Higher Things Youth Ministry: “It’s all About Christ.”
By Pr. David Oberdieck
Thanks to Pastor Oberdieck for submitting this to us for posting here on BJS. Pastor Oberdieck wrote the original explanation of the parts of the liturgy that we have posted here on BJS for insertion into your bulletins or newsletters. Here is his report on the latest Higher Things conferences.
Something is terribly wrong. Teenagers from across the LC-MS have been attending Higher Things youth conferences. They worship three times a day, listen to weighty teaching in plenary sessions, participate in a variety of substantive sectionals, and they like it!
Higher Things is an organization run by dedicated LC-MS pastors and lay people who challenge teens to “Dare to Be Lutheran.” Being Lutheran means nothing less than enjoying the abundant grace of God in Jesus Christ. Higher Things Conference Executive, Pr. George Borghardt, put it this way, “It’s all about Christ.”
Higher Things put on three outstanding conferences for LC-MS teenagers as July 2011 rolled around. They gathered on college campuses in Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Bloomington, Illinois. If your church hasn’t yet participated, start planning for next year. Say “no” to fluff, and say “yes” to Higher Things!
What makes Higher Things unique? “First of all it is campus based…parents send their kids to science camp, music camp, all kinds of camps. We are essentially ‘Lutheran camp’,” said Pr. William Cwirla, President of Higher Things.
“The kids spend four days on a college campus all together. This is different from going to a hotel… where everyone is scattered and then gathered. Here they’re staying in dorms. They’re all together. They eat at a common place, the cafeteria… A lot of friendships are made as a result,” He said. “Basically it’s a four day intensive emersion in Lutheranism.”
This doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot of fun to be had by the teens (adult leaders have fun too!). The conference at the Illinois State University in Bloomington featured rock climbing, scavenger hunts, sports, karaoke contests, movies, swimming, a talent show, and more.
These conferences are as weighty and meaningful as they are fun. Consider that worship is an important part of the gatherings. Higher Things will not have colored lights, a disco ball, fog machines, and a rock band leading worship. What they do in worship reflects what the average Lutheran congregation does week to week as they use the hymnal. It supports the local congregation rather than undercutting it.
The Illinois gathering had 1,200 participants from 29 states and four Canadian provinces. What is it like to hear all those young people worshipping the Lord? “It floats my boat,” Pr William Weedon commented. He was the Chaplain for the Illinois conference.
“They’re belting it out. They’re loving it. I’ve heard several people who have never had the opportunity to experience evening prayer before and that’s their favorite service,” he said. “I wish all the people that think ‘to really engage young people you have to put on a show’ could just come in and experience what this is like where it’s no show. We’re just doing the church’s worship the church’s way.”
Sandra Ostapowich, Conference and Retreat Coordinator, shared the experience of her youth group. One of their favorite parts was the Matins service. “Kids aren’t supposed to like what we’re doing,” said Ostapowich, “but they do.” Take Courtney for instance. She is a teenager from Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church in Perrysburg Ohio. She really liked the sectionals and the Magnificat from the Vespers service.
The sectional topics are another important part of the conferences. They are at the same time theological and practical as they apply Lutheran theology to contemporary issues. Note some of the titles this year: “Consumed by Addictions,” “Dating, Relationships, and THAT,” “The Fatal Flaws of Darwinism,” “Talking to Your Non-Lutheran Friends about Jesus.”
What kind of effort does it take to put on conferences like these? “We have one full-time staff member in the organization and that’s the conference coordinator,” said Borghardt, “It takes at least a year and a half of planning to put on a slew of conferences.” The work is largely done by volunteers.
This is one reason the conferences are comparatively inexpensive. Early registration costs were from $300 to $330. That includes room, food, fun, and the conference itself. That is hard to beat.
Next year’s conferences are as follows: 26 – 29 June at Wake Forrest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina; 3 – 6 July at Northwest Missouri State, Maryville, Missouri; 10-13 July at Concordia University Irvine, Irvine, California; 17-20 July at Brock University, St Catherines, Ontario.
Further information on Higher Things conferences and other resources is on the web at higherthings.org.
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“Theological disclaimers” are used for the bands leading worship/performing at District and NYG. This should speak volumes.
Rev. Fisk has a couple videos archived Aug. 13, 2010 that expose some of the false doctrine promoted so subtly to our youth at the 2010 NYG. Very eye opening!
