Terry Linhart's Blog, page 24

Stuff from the corner – 12-8-12

Every so often (ideally at the end of each week), I’ll put up a list of links and highlights from recent days.  So, from this corner of the world here are a few time-worthy links:

I love sports, most any sport.  So, I love Cricket and was pleased to see that South Africa dominated Australia this week. England has been taking it to India and I got up early today to see the last few overs of today’s part in that test.  What I also enjoy about Cricket are the smart writeups done by newswriters like Daniel Brettig.  They take a relatively benign game and turn into a masquerade of intrigue and literary tension.  Imagine what such writers could do with baseball!

Speaking of good writing, I’ve had the privilege to meet David A. Zimmerman, thanks to Ginny Olson, at the recent National Youth Workers Convention.  David is not only an editor for IVP, but a gifted writer (his Amazon page), thinker, youth worker, musician, and theologian.  I grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down to read through his blog and his columns at Burnside Writers Collective.  It was a delightful morning of reading and I invite you to check out David’s work and subscribe to each of these websites.

One of the rising bright lights in youth ministry education is Ken Castor at Crown College in Minnesota.  His blog is worth following closely. I really enjoyed his article, Perhaps “Senior Pastor” is a stepping stone to Youth Ministry?  The piece captures the church’s common misunderstanding of youth ministry and youth workers’ deep commitment to their life vocation.

To speak even more of good writing, this week I reconnected with development editor and blogger Jaime Chavez.  Her blog is full of helpful writing tips for those who communicate that way.  For more about her work and how she could help a writing project you may have, see her page for writers.

Finally, we had our annual Christmas dinner last night for the Religion and Philosophy Department at Bethel College. I am privileged to work alongside some of my favorite people in the world.  Kel and I sat across from prolific author, teacher, and speaker Chad Meister and his wife Tammi.  His work is impressive and he’s in the enviable position now where publishers are lining up to ask him to write for them. I didn’t know writing could come to that!  Twitter folks can follow him here.

Down at the end of the table sat J.B. Stump, his co-author on Christian Thought: A Historical Introduction, a fantastic and very accessible book.  J.B. is working at the cutting edge of philosophy and science and just signed a book deal with a UK publisher to write a flagship textbook on the subject.  His blog is worth following and always has an interesting and thought-provoking story or two each week from his work and family.  Plus, someday you’ll want to say to your friends that you were following his work before they were.

 

 

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Some resources for global youth topics

I work to raise awareness of missions and global youth and global issues among Christian youth workers. It’s a daunting task at times in the States where we’re doing all we can just to work with the youth in our own context.  Still, the church is called to GO and global issues once thought of as “over there” now sit on our doorsteps.

Cultural competency and global awareness are becoming non-negotiables for youth workers committed preparing youth for the 21st century.  The old insulated ways, where youth ministry protects kids from the world or just keeps teens active, won’t cut it for a faith that sticks as it is confronted by the problems of the world.

Fortunately, it’s beginning to change as more teens are becoming involved in initiatives to make a difference. Many young people are aware of human trafficking now and youth groups are leading events and fundraisers to support organizations confronting this tragic practice.

And there are other tragedies facing global youth.  Human trafficking has been around for a long time, it’s just recently that the American church has chosen to do something about it.

It took building awareness first.

And that’s where we are now with “global youth” as a topic.  There are MANY issues that will confront the world (and the church in the US) emerging from what’s going on among global youth.  But raising awareness of these issues has been daunting.  At times, like those who used to share about human trafficking, the concerns have been met with silence or muted interest.  And yet there’s a coming tidal wave of issues related to economics, education, theology, and health care.

So, what issues are there that may capture your heart and that of your teens?  What are ways we can explore what’s going on in the world and then prayerfully consider how we should/could respond?

To get you started looking for ideas on how to help students be aware of what’s happening in the world, check out these resource pages:

Resources from Y Care International

CAFOD (UK based) resources

And, shameless plug time, you may want to also read the book that David Livermore and I wrote,  What Can We Do?: Practical Ways Your Youth Ministry Can Have a Global Conscience.  We cover a wide variety of topics in there and supply further resources that can help you and your youth group make a difference with the “world” that is in your local community, your region, and around the globe.

