Weekly Web Roundup (12/3/16)

Photo Credit:
George Fox Evangelical Seminary

Due to travel and the Thanksgiving holiday, I have not posted a "Weekly Web Roundup" in a few weeks. So today's entry covers the items that have piqued my interest on the web over the past three weeks:

How Cross-Cultural Dialogue Builds Critical Thinking and Empathy by Katrina Schwartz (Mind/Shift)

"Often adolescents hold strong opinions, but they don’t always know where and how they came to those beliefs. When a teacher pushes them to think critically about why they feel the way they do, it’s easy for students to ignore them. But, when video conferencing with a teenager from another country who genuinely wants to know the answer, students often respond more thoughtfully."

Ministry after the Massacre by Kevin P. Emmert, Interviews by Maina Mwaura (Christianity Today)

The June 12, 2016 attack on the Pulse nightclub in my city of Orlando shocked the nation and the world. It was the deadliest attack on the LGTBQ community in U.S. history. In response to the shootings, a number of local churches, including my own, sought to care for those affected by the attacks. This article includes interviews with three pastors in Orlando and the role their churches played in being the "hands and feet of Christ" to a community in need.

Why I’m still an Evangelical after the 2016 US Election by Andrew Ong (Reformed Margins)

"I refuse to give up on evangelicalism because I believe in something more ultimate than political unity. Evangelicalism has and will always be broad and diverse, especially when it comes to politics. It will also continue to host disagreements until our King’s final return. The beauty of the evangel, however, is that those who can’t unite as Trump’s people or Clinton’s people, are irreversibly united as God’s people. I’m not denying the political implications of the evangel, but evangelical unity must begin with the gospel, often in spite of politics."

3 Ways to Better Understand Your Emotions by Susan David (Harvard Business Review)

"Anger and stress are two of the emotions we see most in the workplace — or at least those are the terms we use for them most frequently. Yet they are often masks for deeper feelings that we could and should describe in more nuanced and precise ways, so that we develop greater levels of emotional agility, a critical capability that enables us to interact more successfully with ourselves and the world."

What Makes Today’s America Different From the Country That Incarcerated the Japanese? by Emma Green (The Atlantic)

"In the wake of Trump’s election, some Americans fear the possibility that hate crimes and incidents of bigotry will multiply, enabled by the new president’s rhetoric and policies. The comparison between Japanese internment and policy proposals related to Muslims speaks more to this fear than a significant chance of history being repeated. But Japanese Americans’ experiences are still instructive: They illustrate how America in 2016 resembles America in the 1940s, and show the ways that systematic discrimination can shape a minority group’s self-understanding."

Why we’re obsessed with the hit show ‘This is Us’ by Russell Moore (The Washington Post)

NBC's hit series "This is Us" has rapidly become one of my favorite television shows. Dr. Moore offers some keen insights here as to why he finds the show so compelling.

Remembering Bo: The Charismatic Coach by Angelique Chengelis (The Detroit News)

This November marked the ten-anniversary of the death of legendary Michigan Wolverines football coach Glenn "Bo" Schembechler. In this retrospective, Angelique Chengelis includes memories from some of those who knew Bo best.

Aidan Loses His Googles

This humorous video captures what happens when a child can't seem to find his missing goggles. I'm sure many of us can relate when it comes to our reading glasses, cell phone, car keys or remote control.

Making A Positive Impact Through Coaching Youth Sports

My football team from last year

Upon graduation from high school and entering college in the fall of 1991, there were two things I wanted to do with my life career-wise. I wanted to be an elementary school teacher and a coach. I enjoyed the satisfaction that came with teaching children and having enjoyed participating in multiple sports throughout my childhood and youth, I particularly enjoyed the combination of teaching and athletics that coaching brings.

I had the chance to coach junior high school football and basketball while in college and looked forward to the opportunity to potentially coach as a profession. But God had other plans for me and led me into Christian ministry with college students. The chance to coach athletics didn't really present itself for a number of years after college but I was able to get back into the game several years ago due to my son's participation in a league near our home.

