Phil's Little Blog on the Prairie

I'm back in the office after a week away on business/pleasure in the Pacific Northwest. As I mentioned before, the business was Julia's actually--her professional association's annual meeting. My job was to watch Henry and try to get a little work done. In addition to visiting Seattle, we spent a few days in Vancouver, B.C. to see Henry's cousin, Lyra, and her parents, Julia's sister Christine and her husband Mike. It was a good trip, but it's nice to be back home.

It's also nice to see a new blog by a Prairie Star religious educator. Lori Allen, religious growth director at the Unitarian Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, is now blogging at Lori's Lincoln (b)Log. I have to hand it to her for coming up with a nifty name. I also appreciate the way Lori's using her blog: it's a nice mix of church-related business with some personal stuff mixed in. (Take a look at the photos of Lori's growing family!) At any rate, this is exactly the kind of connections I'd like to see religious educators making here in Prairie Star. I'd be happy to coach anyone out there who's interested in starting a blog. Just drop me a line at psdlund@earthlink.net.
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One really nice fringe benefit of being the Prairie Star District’s Lifespan Program Director is the opportunity to see newsletters from all over the plains and prairie states that make up PSD. I’ve been trying to share some of the best things I’ve found in those newsletters through the Faith Developments “blog” I started a year or so ago. Usually it’s a column from a Prairie Star religious educator, although sometimes I post something from a volunteer or a youth advisor. Thing is, this really isn’t a blog (or web log) for a couple of reasons: one is that these are newsletter columns and not blog posts (there’s a difference); the other reason is that I haven’t been able to post things as frequently as I’d like. Ideally, a blog should have a new post at least once a week—preferably two or three times a week.

So I’d like to start making a slight change to the way I’m posting items on Faith Developments. I’m going to continue to post the best of what I’m reading in newsletters around the district on the Faith Developments blog. But I’m going to start summarizing those posts here as well. I’ll also provide a link to the online version of the newsletter in which I found the post here. That way you can go and read it for yourself in context. Going directly to someone else’s site to read a post is the more acceptable way of sharing information on the internet, especially if that other site is a blog itself. And that, my friends, is my plan: to have more and more PSD religious educators, ministers, youth advisors, and lay leaders sharing their thoughts and expertise on the internet through blogs. It may take awhile, but that’s the dream.

So, here’s a quick rundown of an interesting column I read in Expressions, the monthly newsletter from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Minnetonka. It’s by their Religious Educator Director, Andrea Heier. What impressed my about this article is the subject matter: Putting Family First, which is not just a phrase, but the name of an organization whose mission is “to raise awareness about the crucial connections between parents and children, and helps families find balance in their lives.” Andrea has helped to make families a priority in her congregation, and she’s done a great job of using Putting Family First as a resource. You can take a look at Andrea’s original article here (PDF), or by visiting Faith Developments.
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I promised my colleague at the Minnesota Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice that I'd write a post about this upcoming event (which is particularly appropriate given the subject matter of my last few posts). It's a Call-In Day to Support Comprehensive Sexuality Education, and it's happening this coming Monday, March 26, 2007. Here's the deal: our UUA Washington Office would like youth, young adults, and anyone interested in supporting Comprehensive Sexuality Education to call or e-mail their senators and urge them to support the Responsible Education About Life Act. You can download a PFD with complete information here. All you have to tell them is this:

I’m calling today to ask for the Senator’s support of the REAL Act which would provide federal funding for comprehensive sexuality education programs. As a religious person I'm outraged that we're failing to protect the health of our nation's young people by funding abstinence-only programs that promote medically inaccurate information. Please co-sponsor the REAL act today.

It's that easy. And you can find out more about the REAL Act here. It's definitely worth our support.
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A quick post this morning before Julia, Henry, and I head off to Seattle for a meeting of TESOL, Julia's professional association. (We're going to mix a little pleasure with our business, too, and visit our Canadian kin in Vancouver after the conference!). I just wanted to call your attention to a couple of things. One is the new blogroll I'm trying out (you can find it below the "Recent Comments" section to the right). It's powered by FeedBlitz, and the reason I like this particular service is that it gives you two different ways to subscribe to the blogs listed: either through an RSS feed, or via e-mail. Now if none of this makes sense to you, don't worry--it didn't make much sense to me, either, until I started reading up on blogs and how to best use them. What I'd like to do with my blogroll is offer a list of blogs intended primarily for Prairie Star District religious educators, ministers, and lay people interested in issues around lifespan faith development. And what would really make it cool is if more and more RE folks in our district had blogs of their own. That way we could have an interconnected web of weblogs!

