Calling

Jim Goodmann

Regional Director, Calling Congregations

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December 01, 2009

Claiming Beloved-ness: Engaging Youth (and Ourselves) in Contemplative Practice

Eight years ago the church I was serving was invited to participate in the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project (YMSP), a Lilly Endowment grant project that was created by Mark Yaconelli and co-directed with Michael Hryniuk. As youth minister at St. Paul’s in Richmond, VA, I had tried to encourage spiritual practices among the youth and the adults who worked with them, but I always failed to find the traction that was needed to sustain the practices. The curriculum we were using in youth ministry was demanding in terms of content and in terms of adult time commitment. St. Paul’s youth and adults were busy people with multiple important demands on their time and energy. “Contemplation” was seen as another good thing to do, but the schedules of those in the church were already filled with plenty of good and important things. Besides, the youth curriculum was full of lesson plans on prayer, so we concluded that we should just fully implement the curriculum.

When I was first introduced to YMSP, I was so hopeful that this project would give some credence to a more intentional path to contemplative prayer practices. Perhaps it would even give St. Paul’s youth ministry grant-funded permission to slow down and assess “most important” practices.

When I started the three year experiment with YMSP, I was aware that St. Paul’s was part of a research project designed to train adult youth leaders in ancient contemplative practices. The hope was that these adult leaders would slow down, pray, form a strong community amongst themselves and open themselves up to become the non-anxious, creative, loving presence of Christ that could faithfully accompany youth on the way of Jesus. In reality, I was approaching YMSP as a tool for more effective ministry to young people. I expected to learn technique. What I didn’t account for was the messy, organic, transforming effect that a slower more contemplative approach to life and prayer would have on me and my ministry at St. Paul’s.

In YMSP I was invited on a journey into the undefined landscape of trust and discernment. The first step in this journey was not a step at all… it was an invitation to stop… to rest. The first charter principle of YMSP was to “honor Sabbath”. Sabbath or “downtime” as it has been described by Yaconelli in his latest book is an intentional drawing away from the daily demands of our lives to spend time with God. The entire first week of the YMSP in-service was about resting in the presence of God.

My three year experience with YMSP was transforming, but there was something almost revolutionary that started to stir in me that first week of the project that has changed my approach to life and to ministry. As I slowed down and took the life-giving time for rest, prayer, and reflection, and as I was immersed in a prayerful and loving community, a holy unease began stirring deep inside me. Even now my heart races as I recall that guttural realization – the groans that found words as the days wore on: “I matter”.

I matter. I count. I am God’s beloved…. That which I knew in my mind was somehow becoming known at a deeper level. Even though I had grown up in a loving family and been reared in the church, somehow the message that I am loved by God over and beyond what I DO for God had gotten muffled.

Over time this renewed identity as God’s beloved began seeping into my ministry at St. Paul’s. As the youth ministry team at church began observing “downtime” as a spiritual practice, we realized how often our anxiety toward accomplishing our agendas derailed our deepest desire to accompany youth faithfully in the ways of Jesus. Stopping to be with one another in prayer and reflection gave the youth ministry team of St. Paul’s a fresh perspective on our motives for ministry. We discovered that we were often operating out of some fearful need to make sure that we were doing all we could for these young people. We wanted to equip the youth with the faith tools so that they would make wise decisions in the murky water of the culture, and we also wanted to encourage them to stay in the church—to see the church as their home in the hope that they would become church leaders and live lives of service to others.

These are honorable and faithful goals, but we were called to ask ourselves why we were undertaking this ministry. Were we simply trying to propagate the church or were we indeed willing to accompany youth into a deep, transforming encounter with God? Would we let our primary motivation be prescribed by our curriculum, catechism, and church denomination, or would we risk getting in step with the youth, listening to their life with an open heart and trusting that God’s love guides faithfully, if not circuitously? These two approaches need not be mutually exclusive, but there is a question of primary motivation and intent that each faith community must wrestle with. Will we love and walk alongside each young person just because they matter to God?

Mark Yaconelli and my other friends and colleagues from YMSP helped me recognize that God lovingly accompanies us down the many paths that life lays out before us. Prayer is not just words or petitions but it is also a reverent silence and loving attention to the world as it is unveiled to us in the moments of every new day… if only we can slow down enough to notice.

In Contemplative Youth Ministry: Practicing the Presence of Jesus and Growing Souls: Experiments in Contemplative Youth Ministry Mark detailed some of the transforming experiences and that occurred as a result of the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project. In his latest book Downtime: Helping Teenagers to Pray, Mark invites any adult who lives or works with young people to consider how they might introduce and accompany youth into this broader and more soul-opening experience of prayer and awareness. In the introduction Yaconelli states, “My hope is that this book will stir up the Holy Spirit so youth workers, parents, and pastors might be inspired to discover creative, countercultural strategies for giving young people the spiritual leisure necessary for knowing Jesus… to give young people the downtime they need to discover the prayers that God is already praying within them” (pp. 11-12).

Mark’s creative, sincere, and intuitive approach to prayer inspires the reader to embrace the organic nature of a person’s relationship with God. The task for the youth leader is to structure time and space, to structure downtime for young people (and their adult companions) to notice God’s transforming presence in the midst of ordinary life. When we give youth Sabbath moments we tell them that they matter and that God loves them just for who they are and wants to be in relationship with them. Yaconelli states, “In my experience it is often only when young people are given permission for ‘downtime’ that they are able to step away from the anxious spirits that inhabit modern life and begin to discover and inhabit the presence of God” (p. 25).

In Downtime Mark tells moving stories from his personal life and from his years in youth ministry encouraging youth leaders to provide ever-deepening opportunities for prayer with young people. The chapters of Downtime point us toward thoughtful actions we can take to court the budding conversation between God and the youth in our churches. Mark makes accompanying youth into an on-going experience of prayer seem like an irresistible life-giving opportunity, and he motivates the adult reader to engage their own prayer life with more honesty, creativity and intimacy.

Downtime, and the contemplative practices it encourages, invites adults to honor the ongoing work of the Spirit in the lives of youth by creating space and opportunity for their relationship with God to flourish. It is also an invitation to adults to think of their lives with the same kind of wonder and the necessary “long, loving look at reality” that we invite youth and young adults to. This book is an affirmation of my core experience with youth—by paying attention with loving hearts and being obedient to the Spirit’s nudges, we will find ourselves on a grand adventure. That journey is one of transformation, both for young people and the adults who accompany them—maybe even for the church we do not yet see.