revisiting relational youth ministry

i have just read andrew root's revisiting relational youth ministry. it really is an excellent book. if you teach youth ministry or are doing it or both i suggest you get a copy. his main argument/point/passion is that relationships are not a means to achieve an end goal. they are valuable in and of themselves. to make them about influence (i.e. a means to influence people) cheapens them. this may sound obvious when you say it but as he argues relational youth ministry is often guilty of being a means to an end.

now i must diverge slightly at this point to clarify terms. relational youthwork in the uk has been a term that has been around for quite a while. there were some relational youthwork gatherings maybe 15 or 20 years ago that explored an approach to working with young people that were outside the reaches of the church - the terminology probably shifted to incarnational at a later stage. but this was all about being there alongside and with young people. this book would have been welcomed in those circles i am sure. but andrew picks out some examples from california of what he sees as being called relational youth ministry that is this influence driven approach and it is something completely different. this is going to make this book complicated to cross the atlantic which is a shame. the relational youthwork he describes has a very negative stance towards culture and it's just worlds apart form what has been called relational here. in fact i couldn't understand as a piece of research how he has got away with talking to just 5 youthworkers in one location to build his argument but i guess it was originally a phd or something. in the introduction he says he will show how incarnational ministry has been built from the pillars of cultural engagement.... etc but it badly needs some much more substantial research to carry more weight. it's also a shame he doesn't dialogue with the material written at that earlier time  (e.g. the book called relational youthwork). all of that sounds a bit negative but it is important from a uk perspective.

but having said that the argument goes something like this...
(after two opening chapters tracing the historical development of relational youth ministry in the US that you might want to skim read if you are not in the US)
the evangelical world that youth ministry grew up in has a negative view of culture broadly speaking and part of the role of youth ministry in that world is to influence young people positively by modeilling something different for them and persuading them to join an 'in' group by converting and finding their identity in that sub culture. relationships influence them in that direction. (pete ward's insights about evangelical youth ministry running under the logic of safety - youth minister's are employed to keep kids safe - has some parallels here)  this has very little in fact to do with the incarnation even though the word incarnation gets used.

root then uses bonhoeffer (bonhoeffer is really his only theological source) to suggest that the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of christ could give a theological framework for understanding relational youth ministry as 'place sharing'. god is already active and present in the world - we don't need to relocate somewhere else to find god. relationships are the presence of god in the world - transcendent - rather than an end to a third thing. the goal is simply to be faithful to the humanity of the young person who is of course made in the image of god. the crucifixion means that we should follow christ by being prepared to both suffer and share in the suffering of the young person. the resurrection means that in that encounter there is always the possibility for newness though it is not forced.

it reminded me of a quote that cathy ross used at grace last week on hospitality from henri nouwen:

Hospitality… means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy.  Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. 

so transformation is longed for, hoped for, prayed for - that we all become more human. but it is not forced on anyone...

there are some case studies/stories at the end that are helpful to show how this works and then a suggestion for how a church might develop a ministry that encourages adults and young people to develop these kind of relationships. andrew himself has done one to one relational work with tough young people and the book seems to be born out of that experience. the skill to develop relationships of depth and trust and vulnerability is not an easy one and takes a maturity on the part of youth ministers.

anyway it's a good book even if the semantics are confusing for uk readers. i did find it a helpful challenge on what we mean when we describe ministry as incarnational - that patterning it on jesus isn't enough.

this is a typical blog post for me in that i have to write something quickly having read the book or i know i'll never get round to it. but it could be a whole lot better (my review that is) if i took more time that i don't have! i have just looked andrew up to add a hyperlink above and realise we have met a few years back at an iasym conference - great book andrew if you read this...

i'd be interested to hear what anyone else thinks if you have read it...

Comments

[Andrew Root]

Jonny,
Thanks much for reviewing and blogging about my book. We have met at IASYM two conferences ago and then again at Princeton. I think that you are quite right that the book is very American based in the area of terminology. We (especially those in youth ministry) are still slugging our way through the mainline/evangelical split that happened in the 1920s and as it has manifested itself again in the area of politics and culture in general now. So a word of apology to all UK readers. My own qualitative research did only deal with 5 churches but it was a derivative of a much larger study done by Christian Smith (yes, the one from Soul Searching) and Michael Emerson. They did an expansive mixed methods national research project on American Evangelicalism. Their study provided the larger frameworks (like relationalism, anti-structuralism, sub-cultural identity, and freewill individualism). Therefore, my objective in looking at the five youth ministries was to see if these above listed things (called the “evangelical too-kit”) existed in youth ministry and if they were setting the terms for the practice of relational youth ministry. Therefore, my research is based on their expansive study and is only illustrative of it. But very fair point. That said, for the UK reader the history may be just interesting and useful only to alert us all that we too often use relationship as means to other ends. Of course in those chapters I use a great deal of Anthony Giddens and try to show that the rise of the pure relationship (I call it the “self-chosen relationship”) and the loss of tradition coincided with relational or incarnational forms of ministry (I would imagine that this would have some resonance in UK). Part two really is the heart of the work for me. I really wanted to provide a theological perspective and I turn to Bonhoeffer because he really wants to deal with the issue of the concreteness of revelation (where concretely do we encounter God). In the US we usually default into subjective places in answering this. But Bonhoeffer places it in the church and world (or better the place where persons meet persons). Christ exists between the I and you. I stay with just Bonhoeffer because I want to help the reader move into dialogue with a theologian and connect with his (or her) imagination around these issues. In the footnotes however you will find references to Levinas, Barth, Genz, Ray Anderson, Buber, Volf , and the great Scottish philosopher John MacMurray. Thanks again, Jonny, for the kind review and I hope the book can be stimulating in the UK in one way or another. Hope to connect with you again soon. Andy

[John L]

Thanks for this. The idea that "relationships are not a means to achieve an end goal" certainly isn't limited to youth work. It would be great to see this theme expanded generally as a central missional idea. Love the Nouwen quote.

[chad]

i can't explain how much I needed this post. Thanks Jonny

[Ricky Rew]

Thanks for the review Jonny. Sounds like it is a must-read book for me and my partners as we set up a collaborative open youth work project in the centre of town. I've put in my order.

[Jeff Greathouse]

I absolutely loved the book and thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. The incarnational aspect and the "deep" re;ational ministry that he dwells into were fantastic.

I look forward to seeing how this shapes me, my life anf my ministry.

[kenny wilson]

In the UK the term 'Relational Youth Work' was coined in 1984 by Kenny Wilson to describe the new style of youth work he was undertaking in the Oxford area. The term was then promoted in and thorugh Oxord youth Works as ageneral decsiption of their youth work until the term incarnational youth work came to give a theological underpinning to that style of work.

[jonny]

thanks kenny!