metalsiren’s most recent Quotables

Godbearing Youth Ministry requires vulnerable leaders, leaders who serve as God’s tinder and are ready to catch fire. They are not green or wet, big or self-important. Vulnerable leaders’ outstanding virtue is combustibility. By sheer proximity to God’s Word, vulnerable leaders perceive God’s purposes and burst into flames because they allow God to prod them into the center of the fire

Teenagers need faithful adults to represent the Gospel, to shore up their faith, and to guide them in mission

Authentic ministry with youth is not just about spiritual disciplines; it is a spiritual discipline...In practice, this means that when our own life with God catches fire, the souls of youth and our congregations ignite as well. [...] This shift relocates youth ministry in significant relationships between youth and adults and moves away from (separate) programs as the primary vehicals for youth ministry.

Believing in God is not the issue; believing God matters is the issue.  Information is not in short supply, discernment is. [...] The signature quality of adolescence is no longer lawlessness, but awelessness

Postmodern teenagers' theological questions reflect this intercultural contact. What does Jesus [...] mean when your best friend is Jewish or Muslim? If all roads point to God, is Christianity really important? If God loves all people, regardless of religious tradition, why should I bother with one that ask me to lose my life to gain it? If Jesus is the true Savior, would he save my Buddhist friend?

Modern churches redefined the term to serve institutional ends, but pastors are basically shepherds, people who care for sheep that belong to Someone Else

Somehow in the din of modernity, this distinctive way of life - the holiness - often got lost along the way. We traded holiness for effectiveness, charisms for careers, soulfulness for savvy. In the meantime, youth got lost. So did many adults

The most effective youth ministers I know, the ones with blazing faith that points beyond themselves to Christ, are "on fire" with Jesus, not for Jesus. Their ministries stand the test of time not because they have zeal for God, but because the have God  or more precisely, God has them, and they radiate divine light because of it

This project was born out of two convictions. The first: Adolescents are looking for a soul-shaking, heart-waking, world-changing God to fall in love with; and if they do not find that God in the Christian church, they will more certainly settle for lesser 'gods' elsewhere. The second conviction: So will we.

The risks facing contemporary teenagers bear solemn testimony to the church's ineffectiveness at addressing adolescence. Youth look to the church to show them something -- Someone -- capable of turning their lives inside out and the world upside down. Most of the time we have offered them pizza.