You’re invited: “Love is an Orientation” Virtual Book Club

UPDATE, 5/20

I’m overwhelmed at the early response to the “Love is an Orientation Virtual Book Club” experiment. In 36 hours, more than 125 people have already joined! That’s a little larger than any book club I’ve ever participated in. On second thought, I’ve never actually been in a book club before, so that’s a bad comparison. Let’s just say, it’s a lot larger than I expected. Should be fun.

The first two discussion topics were posted today, and neither one requires that you have actually read the book yet. Let’s call them preliminary topics, generated solely by the invitation to join.

1) What Conversation?
2) Is “Agenda-less” even possible?

If you haven’t entered the fray yet, please do so here.
________________

ORIGINAL POST

Call this post an online experiment, but I can’t remember anticipating a book as much as Andrew Marin’s debut, “Love is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation with the Gay Community” (InterVarsity Press). So, for me at least, the book’s release is worthy of experimentation.

My anticipation mounted for at least two years after meeting Marin through Urban Youth Workers Institute and hearing first hand his passion for reaching a community most Christians dismiss as unreachable. Add to that the timeliness of the topic — gay marriage, anyone? — and the opportunity to wrestle with a fresh perspective on it, and the book’s release feels, well, fresh. The book’s cover, for its part, promises no more of the pungently stale entrenchment of cliche Christianity/ese, which by itself is worth celebrating. *Grin.*

So here’s the experiment.

Create a virtual book club wherein interested Christ-followers and non can wrestle with the topic together.

Who should join?

Anyone willing to read and discuss the book, who also cares about:

• Advancing the Kingdom of God by loving sincerely the most marginalized among us.
• The hyper-sexualized culture young people engage everyday, and that culture’s affect on already hormonally changing teens.
• The confusion, pain, and challenges created by increasingly visible homosexuality and the backlash against it.
• People, period. But especially those we struggle to love.

Who Should Stay Away

• People with a political, religious, or other agenda besides seeking understanding.
• Know-it-all’s who want everyone else to see how smart they are.
• Narcissists. It’s not about you.

Where?

The Love is an Orientation Virtual Book Club will meet on a semi-neutral platform — Facebook — so YS Blog friends, UYWI blog friends, JeremyDelRio.com blog friends, UrbanMinistry.org members, CCDA associates and more can all engage easily.

Format

Again, this is an experiment. I took the liberty of initiating this particular conversation about elevating The Conversation (i.e. creating the group), but I do not own the dialogue. I reserve the right to remove hostile notes and comments (and will recruit other contributors/editors to assist), but otherwise any Group member can feel free to initiate a discussion topic or engage another topic.

Ground Rules

• R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
• Check hostility, if not your agenda, at the door.
• Foul or otherwise derogatory language will be removed by an administrator.
• Discussion comments should relate to the discussion. Personal attacks or digs will be removed.
• Self-edit. If you think your own post might be agenda-driven, it probably is, so save it for your own blog or hit the delete button. And if you see something offensive, please notify the administrator.

Hopefully we won’t have to modify the ground rules much, but I/we reserve the right to do anything necessary to “elevate” the conversation, even in cyberspace.

Enter the Fray

I just began to read the book this morning, and will be wrestling through it along with you as I read it for the first time. Join the FB group today. Purchase the book. And enter the fray.

Chicago’s student murder epidemic, and a growing response to it

According to a recent CNN report, 36 children and teens have been murdered in Chicago so far this year — more than one a week — and local activists and faith leaders believe the slayings aren’t getting the attention they deserve.

Had 36 kids died of swine flu this year, “there would be this great influx of resources that say, ‘Let’s stop this, lets deal with this,’ ” Pfleger said.

Instead, because violence is driving the epidemic, “We’re hiding it. We’re ignoring it. We’re denying the problems,” he said.

