Despising None blog and podcast

ABSTINENCE PLEDGE HAS NO EFFECT, TEEN STUDY SHOWS

Joe Ball — Mon, 5 Jan 2009 11:21:00 -0400

There was a report issued last week from John Hopkins University on the effect of abstinence only programs (both True Love Waits and in school sex ed classes). Here is the link to the entire article.

Here are some of the excerpts from that article.

Teen-agers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.

The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a "virginity pledge," but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.

Rosenbaum focused on about 3,400 students who had not had sex or taken a virginity pledge in 1995. She compared 289 students who were 17 years old on average in 1996, when they took a virginity pledge, with 645 who did not take a pledge but were otherwise similar. She based that judgment on about 100 variables, including their attitudes and their parents' attitudes about sex and their perception of their friends' attitudes about sex and birth control.

"This study came about because somebody who decides to take a virginity pledge tends to be different from the average American teen-ager. The pledgers tend to be more religious. They tend to be more conservative. They tend to be less positive about sex. There are some striking differences," Rosenbaum said. "So comparing pledgers to all non-pledgers doesn't make a lot of sense."

By 2001, Rosenbaum found, 82 percent of those who had taken a pledge had retracted their promises, and there was no significant difference in the proportion of students in both groups who had engaged in any type of sexual activity, including giving or receiving oral sex, vaginal intercourse, the age at which they first had sex, or their number of sexual partners. More than half of both groups had engaged in various types of sexual activity, had an average of about three sexual partners and had had sex for the first time by age 21 even if they were unmarried.

"It seems that pledgers aren't really internalizing the pledge," Rosenbaum said. "Participating in a program doesn't appear to be motivating them to change their behavior. It seems like abstinence has to come from an individual conviction rather than participating in a program."

While there was no differenc e in the rate of sexu ally transmitted diseases in the two groups, the percentage of students who reported condom use was about 10 points lower for those who had taken the pledge, and they were about 6 percentage points less likely to use any form of contraception. For example, about 24 percent of those who had taken a pledge said they always used a condom, compared with about 34 percent of those who had not.

Just a couple of thoughts.....

In a way programs like true love waits and abstinence only education are working...they are postponing the age at which sexual activities begin....and that is good.

This quote "Rosenbaum said.”Participating in a program doesn't appear to be motivating them to change their behavior. It seems like abstinence has to come from an individual conviction rather than participating in a program.". Well duh! That is the crux of any major decision we make as individuals. If there isn't a conviction to a decision then what is there to keep us held to our decision?

Finally, maybe we need to do a better job and informing about contraceptives and disease prevention. The line has been used for along time, that if we teach about birth control then we are tacitly giving approval for our students to have sex. But logically that doesn't hold up. We teach about alcohol and drug abuse abuse and prevention, we teach about the dangers of driving fast and wearing seatbelts, we teach our students both how to swim and to wear a life vest, we teach about consequences of making bad decisions and how to be responsible to make good ones.
so what do you think?
Do we need to teach just the truths of scripture and God's plan of sexual relations between married adutls and abstinance for everyone else?
or do we need to to teach on sexually transmitted diseases and safety measure to prevent getting them?

Lessons from a Fatal Accident

Joe Ball — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 12:43:00 -0400

If you are not in the Louisville area, you may have missed the report of 4 students being killed when the car they were riding in was involved in an accident. Details can be found here.
In a nutshell, 5 students left an event sponsored by Youth Alive, the driver was not liscensed, the car was stolen, and a after a traffic stop there was a high speed chase, where the young driver fled the scene and crashed into a tree. The car was split in half and the four passengers were killed (including 3 brothers). The driver survived and is looking at several charges.
It is a tragedy and now officals from Youth Alive are mourning and trying to find answers to questions that everyone wants to know.
Some things we need to remind ourselves of:
Adequate transportation is a must. One of the reasons circulating that the boys got in the car is that the van they were transported to the event in was full. They didn't want to wait and may have found their own way home. We need to make sure that we have adequate transportation to and from our events. Many churches are guilty of squeezing one more student on our vans or buses to keep from having to make a second or third trip.
Have a written policy for transportation and enforce it. Policies are worthless if they are not enforced and one exception could, in a courtroom, void your policy. We need to make sure our students and our chaperones know what our policies are.
Make sure our Chaperones know what our rules are and are willing and able to enforce them. Our policies are only as good as the people that are enforcing them. If one chaperone makes one exception for one student then our policy could be seen as null and void.
Have a plan in place to deal with the media. No one wants tragic events like these to happen, but we need to have a plan in place in how and who and where we will take questions from the media if something like this were to happen in our ministry. The more we can "control" what is being said and who speaks on our behalf, the better off we our. We aren't trying to hide anything, we just need to make sure that only people that we want to speak on our behalf are, and that they are informed of the chain of events.
Have parent/guardian contact information on all of our participants.  That way if there are transportantion issues we know who we can contact for permission and to give information and suggestions on how we are handling issues that arrive during our events.
Legal counsel may be needed, so we need to know who our church or ministry has on retainer, or who we are to contact in the event that legal represenation is needed.
Who is our up-line. Our supervisors will need to know what happened. We need a written plan in advance on who we are to contact and when in the event that the unthinkable happens.

