Is Your Church on the Move?

"This is a song about a church being moved hundreds of miles across the US on the back of a very big lorry. Features the 40 strong Manning Chorus in what is possibly one of the most bizzare bits of TV I've ever been involved in - a musical number at the end of a show about, basically, feats of engineering skill. Some of the footage is amost Fellini-esque. It's taken from the upcoming series MONSTER MOVES which airs on Five (UK) and National Geographic (USA) from early 2007." (HT to Chris Kidd)

CREATIVE PRAYER CENTERS FOR YOUTH MINISTRY

I mentioned awhile back that one of the special evening events at our church camp this summer was "The Night of Silence" in which the youth spent time in complete silence experiencing a variety of camper-created prayer stations. I thought I'd share a few of the ideas they came up with, all of which would work at camp or youth group or many other ministry settings. These activities can be adapted as you see fit to your particular prayer traditions. Each offers a template and taps into various ways of engaging the senses in the experience of prayer. If we are to take seriously Paul's encouragement to "Pray without ceasing" then it's possible that everything we do is prayer, provided we do it with awareness of communion with God and openness to God's spirit.

Prayer Path - Create a simple circular path out of tape on the floor or chairs and rope. Design the path to wind in on itself and reach an open center space that is equipped with pillows on the floor and written instructions for participants to sit and offer silent prayers for those people who have been important to their own prayer journey and to offer thanks to God for their guidance.

Play-Do Prayers - Provide a variety of play-do colors and invite worshippers to create a mini-sculpture to represent a particular prayer need, joy, or concern. As participants finish, they can add their creation to those of others and contemplate and lift up all the other prayers that have been depicted.

Water Prayers - Provide a large glass bowl and pitcher of water. Provide instructions for participants to offer a silent prayer and pour a small amount of water into the bowl. As each person prays, his or her water prayers are mixed with those of others as the bowl fills.

Mural Prayers - Tape a large sheet of paper to a wall and provide markers and crayons. Worshippers can use this canvas to create a mural of prayers on a particular topic (such as "the world" or "peace" or "hurt") or it could be used graffiti-style, allowing for individual creativity to represent words, pictures, symbols, poetry, etc. to offer up prayers to God.

Braided prayers - Set out colorful strips of cloth and a length of clothesline tied between to trees or posts. Invite worshippers to take three cloth strips to represent three people or things they want to pray about. Tie the ends of the three strips to the clothesline and then braid the three together, all the while meditating and praying on the selected pray concerns. Encourage participants to take note of the braided cloths left by others and to consider their prayers as well.

Prayer Stones - Assemble a collection of smooth stones and ask participants to choose one and hold it firmly in their hands, focusing on and praying for a particular joy or concern. When ready, worshippers should take a sharpie and write a word on phrase on the stone to represent their prayer and then add it to the growing pile left by others.

Candle Shape Prayers - Set out a number of votive candles and a lighter. Instruct a small group to work together, in silence, to form together a shape or symbol to represent a prayer need of the world. When the group senses the image is complete, have them work together to light each candle, hold hands, and pray in silence.

Pipe Cleaner Prayers - Invite worshippers to take several pipe cleaners and form a shape or design that communicates a prayer concern. Ask them to add their creation to those of others and to spend time contemplating all the prayer concerns represented.

Stick Sculpture Prayers - I must admit the exact focus of this one alludes me but I'm sure you could creatively adapt it. Found sticks were provided and the group worked together to form a sculpture. Perhaps each added stick represents an individual prayer and the sculpture represents our prayers connected to each other, or perhaps the entire sculpture represents a prayer.

Of course, any of these prayer experiences could be enhanced by providing scriptures to read, sacred music, written questions to encourage thought and meditation, or icons such as images of Jesus or biblical stories in art. You can find other creative worship ideas, including more suggestions for interactive prayer stations, here.

-- Brian

YOUTH MINISTRY LINKS-O-RAMA

More great youth ministry links from around the blogosphere!

What's So Bad about "Wall-E" - After the minor furor on this blog over my review of Wall-E (fueled in part by the fact that the review got linked to the national political blog of Andrew Sullivan) I thought I'd pass on youth ministry blogger Jeremy Zach's more friendly review. Should you encourage your youth to see the movie? Sure, then talk with them about it afterwards.

Guns for Christ? Youth minister Cory highlights one of the most ridiculous attempts to attract youth to a ministry gathering. Add this one to my growing criticism of the use of violence in youth ministry.

Do we have to go to bed? Danny has a few excellent tips on how to handle things in your cabin at summer camp, including how to address the always challenging "bedtime" routine!

