GRAIN, RAVENS AND MACARONI CHEESE - Beyond the Entitled Life: Christian Leadership in the Midst of Economic Crisis

GRAIN, RAVENS AND MACARONI CHEESE:
Beyond the Entitled Life: Christian Leadership in the Midst of Economic Crisis

“We are very early in the cycle. We are going to see the fury of the Old Testament for what we have done to the economy.”
Peter Morici, Professor at Robert H. Smith School of Business,
University of Maryland

I sat with my jaw dropped as I heard Brian Williams utter these words on Tuesday night regarding the current economic crisis (to hear this broadcast: Nightly News). I am aware that at times things can be over-sensationalized and that creating a ‘culture of fear’ can ensure increased ratings as viewers await the coming apocalypse. I began to ask myself: are we on the cusp of a second great depression?

Statements like these can quickly spiral into a spirit of self-preservation. What will happen to The Salvation Army? Will I be able to draw my salary? How will I pay my bills? Will I be able to provide for my family? The actor, Arthur Sommers Roche states, “Worry is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all of our thoughts are drained” (Roche).

It’s easy for hope to drain from our beings and sink into a spirit of despair. Just this past weekend, my family visited the Palisades Mall only to find a growing number of the stores closed for business or on the verge thereof. For generations that have grown up only knowing a culture of excess, these days of recession are hard to fathom. Jean Twenge, the social anthropologist who has studied today’s teens and twenties culture provides insight into what has been ‘normative’ for the past twenty-five years:

So many products now cater to the tastes of the individual. Instead of listening to the radio and hearing what everyone else does, we program our own special mix on our iPod, put in the headphones, and enter an individually created world. We even choose unique ring tones for our cell phones. Instead of three or four network stations, we can watch cable channels dedicated to our own interests. Instead of watching our TV live with everyone else in our time zone, we TiVo it and watch it when we want to… Individualism has driven the increasingly large universe of consumer choice in other things as well… From clothing to cars to jewelry, consumer products are designed to exhibit the wants of the unique self.

Jean Twenge, Generation Me, 2006: 101

Many of us might grieve the loss of Circuit City or KB Toys, but do we really understand what it means to struggle financially? Are we aware of what it means to be destitute? I was recently quite shocked to see how wealthy we are in the United States when I visited the website Global Rich List. I can plug in how much I make in a year to find how much money I have in comparison to the rest of the world – talk about a reality check! The truth be told, having to pull the belt in a bit pales in comparison to the destitution that others have to live with daily – and yet it is so easy to bemoan our circumstance and ask why we should have to suffer…

In Luke chapter 12, Jesus provides a roadmap that will help us to navigate through such times by providing us with clear direction on appropriate and inappropriate responses to financial crises. In light of our theme of stewardship for this month, I thought it would be helpful to explore these verses to help remind us of how now we should live.

One day Jesus encountered a man who interrupted his teaching to ask him to settle a dispute which he had with his firstborn brother. (Luke 12: 13-31). He insisted that Jesus order his older brother to give him his fair share of their father’s inheritance. According to Jewish Laws of Succession, this man was entitled to receive this. Little did this man realize that Jesus could see between the lines of this request: he wasn’t asking that Jesus decide on the merit of both claims, but that Jesus would make a decision that would favor him getting his share. I find it interesting that nowhere in this passage does it state that this man was actually wealthy – in fact it seems like he really needed (or at least wanted) his inheritance. In modern psychological terms, we could say this man had an ‘entitlement’ complex!

This encounter motivates Jesus to call this man’s bluff by telling a parable about a “rich fool”(Luke 12:16-21). In this story, we learn about a man who was consumed by greed. Already having an abundance of crops to take care of all of his needs, he tore down his barns to build larger ones in order to be able to horde as much grain as he could for himself. This man couldn’t see beyond himself. This man uses the word ‘my’ four times and ‘I’ eight times in this one parable! He had an aggressive, ingrained self-centeredness! His life was defined by what he had (or more appropriately, what he still wanted to get!). Unfortunately, his inability to see beyond himself made him myopic to seeing beyond this world. God looks at this man and says, “Fool! Tonight you die. And your barnful of goods – who gets it?” (v. 20, MSG). Obviously the rich man ‘didn’t get it’ – literally and figuratively! Gary Inrig says that, “To be a fool in God’s eyes is to have missed the point in life.” (Inrig, 1991) Eugene Peterson translates, “That’s what happens when you fill your barn with Self and not with God.” (v. 21)

How easily we can find ourselves trapped in the same foolish myopia – not being able to see beyond ourselves. What really scares me about this passage is that greed is not conditional upon the amount of money we actually have – this is a state of the heart… In other words, we are all susceptible to the disease of entitlement.

Thank goodness, the story doesn’t end here. I can imagine Jesus shifting his attention from this greedy brother and gazing into the eyes of his disciples. He says, “Therefore…” In other words, he directs his attention to those who have been following Jesus for some time. “Therefore” means that this entitled attitude of heart is not exclusive to rich farmers and disgruntled siblings, but can also imprison those of us who are in ministry. “Therefore” (v.22), also means Jesus is saying, “Hey everybody! PAY ATTENTION, because the solution to the problem I have outlined is hinged in what I am about to say”:

"Don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or if the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your inner life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the ravens, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, carefree in the care of God. And you count far more.

"Has anyone by fussing before the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? If fussing can't even do that, why fuss at all? Walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They don't fuss with their appearance—but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. If God gives such attention to the wildflowers, most of them never even seen, don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?

"What I'm trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don't be afraid of missing out. You're my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself.” (Luke 12: 22-30, MSG)

Snap! I don’t know about you, but reading these words of Jesus is like putting on a pair of glasses and seeing reality for the first time! Sure, I’m not going to be able to pick up a latte from the Italian café that just closed (right by Bed, Bath and Beyond at the Palisades Mall…), and we could possibly feel the fury of an ‘Old Testament-like economic crisis,’ but how am I going to live and who am I going to focus my attention on? Myself, or others? My latte, or my Lord? I think when we weigh things up in the light of eternity and the mission God has invited to participate in, worry seems a bit overrated! As the saying goes, “Worry is like a rocking chair – it gives you something to do but it doesn’t get you anywhere.”

John Wesley understood this. He said, “Make all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can.” As a student in Oxford, he received £30 per week. Of this, he lived on £28 and gave away £2. As he made more per year (60, 90, 120), he continued to live on £28 a year and gave away the rest. He stated, “I have two silver tea spoons at London and two at Bristol. This is all the plate [Old English = possessions] which I have at present; and I shall not buy any more, while so many around me want bread.”

My Mom also understood this. When I was a child, my family lived in Zimbabwe. This was before e-mail and internet – in fact, people still sent packages on ships rather than airplanes… (I know, I’m giving away my age!) God had called my parents to serve as missionaries in Africa and He had assured them that He would supply all their needs – particularly caring for their family of five.

One day, my Mom opened the cupboards to discover that there wasn’t a single bit of food left in the house (this was a country that when there were peanut shortages would use flying ants – yes, flying ants – as a substitute in their chocolate bars!). My parents had no money to buy groceries. We went to school that day and my Mom and Dad spent the morning in prayer. That afternoon, they went to the post office and discovered that there was a package that was sent from some Home League ladies in Canada who six months earlier had sensed the Lord tell them to buy six boxes of Macaroni & Cheese and send them to missionaries serving in Zimbabwe… I have never tasted a better meal than the manna we ate that day! That day, Jesus filled our barn with exactly what we needed for that day.

Jesus concludes his talk by stating, “But seek his kingdom, and all these things will be given to you.” (v.31)

In these days of crisis, let’s throw off the spirit of entitlement. Let’s abandon the spirit of me-first. Let’s surrender our meager attempt to control the future and entrust it to our loving Father who supplies all our needs. In the midst of this storm, the world needs a Salvation Army that will place others before self and Christ before a culture of greed. Let’s throw ourselves into the arms of a God who tells us not to worry about grain, takes care of ravens and even occasionally sends us a box of Mac & Cheese.

Not a shadow can rise
Not a cloud in the skies
But his smile quickly drives it away;
Not a doubt nor a fear,
Not a sigh nor a tear,
Can abide while we trust and obey

Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

Song 397 SASB

The Delinquent Miracle - The Spark that Set The Salvation Army on Fire in America, 1879

Over this past year, I have been busy researching the historical development of children’s and youth work in The Salvation Army in the United States. This has been an incredibly exciting journey – and one which continues daily to amaze me as I realize what a rich, vibrant history we have. So often, children are easily crowded out of our memory. In recent years, there has been a movement of historians and theologians who have sought to rediscover the voice of children – identifying their significant place in history. This is true of The Salvation Army, for without our ministries to children’s and youth, we would probably cease to be all that makes us The Salvation Army.

I would suggest that without children, The Salvation Army might never have succeeded in coming to the United States. In Dr. Ed McKinley’s book, Marching to Glory (1980), he provides an account of the ministry of the seventeen year-old, Eliza Shirley and her family – who are considered the pioneers of the Army in America. The Shirley’s came to Philadelphia in 1879 with a precondition from General William Booth that he would only officially launch the work in America if the Shirley’s mission “…was a success” (McKinley, 5).

Knowing that the mission of the Army was to “Go for souls and go for the worst,” they immediately set up a ‘Salvation Factory’ in one of the poorest neighborhoods they could find. They visited saloons and preached on perilous street corners, but were met with a spirit of apathy and failure. McKinley comments, “Penniless, friendless, and discouraged, they prayed for some sign from the Heavenly Commander that He favored their dying crusade, and would yet bless it” (McKinley, 7f.). That blessing would come – through a most unconventional means!

Delinquent. The term originated in the 15^th century and continues to be a word used to highlight those who break the law. During the 19^th century, the industrial revolution helped to churn out juvenile delinquents. In 1849, the New York City Chief of Police reported on “the constantly increasing number of vagrant, idle and vicious children,” whose numbers, he claimed were, “almost incredible” (Cunningham, 145). Children would not be tried separate from adults until 1899 (Cunningham, 151). Children would have to wait until 1906 before the Playground Association of America would be formed to provide organized play activities for urban children (Zelizer, 34). One wonders whether these kids were simply depraved hooligans or whether they were good children who happened to be the byproducts of an abusive, negligent, high-risk environment that provided the fertile ground for delinquent behavior.

The Lord would answer the Shirley’s prayer for a miracle through a gang of ‘delinquent’ boys who chose to entertain themselves by setting fire to a barrel of tar. McKinley elaborates:

…the horse-drawn fire engines had arrived promptly. Fire was a desperate threat in the crowded, wooden, gas-lit cities of the late nineteenth century; fear, along with the self-important clang and bustle of fire engines, always drew large crowds to fires. The Shirleys were certain the fire was providential, and threw themselves on the startled crowd with thankful hearts, singing, “Traveler, whither art thou going, Heedless of the clouds that form?!” (McKinley, 8)

That day, a delinquent act by a group of ruffian children became a delinquent miracle that helped to spark a literal flame that sparked a more profound spiritual flame that blazed a path for an array of ministries that would seek to reclaim hundreds of thousands of children throughout America for the next one hundred and thirty years – and continues to do so today. Without these children, the Shirley’s mission might never have been successful. Without these boys, William Booth might never have officially launched The Salvation Army one year later.

Today, boys just like these young men have an opportunity to enter through the doors of Salvation Army Corps and Community Centers. The Salvation Army provides a safe space where all of their needs: physical, intellectual, emotional, social, moral – and most importantly, spiritual; can be met. It is our prayer that at Railton School for Youth Worker Training, that we raise of a generation of young leaders who will be ready to welcome such children; and be committed to developing a reclaiming environment where new delinquent miracles can spark opportunities to blaze a trail into the lives of this next generation.

REFERENCES

· Cunningham, Hugh. Children and childhood in Western society since 1500. Essex, England: Longman, 1995.

· McKinley, Edward H. Marching to glory: The history of The Salvation Army in the United States of America, 1880-1980. San Francisco:Harper & Row, 1980/1992.
· Zelizer, Viviana A. Pricing the priceless child: The changing social value of children. NY: Basic Books, 1981.

Phoebe Palmer on The Children

This is one of the most beautiful poems that I have read on children's work. It was written by Phoebe Palmer - Catherine Booth's inspiration and mentor for ministry.

The historian Norman Murdoch has written in "The Origins of The Salvation Army" about the significant influence of Palmer not only upon the founders of the Army, but in forming the evangelical DNA of the movement. Palmer - a staunch advocate of the Holiness Doctrine - not only inspired The Salvation Army in terms of women in ministry, but also regarding slum work (The Five Points Mission), temperance, and abolition (I would also add Sunday School). I am beginning to sense that this movement's perspective on children at-risk in slum communities must have had an impact on the Booth's.

Read this poem from The Old Brewery and the New Mission House at The Five Points, published in 1854 (around the same time as the events portrayed in the film, The Gangs of New York:

‘Who bids for the little children
body and soul and brain;
Who bids for the little children –
Young and without stain’?
‘I bid,’ said Beggary, howling,
‘I’ll buy them one and all,
I’ll teach them a thousand lessons –
To lie, to skulk, to crawl.’

‘And I’ll bid higher and higher,’
said Crime, with wolfish grin,
‘For I love to lead the children
through the pleasant paths of sin.
They shall swarm in the streets to pilfer,
They shall plague the broad highway,
Till they grow too old to pity,
And ripe for the law to slay.’

‘Oh shame!’ said true Religion,
‘Oh, shame that this should be
I’ll take the little children –
I”ll take them all to me
I’ll raise them up with kindness
From the mire in which they’ve trod,
I’ll teach them words of blessing,
I’ll lead them all to God.’

Emma Booth Tucker on Salvation Army Children's and Youth Work

This is a portion out of Frederick Booth-Tucker's biography of his wife (and daughter of William and Catherine Booth), Emma 'The Consul" Booth Tucker:

"Amid all our plans and schemes for the ingathering of the parents, Christ pleads on behalf of the children, "Let them come! Forbid them not! Unto Me!" Not merely within earshot of the tidings of His life and death; not merely within range of a system of theories, or ceremonies, or dogmas, but unto Him - the living, personal, saving Christ, who can rectify the young heart as well as the older one, and who inspired the child Jeremiah as well as the veteran Moses.

"The Salvation Army takes its stand there, and it will be increasingly powerful and increasingly great in so far as it legislates and labors for the rising generation; in so far as it takes to them, and brings to bear upon them the vitalizing, renovating and uplifting forces of a living Salvation.

"Therefore, let us gird ourselves afresh for battle, strong in the conviction that our work will fail to win the Master's approval, and be utterly inadequate to the needs of the hour, unless our efforts result in bringing the children unto Him; unless genuine conversion is the outcome. Let us remember that the Holy Spirit is pledged to work with us, to interpret our words, to carry home out teachings, and to answer our prayers. The Savior of the lambs knows how to carry them in His bosom; knows how to pierce the little heart with the shaft of His love; knows hot to woo even the stripling to the hidden glory and honor of Calvary-loss and Calvary-triumph.

