A Letter to Friends of Rooted

Dear Friends of Rooted,

First let me thank you for your participation in our movement. I wanted to update you on some of the exciting things coming soon for Rooted.

·      Rooted is gearing up for a total makeover. We will have a new website which integrates the blog and the other content of the ministry into one place. The look and feel will be fresh, and, more importantly, we graduate from Blogger! Our new home at www.rootedministry.com will go live in the next 3-4 weeks.

·      On April 8-10, Rooted will take its act to the Gospel Coalition National Conference in Orlando. Two Rooted steering committee members, Josh Cousineau of Redemption Hill in Auburn, ME and Dave Wright of the Diocese of South Carolina, will present workshops. Josh’s workshop is entitled, “Gospel-Centered Youth Ministry: Building on Jesus not the Jokes.”  Dave will speak on “Gospel-Centered Youth Ministry: Jesus' Mission to the Next Generation.”

 

·      Will you be attending the Gospel Coalition Conference? Come by our booth and meet us. Rooted will be a “vendor” at the event (we aren’t selling anything). We would like to know you personally.

·      Our next Rooted Conference takes place in Atlanta on October 10-12, 2013. We are very excited about our speakers, Jared Wilson, Sharon Hersh, and David Plant. The theme, Hope in a Time of Suffering, has great relevance for ministry to a generation of students, which have suffered greatly.  Right now, you can register very cheaply ($100) for this conference at www.rootedconference.com. Prices will go up in mid-April.

Please reach out to us if we can help and support you in anchoring your ministry more deeply in the Good News that the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross is utterly complete.

Kind Regards,

The Steering Committee of Rooted: Advancing Grace-Driven Youth Ministry

What Are Youth Ministries For? - Pt.1

-->

Hitting a moving target requires an ever-changing aim.  This is as true in youth ministry as anywhere else.  The aim of youth ministries historically has shifted as the needs in society have changed.  It’s hard for us in the 21^st century to imagine a world without adolescence, a world that would not understand the concept of a full time youth pastor.  We only need to turn the clock back a few centuries to find our role in the church completely irrelevant.  Why is that?  In the early days of youth ministry, specifically the 19th century, much of the efforts toward youth were devoted to children.  Most teenagers were in the work force at that point.  Later in the century the public high school emerged and by the early 1900’s the concept of adolescence was first described by psychologist G. Stanley Hall.  So, it’s not surprising that the aim of youth ministries historically has changed.

In a blog post for The Gospel Coalition, I looked at the history of youth ministry from the middle of the 20^th century forward to see significant developments.  In this post we will look at just a few purposes or aims of youth ministries in the past.  For a more comprehensive look at the history of youth ministry, I would suggest Mark Senter’s book “When God Shows Up: A History of Protestant Youth Ministry in America.”  Meanwhile, let’s look at just five purposes that youth ministries have served or are serving at some point in history.  I am sure you can think of more.

1.     To keep kids off the streets.  Several ministries to young people emerged in history for the specific purpose of keeping kids off the streets.  The YMCA is an example of an organization that formed because rural young people were moving into the cities to find work and needed support in their new life in the city.  A gospel opportunity was seen and the YMCA became a place to gather young men and provide Bible studies, fellowship, and prayer meetings.  Many American youth ministers today would not describe this as their primary purpose for youth ministry. The typical suburban teen has more activities in their life than they have time for. Yet as I spoke with an Egyptian pastor recently I heard of a real need for the church to provide a safe haven from life on the streets.  He described to me how seven days a week loads of teens show up at his church and they feed them, help with homework, provide Bible studies, prayer, activities, etc.  What might not be viewed as a currently relevant purpose in one context may be vital in another.

2.     To keep a vibrant faith in the lives of young people. In the late 1800’s, Christian Endeavor emerged as an international movement that sought to help young people grow in their walk with Christ. Several mainline denominations soon formed their own organizations for similar purpose.  The denominational versions could take on a more catechetical approach as they brought to the table their own particular theological and ecclesiological emphasis.

3.     To provide Christian fellowship for teens.  Following the formation of denominational organizations that promoted Christian faith, local churches began fellowship groups for young people. These in some cases shifted the focus from discipleship to training in churchmanship. In many denominations over time these fellowship groups became a holding place for youth to be involved until they would be old enough to participate in the full life of the church.

