Monday Morning Quarterback

Note: Monday Morning Quarterback is a weekly post reviewing Sunday, the busiest, most stressful, most gratifying day in the week of a pastor/parent/spouse/citizen.

Song of The Day:

http://rd.io/x/QEq_K0LhWa4/

6:40. Wake to alarm. No memory of the 6:00 and 6:20 alarms. The night following the 30 Hour Famine is one of the hardest sleeps of a Youth Pastor’s year.

7:22. Coffee and the LA Times on the Kindle–catching up on all the Watertown madness that transpired over the weekend.

7:45. Baby Girl comes downstairs and crawls in my lap. Decide to take her to church early with me.

8:17. Enter the office to discover . . . babies! Colleague and her partner have brought the new foster adoptive twins to church for the first time. Gettin’ my baby on.

8:55. Leaving Baby Girl to her Godly Play devices.

9:34. Discussion with confirmands about social issues and the church. Encouraged by their perception that the environment, poverty, and immigration are big deals at their church.

10:08. Acolyte sails through Call to Worship, then promptly leaves. Sick.

10:17. During Children’s Time led by guest missionary, 3 year-old walks across the chancel to grab the bunch of plastic grapes on the communion table. Remark to my colleague, “That’s the right instinct.” “Lest ye become like a little child . . . ”

10:24. Choir is whistling during the anthem. Whistling.

10:50. High school student rises to sing the antiphonal Lord’s Prayer. Caught off guard. Can’t sing. Wiping eyes.

11:54. Adult Education Committee putting the finishing touches on a four week gun violence series, planned in under 40 minutes.

1:22. Reminding Mario at La Parolaccia about the junior high students I’ll be bringing back tonight looking to do some good. He’s pumped and ready.

1:34. Thumbing in notes on my phone–stuff to remember for Monday Morning Quarterback.

1:43. Watching Rob at Heirloom cut Perrier bottles into drinking glasses using something called a G2 Bottle Cutter and buckets of hot and cold water. Must. Have. Bottle. Cutter.

2:11. Retrieving neighbor’s refrigerator box from the recycling bin to use as a pyramid for Baby Girl’s Egypt-themed birthday party next month.

2:55. Baby Girl wants to watch The Ten Commandments again. Fine. There’s laundry needs done.

3:32. Inadvertently merge 100 of my phone contacts into one. Oops.

4:51. Junior High Impact Challenge is on. Wondering if junior high students aren’t the worst possible population for an experimental activity that requires approaching strangers with earnest pleas to do some good.

5:01. Impact 1: student holds the door for patrons of an ice cream shop.

5:12. Impact 2: students serve as unofficial “greeters” for a local business.

5:19. Impact 3: students wash windows at a restaurant.

5:33. Impact 4: students help bakery employee stack chairs at closing time.

5:35. Impact 5: students procure end-of-day croissants from bakery for giving away.

5:43. Impact 6: students procure $25 gift certificate from window washing restaurant.

5:50. Impact 7: students give gift certificate to lone man wearing a “Vietnam Vet” hat in a motorized wheelchair eating a sack lunch at a courtyard table.

5:52. Impact 8: students procure individual pie from pie shop for giving away.

5:58. Impact 9: students chase down elderly couple and give them pie.

6:13. Processing Impact Challenge learnings: need to make contact with decision makers beforehand. Hourly employees have little decision making power that can be helpful.

6:52. Back in the office watching the 9th inning of the Royals/Red Sox game.

7:10. Lasers and Burritos. It’s on.

7:33. In line at Laser Tag concession stand, remark to volunteer, “I hate this place.” Pretty sure the guy getting my Sierra Mist heard me. Wonder: could he have spit in it?

8:40. Treating students to their first ever Chipotle burritos. An under appreciated aspect of youth ministry.

8:43. Wait. Chipotle has something called a Quesorrito? Why wasn’t I told about this?