I have found coaching flag football and basketball in an Upward league especially rewarding. Upward is a Christian-based sports league that teaches children the importance of sportsmanship, teamwork and positive attitude. It also places competition in its proper perspective by limiting the amount of practice time that each team has and ensures that each child gets an equal amount of playing time. It's been a joy coaching in a league that recognizes that athletic competition can be fun without having a win-at-all-costs attitude.

The New York Times recently wrote of the difference that positive coaching can make in the lives of youngsters. David Bornstein writes:

"Coaches can be enormously influential in the lives of children. If you ask a random group of adults to recall something of significance that happened in their fourth or fifth grade classroom, many will draw a blank. But ask about a sports memory from childhood and you’re likely to hear about a game winning hit, or a dropped pass, that, decades later, can still elicit emotion. The meaning that coaches or parents help young people derive from such moments can shape their lives.

But today’s youth coaches often struggle to provide sound, evidence-based, and age-appropriate guidance to players. Part of the problem is that of the 2.5 million American adults who serve as volunteer coaches for youth sports less than 10 percent receive any formal training. Most become coaches because their kid is on the team ― and they basically improvise. I did this in soccer and, through my over-eagerness, almost destroyed my then-6-year-old son’s delight for the game.

But a bigger problem is that youth sports has come to emulate the win-at-all-costs ethos of professional sports. While youth and professional sports look alike, adults often forget that they are fundamentally different enterprises. Professional sports is an entertainment business. Youth sports is supposed to be about education and human development.

That’s why it is so disturbing that, over the past two decades, researchers have found that poor sportsmanship and acts of aggression have become common in youth sports settings. Cheating has also become more accepted. Coaches give their stars the most play. Parents and fans boo opponents or harangue officials (mimicking professional events). They put pressure on children to perform well, with hopes for scholarships or fulfilling their own childhood dreams. Probably the most serious indictment of the system is that the vast majority of youths ― some 70 to 80 percent ― drop out of sports shortly after middle school. For many, sports become too competitive and selective. In short, they stop being fun."

Sports can teach kids a number of important life lessons and they can be a tremendous way to teach kids how to be humble winners and gracious losers. But they don't need over-competitive adults spoiling the fun. Parents and coaches have the opportunity to provide a memorable, fun experience for kids through participation in athletics. But they can also take something that used to be fun for a child and ruin it through too high of expectations and not letting kids be kids.

While growing up, I had the privilege to play for many very good coaches and a few bad ones. I seek to model the things I learned from my good coaches and do the opposite of those who had a skewed perspective on what is most important in life. Simply put, the number one goal for someone who is coaching youth sports is to provide their players with a fun experience. Kids have fun by improving as a player, by coming together as a team, by doing things they didn't think they were capable of and by just getting to play a sport they love. I'm grateful that, hopefully, I help kids get to enjoy sports the way I did as a kid.

To read the complete New York Times article please click here.

(h/t to Linda Perukel for the link.)

Report Says Young People Do Not View U.S. As Post-Racial

Photo Credit: Mighty mighty bigmac

From theGrio.com:

"Is racism interpersonal or systemic? If you were born after 1980, you may very well believe the former. A new report from the Applied Research Center takes a fresh look at the racial attitudes of the Millenials, as they're called, that up-and-coming generation of people ages 18 to 30. And their thoughts on race, like all matters of race in America, are a complicated mixed bag.

Most of all, in the age of Obama, this study throws cold water on the notion that we live in a post-racial, colorblind society -- that the president is the fulfillment of Dr. King's dream and we can all breathe a sigh of relief. In other words, race actually still matters.

In one sense, the results of the study are encouraging. A majority of young people understand that race continues to play a significant role in education, the criminal justice system, immigration, employment and other sectors of society.

