ken castor

Adult Definitions

**Sorry--- here's a little rant I got on today. Not very "grown-up" of me I guess. :)

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ADULT 1: fully developed and mature : grown-up / 2: of, relating to, intended for, or befitting adults <an adult approach to a problem> / 3: dealing in or with explicitly sexual material <adult bookstores> <adult movies> ¹

So let me get this straight.  An "adult" is someone who is "fully developed and mature" and/or "dealing in or with explicitly sexual material". I suppose these two bookend statements explain the middle demarcation: "of, relating to, intended for, or befitting adults".  

We all know it is wrong for children to deal in or with explicit sexual material. Even our messed-up-confused-moral culture understands that involving children in or exposing children to explicit sex is sick. Any of us understands that there is something inherently wrong with adulterating children. Therefore, rightfully, the most severe grudges, hatred and punishments are directed towards those predators that mess with children.  

But is there ever truly an age that it becomes mature for someone to "deal in or with" explicit sex? Is there ever someone "fully developed" or "mature" enough to deal in or with distorted sexual interplays that are devoid of a fully developed and mature relationship? For some reason our society has come to believe that explicit sex is okay for adults... because by some form of definitive gymnastics we pretend that falsities and spoiled truths relate to, are intended for, and are befitting adults.

Really. "Fully developed and mature" in which way exactly? In what form of honesty does our society define "fully developed" and "mature" as engagement with perverse material? I don't blame the dictionary for describing what "we" mean by our language. It is not the dictionary's fault that we are so twisted up. 

We adults, after all, feel it is our right to define our own truth. We rate "adult" video games as "M" for "mature" - games filled with explicit gore, violence, language and sexual content. Culturally, we've made these "M" games the most enticing and luring so that our teenagers can't wait to play the "M" games... and many don't wait... and many adults buy those games for their kids... who are, according to the dictionary, not yet fully developed or mature... and our society pushes kids towards adulthood... as if we can't wait for our children to become like us.

Have you read The Hunger Games yet? You should. Your kids have read it. And they get the point... until adults desensitize and innoculate them some more.

Adults are the most selfish, temporal, insular, obsessive people I know. It doesn't take much observation to determine that what adults think befits adults demonstrates some rather childish tendencies in these so-called "fully developed" people. Adults are known for trying to get what they want when they want how ever they want.  And if adults aren't allowed to get what they want when they want they can be known to throw a good hissy fit. Adults have been known to take things from others, form cliques, shun outcasts, rule with distrust, talk behind backs, cut corners, give-in to addictions, and operate on emotional extremes.

Ironically, Merriam-Webster's definition of "childish" relates to, is intended for, and is befitting of many adults in our culture. Engage with this for a moment: The word "childish" is "marked by or suggestive of immaturity and lack of poise <a childish spiteful remark>."

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ADULTERY: voluntary sexual intercourse between a married man and someone other than his wife or between a married woman and someone other than her husband; also : an act of adultery.

Is there any wonder why the word "adultery" means what it does? To lack fidelity in life isn't called "childry".  "Adultery", not "childry", simply takes the logical next step from our own definitions of "adult". To act like an "adult" is to engage in "adultery".  A "fully developed and mature" person, after all, should be able to do what he/she wants with whomever he/she wants and not worry about the consequences it causes to others or themselves. Adultery, after all, simply follows the linear progression of a fully developed self-absorption and a fully matured self-gratification system. Adultery lacks the innocent and uncorrupted heart of a child.