9:17. Driving home past Adult Toy Box billboard. Students cracking jokes. Share that I can’t partake in the humor, an impulse confirmed when student says, “Yeah, because if you do Christ will come and stab you.”

9:38. Waiting with students in church parking lot for parental pick up. Student retrieves phone to call when I crack some mid-90’s slang on him. “Yo, Ima hit these digits right quick.” In seconds, he’s on his knees convulsing with laughter. When I add, “Playa,” he’s rolling on the asphalt and begging for mercy.

9:43. Students’ parents aren’t coming. Driving them home to a lively discussion of Sonic The Hedgehog music.

10:05. Back home, watching highlights of Royals/Red Sox games.

10:11. Consulting Monday Morning Quarterback notes on phone. They’re useless. Memory diminished by lasers and burritos.

Monday Morning Quarterback

Note: Monday Morning Quarterback is a weekly post reviewing Sunday, the busiest, most stressful, most gratifying day in the week of a pastor/parent/spouse/citizen.

Song of The Day:

http://rd.io/x/QEq_K0LzqJY/

5:48. Eyes open. Check clock on phone. 12 minutes more . . .

6:00. No way that was 12 minutes.

6:14. It’s going to be a red pants day.

6:38. Chewing strong coffee and scribbling edits to the late night sermon manuscript. What a mess.

7:12. Daughter clomps down the stairs. Sermon editing done. Well, not done. But I’m not doing any more now.

8:00. Wrestling with daughter’s favorite dress. Who designs clothes that have to be tied on? “It’s not long enough!” she protests. Pardon me for insisting on some five year-old modesty.

8:17. Daughter pitching a fit over limited wardrobe choices. Teeth not brushed. Hair tangled. Not fed. No way I make it to confirmation class on time. Drumming the stair rail impatiently. Dangling one of mommy’s scarves as a carrot.

8:24. Resorting to the fake phone call to the neighbor reporting that Daughter will need to stay home. Screams. Tears. But movement. Fake phone call saves the day.

8:41. Out the door as Daughter presses the protest over dress length. Realizing that wheels-up on Sunday is not the same as wheels-up Monday thru Thursday. Mommy usually gets Sunday, but she’s at a conference this weekend.

8:49. Arrive at church to find daughter’s playmate. All concerns over dress length forgotten. Deposit jumbled manuscript on the pulpit, hand Daughter off to Sunday School teachers, and fly to confirmation class. Student already there.

9:16. Going over Book of Order description of the “Ministry of Members” with confirmation students. Deer. In. Headlights.

9:53. Giving a rough once over to Scripture drama with four student readers. Lots of room here for calamity.

10:08. Spot the 10th grade nursery staffer balancing a two year-old on his hip during the opening hymn and the tot’s parents looking on in delight from 10 pews back. Loosening up.

10:18. 3rd graders getting Bibles presented to them by 6th and 7th grade peers. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

10:49. Using conclusion of sermon to rehearse an improv Charge and Benediction. Congregation nails it. “Um, amen.”

11:04. Stopped at rear entrance after recessional by guest who just arrived with a flurry of questions. Improv indeed.

11:21. Shaking hands and noticing glances going downward to the red pants protruding from the bottom of the black robe. “They’re not red,” someone insists. “They’re coral.”

11:28. Where’s Daughter?

11:44. Collecting garden-grown lettuce from church members from the church fridge. They grew it in the new church garden, then picked it and left it for me on Thursday. I’m only getting it now, and the disappointment in their faces is hard to ignore.

12:02. Tearing Daughter away from her playmate to go home.

12:17. Home and working on lunch. Daughter wants to play birthday party and make me a “Birthday Salad”: leaves of lettuce topped with pepper and thyme sprigs. I choke it down. She bounces like a sprite.

1:06. Still playing birthday party. Daughter sits me on a stool and throws things at my head. “It’s a plague simulator!”

1:49. Turn on The Ten Commandments for Daughter so I can lay on the couch with her and doze off. First, watch the Royals walk off against the Blue Jays. Sweet Sunday nap dreams.