The current US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, expressed similar disappointment in 2007, when Chicago recorded 31 murdered children during the school year and he was serving as the city’s CEO of public schools. Watch why the violence seems worse now »

At the time, Duncan said “all hell would break loose” if these killings took place in one of the metro area’s upscale enclaves.

“If that happened to one of Chicago’s wealthiest suburbs — and God forbid it ever did — if it was a child being shot dead every two weeks in Hinsdale or Winnetka or Barrington, do you think the status quo would remain? There’s no way it would,” he said.

This time, if a growing consortium of Chicago churches has its way, all hell will finally break loose from the city’s public schools. After learning about 20/20 Vision for Schools at the 2008 Urban Youth Workers Institute, a Chicago network of faith-based youth workers began exploring a similar anti-violence approach to education reform in September 2008. Five months later, Vision Nehemiah launched 20/20 Vision for Schools Chicago in February 2009. To date, over 40 Chicago churches have adopted public schools for meaningful prayer, advocacy, and service.

Fore more info, visit 20/20 Vision Chicago online here.

Why loving young people is like city living

[Ed. note: UYWI Blogger Jeremy Del Rio was invited to contribute to the Youth Specialties Blog as well, and they requested a semi-biographical first post. Enjoy.]

Greetings from Brooklyn.

Not Brooklyn Lindsey, YS Blog contributor.

Brooklyn, New York, the most populous borough in New York City. Birthplace of Jay-Z and the integration of Major League Baseball. And site of the largest battle of the Revolutionary War. If Brooklyn were its own city, it would be the fourth largest in America.

My name is Jeremy Del Rio and I’m an addict — if you can call young people an addiction. Or if you can call city life addicting. Either way, I’m hooked.

I’ve lived more of my life in Brooklyn than anywhere else, with pit stops in Manhattan (the glitzy borough), Staten Island (the forgotten borough), and the greatest of NYC suburbs, New Jersey (sometimes called the Sixth Borough). My wife has lived nowhere else. Nor have our sons, both of whom were born here.

Our boys will soon discover the ABC’s of City Living. Multifaceted and textured, Brooklyn is:

• // Altruistic, artistic, and adventurous.
• // Boisterous and beautiful.
• // Cosmopolitan, creative, curious, conflicted, communal, and even cliquish.
• // Diverse and occasionally dangerous.
• // Energetic.
• // Fun.
• // Grandiose.
• // Hyper.
• // Inspired and invigorating.
• // Jubilant and joyful.
• // Kind.
• // Loud.
• // Maturing and sometimes mean.
• // Neighborly or nasty.
• // “Over it.”
• // Passionate.
• // Quite charming.
• // Restless, rowdy, and relevant.
• // Smart, sophisticated, and sometimes sullen.
• // Typecast.
• // Unbuttoned.
• // Vulnerable.
• // Wide-eyed and occasionally wild.
• // Xenos friendly but sometimes xenophobic.
• // Yours to love (or not).
• // Zestful.

So, too, are young people.

You may quibble with my list, and its applicability to youth ministry, but that’s part of the allure of cities. It’s OK if you disagree. We can still get along. We can still build community despite our differences.

Like many urban neighborhoods, mine is in perpetual flux, transformed for generations by successive waves of immigrants. For the last decade or so, Bay Ridge has has evolved into one of the largest Arab communities in New York, with Halal meat markets and Hookah shops now lining the streets. Sometimes the newer arrivals make the long-timers uncomfortable. And vice versa.

So, too, our youth ministries.

Youth ministry is an inherently transitory time. No matter how we define the youth in our ministries, they are bounded by age, grade, or some other time constraint that insures that they will move on, leaving empty spaces or replenished pews. How we build community with them while we can determines, in part, whether they leave behind a vacuum or a legacy.

Do we attempt to conform them to our standards of decorum and decency, or do we empower them to flourish in the uniqueness endowed to them by their Creator? Does our community celebrate their differences by loving them sincerely, without an agenda?