It’s Complicated: The American Teenager

Joe Ball — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 11:39:00 -0400

Click below to see excerpts from "Its Complicated: The American Teenager".
Robin Bowman’s five-year journey into the heart of teenage America created a series of 414 “collaborative portraits,” wherein she shares her discoveries of a generation now coming of age. In searing and intimate photographs, presented alongside the young people’s voices of passion, pride, embarrassment, lust, pain, bewilderment, anxiety, joy, uncertainty, and rage, the book charts the coming of age of the largest generation in America—77 million strong—in every region of the country and every socioeconomic group: from a Texas debutante to teenage gang members in New York City, from a drag queen in Georgia to a coal miner in West Virginia.
Bowman’s intimate photographs ask us to reconcile preconceived ideas and stereotypes of teenagers with the diversity of individuals in the portraits. This book and the traveling exhibition it accompanies are about the inside lives of these kids and how they see their reality in their own voices.
http://www.msnbc.com/modules/interactive.aspx?type=ss&launch=26199947,22043457&pg=1
There is much to be learned here.

Christmas time and youth ministry

Joe Ball — Mon, 1 Dec 2008 22:05:00 -0400

The older I get the more these two things “make” Christmas for me. The first obviously is the celebration of the birth of our savior, and the second is the time spent with family. It is amazing that these may be the two things than seem to get lost the most in our Christmas celebrations. That is why this time of year is one of my favorite in ministry, it gives us time to do what we should do best….tell the story of Jesus and be family.
There are also so principles of youth ministry that we can exercise during this time of year.
Family ministry-Jordan was about 4 when, as a Pre-K student at Heritage Christian Academy in Hopkinsville he memorized the Christmas story from Luke. That year at the Christmas Eve service at Edgewood, he stood as Gina, Karen and I sat around him as he recited the Christmas story. I couldn’t tell you much about what else happened during that service, but that moment stands out. Our family got to be part of the larger church family in helping to celebrate the Christmas season. Every service during the advent season we would have a different family unit lead us in the advent devotion, a 3 or 4 generation family, a single parent family, a blended family, a couple of single adults. It is who we were as a church and was good to see all the church family represented. What a great opportunity we have to reach out and uplift the families in our church family.
Visitor Friendly-It is also a time for pageants and plays and musicals, all of which bring visitors out of the community into the church building. Have we done our best to look our best for company? I not sure how it was in your house, but in mine, when we know that company’s coming the house will look it’s best. You know how it is; there is clean, momma clean and company clean! Also do we have greeters at the door welcoming people, have people in the parking lot helping to find parking spots and directing people to the correct entrance doors? Have we thought about how we are going to gather information on visitors and how we are going to follow-up with them once the event is over?
Community involvement-Maybe no other time of year our we as intensely focused on the community as this time of year. From collecting toys, filling shoeboxes, serving in soup kitchens to providing gloves, mitten, scarves and coats for those that need them, we do great a reaching out to those in our communities that are less fortunate than we are. It is said that this generation of students is one of the most social conscious generations to ever come along. What a great way for us to involve students in the life of the church. It is also a great way for us to build relationships with individual students in our church family. There are a lot of great opportunities for conversation while serving those in our communities.
Schools Involvement- Every school has a Christmas program. They may not call it that, but they have one. Our attendance at these concerts, plays, and events show to our students they matter to us outside the walls of the church building. It is also a great way to meet the family of our students, and it says a lot to a parent about how important their child is to us when we show up at events not at our building. We can also open our church to host these events at the church. One of the highlights of Christmas for years in Hopkinsville was the Hopkinsville High School Christmas concert in the sanctuary of First Baptist Church. When the lights would dim, and the choir would walk in singing “Angels we have heard on High” it was a taste of heaven. The sanct uary at First Baptist wasn’t as big as the High School gym, but it was a lot more conducive to music than the gym and it was a great way to minister to the choir students. At Edgewood on more than one occasion we hosted the Christian County Middle School Choir for either their Christmas or Spring Concert. We were always a willing host and it showed students, administrator and a community that we cared for and about their students.
There are a plethora of other ideas. Let us not get so consumed in the season that we forget to proclaim the story of the arrival of a Savior!

conversation with college students part 3

Joe Ball — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:31:35 -0400
Today on the despisingnone podcast we are listening to the conclusion to the conversation with college students talk about how their generation views life, church and relationships. It is a candid look into what they are thinking, and particularly what they are "looking for in a church"

Acts 1:8 is a new initiative by the Collegiate Ministry Department of the Kentucky Baptist Convention. Is merges discipleship and leadership development with hands-on missions experiences.