4.     To reach unchurched young people with the gospel.  The para-church movements of Youth For Christ and Young Life took a decidedly more evangelistic approach.  The emergence of a distinct youth culture created a context to reach teens that were not being ministered to in the church.  Youth For Christ began with evangelistic rallies (Billy Graham being one of the main evangelists) and Young Life took a local club approach where groups met in students’ homes.

5.     To make disciples of young people.  In some ways reacting to the para-church movements, a number of organizations emerged that either sought to disciple teens or created resources for the church to make young disciples.  In some contexts this has meant resourcing or partnering with parents.  Most American youth pastors would likely describe their purpose in youth ministry as primarily making disciples.

Looking at the aims of youth ministry over history helps us see how context shapes the needs and opportunities for ministry to students.  My friends who do urban youth ministry speak of the need to get students off the streets while those doing suburban ministry complain that their students are far too busy for youth group meetings. Most of us however would deplore the idea of simply providing fellowship for youth because we have seen the need for making disciples and evangelizing the unchurched. Some would argue that there was a time in recent history when it appeared as if youth ministries existed merely to attract large crowds and make the church leadership feel good about the future of the church.  Fortunately things are changing in the youth ministry landscape both here and further afield.

Dave Wright is the Coordinator for Youth Ministries in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina and blogs at http://fusionmusing.blogspot.com

Youth Groups in the Digital Age

Nate Birkholz, the assistant pastor for Lakeside Baptist in Grand Rapids, MI, posed this insightful question to the Rooted blog regarding declining attendance at large group and its relationship to social media and the digital age. Dave Wright and Cameron Cole offered responses that will follow in this short series.

I'm writing to ask for your thoughts about the future culture of youth and youth ministry.  Here's what I mean by the future "culture".  As I've talked with a few youth pastors we've seen a shift in the culture of youth.  Just a few short years ago teens were piling into youth group on Sunday/Wednesday night because their friends were there.  Many of these pastors steered away from the entertainment based ministry and focused their time on singing,

preaching/teaching the word, and small groups (by the way, I am including myself in the 'they').  While a number of the teens were simply there for their friends, most would listen respectfully, sing energetically, and participate in the small groups.  The gospel was the center of our teaching then as it is now, but then something happened...

Many of the teens do not show up to youth group anymore.  We're wondering what happened.  Here's a thought: Many teens used to come to youth group because it was a place for them to interact with their friends.  We, the youth pastors, were more than ready to have these teens in the audience knowing they were going to hear the gospel.  But, a few year later, those "types of teens" aren't there anymore.  These types didn't show much interest in spiritual things during the week, but when it came time to preach, they were there listening politely.  Their moms and dads didn't make them go to youth group.  They just showed up because of the fellowship.

Is it in part b/c of the digital era?  Is it that their friends are on their hips, in their pockets, or constantly in the palm of their hands vibrating away and ready for a response in less than 10 seconds?  So why show up to youth group?  They get to be with their friends at any time via digital technology. 

Question: Have you all seen this pattern?  If so, do you have any suggestions on how to 1) adapt to the current culture, 2) view the change (positive and negative), and last what should we think about in terms of change as we proceed into the digital future?

Thanks for any thoughts and resources,

Nate

Nate,

I was asked to respond to your email on behalf of Rooted...

Your question and observation is interesting and worth giving a good amount of thought to.  I have been in youth ministry since I got out of college 25+ years ago and watched many shifts in culture and technology that affected things.

I do wonder if being technically in relationships that are so constant via social media and texting affects the relational draw of the youth group.  Long ago (before I entered youth ministry) getting a crowd to a youth group event was as simple as offering food or a concert.  Students yearned for social opportunities.  I entered the field at a point when that was no longer the case, so we had to find what would draw them in.  Many were moving into entertainment driven and while I dabbled in that, I really sensed that students needed something they could not get anywhere else (in addition to the gospel) so I put a heavy emphasis on community - a place students could really be themselves and experience deep relationships.  Cyber relationships are so open these days though that the counterfeit it offers to real depth is hard to distinguish from the real thing.  What I mean by that is that students are so open on FaceBook and not hiding so much behind false personas as they did in the 80's and 90's.  So, I think they don't feel the same need as they did 20 years ago for an accepting place to belong. Yet at the same time, there is something more to be had in the relationships at youth group that is transforming (in light of the gospel) than what they get via technology.  I believe they need to somehow experience and know what real authentic relationships are these days.