"Children can be saved! Thousands of changed hearts, evidenced by revolutionized lives, are bearing testimony to this fact all over the world to-day; and in many instances, even further miracles of grace are wrought by the child-saint becoming the child-Soldier, and Salvation and inspiration for the Salvation of others becomes the growing ambition of the Christ-captured disciple.

"It has often been marvelous in my own eyes to recognize the early impress of the Spirit's work. Even in babies of two and three years of age I have seen with wonder and praise that Jesus has made His presence unmistakably realized.

"I remember the case of a baby girl not two years old, who would only go to sleep with her little hands placed through the bars of her cot, "Holding Desus," as she expressed it. And again, another who, after any little childish wrong or forgetfulness, would never rest content with the pardon and kiss of those around, but must run to the window, and gazing up into the skies, with simple baby lispings, wouldas forgiveness from the great Parent Heart to whom neither the old not the young appeal in vain."

Her own experience was often referred to by her in after life as an encouragement to Christian parents to seek the definite conversion of their children by all means within their reach, and never to despair of its possibility.

At the age of seven she was converted, but the tenderness of her conscience made her at times doubt the reality of the change, because occasionally she still gave way to temper. So she determined to definitely settle her doubts, and came forward in a Meeting and freshly re-surrendered herself to God at the age of eleven.

Living in the warm atmosphere of Consecration and active service created by her parents during these early years, Emma had, of course, a great advantage enjoyed by few children, and from her youngest years the child spirit seemed readily to absorb the greatest influences that surrounded her.

Realizing how few children had enjoyed the special privileges that had fallen to her lot, she was tireless in her subsequent efforts to urge her fellow-Officers to make this a leading feature of their work.

Booth-Tucker, Frederick. The Consul: A Memoir of Emma Moss Booth-Tucker. King's Cross, London: Salvationist Publishing and Supplies, pp.6-7

The Wesleyan Influence on the Rights of Children

I just discovered that many consider the Methodist Wesleyan, Hannah More (contemporary of John Wesley, William Wilberforce and Robert Raikes), one of the modern founders of Sunday School), to be the first person recorded on speaking about the rights of children and youth:

"The rights of man have been discussed till we are somewhat wearied with the discussion... To these have been opposed, as the next stage in the process of illumination, the rights of women. It follows, according to the natural progression of human things, that the next influx of that irradiation which our enlighteners are pouring in upon us, will illuminate the world with grave descants on the rights of youth, the rights of children, and the rights of babies." 

Hannah More quoted in Steven J. Novak, The Rights of Youth: American Colleges and Student Revolt, 1798-1815. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977.

Reclaiming Children's Ministry

I have just come off of a non-stop, action-packed, three months of touring around the Territory with our Railton students, teaching cadets YP Corps Programming, teaching leadership and theory classes with our Railton students, setting up apprenticeship plans, and spending a great amount of time (my peace in the midst of the storm) with my amazing wife and daughters. Man, I love what I get to do!

It has been amazing to see the Lord move in mighty ways through our students as they have been out on the field. In Myers-Briggs personality tests, I rate as a high 'T' - processing things firstly through my brain rather than my heart, but I have been consistently in tears as I have seen the passion, knowledge and skill grow in our budding youth workers - preaching their hearts out, kneeling with teens leading them to Christ at the Mercy Seat, engaging in deep conversations with children... These things touch my heart in such a deep, profound way.

In the midst of this all, the Lord has been whispering to me about a quiet revolution taking place in our movement - revolution in our understanding of children's ministry.

This revolution is not so much about new techniques or magnetic personalities, it's more about the heart of God consuming a group of men and women who have consecrated themselves to reclaiming children and youth for Christ. I think it's also about a group of people who have begun to recognize the dynamic heritage of children's and youth work that we have in The Salvation Army - and who wish to continue to be faithful to this incredible tradition of making kids a top priority in our local Corps and Community Centers.

In the midst of all of this madness, I have been reading my Bible looking out specifically for a clear understanding of a biblical view of ministry to children and youth. I have also been digging through a variety of historical books (many of these references you can see on this blog). I am beginning to understand that there are a great cloud of witnesses who have come before us in this ministry. This is so incredibly exciting! 

I believe that in order to reclaim children and youth for Christ, that one must reclaim children's and youth ministry - and to reclaim children's and youth ministry means that one must reclaim leaders of children's and youth work... When I think about our students who will be transitioning to apprenticeship in two short weeks, and the new students who will be joining our school in September, my heart is "strangely warmed" when I consider the possibility of what will happen in the next few years as these young leaders bud and bloom in local Corps and Community Centers around our Territory and the world! I can't wait to see!

John Wesley has said, "Give me one hundred men who love only God with all their heart and hate only sin with all their heart, and we will shake the gates of hell and bring in the kingdom of God in one generation."

Do this, Lord, in my generation!

General Shaw Clifton - "Children"

I was truly blessed the other day when I saw that the seventh Pastoral Letter from General Shaw Clifton, the current General of The Salvation Army is entitled, "Children." I pray that as you read it, that you would be as challenged as I was - and that each one of us would be moved to action - giving children 10 000 times more attention!

PASTORAL LETTER SEVEN
CHILDREN / LES ENFANTS / NINOS

Dear Fellow Salvationists,

In this seventh Pastoral Letter I feel led to think aloud with you about the children of the Army and the children of the world. In doing so I send you warm greetings from London where Spring has come early and is now in full bloom. God's handiwork is matchless. So is God's love, a love that extends in a very special way to embrace our children and children everywhere.

We know from the words and teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ that there is a special place for children in the heart of God. That is why we too as individuals and as an Army must also hold the children in high esteem and look to their wellbeing at all times. Jesus had harsh words for any person harming a child. Also he made time and space for children, letting them come to him even when those around him tried to prevent it. He prioritised the children.

We must do so too. General William Booth visited India twice and published a clear-headed strategy for winning India for Christ. A key part of the strategy addressed our attitude to the children of India. Booth said that for India to be won for Christ we must pay, not just 1,000 times more attention to the children than to the adults, but 10,000 times more attention! This was a bold statement but it applies still today and not only to India. It would break the Founder's heart to visit corps that have no work for children and where throughout a whole Sunday you will not meet a single child. What a tragedy!

Our Junior Soldiers are infinitely precious. Every child is a gem for Christ. A child who loves the Lord with a simple childlike heart can be used by God in turn to win the parents for the Kingdom. Also, the children are our role-models in simplicity and trust, just as we are their role-models in loving and caring for one another. As I write I offer up an earnest prayer for all who teach the children of the Army, for theirs is a very great and privileged responsibility.

In today's world we must protect the children from all kinds of evil and harm: impure literature, the temptations of the internet, drugs and alcohol, those who would prey upon them seeking to damage and abuse them, materialism, low self-esteem, peer pressures of every kind, premature sexualisation - the list could go on and on. Every Army centre in the world is expected to have clear and effective child protection procedures in place. These procedures are not an optional extra.

Let us take a step back and ask ourselves if we are fulfilling our duties to the children within our influence. Do they sense that we respect them? Are we supportive of their family life? Do we teach them, at a suitable age, about the importance of marriage and fidelity? Do we have imaginative, effective programmes for them? Is our teaching for the children sound and true? Are we settling merely for entertaining them or are we intentional about leading them to Christ?

I know that the Lord speaks into the lives of children because he spoke to me when I was only 12 years old. He told me what he wanted from me for the rest of my life. No one else knew what he had said to me, until I was ready to share it. So today this still happens and we who are adults have no idea what God is whispering into the souls of our children. For this reason we must respect them as tender plants growing up for Christ to do his holy will in the world.

God bless the children! Thank you for looking after the children! They are beyond price in the eyes of their Creator.

This comes to you all with my strong love in Jesus Christ and my ceaseless encouragement in the great Salvation War.

I commit you to the perfect love of Christ.

Shaw Clifton
General
April 2008

Metaphors of Children's & Youth Work: The Uniqueness of the Dominant Metaphor in The Salvation Army

THIS POST IS ONLY PARTIALLY COMPLETE. MORE TO FOLLOW SHORTLY

A while ago, I picked up the book, Children matter: Celebrating their place in the church, family, and community by Scottie May, Beth Posterski, Catherine Stonehouse and Linda Cannell. I picked it up because Beth Posterski was once one of my professors back when I attended Ontario Bible College (now Tyndale University). I have always enjoyed the experience and depth of wisdom which Dr. Posterski shared in class - and so I was anxious to read about her perspective on children's ministry. After reading through this book, I can say that I was not disappointed - in fact, I found myself viewing children's and youth work in a whole new light.

One of the most profound perspectives came early in the book in their first chapter, 'Metaphors Shape Ministry.' They state, "A metaphor is simply a literary device using analogy or comparison that affects our perception of reality." (p.4) They argue that within children's work, there are micro-metaphors which describe the role of the learner, the teacher and the curriculum; and that these are complimented with 'macrometaphors' - which are "the dominant metaphor [that] tend to become the ministry model." (p.10) 

The macrometaphors identified in their book include:

1. The School Model

2. The Gold Star/Win a Prize Model

3. The Carnival Model

4. The Pilgrim's Journey Model

5. The Dance With God Model

In contemplating these models of children's ministry, I found myself recognizing in my own ministry practice how I have found myself embracing several of these models - often for the strengths... but have recognized the accompanying weaknesses. I would like to share my perspective on each of these models while proposing a sixth model which is unique to The Salvation Army - The Junior Army Model.

1. The School Model

There have been times where I have approached children's and youth programs like a school. There are some benefits to this, such as investing in the development of a knowledge of who God is and what it means to serve him in this world. I believe that it is very easy to slip into an anti-intellectual form of children's work which says, "these are just kids - they don't have an ability to comprehend who God is or truth that can apply to their lives." I find that this opinion is both condescending and underestimates the cognitive ability of our kids.

From the earliest of days, Sharon and I committed to communicating theological truth to our girls - and they have been able to both understand and reinterpret these ideas - often in ways that I had never thought of as adults. I don't think it's coincidental that Jesus challenged adults to follow the lead of our children. As Paul iterates in 1 Corinthians 1 & 2, the most profound truth cannot be comprehended by those whom the world considers wise because it is perceived as foolish... Our children do have the ability to wrestle with such ideas - and we should never underestimate their ability to do so. I recently picked up a book called Conversations with Poppi about God written by Princeton theologian Robert Jenson and his granddaughter. It's an amazing testimony to the ability of our children to engage in deep theological dialogue.

With this being said, the metaphor of education can often mean that we apply negative models of education to our children's and youth work. The famous South American educator, Paulo Freire in his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, discusses the difference between a 'banking method' of learning and 'critical pedagogy.' Often in children's and youth ministry, our education metaphor slips into a skill-and-drill mode - simply opening up kids brains and pouring in rote knowledge that we expect them to parrot back to us in robotic style. Often this isn't intended, but due to lack of time, lack of planning or a lack of creativity, we resort to such modes.

This ministry style - while it might appear effective (kids can quote scripture, doctrines, score high in 'Bible drills,' etc.), this can easily dampen the spirit of wonder that should be fanned into flame in our children and youth - something which it seems that most of us lose as we grow-up, yet is an essential quality that is required for spiritual growth. Often we give up the opportunity for our kids to learn how to think about what it means to be a Christian in order teach them what to think. Without a doubt, we do need to speak truth into our kids lives, but if all that we do rote Christian education, we are doing a great disservice to our kids. Today's market-driven culture is targeting and exploiting our kids at an unprecedented rate (for more on this, see Kinderculture, Cool Hunting,  The Great Tween Buying Machine). If we don't cultivate theologically- and ethically- critical thinking skills that are going to equip our kids with the ability to navigate their faith and ethics through the labyrinth of hyper-commercial culture, all the Bible lessons and memory verses will eventually succumb to the pressure to conform to the lure of the pied piper.  

My prayer is that we would deepen our kids ministries beyond simple fun environments that uncritically mimic whatever is the latest gimmick produced by Nickelodeon or Disney. That means, to some extent the educational model remains critical - as long as the curriculum and the teachers are driven by a Christocentric practical theology and a critical faith pedagogy that grounds our kids faith, but also prepares them for living our a vibrant missional lifestyle in today's kids' culture.

2. Gold Star/Win a Prize Model

The second model that is presented is the 'Gold Star/Win a Prize Model. We all know about this methodology... and I have to admit, this approach motivated me as a kid - and even as an adult Sunday School teacher... For some reason, those cheap, little gold stars seem to get all the competitive juices flowing. Even recently, I have joined Weight Watchers that gives little stars for every 5 pounds lost. For some reason, I find myself suckered into working for those stars - even when I could simply go down to the store and buy them myself! 

It seems that when an incentive is put before us like a carrot dangling from a string, this creates a motivation that fuels commitment, efficacy and hard work. So why not utilize this in children's ministry? A couple of years ago, I watched a documentary from Pastor Bill Wilson of Metro Ministries who says that he will do anything that is morally alright to bring a child under the influence of the gospel. During the documentary, we watched kids entering into a glass box filled with $1.00 bills who would have thirty seconds to grab as much money as they could. As I watched this documentary, I reacted with a mixture of both horror and curiosity. Was this ethically right? Can you buy kids into the kingdom? Is this sustainable? All of these are questions which are amplified and accelerated when looking at a mega-model of children's ministry as represented with Metro Ministries, but are the same types of questions which should be asked when we hand out lollipops, stickers and less glamorous prizes.

In one of the introductory psychology classes I took in college, I learned about the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. As parents, my professor said, we often use rewards to motivate positive behavior in our kids - so a kid at a grocery store might get a candy bar for behaving or a trip to Chuck-E-Cheese for scoring well on their report card. The problem, he mentioned, that as a child becomes conditioned to receiving these types of rewards, they become what motivates the child to succeed. Suddenly a Hershey bar or a pizza party won't produce the same desired result, which requires a more significant form of motivation. By high school, parents are buying cars and promising trips to Mexico for a teen to study. What he was saying was that short-term solutions create long-term problems. An increase in external stimuli naturally decreases internal motivation.

What are the implications for children's ministry? Does this mean that we have to produce bigger events? Larger prizes? Greater spectacles? At what point does this cross the line? At what point does this become counter-productive? At what point does this hold a child back from internalizing their faith?

I must clarify at this point, that at Railton School we have continued to visit Metro Ministries annually - for a Friday afternoon sidewalk Sunday School and their Saturday extravaganzas in Brooklyn. I deeply respect their commitment to sharing the gospel to kids at risk - and they are making a significant impact in the greater New York community. Along with this, their methodology is far more complex than candy bars and big events - this does not do justice to their overarching missional strategy - which is far more complex. I have learned so much from their ministry and am blessed by my brothers and sisters do for the kingdom of God  - and I pray that God continues to use them in mighty ways.