Preventive maintenance.

Joe Ball — Wed, 5 Nov 2008 11:10:00 -0400

The manufacturer recommends that I get the oil changed in my car every 5000 miles to keep it running at peak performance. So when the odometer hit 5000 miles on that new Camry and the maintenance required light came on, I knew it was time to take a few moments and get the oil changed. So as the techs from the instant oil change place are frantically working to get me in and out in under thirty minutes I began to think about how this experience applies to what we do in student ministry.
How long has it been since you “opened the hood” on your ministry and looked at what is going on there? SO today let’s spot check some area of our ministry.
Environment- Look around your youth space. What do you see? Are the posters from the Sunday school lesson from two quarters ago still hanging on the walls? What about those markers that stopped working, which we still have on the table. The students just know not to grab the red one, because it hasn’t worked since we made cards last Christmas. Keep looking, there it is in the corner buried under the stack of registration cards for Disciple Now that we held in March. Have you found it yet? It’s there, the boom-box with the dual cassette deck and the kicking equalizer. You haven’t bought a cassette in at least 6 years, so why is it still there? Take some time and tidy up the place.
Clean your Office-Okay, so now everyone that knows me can stop laughing now. I can’t tell you when the last time I saw the top of my desk. But I do occasionally go through the piles that are on it a weed them out. Throw out the summer camp brochures, take the flier you saved about the upcoming meeting you want to attend, respond that you are coming, and throw the thing away. It November, take the file with all you summer camp medical forms and file it. It is amazing how creative I can be when I don’t have to move piles to find the top of my desk.
Encourage your workers- The new church year has been going on for at least a month, maybe two. Take some time this week to write all your workers and thank them for being a partner in the ministry. The time it takes to write the notes is well worth the investment of time, kind of like me taking my car in this morning.
Examine your heart-I know for me I always have something that needs to be done. It could be finishing up the last minute details on the next event we have planned, an in-box full of emails to be answered, a door at home that needs to be painted, grass that needs to be mowed. If your life is anything like mine it is full of things that have to be done. But we must take time to guard our hearts. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” Take the time on a daily basis to spend time with God. It is not enough for us to count the time we use in lesson preparation as our time with God. We must spend time with God.
Also let me encourage you, if you don’t have someone all ready to find one or two people that you can meet with for accountability. There is something in us as human that makes it easier to do things if we know that someone else is holding us accountable to do them.   The times over coffee with Bill and Steve are some of the most precious times I had. They made sure to ask the tough questions every time we met. And they still do. Last Saturday night as Gina and I got to spend time with Bill and Marsha at the Starbucks in Hopkinsville, we chit chatted for a little while, but the question always comes, and I know it is always coming; “so how are you doing, Joe”. And I have to tell him.
Go Home-There is a family at home waiting on you. Life passes by to fast to always be at work. Both of our kids our seniors; Karen in college and Jordan in high school.   Yesterday they both were in elementary school involved in dance and scouts and little league. Take your spouse on a date and play in the leaves.
They all may seem like little things now, but deferred maintenance can be costly in the long run.

Conversation with College students about what they are looking for in a church part 2

Joe Ball — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:45:27 -0400
Today on the despisingnone podcast we are listening to college students talk about how their generation views life, church and relationships. It is a candid look into what they are thinking, and particularly what they are "looking for in a church"

this is part 2 of 3

Acts 1:8 is a new initiative by the Collegiate Ministry Department of the Kentucky Baptist Convention. Is merges discipleship and leadership development with hands-on missions experiences.

Conversation with College students about what they are looking for in a church

Joe Ball — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:00:33 -0400
Today on the despisingnone podcast we are listening to college students talk about how their generation views life, church and relationships. It is a candid look into what they are thinking, and particularly what they are "looking for in a church"

Acts 1:8 is a new initiative by the Collegiate Ministry Department of the Kentucky Baptist Convention. Is merges discipleship and leadership development with hands-on missions experiences.

