Why I Love Being a Youth Minister

by Rev. Felicia Fox

Here are ten moments that have reminded me why I love being a youth minister:

10) Having a middle school boy ask me if my name means “awesome.” I had just told my class to pay attention to names in the Bible because they give clues about the people. Felicia really means happy.


9) Having to look at cuts, bruises, and scrapes because my youth want to tell me the story behind them. If it is important to them, it becomes important to me even if it makes me want to throw up.


8) Having a teenage girl text me when she’s having a bad day because she needs an adult to listen to her and she knows I will.


7) Playing a crazy game like Murder or Zoinks that will insure tons of laughter. That’s my secret to staying young.


6) Having a student ask me a really hard question about the Bible because he is reading it all the way through. He even read Leviticus. Those were some hard questions.


5) A youth walking past me in the hall at church and singing a song because they know it will get stuck in my head the rest of the day. This usually happens right before I head to worship.


4) Talking to my students about the new movie coming out only to have them tell me who dies in it. Now I don’t have to go see the new G.I. Joe movie. I already know the ending.


3) Hearing my youth talk openly and honestly about where they are in their relationships with God during our
FLASH meetings.


2) Having a parent share a story about something their kid did that is directly related to what you have been talking to them about during Bible study.


1) Seeing a student have a “light bulb moment” when they finally understand something about faith they have been struggling with.


These are just a few reasons I love my job. Check back later for the list of reasons I don’t always love my job.

Felicia Fox is the Minister of Youth and Children at First Baptist Church of Mount Olive, NC. This article originally appeared on her blog.

Five Lessons from "The Hunger Games"

By Rev. Felicia Fox

Last night I took a bus full of teens to see The Hunger Games. Unless you have been living under a rock or in a cave for the last few weeks, I’m sure you have heard a ton about this movie. It may seem strange to some that I took the youth group to see the movie as a church event. I have read the books and even saw the movie before loading up the bus and taking my students. I have no regrets about taking the youth. In fact, I think there are many good lessons our teens need to hear from the movie.

1) Hope is stronger than fear. Many teenagers live in fear. They fear bullies, violence at school, losing homes because parents have lost jobs, being hungry when school is out and free lunches at school have stopped for the summer, or abuse at home. The Hunger Games show teens that they can live in a world of hope and they can even be agents of hope to those around them.

2) You don’t have to follow the status quo. Katniss Everdeen saw the injustice and the poverty around her and decided to take action. She wasn’t afraid to make a stand for what was right and make a difference. Katniss was a leader. Teens need to know that they can be leaders to and they have the power to change the world for better.

3) Be true to yourself. Peeta Mellark has one of the best quotes in The Hunger Games. He says, “Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to…to show the Capitol they don’t own me. That I’m more than just a piece in their Games.” Peeta was willing to not compromise who he was. Teens need to know that they have a right to be who they are and to stand up for what they believe is right. The world could be a better place if more teens felt empowered to live out their convictions.

4) Caring for others doesn’t make you weak. Katniss loved people and showed it. We see this in all the relationships she has in the movie. She cares for her sister, Gale, Rue, and Peeta and her actions show it. Teens have a ton of friends but they don’t really have a lot of people they care about on a deeper level. Most teens don’t feel cared for on a deeper level. It is hard for teens to develop and be open to deep relationships. Katniss shows us that it is okay to have true relationships.

5) Heroes can be girls too. That’s a lesson I hope all of my youth last night picked up on. Even if we don’t want to admit it, we still live in a world where girls and women are often seen as weaker. As a female minister, I have firsthand experience with this. I’ve been told more than once that because of my gender God can’t use me. Both male and female teens need to see positive heroes of all shapes, ages, colors, and gender. They all need to know that they have the power to be a hero to someone and that God has created them the way they are on purpose.

As you hear the teens around you talking about The Hunger Games take time to bring up some of these lessons. Maybe this movie can be a conversation starter to talk about something more than surface level topics with your teens. Feel free to comment below. I would love to hear from you. “And may the odds be ever in your favor.”

Felicia Fox is the Minister of Youth and Children at First Baptist Church of Mount Olive, NC. This article originally appeared on her blog.

The Power of Half and Teenagers

by Rev. Felicia Fox

One of the reasons I love my job is I get to see youth and children make a real difference in the world. They really do have a way of seeing past all of the surface level issues that seem to distract us adults. Here’s an example I found this week of a teenager who saw a need and came up with a pretty simple answer that transformed her family’s life.


