I’m not watching the inauguration today. I’m getting my work done. I’m glad we have inaugurations, though, and that our executive governmental transitions happen with pomp and pageantry instead of guns.

I’m not marching in opposition, either, though I’m grateful for the marches and the people in them, for the sign (and the signs) they are: the engaged, inclusive citizen in this country numbers in the millions.

I’m not offering to pray with the President-elect. I’m sure glad these two of my fellow Presbyterians did, though. I’m grateful to have a place in a church that is committed to active public engagement as an expression of its mission, the constructive kind. Thank God these two spoke the truth to the man and then prayed with him, that they didn’t merely denounce him to his face and so satisfy so many of our (hard earned) feelings of anger and indignation.

I’m not calling it “Trump’s America,” either. It’s still your America and my America. Having a President like this doesn’t let us off the hook.

Once students start putting their bags in the van, they start putting themselves in the van.

Once they’re in the youth room with the bagels, their focus is on the bagels.

Once they’re inside the house you’re renting for the ski retreat or the cabin at the camp that is hosting the Jr. High Retreat, you’ve lost their attention.

They’ve crossed the threshold–charged across it, tripped over it, sauntered by without even seeing it.

Thresholds are important spiritual spaces. We pass through them to enter a different kind of space, a different experience of time, a heightened awareness of God. The van door is a threshold, as is the entrance to the youth room and the mantle of the rental house or cabin.

The start of the school year is a threshold, too. And graduation. And a hundred other things students experience at the church and elsewhere.

Pay attention to thresholds as a leader. Create ways to mark the moment when students cross over, both on their way in and on their way out. For Godly Play, this happens as children are greeted by an adult who brings their face on a level, takes the child’s hand, and says, “It’s so good to see you. I’m glad you’re here.” It doesn’t need to be complicated.

What are your favorite tactics for observing thresholds?

 

I wrote yesterday about my desire to get better at writing curriculum, then I spent some time reflecting on the values I want to guide that writing. I want these in particular pieces I write, but also in the big picture of what I choose to explore with my students.

So here we go. In order to get better, my curriculum writing needs to be:

Biblically grounded. What I choose to cover and how I design any particular piece should grow out of the great Biblical narrative. My students need to know that story. My Curricula need to help them reflect on it imaginatively and critically.

Theologically informed. Formation and education happen within theological traditions that shape belief. I want my curriculum to own that tradition, and to say so. I explore the gospels, for example, as a Presbyterian for whom Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God has been tied, in my tradition, to action on social justice.

Spiritually shaped. I am facilitating transformative encounters with God in my curriculum, not just information. Sessions themselves and the constellation of units I construct need to invite students into spiritual territory like prayer and meditation, equipping them to participate in the mystery of God.

Interactive. Both the youth in my ministry and the adults who are accompanying them should be prompted in my curricula to engage one another in conversation and activity. “Have a discussion about . . . ” is never a sufficient instruction, because discussion isn’t enough without movement, and also because there are a hundred ways to structure a discussion toward particular ends. I want to choose those for interactivity.

Pedagogically smart. Educational philosophy and technique is indispensable to effective curriculum, so I want to know that material, both in its underpinnings and its innovations, from Multiple Intelligences to Montessori. My curriculum writing needs to proceed from a defined-yet-evolving pedagogy.

Contextually aware. My students live in a massive North American metropolis in the second decade of the 21st century. They attend competitive schools and participate in scores of extracurricular activities. My curriculum needs to take context into account, both in terms of the world, the culture, these youth are in–the people and events shaping it–as well as in terms of the particular challenges and opportunities that are shaping their day-to-day lived experience.

Developmentally appropriate. 11 year-olds and 17 year-olds are not the same. I want my curriculum to be steeped in Piaget and Fowler and that whole field of developmental psychology for two big reasons: 1) to avoid asking youth to do things in my curriculum they are not yet equipped to do. Most sixth graders struggle to think systematically about things like social justice, for example, so my curriculum shouldn’t ask them to do that.

2) To take advantage of their emerging developmental capabilities, pushing them to do things they didn’t know they could do. 10th graders are growing into an ability to identify with the disciples fleeing Gethsemane as well as with the plight of Syrian refugees. To not ask them to do that in my curriculum is to miss a major opportunity for transformation.

These values are my starting point for improving the curriculum I write. That’s a start, right?

I have written more curriculum since September than ever before in my career. Each new addition I compose makes me feel more urgently the need to get better at it.

How do you do that?

It’s almost entirely for the 8th grade Confirmation class that I’m writing this curriculum, since our jr. high group is using a purchased piece and our sr. high group is led each week by our very capable Sr. High Director. They are presentations for a group of about 25 students some weeks and small group discussion guides other weeks. They hew to a format for interactive meetings laid out in Stanley Pollack’s Moving Beyond Icebreakers, and they try to pay attention to Howard Gardner’s theory of “multiple intelligences.”

That’s really all I’m going on.

I attended a seminary that boasts one of Christian Education’s most important scholars, yet I managed to avoid every one of her courses (none of them had “mission” in the title. Duh). I’ve read all her books since then to catch up. Still, it feels like there is a theoretical grounding for creating great curriculum that I skipped.

