As announced last week, Chris Folmsbee will blog at Jesus Creed about youth ministry. I\u2019m keen that we develop more sensitivity to youth ministries and ministers, and Chris is at the cutting edge of what is going on. <\/i><\/p>\n
The more I thought about the conversations surrounding last weeks post
\non re-thinking mission in youth ministry, the more I thought about the
\nneed for youth workers to also be re-thinking the idea of narrative in
\nyouth ministry.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
I am hearing a wonderful amount of chatter around \u2018story\u2019 and the art
\nof storytelling in youth ministry.\u00a0 What I am thinking more about these
\ndays, however, isn\u2019t our ability to craft good stories and tell them
\nwell.\u00a0 What I have been absorbed by lately is what is commonly referred
\nto by some as narrative intelligence, which is the ability and capacity
\nto think in story. \u00a0
\nThinking in story is critical for a meaningful connection between a
\nperson\u2019s story, the story of a particular community and God\u2019s story. So
\nthe question lingering in my mind and heart is, how do we help our
\nstudents raise their narrative intelligence?\u00a0<\/b> In other words, how do we
\nhelp the students in our faith communities engage more deeply in the
\nenduring, unfolding narrative of God?<\/b><\/p>\n
\n
Tantamount to the mission of God we thought about last week is the narrative of God for it is out of God\u2019s narrative that mission is first and most deeply understood and acted out.\u00a0 It is out of mission that we might interact with our worlds \u2014 not just with logic, reason and information but also with meaning.\u00a0 The ability to think in story furnishes our students\u2019 lives with the ability to generate context and meaning from the stories of Scripture, their experience, reason, culture, etc.\u00a0 How do we help our students generate context and meaning from the mission of God to help them live more closely aligned to the intended ways of God?<\/p>\n
Last week when I mentioned that youth ministry might be \u201con hold\u201d what I was referring to was that our commitment to think theologically, organize philosophically and act practically about mission was in need of renovation.\u00a0 The more I think about it, the only way we can truly renovate our commitment to being missional in and to our communities is to go back to the source, God\u2019s narrative, to find our purpose for youth ministry.\u00a0 That purpose (derived from our mission which is derived from God\u2019s narrative) of youth ministry is to participate in God\u2019s restoration of the world toward its intended wholeness.\u00a0<\/b> <\/p>\n
Youth ministry has to get unstuck and work its way toward extending the missio Dei through a creed of:
evangelism<\/i> (where the message of the mission is proclaimed and performed),
contextualization<\/i> (where the message of the mission is made more accessible culturally sensitive)
liberation<\/i> (where the message of the mission sets students free from the hesitations and hindrances that keep them from their belief in a loving God) and
impartation<\/i> (where the message of the mission is about the converting of culture from hearers of the story to storytellers).\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Ultimately, this helps students think in story, raising their narrative intelligence.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m certain that youth ministry (through mission yielded people like you and me and a globe full of others) can make its way toward a place as described above, but how?\u00a0 In what ways might we more deeply commit to a narrative-missional approach to youth ministry?\u00a0 What is it going to take to realize this commitment?\u00a0 What is keeping youth ministry from this commitment?\u00a0 Why is it so much easier to be committed to attractional, social or externally focused approaches?<\/b> <\/p>\n
I\u2019d love to know what you think.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As announced last week, Chris Folmsbee will blog at Jesus Creed about youth ministry. I\u2019m keen that we develop more sensitivity to youth ministries and ministers, and Chris is at the cutting edge of what is going on. The more I thought about the conversations surrounding last weeks post on re-thinking mission in youth ministry, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[540],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-youth-ministry"],"yoast_head":"\n