Today, I started teaching Youth and Family Ministry to my first year students at the Mexican Baptist Theological Seminary. There are a few basic theological principles behind the class, and none is more important than the mandate that God gave Israel in Deuteronomy 6:4-9.
The Shema (click here to hear it sung), as it is known, is one of the most important Jewish prayers. It declares that there is one God, and then it goes on to talk about 3 responsibilities.
- Personal Responsibility: Each person is to love God with all their heart, soul, and strength. It is a personal responsibility to have this command on our hearts. We cannot fulfill the other two responsibilities without first fulfilling this one.
- Family Responsibility: We are to “impress” it on our children. It is the responsibility of the parents to teach their children about God. Interestingly enough, the responsibility does not fall on the church (although I believe the church helps the parents with their responsibility).
- Social Responsibility: Writing them on the gates of the city is about the responsibility we have to share with the community about God.
I believe these responsibilities are in the order they are in for a reason. We cannot expect our children to love God if we do not love him. We cannot “preach” to the community if our families are not examples of loving God. There’s a lot more to be said, but it’s the basis of Youth and Family Ministry. We had a good discussion about this in class this morning.
This video is a collection of video clips that we took while in Louisville, Kentucky, for the Youth Emphasis Week at the International Center for Youth Ministry at Southern Seminary.
Read more about the trip here, here, and here.
Today was the first day of Youth Emphasis Week of 2008 for the Mexican Baptist Theological Seminary. Our Youth Emphasis Weeks so far are just chapel services. We have 3 chapels that we organize. Since I was gone so much, the students are organizing the YEW this week, and today was the first day.
They chose to talk about Global Youth Ministry. They are all fired up from the missions class they just took, so they talked a lot about youth ministry and the global focus of Youth Ministry International.
One story that was compelling to me as I sat there listening to them share about youth ministry and global need was the testimony of Oscar, a third year student in the youth ministry program.
In December, he had told me that he was very confused about his calling. You see, he has a passion for young people, but he feels called into missions. He wasn’t sure how those two could go together until he took the class on missions. He has developed into quite a leader in the last 6 months, and he is excited about the possibilities of being able to minister to young people in another culture. The class on missions was just what he needed at the exact time in his life as God is pointing him in a certain direction.
(Oscar is the one to the right in the photo.)
The week is over. The only thing that is left is speaking at church on Sunday. We were invited along with people from 3 other countries to take part in a historical event on the campus of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
We spent the week speaking in classes and attending special meetings, chapels, and other events. We also had some incredible meetings that helped us connect with people outside of the formal meeting time.
Overall, I think this week has taken global youth ministry pretty far. It has opened the eyes of a few international students to see that youth ministry is a Kingdom of God thing. It goes beyond borders because God loves people from every tribe and nation.
There are many actions to be taken as a result of this week, but I think that overall it has served as a vision casting conference to open the eyes of some students and share with them the vision of Centers for Youth Ministry all over the globe. I hope that there are students from Boyce and Southern who now see global youth ministry as a viable option for them in the future, and I would certainly welcome their help in Latin America.
Check out the article about the conference.
Youth group was canceled last night, so we went sledding with the youth pastor and some interns. This trip is Huberto’s first time seeing snow, and I haven’t ever really had too much chance to play in it. We went to a local park and made a few trips up and down a hill covered in ice and snow.
I believe that a great way to bond is to play together. We spend so much time working together that it is fun to get some free time to let loose and not take ourselves too seriously. It’s hard to take yourself seriously when you’re bailing out off of a sled to avoid a tree.
When we were done sledding, we went to Phil’s house to change and drink some hot chocolate. Then we took Huberto shopping and to dinner at a Mexican food place.
So far, Youth Emphasis week has been very eventful. Saturday, we arrived and got settled in. Sunday, we went to Shively Baptist Church, and then we had a meeting and spent some time with our friends.
Monday was the first day of classes. We spoke on “Strategies that work in the US and Internationally.” We talked about sports, music, drama, and other youth ministry activities that work. We also talked about some transferable principles that work in all places such as relationships, loving students, etc.
We also went to Nashville, Tennessee, and talked to some leaders from Lifeway. We talked about contextualizing studies and working together to resource youth workers overseas. Then we taught a class to an extension of Southern Seminary. The students in the class are all youth pastors, and I really liked being with them and sharing with them what’s happening both in Cuba and in Mexico.
On the way home, we got a present. It snowed!!!! We had a long drive home in the snow with the bad roads, but we made it. We saw at least 10 cars that had spun out because of the snow. It was pretty, but dangerous.
