Fuzz

Last Saturday ended up being a pretty cool day for me.  Not only were my two girls finally home again, but I got to spend the afternoon with Fuzz Kitto.  He's an emergent thinker from Down Under that took time out of his trip to talk with me. It was a blessing to think through what ministry can look like in a variety of contexts, especially youth minsitry. Fuzz is a long time youth worker and served the church in Korea for 12 years so he had a lot of experience dealing with the questions I'm asking right now. I hear Dave Livermore is in Singapore and am hoping to pick his brain a little too. It's amazing how small the world can become when we're on the journey together.


As I reflect on our conversation, I realize just how much I really need to step out of my skin and into life here. Ministry is different, and I must be sensitive to those differences, and similarities. I've unintentionally tried to force my perceptions of how youth ministry should work on our students here. And it's not working. My relationships with kids have been stagnant and surface level no matter how hard I try. Here's what I'm thinkinga about after talking with Fuzz.

Americans, esp. those in ministry seem to firmly believe that the language of relationships is TIME. Yet, time becomes a more valuable, less discretionary asset everyday. Here in Asia's World City, the perception (note, not reality) is that free time is rare or non-existent and "church" only fits in this box labeled "free time". This is not true of everyone, but seems to be the prevalent attitude of the church going culture. As Fuzz and I talked through this, it brought up some big questions.

1. How do we build relationships with a currency other than what coulde be considered personal, or quality time? Are there ways to creatively invest in others that are too busy to "hang out"? What are they?

2. If we can't build a community based on the ideal of quality time, what does community then, look like?

3. Obviously, it's not good to push church or really, God into the box labeled free time, but in a culture based on economic thinking, how do we communicate that a relationship with God is of the utmost value? How is this demonstrated differently in a white collar, asian culture than in a blue collar, Midwestern American culture?

I don't believe that time spent together with students is ever wasted but do think that in a time when they don't have much time to give that I have to be willing to be creative in loving them. Fuzz shared that while in Korea he faced the same issue and his church became reliant upon email, sms and chats. And it was a beautiful community. While losing personal contact with students scares me, maybe I have to begin looking beyond to other ways of building contacts that are meaningful. As many have reflected, some will share more online than they will ever share in person.

I don't know what the language of community is for our student ministry here yet. I do know that I'm not going to figure it out overnight. I also know that I have to step out of my old wineskins and start thinking about life, community and teenagers with a different colored lens. If you're reading this and have any ideas, feedback, etc, please share it. I have more questions than answers which is right where I should be, I think.