Reflections from Catalyst

Joe Ball — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:58:00 -0400

So it has been 2 1/2 days since Gina and I left Atlanta after attending Catalyst 08
This is my second year attending and has quickly become one the the favorite leadership events of anykind that I have attended. The worship is extrodinary, the speakers are challenging and I am always challenged to think differently and deeper.
The thought that has keep turning over in my head is: "To reach people on one else is reaching, we must do what no one else is doing".
It is a simple concept. One that you think we as youth ministers would have all ready grasped. But honestly, I see very few fresh and new ideas and a lot of tweaking and retreading of old ones.
The takeway from this, as Andy Stanley put it is:
"Become preoccupied with those you haven't reached as opposed to those you are trying to keep."

Rural Youth Ministry

Joe Ball — Tue, 7 Oct 2008 11:09:00 -0400

Recently I had the opportunity to lead a conference on Rural Youth Ministry. In preparation for this I ask some youth ministers in Kentucky that are working in rural areas to tell me what they were doing that was successful in reaching students in rural areas. And as always, I am amazed by what God is doing in youth ministry here in Kentucky. Let me share a few of the insights gleaned from the conversations we shared.

Keith Abrams, youth minister at Westport Baptist said, “I have kids that get to youth group by horse back, tractor, and 4 wheeler...so I guess we are rural.” He continued, “I think a big part of why our group works is because I grew up just like them...hunting, fishing, farming, cussing, chewing, dirt-biken, 4 wheelin. So I have common ground with them.”

Jay Montgomery, Associate pastor at First Baptist Carrolton said, “In rural areas, school events are their social life.” The “rural areas are big on family (birthdays, holidays, special events that everyone celebrates aunts/uncles, cousins, etc.).” Also high school “graduation is one of our biggest events in the community. As is the County Fair and local festivals-everyone attends to see who else is there!”

“Bus ministry is a necessity”, commented Wayne Yeager from Immanuel Baptist in Pikeville”.“ I can tell you that we have our pre-bus ministry numbers and post-bus ministry numbers. We practically doubled overnight. When I was at Crittenden, KY, I could tell students to meet me at church at a certain time or that our meetings were on Wednesdays at 6 and they would come. Here, I have to go get them. In fact, I don't do an event anymore unless I have a bus and time to go and get students. It impacts our numbers that much.” He continues, “ We pick up kids as far as 30 minutes away from church and my bus run goes about 1 - 1.5 hours each Sunday and Wednesday.”

Montgomery concurs saying, “Bus ministries work well because of there not really being a centralized town/city/demographic area. Our route for taking home kids, about 10 middle schoolers, takes about 90-100 minutes. These kids would not come otherwise.”

“Hard work is important to rural people”, said Ryan Coffey, youth minister at Eubank Baptist in Pulaski County. “Two years ago I had a deacon that wouldn’t support anything I did. His son was in my group and the deacon constantly was a thorn in my side. One day they got in a bind with their hay crop. His son called and asked if I would help them put up hay. I worked about 8 hrs in the hot sun and when we finished he tried to pay me. I wouldn’t let him and I told him to make a donation to the youth fund instead to help pay for students to go to camp. The next Sunday he gave me a personal check of $100 and gave an additional $100 to the youth fund. Since that day, he has been one of my strongest supporters. Hard work is important.” Keith Abrams agreed saying, “They” (the students) “like to work. They do great with mission projects. They love it when you jump in and get your hands dirty with them.”

On doing events in the rural communities, Tree Akers, youth minister at Northside in Elizabethtown said, “With some of our activities, we would use the resources they had (farm, fields, etc.) to pull off events (hayride, bonfire, yuck day, etc.). We took youth ministry to them, and didn’t wait for them to come to us.”
Yeager commented, “Travel is REQUIRED. We don't have a lot of places we can take students. No fun centers. No malls. No amusement park nearby. We have a bowling alley, Mr. Gatti's and a movie theater. If you want to go to a baseball game, amusem ent park, etc, you have to travel at least 2 hours.” Which means, he continued, “Creativity is REQUIRED. When everything is a good distance away, and you have students who can't afford a whole lot, you need to get creative on how to have events that will impact students and get them out on a budget.”