Teen life is an inherently tumultuous time. Bodies change and hormones start raging, even as teens begin to confront life’s big questions — the very same questions many adults haven’t answered yet, like: “Who am I?” “Why am I here?” “Where do I belong?” But the uncertainty, curiosity, and ambiguity bring with them opportunity for exploration, adventure, and discovery. Do we embrace the unknowns that faith requires, or chase after the safety of what’s familiar?

When the transience and change feel overwhelming, I take comfort that Jesus gives youth workers an extra year with high schools students than he had with his disciples. Even more comforting: his prize student, Peter, still needed anger management after three years by his side. And his rag tag collection of unlikely followers — which included a political terrorist (the Zealot), a crooked bureaucrat (the tax collector), and a prostitute among other “ignorant and unlearned” devotees notable only for their least likely to succeed credentials — had to be at least as conflicted and petty as my youth group.

They were certainly (almost) as diverse as my neighborhood.

- A youth ministry veteran since age 13, Jeremy Del Rio consults churches and nonprofits on youth development and cultural engagement, and trains practitioners with Urban Youth Workers Institute.

RELOAD Inland Empire

We at Urban Youth Workers Institute are usually running full speed ahead this week and moving on to the Azusa Pacific campus to prepare for the 1,500 leaders who would attend our National Conference. As many of you know, we are taking a step back in setting up a new decentralized structure and will not be hosting the event this weekend. BUT! If you are looking to attend a great training and live in the SoCal area. RELOAD IE will be taking place at Water of Life Community Church in Fontana, CA. We have a great line up that includes Larry Acosta, Alexia Salvatierra and Andrew Marin with EIGHT Workshops being offered! The price is perfect for you and your team and we are having a TACO CART on site.

Calll us or jump over to see more details at the RELOAD IE page and REGISTER. Our team would love to hang with you this Saturday!

7 Questions in 7 Minutes on Discipleship

If you can help us out by filling out 7 Questions in 7 Minutes on Discipleship the Urban Youth Workers Institute would much appreciate it. Thanks a bunch.
Click Here to take survey

Featured Reload Resource: 20/20 Vision for Schools

Watch the 2008-2009 Reload Tour’s 20/20 Vision for Schools Workshop online now.

20/20 Vision for Schools: Transforming Public Education within a Single Generation of Students

“Adults promise children that if they stay in school they will be equipped to succeed in life, but we have failed to make good on that promise for generations — with high school graduation rates in some cities hovering at or below 30%. First-graders in Fall 2008 will graduate high school in 2020. Come explore how urban ministries can transform public education within a single generation of students by activating congregations, adopting schools, and becoming answers to prayer.”

+ Workshop written and presented by Jeremy Del Rio at Reload New York (1/17/09).
+ Download the workshop PowerPoint and lecture notes here.
+ Additional 20/20 Vision for Schools resources are available online here.
+ Recorded by Brian Coday of the National Network of Youth Ministries.

Leading In Turbulent Times: UYWI Training Series

The current economy has been hitting all of us in different ways. I know a number of friends that have lost jobs and have run into one dead in after another in the search process. The non-profit world is no different than the corporate world in needing to make cuts and shifts in how they do ministry in these day. UYWI has not been sheltered from this reality. So we got together with a few people and decided to offer a training series over the next year call “Leading In Turbulent Times” for Executive Directors or others who mange organizations. You will not only learn from the special guest speakers, but also from your peers that will be in the room with you thinking about the same issues that you are dealing with. Andy Bales from the Union Rescue Mission will be hosting us for the the first training day. You can follow this link to here more about the day and register for it online.

CCDA 2009 National Conference

The CCDA National Conference will be hosted in Cincinnati, OH this year from October 21 - 25. They have a great deal running for an early bird rate of $99. This will be a gathering of about 2,000 urban leaders from throughout the country who care passionately about serving their communities. Please check out the website to learn more about CCDA and its National Conference.