The other thing I wanted to call your attention to is Debra Haffner's blog Sexuality and Religion: What's the Connection? It's a perfect example of the importance of blogs for keeping up with issues that affect us all. Debra blogs regularly about sexuality and religion, and as you know from previous posts, her resources are essential reading for those of us interested in making our congregations as safe as possible. Her blog is essential reading, too. So if you'd like to try out the FeedBlitz service, click on the icons next to here blog at the left. Consider subscribing via RSS or directly to your e-mail inbox. And if you have any questions about what this means, drop me a line and I'll walk you through it.
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I'm spending a few moments this morning catching up on blog posts that have been delivered to my NewsGator inbox (it's a great way to keep track of your favorite blogs without having to visit each site!). Anyway, I noticed this post from Philocrites (aka Chris Walton, senior editor of the UU World, and the driving force behind the World's award-winning online version). He points out that the UU Church of Berkeley "has started using YouTube, the social-networking video site, to host a welcome message from the ministers (featured on the front page of the church's site) and selected worship services." That's brilliant, if you ask me. I could see a congregation having multiple videos: in addition to a welcome message and selected worship services, one could also post videos about the children's programs, the youth group, multigenerational events, teasers for adult religious education classes, and so forth. We have the technology. If we use it, they will come!
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Last week I sent out a special edition of the new Lifespan Faith Development newsletter that's e-mailed to religious educators, youth advisors, ministers, and lay leaders in the Prairie Star District (if you're not currently getting the newsletter, send me an e-mail at plund@psduua.org and I'll add you to the list). The subject of the special e-mail was concern over the number of reports regarding known or suspected sex offenders attending UU congregations in Prairie Star. I didn't mention this in the e-mail, but I'm especially concerned about this increase because it means, in my opinion, one of two things: either we've had these sex offenders in our congregations for quite sometime and are only now discovering it (because of increased use of required background checks, etc.); or know sex offenders are deliberately targeting UU congregations because the word has spread that we're soft touches who make it fairly easy for a "repentant" offender to have unsupervised access to children, youth, and vulnerable adults.

How might this word have gotten out? Well, apparently congregational leaders aren't the only group of web-saavy folks in the word. It seems that pedophiles have developed quite a online community to support one another in their specific interests (sex with children or adolescents, boys or girls, etc.) and to help each other find ways to gain unsupervised access to victims. There was a article published in the New York Times last year clearly shows the lengths to which sex offenders will go in order to get close to the objects of their sexual desire. Please read "Dark Corners: On the Web, Pedophiles Extend Their Reach" for yourself, especially if you or someone in your congregation has any thoughts whatsoever that a known sex offender in your community has reformed and can be trusted around children, youth, or vulnerable adults. If you have any doubts at all, consider this exchange reported in the article:

Using deception to gain access to children is a recurring theme. For example, on a site for adults attracted to boys, someone calling himself Vespucci asked in June whether a single man could become a foster father. The respondents cautioned Vespucci to disguise his pedophilia.

“You better have a darned good excuse why you never married, such as your fiancée died in a car wreck,” replied a man calling himself simply “d.” “I highly recommend you date women for several years and keep at least a couple of those relationships going for at least a couple of months. Around the women, make a point of being nice to children.”

The deception would be worthwhile, d wrote. “It will help out in the reference-check dept. when you apply.”

If a pedophile is willing to date a woman for several years in order to get a good reference as a foster parent, what makes us thing a convicted sex offender wouldn't hang around a UU congregation for a few years in order to gain unsupervised access to children, youth, and vulnerable adults?
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I'm in Des Moines, Iowa this morning, getting ready for a day-long meeting of the Prairie Star District Program Council in Ames. The reason I'm in Des Moines rather than Ames is because last evening I met with Lori Allen and Sherry Warren, the to other members of what I would call PSD's Lifespan Faith Development Executive Team. We talked about the direction of Lifespan Faith Development in Prairie Star, and we identified some areas we want to emphasize. More on that later. In the meantime, I'd like to offer you the last of the Youth Ministry & Spirituality Project's seven elements of contemplative youth ministry, authentic action. Here's what they say about it in their charter:

A contemplative approach to youth ministry seeks to engage youth and adults in authentic actions that reflect God's mercy, justice and peace. Just as Jesus came out of prayer and solitude to heal the sick, welcome the outcast, and celebrate with friends (Lk 4:18-19, John 12:1ff), so we also seek to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in a way of life rooted in the Beatitudes that witnesses to Christ's love, passion and joy. Communal practices of Sabbath, prayer, discernment and accompaniment find their fulfillment in actions with youth that make visible the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Young people desire opportunities to participate in Christ's healing and liberating activity within the world. Companions of the Project seek to support youth and adults in becoming instruments of God's grace who courageously resist the principalities and powers that oppress life and creatively reveal the reality of God's love.

Okay, so that's not typical UU language. But there's much here that's consistent with our Principles, Purposes, and Sources. Take the last phrase, for example, "courageously resist the principalities and powers that oppress life and creatively reveal the reality of God's love." Sounds like two of our Sources our living tradition draws from:

Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion and the transforming power of love; [and]
Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves.