I’ll be posting some additional helps and thoughts related to global youth.

What are the global or missional issues you see that your teens are interested in?

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Leaders Make Matters Better

Leaders make matters better.  There, that’s it. That’s my definition of leadership.

They don’t need a microphone, stage, suit, or a John Maxwell book (though those books may help).

They step into situations, meetings, groups, and relationships … and make them better.

They don’t focus on their own betterment.  They may never need to speak a word or get their own way.  They situation, meeting, group or relationship is better … and that is sufficient.

I tell this to the young leaders I teach.  I tell them if they walk into their youth area and the toilets are dirty an hour before youth group starts…. leaders make matters better.  If there’s trash across the college campus as they walk to and from class…. leaders make matters better.  Someone calls and is hurting while they’re working on a camp flyer…. leaders make matters better.   Or one of their youth calls, isn’t hurting, but the report from the soccer game they want to share with him or her is important to them…. leaders make matters better.

I’m concerned that our definition of leadership has created a bit of an entitlement mentality. The professionalism of youth ministry has been good, but it’s also created an approach to ministry that reflects something quite different from what we see in the New Testament.

Somewhere along the way we devalued the holistic elements of leadership and gave it seven, or 21, points that can be taken as hierarchical and certainly efficient.  Leadership in community is too messy for efficiency, a Western value in our low-context culture.  Ministry demands too much of our time and energy.  And It should.  If we want to make matters better, it will require of us time, energy, and personal inconvenience.

We’ve also pushed community as an overriding value to the side in exchange for efficient business models.  The church has been paying for this error from the 1980s.  And correcting it.

Look over your day today.  Some people and tasks will present themselves to you that aren’t on that schedule.

…. leaders make matters better.

 

 

 

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Take the “Success in 90-minutes” challenge

This week literary agent Rachelle Gardner posted a report on how she was doing implementing Tony Schwartz‘s 90-minute solution to being more productive.  I don’t want to repeat all that Tony said – it’d be best for you to just read his post.  His main premise is that we work best in 90 minute intervals, which need to be set apart by times of rest and renewal.  He states that we’ve adopted some unhealthy AND UNPRODUCTIVE work habits and we need to reconsider how we naturally accomplish tasks.  He also identifies something I’ve been saying for a while:  We have become addicted to, and dependent on, adrenaline to accomplish tasks. ( I think we learn this while procrastinating during our schooling days)

So, I’ve taken up the challenge and will schedule four 90-minute periods a day to get stuff done. Big stuff.  And I will do other things in between – enjoy conversation, read, work-out, rest, and renew (this does not look like social media).

My early report is that my first period went well, but I was surprised how many distractions pushed to interrupt my work.  A key for the 90-minutes is to give it total focus and  maybe that’s the issue for us well-connected folks who read blogs like this:  We aren’t aware of how poorly we focus on our work. I certainly see college students who haven’t learned how to stay on task. Perhaps it’s more of an issue for us “slightly older” folks too.

When I talked with my college students about this today, they reacted strongly. Most couldn’t come up with six hours in their day to commit to this.  Others were adamant that it would be very difficult to not have social media distractions.  One said that being focused for 90 minutes would take a lot of work.

I invite you read Schwartz’s piece and then see where you can carve out a few 90-minute sections. And be sure to report back here to let others know how it went for you.  Be sure to remember that these are offset by periods of rest/renewal (not more working!).

 

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“If I have to promote my book, what does the publisher do?”

I recently served as a guest-presenter in a seminar titled “Writing for Youth Ministry” at the National Youth Workers Convention in Dallas, Texas.  Ginny Olson, publisher for Youth Specialties (Zondervan print) was the speaker, but she asked David A. Zimmerman (Editor at InterVarsity Press) and me to join her speak about writing for the niche market of youth ministry and how the writing business is changing.  And, wow, is that business changing!