Abrams said, “My kids aren't impressed by fancy or big show type events. My best-attended event every year is a hay wagon ride to a huge bonfire. We cook hot dogs and smores. The kids just like hanging out”


I think we missed our chance

Joe Ball — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:32:00 -0400
I have spent most of the last 3 days without power. The remnants of Hurricane Ike hit Louisville on Sunday morning and knocked the power out about 1:15 Sunday afternoon. It could have been worse. We had no wind damage, no trees down, just no electricity. 60 of the 120 counties in Kentucky were affected by wind damage and power outages. Over 300,000 homes in the metro Louisville area alone were without power. As I write this Thursday morning over 100,00 still are. LG&E our service provider is doing a yeoman’s job of getting powered restored. Most schools have missed 3 days of classes; other like Jefferson County will be out all week.
But I think as churches we missed a fantastic opportunity to "be the church".
Here's what I mean. Sunday night most churches rightfully so cancelled services. But Monday, Monday provided ample opportunity for us to "be the church" in our community. Every community had people with down trees, no power, students out of school and government officials saying not to get out unless you had to. So did Tuesday and Wednesday and Today.
So where were we......Why didn't we mobilize students and adults that were staying home to clear limbs, cut trees, deliver meals and ICE. I heard of only one instance on the news where any church did anything. They opened up their building for people to shower in, And believe me a hot shower would have been welcome. While we had water to shower, there was no power to the water heater. We had a great opportunity to make an impact in our communities, to meet our neighbors and to as my friend Wendy would say "be Jesus with skin."
This is not an attack on disaster relief efforts or teams. They do a fantastic job and I am not sure they were needed here. The need in the gulf is far greater. Dare to Care did a great job of providing food for people who needed it, but why did they have to? Every community affected had a church in it, some more than one church.
We had resources: cooks (some of the best cooking in the world happens at church), students with nothing to do (the internet doesn't work without power), and hours and hours of daylight, with warm days and cool nights. We missed a great opportunity to be light in a dark world. Let’s hope that next time we are better prepared.

Halo 3 as an outreach tool?

Joe Ball — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:23:00 -0400

This was originally posted at Monday Morning Insight.

Halo 3 is well on its way to becoming the most popular video game ever made. The shoot-em-up multi-player game has now found itself in the hands of church ministers and youth pastors. Church leaders are using the game to draw in youth, particularly teenage boys, from communities. They claim that teenage boys are often the hardest demographic to reach, and video games such as Halo 3 help to attract new members. The use of the game as a promotion for youth functions has raised several ethics questions.
David Cook, professor of Christian ethics at Wheaton College, said, “The church rightly is concerned about the impact of video material on everyone, especially young people,” Cook said.
“Sexual content and violence are often features in that medium and the church ought not to be encouraging or promoting such videos,” Cook continued.
Some churches say team play on Halo 3 encourages fellowship and togetherness.
Sweetwater Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, Ga. offers Halo 3 for its youth. The gaming is usually followed by something to eat and a lesson.
Church leaders in favor of the game say it is an effective modern tool to reach the elusive audience of boys and young men.
Other churches and youth organizations feel there are better ways to involve youth in the gospel.
“The Wittenberg Lutheran Church and Student Center would not offer Halo or similar video games as a way to draw in youth from the community,” Alyssa Moehring, president of the Wittenberg Lutheran Center at ISU, said. Moehring went on to say that the center often holds fellowship nights for youth, who are encouraged to bring friends.
While the fellowship nights often involve board games and food, Halo is not a consideration.
“If we believe that Christ is the way, the truth and the life we must find winsome ways of expressing that truth which will draw young and old alike into investigating and finding Jesus Christ and all that He brings into the lives of those who seek to be His followers,” Cook said.
Opponents of Halo in youth groups point out that the video game associates arousal with killing.
They fear the churches might be offering violent content that some children would not have access to elsewhere.

So… what do you think? Is your church using Halo 3? Would you? Why or why not?

Youth Baptism numbers

Joe Ball — Tue, 2 Sep 2008 14:06:00 -0400
“The sky is falling, The Sky is Falling”, shouted Chicken Little after the acorn fell on it’s head. When ask how he knew this he replied “I saw it with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears and part of it fell on my head”. And while the sky really didn’t fall on Chicken Little there was cause for alarm, after all his head did hurt.

I don’t want to be accused of being Chicken Little and sounding a false alarm but it maybe time to sound the alarm about youth ministry in Kentucky. In looking over statistics over the last 30 years, I have noticed a trend. Youth (ages 12-17) baptisms have steadily declined over this time period. And while I know that baptisms are not a true measure of discipleship and that not all churches report and that fewer churches are reporting today than reported then…I have heard all the debate, the truth is we are loosing ground at a phenomenal rate! And we are baptizing fewer and fewer while the number of youth this age in Kentucky keeps growing and growing. Just about every school system in Kentucky is about to build, building or just finished building.

A look at the numbers: The last year that we baptized more than 4000 students… 2000. The last year we baptized more than 4500…1990. More than 5000…1982, and it has been since 1975 since we baptized more than 6000. And every student in our youth ministries was born after 1990. In the last reporting year we have on Kentucky Baptist Convention churches only 50 baptized more than 10 students that year. Out of almost 2400 churches, only 50 had double-digit baptisms. In fact there were some associations, that all their churches combined did not have double-digit baptisms of students.

