UFOs and BFOs
Posted on Wednesday 4 February 2009 by Greg @ 9:54 am
Filed under: Youth Ministry
Some youth leaders are on a search for UFOs. They spend night and day on a quest for ET, Everything Tangential. Their “Unidentified Flying Objects” are the various bright shiny objects that look cool, travel fast and are probably just reflections of something more significant on the other side of the ministry stratosphere. Their goal? To go where no hip youth leader has gone before, no, not Cleveland, but into the mothership of youth ministry.
There are two primary kinds of UFO hunters in the youth leader realm. The first kind is the well meaning but immensely distracted youth leader. These are the youth leaders who are all about the next new thing. They speed across the landscape with binoculars and a camcorder looking desperately for the latest, greatest youth ministry gadget, toy, curriculum, game, application, skit, etc. Their youth group is full of dizzy teenagers who are in the 4 by 4 with them as they speed across the ministry landscape. They don’t know where they are headed but are making and having a great time.
This kind of UFO hunter doesn’t really have a speed other than light. They walk the exhibit floors at ministry conventions wondering which curriculum, confenerence or camp will take their teens to warp speed on a spiritual level.
Dont’ get me wrong. These youth leaders love their teens and love their jobs but they have no real plan or path other than new and next. While many of their youth ministries may look healthy on the outside (smiles and growing numbers) there is generally no depth or direction. Both spiritual and numerical attrition becomes a problem over the long haul. As their teenagers figure out that the youth leader is not really leading them but rather driving them in circles looking for UFOs they begin to drop off and out. They have many other things that they can be distracted by themselves that, quite honestly, are a lot more fun. Oftentimes these youth leaders are too busy to stop and take a look to really see what is happening to their teenagers.
The second type of UFO hunter in youth ministry is a strange combination of smart and geeky. Many of them write books and/or blogs about what it’s really like on the inside of this non-linear hover craft of ultra relevant youth ministry. The problem is that their supposed “abduction” was most likely a hallucination brought on by too much postmodern idealism and not enough Biblical theology.
These UFO hunting trekkies start clubs and share notes on their latest theories concerning the spiritual realm in Episode 13 of, well, whatever. They tend to dress alike, but instead of Spock ears and form fitting shirts it’s goatees and dark rimmed glasses.
Many of these UFO hunters are genuinely brilliant and some have some rather penetrating insights. But most of them have a flawed premise. They think they are chasing something that is actual. But instead they are chasing a speck on the lenses of their binoculars. They are tracking a phantom who doesn’t exist flying a craft that isn’t there for a cause that makes no eternal difference.
Generally speaking the first kind of UFO hunter is well meaning and the second kind is well educated. But both are distracted by their Area 51 approach to all things youth ministry.
Youth ministry doesn’t need another UFO to chase but the original “BFO” to accomplish. What is a BFO? It is a “Blinding Flash of the Obvious”. Jesus gave His disciples the biggest one of all time when He told them to “Go and make disciples of all nations….” This baton, called by some “the Great Commission,” has been handed down through the centuries to you and to me. And we are compelled to be handing it off to our teenagers.
Instead of doing the grunt work of what Jesus called us to do we can just go out and buy a new youth group curriculum. We console ourselves with the thought that “Maybe the outlines and interactive questions in this one will be the ones that push our teenagers toward Jesus once and for all.” But they won’t be. There is no magic curriculum. There are no UFOs. And Bigfoot doesn’t exist.
Sure we could spend our time sitting around and theorizing about the intricasies of disciple making in a postmodern culture. We cold focus on all the roadblocks we have standing in our way and develop theories that explore our shared grief at this multi-tasking, media-satured culture that is too busy for Jesus and too UnChristian for the church. We can lick our wounds, propose a theory, rinse and repeat.
But there’s a third option. We can do something about it. We can actually put our hand to the plow and, well, plow.
To be honest it is a lot easier to chase down the latest new curriculum or theory than it is to actually make a disciple of a teenager. Sure postmodern teenagers have a different set of problems, challenges and spiritual perspectives than the teens of a generation ago. Yes, books and blogs and theories are needed to reach them. But, at the end of the day, they are still teenagers. They need love and care. They need grace and truth. They need Jesus. And we must get Jesus to them. Then, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we must equip them to get Jesus to all their friends.
Please don’t get me wrong. I am fully convinced that we have to be aware of the culture we are ministering in and to. Like effective missionaries we must study this culture so that we can effectively know how to make a difference. But if you’ve ever heard the phrase “paralysis by analysis” you’ll know that all theory and no practice makes Jack an ineffective boy. We must learn on the fly and on our knees with prayer and duct tape as we reach out to make disciples of the next generation. We must study up so that we can work it out. And the book we must study the most is the Word of God. The Bible gives us the basic instructions of making a disciple of anyone, anywhere, anytime. Nobody will ever be able to improve upon Scripture as the ultimate youth ministry manual.
This process is not easy and, sometimes, not fun. Give me a camcorder, a slushee and a roadmap to Roswell before you give me the manual labor of disciple making. But the heavy lifting must be done. It’s a lot more fun to get beamed up than it is to buckle down.
So youth leader my challenge to you is to avoid the UFOs and embrace your God given BFO. Your teens will live like aliens on this panet as a result. And, who knows? Maybe their friends will hunt them down to find out why their lives are so different.
Greg Stier Reply:
February 7th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Point taken Jason. I tend to be a black and white guy. But I do believe that the “vast middle” of youth leaders are somewhere in between the extremes that I described. As a matter of fact that is who my passion is for…typical youth leaders trying to work it out who love Jesus and love kids and are trying to get them to show up and learn more about Jesus. Just so you know I don’t consider myself a “big time” youth leader guru. I am much more of a blue collar practitioner than a white collar theorist. I was a junior high guy (volunteer) for four years, and a church planter and preaching pastor for ten years. Since then I have been involved with mobilizing teenagers for the Great Commission, not just from the stage (that would be cheating) but also in my own life and circle of influence.
And yes I do believe that there are some great curriculums out there (heck, we produce curriculum too so I can’t be totally against it!) I am not at all trying to get youth leaders to stop using curriculum or having fun. If you got to know me you would realize that I am a spaz and have “fun and games” everywhere I go. What I was trying to communicate (but must have not done so effectively) was the far extreme of youth leaders who are unconsciously on a constant search for the new and the cool (UFOs). But even these youth leaders I think usually have good intent. It’s just easy to get caught up into a mindless search for the shiny without having an intentional plan for spiritual and evangelistic growth.
When it comes to “fun and games”(and yes! I was raised in a youth group that used this stuff effectively) I’m talking about those who overuse the “bait” (fun and games) without having a big enough hook (the Word of God being taught in a relevant way). As a matter of fact I think that fun and games are a great way to get the crowd ready for real and deep conversations about spiritual truth. I am convinced that the real reason unreached and churched kids will stay attracted to a youth group is becuase they are having significant conversations with a spiritual mentor (a youth leader like you) in a tribal context.
I love youth leaders and I love you (awkward) and I genuinely appreciate you counterbalancing my point. Its well thought out and well articulated posts like yours that do just that. So thank you.
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Greg Stier Reply:
February 7th, 2009 at 9:01 am
Oh yeah Jason, just so you know, we have over 1,400 FREE pieces of curriculum, devotionals, downloads, etc on http://www.dare2share.org designed for youth leaders like you to use. We produced them to not be UFOs but to help you accomplish the BFO of the Great Commission (Deep and Wide)
If you really want to see what I think about youth leaders check out a book I wrote called Ministry Mutiny. You may be surprised. I’d be glad to send you a free copy if you give me your address. Send it to me through my assistant stacey@dare2share.org and I’ll drop one in the mail next week.
Thanks again for stirring up the conversations. Accolades are boring. But criticism gets the party started.
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Jason Reply:
February 7th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Awesome reply Greg! Thanks so much. I once again would like to apologize if I was offensive toward you, which was not the intent.
I do agree with the “bait and switch” problem in ministry as a whole. We purposely avoid any conference, “youth rally”, or anything else promoted by another youth ministry that does not divulge their true intent from the start. I believe that if teens are at “youth group” they should hear about Jesus. They came knowing that we are a place of religion, so to shy away from that would be wrong. It is only when I am outside of the church and on their turf so to speak that I practice relational evangelism and do not try to get them to “like me” so that I can share Jesus. This is where we should all “Be” Jesus to those kids.
Your personal reply means a lot. It shows me that you mean what you say. Thanks again Greg, and all you and your ministry is doing for the teens and the youth workers following God’s call on their lives. And since you offered I will take you up on the free book. I cannot wait to get it!
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Greg Stier Reply:
February 7th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Can’t wait to send it!