Maybe the best way to get better at this is just to keep churning out work and soliciting feedback. Maybe there’s some theory to add too, though?

Martin Luther King Jr. gave hundreds of speeches before the March on Washington. The signature refrain from that day’s speech had been employed by the preacher over and over again before he faced down that crowd of hot, weary thousands, and he hadn’t even planned to use it on that day. He improvised.

There’s a difference between improvising and making it up as you go. Improvisation is born of experience and countless un-gratifying practice hours that nobody sees. It takes flight from a perch of failed past attempts and a dozen incremental improvements. Improvisation looks unbounded and unrestrained, but the professional who can improvise has made the study of boundaries and conventions her life’s work. She knows the rules well enough–to use phrase I got from a Godly Play trainer–to break them effectively.

So the question today, as you marvel again at the power of the speech and the man, is not, “How can I do something as brilliant as that someday,” but, “What can I do today that will prepare me for that day?”

Because, in these times, your day is coming. We need you to be ready for it.

 

“Freedom is what you do with what/with what’s been done to you.”

The Mynabirds

Yesterday I learned that Budget rented away the van I reserved a month ago for our youth ski retreat this weekend. I called to move up the pickup time, and the agent told me they didn’t have my van. Just didn’t have it. Nobody can tell me why.

It’s sorted. I found a van through another company. There will be skiing and singing and playing and praying this weekend.

I want to  pivot quickly when duped. You don’t get any bonus points for a scathing review or for throwing your phone across the room as you scream at a customer service agent. That won’t get you a new van. A little luck and Google are better tools for that.

And as good as it feels to say, “I’ll never use that company again!”, you may have to. The last minute van I just found was from a company that kicked me in the teeth five years ago and that I swore off forever. Indignation is a luxury sometimes.

 

 

Can we agree that, among the many violations of class and integrity bounding around inside the bouncy castle that is fake news, the use of “Just” in headlines is an easy one to fix?

“John Lewis just eviscerated Jeff Sessions.”

“James Comey just exposed his hypocrisy on the Hillary emails.”

I read both those headlines this morning on Vox and the Huffington Post, respectively. Those outlets should be better.

I’ve made my peace with the creeping of the past tense into headlines, but the trailing intensifiers I can’t. It’s a base appeal to readers’ twitchy, Tweety sense that something of tremendous import JUST HAPPENED, but it’s is entirely unnecessary and a nudge misleading.

It’s an easy thing to fix. You can even keep your breathless verbs, just drop the “Just.”

What’s wrong with: “Lewis Eviscerates Sessions on Civil Rights?”

It’s true: this might not work. 

Or . . .

It might work. For now. Before it works a little less well, then still less, then not at all.

Now you have something that once worked but doesn’t anymore, which is a very different animal from the thing that never worked from the start.

The Youth Summer Bizarre never worked. Student’s summer schedules did not allow for enough regular participation, and my availability was not consistent enough to lead it. I’m fine with admitting it didn’t work.

Lots of other church components used to work but now don’t. That’s harder.

Worship attendance steadily declines. People stop participating in the Walk For The Hungry. The Young Parents group gradually dissipates. They worked until they didn’t. Nostalgia and a feeling of failure are all that’s left.

Some things need to be allowed to gracefully expire, but surely there are plenty that can be revived or tweaked or  re-calibrated. It won’t do to scrap everything that ceases to work.

It feels like a critical church leadership skill these days to play with the programs and rituals that aren’t working anymore to make them work again.

 

Cal Newport wants you to stop following your passion. Instead, he wants you get really good at something, which, he believes, will produce a passion for it.

I’m kind of with him.

I won’t restate his thesis here, only apply it to ministry settings. We speak of “calling” and “vocation” in church more than “passion.” This is not only for the ordained, but for everyone. In broad terms, this is fruitful. To experience oneself as called to faith, called to community, called to ministry, and to have that sense of calling validated by others who affirm it: that’s golden.

Calling and passion language gets thorny when we apply it to particular jobs, though.

A personal example: in 2008 I accepted an Associate Pastor for Youth Ministry job, even though I had never felt “called” to youth ministry. I did not attend seminary and pursue ordination out of a passion for working with teenagers. I felt called to ministry, to a life’s work of serving the church. The job allowed me to do that and to build knowledge and skills for ministry with a particular community within the church, youth (along with all the other programmatic learning that came with it).

After doing that job for eight years, I kinda feel called to youth ministry.

I wonder what would happen if those of us in ministry focused more on the kinds of knowledge and skills we need to build, and how we can add value to the church and the world with them, and less on particular “calls?”

I work with Shelley. Lucky me.

Here’s the money quote:

“What we don’t need are churches that pull people in with flashy lights and preach abstinence and call for sin-fixing. What we need are faithful communities that remind us that we have a responsibility to all of God’s creation, not just fellow Christians or only to God. We need churches that connect us to the Christians of old. We need active faith that address the needs of today’s world.”

Read the whole post here: I want to be part of an authentic church. — thetravellingtheologian