@Sue wilson #34
See John 12:20-33, to see Jesus on the cross is to see, as Jesus calls it – Him in His glory. To see the crucifix is to see: how much you are worth, how much you are loved, to see God being God for you, see the cost of your sins, see God saving you, see God drawing all people unto Himself,… An empty cross just doesn’t convey that. As John stated at #43 to not have Jesus on the manger would look odd, so too the cross.
Since the Synod is experiencing significant financial problems, perhaps we can no longer afford to run NYGs. When an organization has to cut back, organizational leadership is entirely justified in targeting counter-productive programs for elimination.
In looking back over earlier posts, I see that the NYGs may be self-supporting and even profitable. I retract my comments and apologize for not paying better attention.
@Elizabeth #53
In looking back over earlier posts, I see that the NYGs may be self-supporting and even profitable
Is it wise for Synod to “make a profit” [if it does] by teaching false doctrine to our youth?
Decades of that are what make reformed/charismatic opinions “almost mainstream LCMS”. [Although I'd like to argue that point, it may be correct.] But it’s certainly not historic confessional Lutheranism!
The real cost of NYG is not the dollars but the dilution of Lutheran doctrine in so many LCMS churches!
Now, “which came first” may be fairly argued, as the “youth leaders” in the church must have been/be quite a way off the rails to invent and perpetuate the monster.
Where did they get it?
Thank God for youth conferences such as Higher Things that keep our next generation church leaders immersed in Christ, and Him crucified.
We live in a time where even Lutheran pastors have TV programs where they push what we must do (law) rather than taking their TV time to proclaim Christ, and Him crucified.
Why do we argue Crucifix v Empty Cross? I usually wear a crucifix. I was taught, as a youth that the empty cross was also appropriate when one considers that the empty cross teaches the burial and then the resurrection of our Lord and Savior.
I don’t have the ability to argue the right or wrong. I just know that I will only belong to a congregation that, first teaches Chist an Him crucified, and supports only programs that do the same.
Jack
@Jack K #55
I will only belong to a congregation that, first teaches Chist and Him crucified, and supports only programs that do the same. –Jack
I trust your congregation, like mine, does not treat baptism and the Lord’s Supper as “secondary”, push them off to the side, or over to a week night, “so visitors won’t be offended” or (I don’t know which is worse) hand the Supper out indiscriminately as if it had no meaning. Christ commanded his disciples to do these things “for the forgiveness of sins”. How can the things He specifically gave us be “secondary”?
Secondary to “our decision for Christ”? That doesn’t happen!
Hi, Helen.
Our congregation proclaims Christ, and Him crucified each and every Sunday.
Holy Communion is celebrated each of the first four Sundays of each month. The beautiful Matins service is observed on fifth Sundays, such as tomorrow.
Closed Communion is practiced. This is nothing more or less than confession.
The Gospel is properly preached, and the Sacraments are rightly administered by our faithful shepherd.
Jack
@Jack K #57
God bless your Sunday worship!
We have moved to every Sunday/both services communion, and I am glad for it,
but now and then I miss the Matins music!
The organizers of Higher Things understand that increasing numbers of teenagers are turned off by the phoniness of the Church Growth Movement.
http://www.guernicamag.com/features/2874/meghan_ogieblyn_7_15_11/
By contrast, the organizers of the National Youth Gathering are operating from an outdated paradigm.
Hey LCMS, times have changed. We don’t have ten years for LCMS church leaders to recognize what the young girl in the “Sniffing Glue” article understands. Read the entire article in the above link and wake up NOW. The NYG needs to be terminated ASAP.
Blessings to you, Sandra. I enjoy reading you over on ALPB!
I talked to a young church worker at my church and asked if he had attended the youth gatherings. He said his parents weren’t into that so he never went. I think some young people would never go to a giant gathering with huge events in a stadium type thing, etc. whether there is nice alternative or not. It just isn’t comfortable for them. Higher Things may well appeal to that type of person. I don’t know, I haven’t been, but from what I have seen of the NYG from their website, as a teen, college youth, I would not have been comfortable in a huge group like that. From what I have seen of HT, I would be comfortable there. So, I guess I am saying that just getting the word out that there are HT youth conferences available for learning and fellowship and worship will let the program sell itself. There really is no need to compare it to NYG. The contrast is obvious if anyone cares to look, but just telling what HT offers will be enough to interest youth and their parents to attend.
Just to add. I think all LCMS youth and their parents should at least be informed that the opportunity exists, in case they may be interested. Unfortunately many may not be aware. I wouldn’t had I not stumbled upon this great blog.