2:38. Awake to paused movie and Daughter gone. Find her upstairs “getting all fancy” to watch the rest of it. “Do you know who I am?” she asks. Nephritiri? “Oh, yes, of course!”

3:01. Coffee and planning the week’s meals with new Trader Joe’s vegetarian cookbook.

3:56. Dropping Daughter at neighbors’ so I can head to youth groups. Kissing neighbors’ feet.

4:42. Heaping helping of seven layer bean dip brought by 8th grader for snack. Careful–the red pants.

5:49. Sardines in the sanctuary. Small 13 year-olds should not be allowed to hide amidst pageant costumes.

6:32. College-aged youth group volunteer advising me on upcoming “dating and relationships” talk with high school youth. She was in high school only three years ago, and I never did this talk with her class.

7:13. 9th grader keeps announcing that he’s Batman. I’m lost=missed meme.

8:32. Talking dating and relationships with high school students. No problem. I got this . . .

8:33. Wait. I don’t got this.

8:46. Student describes his father’s youth: “He went to Catholic school. Nuns. All guys.”

8:47. Three minutes of giggling about guy nuns.

8:56. Colleague arrives mere seconds after her kid spills the beans about who gives the birds-and-bees talk at their house.

9:22. Home to find neighbor horizontal on couch. Down comes Daughter from her bedroom and jumps into my arms from the fifth step. Kiss the neighbors feet again.

9:27. Five minutes of The Hobbit with Daughter in her bed. Maybe the giant spider part not the wisest choice.

9:45. Settle down to watch condensed game of Royals win. House is quiet. Pants are still red.

The Present Shocked Church: Chronobiology

I’m making my way through Douglas Rushkoff’s new book, sharing observations for the church as I go. The book’s received complimentary reviews in the New York Times, among other sources, if reviews are important to you. My first post on the book is here.

Here’s what Douglas is worried about:

Instead of demanding that our technologies conform to ourselves and our own innate rhythms, we strive to become more compatible with our technologies and the new cultural norms their timelessness implies. We compete to process more emails or attract more social networking connections than our colleagues, as if more to do on the computer meant something good. We misapply the clockwork era’s goals of efficiency and productivity over time to a digital culture’s asynchronous landscape. Instead of working inside the machine, as we did before, we must become the machine.

We’re conducting something of a “listening campaign” in my church that involves lots of one-on-one conversations conducted by a trained group of people who then share what they’re hearing with one another. We’re hearing what Rushkoff describes, particularly from folks in the prime of their working years who also have school-aged kids. They expect machine-like efficiency and precision of themselves in their jobs, at home, and even in their community commitments. And the youth I work with? Of course they’re addicted to Instagram and Facebook, but not for the reasons grown ups think they are. It’s actually worse. They must be social networking machines because they’re terrified of missing out, and thus being left out, of the social life of their peers. One of my students recently confessed her guilty angst that she missed a text from a friend in need at 1:00 in the morning.

One obvious asset our church has to combat this “digiphrenia” is the liturgical calendar. To people who expect mechanistic productivity of themselves all day every day, every day of the week, whatever the season, the liturgical calendar offers a valuable narrative canopy and rhythm for life. The colors, stories, and songs that attend Advent and Lent and Easter and–my favorite–Ordinary Time are a lifeline, a road to stroll, not march. People badly need that.

But there’s more to this. In an era of participatory decline, anxiety abounds about the future of the church. Many in my denomination have left to start something new out of protest over liberalizing theology, yes, but also over worries about decline (which they clearly tie to the liberalizing theology). One departing colleague said to me, “I just want to be part of something that’s growing.” You could hear the yearning in her voice.

There’s a clear expectation here that the church be always growing. Getting smaller raises all kinds of fears and longing for a more robust era or church involvement. Like the price of a stock, we fret and strategize when church attendance goes down. What else would we do?

