"The Millennium Matrix: Reclaiming the Past,Reframing the Future of the Church" by M. Rex Miller

As I read M. Rex Miller's book, The Millennium Matrix: Reclaiming the Past, Reframing the Future of the Church, I thought about how a church and youth ministry will emerge from this new cultural ethos. I have come to realize that the church will want to embrace the digital mediums (as opposed to the broadcast culture we are exiting.) With new forms of communication through digital means, it is fascinating to think how such eclectic groups of people can be formed as communities with common interests.

Miller helps us understand how we can reconnect Word with Spirit and how the digital world will shape us:

• "We now have the means to allow our desires to journey virtually anyplace, to consider anything we choose." (77)

• "In a not-so-distant future, digital's desire for direct, unmediated, hands-on experience will replace broadcast's passive gestalt. Digital's reliance on networks and personal relationships will replace broadcast's bias toward collective main-event experiences. Digital's open-source technologies, organization, and thinking will replace broadcast's branding and proprietary claims. Digital's ability to reframe the past will replace broadcast's tendency to discard the past. (78)

• He sees worship as a "Gathering...an interactive, intimate, multisensory, improvisational, immersive, mystical, highly engaged experience." (96)

• He sees truth as "Contextual....truth is malleable and relevant with particular contexts of meaning. Context becomes the simulator for our understandings of reality. Community (virtual or otherwise) tests and validates reality." (97)

• He sees faith as "Pragmatism...belief resides in the medium of digital community. Faith begins with the context of a community, both physical and virtual. The community narrative creates a microworldview expressing origin, points of validation, and destiny. Doctrinal differences blur, yet microworldviews separate. For example, faith communities emerge centered around sustainable living, traditional family values, or alternative lifestyles, each with its own genealogy of thought, filtering process, and rites of initiation." (98-99)

• He sees the gospel as being "Recontextualized....unprecedented individual access to church history, traditions, and styles creates a desire to freshly encounter past traditions and gospel truths, sampling and synthesizing them into new expressions." (99)

• He sees the "Godhead (Body or church)....expressed with a new awareness of the church....leadership acts as a catalyst for members of the church to minister to one another and to community....in acts of healing, confession, correction, and charity." (100)

• He sees God's location...."Everywhere...all creation is a reflection of God. Because God is everywhere, we can access God through many means." (101)

• He see the connection with God through the "Heart of God...we see God's heart expressed in a yearning for connection and community and getting back to something simpler." (101)

“Shaping the Spiritual Life of Students: A Guide for Youth Workers, Pastors, Teacher and Campus Ministers” by Richard R. Dunn

Author Richard R. Dunn speaks to spiritual formation:

· Spiritual growth isn’t a religious answer given in response to the perceived religious problem, instead Dunn shares, “It is a matter of personal transformation. That transformation process, God’s redemptive work with us, has one goal: “to make us more and more like God, or more and more like Christ who is the perfect image of God.” (52)

· “Becoming a “good Christian” is not God’s goal for our adolescents. His goal is nothing less than transforming each student into an increasingly accurate likeness of his Son.” (52)

“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed

into his likeness with an ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord,

who is the Spirit.” (2 Cor 3:18)

· I like Dunn’s description: “The whole of the goal. Transformation into the likeness of Jesus is a whole-person process.” (52)
· “One common misunderstanding concerning the nature of spiritual transformation is betrayed in the oft-repeated critique “I think her problem is really a spiritual issue.” We must be careful not to over-spiritualize problems.
· And at the same time we must be wary of under-spiritualization. “An underspiritualized approach concludes that all human experiences can be explained in purely physiological or psychological categories.” (53)

· When addressing problems in teens lives as spiritual caregivers we may want to ask the following questions as part of our pacing process: (54)(I modified to encompass both genders)

How does she/he perceive God in her/his life?
How is she/he experiencing God in her/his life?
How is she/he responding to God’s invitation to walk daily with him?
How doe she/he feel about herself/himself?
How secure is she/he in relationship with her/his parents?
What needs are being met by gaining the acceptance of these peers?
What skills does she/he lack when it comes to making good decisions or communicating those decisions to her/his friends?
How does she/he deal with failure?

“Presence-Centered Youth Ministry: Guiding Students into Spiritual Formation” by Mike King

Here are insights from Mike King on what a presence-centered youth ministry would look like....

· Trusting that the Holy Spirit will provide direction, trusting in the Holy Spirit’s timing, and moving away from normally used measurements of success, such as numbers of attendees. Instead, look at the lives of the students, their growth, their mistakes, their stories.
· Facilitate the process by developing a nurturing, sacred environment. It can be natural spaces, a labyrinth, a prayer chapel, liturgy, use of symbols, fire, water, crosses, and so on.
· Connect teens to the story of God by recovering the role of tradition through liturgy, creeds, sacraments, prayer practices, and reading the Bible devotionally, as sacred text, through storytelling and Lectio Divina.