I do believe that the 'gold stars' methodology does have merit, but should be utilized carefully and strategically. It cannot be the dominant strategy. In the earliest days of Salvation Army children's work, they wrestled with this same issue. They would give out books to award kids for coming to Sunday School/Company meetings. Their Life-Saving (now Adventure Corps, Girl Guards) programs award badges for different merits earned. I think these types of strategies have their place and can be used to help to stimulate motivation to develop their faith, life skills, etc. I liken it to adding spice to food - it's about the balance. A little bit enhances a dish, but too much spoils what's been made. External rewards have their place, but this cannot be the main course of what we serve in ministry.

3. The Carnival Model

When reading Children Matter, this model hit me square between the eyes... because I know that I have uncritically embraced this approach without thinking through the extent of the consequence of this being the dominant metaphor in ministry. 

As I have mentioned already, we live in such a commercial culture. A trip to your local shopping mall's kids toy store, a half-an-hour viewing kids TV or a surf through kid-centric websites like Club Penguin and Webkinz will illustrate that kids eternally live in a candy-coated world. I once heard a comedian discussing how when they were a kid, playgrounds were metal (that heated up to searing temperatures in summertime!) and cement (that weren't fun at all to come crashing down on!). Today, playgrounds have been 'nerf-proofed' - where everything is plasticized, cushioned and theme-driven. If a kid falls down, they simply bounce right back up! I know that this is obviously hyperbole, but the romanticized, garden-like, protected, sanitized world we have constructed for kids has been taken to a whole new level - it's Jean-Jacques Rousseau on speed! 

French sociologist, Jean Baudrillard would call this a 'hyperreality' - a world that is more real than the world that really is real (think about it...). Think about Disneyworld, "the happiest place on earth." Think about McDonald's, wherever an individual goes in the world, they never need to conform to a different culture because a "happy meal" can be accessed for a minimal price. How does this relate to the concept of the kingdom of God? 

I think that it is important for us to recognize that our faith and theology both exists and develops in context. With that being said, our contextualized theologies do require an engagement with Scripture, historical tradition, reason and the experiences of other believers from around the world.  Such dialogue will help to highlight blind-spots in our contemporary missio-ecclessial expression and identify ways in which we must choose differently to those around us. Without such dialogue, we enter into the very dangerous ground.

It is my fear that those of us living in modern North American culture have sought to build our churches and ministries upon the shaky ground of what has been called the 'society of the spectacle.' As the biblical story goes, this foolish decision can ultimately compromise the integrity of what is being built... My fear is that too often our children's ministries are so enamored with being relevant, fun and enticing that we find ourselves simply amusing kids on their way to Hell.

Dick Staub in The Culturally Saavy Christian says that, "The word amusement means 'to entertain or occupy in a manner; to stir with pleasing or mirthful emotions,' but if you read the word amuse as a ('not') and muse ('to think'), you could define it as 'to be absent in mind' " (p.7f). Neil Postman in the early 1980s warned that we were 'Amusing Ourselves to Death.' 

Does this mean that I need to pack away my Batman costume (don't even ask...) and embrace an 18th century puritanical posture in which we suck every ounce of joy, laughter, wonder and culture from our ministry to children and youth? Of course not! I believe that eating blue cotton candy at kids carnivals and running through big inflatables (inducing heart attacks!) are at the heart of kingdom life. A solution to carnival-centric children's work is not to circle the wagons and beat off SpongeBob and Patrick. It's not striking to ban High School Musical from our churches (though part of me wishes it was!), but about ensuring that we are not simply enjoying the culture of childhood, but that we cultivate the spiritual pallet of our kids so that they will be able to "taste and see that the Lord is good."

I think that this is why it is important to integrate these models - there is almost a tension between the educational model and the carnival model which requires balance. Maybe this is the answer to this challenge... To clarify, this isn't a bid for faith-based 'edutainment,' but I would argue that learning and growing in the faith is fun and should demand our ultimate creativity and commitment.

I think the challenge of creating a stimulating learning environment that draws kids into the experience of learning takes a lot of time, effort and imagination. Imaginative learning is modeled most profoundly by Jesus - think about it: storms and fish, seeds and trees, captivating stories, shared experiences... all of these formed the canvas upon which he taught his followers what it meant to be His disciple. However, we think that sitting around a circle, in a cold room with an adult speaking in the vernacular of another generation to be a stimulating environment? As Paul says in Romans, "By no means!" 

A couple of years ago, my father-in-law, who is the Territorial Commander for The Salvation Army in the Southern African Territory, visited Mozambique for a Youth Councils. Mozambique is one of the most impoverished nations in Africa and the ministry of The Salvation Army began recently within the past couple of decades. They don't have the opportunity to download creative ideas from the internet, they can't go and buy a program-in-a-can from the local Christian bookstore, but utilizing the resources available to them (mud, wood, paint, etc.), they built one of the most amazing backdrops and sets for this event and attracted hundreds of youth to come out to this event! Now that's commitment, that's imagination... that's what I'm talking about. How committed are we to communicating the gospel and discipling our children and youth? How much effort are we willing to put in? Is it possible that we have stunted our imaginations by simply purchasing our plans? 

Let's recognize the dangers of the carnival model, but let's also seriously commit to creating an creative environment conducive to effective gospel transformation.

4. The Pilgrim Model

In our world, we love stories of sojourners on a mission. Whether this be classic stories like Pilgrim's Progress, The Wizard of Oz, The Chronicles of Narnia or The Lord of the Rings, we are interested in the journey - the process of becoming or discovering something more... The image of the Emmaus Road has become an image or metaphor of discipleship - of Jesus traveling on a road with two believers wrestling with the possibility of the resurrection - only to discover that He has been traveling with them. 

In many ways, our children are on a journey - a faith journey. As they traverse through stages of cognitive, moral, emotional, physical development, so too does their understanding of who God is, what He does, how He engages with this world... In the gospels, we often read of Jesus invitation to discipleship as an invitation to follow Him. I think similarly, this metaphor or model seeks to define children's and youth work as a path discovering more about knowing God and His redemptive plan. The image of 'guide' or 'fellow traveller' replaces that of teacher. While on the path of discipleship, the child learns how to navigate through the treacherous paths, climbs mountains, crosses valleys, they come to forks-in-the-road where they have to make decisions... All of these help to train our children how to read their spiritual compass and map, how to make wise decisions, how to survive in the wild, etc.

I think that this is an important metaphor to think about. For those living in more urban settings, it might be better to think of this journey like learning to navigate a subway route!

More to follow shortly...

Out of the Ashes: The Rise of the New Self - A Call to Holiness

This morning, I was blessed to be able to sit in chapel under the ministry of my good friend, Captain Young Kim. I arrived a little bit late as my daughter is home today with a flu bug.

As I walked into the chapel, the worship team was singing an absolutely beautiful song, "Lord have mercy." As I walked through the doors, it became apparent that there was solemn awareness of the transcendence of God as cadets, faculty and students didn't simply sing these words, but cried them to the Lord. Shouts of "Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" echoed through the chamber. There was something unusual happening.

After a beautiful time of worship and prayer, Young preached a wonderful sermon focusing on the theme of Ash Wednesday. He delved into the the reasons why this day is so important in the church calendar - particularly as this is a day in which we stop to ponder our humanity.

It dawned on me as he spoke, that we have become a culture in which there is great temptation to construct gods in our own image. In many ways, we construct mirrors that are able to reflect back to us who we ultimately worship... it seems what we worship the most is ourselves. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is an individual, egocentric quest in which we seek to place our will above others. What are the outcomes of this focus? Narcissism, entitlement, pride, self-absorption - let alone innoculation from hearing the suffering cries of 'the other,' the marginalized... in many ways, those who are the victims of our own self-indulgence.

Ash Wedensday is a day when we are called to pause and to reflect on the fact that we are dust - that we are ash. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." A life that is void of the breath of God is nothing more than an exercise in hopelessness... and yet I often find myself on the course of pursuing such vain goals.

However, dust is also a symbol in Scripture of humility, repentance and malleability. Young reminded us that ashes in Hebraic culture were used to express grief and humility; that it was a symbol of repentance from pride; and that it is dust or ash which forms the base of clay - which, when surrendered to the potter's hand can be molded and shaped into new possibilities.

The German theologian, Jurgen Moltmann in his theology of hope, discusses the concept of 'creatio ex nihilo' - that God 'created out of nothingness' - that He breathed meaning and life into dust and ash to create us. Similarly, if we are willing to tear down our idols of self - what the apostle Paul referred to as 'the old self' or 'the flesh' (i.e., 'ash and dust') - then out of the ashes can emerge 'a new self' - a self that considers others first, that places Christ's will above ours...

I can't help but think this morning of the image of a phoenix - that God would have me on this Ash Wednesday surrender the dust and ash of my life to His sacred will - that every facet of my being would be humbled, forgiven, molded and formed into whatever God would have me be - that the Holy Spirit would breathe His breath into me. This act of complete consecration is the essence of holiness - the surrendering of self over to God's sacred will. Holiness, then could be described as the ashes of self-sacrifice being reforged into a new self that has reformed purpose and possibility - as determined by the will of God.

This is my prayer this ash Wednesday:

"Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord to thee."

Thank you, Young, for being a vessel through which the Spirit spoke to me today.

Showing Up at God's Party

I am sitting at my computer after an incredible day with 20 prospective students who are considering the possibility of applying for Railton School for Youth Worker Training.

As I pause after a non-stop day of teaching, interviewing, acting (terribly, I might add) as Hulk Hogan for our 'American Gladiator' spoof, enjoying a 'Bible murder mystery' and endless laughter, tears and great discussion... I must say, that I believe that the best days of The Salvation Army are ahead of us.

I believe that there is a generation of young leaders who are hearing God's calling upon their lives - who are willing to abandon that which is 'the good life' in the eyes of the world to embrace 'the best life' that comes from standing in the perfect will of God.

I believe that we are on the cusp of a revival of lay-leaders who are going to rise up as indigenous leaders - from the soil of the communities where Salvation Army Corps and Community Centers have 'opened fire.' 

I believe that there is a growing, holy discontent for the injustices that plague the lives of children - and that people want to do something about a poverty line that forces children to go to school hungry and guarantees a full house in juvenile centers.

I believe that the gospel is going to be told in new ways, with fresh strategies, fueled by the imaginations of an idealistic Army of believers who dare embrace the possibility that our communities can be reclaimed - and that this gospel, while expressed in different ways, remains the same gospel that existed 2000 years ago.

I believe that daily, God's kingdom will continue to come on earth as it is in heaven - and that every single one of us are invited to the party, the question is, will we show up?

The invitation is extended.

A Refresher on Developmental Theory and Youth Work in The Salvation Army

Yesterday in our Youth Work Leadership class at Railton School for Youth Worker Training, Dr. Dennis VanderWheele was teaching through Erikson's stages of development. I have walked through Developmental theory a hundred and one times, but yesterday, Denny helped me to link this theory to youth work in a way that I had never thought of previously. His insight was brilliant and got me thinking on a train of thought that I haven't been able to get out of my head. For my own sanity, I have recorded it on my blog. I hope this helps others who are interested in this area of study.

In Erikson's stages of development, the logical progression of psychosocial development would transition through these crises:

• Trust
• Autonomy
• Initiative
• Industry
• Identity
• Intimacy

[There's a lot more to Erikson's developmental model, but for the purposes of this post, I will just be dealing with these elements].

To clarify, Erikson, along with other 'ages and stages' theorists would seek to tack on specific ages to chronicle psychosocial development with physical and chronological development. Denny had an important clarification that the development of identity/identities (which is not limited to one moment in life, but is an ongoing process throughout all of life) is largely built upon the foundations of trust, autonomy, initiative and industry.

In a normative environment, traditional microsystems such as parent, sibling, teacher would help a child/teen navigate through these stages of development. In less normative environments - youth who would come from 'communities at-risk'* might not have the psychosocial support systems to help meet these needs through traditional means. What happens to these children and youth? (*note on communities at-risk: this does not necessarily have to be defined geographically or even economically. See the Search Institute's Forty Developmental Assets to explore this in greater depth).

Larry Brendtro, Martin Brokenleg and Steve Van Bockern wrote a wonderful book called Reclaiming Youth At-Risk in which they introduce a wonderful model called the 'Circle of Courage.' In this model, they identify that youth have a significant need for:

• Belonging
• Independence
• Mastery
• Generosity

These needs (or 'assets') might be [a] unfulfilled, [b] negatively fulfilled, or [c] positively fulfilled. Each possibility normally results in a series of emotional and behavioral outcomes - some positive, others negative. A major question which they ask is 'how can we reclaim kids who have a unfulfilled or negatively fulfilled need and create an positive environment which can facilitate a transition towards a positive fulfillment of these needs? Much of the work of the Reclaiming Youth Network has sought to identify strategies to do so.

However, Denny's class yesterday helped me to link the work described above with Erikson's model of psychosocial development.

For example, a young man who is living in an inner-city neighborhood might find a sense of identity in a gang. A gang cultivates trust. It fosters autonomy. Even initiative and industry are a part of this world. So when it comes to identity formation, a gang provides all of the psychosocial scaffolding needed to fulfill 'the needs' of youth at-risk. The problem is that, like in the Circle of Courage model, these needs are being fulfilled in a negative, antisocial way.

In describing this scenario to Denny, I asked him, "How then is it possible for a youth worker to penetrate the microsystem of the gang, help the gang member recognize that the identity embraced places them at-risk and help that person construct an alternative, more positively-fulfilled identity?"

Dr. VanderWheele paused for a moment and then said, it requires that we move to the next stage, intimacy - by cultivating deep, genuine relationships, intimacy helps to provide a bridge to a second, alternative possible world in which trust, autonomy, initiative, industry and identity can be cultivated. Mentoring and the creation of positive peer cultures are critical to reclaiming children and youth.

Often people bifurcate program and relationship - suggesting that this is an either/or choice. However, both are absolutely necessary to help cultivate a positive, psychosocial support system. Programs create a context in which intimate relationships can be cultivated, trust can be built, agency can be initiated, where industry can create purpose and ultimately where alternative, positive identities can be forged. Such programs help to constuct an alternative, positive environment or culture which can serve as another possible world to negative influences such as gangs. However, there needs to be an intentionality behind these programs that requires creativity, commitment and continuous assessment. Such programs need to continually evaluate whether they are aiding the the positive psychosocial development of youth. [For more on this, I would recommend reading Milbrey McLaughlin's brilliant report and strategy outlined in Commuity Counts.]

So how does this apply to Salvation Army youth work?

Youth work has always been (and always will be) a top priority in the overarching mission of The Salvation Army. [For more on this, see my history of Salvation Army youth work timeline.] From our earliest of days, The Salvation Army has focused on the best strategies to holistically reclaim children and youth for Christ. This can be seen in everything from Corps-based ministries like Junior Soldiers and Corps Cadets; to life-skills programs like Boys Adventure Corps, Sunbeams; to after-school programs, orphanages, schools; to addressing child labor issues, human sex trafficking, etc. While some of the earliest literature in modern psychology was being written, The Salvation Army was working with the last, the lost and the least children and youth. As a result, we have been interested in salvation - being the eternal and temporal well-being of children and youth.