Present Shock gives two examples of businesses that have built regular decline into their planning, even into their identity. One of those is Duncan, the toy company that makes the famous yo-yos. The toys

“enjoy a cyclical popularity as up and down as the motion of the toy itself. The products become wildly popular every ten years or so, and then retreat into near total stagnation. The company has learned to ride this ebb and flow, emerging with TV campaigns, celebrity spokespeople, and national tournaments every time a new generation of yo-yo aficionados comes of age.

There’s also Birkenstock.

Birkenstock shoes rise and fall in popularity along with a host of other back-to-nature products and behaviors. Instead of resisting these trend waves and ending up with unsold stock and disappointing estimates, the company has learned to recognize the signs of an impending swing in either direction. With each new wave of popularity, Birkenstock launches new lines and opens new dealerships, then pulls back when consumer appetites level off.

Could we see church “decline” as something more cyclical? Could it be something that happens naturally, something that we allow to shape our experience of the church’s story (death and resurrection?) rather than kicking against the goads to get the thing running like it did back in ’55?

What say you?

Bonus points to the first person who comments with the details of their Duncan yo-yo.

Monday Morning Quarterback

Note: Monday Morning Quarterback is a weekly post reviewing Sunday, the busiest, most stressful, most gratifying day in the week of a pastor/parent/spouse/citizen.

Song of The Day:

http://rd.io/x/QEq_K0IFIoI/

6:00. Alarm. Throat parched and stinging. Left nostril inoperable. Wife MIA. Snooze.

6:18. Snooze fail. Out of bed, hoping hot shower will free nasal passage, soothe throat, and prepare confirmation lesson.

6:47. Ironing. Wife enters the room carrying blanket and pillow. “Dude, you snored like crazy last night.” Before I can explain, she’s passed out on the bed and snoring herself.

6:58. Tripping over the remains of daughter’s “T.V. tent.,” yesterday’s home improvement project: her play tent in the middle of the living room surrounded by blankets and pillows.

6:59. Tiptoing around T.V. tent, foot presses something squishy into the carpet. Orange. Nice.

7:01. Ibuprofen.

7:11. Tall coffee and a multigrain bagel. Toasted? No. Sliced? No. Cream cheese? Well not if it’s not toasted or sliced.

7:37. Working on afternoon youth group plan. My savvy refusal to purchase the companion activity book to our curriculum is only now showing its weakness: no activities.

8:12. Head of Staff explains that today is Quasimodo Sunday. She’s relating the history of Latin terminology, but all I can hear is Tom Hulce singing “Out There.”

9:12. Confirmation class has two students and 12 donuts.

9:24. Student asks, “Why does it seem like Jesus doesn’t want to hang around with rich people?” Before answering, pause to thank God for attentive youth.

10:06. Acolyte nails the call to worship and I nearly applaud.

10:08. Daughter prancing with her playmate during the opening hymn. Hearing it was Quasimodo Sunday, she’s come dressed as Esmerelda. She’s in for a disappointment.

10:51. Awkward pause during the communion liturgy as I wait for Memorial Acclamation to begin. Wait, that’s after the Words of Institution. Someone in the sanctuary starts whistling.

10:56. Head of Staff and I stand atop the chancel steps waiting for elders to bring communion elements back up the center aisle. It’s quiet, and we can see them fussing in the narthex trying to get ordered. A phone vibrates in a pastor’s robe pocket, and it ain’t mine.

11:03. Parish Associate quotes entire first verse of “Draw Us In the Spirit’s Tether” as impromptu Prayer After Communion. Teach me, Obi Wan.

11:15. Ibuprofen.

11:35. I’m the last one to show for the Christian Education Commission meeting. Punctuality fail.

12:46. Wife texts that she’s taken daughter out by herself for the afternoon. “I thought you’d need to rest.” Reply only “Thank you.”

12:59. Stopping for takeout pizza on the way home, eager to eat it and watch the rest of the Royals/Phillies game.

