Prelude Gathering

Lectio Divina: Introduction

I first remember hearing about lectio divina in a youth ministry context. This might be surprising for some, but not for others. In many ways, youth ministry has been on the leading edge of recovering the ancient practices of contemplative spirituality. This has had both positive and negative ramifications, it seems to me. On the one hand, positively it has meant a whole new way of spiritual formation has emerged that has breathed new life into many young people's lives. On the other, more negatively, there has also been some commodification of these practices, whereby they are employed as a kind experimental gimmick, a kind of innovation for innovation's sake coolness factor as their motivating use. In this second use, they are not so much practices as they are neat side-shows intended to win student's attention. They are a commodity to be picked up and put down at our own whim. 

When undertaken, though, without this gimmicky motivation and as a genuine practice in the community of our young people, I share the excitement that lectio divina, and other practices like it, are significantly robust habits by which our student's faith can blossom and grow as it leads into missional action in the world. Because I believe this is so, I want to spend the next month or so leading up to Prelude, focusing on Eugene Peterson's four-fold description of lectio divina. 

In his book, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading, Peterson offers this description of lectio divina:

Lectio divina provides us with a discipline, developed and handed down by our ancestors, for recovering the context, restoring the intricate web of relationships to which the Scriptures give witness but that are so easily lost or obscured in the act of writing.
Lectio divina comprises four elements: lectio (we read the text), meditatio (we meditate the text), oratio (we pray the text), and contemplatio (we live the text)... Reading (lectio) is a linear act, but spiritual (divina) reading is not -- any of the elements may be at the fore at any one time (91).

Reading Scripture spiritually (lectio divina) is a robust practice that involves our whole selves. It requires a posture of humility before the text because it believes that this text can and does bear witness to the living God, and through our engagement with this text, we might actually be engaged by God in Christ through God's Spirit. Lectio divina is not an end in itself, because it ushers us outward into living the text, living the story of God. This posture acknowledges the liveliness of Scripture because it recognizes the centrality of God's spirit in this practice. Hence, to truly read Scripture spiritually is to allow ourselves to be called into question by the text, to place ourselves before the text and not just the text before ourselves. 

Over the next four weeks we'll examine all for elements that Peterson highlights in this practice to get a clearer picture of just what it means to read Scripture missionally, and thus be formed for God's mission in the world.

Erik Leafblad

Reading in Communion

We have a group of mostly youth workers, led by Erik Leafblad, who are meeting on Wednesday morning to discuss the book Reading in Communion by Stephen Fowl and Gregory Jones.  I wrestled through Chapter One uninspired but Chapter Two is very thought provoking.  Chapter Two is entitled Reading in the Communion of Disciples: Learning to Become Wise Readers of Scripture.  The authors emphasize the role practical wisdom plays in the interpretation of Scripture.  Interpretation of Scripture involves a "lifelong process of learning to become a wise reader... capable of embodying that reading in life." 

A community that reads and interprets Scripture together is necessary because "our complicity in sin leaves us captive to destructive patterns of life.  Such captivity undermines our ability to read Scripture well.  Liberation from our captivity requires an ongoing process of being formed and transformed by God's grace in and through the friendships and practices of Christian communities."

The authors stress the importance of Christian communities to hold each other accountable not to read Scripture in a way that ends up supporting "our agenda."  We must be virtuous and disciplined to read the Scriptures "over-against ourselves"  Fowl and Jones offer suggestions to help communities to read "over-against ourselves."  "...we must be willing to be interrogated by Scripture in addition to interrogating Scripture... Scripture's interrogatory power will come to any community through the voices of interpreters with well-formed character within the community and concerned outsiders."