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ADULTERATE: to corrupt, debase, or make impure by the addition of a foreign or inferior substance or element; 

UNadulterated people are largely an exception today... and they are largely the topic of insults from leading adults. My grandparents are nearing their 70th anniversary. They have lived exceptional unadulterated lives marked by simplicity, love, trust, and unselfishness. They were like this when they were young... and they are like this now, while they are old. They would do anything for anybody. Their favorite time in life is when they can spend time with each other or with friends and family, playing, chatting, eating. They cherish the little things and fear the big. They relish loving gifts. They take responsibility in their community and live for the best in others. They are not perfect, and they are not fully developed. They have made mistakes and done some things they regret. But they would be the first to tell someone that they do not have everything figured out about life and there are times when they feel lacking to accomplish something or when they realize they didn't do the right thing. Their hearts keep turning, more and more, towards faithfulness. Together they each have almost 90 years of history in learning to embrace the heart of a child. Their age may mean physical deterioration, but it conveys a resolving purity and love.

UNadulterated people are those who live with purity and innocence. UNadulterated people have not been corrupted, debased, or made impure by harmful elements. It's not naievete or ignorance. It's a process of sanctifiying purity that is winning the war against fully developed impurity.  

The knowledge of good and evil does not make someone "fully developed" nor does it make someone "mature."  Instead, the knowledge of good and evil makes someone corrupt, debased, and impure.  In other words, adulterated lives have grown in the wrong direction.

One thing is clear to me. The pure of heart are not adults in the way that our society defines adults. They are so much better than that. They remind me of my six-year old daughter. Beautiful. Wonderful. Wide-eyed. Fighting against the eroding pressures of this world to remain true. Inspiring to me... a person who too often gives in to the complexities and needs a reminder to desire the simple truth of life.

Jesus said, "If anyone who causes one of these little ones who trusts in me to lose faith, it would be better for that person to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around the neck" (Matthew 18:6).  I think he was serious.

¹ Definitions taken from http://www.merriam-webster.com

Books for Ministry in a Pluralistic Society course

You might be interested in the text books for our Ministry in a Pluralistic Society course at Crown.  The course will run as an 8 day intensive "block" for students who are preparing for their 5.5 month internship experiences.  The intensive nature of the course means that we can dig hard into a couple of textbooks, and then make reference of others in seminars and discussions.  (*The course also has built-in substantial field-observation and other active-learning assignments.  This course was a gem last year... hoping it will be that way this coming January once again.)

PRIMARY RESOURCES:

The Gospel in a Pluralist Society ~ by Leslie Newbigin.  This book is a vocabularists dream... and it serves as the bulk of journal reflections for our block environment.  Each day the students will wrestle with the issues of integrity, truth, culture, pluralism, relativism and motivation that are presented so eloquently in this book.

Cultural Intelligence: Improving Your CQ to Engage Our Multicultural World (Youth, Family, and Culture) ~ by David Livermore.  I'd be remiss if I didn't stress the importance of Cultural Intelligence to the future of missions, evangelism and discipleship work.  No longer can Christians be (and we never should have been in the first place) ignorant or arrogant concerning people in this world.  A true love for this cosmos would neither take for granted nor discredit the experiences and characteristics that make-up a person's identity.  Instead, in our desire to love others we should work tirelessly on our ability to actually love them.

 

SECONDARY RESOURCES: None of the following texts are required for the course, but they either provide some direct material for course content, or they serve as direct influences on the course outcomes.

Christ and Culture (Torchbooks) ~ by Richard Niebuhr.  The argument structure of this book is often used as the framework for discussions concerning Christian interaction with culture.

Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change ~ by Paul Hiebert.  Hiebert offers fantastic study and theory about how appropriately added data can change perceptions and constructs of reality.

Coaching 101: Discover the Power of Coaching ~ by Robert E. Logan and Sherilyn Carlton.  I was personally impacted by this book while going through CoachNet training with the North American Baptist Conference of Churches in Canada.  I wish someone in my early days of ministry had exposed me to these concepts of "Active Listening"... I wouldn't have flung myself so arrogantly and regretfully into many conversations. 

The Human Experience ~ DVD documentary by Grassroots Films.  This beautiful and moving documentary (not "Christian") serves as an introduction to differing experiences and paradigms that exist in our world today.  We can't assume that just because we view life/faith/world through our __(fill in the blank)__ lens that others from completely different backgrounds/languages/cultures/experiences will see things the same way we do.