It isn’t any better in the Southern Baptist Convention either. In the past month I got from NAMB, preliminary data on the top 100 churches in the SBC in youth baptisms for 2007. The magic number to be one of the top 100 churches in the entire SBC in student baptisms was 33. I was glad that 2 of our Kentucky Baptist Convention churches were on that list, but saddened that more weren’t.

So we are we to do? I wish there was an easy answer to that question. One thing we do is to be more intentional in our evangelism efforts. It was refreshing to sit with Danny Pacetti, the youth minister at Jefferstown Baptist Church and hear him talk about how they are going to be more intentional in their ministry.

One of the places they are going to do this is with Uptown. J-town Baptist for 10 years has successfully sponsored Uptown. On Friday nights it is a place for students to come and play games, hang out, be with their friends, etc. Pacettie says, “Everybody in J-town knows what Uptown is and where it is”. It has been a safe place for parents to drop off their students.

Most communities, he continued, have a “real need for a space for their kids to hang out and get together with their friends, as churches we can utilize that need”. But part of his frustration came in that students that came to Uptown were not being reached with the Gospel. Pacetti says that their commitment this year is to be “intentionally verbal” with “every individual” that enters Uptown.

There is an old adage that says, “a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step" ;. For Chicken Little is was a step toward the king where he met Henny Penny, Ducky Lucky Goosey Loosey, Turkey Lurkey and the others. For Danny and the youth ministry team at J-town Baptist it is a step to be more intentional at Uptown. For me it is a commitment to be more intentional in sharing the Gospel when I am with students.

The sky is falling and I know it because I see it with my own eyes, hear it with my own ears and have been hit over the head with the reality of the truth.

Principles of Campus Outreach

Joe Ball — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:31:00 -0400
On this episode of the despising none podcast we have a conversation with Rodney Goodlett of Kentucky Youth Alive. A former youth minister Rodney's heart is to reach students for Christ, connect them with a local church, and disciple them into lifelong followers of Christ. Our conversation today centers on the local school campus, using students as campus missionaries, campus clubs and community outreach events to reach students with the Gospel.
Rodney also can help with the seven project, a community outreach event that has had tremendous success in the communities it has been in Kentucky.
You can email Rodney at ky7@mac.com
Here are the links to resources mentioned in the podcast;
www.thesevenproject.com seven project student site
www.thesevenproject.org seven project site for youth leaders
www.yausa.com                    Assemblies of God youth site with information on campus missionaries and Youth Alive clubs

To listen to the podcast, click the podcast icon below and select "open" OR right-click the icon and select "save target as" and save the file to your hard drive. You can then play the podcast episode in your media player.

HINT: Choosing "save target as" is usually quicker and more efficient.

The podcast is also available for download at itunes. To access it there go to the itunes store, click on podcast and search for despising none

Oral Sex IS Sex, and Most Teens Don’t Know It

Joe Ball — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:34:00 -0400

There is a great article about this at youthminstry.com. It is becoming more and more evident that our students do not consider having oral sex as "having sex." Some quotes from the article:
The messages communicated by the media are that sex outside of marriage is okay (and expected!), oral sex is not as big a deal as intercourse, and exploring multiple sexual partners and experiences should be encouraged. And these messages are becoming more common and explicit in relation to oral sex.
...
Some 36 percent of teens ages 15-17 admit to having had oral sex. These numbers increase among teens and young adults ages 15-24.
About 75 percent of teens ages 15-17 who have had intercourse have also had oral sex, while 13 percent of teens ages 15-17 who have never had intercourse have admitted to engaging in oral sex.
A 2003 series of national surveys conducted for the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and Seventeen magazine revealed that half of all teens ages 15-17 do not believe that oral sex is "sex."
As they mature and get older, teen views on oral sex only get worse. A survey of undergraduate students revealed that 59 percent of college students do not define oral sex as sex.
Another reason students are tempted to have oral sex is social pressure. More than 92 percent of teens think being a virgin in high school is good. But, in the eyes of many teens, you can have oral sex and still remain a virgin. One-quarter of sexually active adolescents report engaging in oral sex as a strategy to avoid intercourse! The belief that "everybody's doing it" may lead some teens to believe it's alright for them. A 2004 survey by KFF revealed that 61 percent of teens and young adults believe "waiting to have sex is a nice idea but nobody really does."