I read this chapter on Saturday, the day after experiencing a great example of the thoughts in this post.  Eleven Youthfront ministry staff gathered in the Wilburforce Conference Room at the Demdaco Headquarters.  We were working on the spiritual content for camp this summer.  We will be living all summer inLuke 15, more specifically, the story of The Prodigal Son.  We have spent months discussing these scriptures, praying through them, meditating on them, and discussing how to bring young people into the transformation power of this sacred text.  On Friday we were discussing ways to create applied learning experiences with Luke 15:17 "And having come to himself..."  We had a dialogue about this phrase that I believe is a perfect example of wrestling with Scripture in a communal fashion that leads to the fleshing out of the power of Scripture.  I don't really believe it is possible to describe what happened in the context of our community as we encountered together the living Scripture but I know that this kind of communal interaction with Holy Scripture is essential for vibrant Christian Communities.  I wonder why so many people working in ministries and churches speak often about how little time they spend together as a staff praying, reading scripture, discussing theology and seeking the Holy Spirit's leading. 

Christian communities, churches and ministries are legitimately empowered as spiritual communities through the Scripture because the Word of the Lord is our source and context for discerning what it actually means to be a people seeking to live faithfully in the way of The WORD, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Mike King

Memorizing Scripture (or why we let ourselves off the hook with just a few inspiring verses)

I was once asked by a student if I memorized Scripture, for she had heard this was an almost non-negotiable Christian practice. I surprised her by asking, “What do you mean by Scripture?” She of course meant the practice of putting to memory selected verses from Scripture that “meant” something to her. This is a fairly common practice, and one that isn’t all that terrible, but I want to suggest memorizing Scripture is much more intimidating and robust than this.

In his book Life Together, Bonhoeffer is reflecting on what at his time was the common practice of many Christian communities to isolate one or two verses and reflect on them for their weekly (or in some cases, daily) Bible study. Things really haven’t changed all that much to our time. The Bible is our little book of promises, and we claim certain verses here and there as inspiring little tid-bits for our sentimental souls. But this is not Scripture. Consider:

The verse for the day is not yet the Holy Scriptures that will remain throughout all time until the Day of Judgment. The Holy Scriptures are more than selected Bible passages. It is also more than “Bread for Today.” It is God’s revealed Word for all peoples, for all times. The Holy Scriptures do not consist of individual sayings, but are a whole and can be used most effectively as such (pages 59-60).

Bonhoeffer is making the salient point that the Bible (or the word of God) is not to be taken as singular passages that are supposed to be inspiring little snippets of wisdom for the day. God’s revealed word is the whole of Scripture. This raises the practical issue of what do we then do in terms of memorization of Scripture. Certainly there is precedence for the memorization of Scripture. This was a practice of the people of Israel, and likely of the early church. Set in context, though, they were engaged in a much richer and robust practice of memorization: whole sets of texts. This is why it is my conviction that we ought to be encouraging people to memorize biblical outlines and not a smattering of verses here and there. In this way, people will come to have a greater understanding of the scope, trajectory, and overall cadences of various books, and by extension, the whole of Scripture. To do this, one must actually read Scripture, and not just inspiring little sections. To become people of the book, we genuinely need to become people of the whole book.

Back to my student. What did I advise? Surprisingly, something I learned in seminary.  It was there I learned the value of memorizing outlines. You see, in our introduction to Old and New Testament courses, we were obligated to do so, and we complained vehemently. It is tough work. But this, I submit, is truly committing Scripture to memory. She didn’t really like my response. I guess she’s ready for seminary.

Erik Leafblad

Narrative Theology is More Than Telling a Bible Story

It seems that a new sexy term in youth ministry is "Narrative Theology."  There is much talk about how young people like stories.  Yes, that is true.  I also hear, "we shouldn't just give kids Bible verses as a way to help them develop a list of things to do and things to not do." OK, but we are just scratching the surface with what Narrative Theology is about.  Using some popular Bible Stories is not Narrative Theology.  Narrative Theology involves Creation Theology, Atonement Theology, Soteriology, Eccelesiology, plus much more. 

One of the things I've been thinking about lately is how individual narratives are shaped and impacted by a listener.  Every young person we work with has a story.  What impact does the active listening of a youth worker have in creating an environment in which the adolescents story is shaped, reoriented, reimagined and integrated?  Can the communal act of listening to an adolescents story result in transformation and the merging of their story with God's story?

