors

As mental health is dialled up to 11 in the media, and the – much-needed – mission to re-educate the public on its seriousness is highlighted, pop-psychology has been dialled up too, and genuine illnesses are in danger of being sensationalised as almost fashionable.

Some have become reactionary to basic terms and there are thousands of websites and videos where you can be ‘self-diagnosed’. Some of these are helpful, but many are not. With the internet being the shape it is, we have no way of knowing if the guy at the other end of the keyboard is an actual MD, or a college drop-out sitting on his parents’ couch with a can of Monster and ill-fitting pyjamas.

With this as our main source of information, and without medical training, we too could fall into to the trap of cavalierly ‘diagnosing’ young people with mental health conditions. Even if we have been through clinical treatment ourselves, we shouldn’t be telling kids what they do and don’t have as if we were trained experts.

We’re not psychologists, psychiatrists, key-workers, or mental health nurses. Our job is not treatment, it’s support. We should follow medical advice, and refer young people to professionals.
We should help them get the help they need, and sometimes that help is simply not us.

2. We are not them

Empathy is a powerful tool in ministry. Being able to legitimately say, ‘yes, I’ve been in that hole and I know the way out’ can be really helpful. However, assuming we understand a young person’s mental health just because we have had a similar experience is not always the best route to take. It can easily lead to unhealthy over-dependency at one end of the spectrum, or a blank wall of rejection at the other.

Every young person struggling with mental health is different. We should let young people speak freely about their own condition, and help us to understand what they need and how they like to talk about it.

Our job is to support each young person’s individual needs as best we can, and partner up with family, key-workers, teachers, and doctors to create a consistent experience of boundaries and support.

3. We are not alone

It’s easy to get frustrated by conditions that we can’t understand, but our job isn’t to fix young people – it’s to lead them to Jesus. There are few things that do this better than creating a safe place of love and security in our ministries.

We’re not in this alone. We live in the community of faith surrounded by quality, compassionate people who – when we truly serve each other – create a unique place of acceptance and healing.

As youth ministers, it’s important that we don’t hold burdens for young people alone. We should have accountability in place where we can debrief and share with a select group of trusted people. This could be pastors, line-managers, counsellors, or a network of other practitioners.

We also have the Holy Spirit living in us; the very presence of Jesus. We are not in this alone, and we can love as He first loved us, and create safe places for struggling young people. We should begin by trusting God, supporting each other, and from that place of strength – loving young people.

 

An open letter to church leaders… from a youth pastor. On Premier Christianity.

This post was first published on Premier Christianity. See the original here.

Tim Gough urges church leaders to resist the temptation to outsource all the youth work to their youth pastors

Dear Pastor,

It’s your job to minister to young people.

Since the close of the Second World War your duty of care over the spiritual well-being of young people has been siphoned off, segregated out, and surrendered to the biblically fictional role of the “Youth Pastor.”

A youth pastor’s calling is not examined with the same level of scrutiny as yours probably was; they get a job, you get ordained. Youth ministry training is often missing the depths of theological grounding you likely had. Youth pastors are not so frequently exposed to the wide and complex tapestry of human experience as you. Finally (and frankly), youth pastors don’t tend to last all that long.

They need you.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in youth ministry. I am in fact one of these youth pastors – so please don’t fire me! However, the Bible tells me that the best ministry breaks down walls, crosses boundaries, dismantles segregation, and reaches across the gap. The desire for this is crucial to the definition of church, and it cannot be done without unifying figures.

In the Bible the spiritual care of young people is the purview of the entire worshipping body of Israel (Deuteronomy 6:1-9, cf. 5:1). Today that’s the church, and (under God) you have spiritual oversight of this body. In the same way that you don’t have segregated pastors for every homogenous people group in the church, you shouldn’t just dump young people at the door of the youth pastor. You can’t drop the grenade and run; there are consequences.

Since the 1940s ‘church’ and ‘youth’ (as if they were meant to be separate things) have grown further and further apart, and I believe that as a direct result, both are now waning. These young people are your young people. If you cut off your arm and place it in a box 20 feet away, then – once the twitching stops – neither you nor that arm are going to function particularly well again. There’ll be blood, bad feelings… it would suck.

