2020-NOV-15 Meeting Notes

Rules of engagement

Ministry as an institution.

Ministry not leading to a secure attachment (per attachment theory)

We as servants are care-givers. Our role is to help children form a secure attachment with Father Lord and our mother the Church.

People are hungry for God - The ministry is not effective enough to bring people to God.

The people in our care aren’t just hungry: they’re dying of hunger. So they’re looking to anyone or anything else that offers to feed them.

Secular 2 - Worked on subtracting the sacred

Secular 3 - Spiritual Vacuum which people are struggling to fill.

Ministry was formed during a Secular 2 age and seems to be stuck in it.

"For Christians, the conflict in a Secular2 world focuses on not losing ground, on not retreating before the advance of secularism. So we push to ensure that prayer stays in public schools, to support the faith against secularism. We push to ensure that we can display Nativity scenes in town squares and city halls, so the faith isn’t kicked out of yet another space.

And, when we’re operating with a Secular2 mindset, we begin to see our people as battlefields in this war. Specifically, we see their minds as ground we cannot lose. We see young people go off to college and become disengaged from the Church, and we assume it’s because they’re being exposed to secular perspectives in secular universities. So we make sure that youth work is about stuffing their heads full of Christian perspectives. We want to make sure that kids can articulate their faith, we want to make sure that kids can defend their faith, we want to make sure that kids can own their faith."

Faith - Vibrant, Authentic

5 Needs of young people:

1. Need to know Christ (Don't Bait-n-Switch, it is not about the fun, it is about the Lord)
1. Stillness
2. Silence before prayer
2. Need to know who they truly are
1. We don't want our kids to have a "Road to Damascus" experience like St. Paul.
2. We give sports activity a priority over church activity. We focus on offering our kids the best shot at getting into college.
3. Practice self-emptying. The second need is met when the first is met.
4. Shed the false identity. Humility in place of self-centeredness. God at the core.
5. Practices: Fasting (without self-creation in a secular 3 world). Fasting from cell-phones.
6. Confession is self-emptying.
3. Need to belong to the full community of the church
1. Cultivate a real connection instead of focus on youth groups.
2. Encourage fellowship with Christ at the center
3. Practice active listening
4. Mentorship (Counsellors)
5. Ask these questions about any SS activity:
1. Is Jesus always what unites us?
2. How can we make youngester into active members of our community?
3. How to cultivate real deep connections coming from openness and vulnerability?
4. Need to be empowered by Faith that makes a difference
1. Disciple young people. Practices of discipleship:
1. They are grounded in concrete actions of turning toward and following Jesus rather than ideas or theories about Him;
2. They offer guidance and direction where there was uncertainty and hesitation; and most of all.
3. They offer an experience of God rather than facts about God;
2. Pray together. Not teach how to pray, actually do it.
3. Delegation. Older generation need to offer opportunities to the new generation.
4. Ask these questions:
1. What tasks can we put in the hands of our younger generation.
2. What concrete guidance can we give them them so they can fulfill those tasks or responsibilities?
3. What support and encouragement can we give them along the way?
5. Need to be equipped with the teachings of the Orthodox faith

Challenges:

1. Doubt
2. Self pre-occupation
3. Loneliness. FOMO.
4. Choice paralysis
5. Experience of flatness or emptiness (no sense of meaning or belonging)