Through Jesus Christ's Incarnation, God and humanity begin sharing a new and robustly embodied story.   Wesleyan Theologian Aaron Perry writes about, "listening as a defining role and transformative act of the church, the community founded by the narrative shared with God in Jesus, in which the church enables other to join her narrative"  He also examines the concept of at-one-ment with God as a "narrative shared with God that forms a new community."

God's salvific work through our Lord Jesus Christ involved an act of interpersonal communication which "emphasizes the presence of the personal."  Human beings are dialogical beings and the act of communication - speaking and listening involves the formation of a relationship.  Perry believes that the presence of a listener, opens the story of an individual to the constructive abilities of both speaker and listener.  I like the highly communial aspect of these thoughts and want to do some more thinking about the role of youth worker as listener in the spiritual formation of young people.       

Aaron Perry, Listening, Narrative, and Atonement, Wesley Theological Journal.

Mike King

Becoming Students of Scripture?

One of the books around which we'll discuss this year at Prelude is Scot McKnight's latest, The Blue Parakeet. At the very beginning of this book, McKnight recounts a seminal moment in his life, while in high school at a camp, where his vocation crystallized for him upon praying that God would fill him with God's Spirit. There, McKnight says, he "unexpectedly became a Bible student with a voracious appetite to read."(1) The Bible became this book in which McKnight found incredibly rich worlds open to him, where surprises abounded. Surprised by the sudden interest in all things Scriptural, McKnight's life takes a trajectory to where McKnight has gone on to become somewhat renowned for his study of the Bible. And it all began at camp, with a prayer. The scope of McKnight's reach in biblical studies demands that we see the activity of God's Spirit in this call. Even so, something of interest, and instructive for our ministries with young people, pops out in McKnight's biography. 

I can remember something similar happening with one of our students during a mission trip. For whatever reason, God's Spirit had prodded her towards a deep love for Scripture. She immersed herself in the Bible. We observed and noted this development in her spiritual formation. Our encouragement was of the type, "Cool. Keep reading." Contrast this with the response from McKnight's youth leaders:

Some of my former Sunday school teachers were as surprised as I was by what was happening. My youth pastor encouraged me to read serious books, and he also modeled a way to study the Bible by teaching Romans to our youth group. He also suggested I learn Greek, which, because he had a spare beginning Greek book, I began. I had no idea what I was doing, but I liked languages, so I plugged away, never knowing quite what to expect. My father gave me some books to read, like John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. I devoured books. My teachers observed that I read books for class, not because I had to, but to learn and engage in conversation. (2)

Notice the communal response to McKnight's newfound love of Scripture. First, his Sunday school teachers took notice. Now, who knows if their surprise was sort of a backhanded compliment, but nonetheless they took notice. Second, his youth pastor pushed him. He modeled for McKnight an approach to Scripture that went beyond mere reading to actual study. He further situated that study in the context of their youth community, so that presumably they may begin to bounce ideas off of one another, and become co-learners in their communal conversation with Scripture. In addition, his youth pastor encouraged him to dig deeper into the language of Scripture, in this case Greek. Third, McKnight's father gave him other books to supplement his reading of Scripture. In doing this, he implicitly helped his son see how his newfound appetite for Scripture was situated in a tradition of interpreters. That is, McKnight was part of a tradition of readers, and as such, his engagement with Scripture could be enriched by listening to voices other than his own.

Here is the thrust of what I'm getting at. I'm not insinuating that all our students who somehow acquire an intense interest in Scripture are the next Scot McKnight, but I am saying that McKnight is who he is today partly because he had this community teaching him how to read Scripture (and likely how to let Scripture read him, hence the Romans study). We are, far too often, content that our students seem to be reading Scripture regularly. It is a good thing when our students are captivated by Scripture, but it is our job and calling as those whom God has entrusted to help shepherd and guide these students, to help them learn to really become students of Scripture. This requires that we, ourselves, are students of Scripture. Do we really dig into Scripture ourselves? Do we situate ourselves in a community that will push us as co-learners? Do we supplement our reading of Scripture with the voices of those past and present, aiding us in our encounter with the Bible?

