From Sampler to Sower

Your Peek Behind the Curtain

Okay, this is a new one for me.  I don’t know how, or even if, this will work, but I’m going to give it a shot.

You, dear reader, are hereby offered a All-Access Backstage Pass to our youth ministry’s creative process.  We’re bringing you backstage, and inviting you to check out what’s going on behind the curtain.

Of course, that means you’re getting a glimpse of a work in progress and not the finished product.  As such, this post, and others like it will probably be rambling and scatterbrained, big on ideas, short -at least at first- on actual implementation.

As you know if you are following my weekly updates, our youth ministry is currently in a teaching series called Mythbusters.  It’s set to conclude on Tuesday, February 17th, following our final three lessons focused on Faith, Hope and Love.  That means we’re just under one month out on our next series – high time to get working on what’s next.

Next on the teaching schedule is a Lenten series, culminating, like most Lenten seasons, with an Easter celebration.  Our teaching will be guided by the Lectionary’s epistle readings.

My goal, every Lent, is to very intentionally challenge students to develop the daily disciplines which will ground their faith in an ever deepening relationship with the God whose name they claim.  That’s not to say that during Epiphany I attempt to help they develop a superficial version of Christianity that only affects their Sunday mornings and Tuesday nights – it’s just that Lent provides an intentional time every year to teach them to focus on the presence of God in every part of their life.

And so, I find myself wondering what we will do this year to help move us toward this goal.

I’m taking as our theme verse for this series 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

One of the key mental images that will inspire this series will the the experience of the disciples on Easter morning.  Imagine going to bed Saturday night in despair.  You’ve cried so long you’re not sure there are any tears left.  And the only emotion greater than your sorrow over Jesus’ death is your fear for your own life.  Rumor has it the authorities are even now looking everywhere they can to find you and your friends, so they can finish what they started on Friday.

Now imagine waking up on Sunday morning, hearing the rumors.  All day you listen as the reports come in.  First the women.  Then Peter and John.  Finally the disciples who had snuck off to go fishing and the two guys who headed home to Emmaus.  Finally, Jesus himself shows up.

Sometime between going to bed Saturday night, and going to bed Sunday night (if anyone was even able to sleep) everything changed.

Another shaping image will be the sacrament of baptism, which our church will be celebrating on Easter morning.  Being buried with Christ one moment, being raised to new life the next.  One of the images that may even make it into our teaching is the flood scene from O Brother, Where Art Thou.  After teasing Pete and Delmar for being so naive to think that their baptism meant anything, in the final scene Everett prays for deliverance and a flood sweeps through the valley changing everything.

Sometime between going under the waters of baptism, and being pulled out, everything changes.

Or at least it should.

A lot of times we fail to live transformed lives.  But what would happen if you woke up one morning and found everything had changed?  If as you came up out of the water, your world was transformed?

Our theme is transformation, a relationship with God which is more than just on Sundays and Tuesdays, but influences every aspect of our life, until the only way to really explain it is to say “the old has gone, the new has come.

Toward that  end we’ve decided our series title will be My Brand New Life.

However, the question remains how do we make this something more than just a teaching series on Tuesday nights?  How do we integrate this teaching into our student’s everyday lives? How do we create a community in which such transformation can really take place?  And how do we encourage them to share what they’re learning with their friends?

Here are the ideas we’re trying to flesh out to accomplish this move from the sanctuary into our students’ everyday lives:

• A Website – We have a youth ministry website, and I obviously have my own blog.  But we will be launching a website specifically for this series at www.mybrandnewlife.org.  (Right now that domain points to our ministry’s website as we develop the site.)  Hosted in a sub-directory of our ministry’s website, this was astonishingly cheap, and judging by the responses from my brainstorming team, it will definitely get some attention and create some excitement.  The goal will eventually be that the website becomes a place to coordinate our efforts to move onto the fourth screen of our student’s lives.  (Thanks, Adam for the inspiration.)   We’re brainstorming ways of using the website to display creativity, fuel discussions, guide devotions, share prayer requests and create an increased sense of community.
• SMS/MMS integration. We’re still fleshing out all the ways this will work, but we’re interested in leveraging SMS/MMS technology (essentially txt, pix and flix messages) to enhance the sense of community, to inspire creativity and to equip students to share what they are experiencing with their friends.  We understand that SMS can sometimes have the effect of isolating students from the real world around them.  (See that kid in the corner texting his friends, oblivious to what’s going on around him?)  That’s not our goal.  Instead we want to use SMS and MMS to give them such exciting content that rather than getting lost in their cell phones they are inspired to hand their cell phone to a friend and say “Hey look at this!”  Or better yet, “Help me with this!”  We want to bring what they’re learning and experiencing in our youth ministry into their everyday relationships so they share it with their friends and engage with it all week long.
• Traditional Disciplines. Obviously, web, SMS and MMS are but tools used to get  students’ attention and to encourage creativity and community. The goal is the formation of a Christian community that is dedicated to the spiritual disciplines of prayer and meditation on God’s Word.

Obviously this is going to require fun, creativity and new ways of engaging students.  The goal is not to suck them into a website, but rather to use technology to move our youth ministry out of our sanctuary and into their everyday relationships with their friends.

How can you get involved?

First, you can “ride along” with our creative team.  We’re so early in this development that we have no artwork, no real website, nothing.  We’re all ideas and mental images at this point.  The fleshing out is yet to come.  But we invite you to follow us as we move from concept to implementation.  You get to see the lame ideas that get left on the cutting room floor, the great ideas that wither on the vine because we can’t figure out how to make them work, and the mediocre ideas that God decides to use for his glory.

• Watch www.watersedgeyouth.com/mybrandnewlife to see the website come together.  From blank template to final product launch, see the development from start to finish.  Right now, there are no links on our website to this directory.  But with this direct link you’ve got the all access pass to get you through the back door.
• Subscribe to this blog to see the thought process that lies behind the developments.
• Follow me on twitter to listen to me mumble to myself and cry out to friends for help as I try to flesh out the great ideas our creative team comes up with.

Second, you can “chime in”.  Whether it’s replying to a query twittered to the world or offering feedback in the comments on this blog, please, feel free to throw in your two cents.  After all, that’s why I’m blogging all this.  Not to say “Look at us and see what we’re doing.” If that was the goal I’d wait for the final product before I started broadcasting it to the world.  But rather I’m hoping to ask “Hey, what ideas do you have?” and “What do you think about this one?”

So, join us on this journey from idea to implementation.  And feel free to steal any of the ideas or resources along the way if they’d be helpful to you and your ministry. (After all, I’m hoping you’ll share some of your ideas with us.)