>> … the church of the empty cross?
three doors down on the left, this is the church of the empty tomb…
So like…to anyone’s knowledge have the NYG organizers ever been actually confronted or questioned about the content of the presentations or acts or activities or whatever? I mean…it would be nice to have a sympathetic Synod higher-up call a conference with a few of these organizers, but maybe at least someone could send a concerned e-mail? At least we can get some kind of answer directly from the horse’s mouth, instead of sorta circling our wagons around the campfire and speculating a whole lot, as it were.
@Ariel #63
So like…to anyone’s knowledge have the NYG organizers ever been actually confronted or questioned about the content of the presentations or acts or activities or whatever?
Our district runs a similar event. There was considerable protest to district when a Pentecostal woman “minister” was a prominent part of the program.
The only change by district that was evident was that her web identity was changed from “minister” to “song leader”.
[We don't have people to "lead singing" in our own membership!?]
I fully agree. I am still trying to find something which tells me what the presentations and such were in the last youth gathering.
Rev. Fisk has a website, http://www.worldvieweverlasting.com that has several videos archived Aug. 2010. There is a Part 1 and 2 on several aspects of the 2010 NYG. These short videos don’t cover the whole 2010 NYG but are just glimpses of it.
@Ariel #63
OKay, back when I lived in Norht Dakota (circa 1998), we had a synod youth ministry person (Julie Johnston?) visit a district Board of Youth Mininstry meeting. I was still in college at the time and not as aware of the deepr issues. I do remember our chairperson give push back on some items, about what St. Louis was doing to help our youth become better witnesses, leaders, and good Lutherans. She was a bi tsurprised at some of the resistance she was getting. Maybe living isolated in the Purple Palace you can get great ideas in a vacuum, but my impressions with that discussion was we in the northern reaches weren’t overly impressed with th lack of quality and depth, or the cheerleading behind it. And I am not sure how well our concerns were brought back and presented to the higher ups. Things seem to keep running business as usual. hence why I said in my two previous posts: I don’t think they care, in part because they have been practically running these NYG’s about the same way with about the same people since day one. (first NYG in 1980) I think the culture at the IC is very comfortable with where they are at, likely bringing in dynamic people who think about the same way. That may well change, with a few nearing reitement, and more significantly with the massive restructuring and belt tightening ordained by the 2010 convention. Things could shake up quite a bit in the next few years.
@Jason #67
Honestly, in my own personal opinion, maybe it would be best if the national youth organizers were just cut free and allowed to stand on their own. It’s probably financially beneficial to both parties–the Synod gets to cut free a giant financial as well as theological burden, and the organizers are more free to do what they want with the NYG in a more financially profitable way. I guess at this point, with the NYG being this much of a behemoth and an embarrassment to Lutheran culture, my decision would be just cut it lose and cease having any kind of “official” sanctioned Lutheran youth gathering–it would be up to the congregations to decide what they want to send their youth to, whether it be Higher Things or the existing NYG.
I’m not that versed in Synod politics so I don’t know how viable this idea may be, but I guess it’s just something to mull over for now.
The national youth director at the time of the 2007 NYG (Dr. Terry Dittmer who is still LCMS national youth director) was confronted over several issues one of which was for inviting the author of the popular Emergent Church book The Emerging Church Dan Kimball to speak to our youth leaders about how to do youth ministry.
At this same time there was a LOT of talk going on about “multi-sensory worship” (maybe there still is?), that is creating “worship services” where all the senses are engaged. Kimball writes about this in the aforementioned book and Leonard Sweet, who is an enemy of the cross of Christ (he is a panentheist who also holds to a host of other heretical teachings which looks like Gnosticism warmed over, see below for a couple Sweet quotes), was invited several times to talk to LCMS leaders about doing “multi-sensory worship” amongst other things. So what did we see at the NYGs for 2007 and 2010? Much of this “multi-sensory” Emerging church gobbledygook being passed off as “worship.” We also got to see whacked out charismatic practices such as “prayer walking” where you walk through neighborhoods and claim the streets walked for the Lord.
Are we going to see more of the same? As far as I know the national youth leadership hasn’t been changed, so we will see what happens in 2013.
__________
Leonard Sweet:
“A globalization of evangelism in connection with others, and a globally informed gospel, is capable of talking across the fence with Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Muslim people from other so called religious traditions (only to us) without assumption of superiority and power. One Caribbean theologian has called this the colonization of theology. It will take a decolonized theology for Christians to appreciate the genuineness of others faiths, and to see and celebrate what is good, beautiful, and true in their beliefs without any illusions that down deep we all are believers in the same thing (Leonard Sweet, “Quantum Spirituality” pp.130-131).