I confess, these questions bite as I write them. It is part of the reason we are devoting such attention to Scripture at Prelude this year. Will we, together, become true students of Scripture, learning to read and be formed by God's address therein? If this is what we desire for our students, then it is what we must become ourselves.

=====================================================================================
(1) Scot McKnight, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 10.

(2) Ibid.

Erik Leafblad

Forgiveness, Repentance, and a Theology of Atonement

Forgiveness lies at the center of the theology of atonement. As we discuss what it means to develop a theology of atonement versus a singular theory of atonement this year at Prelude, inevitably our discussions will include what it means for God in Christ to forgive us of our sins. This will inevitably lead to discussions of the role repentance plays in our theology of atonement, for undoubtedly repentance and forgiveness are linked. But how are they linked?

I've recently been interacting with a book entitled Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, by Miroslav Volf. This book is packed with thought-provoking ruminations on giving and forgiving, God's grace and our embodiment of that grace in our lives, all in a simple, accessible, and engaging style. Volf is a superb theologian, and his personal biography illuminates his ideas as they concern forgiveness and grace. A Croatian, he lived through the unspeakable violence of civil war and genocide, the loss of family from this atrocity, and so his theology has real-life girth. There is much I could post on from this book in terms of the topic at hand -- atonement -- but I'll offer some thoughts on forgiveness and repentance.

My understanding of the link between forgiveness and repentance throughout much of my unbringing was this: I repent in order that God might forgive me. God's forgiveness was a theoretical offering waiting to be made actual by my repentance. Hence, the so-called sinner's prayer, as I prayed it and understood it, was that I was asking for God's forgiveness. I contend this understanding is not far from what many of our students probably hold.

The implications of a such a view for the atonement are quite significant. If repentance is a precondition for forgiveness, then Christ's life, death, and resurrection are not ultimately efficacious. What makes Christ's self-offering efficacious is my repentance. God forgives because I asked God to. My decision to ask God for forgiveness matters most for the atoning work and person of Jesus Christ. In such a scheme the gospel, it seems to me, becomes less than good news because God's forgiveness ultimately depends upon me. Did I really repent? Was my repentance sincere enough as to warrant God's forgiveness? These questions, and others, plagued me, and I suspect they plague some of our students. But, this is to get it backwards. Repentance is not the precondition for God's forgiveness, rather, it is the proper response to God's forgiveness. We have so emphasized the response that we have turned the gospel of the good news of God's indiscriminate forgiveness, into a gospel of a decision. Why?

I'm sure there are many responses to this question of why, but I think one that often gets overlooked (by some anyway) is that we don't truly understand forgiveness. We think purely in transactional terms. I pay with repentance; God gives forgiveness. But sin is foremost a relational category: it disrupts our relationship to God, our self, the world and others around us. This means forgiveness is foremost a relational event. Volf puts it like this, "We forgive in order to take care of a wrongdoing, but a wrongdoing always happens between people, not just in thoughts or actions of an individual" (p. 181). God reveals Godself as forgiving as God reveals Godself in Jesus Christ as God-for-us. God's forgiveness is the restoration of relationship between God, humanity, and the world in Jesus Christ.

So, what of repentance? Clearly the New Testament accounts for some type of response, and often calls this repentance (the greek word is metanoia, which literally means a U-turn, to head straight in the opposite direction than one was going). If God has already forgiven us, and forgiveness is not preconditioned by repentance, then what is the point of it? Why repent?