For example, only 10 percent believe race is not a factor in the criminal justice system. "Why is it that over 90 percent of prison inmates are people of color? Rates of black men in prison versus rates of black men in college -- obviously, there's something going on that's wrong," said Margarita, 22, a Filipina-American and part-time program coordinator who participated in the study.

"The whole war on drugs is a war on black and brown folks. So what happens to a white person with a drug problem, right? Rich celebrities in rehab on television vs. people I know who face jail time for marijuana charges."

However, this is not to say that all Millenials, the nation's largest and most diverse generation of all time, think alike. Among members of the focus group -- which included blacks, Latinos, Asian-Americans and whites between 18 and 25 years -- young people of color were able to make more of a connection between race and disparities in opportunity and resources. Many whites, on the other hand, had more of a problem connecting the dots."

To read the complete article please click here.

(h/t to News One for the link)

An Epidemic Of Suicide Among Native American Youth

Photo Credit: Kami Jo

Lorna Thackeray of the Billings Gazette reports on the disturbing rates of suicide of Native American youth:

"All the reasons that put young people at risk of suicide in the country at large are amplified on Indian reservations.

Indian children are more likely to be abused, see their mothers being abused and live in a household where someone is controlled by drugs or alcohol. They have the highest rates of emotional and physical neglect and are more likely to be exposed to trauma.

“The unfortunate and often forgotten reality is that there is an epidemic of violence and harm directed toward this very vulnerable population,” Dolores Subia BigFoot, director of the Indian Country Trauma Center at the University of Oklahoma, testified a before the Senate Committee of Indian Affairs during hearings on the Indian Youth Suicide Prevention Act of 2009.

“American Indian/Alaska Native children and youth experience an increase risk of multiple victimizations,” she said. “Their capacity to function and to regroup before the next emotional or physical assault diminished with each missed opportunity to intervene. These youth often make the decision to take their own lives because they feel a lack of safety in their environment. Our youth are in desperate need of safe homes, safe families and safe communities.”

...Weakening of those bonds and loss of culture and spirituality are among the reasons young people cannot find their way, she said.

Others describe historical and cultural trauma that remains ingrained in the Native American psyche. Colonization and racism and the abrupt end to traditional life still reverberate in new generations, said Clayton Small, a Cheyenne, who works in a nonprofit suicide prevention program.

Generational trauma weighs heaviest on the male population, he said. They commit suicide at a far higher rate than female Native Americans.

“In Indian Country the role of our men has been significantly altered,” Small said. “Then throw in poverty and violence and it descends into drug and alcohol abuse.”

He said one out of three Native American males end up incarcerated at some time during their lives, in part because their cases are brought in the relatively unforgiving federal system. With a criminal record, employment is nearly impossible to find and they suffer the indignity of not being able to support their families, Small said.

“We have to teach kids that they don't have to continue this cycle,” he said. “We have to teach them to cope with the stress and trauma they see every day.”

One organization that is seeking to stem this tide is Nations, a movement that seeks to develop leaders on the college campus by honoring Native American students and faculty by restoring their lives and culture with Jesus Christ. Nations embraces and honors First Nations people while recognizing that there is one true Creator who desires to restore what has been lost by placing his Son Jesus Christ at the center of American Indian life and culture. To learn more about this important organization, click here.

To read the rest of the Gazette article please click here.

(h/t to Racialicious for the link)

Why Youth Ministry Is So Much More Than Entertaining Bored Teenagers

Photo Credit: Richard Jones

Back when I was in high school I didn't particularly enjoy going to church. Sure, I went to church nearly every Sunday morning but I slept (literally) through most sermons and didn't participate that much in my church's youth group activities unless it involved athletics or trips to the Midwest's premier amusement park, Cedar Point.

Even though I didn't find church all that compelling, my interest did pick up when I got involved in my best friend's youth group at another church. The kids that were involved were fun to be with, there were some cute girls that attended, we ate lots of pizza, played fun games and the adults that led the group were kind to us.

