I love this book! One reason is that he is helping me to redefine what incarnational youth ministry looks like "God became human to be with and for us, not simply to influence us toward this or that end." All to often we see it only as influencing students towards an end, when in reality we need to see it first as being with them. He says it more eloquently than me on pg. 79,
"I had been working so hard to make things better by influencing adolescents to do this or do that, to believe this or know that. But in the process I was more concerned with their decision, behavior or commitment than with their broken humanity that desired someone to share in their deepest sufferings through relationship. When I tried to influence them, I had neither the patience nor the vision to truly share in their suffering, to make it my own and to join my own broken humanity with theirs. I was so busy making assertions about heaven that I refused to see and accompany them in the darkness of their personal hells."
Friday, January 11, 2008
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3 comments:
just picked this one up the other day. I'm excited to get it started. It's incredibly different to think in terms of students humanity and brokenness rather than getting them to some point of understanding. And I hate to admit that it seems different.
Luebcke...this book is WRECKING me. I LOVE it. Here is the thing that I was introduced to awhile ago, but was revisited by while reading through it: Christ came to the world and humanity AS IT WAS not as he wanted it to be. Jesus loved(s) us as we are, not as he wants us to be, then moves to transform us because he is not content with who we are. Do I love my students as they are FIRST? Powerful and transformational for my ministry over the past 12-18 months. LOVE IT.
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