We need your pastoral oversight and your birds-eye view of the development of the whole church family. We need you to honour the calling you were given. And frankly, you need our energy, innovation, risk-taking nature, and unparalleled ability to connect with the pace of culture. We need each other.

I believe in youth ministry and, as with all ministry, it’s best as a collaborative and community-driven effort, intrinsically one with the rest of the church. It’s also about Jesus, and not about us. It’s self-sacrificial, servant-hearted, and counter-cultural.

We don’t need any more lone-ranger rock-star youth pastors with God complexes and edgy haircuts

Youth ministry was never meant to be run by isolated superstar heroes in their own sequestered ecosystems and echo chambers. We don’t need any more lone-ranger rock-star youth pastors with God complexes and edgy haircuts – but we also don’t need any more bumbling and blissfully ignorant pastors without any clue about what is happening with a huge swath of their congregation.

Let me ask you an honest question or two: How much do you know about the content and methods of spiritual formation happening in your church’s youth ministry? How many individual young people in your community can you intelligently talk about? How many of them know your name? 

Now, it’s ok. Don’t panic – I’m not trying to get at you, and I know you’re not prepared for this. I’ve spent the last year touring Bible Colleges across the UK talking about it. I know youth ministry wasn’t part of your ‘mainstream’ pastoral education, but we can fix this together!

You don’t need a set of skinny jeans or oversized neon sunglasses. We’re not asking you to start organising our nerf battles or – heaven forbid – our lock ins. And we definitely don’t want you to try and ‘be down wiv da kids… bruv!’ We don’t need just another one of us, we need you, and we need you to be more attentive, invested, and directly involved – as yourself.

Let’s start with some obvious easy steps: attend some youth project sessions, read some youth ministry handbooks, and ask lots and lots of questions. Be curious and alert. Don’t be a jerk, but don’t be afraid to challenge and provoke either. These are God’s people under your care, including the youth pastor. Speaking of which, start meeting more regularly with your youth pastor to do mutual training with each other and collaborative thinking together.

Together, start designing growth pathways that take your congregation members from infanthood to adulthood. Map out maturity journeys that cross generational gaps. Pioneer missional projects with joined-up thinking from across the age spectrums.

Our youth ministries are disappearing and our jobs are vanishing. We’re reaching out to you because we need you to step up and take responsibility for the healing of the whole body. ‘Youth’ and ‘church’ need to be one thing again.

Use us as specialists – believe me we’re worth every penny (in fact we’re worth more than we’re paid) – but please don’t indiscriminately hand over a significant chunk of your pastoral responsibility to us. We can share in pastoral care, but we defer to you as pastor.

That’s you, bucko, so don’t let us down. Our young people need you. God has called you for such a time and purpose as this.

Thanks,

Tim

This post was first published on Premier Christianity. See the original here.

Reaching our unreachable inner city teens – on Evangelical Alliance

Here’s a short post I wrote for the Evangelical Alliance. Check it our here.

What does Star Wars have to do with Youth Work? – on YCW

Here’s a post I wrote for ‘May the 4th Be With You’ day for Premier Youth and Children’s work. Check it out here!

7 Ways To Lead People Older Than You – on Leadanyone.com

A wee while back, I was approached to write a couple of articles of Leadanyone.com by it’s founder Joel Preston. The whole site is full of quality articles and I would heartily recommend it to you.

The first of my articles went up online, and you can read it here. It’s a simple set of tools used to evaluate objectively your ministry projects. I hope that it’s helpful!

Evaluating Ministry – Post On Lead Anyone.com

A wee while back, I was approached to write a couple of articles of Leadanyone.com by it’s founder Joel Preston. The whole site is full of quality articles and I would heartily recommend it to you.

The first of my articles went up online, and you can read it here. It’s a simple set of tools used to evaluate objectively your ministry projects. I hope that it’s helpful!

When Job shows up at your youth group – on Premier Youth and Children’s Magazine

Great to have a post on Premier Youthwork Blog this week. This time on working with tragedy in our youth groups – when ‘Job’ appears.

Check it out here: http://www.premieryouthwork.com/Read/The-Youthwork-Blog/Young-people-as-Bible-characters-Job?l

For other posts I’ve written for Premier Youthwork Blog, have a look here.