Christianity Rediscovered ~ by Vincent Donovan.  This book tells the dramatic story of a Catholic missionary to the Masai... It wasn't until Donovan discovered humility, community and a deeply rooted appreciation for the people and culture of the Masai that he felt he discovered Jesus personally.  And until that moment, he realized he didn't have much to share.

Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours, A Study of the Church in the Four Provinces ~ by Roland Allen.  This book examines our patterns of ministry against the approaches of the earliest church movements.  This is a powerful reminder, again, to not grow arrogant in our methodologies, as if we have evolved to be the fittest missionaries in history.  Perhaps we can learn something by remembering what made mission in the 1st century so effective?

The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church ~ Alan Hirsch.  I would like to humbly state that we drew up the model for Hub in Calgary as this book was being printed... so I realize that once again someone else came up with my brilliant ideas.  :)  I especially love the hub and nodes network discussions (the diagram on p.204 looks remarkably similar to the Romans 16 network I've been drawing for the last 7 years or so)... and I have to admire that Hirsch does a much more thorough job at explaining networked/partnered ministry.

The Celtic Way of Evangelism, Tenth Anniversary Edition: How Christianity Can Reach the West . . .Again ~ by George Hunter III.  Only a few books outside the Bible have impacted me as profoundly as this one has.  My developing approaches toward partnership and creative initiatives in mission were both affirmed and enhanced through this introspection of St. Patrick's way of ministry.  Rarely a week goes by that this book doesn't pop up my conversations about the activity of the Church.

mobilizing others in ministry

This is the graphic from the first slide for my session at the Minnesota Church Expo tomorrow.  The workshop will focus on "how to mobilze your church for personal outreach".  Should be an encouraging, and hopefully radical (in the real sense of the word), look at "outreach" and our tendency to do it alone... or not do it at all.  Some of my favorite topics such as Cultural Intelligence, Romans 16, St. Patrick, Generational Transference and Active Listening will be explored... maybe... if time allows.  Can't wait!  Come on by!

Romans 2:17-24: Part 1 ~ rant

Many, many years ago, God had an issue with the people that claimed to be his followers.  These people had openly called themselves "God’s people".  They bragged about their special privilege among the nations.  But their behavior was so hypocritical that they became an embarrassment to God’s name.  They had become so full of their own pride and their own pursuits, and so weak in their influence, that the other nations ridiculed God’s people... which naturally extended into a ridicule of God.  When God’s people spoke, others only laughed at their hollow, false words.  When God’s people claimed righteousness, others only needed to point out their blatant sins.  When God’s people acted as if they were the possessors of justice, others only needed to say: “Ha!  You are no different than us… you oppress the poor, you take advantage of foreigners, you mistreat women and minorities, you pilfer and profane and pervert.  You lie in wait and plan in secret.  You are no better than us… and perhaps you are worse… because you actually claim to be better.”

Back in those days, God told a man named Isaiah to give this message: “My name is blasphemed all day long because of you.”  (Isaiah 52:5)

Paul addresses this problem in the letter-book of Romans.

Romans 2:17-24 ~~ ¹⁷ Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God; ¹⁸ if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; ¹⁹ if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, ²⁰ an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— ²¹ you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? ²² You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? ²³ You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? ²⁴ As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

Paul is writing as a Jewish person living in a Gentile world.  Paul is also writing to a group of people in Rome that consisted of a sizeable representation of Jewish people living in the very non-Jewish Rome.  Simply put, Paul wants them to check their attitude+actions.  A superiority-complex has no place in true faith.  A boasting believer reinforces the reasonable doubt of a non-believer.  A person who has had the privilege of learning the Good News about God had, therefore, better not become conceited about that learning.  Someone who preaches against the sin in others, but fails to apply the same truth in their own lives, gives a rotten gospel.  A hypocritical message from the mouth of an arrogant believer becomes toxic in the ears of non-believers.  And the result is a society that ridicules the believers… and blasphemes God.

