lifeasmission » youth ministry

FYI: Fuller Youth Institute

JR Rozko — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:06:51 +0000

I have posts coming on both my recent trip to Afghanistan as well as a follow up to the video on how McCain and Obama each answered Rick Warren’s question about evil.

In the meantime, I wanted to draw your attention to some great work some friends have been doing. Kara Powell and Brad Griffin have been helping to lead Fuller’s Center for Youth and Family Ministry, which is now the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI). This is a tremendous research based resource for all those involved with or those who care about teenagers. I was lucky enough to have contributed two articles to their work, “A Theology of Culture for Your Ministry: Is “The World” Friend, Foe, or Something Else?” and “The Other Side of At-Risk: Freeing Youth From Suburban Oppression.” Anyway, they have completely revamped their site and you should go have a look.

Live Better

JR Rozko — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:30:07 +0000

My brother clued me in to 2 good sites today.

This one will let you opt-out of a lot of the junk mail you receive and this one will send you free daily email tips for living more sustainably.

Why? Because stuff like this should make us really nervous about the enormity of our consumption (pretty fantastic art as well).

Enjoy!

Suburban Discontent/Suburban Oppression

JR Rozko — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:05:17 +0000

My friend Todd Hiestand recently posted, A Holy (Suburban) Discontent. It is partly a review of Tim Keel’s, Intuitive Leadership, and partly a reflection on the trappings of the suburban life style – something I have been feeling all too painfully since moving back from LA.

One of the most ironic parts of the post is that Todd quotes Tim’s in his telling of a story not very unlike my own. Tim reflects “on how he had an intense and authentic experience of spiritual community in college. Then, post-college he entered into the world of suburban America.” Tim says,

“I was able to see a number of friends with whom I had live so intimately begin to lose their faith following college. That sounds dramatic, and I don’t mean it in the way you might initially read it: I don’t mean they lost the content of their belief system or became apostate doctrinally. I mean that upon leaving college and entering the world of twentieth-century suburban Christianity, they lost their way of life. They entered a way of life that was compartmentalized, disintegrated, individualistic, sub-cultured, ghettoized, programmed and purpose-driven.”

This was as true for me as it has ever been for any of my friends. Having had the freedom to remove myself from this for a time, to study and reflect, has, I beleive, given me a unique perspective on just how subtle this sort of co-option can be. With Todd, I feel a discontent deep within – wanting the rhythm and course of my life to be determined by the power of the gospel and not the power of the culture in which I live. Todd offers a few good suggestions at the end of his post regarding some of the personal implications. My longing, however (not that Todd doesn’t have this longing, check out his church community, The Well), pushes this beyond this to the desire to align myself with a community which feels this discontent and stands convicted that they most embody an alternative lifestyle, to be an alternative community.

On a related note, an article I wrote for Fuller’s Center for Youth and Family Ministry, The Other Side of At-Risk: Freeing Youth from Suburban Oppression, was selected to appear in Fuller’s global publicaltion, Theology News & Notes. You can check it out here.

The Theology of Linkin Park

JR Rozko — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:20:17 +0000

I don’t know a ton about Linkin Park, but they are a band whose name keeps coming up in various spheres of my life. I know my brother Adam is a fan and the other day my friend JR (that’s right, “there are 2 of them,” [SB]!) was showing me one of their videos on his oh so glorious new iphone. I provide the video for your viewing pleasure. And you can read the lyrics here.

I hardly know where to begin in terms of making spiritual and theological connections between the sentiment of this song and the message of the gospel.

A Theology Of Culture for Misintry

JR Rozko — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:53:51 +0000

A new edition of Fuller’s Center for Youth and Family Ministry e-zine came out today and they chose to include an article I wrote, “A Theology of Culture for Your Ministry: Is “The World” Friend, Foe, or Something Else?” A big thanks to Brad Griffin, Kara Powell and others who helped in the editing process. It’s a much better article because of their help. I’ll be adding it to the goodies section on my blog soon (currently I have a cloud of all my delicious tags as well as some of the stuff I’ve written if you’re interested in either).

The Oppression of Suburban Youth

JR Rozko — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 18:58:29 +0000

I had the chance recently to contribute an article to Fuller’s Center for Youth and Family Ministry e-journal. The title of it is, The Other Side of “At-Risk”: Freeing Youth from Suburban Oppression. It was really fun to write and helped me make some important connections between the the years I have spent sharing life with teenagers in the context of youth ministry and the education I have been receiving at Fuller the past few years. There’s a lot more to be said on this issue than could be included in this article, but if you read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts and keep the conversation going. Also, I should say that it’s an honor to have an article included alondside people like Chap Clark, Kara Powell, and Brad Griffin whose articles are more than worth your time as well.

You can see all the articles in this month’s e-journal here.