Tired of Duck Duck Goose? Here's a free mega-list of over 2000 games perfect for church camp or any youth ministry gathering.

Keeping up with the culture? Mark offers some thoughts and suggestions on how gas prices are affecting youth ministry...and an interesting post of a recent cover of People magazine that you just might want to talk about with your youth.

Can it fit in a bottle? Devin wonders why people pick up shells on the beach and poses a cool question that would be great to share with your youth.

Mystical Youth Ministry? Here is a negative critique of Mark Yaconelli and the move many of us have made toward contemplative ministry with youth. I don't agree with the conclusions, but it does make for an interesting read.

Youth Ministry Game: Worm Racing

I'm guessing this one is more fun to watch than actually do!

5 1/2 THINGS YOU SHOULD NEVER DO ON A MISSION TRIP

I just recently returned from a church mission trip to the Gulf Coast and (though I can't believe I'm saying this) I'm happy to be back in the heat and humidity of Missouri. It's nothing compared to that of Louisiana! This year we made our first attempt at an "all-church" rather than "youth-only" mission trip and we learned a few new things along the way, as well as being reminded of some things we already held to be true about what NOT to do on a mission trip:

1) Don't allow Ipods and MP3 players - You can't imagine the difference it makes when you are driving those long highway hours if you make people put away their personal listening devices and actually spend time talking to each other, singing, playing car games, and enjoying the passing sights. This doesn't mean you have to ban the electronics altogether. Just restrict them to rest and sleep times when it makes sense for everyone to be off in their own little worlds.

2) Don't forget that it's about the Work -- It's so tempting to pepper the workdays with evenings out at the local mall or amusement parks or movie theaters, or promises of some big fun day at the end of the week if everyone just keeps working. I have found that when you dangle a "fun day" at the end of the work week, the youth have a tendency to lose focus on the true ministry and purpose of the trip. Don't be afraid to make the work itself what it's all about. Help your youth see that work, particularly in the service of others, can be fun and should be enticement enough, without the promise of a Disneyland or Six Flags. Plus, there are plenty of small ways to make the week fun and to build fellowship. Share in meals together, go out for ice cream, take in a free local historical spot as the setting for your evening devotion, play games. And if you have time on the way home for an impromptu fun stop, Great! (My group took a quick detour to take photos in front of Graceland!) Just don't make it a big part of the draw of going on the trip.

3) Don't forget the most important word: Flexibility! After 20 years of mission-tripping, I can tell you that these things never come off the way you plan. You can go over every last detail in advance, spend months getting organized, and then find out that the rental company doesn't have your vans ready on time, or the mission site has booked too many groups for the week, or the adult you expected to be the biggest help turns out to have a grumpy-streak a mile wide. One thing I learned on this year's trip: youth are much more able to deal with diversity and last minute changes than adults are! The best thing you can do in advance is prepare everyone to expect the unexpected, to go with the flow, and to regularly repeat this word like it was a sacred mantra: "Flexibility, Flexibility, Flexibility!"

4) Don't neglect to meet God in those you are helping -- This goes without saying, I suppose, but it's such an important lesson. We go to serve and to bring God's love to others, and so often we find we are met by an even deeper and more profound faith in those we are helping. We had planned on our worksite for a week of PB&J lunches, only to discover that the woman whose mobile home we were rehabbing was treating us to homecooked Cajun food everyday! These lunches together gave us an opportunity to really get to know our host and for her to witness to us about her faith in the face of the trials she experienced during and after hurricane Rita. As you go out to bring God to others, don't forget that God is already out there waiting to greet you.

5) Don't let the day end or begin without prayer -- Keeping in mind #2 above, sometimes the group can get so caught up in the work that they forget to center themselves. On our recent trip, a few in the group were so anxious to get to the worksites in the morning that they took off without joining the rest of us for prayers and devotion time. And some of the group were so heck-bent on buying material supplies for the next day's work, they opted for an evening trip to Home Depot and skipped out on the evening devotions. It's crucial to begin and end the day with a focus on God and path of Christ that calls one to mission in the first place. It's a way, during the hectic schedule of the week of work, to remind us WHO we are and WHOSE we are.

5.5) Don't think it's all about YOU! God was at work in that mission site before your group got there and God will be at work there long after you leave. Don't burden yourself (or fool yourself) with thinking that if you don't get the work done, no one will! Bring along a good dose of humility, do what you can, and trust that God's ways of love and peace will continue in that place even after you return home.