So forgive me this little modern day rant – but I can't help it.  I am concerned with the state of Christianity in our day (within which I include myself).  I used to think that because I was American, and that because I was a Christian, and that because I was an "evangelical" Christian... that I was pretty darn special in the eyes of God.   But now I am convinced that people like me need to read this passage.  And after reading this passage, I am convinced it should be read it again.  And again.  And again.

It is true that people in our society blaspheme God often these days... all over the TV, all over my kid's playground... all over relationships... all over.  But I am convinced that it is also true that people blaspheme God because the message North American Christians have lived has not always been true.   I believe many people have rejected God in our society because there have been far too many times when “Christians” have not represented God well.  “Christians” have been known to point fingers at the splinters of others while blindly ignoring their own planks.  How do we expect our society to react to this?  How can we expect our society to not blaspheme God when our inconsistent faith has led them this way?  How long can we cry “Lamb!” when we have acted like wolves.  We “believers” like to consider ourselves “guides for the blind”… but we have led for too long with our own eyes shut.  Our society across the continent is saying, “You are no better than us” (e.g. Read UnChristian by David Kinnamon and Gabe Lyons).  While many Christians would like to blame non-believers for the corruption of our modern nations, perhaps much of the blame is on the distorted message from “believers”. 

It could be said that God is blasphemed in our society today because of us.

Who would want to embrace a message of hypocrisy and arrogance?  I wouldn’t. 

(part 2 tomorrow)

Affinity is the new Identity

Is "affinity" the new "identity"?  In the 1960s, youth culture's top priority was discovering identity (Who am I?).  As the century moved on and youth culture played more and more of a significant role in Western society, autonomy (How am I unique?) was upgraded to that primary role.  But now, suggests Mark Oestreicher, affinity (Where do I belong?) has moved to the top.[1]

Churches and parachurch ministries have done well in the last 50 years addressing the identity and autonomy of adolescents.  Age-specific youth groups have become a major hallmark of the way ministry is practiced.  These groups have focused on helping preteens, teens and tweens discover who they are and how each is created uniquely by God.  Adolescents have been for the most part affirmed in their identity and autonomy by churches and ministry organizations.

But the times have changed.  Oestreicher, the president of Youth Specialties, has spent tremendous energy surveying the youth ministry landscape in North American.  He has come to the conclusion that our churches and para-churches have been far too slow responding to the shift towards affinity.  "Youth ministries," he writes, "are built on assumptions and values and methods that are outdated for the teenagers we passionately want to serve today." [2]

This hypothesis resonates with my own research.  In many cases, youth ministries in themselves have been extremely successful in helping students and young adults find a rooted confidence in God as well as in providing a tangible experience of God's intentions for the Church in terms of community and incarnational faith.  But in terms of helping youth and young adults gain a sense of belonging in a larger, wider movement outside of their own segmented age group, our organizations seem to have really fallen short.  In other words, once someone graduates from youth group, our churches really struggle to know how to provide a welcoming and engaging environment. 

There are many possible approaches to the present situation.  One approach involves continuing the status-quo of cookie-cutter age-segregated games and discipleship programs that provide tremendous identity and autonomy of discipleship for teens and tweens but fail to incorporate young people into the body of a local church.  While this approach was once necessary, it seems inappropriate and inadequate to address the issues facing adolescents in the current age. 

Another approach is what Oesteicher terms "youth ministry 3.0" - a contextualized, present-focused, communion/mission-oriented ministry.  This approach promises to be a bit messier (not in regards to gross-out games), with a shift in emphasis from deciphering how to create the greatest weekly program to discerning how to create the best possible network of leadership-development and equipping-culture for young people.  By necessity this will mean that youth ministry must exhibit more integration with parents and church leaders while still promoting the identity and autonomy of adolescents.  Considering the actual and potential network of belonging, youth ministry needs to move towards a mentality of being there, in person, in communion with God, in active-practice of faith for the specific needs of the student.