Ginny and I did a similar seminar in San Diego earlier where we detailed the amount of work that an author has to do to first sell his/her book idea to an agent or editor.  We followed that by discussing what is required of authors to then promote the books and how publishing companies will usually invest very little, if any at all, to market the books beyond their sales distribution.  In fact, more than ever, nonfiction authors (unless they’re known well) have to make the case to publishing companies that they will market a book well.

It was no surprise then that an aspiring author came up to me afterwards and asked, “If I have to do all of that work to publish a book, what does the publisher do?”

At first blush, it’s a legitimate question.  And it’s gaining legitimacy with some as more people in the industry are asking it and as E-publishing gains momentum.  Traditional retail publishers are producing less titles and are investing less (if any at all) in marketing the lesser known titles on their list.  It makes the prospect of getting published more daunting for enthusiastic authors as publishers will take the ‘for-sure’ author who will guarantee sales just because of his/her name.

The changes to the publishing field prompt a few questions that would-be authors need to consider.  I think these questions may help those looking to write a story or book that’s been rolling around in their imagination for a few years.

Do you want to be published, make money, or get your story/idea out there?   The growth of E-publishing and self-publishing has provided authors with options.  The Kindle, Nook, iPad, and tablets have changed how a growing percentage of the population reads books.  They’ve also flooded the market with options and increased the ‘noise’ from titles competing for readers’ attention.  Literary agent Rachelle Gardner discussed this recently on her blog (which is a “must-follow” website) and she also explains how the money works with self-publishing. The reality is that less titles are being published by major publishing houses and that means that better writing with more recognized authors are getting the slots.
Are you willing to face some of the realities necessary to get published? Writing a book is one of the most demanding tasks a person can take on (see this recent post by Ed Cyzweski).  It requires creativity, diligent perseverance of seemingly unlimited capacity, humility, and willingness to revise.  And revise.  Super-agent Steve Laube (literary agent for my colleague, Chad Meister) adds that if you’re writing a nonfiction proposal, it’s about platform -  a good idea isn’t enough.
Are you developing a platform?  Most nonfiction writers (the type of writing we do in youth ministry) don’t realize that how crucial this is.  People learn to trust authors over time and if few know who you are, then they’ll be less interested in buying your book to hear what you have to say. Credibility matters and building a platform helps you to establish that.
Your own authenticity and credibility matters.  In youth ministry circles, this one is critical.  Even though you’ve built a platform, have 1000 followers, blog every day, and have business cards, folks will still peek in a bit closer to see if you’re living out your message – if there’s a history of fruitful ministry and leadership behind your work in ministry.  Frankly, for many this is the silent tripping point.
So what DOES the publisher do?  Despite the negative lean in the title of the post, the answer is quite a lot actually. They help design and produce a book that is marketable.  Publishers promote books to their salespeople who in turn promote the books to bookstores.  They offer catalogs to distributors.  They take care of inventory and handle special sales.  I think they also help books in fields like youth ministry to give customers confidence and a sense of reliability.  Many consumers will see a book’s title, author’s name, and then check the spine for the publisher.  They do this because they know that a publisher’s logo means it’s more likely to be edited, fact-checked, and through a few committees before it’s produced. The process that makes it so difficult to be published is the same process that consumers want in place to better guarantee quality and usefulness.

 

And yet, in spite of the daunting prospects, each person who gets published once worked through these barriers, accomplished the necessary steps, and were diligent in their writing and editing to get their work published.  So, if you endeavor to get your ideas or stories out there, don’t give up!   It may take a long time to see it all through, but you’ll be glad you gave it your best work.

 

 

 

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Monday reflections 1

For those of you who live in the United States, I trust this past week was a beneficial week for you.  And I’m well aware that we’ll be exercising some of those “benefits” away this week.  Seriously, what once was a holiday that I barely enjoyed as a teen (I think it was the fact that many people crammed into a small hot house for 3-4 days) is now a week that I treasure and enjoy.  I don’t do the shopping adventure, but I like the time with family, the opportunity to stop and reflect, and to catch up a bit too.  And maybe it’s because I’m the one now orchestrating the cramming of people into familiar places.