While the ministry of The Salvation Army begins with psychosocial- and moral- development, it also emphasizes the spiritual development of youth. Both are critical parts of our holistic mission. We are called to meet human need as motivated by gospel conviction. Yet ultimately, our desire is to expand temporal redemption to eternal redemption as can be fully realized in the life-transforming grace to be found in relationship with Jesus Christ. Not only do we want to construct an alternative identity which saves youth from prison, economic hardship, abuse, etc. - but we also want to construct the identity which comes from becoming a 'new creation in Christ.' When a relationship with Christ is embraced, this cultivates trust, autonomy, initiative, inspiration and most certainly identity.

With such a large, overarching mission, I would argue that all of the programs that are available through Salvation Army ministries provide some of the most profound opportunities to create these alternative, positive environments that can help to truly reclaim children and youth. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that we do our utmost to, as our slogan says, "do the most good" when it comes to these initiatives. I think that Erikson's framework provides an essential evaluative tool that can aid us in our attempt to achieve that goal.

So, a simple class on a classic developmental theory sent me on a journey to explore youth work through a whole new lens. This is something that I will remember for a long time.

Thank you, Denny for being willing to sacrifice time and energy to train our students.

Growing Up Online - Missiological Reflections on Immigrant and Native Youth Work in a Digital World

I was extremely excited to hear that PBS’s documentary show, Frontline has put together a show on adolescents and the media. It's called, Growing Up Online. This past week, my students and I watched this together as a part of a class which I teach at Railton School for Youth Worker Training. The class is called, Studying the Social Worlds of Children and Youth.

I was very interested to observe my student youth workers watching “Growing Up Online” – as they represent some of the first youth workers that have grown-up as natives of the online world. Most of my students do not remember a world in which the internet did not exist. So while I viewed this as an immigrant to the digital world, they viewed it as natives.

This change has serious implications when considering a missiology of youth work. In mission studies, there is a remarkable difference which takes place in the contextualization of the gospel to a culture when a shift takes place from immigrant to native missionaries. Missiologists Ralph Winter and Bruce Koch refer to this as E-1, -2 & -3, evangelism. E-3 would be evangelism that crosses a cultural and language barriers as well as physical barriers. For example, going to a foreign country would constitute what he would consider E-3 Evangelism. E-2 evangelism would require crossing some sort of barrier, such as a physical barrier. E-1 evangelism would be when a person reaches out to their own people group.

When considering the ‘virtual’ as opposed to physical barrier of the online media world, one could easily perceive of the online world as a new frontier - as it has many similarities to that of an undiscovered tribe or people group. However, the shift from physical to virtual space is only one of many barriers that must be crossed by youth workers. Cultural engagement requires a person to learn new, online languages (whose code is continually changing); operate under new social structures; learn new customs, etc. It actually might be easier to go to a foreign country than it is to continuously be up t speed with the never-ending morphing culture of the online world. When looked at from this perspective, it becomes clear that there is a distinction between those who are completely foreign to the codes and customs of online tribes; those who have become familiar through continuous, intensive study; and those who have grown up in this virtual culture.

Personally, I would consider myself an immigrant to the digital world. As a youth worker committed to the contextualization of the gospel to culture, I have intentionally chosen to work (like an anthropologist) at learning about and engaging these worlds. I have read books on the history of the internet, video-gamming, the psychology and sociology of online activity, I have blogged and read blogs, I have played games, connected with people on FaceBook, etc. All of these are actions that I have intentionally made as a student of these cultures – and I have taken these steps in order to learn more about online virtual worlds and how children and youth live, move and present themselves. However, no matter how much I learn and engage these worlds, I will always be an immigrant to the virtual world – because I was born in a different world. I entered this world as an adult. I will always be something of an outsider.

This is totally different to most of my students – who cannot even fathom a world without cellphones, online social networking sites, instant messaging, YouTube, etc. Even my own daughters are regular participants in the media-sphere through WebKinz and Club Penguin!

So, what was the difference between an immigrant and a native’s perspective on a documentary about growing up online? Well, I would encourage you to interact with my student’s perspectives on this show. I asked them to write about their thoughts on the documentary both as natives to this world and as youth workers that are seeking to reclaim children and youth. These could possibly be two different lenses through which they engage this show - however, it might not be... They can speak for themselves! I am going to attach a link to each of their postings (as they send these to me!):

• Stacy's Thoughts
• Zuheil's Thoughts
• Felipe's Thoughts
• Brennen's Thoughts

As I watched the show, I was very interested to note how my students were reacting to what they were viewing. Often, there was a communal laugh in the room – like an insider’s joke at a member’s only club. I was especially interested in their perspective on the mother who reported to the Principal and parents that her son and all of his friends were drunk on a trip into New York City. Cell phones recorded some anti-social behavior which was immediately uploaded to YouTube and a variety of other web sharing sites. As a parent and an immigrant to the digital world, I found myself empathizing with the Mother (while questioning the wisdom of some of her actions) whereas most of my students reacted with complete horror at what happened. As I viewed the documentary, my personal response was that this culture was somewhat anarchic – a virtual Lord of the Flies! Children and youth who were engaging a no-holds-barred culture without a moral compass. However, I recognized that this was my reaction and perspective as an immigrant. It was at that point that I realized that there was a whole new insider’s perspective that I was completely oblivious to.

Marshall McLuhan has observed that when a new technology is introduced into a culture that there are significant psycho-social shifts which take place in a culture. Often these shifts are not easily perceived of by those who are in the midst of such entropic change. I think that one of the most significant changes in social structure is that those who are considered children and youth are in the position of authority as they are natives to this culture while parents are perceived of as socially and culturally incompetent. This places a great deal of strain on the parent-child relationship. Similarly, those who are in positions of leadership in ministry to youth often find themselves in the vulnerable position of being a cultural outsider. We don’t understand the psyche of youth who are growing up online. We haven’t considered what I would call ‘virtual ethics and moral development.’

As a person deeply committed to sharing the gospel of hope with children and youth and to developing young leaders, I want to empower a generation of natives to the digital world to begin to consider how to communicate the gospel in virtual cultures. I can only engage in Winter and Koch's E-2 and E-3 forms of witness. Whereas my students are able to engage these cultures as digital natives in E-1 evangelism.

I pray that as this world which is a social reality to our youth becomes more and more a cultural norm, that we would have more adults who are willing to cross the threshold to become immigrants to this environment; and that we would be able to develop leaders who are immigrants to this world who would be able to help cultivate a spirit of wisdom, moral reasoning and godliness in the digital world.

Bramwell Booth on the History of Salvation Army Youth Work - 1924

I recently came across this incredible piece of first-hand history. It is written by Bramwell Booth in 1924. He reminisces about the earliest days of Salvation Army youth work. This document by 'The Young People's General' helps to defend my argument that youth work has played a priority in the earliest days of The Salvation Army - in fact, the priority of youth work easily pre-dates the emergence of the East London Christian Mission's birth in 1865. Catherine Booth, the Mother of the Army clearly was significantly involved in children's work - as was William.

Bramwell Booth (1924)

Children and Young People's Work

I

The work of The Army for the Salvation of children really began in the home of the Founders. There is no doubt that the Army Mother even before her marriage entertained very definite views about the work of Divine Grace in the hearts of little children. Her own conversion when a girl at school, and the desire which forthwith took possession of her to make her Savior known, left her also with little question about the service which could be rendered by the young to the cause of Christ. But it was in her own home and amongst her own children that she was to see the practical working out of many of the things which she had believed and hoped from her earliest days. I feel no doubt whatever that in any circumstances she would have deeply impressed on her children the claims of God as she saw them, and I believe she spoke the literal truth when she said: ‘I will not have a wicked child!’ She used to pray in the very presence of her children that she might rather have to lay them in an early grave than to mourn over one who had deserted the path of righteousness.

That their children were won for Christ and that the change which was seen in those children’s lives after their Salvation greatly confirmed and encouraged both parents in their faith for children generally, we know to have been the case from Catherine Booth’s own testimony. ‘If our children may be thus transformed,’ she argued, ‘argued, ‘why not many others, and if many others why not all! Let us call the children to their Savior’s side and plant their feet upon the Rock.’

Her own children had given her great joy. She regarded them as good children measured even by her high standards, and the very fact that she could and did apply her own vigorous – at times even severe – (I speak from experience!) methods of training is in itself a tribute to their early development in much that belongs to what we all value. But she did not for one moment allow this to obscure the fact – the dominating fact – that they must repent and be converted, that they must be born again of the Spirit if they were to be saved. The thought was ever present to her mind, the prayer for their Salvation was ever on her lips. They also knew – they felt from the very dawn of intelligence that she believed they could be saved – that she was praying and laboring to bring them to Christ.

In ‘The Training of Children,’ a most valuable book (of which she was really a joint author with the Founder), I find the following on parents securing the Salvation of their children, and the words seem to make a powerful appeal to Officers who have the care of children in The Army, not only the children in our Homes and Institutions, but the children who attend the ‘Companies’ all over the world.

Set yourselves to [secure their Salvation]. Make it the main purpose of your dealings with the children, keep it in view early and late. Sacrifice everything that seems to stand in your way… Take the children by the hand and lead them with you into the Presence of God. Show them how to converse with Him… Do not be influenced by the notion held by some people that children are not to pray until they are converted. Men and women and children, too, are to pray anywhere and everywhere under all circumstances in they want mercy or anything else at the hands of the Lord. Surely the decree has not gone forth that publicans and little children are not to smite upon their breasts and cry to God to have mercy upon them because they are sinners!

Therefore… urge the children to repent and confess their sins to God and ask for forgiveness. Make them look into their hearts and lives. Help them call up to memory their naughty words and ways and they will go on to remember also the naughty feelings and thoughts of which you have no knowledge, and as they look at their sins the Holy Spirit will help them to see how bad they are. Then they will accuse and condemn themselves and cry for mercy on their own account. Hold them to this… and when they do so trust Him He will appear to them as their own Savior and they will go into the Kingdom with joy and thanksgiving.

It was upon such principles as these that the Army Mother worked, and saw her children go one by one, as the Founder says, into the Kingdom with joy and thanksgiving.

But I am thinking of something more than this when I say that the work of The Army for the Young began in the Founders’ home. While their four elder children were still between ten and fifteen years of age they began to invite their acquaintances and the children of neighbors to visit their schoolroom at Gore Road and to hear from them the strange sweet story of a Savior’s love shed abroad in the heart of a child. Those occasional and very small and at first quite ‘unorganized’ gatherings were different in almost very particular from the ‘children’s services’ which the Founder had often included in his special missions in the various towns. The only thing they had in common was an earnest desire and appeal that some one should decide for Christ. Nevertheless those meetings had an important result. They convinced the Army Mother, and her influence prevailed with the Founder himself, that it would be possible to organize and sustain a regular work for the Salvation of children by means of the children themselves. From that moment, 1871, efforts began with this end in view. Tentative plans were made, experiments were tried, special campaigns – all, or nearly all, in a small way – were instituted, always with these objects: (1) the immediate Salvation of the children by faith in Jesus, and (2) their organization and training to do work for the Salvation of other children.

II

Soon after this a Lay Secretary of the Mission named Rapson [Some of Mr. Rapson’s own children became Officers in The Army in the United States in later years.] began to interest himself in this work and was appointed to organize it. A small Hall in the East of London (Thomas’s Passage) was placed at his disposal, and Meetings were held regularly on Sundays and on two or three nights of the week. The neighborhood was a very rough one. The police were obtrusively unfriendly and the juvenile portion of the population practically heathen as regards respect for any form of religion. The Meetings, always, (if we so permitted) crowded on Sundays, were more or less disorderly, sometimes even riotous. But they were nevertheless wonderfully blessed. Children – ordinary boys and girls – were saved, and at once took their stand for Christ. Some of them, with whom I became personally acquainted, suffered cruel ill treatment at the hands of their former companions as well as from their parents, and yet stood firm in their new joy and love. Presently not a few of their persecutors were led to Christ through their influence. Small meetings were held on the week evenings for instruction and for prayer and testimony, some especially in preparation, week by week, for the coming Sunday. Always the greatest impression was produced on even the most disorderly gatherings by the saved children’s own testimonies which often ran something as follows, though I cannot of course pretend to reproduce correctly the East End terminology or pronunciation of those days. A boy of twelve or thirteen, known perhaps as ‘Happy Arthur’ or ‘Praying Tim,’ would say:

I say, you boys, just listen half a minute… You know I was always getting into scrapes, you know I often did you in at ‘two and one’ (a kind of pavement game of that time with marbles). (A howl of derision here.) Well, I say, look here – you know I don’t do it now – do I? (dead silence). Even mother says I am different and she has stopped ‘sugaring’ me (a play on the word cane) and why? –‘cos… you know why – I’m saved – I am in the Mission for Jesus Christ, and I pray to Him and He helps me! You can come! We want you to come! Sam (turning to a particular boy chum with just as much show of feeling as a boy might risk in a company largely made up of boys), Sam, I do wish you would come – God can do for you the very thing He’s done for me.

Such testimonies uttered in evident sincerity usually produced a marked effect upon the boys. The girls were more influenced by the girls, who, though often very shy, were generally more emotional and sometimes wonderfully eloquent with the untrained eloquence of the heart. I have more than once seen a wholly unruly audience of two or three hundred children subdued by tears by the simple story of a girl’s struggle for her mother’s Salvation – told by the child herself.

In these Missions both in Whitechapel, and, as the work spread, at Three Coats Lane, in Bethnal Green and in Cambridge Heath, we suffered much open and violent opposition. I have now and again been with Rapson and a few of the saved boys and girls held prisoner for hours at a stretch, it being impossible to escape. Cheap fireworks were freely used to annoy, and ‘stinkers’ made from a mixture of common treacle, red pepper, and paraffin, which burned slowly and suffocatingly, were constantly in evidence! Tin whistles and broken tea trays sometimes produced a kind of pandemonium, while every type of East End fun was freely indulged in. But the work went on and proved the parent of much that followed. Numbers of children were undoubtedly saved, some of whom died in triumph, while others lived to fight as Salvation Soldiers in the days which then were far ahead.

The advance of the work to many aspects of the adult activities brought to the front more and more children, and questions arose as to the wisdom of allowing them to take part in the Meetings other than for children. Many of the boys especially developed striking gifts, and we began to use some of them in the adult Meetings – they spoke and sang and fished with much acceptance. Here were new dangers – very real dangers. But we had always a warning before us, and though the use of children in this way – that is, apart from their own Meetings – died down considerably as their own work extended and was better organized, I do not think this was because any very real harm had come of it. With regard to this aspect of the matter and the danger for children, especially the danger of their losing the simplicity of children, the Army Mother said at a Council in 1884: ‘Now directly a boy or a girl leaves off being simple, he or she leaves off being a child, and becomes a sort of a mixture between a grown-up person and an imp.’ There were perhaps, a few of these strange ‘mixtures’ to be found amongst us – but never very many.