Oral sex is becoming so common among teens that many only consider it "third base." Peer pressure undeniably plays a large role. Guys are often the initiators of oral sex encounters, but more and more girls are willingly and enthusiastically participating. In some circles, it has become expected behavior for girls. Girls with lower self-esteem will often engage in oral sex just to remain in the group or to keep guys from leaving them.
A lack of knowledge about the dangers and risks of oral sex leaves many students to make uninformed decisions. For example, 40 percent of adolescents consider oral sex to be "safer" sex, while 20 percent of teens do not even know that STD transmission can occur through oral sex.

And while we may want to blame Bill Clinton for this, this phenomenon didn't start with him. He only brought the issue to the attention of the American public and made it OK to talk about, after all if it is on the news on every TV set in America, it is OK to talk about.
We need to make sure that we include in our conversations with our students about abstinence this issue of oral sex. It is time we started talking about this in our churches. After all it is being talked about everywhere else.

A Chronological Study Bible to be released this fall

Joe Ball — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:59:00 -0400
There is a report in the USA TODAY, on Thomas Nelson Publishers release this fall.
The Chronological Study Bible will be released this fall in the midst of a Bible-publishing boom in the United States. In an industry that now as much to do with profits as with prophets, Sanford expects his new edition to have wide appeal.
Some quotes from the article:
The latest edition rejiggers the order of books, psalms, and Gospels in an effort to provide a historical framework for a text most scholars consider chronologically challenged.
At issue for scholars is a question they have grappled with for generations: When — and by whom — was the Bible written? For readers, the larger question is this: Does it really matter if Ezekial, say, appears before or after Nehemiah, and does it make a difference if a biblical timeline looks more like a zigzag?
All is not lost for the book's publishers, however. While the Ivory Tower cries heresy, the book's target demographic seems more receptive to the idea. The Rev. Brad Riley, a pastor at the First Church of the Nazarene in Wichita, said a chronological Bible would likely be most useful for newcomers to the faith.
"The Bible can be intimidating for people ... and the chronology can help people put the timeline together in their minds," Riley said.
The Rev. Tommy Bratton Jr., who leads group Bible study at the First Baptist Church in Asheville, N.C., agreed.
"We try to put our Bible studies now in context of when things occur," Bratton said. "It would give people, I think, a greater sense of how things were laid out in that way."
So what are your thoughts?
Will this be helpful in teaching our students the Bible?
Studies have shown (and so has first hand observation) that this is one of the most biblical illiterate generations to come along in a long time. Will this help us to teach scripture to this generation who may not necessarily want to do the hard work of figuring out for themselves how it all fits together?
Or is this just heresy?

what a week

Joe Ball — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:39:00 -0400

It has been a week. Started by being a week of last. Monday I took Karen to Cumberland for her last year of College. Carried all her stuff up all those flight of stairs for the last time. And as much as I hate climbing all those steps, for those many many many trips it takes to get her stuff up, I think this time next year I will miss doing that.
Then on Tuesday, Jordan began his last week of high school. He walked out the door to his car, stopped so we could take his first day of school picture (another thing we did for the last time) and headed off to school. And Tuesday night I spent all that time filling out all those school forms that I have been filling out for 17 years now. You would think that in this age of technology that we would be able to condense these forms! And just like carrying all Karen's stuff up to her dorm room, I think I will miss those forms.
Then on Wednesday, Karen came home for surgery on Thursday morning. Watching you child go to surgery prep, then waiting for the Dr to emerge with news that everything is Okay. Thursday was a looooong day. But she is fine now. Got to come home this afternoon and will head back to school this weekend. We will have to take her, she can't drive for a few days, but she is going to be OK.
God is good, and I am fortunate to be called his child

Transitioning to College

Joe Ball — Wed, 6 Aug 2008 10:00:00 -0400
And they’re off! In this part of the state, this saying is usually reserved for the spring and is in relation to the Kentucky Derby. But this time of year it he can be used appropriately for youth ministry. Our students are leaving this month and heading off to college. And for those that are going off for the first time, it will be the only time in their lives we have the opportunity to help them transition into the post youth ministry world. Our goal should be to make this transition as seamless as possible. Honestly we should have stated preparing them for this day along time ago, when they finished their sophomore year, but there are some things that we can do even know to help.

Like it or not we as youth ministers are still their connection to the local church. We have been their support, encouragement and spiritual mentors and that responsibility doesn’t end when they head to the campus, or we leave and go to a new place of ministry. We need to plan on staying in regular contact with them for at least a year.

We need to ask ourselves some honest questions. Have we given them all they need to know to be successful? Have we prepared them spiritually to be able to study scripture for themselves? Have we given them the address and meeting times of the BCM at the school they are attending? Have we contacted the campus minister to let them know who is coming to their campus? Have we given them a list of churches in the area with meeting times and locations?