Have you noticed how Thanksgiving is becoming less of a just a day and more of a week off? It seems that more schools are giving the Wednesday before off as well … and more families are planning bigger vacations around the holiday.  Quite a few colleges now give the whole week off and I think that more and more will consider it, though I am not sure how that will affect student learning. I had many students skip my class on Tuesday, even those who knew that doing so lowered their final grade since they had used their skips up already.

The time off afforded me a chance to reflect on a few matters:

I think people can be better workers, thinkers, and learners with strategic and well-managed time off. The opportunity for renewal of spirit, to have opportunity to sleep a bit more, and to reflect is a worthwhile one that makes people more productive.
Social media is filling our time and pushing out our ability to think and read critically.  Images (Pinterest) and bumper sticker thinking (statuses) take up hours of time that would have otherwise been filled with _______(critical reading, spatial hobbies?).
We’ve come a long way from the frontier days where we would’ve spent our days farming, cutting wood, and attending to animals.  Yet, we feel a higher level of stress even with the added leisure time.  Something’s wrong there I think.
Achievers work to accomplish things, be known, and have influence and yet at the end of our lives we’ll feel like we’ve not accomplished enough because that thirst is never satisfied …. and we’ll realize that those aren’t what mattered most. If we’ve been too task-oriented, we’ll miss out on those more important matters.
The routine of one’s week will not allow him or her to accomplish anything extraordinary without intentional time and discipline.  Playing musical instruments, getting in shape, learning another language, study, romance, true friendship, and even growing in our relationship with God all demand of us new time and attention … which is why many don’t do any of these.
Travel is still the great educator.
It’s worth developing our conversation skills and our curiosity about others and their lives.  I think this will be a hot training topic in years to come. Family time is less centered on sitting and talking now, so people grow up not observing those skilled in this area or they don’t have to practice the skill to accomplish much.
The week after a holiday or vacation week is extra busy.

Which means I’d better get to it and catch up.

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Championing Global Youth Ministry

This morning I am speaking at the International Conference on Missions in Indianapolis before flying to Dallas for the National Youth Workers Convention. Aaron Arnold of Youth Hope is leading a preconference session on global youth ministry and asked me to come in and share some reflections about it after editing the book Global Youth Ministry: Reaching Adolescents Around the World (YS Academic).

I’ve been thinking about what to share regarding global youth ministry. Here are my main challenges to those who attend today:

Most American youth workers remain uninterested in global youth ministry.
Global youth workers remain skeptical of American interests.
Global youth ministry can be unusually territorial.
Effective global youth ministry needs to be ecumenical.
Christian global youth workers must be keen to Christian theology.
Global youth (its growth and impact) will be one of the top issues facing the church in the 21st century…..
….. and the church largely unprepared for it. 

What do you think about these?  What would you question?  What would you add?

 

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My love/hate relationship with the Boundary Waters

This summer I took my what I said at the time was “my last trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe and Wilderness Area.”   It’s not true, but it’s how I felt as I left. This will surprise regular readers of this blog who know that I have enjoyed the BWCA for 25 years now. In fact, my reviews of various tents (The Equinox 6, Grand Mesa 4, and Timberline 4) and BWCA gear are still among my most-read posts by those searching the web for information.

The truth is:  I love the Boundary Waters.  But at times I hate being/going there because the trip confronts me at so many levels. It’s not about the BWCA… it’s about what wilderness camping reveals about me that I don’t like to recognize.  So, I’ll go back again with Kelly. In fact, this past Saturday I was longing to be out in a canoe up there.

I do know that it will be a few years due to other travel demands, but here are a few ways that the BWCA has been a challenge to me in recent years:

The week before a trip is very difficult in our house.  We outfit ourselves, which means we buy/prepare/pack all of the gear, tents, supplies as well as the food packs. Kelly and I each have our system, but even so the amount of work is significant. I can completely see now why folks would pay the extra money to have an experienced outfitter prepare the food and even gear packs.  After 23 years of doing the occasional trip myself, I may consider this next time. [For first timers, I would definitely recommend going with an outfitter to prepare the good and gear packs.]  The result of the frantic prep is that we’re tired and grouchy before we even leave for Ely!
I can’t control the trip.  My regular job has an executive component to it, overseeing an academic department at Bethel College.  So I’m used to mapping out plans, assessing outcomes, and thinking about the long-term.  On a wilderness trip, I have to take it as it comes, slow down, and not think about how it will finish.  As a logistics person, the logistical nature of a wilderness trip can overwhelm my ability to take in the moments.
I’m losing interest in fishing.  This one has been tough for me to discover because I once loved to fish.  In my early days of youth ministry, a rod/reel combo and tackle box were permanent residents in my car’s trunk (or boot for you in the UK).  With three reservoirs near my house, I could do a quick bit of crappie fishing or get in on a White Bass run in spring.  But now fishing is losing its luster for me and the joy of landing the big pike is great, but it takes a lot of effort to do that.  Fishing in the BWCA takes work and I would rather relax, enjoy camp, and slow down.  Most trips I lead are full of folks who can’t wait to fish and so the pressure is on to join in and chase “Mo’gater” or a tasty walleye.

I think the BWCA and other wilderness experiences are good for us.  It’s clear that our comfort level has grown where if we’re not connected to WiFi or have an electric fan nearby to help us sleep, we aren’t sure how to survive.  Perhaps we all need to have a place that challenges us, that provides a love/hate experience which exposes some areas we need to examine.

Do you have such a place or experience? Feel free to share a story or two.

 

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Recipe for Chai Tea Latte – as good as Starbucks (repost)

As darkness and coldness presses in earlier each evening, thanks to daylight savings time and winter’s approach, one of my sons mentioned that he missed our chai tea latte that we had last year.  So, to help you northerners usher in the fall season, here’s a recipe for a mix you can make at home that I like better than any mix I have tried commercially (yes, even Starbucks). Please don’t skip the cardamom; if you shop around a bit, you can find it reasonably, and it keeps well.

 Chai Tea Mix:

1 cup nonfat dry milk powder
1 cup powdered non-dairy creamer
1 cup French Vanilla flavored powdered non-dairy creamer
2 cups white sugar  (you may want 2.5 cups, but I think that makes it too sweet)
1 1/2 cup instant tea (plain, unsweetened. You could choose decaf, if preferable)
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground cardamom(cloves and cardamon are crucial.)

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. In small batches, whir in blender until you have a fine powder. Remix the smaller batches.

Mix 2 heaping tablespoons with a cup of hot water (adjust to your own taste) and enjoy!

[I got this from this website: http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf34681077.tip.html from "Jill."  Thanks! ]

 

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“Does anybody remember why we’re doing ministry?”

At a recent conference I attended, one of the speakers shared how engineers at some universities receive an iron ring upon graduation.  Supposedly started by Canadian Herbert Haultain in 1922, the engineers are told the ring symbolizes the reality that if they don’t do their jobs well, people will die.  For Canadians at the time, the memory of the Quebec bridge collapses were fresh in their mind.  Finished in 1907, it collapsed due to poor engineering work, killing 75 people.  Re-engineered and rebuilt, it collapsed again in 1917, killing 11 more people.

Which made me think:  What happens to people when I don’t do my job well? 

At first glance, it seems far-fetched to suggest people will die if we don’t perform our jobs well.  However, what are the results for teachers who teach half-heartedly and without preparation, youth workers who spend very little time with youth each week outside of their programs, or parents who don’t spend the time to listen, nurture, and encourage their children?  The future of people’s minds, souls, and perhaps health seem to be at stake in those instances, each asking those of us who lead to do so with care, with integrity, and with excellence.

The speaker looked at those of us in the conference, most of whom had committed their vocational lives to Christian ministry, and asked, “Does anybody remember why we’re doing ministry?”  The question caused most in the room to pause as it reminded us of that sense of mission we felt as we started in youth ministry. It’s easy to become jaded, scarred, and even cynical in ministry over the years – and lose that awareness that what we do in ministry for God matters.  That Jesus does make a difference in people’s lives. That the Holy Spirit does regenerate people into new creations.  And that’s a matter of life, life to the full.

Is there an urgency to our work, a conviction that what we do in ministry matters, makes a difference, and even could be life or death (in many ways) for others?  Before you dismiss this too quickly, consider the ways it may be more true than we imagine.

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