It was in the year 1881 that ‘The Young Soldier,’ at first called ‘The Little Soldier,’ was launched. It was a weekly paper and proved an immediate success. It has been of incalculable service to this work and of immense help also to many people outside our ranks who love the children and desire to bring them to Christ. It publishes freely communications from our Young People and, with its daughters in other lands, is probably the only newspaper in existence which can be placed in the hands of a child anxious about its own Salvation with any prospect of leading it to Christ.

In all the activities and organizing of those early days, rough and rollicking as they often were, there was kept steadily in view the original idea – carrying on work for the Salvation of children by the children themselves. Thus, as with the adult, or, as it has come to be called, the Senior work, it was the creation of an organized force which was aimed at. Just as we wanted an Army of Salvation among the grown-up people, so we wanted an Army of Salvation among the children. Such an Army must, of course, have serious limitations, as for example, in always losing its Soldiers to become Senior Soldiers as soon as they reach the age of maturity, and again, because its Recruits – Junior Soldiers as we call them – cannot be as fully under our direction as the Seniors, owing, for one thing, to the influence and control of their parents. Nevertheless, it was an Army we set out to raise, possessed of the same over-ruling spirit and purpose as that among the Seniors. I am afraid that this is sometimes lost sight of even to-day. And yet any one who really studies (how earnestly I wish that Officers would study the Army more), any one who studies the work in this department must see at once how this thought runs through it all. The raising of an Army is, in fact, the idea which united the various operations and brings them all into one harmonious whole having one great aim.

The saved children – duly registered and cared for as such – are encouraged to testify to what God has done for them; they are urged to win their brothers and sisters and schoolfellows to Christ. Yes, and their parents also. They are to conduct their own Open-Air Meetings (I was so pleased to find from an Officer home on furlough in New Zealand that this is already seen in some Corps in China), and these Open-Airs were and are sometimes held in the face of much opposition and derision. The children are encouraged to speak for themselves as Junior Soldiers. They hold their own meetings for prayer (I have not heard lately of more than one blessed awakening which began with Children’s Prayer Meetings – in one case it was prayer for the Salvation of their own parents); they sell ‘The Young Soldier’ (I fear that this is not as frequent as it once was); they are encouraged to wear uniform (and warned against wearing showy or worldly clothes), urged to join the Young People’s Bands or Singing Companies, and to play and sing for God. The elder ones are given Companies as soon as possible; they are encouraged to become Corps Cadets training for future work in The Army, and to make public confession of their intention to consecrate their lives as Officers – sometimes for service in the heathen lands.

All this and much more which is seen amongst us points to an organized force deliberately planned and led to aggressive work for God and man, and is as far as the east is from the west from a mere Sunday School or even from a special Service Mission.

III

After a time it was found that many of the children as they grew out of childhood were in need of another kind of care. We saw that if their Army spirit was to be maintained there was a need for organized arrangements to watch over them and to employ them more adequately in God’s work for those of their own sex and age. The loss of some splendid lads from North London Corps in 1900 gave me great concern. It happened at the same moment that we were finding considerable difficulty in keeping up the supply of Candidates for Officership, though young people who had grown up in The Army were to be found at most of the Corps in the United Kingdom and at many Corps in other countries. It occurred to me that some definite effort was needed to reach them as Young People, as distinct from children, and to united and organize them still to witness for Christ and to work for others. After considerable thought I had a conference with some leading Officers. These, with the exception of Mrs. Booth and dear Commissioner Howard, rather discouraged my effort as likely to prove ‘hardly worth the time and labor involved.’ I began, however, by inviting them between three and four hundred young folks of sixteen and above of certain London Corps to spend a day with me in Council at Clapton. About two hundred and fifty came. Their very appearance at once showed to us all how necessary it was that something should be done, and their intense interest and attention convinced us that something could be done.

This, the first ‘Young People’s Day,’ proved a success. The Spirit of God moved amongst us. The confessions and consecrations at the mercy-seat put us in possession of important facts, first hand, and led to all kinds of inquiries, visitations, suggestions, experiments, for helping the young folks. Other ‘Days’ were held. Small groups for prayer and work, of those we desired to bless, were formed. A new Department was set up at National Headquarters. The Founder entered with enthusiasm into the new departure. Special regulations were issued. Presently Officers were appointed to the Divisions as Young People’s Secretaries, and to-day we count by tens of thousands in the Old Country, and by tens of thousands elsewhere, the Young People who are fighting in our ranks for God, for their own holiness, and for the souls of those around them. It has been in large measure by them that we have been able to extend the work among the children, and it is from their ranks in many lands that we have recruited our forces in training for Army Officership both in the West and the East.

It was not easy for some Officers, either Field or Staff, in the Homeland or elsewhere, to realize the importance of this development, and I fear that even now there are those amongst us who see but dimly – some see not at all and perhaps never will – what a mighty future there I for this work. It is not only for the sake of the Young People themselves that it should be done – to promote their Godly living – their nearness to Christ – their heart purity. It is also because they – the young and untaught and in-experienced of to-day will, to say nothing of Officers, be amongst the most important of Soldiers, the Bandsman and Songsters, the Local Officers of the future. We see it already. I am writing this article in New Zealand after a tour in Australia, and almost everywhere I have found the energetic Locals or Field Officers who, with beaming countenances, have come to shake my hand saying: ‘It was at the Young People’s Council at such or such a place that I gave myself fully to God.’

I say in deep earnestness that there is no limit to the influence for good which may be exerted by the Young People of to-day on the future of the Army, and through The Army upon the world. Shall we be equal to our chance in dealing with them? One thing is evident, we shall only succeed in any really big or world-wide sense of the word, in so far as we can lay hold and keep hold of the young life of the nations.

IV

I am deeply anxious that this work should continue to have the right direction. As to the outside children, we are in danger of overdoing what might be called the educational side of our efforts. It is, no doubt, good to teach them the truths which the Word of God declares, but if we stop there we have done but little for them! Their Salvation, while children, is to be our first great aim. We are not a Sunday School – and, by the war, I wish the use of that word to be given up forever; it is not an Army term. It is, in fact, a misleading term, especially now that the Socialists and Bolshevists have so freely appropriated it. The Sunday Schools of the various Churches have largely failed in molding the character and directing the lives of multitudes of the children whom they whom they have had under their teaching for years, just because they have stopped short with instruction. What is the good of Bible reading, apart from Bible obedience; of observing Sunday if we profane the weekdays? What, indeed, is the use of any teaching which does not in fact change and exalt the life and make it a life after Christ’s own pattern and spirit! And how can this be done, whether in full-grown men or in children, without the New Birth and the New Creation which come by faith in Him? We know very well that it cannot be done. We must go on to Salvation. That is our own proper work; that is the reason for our existence. If we fail there we fail altogether! Alas! Is it not true that in some places we have failed? Have we not to bear the pain of seeing many children for whom we have labored drift of seeing many children for whom we have labored drift away from us and from God? Is there not in this a ground for grave concern, a call for close examination of our methods? In such cases ought there not at least to be at once a new beginning in determined and unsparing effort to bring the children to Christ?

And equally I wish our leaders to keep well before them that our aim continues to be, and must be, the raising and maintaining of an organized force for God among the children. The objective remains ever the same. The children are called to be saved, and are chosen to fight and, if needs be, suffer, in order to win their fellows to Christ.

Yes – to suffer! Just as many of the children in the early days of Christianity fought and witnessed and died for their testimony, so our children are to be led and trained to expect and to face opposition, whether in the form of ridicule at school or hatred at home, or of even more active persecution. [I wish more use could be made of that wonderful little book, ‘Red Flowers of Martyrdom,’ by the late Brigadier Eileen Douglas. It contains some of the most remarkable and most glorious histories of children who gave their lives for Christ.] Let us help them. Let us inspire them. Let us unite them. Let us lead them not merely to know the love and power of Christ Jesus in themselves, but to feel the burden of souls and to strive, in spite of suffering and distress, for their Salvation in their own simple, loving, trustful way.

As to the future of the Young People, as distinguished from the children (and it is important to remember that The Army makes a very definite distinction between them), I am anxious to insist upon the importance of improving and developing them as individuals. Important as it is to see that there is a good beginning – that is to say, that the Holy Spirit has accomplished His own work in the New Creation, and that they are united with The Army not only outwardly as Soldiers, but in the spirit and purpose which govern it – it is equally important to plan for the cultivation of their spiritual powers. Even now, though they are with us, all will fail unless we learn how to appeal successfully to their moral instincts and perceptions – to conscience and feeling and love.

I am sure that we ought to make more insistent individual appeal in the name of the Great Savior to what is best in them, definitely calling upon them to crush what is selfish and base, and to cultivate what is unselfish and pure. Let us raise on high the standard of a Godly life. No professions, no prayers, no labor for others, sacred as that may be, can take the place in daily work and life of humility, both of mind and spirit, of meekness, of silence under provocation, of faith in God, of kindness to friend and foe – especially to the weak – of respect for elders, of faithful adherence to promises, of integrity and self-control, of modesty, chastity, fidelity, and honor.

I am certain there is a very real danger, especially in certain classes who are independent and self-reliant, and in others who are emotional and excitable, that the outward exercises of our religion should come to be substituted for these practical graces and virtues which are the gifts of Jesus Christ for everyday life and labor, and without which all will come to nought.

It is just as possible in The Army as among the Buddhists, the Roman Catholics, or the High Church people to substitute forms and ceremonies, music and marches, testimonies and song, for the life – the life with Christ in God – that is, the separate life, the life apart from the world. These things, no matter how pleasing, unless they are attested and supported by rightness and truth and loving sincerity and gentle Christlikeness, become really hateful to God. Instead of helping the Young People to Holiness they really dull the conscience and injure the soul. But must we not teach them to love and seek souls? Of course we must, but that is not the whole of our ambition to them. We want them to be high examples themselves of what the justifying and sanctifying Grace of God will do for ordinary people in the ordinary affairs, the ordinary conduct of ordinary life.

I am sure we ought also to do more in instructing our Young People how to follow the New Light that God gives them from time to time. One of the leading facts of Army experience in every land is that they do receive new Light, that in fact they are constantly the objects of special visitations of the Holy Spirit. Let us show them how to distinguish these visitations from the mere impulses of human desire. Above all let us teach them to go forward following the Light, not to live on past revelations or mercies no matter how gracious or glorious they may have been.

Many Young People come to a dead stop in spiritual things for the want of courage to follow those new revelations which God gives of His will, and in the vital years when character is formed, and the future is largely molded from day to day, to half in following God is perilous, to draw back is fatal.

The system of the Army, the publicity given to much of our work, even at the smaller Corps, the prominence into which many of our Young People are thrown and the fact that in most countries they are seldom protected by persecution and hardship makes for a kind of self-consciousness and selfishness which once they creep in spoil the service, even of the best. The speaking, the singing, the fishing, together with the uniform and the constantly being under observation, all have danger for them. They tend to cultivate self, and may introduce-sometimes do-into their service a sense of their importance or usefulness or attractiveness, or of their ability. I will not claim that absolutely selfless service is likely for any large proportion of them, but we must never forget that if we want them to benefit by the service they render to God and man we must take them out of themselves, we must show them how to hide themselves even in the moments of their greatest prominence, we must help them to make it actually true in their lives ‘Not I-Not I-Not I-but Christ who liveth in me.’

My dear comrades, in all this let us make it plain to our young folks that God is Law as well as Love, that indeed we can say ‘God is Law’ as truly as we say ‘God is Love.’ We need to insist, with that repetition which live will show us how to employ, that you cannot sow one thing and reap another no matter how much you may desire to do so, or how good and sincere you may have been or what suffering for yourself or others the reaping will involve. It is still true that if men fall into the fire they will be burned. That we cannot gather grapes off thorns, or figs off thistles. It is in fact just as true as ever it was that lives built on the sands of wrongdoing or wrong thinking or wrong feeling, or upon mere professions of religion, will, when the storms come, fall and perish-fall and perish forever.

Teen-Age: The Creation of Youth Culture - An Interesting Take on 19th Century Youth Organizations

I recently picked up a copy of Jon Savage's monumental book, TeenAge: The creation of youth culture. In his book, he challenges the commonly accepted belief that the social construction of 'the teenager' as a psychological and sociological phenomena did not generate during the post-WW2 '50s and '60s, but that this had been growing as early as the mid-19th century. Exploring a vast array of iconic figures from literature and history along with movements focused particularly on this age-group, Savage's argument is extremely compelling.

I am particularly interested in his chapter on the period from 1875 to 1904. He focuses on organizations that utilize militarism as a means of helping navigate youth away from anti-Social behavior. As a person interested in studying the history of Salvation Army youth work, I found this quote particularly fascinating:

"At the same time, new voluntary organizations refined the regimented evangelism of the Young Men's Christian Association (established 1844) and General Booth's Salvation Army (established 1878) into a more specifically youth-directed program. The pioneer was William Smith's Boy's Brigade, formed in Glasgow during 1883. Combining parade-ground discipline with Sunday school teachings, the Boy's Brigade had as its specific aim 'the advancement of Christ's Kingdom among Boys, and the promotion of habits of Reverence. Discipline and Self-Respect, and all that tends towards a true Christian manliness." (Jon Savage, TeenAge (2007): 20).

It is interesting to ponder the significance of the militaristic model of youth work during this period. Shortly after, Baden-Powell would return from the Anglo-Boer War to begin the Boy Scouts Brigade. 

For more on the significance of these expressions of youth work, I have been stimulated by the thoughts of Danny Brierley in Joined-up: An introduction to youth work and ministry. 

William Booth on Youth Work (1906) - "The Juniors" (From "Sergeant-Major Do-Your-Best")

William and Catherine Booth have to be some of the most brilliant story-tellers in church history. Taking a page from "Pilgrim's Progress," William Booth wrote the book, "Sergeant-Major Do-Your Best" to instruct through narrative on key, pragmatic theological points he wanted to emphasize in the local corps (church) setting.

It is no surprise that he devotes a significant chapter to youth work - correcting some of the misperceptions he himself had about youth work in this story - and how work with "The Juniors" must remain a priority - programmatically, economically and even in terms of property! This fictitious story provides profound insight into how reclaiming children and youth were an essential of early Salvation Army corps practice. 

______________________________

“The Juniors”

Sergeant-Major Do-Your-Best

William Booth (1906)

 

I want to tell you that we’ve got everything going at high speed now in Darkington No. 1. You would hardly believe the wonderful advances that’s been made this last few weeks.

 

Captain Faithful’s prayers and tears and personal talks, and all the rest of it, have brought forth a glorious harvest. It is just as I am always telling the Officers when they get downhearted. I always says as such times: “Captain, cheer up! You’ve put in the seed, and if you don’t reap the fruits of it all, another Captain will!” And then they says: “Sergeant-Major, we like to reap the harvest of what we sow ourselves” – which it is perfectly natural that they should. Leastaways, I think so.

 

Well, I was saying that we are going ahead at Darkington. You see our new Captain, he seems to have struck another vein, as the colliers say, with his seeking out the roughest and worst; and it has been a very profitable vein, too, I can tell you; not only because of the poor creatures that have been brought up out of the horrible pit, but because it has seemed to put new life into everybody and everything.