What about those that are not going away? We need to have a plan to help them move into the big church and also meet their unique needs. One of the ideas that communities are doing with the young adults that stay home is a weekly community worship experience. You may not have enough students in your church to provide a unique worship experience, but several churches or an association may have enough to pull them together for a corporate worship experience. In Hopkinsville Young Adults gather once a week, on a weeknight, at a neutral location for a corporate worship and Bible Study experience. It is something for those that stay behind that is uniquely theirs. It is also something returning students can plug into when they return.

Smaller churches seem to be doing a better job at keeping these connections. The mantra “It takes a village to raise a child” is played out in the smaller church. The pervasive view is that these are our kids. They don’t belong to any one family but to the greater church family. There are more natural connections with adults in the church.

Adopt them out to a Sunday school class or W.M.U. group that will send them mail, brownies and more importantly pray for them consistently while they are away at school. You can also make sure they get the church newsletter to the college address, or mail them Sunday’s bulletin, or the hometown paper so they can keep up with what is going on.

Remote accountability with college students can also be done by text messaging, facebook, myspace or other social networks. It gives almost instant contact with the students and allows is to stay in contact. It gives us a chance to ask about if they have plugged into a local church, a Christian community on campus and about their classes.

Make a day to go visit them. I know that logistically it may not be possible for you to visit every student in your church at college. But what a way to get other adults in your church involved in their lives. There are people in your church that love to travel, or travel business p urposes. Give them a list of students and the colleges they attend and have them contact that student when they are going to be in the area. College students will very rarely turn down a free meal, so take them to eat. Someplace nice. Well actually anywhere but the cafeteria will be appreciated.

Growing up in a youth minister’s family

Joe Ball — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:43:00 -0400

Today's episode of the despisingnone podcast is an interview with our daughter Karen. Karen is a senior at the University of the Cumberlands. She talks about her experience of growing up in a youth minister's family. She talks about the joys and frustrations of being the YM kid, about having your dad as your youth minister (and your mom as a chaperone) and gives some advice to parents who have the privilege of having thier own kids in their youth ministry.

The interview is conducted by Kristie Randolph from the communications department here at the Kentucky Baptist Convention. It was just easier on Karen and I that way.

To listen to the podcast, click the podcast icon below and select "open" OR right-click the icon and select "save target as" and save the file to your hard drive. You can then play the podcast episode in your media player.

HINT: Choosing "save target as" is usually quicker and more efficient.

The podcast is also available for down load at itunes. To access it there go to the itunes store, click on podcast and search for despising none

Teens Sending Pictures by Cell Phone

Joe Ball — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:48:00 -0400
Originally Posted by casey at Ypulse.com

When a younger family member "friended" me on Facebook, I was shocked to see some of the photos she posted of her self. In college Facebook circles, uploading albums overflowing with pictures taken by you/of you is a social no-no. I can accept that a middle schooler behaves differently on a social networking site, but it was the nature of the photos that was unsettling (nothing illegal - just a few Miley-esque skimpy bikini shots).

After reading this article in the Hartford Advocate, I felt far less worried for my family, but all the more concerned for the generation as a whole. Apparently girls across the U.S. -- the newspaper dubbed them "Nokia Nolitas" -- have been snapping pictures of themselves and posting them online; some have been so scandalous that the girls have been charged with child pornography.

In some ways, I think this is just another aspect of teens figuring out who they are and acknowledges the reality that they are awakening sexually as human beings. It's healthy for girls to dress up, play around with makeup, take glamorous snapshots, and tap into their inner exhibitionist. I remember doing the same thing, to some degree. Without camera phones, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter, this step of self-discovery couldn't be made so public with such ease. At the same time, our popular culture has become increasingly sexual (with porn becoming much more mainstream and accessible, especially online) so many teen girls may be mimicking what they see online, on TV, and in music videos.

In the past six months alone, there's been a deluge of news stories about middle- and high-school students getting into trouble for sending around naked pictures and sex videos of themselves or classmates. The disposition of the cases has been wildly disparate: Some kids are arrested, some punished at school and others are lectured about online safety.

Just how widespread is this trend, and how should officials handle it when students make their sex lives public? There are endless MySpace profile pictures, taken in the mirror or at arm's length, of teenage girls in bras and boy shorts, eyes lined in black and lips slightly parted. Friendships nursed online often come with requests for nudes--or n00dz.

"Nine out of 10 kids I see have had experiences where they have put provocative photos of themselves on MySpace or Facebook," says Sonya Rencevicz, a clinical social worker and therapist in Greenwich who deals with adolescents.

Wow. Nine out of 10 seems really, really high. Is this the media creating more moral panic around teens and the internet or has this practice become that widespread? What do you think?

So is this another issue we need to address with our students? If so how?