One day a father was driving his fourteen year old daughter, Hannah through the streets of downtown Atlanta. Hannah noticed a homeless man with a sign asking for food. On the other side was a mercedes benz. The girl had a great idea. If the man in the mercedes had a less expensive car the homeless man could use some of that money to have a meal. It was a brilliant and simple idea. Over the next few weeks Hannah kept bringing the idea up with her family. One night her aggravated mother asked if she was suggesting they should sell their house and give away all their nice things. That’s exactly what Hannah wanted. That’s exactly what the family did. They sold their 1.5 million dollar home and brought one half the size. They donated all the things they no longer needed to charity. The money from their home when to fund projects in African villages. There are now villages in Africa that have medical clinics and schools thanks to Hannah and her family. This story was the inspiration for her book, The Power of Half.

Isn’t it just like a teenager to see a need and see a solution that no adult would ever think of? It seems pretty simple. If you have an extra car you don’t need, give it to somebody who needs it. If you have extra food, feed a hunger person. It is so simple but so hard for us adults to do. We have a way of finding reasons to keep all of our stuff. We often hide the motivation behind our real reasons by saying we are just being responsible. We might need those things one day. However, most of those reasons come back to our own selfishness and our lack of faith.

Jesus summed up the idea this way, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19 – 21)

This Sunday I’ll be sharing Hannah’s story with our youth during FLASH. We’ll be taking a hard look at our own lives and thinking about where our treasure really lies. I invite you to do the same. After all, none of us really own anything. It is all suppose to belong to God.

Felicia Fox is the Minister of Youth and Children at First Baptist Church of Mount Olive, NC. This article originally appeared on her blog.

Almost Christian - A Review

by Rev. Laura Barclay

I recently read Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church by Kenda Creasy Dean, minister and Associate Professor of Youth, Church and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary. This book is both a dissection and reflection on the findings of the recent National Study of Youth and Religion Survey. Dean outlines several points: most American teens view religion in a positive light but do not think about it often; teens reflect the faith of their parents; most teens do not possess the religious vocabulary to talk about their faith; a small group of teens claim religion is important and they are doing better in a number of areas than most teens; and most teens follow a weak form of faith dubbed “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” (21). Based on these findings, Dean explains and responds to the data while relating vignettes of certain teens’ stories.

Dean posits that the faith of many American parents, and what is presented in many churches, lacks the depth of a true, lived faith. Instead, churches and parents settle for a weak faith (Moralistic Therapeutic Deism) that leads them to be nice in order to advance in society and achieve the American dream. Dean examines Mormon children, one of the exceptions to the rule. They are highly invested in their faith, possess the language to talk about their religious views, and have a high level of investment in their faith community and service on its behalf. While Dean is clear that Mormon views and practices are not ideal for many of us (women are excluded from leadership positions and young adults are encouraged to marry early, among a few views objectionable to moderates and progressives), she tries to determine what we might learn from Mormons that could help mainline traditions.

Dean determines that our churches and parents must have “missional imaginations” that are willing to engage in the mission of God in our communities, not for the churches’ gain, but to further the kingdom of God (89). This involves a justice-filled faith that is active outside the walls of the church. Dean also encourages churches to pair adults with youth going through baptism or confirmation (118). These adults, or catechists, would serve as mentors who walk alongside the youth, share their stories, and show their interest in the youth. This encourages adults to talk about their faith and mature in their walk, as well. Ultimately, we should seek transformation through our teaching in the church (172). Dean illustrates this by showing how one set of lessons paired with a missions project out of middle class suburbia and into a poor Mexican town transformed one teenage girl. The teen was able to give up what was most important to her and obtain a deeper, more authentic faith that allowed her to view the poor through the eyes of Jesus. In this way, certain youth on this trip were able to take the focus off of themselves and onto God and their neighbors, maturing their faith and helping them become better disciples.

Dean’s conclusions are ones in which I can agree: The church is both the problem and the solution (189). When we present a weakened form of our faith that exalts “niceness” over engagement in justice issues, exclude people from our churches who are not like us in the name of Christ, or present the American Dream as Christ’s ideal for us, we fail our youth. Instead, we need to embrace the mission of God and reorient our churches, inspiring our youth to follow Christ out into the world to serve the poor and oppressed. Until we commit to this, we cannot blame our youth for thinking that “being nice” and following the status quo is the same as following Jesus.

Find out more about the book here.

Lord, I believe! But help my unbelief! -- Making Room for Faith, Doubt and Cynicism in Youth Ministry

By Andrew S. Tatum

Often I think ministers, and ministers who work with young people, are pressured to be dispellers of doubt in the people with whom they minister. In both our cognitive work (i.e. doctrinal instruction) and our relational / spiritual work, it is thought that orthodoxy in belief and practice should be the primary goal for the people of our communities. In other words, we assume that in order for faith to be strong, genuine and generative there can be little room for doubt and no room at all for cynicism.