Repentance does not, in fact, create the condition for our forgiveness. God's inbreaking into our world as a babe in Bethlehem creates the condition for our forgiveness. Repentance, does though, bring my lived reality more into conformity with the reality of God's forgiveness. That is to say, repentance is absolutely essential as a response to God's forgiveness. Notice, it is not a condition for forgiveness, but a response to God's forgiveness. Repentance does not, as it were, make God forgive me. God forgives me, therefore I repent. The so-called sinners prayer should emphasize thanksgiving for forgiveness, not asking God for forgiveness. It is our relational response to God's relational movement towards us in Christ. Forgiveness and repentance are fundamentally relational because the gospel is fundamentally relational.

How would such an understanding change the way you present the gospel to your students? How many of your students do you think would be surprised to hear the gospel explained in this way? 

Erik Leafblad

A.J. Jacobs and The Year of Living Biblically

If you haven't yet read A.J. Jacobs' book, The Year of Living Biblically, I commend it to you. Its a short, fun, and compelling narrative of a self-described secular, agnostic Jew ("I'm Jewish in the same way Olive Garden is Italian," says Jacobs), who attempts to live the Bible literally for a year. His insights are oftentimes profound, and some of his conclusions warrant consideration by those of us who call ourselves "people of the book."

Recently, I also discovered the phenomenal web-site TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. The video web-site offers for free some of the best minds, sharing from their areas of expertise. To my delight, they have a short (18 minutes or so) video of Jacobs sharing from his experience of attempting to live biblically. Not only was he hilarious, but I think some of what he has to say connects with what we'll be thinking about when it comes to reading Scripture missionally. He was formed by his experience of attempting to live the Bible literally. He changed. The text read his secular, agnostic context and brought to light certain aspects of it which have since been transformed. In a way, I think Jacobs' experience bears resemblance to what we pray for our students, and yet don't always see. 

Watch the video, and share your thoughts. What strikes you about his experience? What compels you? What would you push back on?

Erik Leafblad

The Invention of Air and Youth Ministry

One of the things that we hope for Prelude to be is a chance for collaboration and dialogue, a forum for ideas. In Mike King's post (below) we learn about a man named Joseph Priestly, who used to gather with more famous names like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, simply to exchange ideas. They called their gathering "The Club of Honest Whigs." Our hope and prayer is that this blog can be a type of "Club of Honest Whigs" for those of us involved in youth ministry, a forum for exchange of ideas and generative conversation.

===========================================

My son Daniel reads, for enjoyment, the kind of books that only a graduate class for credit necessitates I read.  One of his latest fascinations is the book The Invention of Air by Steven Johnson.  The book focuses on the life of Joseph Priestly, a little known but highly influential thinker, comrade and friend of better known Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.  The book chronicles the paradigmatic shifts initiated by Priestly and the profound impact he had on the founding of our country and the influence he had on science, religion, politics and much more.  The amazing thing is that most people have never heard of him.  Priestly, more than Jefferson, Franklin or any other early nation-building leader initiated innovation and shaped the emerging environment of the infant nation of the United States.  And yet, very few people know of him.

In the introduction of the book Johnson writes, "In their legendary thirteen-year final  correspondence, reflecting back on their collaborations and their feud, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams wrote 165 letters to each other.  In that corpus, Benjamin Franklin is mentioned five times, while George Washington is mentioned three times.  Their mutual nemesis Alexander Hamilton warrants only two references.  By contrast, Priestly, an Englishman who spent only the last decade of his life in the United States, is mentioned fifty-two times.  That statistic alone gives some sense of how important Priestly was to the founders..."

The book documents how Priestly went about changing the conversation and initiating change.  Many founders were more interested in making sure they received credit for their contributions and desired to build their names, Priestly was more interested in being a change agent and didn't care who got credit.  Priestly fueled ideas and conversations that others benefited from but careful historical review reveals who the real innovator was. 

A couple of fascinating things about Priestly's mode of operation.

1)  He led innovation by not just focusing on one field, a specialty (think youth ministry) but by a broad curiosity of multiple fields including politics, physics, education, religion, the arts, etc. 