[1] Oestreicher, Mark.  Youth Ministry 3.0: A Manifestor of Where We've Been, Where We Are, And Where We Need to Go. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008, 43.

[2] ibid., 43.

advent conspiracy

A Walmart worker was trampled to death.  Two people were killed at a Toys-R-Us.  In light of yesterday's shopping-related deaths (words that should never be associated together)... check this out:

Go to http://adventconspiracy.com to discover some more.

the name of this site

So I use the name "jesusfollower" for this site.  I've thought about changing it... just to "ken castor" or something else.  Every now and then I am concerned that "jesusfollower" could sound pretentious to those who don't know me.  I imagine visitors to this site asking, "Who does this guy think he is?" 

But the name isn't meant to communicate that I think I'm the only true follower of Jesus out there.  There are millions of followers of Jesus.  The name is simply meant to communicate a goal in my life... in our lives- basically that following Jesus is the best thing we could possibly do.  And I really want to invite you to join with me in that pattern.

Several years ago, the idea of being a Jesus Follower welled up in me one day...

Bridging Divided Worlds ~

        Churches have always struggled with generational changes.  The rate of change in the last fifty years has only exacerbated that tension.  Pre-boomers, baby boomers, gen Xers and Millenials present a phenomenal range of perceptions and world views in regards to religion. 
        Bridging Divided Worlds presents an enormous study of congregational trends in the United States regarding the unities and disunities of generational realities in American churches... 

Restless Gods ~ by Reginald Bibby

        Restless Gods shares the results of extensive research into the spiritual practices of Canadians over the last 50 years.  Trends relating to church attendance, cultural secularization, and renewed interest in spirituality among emerging generations are examined alongside future prospectives for religion.  Reginald Bibby masterfully articulates the extensive survey findings and brings the reader along in interpreting the data.   In doing so, Restless Gods offers a valuable insight into the religious desires, frustrations and aspirations of the over thirty million people that call Canada home.          
        The portrait of religious life in Canada is an intriguing one... 

the spiral decay of culture

"I Kissed a Girl" is a phenomenon.  This new song by Katy Perry that is getting stuck in every teenager's head in North America is driving me crazy this week.  It's getting into my head too!  Argh!  It was a song for Dancing With the Stars last night.  Tyra Banks discussed it on her show yesterday.  It's been on multiple entertainment and news spots.  (Not that I watch those shows... I'm just saying.)  It's getting so much airplay and video-play that this song is becoming a part of the current youth generation's culture.  Perry's song, "I Kissed a Girl" is stirring a fad at high school and college parties: girls experimenting with kissing girls.  The catchy lyrics (included below) encourage the discovery of what it would be like for a girl to try to kiss a girl, after having a few drinks, of course.  As a result, girls who would have never considered doing such a thing are being enticed to flirt with bisexuality in an environment of alcohol, under the guise of innocence and fun.  Doesn't that trouble anyone?

I think what bothers me most is the careless promotion of such a sexually explosive subject among pre-teens and young teenagers.  I don't fault Katy Perry for all of it either- I think she just plain sold out.  The music industry is driving this song... the video channels are eating it up... the entertainment shows are loving it's edge.  This song is making people wealthy... so they shove it in front of our ears and eyes.  No ethical thought is given to how many young girls are listening to this song, over and over, singing it's addictive lyrics in their head several times a week.  No matter what anyone's ideas about homo/bi/sexuality are, what's happening with this song is irresponsible.  If this were a heterosexual song, it would still be irresponsible.  It says, "Hey kids, want to have some fun?  Get drunk and taste the swinger lifestyle.  It's no big deal.  It doesn't mean anything.  It's just once.  Come on.  You might like it."

But nothing is new under the sun.