I kinda think we could take a cue from advertising and think about what we can do to show students their deepest needs and seek to meet those.  I do mean deepest needs, which starts with gospel truth and extends to spiritual relationships.  It seems impossible to ignore the potential of social media to create hype and communicate these days.  The buzz we are hearing about all the time is FOMO (fear of missing out) which could be leveraged to help us reach and keep students at youth group.  It has to be centered around the gospel of grace that transforms lives though and not cater to a fear of missing entertainment and social.

Dave Wright is the Director of Youth Ministries for the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina and is a candidate for a Masters in Religion from Reformed Theological Seminary. 

Content and Context

In offering some alternatives to the state of american youth ministry, I think it might be most helpful to get very basic so that we can focus on what is important.

Several years ago, in trying to simplify the teaching I was doing on youth ministry in a few different places, I boiled it down to two dimensions. Content and Context. So, I ran it past the excellent group of youth ministers that I work with and found agreement on the idea that this was a helpful way to think about youth ministry. I later ran across a book called Total Church in which the authors suggest that all ministry boils down to content and context. Wow! Was I on to something big? I loved how they unpacked these two dimensions from within scripture. The book goes on to detail their particular church model (house church), but I could see the application of content and context in a very different setting to my own, which was helpful.

Content is without a doubt most important. Our content is the gospel but I qualify that by saying - the gospel as we see it from Genesis to Revelation. The reason for that is to emphasize that our content is the entire word of God. This is what we teach and proclaim the gospel from. We ought to engage students in scripture, teach them how to interpret and apply it to their lives, and encounter Christ within those pages. Youth ministry with solid content should be really exciting! However, I have seen groups that do nothing but focus on content. They have no fun, no social gatherings, they miss opportunities to build deep and lasting relationships and evangelism is less common. I would describe such a ministry as one dimensional.

Context is the other dimension to ministry. Our context is community. By this I am specifically referring to the qualities of relationships built within a group. Community became something of a buzzword at one point and then took on a variety of meanings. So, I would define this context as relational, creating a sense of belonging, pursuing unity in the body (Ps 133), and helping people to learn to be the body of Christ. It must be outwardly focused to be consistent with being gospel people (rather than being a holy huddle). It should also be diverse, reflecting the local population. We are not looking for uniformity here. In this context we learn to love one another deeply. Not all students are going to become best friends but they can learn to love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.

If these are our two dimensions of ministry, then all that we plan and do should fit into one or the other. Our time at weekly meetings should be guided by building our content and context. This means we set aside time each week to get to know each other more deeply and learn to trust one another, work together, etc. We pray together, discuss together, and generally grow together in Christ. We are no longer thinking as much about an individual faith but a community of believers, the body of Christ.

Our teaching and bible study should be helping students engage with scripture. Long ago I moved away from the traditional youth talk that consisted of my ideas supported by a few verses. I started teaching from passages, allowing God’s word to speak more directly to students. If you have not experienced the difference, you might not get what I mean here. Expounding scripture can be done in a variety of ways yet the end result is the same - people getting a clear sense of the meaning and figuring out how it applies to our lives.

So, where does “chubby bunnies” and messy games come into play? Well, I don’t think it has a place in our regular youth group meetings when we are centered around content and context. That sort of silliness gets relegated to camps, retreats, and times when we have already done a lot of teaching in the day and just want to have fun for a bit. Our weekly meetings are too precious, meaning we have such limited weekly time with students, to give away to silliness. Some of my youth ministry friends would argue that we need humor to help students drop their guard or to break the ice. I would suggest that lively interaction where students are getting to really know each other does this. If our teaching and discussions are lively and we are not inhibiting our own sense of humor, then even our content is fun and their guard is dropping.

Think about content and context next time you plan a youth group meeting or plan your calendar. If you run everything through those dimensions I believe your ministry will take on new depths. If we look at the early church in Acts 2, we can easily see they gathered around content in a context of community and the Lord added daily to their number. A group where truth is being proclaimed, lives are being changed, and people love one another deeply is the most attractive youth group we could imagine!

