I was a kid in the heyday of model making. I’d have a few bucks burning a hole in my pocket, so I’d browse the well-stocked shelves at Jamesway, Kresge, or Wendelboe’s agonizing over which kit to take home. The funny thing about it is, I was never actually that good of a model maker, because I didn’t have any patience. I’d rip open the kit when I got home and start enthusiastically gluing things together in a willy-nilly fashion, referring to the directions only in the case of an extreme emergency. And boy, did I ever have emergencies! I made the Six Million Dollar Man into the Six Dollar Man, a Frankenstein Monster with grounds to sue for medical malpractice, and a Starship Enterprise where one could almost hear a tiny Scotty imploring, “Captain, the warp engines can’t take much more ‘o this!”
The other week I was in Mike King’s elective at the Princeton Forums on Youth Ministry. It was called “Flourish: Curating Environments for Communities of Christian Practice." With a title like that I felt smarter just walking in the classroom! Mike has been a youth worker in Kansas City since 1975. That is not a typo. We’re talking several decades, not several years. Sometimes people choose a seminar in hopes of a quick fix to a problem, or a few tips that they can pick up and implement the very next week. But Mike talked about things like stability, environment—and patience. Dynamite stuff, but I sensed a little unease in the room. I don’t think many of the folks were alive in 1975, so they may have been overwhelmed by the process he was advocating.
He had a lot of good stuff to say, but what I will remember most is his story of Antoni Gaudi, the famous modern architect, designing the cathedral La Sagrada Familia knowing he would never see it completed in his lifetime. Begun in 1882, it is hoped the cathedral will be completed by 2026, the hundredth anniversary of Gaudi’s death. Let that perspective of time sink in for a minute. Earlier in the week I sat in on a presentation about The Saint John’s Bible, the first handwritten Bible in over a thousand years, which was a lifetime dream of royal calligrapher Donald Jackson, and fifteen years in the making with a talented team of artists and theologians. Both are monumental undertakings resulting in magnificent places of worship and art. They glorify God and enrich humankind. But they seem so out of sync with “real life.”
Maybe that isn’t a bad thing. Society today seems entirely about the bottom line and deadlines. Spiritually speaking, it leaves us in the bread line, malnourished and looking for scraps to fill the hunger in our souls. Quick, bigger, better, more, faster, higher… I wonder sometimes if we do our work, orient our families, teach our children, and organize our society not unlike a young child slapping together a model kit with the paint still wet and pieces falling off…
I can be just as much a slave to the calendar and anxiety-driven as the next person. But what if instead of planning in terms of weeks or months, I looked down the road in terms of years? What if I made decisions based on what I could do now to sustain the faith and well-being of young people years and decades down the road? (I think Mr. King took it even further, saying “after I am dust” if my memory serves correctly.) Often we get stuck in project and event mode, but real community changes occur when the whole environment is cultivated, and systems and processes are put into place to keep the environment healthy. Because just like in nature, that’s where things grow and thrive.
At best, a young person will be in my youth group for six to eight years. I have a good program and friendly volunteers. But Mike’s elective gave me a push in the right direction that will be reflected in next school year’s program: namely, help them practice disciplines (good habits) that will serve them long after they’ve graduated. Build deeper partnerships with families and help the families with resources, too. Connect the youth program better in the life of the whole congregation, so they don’t age out of church at the same time they age out of youth group. I guess it’s not just about thinking about how to help a young person right now, but what I can do to help that young person a decade or two down the road, too. Not just thinking about my youth program, but about all the various environments that impact young people… I have been writing of ministry, but the principle holds for the workplace, school, and the community. Patience, reflection, cooperation will all be a big help.
By the way, several years ago I bought back a piece of my childhood with a reissue of the classic 60s/70s Frankenstein model kit. I trusted the process (followed directions), received advice and feedback (from my artist wife and creative kids), and above all had patience (ensured each bit was dry for a day before moving on the next step). The result? A rock solid Frankenstein proudly keeps guard over my curio shelf to this day.
Ian Eastman, M.A. is the Conference Youth Coordinator for the Southwestern New York Conference of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Coordinator of the Shared Lutheran Youth Ministry in Jamestown NY, and a Youth Minister in the Pastoral Care Department at Gustavus Adolphus Family Services. He is a student at the Institute for Youth Ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary.
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