“The power of small groups is in their ability to develop the discipline to get people “in-phase” with the Christ consciousness and connected with one another.” (ibid. p. 147)
“Our inattentiveness to the world contrasts so sharply to Jesus’ attentiveness to all of creation. Jesus was a ‘dawn collector’ who found God’s Spirit in all things, in all aspects of the natural world, both animate (birds, animals, flowers, seeds) and inanimate (pots, coins), yet showed how we can experience God’s Spirit in ways that are beyond and ‘beneath language’” (Nudge: Awakening Each Other to the God Who’s Already There p. 54).
“The ideal of monastic holiness and in fact any tradition of holy living is precisely this: an awareness of the presence of Christ in all of life and in all things” (ibid. p. 67)
Sweet teaches in his latest book that the truth and Christ lives in all of us and that “evangelism” is about giving people “nudges” so that they come to see the Christ already in them (p.68-70).
>>Are we going to see more of the same? As far as I know the national youth leadership hasn’t been changed, so we will see what happens in 2013.
Yes, but what is actually being DONE about it? Would we as confessionals rather sit back and grouse and complain as our Synod’s official youth gathering–a significant and large-scale event which represents us on the national level–becomes a cartoonish and ridiculous parody of how we want our youth to be brought up in the faith?
Every organization, whether secular or ecclesiastical, should have some kind of method of accountability and transparency. The national youth director must be accountable to some office, that’s the way a bureaucracy works. Does anyone at least know an e-mail address that we can voice concerns to? The NYG website has literally no point of contact at all, other than a Facebook and Twitter page.
(Apparently you can’t edit previous posts…)
Jim, you said that the national youth director was “confronted” in 2007. Do you know anything about the nature of this “confrontation”? What was the outcome of it?
Dear BJS Bloggers,
Reporter Online just published a very nice article on the Higher Things Conferences this year:
http://classic.lcms.org/pages/rpage.asp?NavID=18993
The leaders and staff at HT are quoted, readers are directed to the web-site, and everything is upbeat. Looks like the LCMS national offices are very favorable toward HT and its ideas.
I also need to point you all to the excellent book review by Terry Dittmer, reviewing author John Oberdeck’s book “Eutychus Youth” (CPH 2010). The review is in “Concordia Journal” 37 #2 (Spring 2011): 165-167. In the review, Dittmer warns about the dangers of “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” (something Todd Wilken has been talking about) and commends the book for being “about good solid Lutheran theology and how it can and should be applied to young people, their lives, and their world.”
I think that things are “looking up” in the youth department of our synod. Of course, the leaders and staff at Higher Things get oodles of credit for that, as do President Harrison and his staff. And we should thank previous youth staff at the national office who tried to do the right thing, even when they didn’t have any support.
Yours in Christ, Martin R. Noland
@Ariel #71
I personally emailed Dr. Dittmer regarding these issues and he also had some of this brought to his attention on the Wittenberg Trail around that same time. The outcome was I was thanked for my concern, but that we can learn something from these men and essentially “Lutheranize” their practices.
I apologize for the double posting, but I wanted to play “Captain Obvious” and point out that what some are doing about it is supporting Higher Things. Not sending youth to NYG. And continuing to voice concerns to the national and district leadership when these “cartoonish and ridiculous parod[ies] of how we want our youth to be brought up in the faith” crop up. I agree with Pr. Noland (post #72) that things are “looking up,” but I also maintain guarded optimism, since it took many years to arrive at where we are now, and these broken practices aren’t going to be fixed over night. I am praying for our leadership, and especially those over our youth.
@Jim Pierce #74
I am praying for our leadership, and especially those over our youth.
It needs doing!
The “circus/revival/(Peter Pan?)” mindset seems to be entrenched with some of our “youth leaders”. It does no good to say, “They graduated from a Concordia.” (That may sometimes be the problem!)
“Youth” is the label on one of the multiple hats Bart Day has acquired. Send your concerns in his direction, if you think it necessary, although I believe he knows….
To whom is the NYG planning and leadership team accountable? Does anyone know?
@David Hartung #76
To whom is the NYG planning and leadership team accountable? Does anyone know?
Are they an RSO? If so, perhaps they are one of those being studied, to see if they meet the objectives of Synod.
If they are not an RSO, I should think the Director of National Mission/Life Together would have some influence.
[I hope they don't fall under, "Don't sweat the weeds!" Young plants need more care than that implies.]