Dave Wright is the Coordinator for Youth Ministries in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.  This article is cross-posted with permission from Fusion Musing, where Dave regularly blogs.

"A Brief History of Youth Ministry" Explained

Below is the first article of a four-part series that Dave Wright has written to expand and explain the points made in "A Brief History of Youth Ministry".  Check out the other three posts here, here, and here - well worth your time!

In writing for The Gospel Coalition Blog the first in a series of articles written by several authors, I had the task given to me of providing some sort of historical overview of youth ministry as it specifically related to the series. So, I focused on a short bit of history from which I see shifts having taken place. Space did not permit really unpacking those shifts, so I thought it might be worth exploring them more and ultimately trying to provide some specifics as to what I think the solution is.

First, I pointed out that we segregated youth from the rest of the church. I think that the church in emulating parachurch youth ministries took specialization to a whole new level. While it would not be true of all churches, the trend was there. Sunday schools would have already been age oriented but when people like Mark Devries (author of Family Driven Youth Ministry) illustrated youth ministry by drawing a one eared mickey mouse (think small circle attached to a large circle), it was clear that we took segregation too far. The typical church situation was that we had set youth apart to the extent that they did very little if anything with other generations. Consider the church where Sunday School is at the same time as worship. Students grow up attending church every week but only worshipping on Christmas and Easter. Or the church that does a youth worship service to be more relevant. They figure youth would not attend anyway, so they create a service for them. Not a bad motive, but the end result is again segregation and a lack of intergenerational experiences and relationships.

Age segregated ministry is a hot topic these days. Many will argue whether or not it is a biblical practice. We saw that in the comments on TGC blog. I’m not going to dogmatically argue a position on that because I am more concerned about the practical than the ideal. Realistically, a church that is highly age segregated is not going to suddenly change if the pastor were persuaded that their practice was unbiblical. It would take a generation change to accomplish that sort of shift. A wise pastor would know that to make such a radical change would result in losing the congregation who expect the old ways. So, what is the corrective? Simply an honest assessment of where one’s church is currently at and then a strategy to move towards intergenerational ministry. The question becomes, where can we get students interacting with the rest of the church? How can we progressively make this more of a reality so that the whole church knows it needs one another?

The end result should be that students grow out of our ministries and then integrate into a church family at college or wherever they find themselves. This would reverse the stats that Lifeway proclaims about 70% leaving the church after high school and only 30% returning later.

Next up... obscuring the gospel. Stay tuned!

Dave Wright is the Coordinator for Youth Ministries in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.  This article is cross-posted with permission from Fusion Musing, where Dave regularly blogs.

Why Theology and Youth Ministry Seldom Mix

Rooted is excited to continue our partnership with The Gospel Coalition blog for a series on the state of youth ministry during the month of April.  Thanks to Collin Hansen of TGC for permission in reprinting below (originally posted here).  Check out the other articles in this series here, here, and here.

Everyone knows the stereotype of the youth minister as a big kid with an expertise in games and an affinity for creative facial hair and body piercings. Despite the stereotype, many youth pastors are passionate and intelligent. Yet youth ministry has a reputation for not doing serious theology. In the bookThe Theological Turn in Youth Ministry,Andrew Root describes a discussion about a PhD program for youth ministry at his seminary. A biblical scholar asked, "Who is going to teach the seminar on group mixers?" Root goes on to describe the perception of youth ministers as theologically "lightweight." The National Study of Youth and Religion notes, "The vast majority of teens, who call themselves Christians, haven't been well educated in religious doctrine and, therefore, really don't know what they believe." Certainly, these results, at least to some degree, reflect the typically shallow theological culture of youth ministry. Why, then, does there seem to be a gap between youth ministry and theology?

People underestimate what students can comprehend.

We live in a society where we have relegated the teen years to something of a carefree vacation, protected from consequences and responsibilities. Alex and Brett Harris challenge this notion in their book Do Hard Things. When we don't expect teens to rise to challenges, we don't teach them doctrine. However, this lack of confidence in teens has left us with an ignorant generation (or several) with regard to what the church actually believes. It is strange that we teach young people complex calculus and physics but don't think they can handle or will be interested in understanding the significance of the Trinity or atonement. Brian Cosby, in his book Giving Up Gimmicks, recalls offering a basic biblical Greek overview class to teens. He expected a handful to respond but the room couldn't fit everyone who was interested.