1:25. Choking on pizza as Royals nearly choke away a five run lead in the ninth. This could ruin my afternoon.

1:27. Text to Phillies fan friend: “nonononononononononono!!”

1:35. Royals narrowly escape. Put away T.V. Tent happily and lay down for nap.

1:42. Texting high school youth about evening gathering before nap.

1:43. Noting to do items for the week before a nap.

1:44. Checking next Sunday’s lectionary texts before a nap.

3:00. Wake up to sound and smell of nextdoor neighbor preparing barbecue. Certain I’ve slept through youth groups. Panicked.

3:06. Legs wobbly as I make coffee.

3:07. Ibuprofen.

4:02. Killing my sore throat singing in the car on the way to Jr. High youth group.

4:43. Connect Four nemesis wins again. C’mon!

5:02. Among hypothetical rules students choose for a new city they’d found are these: criminals get sent to space; no old people/hippies; 65% of budget must be spent on space research; no stealing.

5:58. Drop a giant dollop of whipped cream but catch it with my shoe before it hits the carpet. Student announces, “Ninja . . .”

6:55. High school student arrives with tea and no fewer than three home-baked goodies she’s prepared for a “youth group tea party.” Be advised: Doritos do not cut it in this youth group.

7:07 Adam Walker Cleaveland texts: “I played Grog tonight.” Recall text conversation from earlier in the week where I urged him to give the game another try with his youth group. Reply, “How’d it go?”

7:10 Response from Adam: “First time in 14 years of camping and youth ministry that a student had to go to hospital.” Gulp.

7:12. Relaying text conversation to students, who launch immediately into tales of injuries they’ve sustained playing Grog. Note to self: Grog is a menace. Never play it again.

7:40. Follow up question from Adam: “You play with the lights off right?” When I relate this question to youth, they groan collectively.

8:02. Soul Pancake check-in question: “Who cools your crazy?” New favorite phrase.

9:25. Home. Decide to sleep on the couch so as to not keep wife awake again. Check in upstairs. Daughter’s wide awake. She relates the details of her afternoon and then orders, “Go to bed old man!”

9:56. Firing up laptop. Instant Message pastoral care with a student home in Mexico for Spring Break. “God is with you.”

10:59. Finish Monday Morning Quarterback.

11:00. Ibuprofen.

Facebook Home: Revisiting Jeff Jarvis And The Church as Platform

Yorocko.com started in 2010 with a series of posts on Jeff Jarvis’ book What Would Google Do? Jarvis’s central assertion was that Google’s success derives from its decision to function as a platform rather than a portal, allowing developers to do their mapping and book publishing work on top of Google’s own infrastructure rather than creating its own mapping and book publishing software. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how this approach might be applied to the church.

Just this week I had a conversation with a nonprofit executive who’s interested in partnering with churches to start community farms. Churches would offer up their property as a literal platform on which a local organization can do good work. A good thing–even a gospel thing–gets going at the church, yet the church doesn’t develop and run it; it merely functions as a platform for others to do it. It’s pretty exciting.

It gets tricky, though. Ownership becomes a critical question, and fast. Consider the announcement yesterday that Facebook is developing an app to run on Google’s Android mobile operating system, an app that will completely take over the device, transforming it, effectively, into a Facebook device. It’s a blatant exploitation of an open platform.

If a church wants to function as a platform and invite committed communities to do their good work on top of the church’s own infrastructure (both physical and relational), this ownership question is going to surface. How do churches maintain ownership of the platform? Should they?

On Opening Day And Getting Better

Note: we interrupt our normal Monday Morning Quarterback series to offer this annual post on the opening day of baseball season.

Today is the beginning of the baseball season. I had trouble sleeping last night so I watched the last episode of Ken Burns’ marathon documentary on baseball late into the night. My day will revolve around a 1:00 pacific start time to my team’s first game. I may even wear my team’s cap into the office. Baseball’s opening day is a big deal for me, and I make no apologies for it.