I believe that the most effective youth workers and ministers are those who are well rounded, living full and robust lives.  We must be curious learners and seek to live life to the full.  To engage young people in Spiritual (Christian) Formation is not just about teaching them some Bible stories and a few spiritual disciplines.  Formation of disciples of Jesus Christ is about helping young people become fully human in all the ways God intends for them to be. 

2)  Ideas and innovation do not surface without nurturing an environment for them to emerge.  "Necessity may be the mother of invention, but most of the great inventors were blessed with something else: leisure time." 

In the world and culture in which we live (think North American culture but also our Church cultures) the emphasis is often on performance, getting stuff done, adding to our list of accomplishments, etc. we don't really value a sustainable rhythm of life and growth.  How well do we do with having Leisure, time to think, time to BE, as a part of our Spiritual Rhythm of Life?

3) Priestly and his friends met together regularly to exchange ideas and dialogue. 

"On alternating Thursdays, a gang of free thinkers – eventually dubbed “The Club of Honest Whigs” by one of its founding members, Benjamin Franklin – met at a coffeehouse, embarking each fortnight on a long, rambling session that has no equivalent in modern scientific culture. (The late-night bender at an industry conference probably comes closest: the sharing of essential, potentially lucrative information while stimulated by the chemical cocktail of caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine.)  Boswell visited the “Honest Whigs” on occasion, and he had this to say of the experience: It consists of clergymen, physicians and some other professions … (including) Mr Price who writes on morals … we have wine and punch upon the table.  Some of us smoke a pipe, conversation goes on pretty formally, sometimes sensibly and sometimes furiously: At nine there is a sideboard with Welsh rabbits and apple-puffs, porter and beer." pg. 17, 18.

Very interesting.  My first thought... Do you have other youth workers that you are meeting with on a regular basis to discuss ministry and life?  How about other forums to broaden your conversations with those from other fields and disciplines?

So the big question, do you want to make a name for yourself or make the world a better place?  Sometimes, you can do both but, more often, I think we would do better to stay focused on being human beings who are trying to live full lives with others who we can share life and explore ideas with. 

Dear God grow in us a curiosity for learning and discovering what real living in the way of Jesus is all about.  Help us to engage in youth ministry in ways that invite young people into the compelling, profound, and beautiful story of what it means to truly be the people of God participating in your mission for the world.  Amen.

Mike King

In the introduction of the book Johnson writes, "In their legendary thirteen-year final  correspondence, reflecting back on their collaborations and their feud, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams wrote 165 letters to each other.  In that corpus, Benjamin Franklin is mentioned five times, while George Washington is mentioned three times.  Their mutual nemesis Alexander Hamilton warrants only two references.  By contrast, Priestly, an Englishman who spent only the last decade of his life in the United States, is mentioned fifty-two times.  That statistic alone gives some sense of how important Priestly was to the founders..."

The book documents how Priestly went about changing the conversation and initiating change.  Many founders were more interested in making sure they received credit for their contributions and desired to build their names, Priestly was more interested in being a change agent and didn't care who got credit.  Priestly fueled ideas and conversations that others benefited from but careful historical review reveals who the real innovator was. 

A couple of fascinating things about Priestly's mode of operation.

1)  He led innovation by not just focusing on one field, a specialty (think youth ministry) but by a broad curiosity of multiple fields including politics, physics, education, religion, the arts, etc. 

I believe that the most effective youth workers and ministers are those who are well rounded, living full and robust lives.  We must be curious learners and seek to live life to the full.  To engage young people in Spiritual (Christian) Formation is not just about teaching them some Bible stories and a few spiritual disciplines.  Formation of disciples of Jesus Christ is about helping young people become fully human in all the ways God intends for them to be. 

2)  Ideas and innovation do not surface without nurturing an environment for them to emerge.  "Necessity may be the mother of invention, but most of the great inventors were blessed with something else: leisure time." 

In the world and culture in which we live (think North American culture but also our Church cultures) the emphasis is often on performance, getting stuff done, adding to our list of accomplishments, etc. we don't really value a sustainable rhythm of life and growth.  How well do we do with having Leisure, time to think, time to BE, as a part of our Spiritual Rhythm of Life?