So, rather than "courageously resist the principalities and powers that oppress life and creatively reveal the reality of God's love," our contemplative youth ministry could help youth to "confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion and the transforming power of love" and "respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves." We've all ready got the language. It's just a matter of intentionally doing the work (spiritually speaking).
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The more I read about the Youth Spirituality and Ministry Project, the more I'm struck by how much of the work they've been doing parallels what we've already been doing on various levels at the UUA and in Prairie Star. Consider "hospitality," the sixth component of a contemplative youth ministry. If you search the UUA website for use of the word "hospitality," you'll find over 40 pages of hits (compared to, say, "Sabbath," which yield only 19 pages of hits). Obviously, there's a lot of talk about hospitality among UUs, and well there should be. How much of this talk has filtered down to our youth programs, hoever, is questionable. Here's what the YS&MP has to say about it:

A contemplative approach to youth ministry seeks to welcome, bless and joyfully integrate all young people into the whole church community. Just as Jesus exhorted his disciples to "let the children come" (Mk 9:35ff; 10:13ff), we also seek the full inclusion of young people and the many gifts they bring into every dimension of church life: worship, teaching, proclamation, fellowship and service. Young persons often suffer marginalization in the church and the pain of not feeling accepted and appreciated for who they are. As elders in the covenant community, adult companions of the Project seek not only to accompany young people individually on the way of Jesus, but also to advocate for them in finding their place as fellow ministers of the gospel in the larger community of the church and its mission in the world.

As always, this is fairly Christian language. But the basic premise of seeking "the full inclusion of young people and the many gifts they bring into every dimension of church life" holds true for us. Perhaps fully welcoming our youth into our congregations might be the most radically hospitable this we could do.
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We’ve had our last official district staff meeting here at Ghost Ranch. All that’s left is breakfast, a group photo, closing worship, and saying good-bye. Soon I’ll be back in Minnesota, where I hear there’s a couple of feet of snow on the ground. Whoo-hoo! At any rate, I’m not quite ready to fall asleep, so I thought I’d blog on another element of contemplative youth ministry—discernment. Actually, discernment was one of the things we talked about during a conversation on spirituality in congregations. It’s sort of a marker of spiritual maturity, I think. If individuals or groups are willing to take the time to look at the big picture when making decisions, then they’re we’ll on the way to practicing discernment. Of course, there’s more to it than that. Here’s what the Youth Ministry & Spirituality Project says about discernment:

A contemplative approach to youth ministry is guided by discernment. Just as Jesus prayed to know and follow God's desire (Lk 22:39ff.), we also seek to discern and respond faithfully to the call of the Holy Spirit in our lives and ministry with youth. We practice and teach the disciplines of individual and group discernment so as to be fully available and responsive to the movement of God's grace in our covenant communities, allowing anxiety-driven youth ministry to become Spirit-led youth ministry. Companions of the Project seek to learn and practice the spiritual disciplines of discernment as the basis for opening, listening and responding to God's call in youth ministry.

Once again, we can replace “Holy Spirit” with “Spirit of Life.” And while we may not believe in a God whose desire we must discern, there is the notion of being in alignment with the way things are. I’m reminded, though, of Neil Douglas-Klotz’s free translation of the Lord’s Prayer: “Your one desire then acts with ours.” I like to think of that in a Taoist’s sense—the universe is unfolding as it will, and if we can discern the direction it’s going in and act in accordance with it, we will indeed find ourselves opening, listening, and responding to the way things are.
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It snowed last night here in Ghost Ranch, but the sun is out and the air is crisp and I’m looking forward to another fruitful day of conversations with my district staff colleagues. One of the things we’ve been talking about is the need for an increased emphasis on spiritual growth in our congregations, which is what these posts on the Youth Ministry & Spirituality Project are all about it. For example, take the fourth of the seven ways the project has identified for cultivating attentiveness to the presence of the transcendent in the lives of young people—accompaniment:

A contemplative approach to youth ministry is focused on discipleship through the accompaniment of young people. Just as Jesus sought to form disciples through a relationship of love and an invitation to follow Him (Mt. 4:18ff), we also seek to initiate young persons into mature Christian faith through relationships with elders who join them in living the way of authentic discipleship. Young people are searching for spiritual guides who are alive in Christ to help reveal to them their deepest identity and beauty as beloved daughters and sons of God and to assist them in discerning their unique gifts and vocation in the service of God's reign. Companions of the Project seek to be compassionate elders in the faith who seek out regular accompaniment for themselves and who actively model the disciplines, virtues and fruits of the spiritual life. They offer youth friendship, guidance and listening hearts as they make the passage through adolescence into spiritual maturity….

As always, this language is pretty Christian. But Unitarian Universalist youth would benefit from the same sort of attentiveness. Here are some phrases I really like: “relationship of love,” “mature…faith,” “spiritual guide,” “identity and beauty,” “unique gifts…vocation…service…,” “compassionate elders in the faith who seek out regular accompaniment for themselves…,” “actively model the disciplines, virtues and fruits of the spiritual life.” The very last sentence, however, is perhaps the most important: “They offer youth friendship, guidance and listening hearts as they make the passage through adolescence into spiritual maturity….” I think many of our best youth advisors do offer “friendship, guidance and listening hearts.” But that’s just part of the total package. Companions on the journey need to “seek regular accompaniment for themselves” (be part of a worshipping community and a small group that nurtures their own spirits), and the goal of the entire process needs to be the spiritual maturity of the youth. But since our society, our tradition, and our youth programming is (and has been) stuck in an adolescent stage for some time, this needs to be a very intentional process. Can we do it?
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