Yet I know it will end badly. My team isn’t very good. It hasn’t been for nearly three decades. It is among the least successful operations in all of sports.

These days, baseball and the fate of my team is a stand-in for measurements of value. This is for baseball an age of tremendous enlightenment, when fans have access to as much statistical data on teams and players as do the General Managers and owners, data fans can analyze themselves for the sake of long blog posts condemning the decisions of men who are paid millions to make them. This Sabermetric community within baseball has brilliantly re-framed the notion of value when it comes to a baseball player, lifting from obscurity undervalued skills (like this) and packaging valuable player contributions into novel statistics like OPS and VORP. Naturally, this community has elevated the celebrity of the guys spending teams’ money on these players and their skills, which is good if you’re name is Billy Beane but bad if it’s Dayton Moore.

More and more of my life and vocation is taken up with the question of value: where does value really reside and how is my work contributing value to the world? Here, potential is a curse. Potential is only valuable once it’s realized. In my work with youth, students’ potential for a strong faith and a compelling witness to the love of God is far less valuable to me than their actual faith–weak and confused though it may be–and their actual stammering witness to something closer to fairness on God’s part. The latter is theirs, something they can be held to and challenged to grow. The former is my projection, a thing that asks nothing of them and so gives them nothing.

My baseball team is a fitting backdrop for these kinds of considerations, especially on this opening day, because after years of drafting and developing dugouts full of potential, the team traded much of it away last winter for some proven real world value, and the bloggers went crazy in protest. “Why,” they demanded, “would you trade away six years of team control over a player who could be a superstar for two years of a player who’s only a regular star?”

The team’s rationale is simple: trading away the consensus top amateur player to get a star commodity makes the big league roster significantly better today, and six years is a long time. The opposition is fueled by an ideological purity that prizes rationality and analysis over hoping for things to “work out.” Things, they correctly point out, “work out” in increasingly predictable patterns, and if you ignore the pattern, nobody’s going to feel bad for you when it plays out to your detriment.

I have read almost every damning word aimed at my team and nodded my head in dignified agreement with many of them. Likewise, I compulsively read condemnations and dire projections about my church. Those, too, make skillful use of data and eloquently lampoon the decisions of decision makers as badly informed or, worse, immoral. I nod in agreement at some of those as well.

Yet on this opening day I take my stand on the side of measurable improvement and the risky, ill advised move that willingly disappoints ideology for the sake of the good we know we’re getting right now, which, everyone can see, improves what we are immediately. It’s older. It has less potential. It may leave us for greener pastures in 24 months. But it makes us better now. Perhaps not better enough. But better.

Today, I’m for better.

Play ball.

The Present Shocked Church

Douglas Ruhkoff’s new book arrived this week, and, predictably, I’m hooked. I’ve devoured nearly everything Rushkoff has written in the past decade, and my interview with him for PLGRM Magazine last fall was a landmark experience for me. The Douglas Rushkoff tag on this blog is dense.

Present Shock is concerned about the ways that contemporary life is thoroughly simultaneous. To his great credit, Rushkoff worries about stuff, and the stuff he worries about he writes and talks about. Now, he’s worried that texts and Facebook and The Simpsons have driven us all to be present RIGHT NOW to lots and lots of stories and people in disparate places.

Example 1: the collapse of narrative. Present Shock is full of nuanced and searching analysis of the ways in which the traditional narrative arc has stopped working. Broadcast media are rapidly learning that the interactivity ushered in first by the remote control and then by the internet has rendered the traditional narrative arc a dull weapon. That arc rewarded the storyteller who was able to lead her audience into greater and greater states of anxiety before saving them with a climax (read: a product) that resolved all the conflict. Rushkoff is arguing that audiences won’t stand (or, rather, sit) for that anymore.

[excursis: “The Bible’s stories–at least the Old Testament’s–don’t work quite the same way. They were based more in the oral tradition, where the main object of the storyteller was simply to keep people involved in the moment. Information and morals were conveyed, but usually by contrasting two characters or nations with one another–one blessed, the other damned.”]