But there was nearly no spiritual content other than a closing 30-second prayer that we said each week.  If the objective of the group was to provide high school kids with a weekly outlet for wholesome, clean fun then it was a rousing success. If the point of the group was to introduce teens to the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus then it was an abject failure. I was entertained but my life was not changed.

In a recent issue of Leadership Journal, Drew Dyck writes about why youth ministry needs to be more than just entertainment:

"In his book UnChristian, [David] Kinnaman reports that 65 percent of all American young people report making a commitment to Jesus Christ at some point in their lives. Yet based on his surveys, Kinnaman concludes that only about 3 percent of these young adults have a biblical worldview.

Whether or not we accept Kinnaman's definition of what constitutes a biblical worldview, few would argue that anywhere near 65 percent of young adults in the U.S. could be described as active followers of Jesus. We may have done a good job of getting young people to sign a pledge or mutter a prayer, but a poor job of forming them into devoted disciples.

Perhaps we've settled for entertaining rather than developing followers of Jesus.

Of course there's nothing wrong with pizza and video games. The real problem is when they displace spiritual formation and teaching the Bible. And ultimately that's the greatest danger of being overly reliant on an entertainment model. It's not just that we can't compete with the world's amusements. It's not only that we get locked into a cycle of serving up ever-increasing measures of fun. Rather it's that we're distracted from doing the real work of youth ministry—fostering robust faith.

Jim Rayburn, the founder of Young Life, liked to say, "It's a sin to bore a kid with the gospel." A generation later, that philosophy morphed into an entertainment based gospel that has actually produced entertainment numbness and an avoidance of the gospel's harder teachings. Somehow we thought we could sweeten the gospel message for young people to make it easier for them to swallow, but it turns out that they're choking on our concoction.

In the end, pizza and video games don't transform lives. Young people are transformed by truth clearly presented. They're drawn to a cause to live and die for. In other words, they want the unvarnished gospel. When we present that gospel, with all its hard demands and radical implications, we'll be speaking the language they long to, and need to, hear."

Unfortunately, the trap that all too many youth ministries fall into is trying to compete with the world's entertainment options. If we're honest with ourselves, the movies, music and entertainment options that the secular world offers is simply more attractive than what the Church offers. If we attempt to compete on that level, we will lose. Having spent time as a youth pastor working with junior and senior high students, I sympathize with the tension of offering solid biblical content but making it interesting enough to have the maximum number of youth involved.

What we must realize, though, is that what we offer that the world has no response for is the gospel. The gospel of Christ is life-changing and everlasting. It doesn't run out, it isn't boring and it's something that we can experience every day. Youth ministry is not about keeping kids from sex and drink and drugs. It is about giving kids the gospel. The gospel brings forgiveness, healing and life. No movie, no corny game and certainly no piece of pizza offers what the gospel does.

As the great British writer, C.S. Lewis, once said:

"It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

If we find that our youth are not living lives enraptured by the gospel perhaps it is because we are offering them a cheap imitation.

To read Dyck's complete article please click here.

Do American Teens Have a Vibrant Christian Faith?

Photo Credit: telex

An article on CNN.com published a few weeks ago says that most American Christian teens have a shallow faith that ultimately leads them to abandon Christianity later in life.  The article, entitled "More teens becoming 'fake' Christians", features the research of author Kendra Creasy Dean, as found in her new book, Almost Christian.

In interviews with over 3,000 Christians teens from a variety of Christan denominations, Dean found that most them were fairly ambivalent about their faith, few were active adherents to the tenets of their religious tradition and most had a difficult time expressing their beliefs to others. 

From the CNN feature:

"Many teenagers thought that God simply wanted them to feel good and do good -- what the study's researchers called "moralistic therapeutic deism."

Some critics told Dean that most teenagers can't talk coherently about any deep subject, but Dean says abundant research shows that's not true.

"They have a lot to say," Dean says. "They can talk about money, sex and their family relationships with nuance. Most people who work with teenagers know that they are not naturally inarticulate."

