Category: Youth Ministry
Just… stop… talking.
Here is a portion of a post from a colleague in ministry that is worth a few minutes of your time as voting begins for some and draws near for others of us.
Just… stop… talking.
Peace Babe – October 26, 2012I understand that many different professionals have to come together in order to make policy surrounding issues such as abortion, rape, birth control, medical care for my uterus, etc. but you can also make sure you understand this clearly, and focus on YOUR profession, leaving those other professionals to do their jobs. I have never been pregnant, I have never been in the situation of needing to make a decision about an abortion, nor have I ever been raped. But I am a woman, I am a theologian, and I am a minister. Those three things alone make me qualified to tell you to STOP TALKING AND LISTEN.
I am not advocating that you have agree with my personal decisions, nor compromise your own personal beliefs. However, leave the job of professionals up to those professionals. Use them as guides and help along the way but actually LISTEN to them as you work together, doing YOUR job, not the job of others.
An Interesting Article from Religion Dispatches
No matter your political persuasion, this article from Religion Dispatches is a good reminder for everyone that works with children and youth that care and caution is needed along with some thought about the motivation of exposing young people to information, ideas, and divergent world views.
Saving Teens from Obama: When Bible Study Goes Wrong
Or, why is the Salvation Army church showing political propaganda to my kid?
by Vyckie Garrison | Religion DispatchesAs someone who is now a secular progressive single mom of seven kids, five of whom live at home, I wouldn’t normally choose to spend our family’s perpetually-insufficient income to see this Obama-bashing movie, let alone take along one of my kids. But we went because I wanted to see the movie our former church, a central Nebraska Salvation Army congregation, thought was an appropriate selection for its bi-monthly “Teen Night” one Friday evening earlier this September.
While I saw the Salvation Army’s support for Republican politics as wildly out of sync with the realities of the disadvantaged kids and families they serve—the very people who would benefit from health care reform and other progressive social policies—Miranda believed that the kids would be better served learning to trust that God, not the government, would provide for their physical needs.
But the larger point I took away from the discussion was more about my perspective as a former card-carrying member of the Christian Right, and how our different worldviews shaped our ability to see the teen movie trip as a problem. From inside the “hedge of protection”—a Christian ghetto undisturbed by competing viewpoints—the pastors could not fathom 2016: Obama’s America as blatant propaganda. Click here to read more.