Here’s my assertion: modern evangelical and liberal theology is dependent on the traditional (non-Biblical) narrative arc, and part of the “decline” of these expressions of Christianity is the result of peoples’ media-trained immunity to that arc. For Evangelical theology, one’s salvation and the threat of personal damnation is the conflict that is solved by the climax of the cross and empty tomb. Yet for people who don’t go with the evangelist into the conflict, the climax holds no meaning.

Similarly, liberal protestant theology unfolds a story of increasing conflict not over an individual’s salvation but the state of humanity and the planet. The climax comes with values (typified by Jesus) of sharing, self-sacrifice, and, of course, love. But for a religiously plural populace, the question is: who’s values are those and why should I trust that person?

In place of the narrative arc we now have The Moment. People live in The Moment, love in The Moment, believe in The Moment, and search for The Moment. Where is faith in The Moment?

Ownership: The Annual Youth Retreat Post

Last weekend was the annual youth retreat run by our regional camp and conference center. This was the third one I’ve taken students to (read my posts about the first two retreats here and here). After wrestling with the message and the atmospherics of these retreats for two years, this year I was much more focused on the mechanics of who was in charge and how they related to my students.

The Director of this year’s camp was returning from last year, and he was just as impressive. He’s energetic without being silly, thoughtful without being professorial, and in control without yelling. The unifying theme he prepared and the graphic that tied it together all weekend was relevant and interesting. Seriously, I’m a fan.

The thing I appreciate most about this retreat, like the last one, is the self-directed nature of what students are asked to do. There’s a central Biblical text driving the weekend, but smaller cabin groups led by adult counselors take ownership of a small part of that text in order to explore it with depth and then share their learning with all their peers.

[The unifying text was Colossians 3:12-14. My cabin group (8th-11th grade boys) chose to wrestle with “meekness.” Think about that for a minute.

What they found and shared will certainly stick closer to them than anything any speaker could have told them. Of that I’m confident.]

It’s the students’ ownership of their own learning at these retreats that is producing my one nagging . . . critique? The substance of it is this: as a person with a high level of ownership in my relationships with these students, I want more ownership of their retreat experience.

Tell me if this is bad. It suddenly feels off to me that the people pulling the levers of the retreat experience are young adult youth workers and musicians who don’t know the students–mostly (many of the students have been to the retreat or to summer camp before). They don’t know them at the start of the weekend, and since the heavy small group lifting is born by small group leaders (the students’ pastors and youth leaders), they don’t really get to know them by the retreat’s end.

Here’s what I’m feeling: it would be a good move to either involve more of the pastors and youth leaders from the churches sending students in the conception and planning of the retreat. It would also be a good move to structure the event to force more interaction between youth and these dynamic, smart, compelling young adult leaders.

Retreats are a valuable supplement to my Christian formation program. I want my students taught by people other than me. I want them interacting with peers from far away. Part of my un-ease feels like a lost opportunity–either for my kids to really get to know the paid staff leaders or for their pastors to inform more of what they do at the retreat.

What do you think? Which is more valuable: the exposure to new adult teachers and leaders or a program designed by the people who know students best?

Monday Morning Quarterback

Note: Monday Morning Quarterback is a weekly post reviewing Sunday, the busiest, most stressful, most gratifying day in the week of a pastor/parent/spouse/citizen.

Song of the Day:

http://rd.io/x/QEq_K8_t0A/

6:20. Awake to the sound of snoring from a junior high student in the bunk above me. Ahh, the spring youth retreat.

6:58. Switch off the alarm two minutes before it’s set to ring. Take that, technology.

7:02. Out of bed, testing the ankle I tweaked exhibiting my Elway-esque spiral skills to a crowd of adoring youth the day before. Ouchouchouch!

7:07. Put on the most wrinkled flannel ever. Camp attire, man.