-Brian

Movie Review: The Problem with Wall-E

Anyone who knows me knows that I love robots. I imagine it began when I saw "Star Wars" for the first time the summer after 4th grade and decided I needed an R2D2 and C3PO of my own. Later, I would discover Robby the Robot of "Forbidden Planet" fame, Gort, the stoic companion of the alien in "The Day the Earth Stood Still," and lovable Huey, Dewey, and Louie from the 70's flick "Silent Running." So it should come as no surprise that, when I saw the trailer for Wall-E, I would be one of the first in line to see this tale of a little robot left behind on a deserted and trash-covered planet earth. The visuals in this film, as we might expect of the Pixar folk, are amazing, particularly the opening 40 minutes or so when we see Wall-E travelling about a city emptied of its people, scooping up junk into his trash compactor body and forming it into neat, stackable skyscrapers of garbage. We quickly discover that this mostly voice-less little robot represents the best qualities of humanity: innocence, curiosity, diligence, compassion, and love. Had the movie spent its entire time hanging out with Wall-e on planet earth, I could give it a whole-hearted endorsement.

Unfortunately, the second half of the film finds us and Wall-E on a floating ark in space, the home of the human race for the past 700 years while they wait for creation to reclaim itself on their garbage-strewn home planet. While the humans wait for the little white robot Eve (the "dove" in this version of Noah's ark) to find an olive branch and bring it back to the ship to show them the earth is inhabitable again, the people have nothing to do but wait. It is here that the Pixar folks demonstrate an amazing amount of insenstivity in portraying all the humans as shockingly obese "do-nothings" who spend their days laying on hovering lounge chairs, sucking on sugary slurpy drinks while watching TV and being waited on hand-and-foot by robots. As soon as this part of the story began playing out, I immediately wondered how any heavy-set people in the theater must be feeling. Even worse, how might any overweight children in the theater be feeling about this obviously negative portrayal. Pixar tries to suggest in one throw-away moment that the people are fat because they have been in space so long and lost some bone density, but the much clearer message is that they are chunky because they are lazy and eat too much (and several times the characters' large size is used for visual jokes). A clear sign that Pixar recognized the nastiness of their message is that they chose not insult their target audience: kids. There are no children, let alone overweight children, at all on the ship -- we see only babies and chubby adults. [And good luck finding images of any of the chubby characters in Disney's advertising for the film or the film's official website.]

More ironic still is that the film's criticism seems to be levelled at the very folks who are viewing the movie -- you and me, sitting there, doing nothing, watching a screen while consuming buttered popcorn and Junior Mints. The movie wants us to know that mass consumerism will doom this planet and its people. And you can show your support for that message by going out and buying all the Disney tie-in products and toys that will be filling your store shelves, and eventually your landfills, in the next 6-12 months.

Don't get me wrong. I still want a Wall-E of my own and I really enjoyed 80% of the movie. I just wish the filmmakers had been more sensitive to the unfortunate bigotry in the plot and the overt irony and hypocrisy in their preachy "save the Earth" storyline.

So, what did you think of "Wall-E?"

--Brian

Mission Trip Fundraising

Sunday morning, at 5:00 a.m. (ouch), we leave for the high school mission trip. Amidst all of the busyness, I realized that the mission trip really is a year-long project. Early in the fall, we prayerfully consider where we will go the following summer. Next, we begin recruiting youth and adults. Then, for the next six months, we focus on fund-raising. Our goal is that each participant, who participates in a majority of the fund-raising, can go at no cost at all.

In this post, I thought I would share some of our fundraising activities that we have done over the years:

•The fundraising is done on a point system. For each half-hour that you work, you get a point. The points, at the conclusion of the year, are divided by the total amount of money raised. In order to participate in the mission trip, you must have a certain number of points. This way, no one gets to go without first participating and you build group cohesiveness.

•Each fall, around Thanksgiving and Christmas, we sell “Gifts in a Jar.” Basically, we buy mason jars and fill the jars with the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal cookies, and soup.

•Super Bowl Sunday Subs. The day before the game, we prepare sub sandwiches. The orders have already been made. Last year, we made several hundred sandwiches and the local grocery story gave us a huge discount on the ingredients.

•Pink Flamingos. A flamingo (or flamingos) gets placed in your yard. You have to pay $5 (per flamingo) to remove it and have it placed in someone else’s yard. For $20 you can buy anti-flamingo insurance. This is a lot of fun, and productive, but very labor intensive.

•Stock certificates. For each stock you purchase you are entitled to: a postcard, dinner and program when we return, and a photo of the mission trip team.

•Car wash. Make sure you can have multiple hoses and water pressure.

•Child-care night. We’ve done this on Valentine’s day and sometime during the holiday season.

