Thursday, February 20, 2014

Re-Assessing Youth Ministry Curriculums

In light of a botched lesson plan from last week's youth group, I've been drawn back to a re-think of the resources we seem to ask for, and consequently get, with regards to youth ministry.

My experience of most youth ministry resources is that they seem to be written for dummies to teach to dummies.  And, depending on the resource, I question whether or not the author himself/herself is a dummy.  Here's my latest example: In a curriculum lesson on having accountable friendships, the author's Bible passage was a part of Exodus 17 where Moses needs help from his friends to hold up a staff so that their battle against the Amalekites would end in victory.

So yes.  I get it.  Moses' arms would naturally get tired.  He needed some help.  No one could be expected to hold a wooden staff over their head for hours and hours.  But… do you suppose my kids are really so dumb that they wouldn't get distracted by the rest of the story?  I mean, doesn't it seem rather arbitrary that God would let the course of a battle, people's lives, be determined by whether or not a dude could hold a stick in the air?  Doesn't that make God's view of human life seem unimportant?  And why did God give that authority to Moses?  It wasn't a command to hold the stick in the air -so is God championing superstition here?   And what about the end of the story when God swears that he will be at war with the Amalekites from 'generation to generation'?   That seems contradictory to a God that is 'for us and not against us' right?

Time after time again I see youth ministry lessons using the Bible in the most unhelpful, misleading, and dishonest ways imaginable so that the authors can cross "Biblically grounded/rooted/ centered/whatever" off their curriculum's criterion.   I think it's an easy way out.  And I suspect it sacrifices spiritual transformation for sales, approval, and/or familiarity…

Anyways, I couldn't unpack all of that in our lesson.  I'm not even confident how to unpack that!  I skipped it.  We had a generic conversation about friendship and it wasn't a great lesson.  I'd barely call it good.  But it had to be better than the alternative.

When I think about Blue Ocean Youth Ministries and how they might be different, one of the hopes I have is that it would be a more honest starting point for biblical education.  And, perhaps education is the wrong word?  I hope that a BOYM might be a more honest starting point for transformation.  One of my favorite quotes from our pastor is that, "The Bible doesn't merely tell; rather it provokes."   That's how I know if my kids are reading the Bible - they have questions about it.  They have real honest and sometimes difficult questions about it.  I'm finding that today's kids are much more critical than me and my peers were as teenagers and I don't mean that in a bad way.  I think they're tired of spoon-fed spirituality.  I think that they want something that can simultaneously ensnare their imaginations while freeing their souls.

In the midst of my venting, I believe firmly that God invites us to wrestle with things together.  I'm also see that many of our current resources only serve to widen the gap of maturation within the Church. I think this will eventually lead into a fun conversation about how Stage Theory plays out among teenagers (Who are stage 3) and what the process of discipleship looks like!  I know it can't be sloppy or lazy anymore, and we (youth workers), seem to have escaped accountability from the Church.  We have a lot of work to do yet and I'm excited to bring something better to my students.

2 comments:

  1. When I read this I was thinking of something similar when you stated "The Bible doesn't merely tell; rather it provokes." A lot of curriculums out there are basic in their goals so that the pastor can have something to modify to suit their audience. I don't personally use a lot of pre-designed curriculums (not that they are bad), but because I often get feedback form the students what they want to talk about. When polling them I also get the impression of what they feel about the topic already. This helps me design the discussion/activity to that audience. But the main is that "The Bible doesn't merely tell; rather it provokes.". I think if I used the Moses story above I would throw out a question to them asking some of the same questions you stated. I would admit that the main point of the topic was that we need friends/community, but what do they think about the deeper points of this - like, why would God allow soldiers destinies to be determined in this way? I admit this works far better in smaller environments. But any opportunity to develop conversation, relationship is always welcomed.

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  2. Agreed, James! It would be my preference to write most of our curriculum but it is super hard at part-time status. I have a post coming soon that will look at the possible decline of paid youth ministry positions and so the dependence on pre-written curriculum will possibly increase in the next ten years. I've noticed in my kids that they tend to go deeper (and like it!) when they take the lead on the deeper questions. I'd love any thoughts/advice you might have on how to stimulate that!

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