8:15. Talking with another pastor I met here as we wait for breakfast. He tells me he wrote a doxology to a Lady Gaga tune and has seen the Pet Shop Boys in concert five times. I am much less cool than I’ve been giving myself credit for.

9:36. Youth covertly dumps a gallon of Tobasco into unsuspecting compatriot’s drinking glass. Compatriot gets three healthy gulps down before the fire hits him. Gasping. Coughing. Laughing. My gawd, the laughing.

10:44. Sitting through retreat’s closing talk. Resolve to revisit my two year-old blog post about youth retreats.

10:53. Fist-bumping my students as they offer closing reflections to about 50 of their peers. Confronting my terrible tendency to underestimate my students.

11:03. Serving communion with another pastor here. Unnecessarily adding words: “This cup is the new covenant–the new relationship, the new arrangement–between you and God. And it’s sealed–completed, made real–in my blood–in my life.” You know, because the words of institution are . . . incomplete?

12:53. As the dining hall clears after lunch, three students stand looking out the window and shifting anxiously. Suddenly, they erupt with cheers, and then check to see who’s watching them. I guess immediately that they’re applauding two of their peers who are kissing outside. Momentarily lose my breath as my first kiss flashes before my memory. It was a hurried event behind the transformer box at Mrachek Middle School. Now you know.

12:54. Kissing youths return to the dining hall to the applause of their peers. Breath back. Memory gone. Mad.

2:23. After withholding phones from students for almost 48 hours, I return them for the drive home on the condition that they use their internet connection to tell me the start time of KU’s NCAA tournament game. They happily oblige.

2:34. Twisting and turning down the mountain. Student in the back with a history of vomiting en route to youth retreats asks me to take the turns a little more slowly. Practically slam on the brakes. Whatever you say, man. Just don’t hurl on me, okay?

2:57. The car is quiet. Everyone’s asleep.

3:02. Student behind me surveys eastern Los Angeles county and concludes, “It’s good to be back in the city.” Nod in agreement.

3:37. Back home. Wife texts that she and daughter, along with visiting sister-in-law and 11 year-old nephew and niece, is going to a movie at 4. Turn on the KU game and settle in for some badly needed alone time.

4:56. Trying to take advantage of the rare chance for a Sunday afternoon nap. Failing. Making coffee instead.

6:02. Fidgety. Too much time alone. Need family to get home. How long is this movie, anyway?

6:30. Family returns home. Blissfully happy.

7:24. Nephew showing me a YouTube video about Space Unicorns while I chop lettuce. Wonder what my knife would do to his iPod.

8:43. Making plans for tomorrow’s outing to the beach. In under three minutes, wife has bags packed with towels, sunscreen, and assorted reading materials.

9:13. Inflating air mattresses for nephew and niece. Happier by the minute they’re here.

9:55. In bed, composing Monday Morning Quarterback while wife scrolls through Pinterest on the iPad. Domestic bliss.

The Value of Force: An Open Inquiry

Yesterday I asked readers to make a positive case for the value of guns. Thanks to everyone who contributed; it was one of the most heavily commented upon posts ever for this blog.

Here’s a recap of what people said. Guns are valuable for:

The exercise of power, both physical and psychological, over others
Hunting, both for sport and for food
The application of force

There were lots of qualifications and explanations, but the value added by guns reduced to these three goods, the first and third of which are quite similar, and the second of which seems to be an instance of both one and three.

I also asked by junior high students yesterday to list things a gun is good for, and the items on their list all fall within these three (their first item was vidid and telling: guns are good for threatening people–a clear example of exercising power).

Murphy got to the heart of the matter: guns are for the exercise of force, and force has a value all its own. Today, let’s tackle that question: what is the value of force?

Surely someone will point out that there are different kinds of force. Surely someone will point out the different ways people exercise force, from compelling their child to obey to shooting someone to funding wars through taxes.

What say you? What is the value of force? Where and when is it most valuable?