In "Almost Christian," Dean talks to the teens who are articulate about their faith. Most come from Mormon and evangelical churches, which tend to do a better job of instilling religious passion in teens, she says.

No matter their background, Dean says committed Christian teens share four traits: They have a personal story about God they can share, a deep connection to a faith community, a sense of purpose and a sense of hope about their future.

"There are countless studies that show that religious teenagers do better in school, have better relationships with their parents and engage in less high-risk behavior," she says. "They do a lot of things that parents pray for."

Dean, a United Methodist Church minister who says parents are the most important influence on their children's faith, places the ultimate blame for teens' religious apathy on adults.

Some adults don't expect much from youth pastors. They simply want them to keep their children off drugs and away from premarital sex.

Others practice a "gospel of niceness," where faith is simply doing good and not ruffling feathers. The Christian call to take risks, witness and sacrifice for others is muted, she says.

"If teenagers lack an articulate faith, it may be because the faith we show them is too spineless to merit much in the way of conversation," wrote Dean, a professor of youth and church culture at Princeton Theological Seminary."

These are some disconcerting findings and offer some compelling cautions for parents and those who work with youth. To read the rest of the CNN article click here.

I Thank God for Youth Pastors

Gary Lundstrom

According to Jon Acuff, of Stuff Christians Like, being a youth pastor is one of the toughest jobs in Christendom.  Having done a brief stint as a youth pastor to junior high and high school students myself, I can't disagree.  In his typical humorous fashion, Acuff says the following   

"Youth groups are harder to speak to than the average Sunday congregation. I learned this recently while speaking to some students. After talking for about four minutes, I noticed that there was a kid asleep in the crowd. And not just a little asleep, he was sprawled out. Teens will fall asleep if you don’t bring it instantly. They also won’t fake laugh. Adults will give you “courtesy laughs.” Not teenagers. If it ain’t funny, they ain’t laughing. Teens, in a good way, make you work for it."

I encourage you to read the post on Stuff Christians Like on youth pastors here but also read the comments.  It contains dozens of people thanking their youth pastor and is quite moving.  Even though I did an internship working with youth before joining the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ, that was hardly where I thought things would be headed if you were to have asked me in high school.  Even though my family faithfully attended church on Sunday mornings and my parents set a good example for me, I was fairly ambivalent in my relationship with God.  I never read the Bible, I often fell asleep in church and I rarely, if ever, talked about God with my friends.

Shortly after going away to college at Central Michigan University, I began to have a lot of questions about God and whether Christianity was all that I had been taught.  In fact, I came to what author Henry Blackaby calls a "crisis of faith."  I didn't have much of a relationship with God and had become discontent with life.  I even began to consider other faiths and, as happens with many a college student, even thought about ditching formal religion altogether.

But fortunately for me, God had other plans.  My youth pastor from high school, Gary Lundstrom, had kept up a relationship with me.  Like many youth pastors, Gary was pretty cool.  He rode a motorcycle.  He lifted weights and could bench press more than anyone I knew.  And he loved God.  But not in an awkward kind of "this guy's weird" kind of way.  Just a normal guy that lived for Jesus.

Gary regularly wrote to me while I was at CMU and gave me a gift subscription to a magazine that featured Christian athletes.  When I entered that crisis of faith during my sophomore year, he sent me a couple of books to read. Remarkably, God used one of those books to bring me into a relationship with Himself.  I committed my life to Christ right then and have not looked back since.

Gary was not the only person that had a strong spiritual on my life.  My parents, as well as a few others, also had an influence but at that moment in my life, God used a youth pastor to change my life.  Gary's a big wig with Samaritan's Purse now and is still showing God's love to hurting people.  But I'm very grateful that God used a normal dude that loved Jesus to radically touch my life.  I thank God for Gary Lundstrom and all youth pastors everywhere that lay down their lives everyday so that young people can have a relationship with God.      

*Photo courtesy of ChristianWeekly.net.