 

There is one thing, however, which our Divisional Officer is always worrying about, and where he will have it that we come very much short, and that is the Juniors. It is true we have a “Children’s work,” as they call it; but it is only a poor, bedraggled affair. It’s been going a long time, but nobody pays much attention to it. The place where they hold their meetings in cramped, and dark, and dirty; the big picture bills on the walls about Moses crossing the Red Sea, and Daniel in the lions’ den, and such like – which Deacon Propriety presented to us – are all covered with dust; some of them are actually hanging in pieces; while the Locals told off to look after the children, are – well, I won’t say anything about them, or perhaps it might come to their ears and hurt their feelings, and that would be a pity.

 

Then the children are a forlorn lot, with one or two exceptions; the order in the meetings is wretched; and altogether the thing has such a poor name that the Soldiers, instead of sending their children, simply give it the cold shoulder, and go on with their meetings as if there was no such thing as a Junior work in the Corps at all.

 

You see, Captain Faithful  was a wonderful man – God bless him! – but I must confess he did not care much for the children. Perhaps that is not a fair way of putting it, but his delight was more in an Open-Air Campaign, or a Sunday evening fight, or a struggle to get somebody saved at a demonstration, or to have a good Holiness Meeting, with everybody on their faces before God, than it was for going in for the young people.

 

Then, there’s our present Captain – God bless him! – he’s full of his Saturday nights’ maneuvers, and storming the factory gates, and fetching the backsliders out of the publics, and all that kind of thin; which doings, I say, is all right, excellent, first-rate. God forbid that I should ever speak a word against Officers who work day and night for souls! But, still, I must tell the truth; and that is, that neither of them ever worried themselves very much about the children.

 

The there’s Treasurer Hold-it-tight. He don’t concern himself much about the Juniors. You see, he has no family of his own, and his wife makes no secret of not having any particular love for children.

 

And, to tell the truth – may God forgive me! – I’ve not been a great advocate of the Juniors myself; and Sarah, she never misses a chance of laying the law down to me about it.

 

“Sergeant-Major,” she says, “where would your children  have been, if they had not been looked after and shown the right way, and stirred up to walk in it, when they was young? You’ve not done much at them yourself, have you now? You’ve been so  busy with the Seniors, and the Outposts, and the Open-Airs, and such like – which things ought to be seen to – of course they ought. But, then, you see, the children, Sergeant-Major, had the good fortune to have a mother who loved their souls, and who made up her mind that they should love God and be a good Salvationists, whatever came. Now, what I want to know, Sergeant-Major, is this: Where would your children have been to-day, if they had not been cared for when they was young?

“Look at Tom Blaze-away’s family – although he reckons he’s a good Salvationist – which he is, as when he sings, ‘Death is coming and the Judgment Day’ in the Open-Air, the people can hear him three streets off, and when he gets fairly a-goin’ on his knees in the After-Meetings, the windows of the Hall fairly rattle again, and I fancy sometimes that they very foundations of the building tremble.

 

“But, there now, just look at his children! Don’t they tear one another’s clothes, and pull one another’s hair, and make faces at their father, and sauce their mother, and use bad language, and I don’t know what else? What is to become of them if somebody don’t look after them? That’s what I want to know!

 

“It is true their mother, bless the timid little soul, ought to teach them and save them; but then, what does she know about saving and training children? Why, you remember as how as she was the daughter of that horrid, drunkard, Ted Never-full, and they were married when she was only seventeen, and the children came fast, and Tom drank all he could lay his hands on for the first few years. Then they have only been converted a little while, and have everything to learn. But there are the bairns all the same; and, I ask you, what is to be done with them?”

 

Then, Sarah, she goes on: ”Look at the children down the alley at the back of our house. What is to be done with them, Sergeant-Major, I want to know? You should look in there some times!

 

“I’ve just been down to visit that poor, dying woman, whose husband was found lying in the gutter, helplessly drunk, on Saturday night, and took home by Will Boozham. As I stood in his room I had a look out of the window at a gang of youngsters in the court, who was talking to each other in a most confidential manner about what they was going to be when they ‘growed-up,’ as they called it. One little, half-naked rascal said he was going to be a thief; another, scratching his head in ever such a ferocious manner, was going to get drunk every night; another declared that he was going to be a soldier, and shoot the Boers; and so on, and on and on. Oh, it did make my blood curdle to see them in their rags and filth, with their mouths full of cursing and filthiness. I felt as if I was looking at little-devils instead of human creatures. Sergeant-Major,” says Sarah, “what is to become of these young plants, if nobody don’t care for them?”

____________________________

 

Sarah has just got a letter from our boy, Jack, who, I told you, had got his first Corps at Flintville, and a hard-shop the lad has found it. Sarah says that if she had the management of things, she would not send a lad on his first command to a place where things was so difficult.

 

But I says, “Sarah, it’s all right! It will all turn out for the best, and it’ll be good for Jack; anyhow, in the long run.” Well, as I was a-saying, Sarah has got a letter, and it has cheered her up not a little, and she declares she is going to read it to the Captain, to push him up to doing something more for the Juniors. And then she made me promise to speak of it, and said it would be interesting. Perhaps there’s a bit of mother’s pride in this, but the letter really sounds very well. Here it is: –

 

“Dear Mother, – I can’t stop any longer from telling you the good news about our Corps. You know what a fight we’ve had; but, never mind, better days are coming on.

“And it’s all been through three young girls, the daughters of a Staff Officer, who have gone in for a Band of Love. They’ve got some of the dirtiest and lowest children in the place together, and they’ve loved and amused and taught them, with an amazing lot of patience.

 

“For a while all seemed to be of no use, the children only got harder and harder; but then the break came and some of the worst got saved.

 

“And now, to see those boys at the meetings, in the Hall and in the Open-Air, and hear them testify and pray, it is wonderful. It’s cheered up our Soldiers, and they’re working with a new heart. The mothers and fathers of these children are coming to the meetings. Some of them have got converted, and we’ve got a real new start, I do believe. Tell dad he’s to get the Captain to run a Band of Love at Darkington 1.”
____________________________

 

Sarah had a good cry over that letter. I couldn’t see for the life of me what there was in it to cry about. I should have thought it was real delightful to hear that Jack was in such good spirits, and that something was being done in that dark hole. But I suppose they were tears of joy. Anyway, after that letter, she took on about the Juniors again in real earnest. In fact, she got what you might call the Junior fever. So much so, that it took away her appetite, and kept her from sleeping. So at last I says to her: “Well, Sarah, you’d better go an talk to the Captain yourself.” “All right!” says she, “I must talk to somebody, or I shall be real ill about the business.”

____________________________

 

Sarah has seen the Captain, and had a good go with him. She told me about it after. She says he fairly cried when she told him about Rom Blaze-away’s children, and the poor neglected little things down our alley. He said that he had been in India, when he was in the king’s army, and that the heathen children were not in so bad a case as the poor things she described to him. “But,” said the Captain, “how an I go about forming a Band of Love?”

 

“Well,” says Sarah, “there’s Sergeant Never-tire. She’s the soul of what it done for the children in Darkington, and she’s been telling me that they must have a bigger place. And the Sergeant says that there’s an old warehouse close by the Hall that they can have for five shillings a week, and that it could be cleaned up and made quite grand for a few pounds; and if the Soldiers would only set to, they could do nearly all that wants doing at it themselves.”

 

Well, the Captain, he promised Sarah to pray about it, and to bring it up at the next meeting of the Locals.

____________________________

 

We’ve had the Locals’ Meeting, and I’m sorry to say that some rather hard things were said about the Junior scheme. You see, the Captain, he made a nice speech, which, to tell the truth, was just about the same that Sarah had been saying to him, and then he proposed they should take up the children in earnest, and go for the warehouse that Sergeant Never-tire had recommended. He’d been to look at it, he said, and he thought it would do proper.

 

There was no response to the proposal, and I must confess that I didn’t feel like saying anything myself, which vexed Sarah very much. She told me afterwards that I hadn’t the heart of a chicken, or else I should have jumped up, and said: “Well done, Captain, that’s it! And there’s my five shillings towards doing the place up!”

After a little silence, however, Treasurer Hold-it-tight, he gets on his feet. I smelt mischief as soon as I see him shuffle off his seat!

 

“Captain Seek-the-lost,” says he, “this is a good case you’ve made for the children. I’ve no doubt that many of ‘em is in a very poor way, both for this world and the next. But who’s responsible for them? Isn’t it their fathers and mothers for, if it isn’t to take care of their children, and have them taught and saved, and got ready for Heaven? If I had any children, which I haven’t, I shouldn’t want other folks to come and look after them – me and my wife would reckon that we had to do that work ourselves. The work of The Salvation Army, I reckon, is to go for the fathers and mothers, get them saved, and then let them take care of the children.

 

“Then, as to the warehouse, who’s to pay the cost of doing it up, please? Why, there’s our own Hall, doesn’t that need painting, and don’t the spouts want mending; and ain’t there other things that want seeing to? And then, who’s to pay the five shillings a week? Can you tell me, pray?

 

“And then,” he went on, “if you fill this warehouse with children, where are the Company Sergeants to come from? That’s what I want to know. Then, Captain, if you have all the Soldiers at work among the children, just ask yourself, where will the Open-Airs and the Pub-Boomers’ and the Drunkards’ Brigade be? And where will all the other work of the Corps be? I say, let us stick to what we’ve got in hand, and do that well. We never was doing better than we are. Why not let well alone?”

Then Treasurer had not got down on his seat before Sarah was on her feet. Her face was crimson, and her heart was full, and she talked – bless her! — as she can talk when her blood’s up. I can’t tell you what she said, nor nobody else can. I know she cried, and we all cried, and made the Captain promise to take the warehouse, and I promised my five shillings, and Boozham and Grumbleton and a lot more promised to help as well.

 

And then what should the Treasurer do but jump up and resign, saying that if such wild things as these was done, he could not be responsible for the Corps, and he would have no more to do with the money.

 

But the Captain, he says: “Treasurer Hold-it-tight, we cannot let you go out of the office like this. You know I’ve not been a strong advocate for the Juniors myself, but I see now that we ought to do something extra, and we will do something, God helping us. But, Treasurer,” says the Captain, “you must stay my time out, anyway; and if this thing does not turn out to your satisfaction, I’ll write to the Divisional Officer, and you can give up your office then, and we’ll go out together.”

 

Now, things took a strange turn after this meeting, and this is how it happened. You see, Treasurer Hold-it-tight had a brother, Charley, who was the misery and disgrace of the family. It appeared as if the drink fiend had got possession of him altogether. I don’t know how he got into this wretched plight – but he went from bad to worse, until he got about as far away as a man could get who is not actually dead and lost. His wife died of a broken heart. He lost situation after situation. Nobody would look at him. Hold-it-tight and his wife helped him all they could. They gave him food, and clothes, and money, and paid his rent to keep out the bailiffs again and again. They prayed with him, and advised him, and got the Captain to talk to him times without number; but it was all in vain, and at last they gave him up, and told him they would do no more. And this made him real mad, and set him on to hate his brother with all his heart.

 

He had three children. They lived in filth and wretchedness – if you canal it living at all – in an old hovel belonging to a farm-house at the very end of the town, in a field all by itself. Poor wretch! He was at the bottom of the ladder, and seemed but to want to go one step lower to be gone for ever.

 

Well now, it seems that just after we got into the warehouse, the Sergeant Never-tire, by some means or other, persuaded the eldest of this drunkard’s children to come to the Band of Love – and directly afterwards they got her beautifully saved. You see, she was a real nice child, about twelve years old, and what you might call regular good-looking. Sarah had just got a new bonnet and frock for Polly, so after she had mended the old ones up, she fixed Sally up in them, and when she was dressed in her uniform, she looked just like a little angel.

 

Well, little Sally no sooner got right herself than she set to work to get her father saved. She began by singing to him the songs she learned at the meetings. Her favorite was: —

 

“Oh, you must be a lover of the Lord,
Or you can’t go to Heaven when you die.”

 

Then she used to pray for him, and cry over him, and talk about her mother in Heaven, and about Jesus dying for him on the cross. But he only seemed to harden his heart and drink more and more.

 

One night, however, he let her bring him to the meeting. I don’t know how it came about, but there it was. I think he was a little gone with the drink, but he knew quite well what he was doing. My word! Wasn’t everybody surprised to see him there! Many of us knew that he had sworn a thousand times that he would never enter the doors while his brother Steve, the Treasurer, was alive.

 

When he came in he was a strange spectacle, I can tell you. His face had not been washed for many a day; his hair was all matted with dirt; all the clothes on him was a ragged shirt and a pair of old trousers, all patched and torn, while on his feet were two old boots, both belonging to the same foot.

 

As he got inside, he slunk down on a back seat close by the door with his dear little daughter, her face radiant with smiles, sitting by his side. I cannot describe that meeting. I believe every Soldier, and everybody else in the place that knew Charley was there, prayed for him that night. The converted old topers testified furiously. Everybody sang over and over again: “Oh, you must be a lover of the Lord”; and when the After-Meeting had got well on, the prettiest sight my eyes ever beheld in Darkington was to see little Sally lead her ragged, miserable, drunken father to the mercy-seat, and kneel by him, and pray that God would have mercy on his soul. 

He was not there long before the Treasurer was kneeling on the other side. Hold-it-tight may have done some crying before that night, but I had never seen him shed a tear. But his poor drunken brother, Charley, smashed up and groaning for mercy at the Savior’s feet, broke the Treasurer’s heart, and he sobbed till you could hear him right over on the other side of the Hall.

Charley got properly saved; and when he and the Treasurer stood hand in hand, singing “Praise God, I’m saved!” I don’t think there was a dry eye in the place.

____________________________

The fastest friend of the Juniors possess in Darkington to-day, the one who gives his money most freely, and works hardest and longest and most successfully for them, is Treasurer Hold-it-tight.

Bramwell Booth and Youth Work - Catherine Bramwell Booth (1933)

These comments were written by Catherine Bramwell Booth, the daughter of Bramwell and Florence Booth. What a fantastic memoir to 'The Children's General."

William Booth had written to Richard Cory in 1869, when Bramwell was thirteen:

"My children are just beginning to work. The four eldest take a service among the young people and are very useful. Willie conducts the meeting." 

His illness interrupted the work, but it was resumed and better accommodation was found where two or three hundred children gathered. The meetings were held on the same plan as those for adults: anyone desiring to give his heart to Christ was invited to come forward. Bramwell talked personally to many of these; heard of their sin and temptation; came to understand with all the quickened apprehension of personal sympathy what it meant to grow up in a drunkard's home.

Bramwell Booth is called the Young People's General by thousands of Salvationists the world over, and to those who understand (always the few though ever the important, for they alone can carry on a man's creative work) there was something of prescience in his Father's calling him when seventeen years of age "Commissioner of the Children's Mission."