Youth ministry has a popularity culture.

A veteran youth minister retired after 20 years citing exhaustion. Living a perpetual popularity contest finally wore him down. Well-meaning mentors assured (or cursed) him early in his career that if the kids like you, they will come to your programs, putting him on an approval treadmill. In reality, youth ministry seems to take on a cult of personality surrounding the student pastor, perhaps more than other sectors of the church. Consequently, when so much of success in ministry seems to depend on popularity among students, we're tempted to steer away from difficult theology. When one faithfully exegetes Scripture, difficult and complex topics arise.

Churches have different expectations of youth ministries.

Some pastors view youth ministry as a necessary bother. They see youth ministry as required yet do not want it to cause them problems or drain their time. Some churches view youth ministers as entertainers and buddies, not serious ministers of God's Word. Hence, they may hire energetic young adults without theological training (this varies between denominations) to run programs and do little to invest in their theological formation. The care with which we select youth pastors is not typically on par with the process we go through to call other clergy. Often the first question a church leader has for the youth pastor is, "How many came this week?" The second one may be, "Did they have fun?"

Youth pastors just love kids and want them to meet Jesus.

Evangelistic passion among some youth pastors has meant a neglect of theology---both studying it and teaching it. We can aim for "decisions for Christ" and overlook the spiritual formation that follows conversion. It is easy to get so wrapped up in doing evangelism and relationships that little time is spent deepening our own understanding of doctrine. Given that most people who come to faith do so before they complete their teen years, a youth minister can easily take on the attitude that "students don't need deep theology, they just need Jesus." Yet presenting the gospel without a solid theology is dangerous. A youth pastor with weak theology is more susceptible to developing a messiah complex, thinkingwe need to save these students. Students who don't grasp good theology cannot articulate a faith that will stand up in college or beyond.

The egg-and-armpit relay ruined youth ministry.

Mike Yaconelli, co-founder of Youth Specialties, used to joke about the egg-and-armpit relay as a central pillar of youth ministry. He was acknowledging that youth ministry had created a culture of fun. While we might have one of the most fun jobs on the planet, it becomes burdensome to manufacture fun all the time. Attending youth ministry conventions and conferences is a bit like a cross between Disney and Mardi Gras. Despite excellent training and inspiration, the atmosphere created by the sponsors reinforces a mentality that youth ministry is all about fun. In most youth ministry resources we find the emphasis on fun and games. The founder of Young Life was famous for saying, "It's sin to bore a kid with the gospel." When we look at photos of youth groups in our churches, we typically see lots of messy games and wacky skits. Given this perception, it becomes the expectation of parents, pastors, and church leaders to see youth ministry continue in that way. In truth, we don't want to bore the kids. Theology, on the other hand, is not usually perceived as fun. So does the typical youth pastor pour time into reading theology or planning more fun programs? The answer is not so difficult when we know a parent or student is going to ask if youth group will be fun this week.

How do we close the gap between youth ministry and theology? Perhaps we first need to change the perceptions of what youth ministry is all about and what students are capable of. Then we should insist that our youth pastors are lifelong learners trained in good theology. It may take a decade or two to get there, but in the end, it will have been worth the battle.

Cameron Cole is the director of youth ministries at Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Dave Wright is the coordinator for youth ministries in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina. He blogs at Fusion Musing. Together they serve on the advisory board of Rooted: A Theology Conference for Student Ministry.

Why Do We Need Rooted?

Check out the 2012 Rooted Conference - "Adoption: The Beauty of Grace" - which will explore how the theological concept of Adoption speaks to this generation of teenagers.

A Brief History of Youth Ministry

Rooted is thrilled to announce that we will be partnering with The Gospel Coalition blog for a series on the state of youth ministry during the month of April.  Big thanks to Dave Wright for this first article, reprinted with permission below (originally posted here).

To read books on youth ministry these days, it is hard not to get the sense that this experiment we call youth ministry in the local church has failed. This perspective is not shocking or new. Mike Yaconelli, founder of Youth Specialties, stated this rather boldly inYouthworker Journalin 2003. According to Lifeway Research, 70 percent of young people will drop out of church after high school, and only 35 percent will return to regular attendance. Christian Smith's National Study of Youth and Religion found that most American teenagers have a positive view of religion but otherwise do not give it much thought. Kenda Creasy Dean, in her book Almost Christian asserts, "American young people are, theoretically, fine with religious faith---but it does not concern them very much, and it is not durable enough to survive long after they graduate from high school." This result is far from the intention of most youth ministries. Smith describes the religious outlook of teenagers as "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism," a far cry from the gospel of Jesus.

To get an idea of where we have come from, let's turn back the clock more than a half century. Space here only allows the broadest overview, so bear with the generalizations. Back in the 1940s Jim Rayburn began a ministry to reach teens at the local high school, which became Young Life (YL). Their mission---to introduce adolescents to Jesus Christ and to help them grow in their faith---remains to this day. The strategy was and is for caring adults to build genuine friendships with teens and earn the right to be heard with their young friends. At the same time, Youth for Christ (YFC), was holding large rallies in Canada, England, and the United States. YFC also quickly organized a national movement that turned to Bible clubs in the late 50s and 60s, shifting the focus from rallies that emphasized proclamation evangelism to relevant, relational evangelism to unchurched youth.

By the early 70s, churches began to realize the need for specialized ministries to teenagers and began hiring youth pastors. Some of these were former staff members from YL and YFC. With this the church imported the relational strategy of the parachurch movement. During the 70s, youth pastors seeking to reach large numbers of youth for the gospel began to employ a more attractional model. Gatherings with food and live music could draw enormous crowds. Churches found that large, vibrant youth groups drew more families to the church, and, therefore, encouraged more attraction-oriented programs. Later in the decade, this writer watched leaders swallowing live goldfish in both the church youth group and local Young Life club when we brought enough friends to reach an attendance target.

By the 80s the emergence of MTV and a media-driven generation meant church youth ministry became more entertainment-driven than ever. Youth pastors felt the need to feature live bands, video production, and elaborate sound and lighting in order to reach this audience. No longer could a pile of burgers or pizzas draw a crowd. By the end of the decade the youth group meeting was being creatively inspired by MTV and game shows on Nickelodeon. The message had been simplified and shortened to fit the entertainment-saturated youth culture. By the start of the 21st century, we discovered many youth were no longer interested in the show that we put on or the oversimplified message. Christianity was no different from the world around them. Some youth ministries intensified their effort combining massive hype with strong messages that inspired youth but did not translate to everyday life. We realized we were faced with a generation whose faith was unsustainable.

The Result

What happened in all that? First, we moved from parachurch to church-based ministry (though the parachurch continues). In doing so, we segregated youth from the rest of the congregation. Students in many churches no longer engaged with "adult" church and had no place to go once they graduated from high school. They did not benefit from intergenerational relationships but instead were relegated to the youth room.

Second, we incorporated an attractional model that morphed into entertainment-driven ministry. In doing that we bought into the fallacy of "edu-tainment" as a legitimate means of communicating the gospel. Obscuring the gospel has communicated that we have to dress up Jesus to make him cool.

Third, we lost sight of the Great Commission, deciding instead to make converts of many and disciples of few. We concluded that strong biblical teaching and helping students embrace a robust theology was boring (or only relevant to the exceptionally keen) and proverbially shot ourselves in the foot.

Fourth, we created a consumer mentality amongst a generation that did not expect to be challenged at church in ways similar to what they face at school or on sports teams. The frightening truth is that youth ministry books and training events were teaching us to do the exact methods that have failed us. The major shapers of youth ministry nationally were teaching us the latest games and selling us big events with the assumption that we would work some content in there somewhere. In the midst of all this, church leaders and parents came to expect that successful youth ministry is primarily about having fun and attracting large crowds. Those youth pastors in recent decades who were determined to put the Bible at the center of their work faced an uphill battle not only against the prevailing youth culture but against the leadership of the church as well.

The task before us is enormous. We need to change the way we pass the faith to the next generation. Believing in the sufficiency of Scripture, we must turn to the Bible to teach us how to do ministry (rather than just what to teach). Students need gospel-centered ministries grounded in the Word of God.

Dave Wright is the Coordinator for Youth Ministries in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina and blogs at Fusion Musing.