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Assignments
for this course take the form of written summaries,
research, and analysis. They are designed to help us
work through the course objectives, while keeping a
focus on our spiritural growth through conceptual
learning.
For each assignment, please develop a document and
submit it to me in either Microsoft Word, RTF (rich
text format), or HTML format (your word processing
software should permit you to do a "save as"
and choose either of those formats).
For each assignment, please be sure to that your
responses indicate that you have read and carefully
considered the resource material, as assigned.
Additional
Comments
Lecture 1
Invisible
Movements
The defining characteristic of youth culture in the
21st century seems to be its hidden undercurrents.
Beyond even the traditional “generation gap,”
current youth culture moves ahead at a blazing pace,
carried along by nearly imperceptible forces.
It seems that as soon as a trend is generally
identified, it fades and is replaced. As soon as a
style is “mainstream” it becomes irrelevant and is
relegated to yesterday’s news.
A sociologist might contend that it has always been
so. Young people have always needed to establish their
own identity, apart from the generation before. And,
especially in American culture, they have always found
ways to separate themselves from the past.
Acceleration
However, that pattern seems to be accelerating. It
seems that shifts in dress and music and language are
occurring at an ever-increasing pace, and perhaps in
increasingly chaotic and unpredictable directions.
Admittedly, that perception may reflect the limitation
of an older person’s thinking. As with earlier
generations, adults of all varieties may simply be
destined to never understand the nature and behavior
of their culture’s children.
However, several factors have emerged over the past
decade that may indicate that the currents of youth
culture have permanently accelerated. Among the most
powerful of these factors are technology, marketing,
and natural innovation.
Technology
Undeniably, contemporary young people are the most
technology-swamped generation ever. They have grown up
with the personal computer as a necessary household
appliance. The cell phone is a perfectly normal way to
communicate. Instant messaging and email are as normal
as a post care and stamp were for an earlier
generation’s correspondence.
The outcome of all of this technology and connectivity
is a world in which information and images may move
almost instantly from person to person, and station to
station. If one is “plugged in” to the important
information sources, it is possible to be connected to
events as they happen.
Marketing
As we have raised a generation of voracious consumers,
marketers have begun to direct their messages toward
an ever-younger base. At an unprecedented level,
marketers now target teens, adolescents, and even
children with their messages.
Ironically, the impact of professional marketing seems
to intersect with normal youth rebellion to produce a
permanent disconnect between the marketer’s efforts
and their target’s response.
In other words, the harder marketers work to be
“hip” to youth trends, the harder young people
seem to work to keep the trends and ideas hidden.
Consequently, as soon as a marketer ties in to a youth
culture trend, it becomes passé, and the marketing
effort becomes stale.
Natural Innovation
Along with the marketing dilemma described above,
young people are naturally adaptive and innovative.
They try new things, new combinations, new approaches.
They are not burdened by the expectations or ideas of
the past.
This gives them a natural platform for innovation,
adaptation, and exploration. They are, by definition,
at “the edge” of our overall societal system. As
such, they naturally seek to innovate in as many areas
as possible.
The Youth Pastor’s Challenge
Set in the middle of this flurry of change, noise, and
pressure, the youth pastor must make enough sense of
the world to be relevant, yet stay far enough away to
keep an impact.
She or he must stay with the times, yet transcend
trendiness. They must speak “the language” of
young people, yet avoid getting caught up in a
maelstrom of change they cannot possibly hope to
manage.
They must understand the great dangers and tests young
people face, yet maintain a mature sense of the big
picture, specifically God’s big picture.
They must maintain a standard of purity, yet
understand that culture changes with time.
In short, pastors to our contemporary youth culture
must understand the difference between that which is
“constant” and that which is “contemporary.”
That which is “constant” is timeless and worth
preserving through any age. That which is
“contemporary” is current, yet will pass with the
next turn of a fad.
Our work this week is to wrestle with this youth
pastor’s challenge, by identifying those things that
are “constant” and those things that are
“contemporary.”
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