intersections: theology, technology, politics

It’s 5am local time on our second day here at the base. We have a packed schedule of training and sessions today to prepare us for our outreaches beginning Saturday and going through Wednesday. Someone from our team has been asked to preach at the local Vineyard on Sunday. Breakfast is served at 7:15am, followed by 45 minutes of quiet time. Then we have our first session of the day.

The base is an old mushroom farm;  it’s nice. There are bunk beds and showers. We are situated on a mountain top at 5,000 feet. There’s a nice breeze throughout the day, and though it’s the rainy season, it hasn’t rained yet. We had a lovely dinner last night followed by an evening session.

Today we start learning our skits for open-air ministry on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. We are performing a skit called, “The Family.”

I’ve found everyone on the base staff team to be so nice and friendly, and our team leaders, two Canadians, seem great. They don’t speak Spanish, but that’s no problem.

All of our students are in good spirits and health and seem to be enjoying their experience so far. We all are a bit tired from our travels but grateful for our safety and protection.

With love from Costa Rica!

Evening Worship

For the past 12 years, I’ve served the youth at our church. I’ve learned a lot serving the church and the young people in this community. I’ve learned that most of our students are overprogrammed. Students in our community have too much to do, they are working, playing sports, taking prep classes, and going to school. They carry a huge homework load and they have very little time to meet during the week with me and our trained youth workers.

I’ve decided to make space for those who want it, for others I find other ways to support them either in their local world or through prayer and notes.

Many have rejected the relational youth model, without giving us another model that will work and I’m annoyed. Why criticize without offering a new way forward. I’ve been a fan of relational youth ministry because it focuses my attention on our students where I believe it should be. It’s my mandate to understand their world, and their struggles and offer them solution for creating a spiritual framework.

Lately, I’ve been struck by how few students have people (parents, mentors, siblings) who are teaching them what it means to be a student of Jesus. Many are calling them to repentance, ‘turn from your evil ways,’ but aren’t offering students a way forward. I’ve repented, now what? What’s the next step on this pilgrimage towards becoming more like Jesus. Many offer pat solutions to this problem: read your bible, prayer three times a day, have a quiet time, but to what avail? How does a student who is so overprogrammed learn to take time to reflect and just be? Who is taking time to teach them what this looks like, and what’s the way forward.

Maybe what we need is a better way forward. Maybe we need to take more time and focus on what really matters: sharing our lives with our students and offering the life that we have been able to draw from our relationship with Jesus. Or maybe that’s the problem as youth workers we haven’t figured out how to draw real sustainable life from Jesus so we don’t know what to offer our students as their way forward.