•Rock concert/talent show. This was a huge hit last year. We called it Loftapalooza—The Loft, is our youth center. We had the participants on the mission trip develop skits, performances, and songs. The senior minister even sang a solo.

•Bake sale. Make some homemade pies and make sure the first pie or two sells at a high bid.

What other ideas do you have?

--Jacob

Please Stand By...

Jacob and I are both away on youth trips this week. In the meantime, we invite you to check out some of our favorite youth ministry blogs in the "LINKS" tab above.

--Brian

Summer Camp Update

I'm not quite a full week back from church camp and here and I am preparing to leave tomorrow on our mission trip to the gulf coast. I did want to share with you a few quick reactions to our week at camp and our attempts to ease the "programming" and focus more on spirituality, contemplation, and silence.

In a change from previous years, we chose to get the youth up later in the morning, not eating breakfast until 9:00 AM which made a big difference in every one's attitude and willingness to face a new day (including the adults!). After breakfast each day, everyone participated in "Morning Watch" -- a time spent alone in prayer, journaling, and silence. This was followed by an all-camp morning worship.

In the afternoon, we had a full 90 minutes of what we call F.O.B (Flat on Back time -- basically rest time, in the cabins, with the lights out). During our evening Vespers service each day, we spent time in silence, and in singing of contemplative Taize-style songs. Additionally, we had a prayer tent (see left) set up the whole week, complete with comfy pillows, where youth were free to go to be alone and pray. Our first two evening all-church activities included a relaxing swim night and a movie night, both low-key and restful for all involved, especially after busy days of creekwalking, arts and crafts, sports, etc.

All of this silence and contemplation led up to the Night of Silence. This was our first year trying this evening of creative prayer and no talking, and it was great. The youth were very thoughtful in putting together prayer stations for others to experience and no one seemed to have any trouble with the "no talking" part. This year it lasted for an hour and a half. I suspect we'll extend it even longer next year.

But what did the youth think of all this? Well, our senior high teens remarked that they noticed that camp was more restful and relaxing this summer and that they thought it was pretty cool. The adults, too, noticed a more peaceful feeling to the entire experience and I think we left camp more centered and ready for ministry than in past years. We discovered that silence, contemplation, and a focus on spirituality are indeed something that teens may not know they need, but when offered the chance they are eager to experience a deeper faith. How are your camp experiences going this summer?

--Brian

Retro-Blogging: Mission Trips

If you are anything like me, you rarely take the time and energy to dig through the old posts on a blog, even a favorite youth ministry blog. Which is too bad because we miss some of the gems hidden back in the recesses of the archives. As this is mission trip season for many of us, I thought I'd resurrect a few of our favorites posts on mission trips from the earlier days of this blog. Check them out and let us know what you think:

Cool Idea: St Brendan Prayer - A great liturgical resource to use in worship when you commission your mission trip team.

What If? The End of Youth Mission Trips... - Are mission trips really good for our youth?

Back from Mission Trip - Some important things about youth ministry can be learned on a mission trip!

Cool Idea: Mission Trips Revisited - Ever thought of hosting a mission trip for others?

Something Old...Something New

This is another entry in our continuing posts highlighting one of our favorite blogs or websites we've been following for awhile and a new blog or site we've stumbled upon and think you might want to check out.

Something "Old": If you are looking for thoughtful and thorough curriculum, program ideas, and activities to share with your youth, you can't do any better than Insight, a youth ministry web resource authored by veteran youth worker Grahame Knox. Writing from the UK, Grahame brings a wealth of experience and "insight" to the programs and resources he offers. I particularly like that, where many of us often just offer a game here or a worship trick there, Grahame specializes in giving you the whole package -- Bible studies and discussion programs that take you from the opening game to the closing thought.

Something "New": I stumbled upon Jim's Blog by way of Stuart Delony's site. Jim's site (subtitled: "The thoughts and life of just another nobody") is a series of short essays and entries of his thoughts on the church, and humanity, and culture, and God, and on and on. Jim, a published author, has a really great writing style and point of view. Here is a sample:

"here’s to freedom! i have some friends who thought they were people that they really weren’t. one gal thought she was a prostitute, and another was convinced he was an addict. don’t get me wrong; they did the things prostitutes and addicts do, but that’s just really living out of a false identity. the truth is they are a living, breathing expression of love, beauty, and everything good. that’s the “image” they were created in but it became lost to them, and they took on a lesser identity, and suffered. it’s not hard to lose the real you, and become something you’re not. if you’ve done it for a long time, it’s a struggle to stop."

"American Teen" - A New Documentary