Mrs. Booth was away with the family, and Bramwell was sent out for a day or two. The note to Mrs. Booth ran:

"Tell him [Willie] I say he is to make himself agreeable to all and that I wish to remind him as special Commissioner of the Children's Mission that one of his duties is to look after is brothers and sisters. He must take Katie with him to see things."

In addition to the public meetings, meetings were held for converted children. Bramwell talked to them, prayed with them in groups and individually, shepherded them. Many have heard him describe these little meetings, the children's poverty-pinched faces and meagre clothing; there would be a score or less present, aged from nine to sixteen or so, in winter gathered around the stove. They gave their experience, confessed failures and hopes and prayed for unconverted companions and relatives.

Bramwell visited the homes of many and, almost unperceived by those around him, was learning his way about a new world. Its treasures, its language, its degradation and vice were soon familiar to him. He was himself young enough to receive indelible impressions. Knowing as we now do what was to be his place and part in The Salvation Army, we can hardly conceive anything more essential to him than that he should understand the people for whom he was to spend his life; and not only that, but that he should know how to make them feel that he understood them, make himself understood by them.

(p.54f.)

1907

When General, he inaugurated a special plan for helping boys. Those received six weeks to three months intensive agricultural training on the Farm Colony at Hadleigh, and were then employed by selected farmers in the new lands. Bramwell Booth's understanding of the young gave him a positive horror of the effect likely to result if lads grew to manhood without acquiring the habit of work. He would have spent the nation's money on training them before he would have paid the unemployment pittance to youths who had had no chance even to learn to work. He made no secret of his views on what he considered the selfishness and folly of excluding the people from the unpopulated areas, waiting 'only cultivation to become a garden,' as he said when on his way to Winnepeg. But the apathy about the idle young roused his indignation, it was more than a folly, it was 'wickedness': 'a crime'; and in his eyes nothing could be worse than a crime against the young.

The young! Of all the work that his love and vision inspired, none was more tenderly nurtured by Bramwell Booth than the work of The Salvation Army for young people. Treasured by some as their last, is the picture of him amongst a thousand slum children, met to receive gifts, in the Congress Hall in January, 1928. To hear them sing, "The more we love the Savior the happier we shall be," and to watch their faces as the General spoke to them, and to see his face as he talked, was unforgettable. As someone said who was there, 'the General looked sort of heavenly that night; I felt almost afraid, as if he didn't belong to earth.' Those familiar with the physiognomy of the London slum child can conjure up the scene for themselves: the sharp-featured, restless-eyed crew, following the General's white-crowned figure and crushing up to get a nearer view.

p.306f.

Twenty-One Years Salvation Army: Youth Work References (1886) - by George Scott Railton

These comments were written one year before Sunday Schools were band in The Salvation Army. This was largely due to the dissatisfaction of the missio-ecclessiological strategy. A few years later, it would be replaced with the "Junior Corps."

"The Sunday School party scarcely needs description, being represented so widely throughout the world, and having had so many years in which to proclaim its theories. Suffice to say that, as late as ten years after the foundation of the Mission, there were to be found, at some stations, men and women whose whole interest was concentrated in the Sunday School; and who would actually prefer to inconvenience and even shut out the adults, rather than that one of their lessons should be shortened. Yet, let it never be forgotten that, in Mission Sunday Schools, there were earnest soul winners, and that there were children saved who afterwards became gloriously useful in the work."

(p.42)

How to Reach the Children and Young People - Major John Fynn, 1906

I recently came across this message that was presented at the 1906 Western Congress by Major John Fynn. I am startled by how much of this continues to remain relevant to the challenges of youth work in today's culture.

Enjoy!

How to Reach the Children and Young People
Major J.T. Fynn
Western Congress Addresses, 1906

This is an age of progress and scientific thought, and most people nowadays profess not to believe in anything without being able to give a reason for it. But we have a nobler and higher stand point – Faith – and can rise superior to such considerations, but, as we are constantly asked what grounds we have for our faith, it is well to be able to give an answer to such questions.

The subject before us is, How to Reach the Children and Young People?

This is a matter that everyone present is interested in, and most of us have faith in glorious possibilities for the children and young people, and I think we can give many reasons for our faith. As you hold writing paper up to the light, you can see there, letters stamped during its manufacture. These are called “water marks,” and are made while the paper is in liquid state. Metallic and glass articles also have trade marks wrought into their very substance.

So every age has its trade mark stamped upon it while the days are passing by, but the deepest and most striking trade mark of our age is the recognition of the Importance of Childhood.

1. Never before has the world heard of so many enterprises for children, educational and otherwise. There are many people living who can remember when there were not half a dozen children’s books that had any extended circulation. Today a collection of the popular children’s books would make the largest library in the world.

At the great expositions the most striking characteristics of modern sculpture and paintings are subjects of childhood in various characters: Childhood in prayer, in play, or asleep. The hearts of the artists seemed to have been turned by the spirit of the age to the children.

All this recognition of the rights and importance of childhood is but the starlight that shines upon us from above the manger of the Godchild. It was Bethlehem that taught wise men that a child’s face was a grander study that the stars.

Remember the words of Jesus: “Whosoever receiveth this child receiveth me, and whosever receiveth me receiveth Him that sent me.”

2. Leaving Bible times for more recent ages, we see that the recognition of children is the unerring thermometer of the progress of Christianity. It is a matter of history that following in the wake of the Reformation and the great awakening of the Wesleys, came the moving impulses from which sprang the modern Sunday school.

The good farmer not only observes the nature of his seeds, but also his soils, and adapts the one to the other. The good physician not only studies books and medicines, but symptoms and temperaments.

The Salvation Army officer is sower, physician and warrior and needs to be equally practical in his work.

3. Everybody quotes the proverb, “Prevention is better than cure.” We are learning the chameleon’s philosophy to “destroy crocodiles in the egg.” We are recognizing the fact that it is easier to form childhood aright than to reform manhood. So in our work we must not be satisfied by breaking off the branches of the great tree of evil, but strike at the tap root by working more for the children. The surface of an ordinary diamond may be polished in forty-eight hours, while seven to ten weeks are required for a surface that has a knot or “fault” in its crystallization.

Forty-eight hours will ordinarily accomplish more in the saving of a man when he is a child than seven weeks when the bigotries and vices of manhood have become fixed in his heart and life.

4. Not without designs has Christ commanded, “Feed my lambs,” meaning to inculcate upon his followers the duty of caring for the children at the earliest possible period. Nor can parents nor all well-wishers to humanity be too earnest and careful to fulfill the commands of Christ in the matter. Influence is as quiet and imperceptible on the child mind as the snow flakes on the meadow. One cannot tell the hour when the human mind is not in the condition of receiving impressions from exterior, moral and spiritual forces. In innumerable instances, the most secret and unnoted influences have been in operation for months and even years to break down the strongest barriers of the human heart and work out its moral ruin, while yet fond parents and friends have been unaware of the working of such unseen agents of evil. The error is this: Most people seem to be asleep to the fact, as the Bible declares, “While men slept, the enemy came and sowed tares and went his way.” If this, the, is the error, how shall it be corrected, and what is the antidote?

Some one has said, “A child is a man in small letter,” yet the best copy of Adam before he fell. His soul is yet a white paper unscribbled with the observations of the world, wherewith at length it becomes a blurred book. The young mind can be impressed with sincerity, truth, honest, benevolence and their kindred virtues, and thus the welfare of the young can be assured for time and eternity. What a responsibility! To mold a creature, the frailest and feeblest that heaven has made, into the intelligent and fearless follower, interpreter and adorer and almost representative of Deity!

5. The earliest impressions are the deepest. Those things which are instilled into the hearts of children endure forever. The mind is the heart’s mouth. Thrust truth into the child’s mind. If it is the Bread of Life to the child it will not stay in his mind, it will sink deeper; it will go to the heart, and the heart will grow by what it feeds on. The heart will crave more and more. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.” Why? Because they will eventually cease from hungering? No! That would be no blessing. But because they shall be filled again and again. Truth is the Bread of Life. Let us teach it.

The maker of a garment with the material spread before him on the table recognizes that the whole future of the garment depends on the way it is cut. No trimming, stitching of fancy workmanship after will make up for a bad cut.

6. The presidents, governors, senators, citizens, preachers, officers and soldiers of the future are today in our homes and within our reach. They are our future.

A story is told of an abbot who wanted to buy a field near his monastery. The owner would not sell it, but at last consented to lease it for the growth of one crop. The abbot planted it with acorns. With oaks growing on it he was sure of it as long as he and his fraternity might want it. The devil outwits good people in a similar style. He gets the first planting of the children’s hearts, and he has them for life. God’s message to Moses was, “These things that I command thee this day shall be in they heart and thou shalt teach them diligently to they children.”

7. Why was it that Christianity went westward instead of eastward from its cradle in Palestine? Some one has said, “The East was old, its habits and characteristics fixed. The West was new, its nations, child-nations whose characters were yet to be formed.”

I have endeavored to show at length some reasons why we should be intensely interested for the child’s own sake, and having passed the experimental stages in Army warfare in this branch of the Army’s operations, we have plenty of evidences around us that the returns are profitable for the labor expanded. For growing up around us are hundreds of promising young people who will help to solve many of our present problems for future extensions; also hundreds of officers in our ranks today come to us by way of our young people’s work.

8. Let the fact of the child’s worth to God, to itself, to the world and to the Army, burn its way into our very being, and “How to reach them” and win them for God will be solved. Quickened hearts and minds will toil and plan and sacrifice and devise methods and measures, and put into practice the existing proposals that our regulations provide for. This is the key to the situation when we have a full conception of their value.

9. The present system in all its branches from the cradle roll to the corps cadet brigade and young people’s legion simply wants putting into active operation in dead earnest by all concerned, and 1906 will be the best year of our career.

10. There are difficulties; we should be very foolish to overlook them – difficulties that are stupendous. Every hour of an officer’s life seems to be filled with duties and obligations. Some of these difficulties are:

Prejudices against our work.
Lack of proper help in the corps for local officers.
Need of proper halls for this work, and many others.

But has this not always been so? Difficulties have beset our paths al through our Army history, but what has made the Army what it is today is the fact that we have endeavored to overcome them, and the results have been in proportion to our having succeeded.

11. We should not for one moment underestimate the noble work that has been done, but this is only a proof that it is possible to deal with this problem successfully. We are a God-sent people, and this fact alone will inspire us.

During last year in New York City and suburbs, no less than thirty-six new churches of the Baptist body were successfully opened as a direct result of their Sunday school work, which had its beginning in a small room or vacant store. Then after securing the children, they planned for a church building, and succeeded in getting the same, and made up their membership from the parents and relatives of the children in the Sunday school. We can learn a lesson from this.

As a matter of fact, many of the churches are supported from the fact of their Sunday school work thus building up a congregation. Revivals are beautiful and much to be desired, but most of the church bodies are built up out of Sunday school results. Let us have the revival, let us save the drunkard by all means, but let us save the young people and children as well. To save them we must love them, and love them in sincerity. No one detects insincerity so quickly as the young. We cannot accomplish much in this work without love.

12. The kind of children out of which to make juniors.

a. The young people belonging to our officers and soldiers.
We have a right to expect this.
b. The children of unsaved adherents.
c. This includes the spiritually uncared for children. We have a large field. It is estimated that 75% of the young people in the United States never go to Sunday school or church, and only 5% are saved. Thus we have about fifteen millions to work amongst.

The work to be done.

Nothing short of conversion will do. It must be a new birth. That must be our ultimate aim. Love will invent ways and means. Their affections must be won. Their feelings must be roused. Their understanding must be improved. Their memory must be assisted. Their soul must be saved. They must be taught that goodness, happiness and usefulness cannot be disassociated with the cross, the fight and the victory. They must be taught faith and confidence in the Godhead. They must be taught faith and confidence in the Army and its leaders. They must be taught faith and confidence in the Army’s principles, government, aims and purposes and the Army spirit cultivated among them.

13. This will involve hard work, sacrifice, expense, tact, wisdom, firmness, consistency, perseverance and adaptation, and I would emphasize each of these. We must be practical, each one of us, if we are to build up a coming Army.

14. The General’s words are vastly important in view of these facts,
“The importance of the junior work is in my estimation so great and so nearly allied to goodness, happiness and godliness of the next generation that were I not burdened with so many toils and anxieties, I would gladly devote the rest of my days to the promotion and welfare of the young people.”15. The various branches of work, each important in its own place, should be intelligently understood by our people.

We must take the trouble to make our people acquainted with our aims. There is a great deal of ignorance among our people in this direction. Many of our F.O.’s do not sufficiently and intelligently understand the Army’s plans. We take too much for granted on this line.

Let it be understood that our plan is a Cradle Roll for the youngest and Junior Meetings for the children.

Company meetings where Biblical instruction is given to the young of all ages.

The Band of Love for the purpose of influencing the young to kindness to one another and to animals, thus teaching them to live for others’ happiness as well as for their own.

The Corps Cadet Brigade, with all it means to the Army’s future so far as officers are concerned, and herein is a paying proposition. We ought through this branch to have hundreds of young people in training all over the country, who in due time will come to our help in this great battle.

The Y.P.L. [Young People’s Legion], with its unlimited scope for dealing with both saved and unsaved youth and helping them morally, physically, mentally and spiritually.

There must be a greater recognition of the officers, staff and field, of their official as well as their moral responsibility.

16. If the young people’s work is simply to be a side issue, and not counted in, and its official importance not recognized from every point of view, both in the grading and appointment of officers, then it can never hope to advance.

17. How to deal effectually with the youths and maidens is a problem, and we have a great deal to learn on this line.

It is a general lament everywhere that so many drift away from us. It is a sad reflection upon many of our Sunday schools of today, and a great concern to all who are interested.

The converted youth is, of course, easy to legislate for, but it is the unconverted who need help and who cause us anxiety. This is a period of unrest and curiosity, a time of awakening from childhood to manhood and young womanhood. If we would win these we must be prepared to look after their interest. We must cater for the physical and social side of their lives as well as the spiritual.

Recreation is needed, and I think we need to have no fear if the recreation is wisely and carefully regulated. We should endeavor to provide healthy literature, simple games and amusements, music, lectures, etc.

Here is an unlimited field, and, as previously stated, will involve wisdom, tact, expense and hard work, but if we get a proper view of this our interest and love will help us to devise ways and means, and we shall be prepared to adapt ourselves to the great needs.

The Y.P.L. will give us some scope in this direction and should be taken up in a dead earnest.

18. One of the chief defects and hindrances of our past policy has been the lack of continuity. One officer commences a good work and another neglects it and drops it entirely. Up and down. Up and down. Sometimes, meetings, then for weeks or months none, and this in some of our best corps.

We should have a more strict oversight of the staff, provincial and divisional, and the matter dealt with firmly. Experience has taught us in all branches of our work that if matters are left optional, they are never done. We may carry the judgment of our people and swing their sentiment, for almost every officer is of the opinion that the Y.P. work is important and should be done. The time has come when we say, “It must be done,” and the regulations must be carried out in view of the importance of this work.