3) Priestly and his friends met together regularly to exchange ideas and dialogue. 

"On alternating Thursdays, a gang of free thinkers – eventually dubbed “The Club of Honest Whigs” by one of its founding members, Benjamin Franklin – met at a coffeehouse, embarking each fortnight on a long, rambling session that has no equivalent in modern scientific culture. (The late-night bender at an industry conference probably comes closest: the sharing of essential, potentially lucrative information while stimulated by the chemical cocktail of caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine.)  Boswell visited the “Honest Whigs” on occasion, and he had this to say of the experience: It consists of clergymen, physicians and some other professions … (including) Mr Price who writes on morals … we have wine and punch upon the table.  Some of us smoke a pipe, conversation goes on pretty formally, sometimes sensibly and sometimes furiously: At nine there is a sideboard with Welsh rabbits and apple-puffs, porter and beer." pg. 17, 18.

Very interesting.  My first thought... Do you have other youth workers that you are meeting with on a regular basis to discuss ministry and life?  How about other forums to broaden your conversations with those from other fields and disciplines?

So the big question, do you want to make a name for yourself or make the world a better place?  Sometimes, you can do both but, more often, I think we would do better to stay focused on being human beings who are trying to live full lives with others who we can share life and explore ideas with. 

Dear God grow in us a curiosity for learning and discovering what real living in the way of Jesus is all about.  Help us to engage in youth ministry in ways that invite young people into the compelling, profound, and beautiful story of what it means to truly be the people of God participating in your mission for the world.  Amen.

Mike King

"Did you read your Bible this morning?"

This question was oft asked in my home. A devoted Navigator from her college days, my mother was trained to do a quiet time every day, which for her had become a part of a natural rhythm of life. She desired the same for her kids, and so, the question. Trouble was, rarely could I answer affirmatively, and rarely did I want to. The problem for me was that this discipline of reading my Bible entailed a duty, an obligation. The question was always if I had read my Bible, and not -- or if it was this, I don't recall it -- how I read my Bible. Even better, how had my Bible been reading me?

One of the topics we'll discuss and wrestle with at Prelude this year is how we, along with our students, approach Scripture. Do we approach it with a slavish must-read-it-today mentality, or do we engage it as God's speech? Do we come to it for information, or are we seeking ourselves to be formed by it? These, among many others, are considerations we'll explore as discuss what it means to read Scripture missionally. 

So, over the next few months, we're devoting Mondays here at the Prelude blog to discuss our practices and theologies of Scripture. We'll draw on Scripture itself, as well as listen to voices of those from our shared heritage whose thoughts on the topic point to the vibrancy and liveliness of God's Holy Scripture. Our hope is that these Monday morning topics will generate new and insightful thoughts for us all, and begin to help us think more intentionally about encouraging our students not only with the if question, but also the why and how of reading Scripture.

Erik Leafblad

Join Us at Prelude 2009

Join us at Prelude 2009 where together we will think and act theologically and holistically concerning ministry, life, church, spirituality, formation, justice, relationships, worship, and embodiment of the great good news.  We will pursue innovative thinking and dialogue to explore the present and future of God at work in the world while not neglecting a healthy glance at the richness of our Christian heritage.

We invite you to join us at YouthFront Camp South, YouthFront's pilgrimage site, and enter into a time of formation and collaboration with other youth workers as we explore our participation in God's unfolding story and the transformation of the emerging generation. This year we will focus on:

• Moving from a theory of atonement to a robust theology of atonement
• Forming students spiritually for the missio Dei 
• Reading Scripture missionally  

Where: YouthFront Camp South in LaCygne, KS

When: Wednesday, April 22 to Saturday, April 25

Cost: $199 which includes room, board, and materials

Questions/Contact: email prelude@youthfront.com

View this year's Prelude Gathering e-brochure here. We hope you will be able to join us for a time of renewed friendship and generative conversation. Continue to check this blog for more information and thought-provoking conversation.