I cannot account for the experiences of others in this regard but I can share my own and recently, I have had many experiences that left me scratching my head and wondering where I went wrong.

The first of these came during a recent youth Bible study in which we were studying the "basics" of the Gospel message - i.e. sin & salvation through Christ. I found that the young people with whom I work genuinely believe the "facts" about the Gospel: that human beings are sinful and that Christ lived, died and was resurrected to bring a new kind of life that seeks God and serves others through the power of the Spirit. What is troubling, however, is that often it seems that this good news is received with glazed over looks and shrugged shoulders. In other words, many of the youth with whom I work genuinely believe the Gospel but they don't see where such belief makes a practical difference in their lives. Others of them, I am sure, "believe" the Gospel - i.e. they know the basic narrative and they can tell me all about it - but they are not fully convinced that it is true.

Another recent experience happened in discussing the fall of man and God's compassion and judgment for human disobedience. One of the young people in the room looked me in the eyes and - with a little laughter in her voice - said, "You mean God fixed the game." When asked her to clarify what she meant, she replied, "You're telling us that God created us for his glory and so that we could have new life in him and that the only way for that to happen is through Jesus?"

"Right," I said.

"Well, why didn't God just make it right from the beginning? It's like he wanted sin to happen so that he could show us how bad we are and teach us that we can't have life unless we follow Jesus. Did he send the serpent to us? I mean, did God make us fall?"

Of course, my outward reaction was to correct her and say something about "mystery" and God's "love" in general. But I have to admit that my inward thoughts turned immediately to David Bazan's song, "When We Fell" where he delivers a one-two punch of doubt and cynicism:

"When you set the table
when you chose the scales
did you write a riddle
that you knew they would fail?
Did you make them tremble
so they would tell the tale?
Did you push us when we fell?"

I know at least a handful of youth pastors who heard these lyrics and cringed. One of them even said, "If we let our youth hear this, we're screwed!"

What I'm getting at is this: when Christians begin being cynical and expressing doubt, are we doing them any favors when we try to suppress these doubts and feelings? For my part, I don't think that suppressing these sorts of thoughts and feelings is very helpful at all. Indeed, it may even be unfaithful.

Douglas John Hall once said, "I am not very much worried about the reduction in numbers where Christianity ...[is] concerned. I am far more concerned about the qualitative factor: what kind of Christianity...are we talking about?"

Indeed, what are we helping to create when we teach young people and adults that faith is about the suppression of doubt? What are we doing to the minds and hearts of young people when we don't honor their cynicism and encourage them to continue to question received tradition so that they can "own" the faith that they profess? I think we're creating individuals who do not know how to express their faith in meaningful ways because they have never had to grapple with its claims on their lives. We're creating religious people. However, we are not in any measurable way creating disciples of Jesus by telling young people and adults what they must believe without making space for them to express and grapple with their unbelief.

Paul Ricoeur wrote of a "second naivete" that comes only after one has both accepted and criticized the foundations of their world view. He wrote:

I]n every way, something has been lost, irremediably lost: immediacy of belief. But if we can no longer live the great symbolisms of the sacred in accordance with the original belief in them, we can, we modern men, aim at a second naivete in and through criticism. In short it is by interpreting that we hear again."

A man came to Jesus whose son was afflicted by an evil spirit. This spirit had "often thrown him into fire or water to kill him." The man asked Jesus, "Lord, if you can do anything take pity on us and help us."

"If you can?" Jesus replied. "Anything is possible for the one who believes."

The man replied, "Lord, I believe! But please help my unbelief." (From Mark 9)

I think that our young people need us to help them question their faith - to become believing unbelievers - so that they can live into genuine faith in Jesus because such faith is not easy and it will call them to do hard things for the rest of their lives. If the people you serve all believe easily and if they all believe without question, then I would say that perhaps you need to "help" their unbelief along. For it is by not believing, for a time, that we come to believe in ways that are good, true, beautiful and - most importantly - real.

I am not saying that we ought to help young people become atheists or agnostics - to actively give them questions and doubts that they may not already have. That, I think, would be
manipulative and just as unfaithful as suppressing doubt. What I am aiming it is simply the creation of imaginative space in which young people and adults can ask real questions about the truth claims of the Gospel and their practical significance - and yes, even to express doubt - without judgment or fear of disappointment on the part of their families, ministers and peers.

Lord, we believe! But help our unbelief!

Andrew Tatum is the Director of Youth Programs at Centenary United Methodist Church in Smithfield, North Carolina, and a graduate of Campbell University Divinity School. This post is originally taken from his blog. You can find out more about Andrew on his website: http://www.astatum.com/