Happy birthday Jonathan. You're older than me but I'm fatter than you!! Hope its a great day!

Happy Birthday! Dang, I just turned 30 this year and you sure nailed the 5:30 thing.

Happy Birthday. You sure are talented at keeping up with youth culture for such an old guy! May God continue using you in amazing ways both in equipping youth workers and challenging teenagers.

Happy Birthday! Tomorrow I turn 40 so I hear you. The day after that my new pastor turns 39....kinda weird working for one of you young guys...haha!
Hope it's a great day.

rjw

One year closer to that senior discount!!

So, my wife and I have been brainstorming something and since you brought up age... i'll mention it here. We are wondering what changed in youth minsitry in the last two years. What is different about these kids we are now minstering to. Our incoming college freshman two years ago were so into MySpace, we thought about blocking it on our internet router. But now attention has shifted away from that towards other things. Our teens today are hyper-connected, over-scheduled, under-committed, many are apathetic and don't want to accept responsibilty. And we've all seen this before, but something feels different. One thought was that we had a community of liers (as they all participate in social networking sites and tend to exagerate certain things about themselves) and perhaps there is a spiritual dynmic to the lying peice. College professors often refer to the new breed of "helicopter moms" who, much like news choppers, get wind of a problem, swoop in, hover over things, kick up a bunch of dust, and then leave when the story is over... moms who protect kids from things that in our day we would refer to as "character building experiences." So then we looked at maybe it was a decade thing... did it have something to do with when the parents of our current teenagers were born, that makes them parent the way they do... Maybe they remember Vietnam and the civil rights movement, or maybe they were just babies at that point. Maybe they remember the start of US Social Welfare programs... maybe they don't. Was is the "I'll never raise my kids the way my parents raised me?" Or maybe it's that the new laws about bike helmets, no balloons in schools, etc has conditioned parents to so shelter our kids from "character building experiences" that we haven't allowed them to have enough pain to have the motivation to do something with their lives. What is it that has created this need for us to change the way we do ministry. I want every kid in this youth ministry to read the Harris' book "Do Hard Things," but would that be enought? Anyone out there have thoughts on what makes the teens you now have in your youth ministry, different from the teens you've been ministering to for the past 12 years, and more importantly, what we need to change in our methods and in the way we relate to them, the way we call them, the way we structure programs and small groups, to meet their needs? Perhaps their needs have changes. I can't imagine that we've changed Maslov's Hierachy of needs... but perhaps instead of just needing to focus on Self Actuization, Self-Esteme, and Social Needs... now we actually need to focus on all 5 as many students no longer feel safe or secure in their family life or at school, and also on their physiological needs as well because mom and dad are too busy working 60 hours a week trying to "provide a good home." I don't know... I just have lots of questions. Anyone want to add some questions or some thoughts onto the pile.

I think it's got something to do with when the teen was born and more importantly, when the current batch of parents between age 35 and 45 were born... but I don't know... I'm just kind of guessing. All the kids we've had in ministry so far, had parents who are now 45 to 55 years old. So what is the differnce in a decade and what impact does that difference have on parenting techniques and results?