I always get these two words mixed up. When I can keep them straight, I know that affect is generally a verb and effect is mostly a noun. These two words should get used a lot in ministry, but I hear about effect more than affect. Check out this cool video that uses wound and water to make a change.

The sound affects the water. It makes a change. What we see afterwards is the effect of the sound on the water. So what does this have to do with ministry?

A lot of ministries watch for effects. They do something and then see what happens. It’s very scientific. If the effect is good, they try to repeat it.

Someone once told me that’s like a Peanuts comic. The first frame has an arrow in the middle of a target. Next, Charlie Brown has a bow and arrow and sitting at his feet are a paint can a brush. The next frame has him painting a target around an arrow that has been shot into the ground.

Measure effect seems fine most of the time. The church knows is should be something and then measures the effectiveness afterwards. For example, you might have an event that targets outreach. After the event, you see that it didn’t really reach many people outside your normal gathering. But, you claim, it had a great effect of rallying familiar people in fellowship.

Another option is, pardon the pun, shooting for affect. Instead of looking at the outcomes, you plan for change. The change will likely be something unexpected. This switches an outcomes based focus to a process based goal. As long as you are affecting people in line with your values, you hit the target. In this way, the most important target is what you do, not the outcome.

Focusing on affect is a leap of faith. It reminds you that you can only control what you do. You can never control someone else’s response to what you do. So what you do should be in line with your faith. If you are faithful, you will always hit the mark.

Whenever I speak, I try to make what I say memorable. There are various tools I use to make that happen, but one of the most effective is story. Watch this short (about seven and a half minutes) video to get an idea of what I mean.

What is so powerful about this video is detail. Stories give details about someone’s life that translate into ours. It takes what we know and changes it into something new. Best of all, it stories make memories.

When I talk to teenagers, I try to incorporate the elements of good stories.

• Introduce the people in the story.
• Tell their struggle.
• Point to how they felt.
• Give some measure of resolution. (or leave a cliff hanger)

All through the story, it’s the details that will make memories. Make sure you pick specifics that will stick. One liners will work for quotes. Also, a central theme that’s revisited can be effective capture that special spark in a listener.

For more about using story in your talks:

Echo the Story – Mike Novelli – A great book and workshop

Disco – Mark Yaconelli – An amazing story told at a NYWC conference

I have been catching up on my TED viewing and came across this great talk from Cameron Russell. She describes herself as winning the genetic lottery for beauty and, yes, she’s an underwear model. In her talk, there was one line that floored me.

Image is powerful, but also image in superficial.

Describing what it’s like being a supermodel, she  says, “I got free things because of how I look, not who I am.” Image is powerful. It takes a snapshot of someone and assumes a lot about who they are. Russell struggles with her own insecurity though. Describing herself, she confesses, “These pictures are not pictures of me. They are constructions… I am insecure because I have to think about what I look like everyday.”

She goes on to say that we can’t transform how we look, but how we look has a huge impact on our lives.

I made a connection listening to Russell. Teenagers are created in God’s image. Think them as little pictures of God. They want to be loved for what they see in the mirror, but they also want to fit in. Their lives are filled with this tension.

Youth ministry can help. If we can create safe places for building authenticity, we can change the culture young adults live in. At the very least, we can be a conter balance to the constant marketing for perfection. Bulimia, anorexia, self-harming and self-hate don’t have to be part of our teenagers lives.

Hacking isn’t just for computer geeks. It never really was. If you read my last post, you heard from Logan LaPlante. He’s the thirteen year old who crushed a TEDx talk about Hackschooling. If you missed it, go get it here.

There is one little line on the end of this talk that summarizes hacking. LaPlante shows a picture of a mountain with fresh powder and says, “If everyone skied this mountain like most people think of education, everyone would be skiing the same line, probably the safest and most of the powder would go untouched.”

It’s true. Something happens when a culture embraces the safe, comfortable path over the fresh, new and sometimes risky path. Youth ministry began through the efforts of hackers. A few people were unsatisfied with the church’s answer to teenage problems. They hacked the church. Later youth ministries were formed. Then they were hacked again to meet the needs of new teenagers.

Youth ministry centers on hacking. It will never be satisfied with the way things are because it lives and breathes the needs of adolescents. Their needs change from era to era and from individual to individual. So youth ministry constantly responds.

The straight line of youth ministry at the moment follows a formulaic, programmatic, attractional way of reaching teenagers en masse. It makes the church youth program a conveyor belt (straight line).

That’s why I’m glad for people who are constantly hacking youth ministry. People like Andy Root, Mark Riddle, and Kenda Dean. Less academic types like Benjamin Kerns, Joel Mayward, Benjer McVeigh, Rachel Blom and Aaron Helman. But mostly I’m grateful for groups like The Youth Cartel, YM360, Immerse and Sticky Faith University. All of these are examples of the hacker spirit.

If you work with teens, will you join us?

So much of the new paradigm of youth ministry centers on what we actually do and why we do it. The models of the past are giving way to newer ones. Attractional and behavioral ways of working with teenagers simply aren’t enough in the new adolescent framework. Churches are looking for the answer to what we should do. Here’s a great video from TEDx with amazingly articulate thirteen year old Logan LaPlante. He makes a great case for what the church could do (and in some places are already doing) to help young adults.

Here are my highlights from the talk:

• When you’re a kid, you get asked this one particular question a lot, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
• Kids, they’re most likely to answer with pro-skateboarder, surfer or minecraft player.
• We kids are going to answer with what we’re stoked on. What we think is cool. What we have experience with.
• For me, when I grow up, I want to continue to be happy like I am now.
• A lot of kids are just wishing to happy, to be healthy, to be safe, not bullied and to be loved for who they are.
• Adults just assume that when you grow up you’ll be happy and healthy, but maybe that’s not the case.
• We don’t seem to make learning how to be happy and healthy a priority in our schools. It’s separate from schools.
• Why is being happy and healthy not considered education?
• Being happy and healthy comes down to these eight things: exercise, diet and nutrition, time in nature, contribution and service, relationships, recreation, relaxation and stress management, and religious and spiritual involvement. (source Dr. Roger Walsh, psychologist specializing in the study of health and well-being)
• Much of education, for better or worse, is oriented towards making a living rather than making a life.

It’s time for youth ministry to hack itself. To, like LaPlante says, make a life instead of a living. There’s no question that youth ministry can help fill the void left by education, society, and sometimes, parenting. The next iteration of youth ministry simply must incorporate this mindset if it’s going to fulfill it’s potential.

What makes truth stick? In youth ministry you meet with teens constantly. It might be a sermon or a small group, the context isn’t really important. All the while you’re hoping to say something that makes a difference. Something sticks and changes a student’s life.

Moments like that can be elusive. It takes more than an educational approach. Gone are the days of giving information in hopes that the receiver will do the work of applying it. Teaching has withered into an industry of information merchants. It focuses on standardized tests and the means to get the one, right answer. But that’s another post.

Even if you provide a context in your time with students, you can’t be too hopeful of saying something that sticks. Describing a situation they will encounter and giving them a pat response feels fake. Adolescents hate feeling fake.

So here’s a tool I use often. A paradigm shift sets up an assumption but gives a unexpected resolution (did you catch it in the picture above?). It often creates tension that seems like it has an obvious fix. Then, when the conclusion seems clear, the shift comes. It’s an surprising way of dealing with a problem. That change in expectation jumbles a person’s thoughts. In the reordering of those thoughts, memory markers form. That unusual outcome sticks.

All good stories use some form if the paradigm shift. But here’s a real life example. A friend of mine counsels a lot of porn addicts. When they arrive at the place that can they admit their problem, he rehearses what they already know. Porn is really bad. It destroys intimacy and causes longterm problems in relationships. It produces an emotional response based on a known lie. It promotes a myth fallacy forcing you to live in a cycle of reward and shame. The person hearing this is usually nodding at this point. Then he asks So why do you like porn so much?

Thinking of porn as something to be liked, even when it’s known to be harmful, changes the expectation. It’s usually enough to connect to the dualism needed to sustain an addiction. More work needs to happen of course, but that shift in thinking is a great way to make the truth resonate long after the words are spoken.

All people have assumptions. The paradigm shift just uses those expectations to hard wire a different possibility.

Mastery comes from countless hours of practice. I used to play guitar eight hours a day at least five days a week and still never found mastery. Spencer Watson put in the same kind of effort to do this:

Mastery comes from spending the time doing the work. It doesn’t really matter what your field of study is, improvement takes time and practice.

Two principles of practice effect the way youth ministry is done. First, practice often. Because youth ministry is thought of as happening only once or twice a week, it would take a long time to practice to a level a mastery. When youth ministry is more than an event and is considered a daily practice, the time available to practice it becomes reasonable. Second, practicing wrong leads to poor mastery. When I practiced a piece of music, we would say practicing wrong makes you better at playing wrong. In youth ministry, if you practice connecting to, leading, helping and ministering to teenagers and their families, you will get better at doing those things wrong.

I don’t want to launch into a discussion about whether there is a right or wrong way of doing youth ministry. Many youth workers can do things I can’t. That doesn’t mean I’m necessarily wrong, it just means that what works for me is different. It’s more important to recognize your personal right way. What works best for you is what’s important.

One last thing. I don’t think mastery can be achieved. At least, it can’t be achieved through better technique alone. Most of what I do that looks like mastery is actually submission. When I listen to the Spirit of God and follow his direction, the outcomes aren’t up to me. So mastery is a balance between what I have practiced and the work of listening.

Do you see mastery as a goal of professional youth ministry?

I recently uprooted my family, my ministry and my life to move to a very small town in Nebraska. It’s been an adventure. All change has the opportunity, or at least potential, to do something better.

Check out this picture.

I want to openly love change like this dog loves hanging his head out the window. It lookes like shear joy. It often feels like something trying to peel back me gums from my teeth. Kind of like going to the dentist. We all love that, don’t we?

In youth ministry, we ask our students to take risks in the changes we ask of them. We ask them to become social outcasts for the faith, to risk losing friends, to wear goofy t-shirts (or wristbands). Basically, we ask a lot. Even coming to a typical youth group meeting might mean an embarrassing game or awkward moment of finding out what name is written on your back.

How about a change for us. Maybe we shouldn’t ask so much of teenagers. At least the changes we do ask for should make sense. Is it really worth the initial discomfort of entering into the youth ministry tribe? Maybe a little less chubby bunny and a little more contemplation would help.

How about a change for you. If you ask adolescents to take big risks by attending your meetings and applying what they see or hear, are you willing to make the same commitment? Are you asking them to do something you aren’t willing to do yourself?

A friend of mine recently gave me some good advice. Try something new and suck at it. Don’t get the right equipment or training. Just start doing it with the foreknowledge that it will be hard and you won’t be proud of the results. I have loved this challenge!

Change something, start with yourself.

I was reminded of what we do in youth ministry when I watched this video.

What makes this so creative is what these guys do to a popular song. Whether you like the song is irrelevant. This version takes something popular and uses creativity to translate it.

Youth ministry translates faith into something creative that teenagers understand. The problem comes when creativity isn’t nourished. Like Adam blogged recently, programs aren’t bad unless they leave their purpose. As an organizing element, programs are great. When they are used to be lazy or hide from bringing clarity into youth ministry, they are definitely to blame for stale, boring meetings.

As someone who strives to help teenagers (and others), I constantly think about trust. Without it, my effectiveness is severely limited. Developing a relationship of trust isn’t easy. Most of the time, people don’t even understand how trust works. Look at this classic video of the trust fall.

Trust fails when it is misunderstood. In ministry, most people trust a leader to give them tools that will make them happy. Just like the trust fall, this is a misunderstanding. Spiritual direction doesn’t give itself the goal of happiness. The best I can claim is that people will be changed. Even then, that change is limited to their willingness to accept it.

I love the joke about Psychiatrists changing a light bulb. How many does it take? Just one, but the lightbulb has to want to change.

Like the joke, a person has to want to change. But for trust, they have to understand the possible results. If they don’t, then trust will be broken when their expectations aren’t met.

So when building trust, be clear about what might happen. Don’t limit expectations, but instead, open up an attitude of possibilities.