19. The hands of the P.Y.P.S. should be strengthened in every possible way, and the F.O.’s should understand that his report on inspections, good or otherwise, will receive strict attention when appointments are considered.

Also Sec.4 of Chapter 2, Orders and Regulations for the Junior War, should be seriously looked into regarding the Divisional Officer’s responsibility.

It will be impossible for either of these officers to go to a corps and do the Y.P. work for the F.O., as the officer on the spot is the best calculated to organize and establish this. At the same time the staff can and should assist by proper oversight, supervision and encouragement.

Local officers. The key to the situation lies here. Where we have the best and most substantial Y.P. work is where we have local officers who have the work at heart.

We have some splendid people who are devoting themselves to the salvation of the young, and I would suggest that every effort be made to secure suitable people who shall carry this work forward under the instruction and supervision of the F.O.

The very best people in the corps should be put on this work, and not those who are fit for no other position.

20. In conclusion, we must keep hammering away at this. Keep it to the front. Teach it to our people.

In the phylacteries of the Jews, in which they carried the most precious passages of their scriptures, there was kept a record of the Passover, the Old Testament picture of Redemption, the Law in the two great Commands of Love, and beside them, only this command to diligently teach the children.

The purpose was, the world to be reached; the method, the truth from god through a human heart into the hearts of childhood.

Christ had a multitude of 5 000 hungry men to feed. How was this accomplished? A lad brought to his side five loaves and two fishes. Christ blessed them, “and all did eat and were filled.” There are multitudes around us hungering for heavenly bread. The young people will help us like the lad of old. Let us bring them to the side of Christ and He will use them.

A lifeboat returning from a wreck and stranded outside the breakers had thrown its ropes ashore, but all the men and women on the beach had failed to stir it from its place. The children, unasked, came and put their little hands on the rope beside the large rough hands of their parents, and they pulled long and strong together and the boat came off and was saved.

In our work for God in rescuing men from death, we need little hands on the rope with ours, the prayers and sympathies and words of youth and childhood, and then we shall have success.

Youth Culture 101 Study Guide Introduction

Walt Mueller is the preeminent authority on youth culture in evangelical circles. His books, articles and seminars have been helping to equip youth workers for years. I tip my hat to this humble veteran youth worker and research specialist. He has honorably and gracefully engaged generations of youth culture research novices (like me) - who have sparred with him from different philosophical and theological corners of the dialogue ring. In the end, I find myself returning to the wisdom I find in his words - words that are grounded, well-articulated and holistically missional.

As a result, I have selected his book, Youth Culture 101 as a text for one of my classes. I am developing this blog-based study guide for the youth workers studying on this subject at Railton School for Youth Worker Training. I have created these questions to invite these new sparring partners to enter the ring to wrestle through how we can reclaim children and youth for Christ in a media-saturated culture. To learn more about his ministry and resources for both parents and youth workers, check out his excellent website: http:cpyu.org

This dialogue ring welcomes others (both Christian and non-Christian) who might be interested in engaging with the questions outlined throughout this guide.This isn't intended to be an 'official' study guide of the book - just merely an attempt to help focus readers on identifying the gems that emerge from this text. If you think that there are other questions that might be pertinent to this chapter, email me and let me know.


I will be regularly updating these chapters over the next few weeks. Please check in regularly for updates.

Chapter One: Good News: There's a Teenager in Your Life
[Supplemental Resources and Info]

Chapter Two: The Times... They Are a-Changin'
[Supplemental Resources and Info]

Chapter Three: Media: The New Face of Nurture
[Supplemental Resources and Info]

Chapter Four: The Media How It's Shaping Kids
[Supplemental Resources and Info]

Chapter Five: Through the Maze: Teaching Kids Media Discernment
[Supplemental Resources and Info]

Chapter Six: It All Ads Up: Marketing's Powerful Influence on Teenagers
[Supplemental Resources and Info]

Chapter Seven: Fitting In: The Push and Pull of Peer Pressure
[Supplemental Resources and Info]

Chapter Eight: Hooking Up: Understanding Our Sexualized Youth Culture
[Supplemental Resources and Info]

Chapter Nine: Living in a Material World
[Supplemental Resources and Info]

Chapter Ten: Under the Influence: Teenagers and Substance Abuse
[Supplemental Resources and Info]

Chapter Eleven: When Adolescence Hurts: The Dark World of Teenage Depression and Suicide
[Supplemental Resources and Info]

Chapter Twelve: Especially for Parents: Helping Your Teenagers Find Their Places in God's Story
[Supplemental Resources and Info]

Youth Culture 101 Study Guide - Chapter Two: The Times... They Are A-Changin'

Past Chapters
Overview
Chapter One: Good News: There's a Teenager in Your Life

Question 1.
For years, culture watchers like Alvin Toeffler, David Elkind, Neil Postman and Douglas Coupland have been predicting the ‘acceleration of culture.’ Yesterday’s prediction is today’s reality. As Walt Mueller states, “The rate of change is gaining momentum. Like a snowball that accelerates and grows during its rapid descent down a steep hill, today’s youth culture is changing at breakneck speed.” (p.33)

In what ways has the world in which children and teens growing up similar and/or different to your own experience of childhood and adolescence?

Question 2.
Walt Mueller describes culture as, “…the ‘soup’ in which our teenagers swim around and soak every day. The soup’s ingredients include values, attitudes and behaviors – as well as media, peer group, language, and so on that express them. To know kids, we must lift the lid on the soup pot an see what’s in the mix… if we hope to effectively protect our kids from harm, provide for their well being, and lead them to vital faith in Christ, we must understand their world… a world that’s very different from the world we knew when we were that age.” (p.35)

Identify some aspects from today’s youth culture which you observe and think to yourself, “I don’t get that! I don’t understand why they do that?” How can you begin to understand the ‘soup ingredients’ that are shaping the values, attitudes and behaviors of the youth we are working with? Do they differ from your own experience of adolescence? If so, what are the differences that are fueling this shift in culture?

Question 3.
Mueller discusses Chap Clark’s concept of ‘systemic abandonment’ by parents. “In order to survive systemic abandonment and still function, vulnerable and confused young people create a separate and highly structured social system Clark calls ‘the world beneath,’ a safe place where they find connections – with equally confused young and abandoned peers – that help them as they navigate the difficult waters of adolescence… Clark concludes that one of the most vital things those of us who are close to kids… can do is to ‘understand their world.” (p.39)

In what ways can the local church/Corps and community center serve as an alternative safe space where adolescents can come to build meaningful relationships that will help to fulfill this need in a way that is positive and pro-social?

Question 4.
In chapter 2, Mueller identifies six major factors that have contributed to an increased stress on the relationship of parents and youth. These ‘family permutations’ include:

• An increase and acceptance of divorce (p.42)
• The rise in cohabitation and out-of-wedlock births (p.44)
• The crisis of fatherlessness (p.45)
• An increasing number of mothers who work outside the home (p.46)
• A decreasing amount of time parents are spending with their kids (p.46)
• More children are victims of family violence (p.46)

Some would argue that the family is the first ingredient in the cultural soup that shapes youth’s values, beliefs and practices. Would you agree or disagree that the shift in family values and the increase in systemic abandonment has contributed toward a very different social construction of adolescence?

Question 5.
With a decrease in the family as moral compass for today’s children, and a divide between values communicated in church and school, “…the voices of other institutions become more powerful in their ability to educate and socialize teenagers.” (p.49). These voices are largely shaped by the rise in digital, personalized technologies that saturate our youth in a media sphere in which everything in a teen’s world - from peer interaction to savvy consumer advertising becomes an integral part of their everyday lives.

To what extent are personalized technologies (cell phones, iPods) and social networking media (YouTube, MySpace) replacing the local village (parents, school, church, peers) with a ‘electronically-mediated global village’ (celebrities, advertisers, online acquaintances, etc.) to raise our children. What role does technology play in the shift which is taking place in our culture(s)?

Question 6.
Mueller reminds us that, “…we know we can’t guide our kids through the soup of today’s culture until we deal with the inconsistencies in our own lives first. We have two choices. We can take the easy way out (for now) and keep sailing along on the same course, preferring not to rock the boat. Or we can row vigorously into the sea of youth culture and strive to understand it.” (p.69)

What is our own perspective on media? Is this a God-glorifying position? Do we lean to one of the extremes of being either isolationist and reactionary or relativistic and co-opted? How do we overcome fear or apathy in order to begin to seriously engage in today’s youth culture?

Question 7.
How would you go about setting up a meeting with parents to discuss the “principles that bridge the cultural generational gap” that Walt Mueller outlines at the end of this chapter?

• Understanding the world of kids is primarily a parent’s calling
• It’s never too early
• It’s never too late
• It won’t be easy
• Pain is a blessing
• Understanding youth culture equips parents to pass on the torch of faith
• Understanding youth culture fosters relational closeness (pp.70-75)

Youth Culture 101 Study Guide for Youth Workers - Chapter One: Good News: There's a Teenager in Your Life

Walt Mueller is the preeminent authority on youth culture in evangelical circles. His books, articles and seminars have been helping to equip youth workers for years. I tip my hat to this humble veteran youth worker and research specialist. He has honorably and gracefully engaged generations of youth culture research novices (like me) - who have sparred with him from different philosophical and theological corners of the dialogue ring. In the end, I find myself returning to the wisdom I find in his words - words that are grounded, well-articulated and holistically missional.

As a result, I have selected his book, Youth Culture 101 as a text for one of my classes. I am developing this blog-based study guide for the youth workers studying on this subject at Railton School for Youth Worker Training. I have created these questions to invite these new sparring partners to enter the ring to wrestle through how we can reclaim children and youth for Christ in a media-saturated culture.

This ring welcomes others (both Christian and non-Christian) who might be interested in engaging with the questions outlined throughout this guide.

This isn't intended to be an 'official' study guide of the book - just merely an attempt to help focus readers on identifying the gems that emerge from this text. If you think that there are other questions that might be pertinent to this chapter, email me and let me know.

Chapter One: Good News: There's a Teenager in Your Life

Question 1.
Paul David Tripp states that “It is time for us to reject the wholesale cynicism of our culture regarding adolescence. Rather than years of undirected and unproductive struggle, these are years of unprecedented opportunity…” (p.12) Walt Mueller later states that, “Our widespread cultural cynicism regarding teenagers and these exciting years of their lives in unjustified and must cease.” (p.14)

In what ways can youth workers help the church provide an alternative to the deterministic cynicism that Tripp speaks of when referring to our culture’s stereotypical views regarding adolescence?

Question 2.
The relationship between parent and teenager seems to be increasingly strained. Factors cited include an increase in divorce, busyness of individual schedules and media consumption patterns that fill personal space and time. Mueller presents statistical evidence that advice from Moms and especially Dads is significantly being fulfilled by friends, schools, churches, media, advertising, coaches, etc. (p.15f)

What role do youth workers play in addressing this trend? Is it best to simply focus on working with the teen – standing in the gap of the unfulfilled need? Or is it the responsibility of the youth worker to also work with parents? If so, why would this be?

Question 3.
Walt Mueller states, “Believe it or not, to assume you’ve somehow made kids immune to the influence of culture just by shielding them from culture might just produce the opposite effect. In other words, by not preparing them to engage the culture with minds and hearts saturated by a biblical world- and life view, we actually make them more vulnerable to the negative cultural forces they face both now and for the rest of their lives. Both we (parents and youth workers) and our kids need to be wise to the Scriptures and streetwise about our culture… When it comes to teenagers and their culture, what we don’t know (or don’t want to know or refuse to know) can hurt them.” (p.19)

Do you agree or disagree? Does the desire to protect our kids from culture weaken or strengthen our teenagers?

Question 4.
Walt Mueller speaks about the profound need that teenagers have for relationship with God. He quotes Alistair McGrath’s expansion on Blaise Pascal’s model of, “a God-shaped emptiness within us, which only God can fill. We may try to fill it in other ways and with other things. Yet one of the few certainties in life is that nothing in this world satisfies our longing for something that is ultimately beyond this world.” (p.19)

If this theological statement is true of all human beings – not just believers, in what way do we see this vacuum evidenced within even the most ungodly forms of cultural expression that interacts with teenagers?

Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000

Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000

Here is a fact sheet based on this Act.

I am happy to say that The Salvation Army has endorsed this act. Here's a quote from our US National website:

The Salvation Army (TSA) endorsed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, a law which passed the U.S. Congress in October of 2000. TSA was among a coalition of faith-based and other organizations which worked zealously to obtain its passage. TSA's role in the effort to pass TVPA has been highlighted in the book Freeing God's Children by Dr. Allen Hertzke.

The Salvation Army has also taken a strong, leadership position, along with other allied groups and individuals, in efforts to shift U.S. policy on sexual trafficking.

This includes:

• maintaining the link between sexual trafficking and prostitution;
• emphasizing strategies that reduce demand;
• emphasizing the link between sexual trafficking and HIV/AIDS;
• opposing efforts to legalize prostitution in the U.S. and abroad;
• affirming a "report and rescue" strategy in humanitarian efforts to assist women and children in brothels;
• support for the End Demand for Sex Trafficking Act of 2005;
• support for a sufficiently strong Reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2005.

In regard to these issues, TSA has participated in and initiated letters to prominent political and faith leaders outlining numerous policy concerns and appealing for their help. These efforts are meeting with success, as illustrated by a National Security Presidential Directive linking sexual trafficking and prostitution issued by President George W. Bush, a new policy announced by the U.S. Agency for International Development which rules that nongovernmental organizations that support legalized prostitution are not eligible for federal anti-trafficking funds, as well as increased attention to human trafficking pledged by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Work is also underway on an internal Salvation Army position statement on human trafficking.

W.T. Stead on "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon" - The Story that Awoke the Giant of The Salvation Army to the Injustice of Child Slavery

W.T. Stead, the famous journalist, was a great friend to The Salvation Army. In 1885, he wrote in The Pall Gazette an incredible (and scandalous) expose of child prostitution in Victorian England.

The W.T. Stead Resource Site has republished these articles - which I link here:

The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon (Introduction)

Part One
Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Also to situate it in the context of The Salvation Army's reforms:

The Salvation Army's History in Fighting Sexual Trafficking

I would encourage all to take courage from the daring spirit and determination of these 19th century reformers as we seek to tackle similar issues in the 21st century - unfortunately living in a future day sadly does not ensure that progress has been made in this regard...

I hope that we all will do our part in helping to rid this world of the curse of human trafficking.

Optional Protocol to the Convention of the Rights of the Child

For those who are interested (and the Railton students), here is the "Protocol to the Convention of the Rights of the Child."

Stop the Traffik - Promotional Videos

Friends, these are some amazing commercials that "Stop the Traffik" have put together to help address the injustice of Human Trafficking. Paul and Kirsten Mergard (from The Salvation Army in Austrailia) just sent these to me.

Please do all you can to help raise awareness of what's happening with modern-day, child slavery. Check out Stop the Traffik.

Check them out on YouTube: