What are teens sharing on social media? Who are they sharing it with? It may be different from what you think.
The folks over at Pew Internet just released the following information on Teens, Social Media, and Privacy. As teachers, youth ministers and parents, it can sometimes be challenging to stay on top of the latest technology that kids are using these days. One day we’re all happy as a clam sharing life together on Facebook, and the next day all the teens have jumped ship for new social media services like Snapchat, Vine, and Path.
Whatever the vehicle, though, we need to be aware of statistics like those below–we need to know what is being shared and why. We need to be able to have the tough conversations about safety, privacy, and sharing.
Social media is not going away. We are steeped in it. We live in a new world that is both physical and virtual.
Question: What are your reactions to the statistics below from Pew Internet? How do we help teens navigate a world that is both physical and virtual? How much is too much? How wide of a circle is too wide? Are there differences in these rules for teens and adults?
Relationships are a funny thing. And I’m not just talking about romantic, head-over-heels in love relationships. I’m talking about friendlationships… over even ministry relationships. Mostly, though, I’m talking about the kinds of relationships that challenge, inspire, and sharpen.
Relationships require work. They don’t just happen overnight, or because you see a person on a regular basis. It’s totally possible to have a deeper and stronger relationship with someone who you only see once a year than it is with the people who you small talk with in church every week. Why is that? What are the secret ingredients?
I spent the day Saturday at the wedding of my dear friend Kelsey, having a surprise reunion with some of my favorite people in the whole world. People who I have quite literally poured myself into over the years, even when I didn’t really understand what I was doing. People who are kind of like my own Timothys. As I looked around us at the wedding, I couldn’t help but notice that Scott and I were, by more than 6 years, the “old folks” at our table–even in our “section” at the reception.
We were grouped together with the “young friends,” which I appreciate, of course. But as we sat there talking, I couldn’t help feeling like a proud mama bear. These ladies who I’ve gotten to know over the past six or seven years have all grown up into beautiful, intelligent women.
So, what is it that makes these relationships so special?
Are they my “long distance youth group”? Sort of.
Are they dear friends? Absolutely.
Has there been emotional investment and the investment of time? Yep.
As Scott and I were driving up to the wedding Saturday afternoon, I started wondering aloud who else might be at the wedding. Then, we started reminiscing:
We recalled the time we drove from Cleveland up to Michigan to surprise Amanda during her senior year of high school when she was playing in the pit orchestra for Annie.
And how even though we lived two and a half hours away from each other, we didn’t go more than two weeks without seeing each other for an entire year.
I reminisced about the time Kelsey and I stayed up half the night in the upstairs of a youth house during a Spoke Folk tour having one of the longest, deepest conversations of my life.
The stories went on and on. And they still do.
Since we’ve been back, I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting on those relationships, especially in light of my youth ministry. I’ve asked questions like: Why are all of the relationships where I can identify the most influence–the most “youth ministry” influence–with young people outside of the churches I have served? Are any of the ingredients in those special friendships transferrable to youth ministry? Where am I missing the boat in building relationships within the youth ministry I serve?
Question: What are the essential investments and ingredients in the most influential relationships in your life? Are those ingredients transferrable across contexts?
Like most of you, I’m sure, I was quite appalled by the recent press coverage that the popular clothing chain Abercrombie and Fitch only wants the “cool kids” wearing their clothing, and that to ensure that they don’t carry larger women’s sizes and only hire very attractive people to work in their stores. Even more surprising, most of the statements being covered in this week’s media bloodbath were made more than seven years ago in a January 2006 interview between A&F CEO Mike Jeffries and Salon Magazine.
Has it really taken us this long to become aware of what I could have probably pointed out as a slightly overweight uncool kid in high school?
We get it. Abercrombie and Fitch is built on an ego-inflated platform of popularity and shallow ideals. Mike Jeffries said it himself:
“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either.” (Source)
So, how do we respond? As a person who invests a significant amount of time investing in the lives of young people–both kids whom the world would classify as “popular” and those who Jeffries might think “uncool”–I am certainly outraged by these comments. I’m saddened by the fact that companies think it is okay to market like this, and that these are the messages that I spend so much time helping kids filter, break down, and understand.
This news has been everywhere this week. Twitter. Facebook. Lunch conversation in the church office. It’s blowing up. And, within the past day or so, there’s been this interesting movement breaking out.
A YouTube video created by a young writer, Greg Karber with almost 2 million views in two days, is calling for people to rise up and take action through what he is calling #FitchtheHomeless. Here’s the video:
Essentially, the premise of the video is that we should all go out, clean out our closets and buy up all of the used A&F clothing from thrift stores, and then give it away to homeless people so they can wear it proudly and “mess with” the A&F brand image. At the end of the video, Karber ends with a call to arms: “I can’t clothe the homeless or transform a brand without your help…” So, he invites all of those almost 2 million viewers to join him in destroying the A&F brand image by getting the “cool kid” swag on homeless people everywhere.
Sounds great at first, right? But what are we really doing if we jump on this bandwagon and #FitchtheHomeless?
It’s essentially like we’re saying, “let’s exploit the most marginalized people group in our society, and use them to take a stand against a company that considers itself too cool for the unpopular and overweight.” Yeah, that sounds good.
Or here, take it this way. If someone came up to me in middle school or high school, during a time when I was slightly overweight and unpopular and said, “Abercrombie and Fitch thinks only cool people should wear their clothing so I am going to give it to you for free to take a stand against their unfair business practices,” how do you think that would have made me feel?
Offended.
Even more self-conscious of my body issues.
More sure that I would never fit in with the popular crowd.
Like a pawn in some silly popularity contest.
There’s not really any way to sugar coat that kind of statement: “Here, take this shirt because the company thinks you’re not cool or pretty enough to wear it, and we’re gonna show them who’s boss.”
Check out what Alex Iwashyna had to say about Karber’s video:
“…even more telling is the video doesn’t show Karber trying to explain to any homeless person why he is giving them Abercrombie clothing. Did they cut that part or did he just assume: Homeless people = HEY FREE SHIRT? Because #fitchthehomeless certainly isn’t touted as a movement where we stand arm and arm with the homeless against, as he puts it in the opening, “a terrible company.” Why would anyone want to wear clothing by a terrible, unethical, offensive company? Or do only people with homes have ethics?
The video implies that homeless people shouldn’t have opinions on Abercrombie or coolness or fitting in or being large or CEOs or corporations burning clothing or not being accepted. They aren’t intelligent enough to want to join the fight. They just want free stuff, and we can help them get it while feeling good about not ever wearing A&F again.
Kaber created another class of people within this Abercrombie controversy. It’s not based on looks or size. We (non-homeless) won’t wear Abercrombie anymore. We are purging our closets and our neighbors’ closets and our friends’ closets as the video encourages us to do. Now we have people who can afford to think or act on their ethics, and people who cannot.
And when we are left with a skid row full of homeless human beings wearing Abercrombie and Fitch clothing, we can finally ask ourselves: Are we sticking it to the CEO of a company or just illustrating how blind we really are?”
So, before we all jump on the bandwagon to #FitchtheHomeless and save the world from evil corporations like Abercrombie and Fitch, let’s step back and think about the message we’re really sending.
Question: How do we respond to the unethical business practices of companies like Abercrombie & Fitch without exploiting the already marginalized in our society? And, for those of us in regular contact with the target audience of the brand, how do we help young people filter the cultural messages being sent while maintaining faithfulness to justice and caring for the poor?
It’s time for an attitude adjustment. Not just the “I’m going to be more patient” or “I need to be more positive” kind. But the serious, down to the core of the matter, attitude adjustment.
Sometimes working in the church we can easily start to think that we are somehow more holy, or more more deserving, or more entitled than other people. Seriously. I don’t know when or how it happens, but at some point we get cynical, arrogant, and ignorant. And, I’m not talking about other people who work in the church.
I’m talking about me.
Maybe there are others, but lately it’s me.
I don’t know where it comes from, or how it sneaks up on me, but somehow it happens. And maybe it’s not only because I work in a church. Maybe it’s because I’m human. And it’s natural to think of myself first. After all, isn’t that what the world teaches me to do?
I read an interesting tweet this morning as I was browsing through my twitter feed:
If we were half as concerned about our own sin as we are everyone else’s sin there would be far less sin in the church.
Seriously. Read those words again. If we were half as concerned about our own sin as we are everyone else’s sin there would be far less sin in the church.
If I were half as concerned with my own failures.
If I were half as concerned with my own selfishness.
If I were half as concerned with my own spelling and grammar flubs in e-mails.
If I were half as concerned with my own inabilities to manage time or say no.
If I were half as concerned with my own unwillingness to “unplug”.
The list goes on.
There’s this part of Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7, where he talks about this very thing. Jesus says:
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank kin your own eye? How can you say to your brother ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Specks and planks. Jealousy and hatred. Fear and failure. Vanity and selfishness.
It’s time to stop judging and start loving recklessly.
It’s time to stop pointing out other’s failures and start seeking God’s radically transforming grace in our own lives.
It’s time to stop privately judging and start publicly encouraging and affirming.
It’s time to stop letting fear win. Because you know what?
I loveSara Groves. In fact, she might be one of my favorite songwriters of all time. Her honesty and openness in songwriting has always had a way of connecting with the depths of my soul exactly when I needed it most.
And yet, sometimes I forget that.
In the past few days and weeks, I’ve started to become keenly aware of something missing… maybe it’s a lack of passion, or presence, or something else. Whatever it is, it has started to slowly dig away at my core, and though I had felt somewhat content with it for a while, I am not anymore. I can not be content–at least not in this case.
See, it’s one thing to be content with who God has created you to be. To be content with what He has given you. But, deep down, I very truly believe that God calls us daily to a holy discontent. Discontent with the status quo. Discontent with just riding along on the faith of others instead of really digging deep and planting our own roots and tilling our own soil. Discontent with a flatlined faith.
Yesterday, I was feeling particularly empty. I was tired, still kind of worn out from a very busy spring season of youth ministry. I had fallen off my game. And, I left for work in the morning feeling a deep lack of passion.
So, back to Sara Groves.
As I was driving to work, a Sara Groves song came on–a song off of Sara’s 2001 album Past the Wishing. It’s not one of her more “popular” songs, if you can say that about an artist who is hardly on the radar of most people. In fact, I couldn’t even find it on YouTube when I wanted to share it on Facebook later in the day.
The song: “Stir My Heart”
As the song played, the lyrics just seemed to resonate. They struck a chord in my soul and began to stir something within me.
If time were ever to wear you away
If circumstance should blind me
If age should bring a dark night on my soul
If fear and doubt should bind me
Please stir my heart Take me back to the fire Bring to me a recollection of joy Renew my first desire
If pains and trials come to me
And I cannot stand strong
If fools adjust my theories
To believe Your truth is wrong
I swear it will never happen to me
But how can I know
For Peter swore the same to Thee
O, hear the cock crow
I heard those words. I sang along… please stir my heart, take me back to the fire, bring to me a recollection of joy, renew my first desire. The melody was haunting. The song became my prayer.
I cannot linger in a place where I am content with a shallow faith… where I am content with riding along on the faith experiences of my college years. I cannot be content with a lack of passion or presence or fuel for the fire.
As I woke up this morning for the second time, an hour after my planned alarm clock had gone off, the first words out of my mouth were: “Why have I been so tired the past few days?!”
It’s not as though I had a busier-than-normal youth ministry weekend. In fact, most of the programming and youth ministry stuff I had on my plate this weekend was pretty laid back: a Friday night movie night with a handful of high schoolers, a bake sale fundraiser Sunday morning, and then we had a student over in the afternoon who spent most of the time working outside and playing video games with my husband while I napped. But for probably the past week or so, since we got back from our rafting trip, I have felt just plain exhausted.
As I look back and reflect on that tiredness, I can see a few contributing factors… some things I’m going to be trying to remedy in the coming week to get back to feeling normal and less tired:
Water. When Scott and I got really serious about our weight loss goals back in February, I got really serious about drinking water. For a while, I was drinking only water–and plenty of it. I’ve noticed in the past few weeks that I’ve often traded in my water bottle for a can of Coke Zero. I guess old habits can change, but they die hard. Time to dig that water bottle back out from under the seat of my car and get back on the 8 glasses a day train.
Bedtime. For the past few weeks, my bedtime has slowly crept closer and closer back to midnight. When I was going to bed between 10 and 10:30 I had no problem waking up with my alarm in the morning. But as little as an extra hour of TV time in the evening makes waking up in the morning almost impossible for me. Time to dial back the screen time to get back into the earlier bedtime habit.
Exercise. If I look back about 3 or 4 weeks ago, here’s what my workout routine was looking like: Jillian Michaels 30-Day Shred 2-3 times per week, ZUMBA! on Tuesdays and Thursdays, several walks during the week, plus a bike ride or two. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve missed several ZUMBA! classes for other commitments, completely slacked on the 30-Day Shred, and my walking/biking has dwindled to Menards Walking. No wonder I feel so sluggish! Time to get it back together in the workout category and burn some calories!
There are probably some additional contributing factors–like the fact that even though I’m staying within my calorie allotment for the day, my choices haven’t been as healthy and there have been a few more “cheat days” than there used to be. Or the fact that I’ve chosen napping over yard work or working out. It’s time to jump back on the train and get serious about those Phase 3 goals I set a few weeks ago. After all, we’re halfway through the phase–and there is still plenty of work to do.
I was first introduced to Snapchat back in November 2012 while hanging out with some of my favorite youth ministry colleagues at our annual youth and family ministers’ retreat at Lutheran Memorial Camp. The photosharing app had just started to gain some traction and popularity among our teenage ministry demographic, so a few of us decided to download it and spend a few days testing it out to learn how it worked.
While I must admit that the three of us were almost immediately sucked in to the silliness and almost inherent narcissism of the app, snapping and sending ridiculous “snaps” to each other throughout the remainder of the retreat (and beyond), we also immediately recognized some of the inherent risks involved in putting this app into the hands of teens and preteens. As the infographic below indicates:
Because of the self-destruction design of the app, users think it is a safe medium to send nude and semi-nude pictures. And with the majority of the users of Snapchat being teens and tweens, this creates a huge problem, exposing young people to the dangers of sexting. The CEO Even Spiegel has said that this app was not created with the intention of sexting, but teens will be teens…
With an app that is used more than 30 million times daily, it’s absolutely critical that we are both informed and proactive in educating teens and their parents in how to navigate a world that feels less risky than really is.
Question: How do we help tweens and teens navigate a world in which apps like Snapchat are a widely used vehicle for communication? How do you stay up-to-date and informed on the latest technology?
Carolyn and I have one of the strangest, messiest, most beautiful friendships that I have ever experienced. Back before God convinced me to go into youth ministry, he began weaving this incredible relationship that would change my life, challenge my faith, and deepen my understanding of Christianity.
Back in the summer of 2004, after deciding on sort of a whim to spend the summer working as a camp counselor, my story and Carolyn’s story intersected. I had just finished my freshman year of college, was convinced that I wanted to be a math teacher when I “grew up,” and had finally started to get the hang of the whole camp counselor gig when smack dab in the middle of the summer, here comes Carolyn.
Carolyn loved camp. In fact, she still does, I’m pretty sure. As a bright-eyed and energetic sixth grader, everyone already knew that someday Carolyn would make an incredible camp counselor. (In fact, people tell me they knew several years before that even!) She was one of those campers that fueled my passion for youth ministry and gave me the self-confidence to pursue that passion, and the twists and turns that our friendship has taken over the years are an ever-present reminder of that calling in my life.
Carolyn was that camper that kept in touch. I went back to college in the fall, and would periodically get letters and cards (yes, real snail mail pen and paper with stickers all over) in my campus mailbox from a 13 year old camp-loving girl named Carolyn. And my heart would melt. I would instantly be taken back to the week we shared at camp.
Somehow, a young, crazy, college-aged me, left some sort of impact on this middle school camper–and that same middle school camper left a pretty serious impact on me.
In the years between 2004 and today, Carolyn and I have both grown up. A lot. Through a strange number of criss-crossing paths involving some Lutheran Youth Organization events while Carolyn was in high school and I served in youth ministry at a church near Cleveland, and a Toledo-based retreat called Teens Encounter Christ, and some of the craziest mutual friendship circles you could ever imagine, Carolyn has become one of my closest and dearest friends. She’d probably argue with me on this–just because that’s how Carolyn is–but I’m pretty sure I have learned more from Carolyn over the years than I could have possibly taught her.
Anyways, this coming Saturday, Carolyn will be coming back home from an incredible four month journey in Central America. I think these past four months may be the longest I’ve gone without seeing Carolyn in the last few years, and I can’t wait to give her the most gigantic hug in the whole world the first time I see her, and to tell her over and over again how proud she makes that crazy camp counselor in the picture above.
This afternoon, Carolyn wrote a blog post about coming home. Reading it, I was reminded of some of my own feelings and fears when I returned from a mission trip to the Dominican Republic back in 2007. More than that, though, I was blown away by the wisdom that is carried around in the head, heart, and hands of my friend. Seriously, check this out:
I wrote a letter to my future self for after I return to the States. It ends with the following. Among the memories I want to keep forever, among the knowledge I’ve gained, I also want to come home with this in mind:
“Don’t stop feeling sad if you feel sad. And it’s okay if you are happy. Breathe. And be thankful for that air. Breathe. And remember that you’re one of many breathers. Breathe. And think about what you can do with your breath. With your life. With your privilege. Remember the kindness shown to you. Remember the love your families here had for you. Love like that.
Remember that you’re not alone. That there are others out there crazy enough to want to try to change things. To believe that things can change.
Try not to forget these things. Keep pushing for change. Be foolish in loving people unconditionally.
And know that you’re probably going to mess it up. But that’s okay too. Every step is the way.
You will not be this person forever. But I hope you will remember this person.”
I am so incredibly blessed to have friends like Carolyn. Friends who inspire, challenge, and teach me. Friends who recklessly and foolishly live in the footsteps of Jesus. Friends who know me–you know, really know me–and choose to love me anyway. Friends who remind me that following Jesus is not passive–it’s an adventure!
Yesterday, my husband and I spent a few hours whitewater rafting on the Lower Youghiogheny River in Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania. The rafting trip was part of our post-confirmation celebration mini-vacation adventure to southwestern PA.
Up until yesterday, my extensive river navigation experience has taken place in the Mohican Valley on the Black Fork/Clear Fork/Mohican Rivers. I could canoe or kayak that river blindfolded from so many canoe trips during my summers as a camp counselor and the decades–yes, decades–that I have camped along the Clear Fork. A trip along those rivers is what experts would call a “float trip.” There are very few rapids, no drops in the river, and it is generally a pretty leisurely trip.
The trip we took yesterday on the Lower Yough is Class III whitewater. It is considered a “drop and pool” trip since the rapids are separated by calm deep pools. Here are a few things I learned while enjoying the adventure:
Pay attention to instructions. Before we even started the trip, our guides gave us some pretty detailed instructions–what to do if you fall out, how to work as a team to steer and move the raft, etc. These instructions are important. Even though they “assured” us that we wouldn’t likely have any “swimmers” on our trip, those precautions are important. (Particularly if you end up being the only one to fall out, like me.)
When falling out of the boat, just own it. I fell out in slow motion. Literally. I knew it was happening, my fellow rafters saw it happening. I had time to think to myself, “Well, here we go. This is happening.” And then, I let it happen. Sometimes, we can see less than ideal situations happening right before our very eyes. And, if there’s nothing we can do to change the direction or stop it from happening, it’s probably best to own it, and then learn from it. You can bet I spent the rest of the day assuring our group that they were not as wet as I was, and that I had my feet extra-securely-tucked-in for every remaining set of rapids. I owned it. And I learned from it.
Stay calm. This was probably the most helpful piece of instruction they gave us about falling out. Whitewater is fast moving, and in early May it’s pretty darn cold, too. It would have been really easy to panic when I landed in the water… but I remembered those words: “Stay calm. Head up. Toes up.” With those words in my head, I was able to avoid panic and trust that our guide would pull me back into the boat.
Be aware of what’s coming. Our guide was a pro at this. He navigated us down that river like he’d done it a thousand time (which he probably had), but he was constantly making us aware of what was coming next. He would point out incredible scenery that we would have probably missed otherwise, and would give us step-by-step instructions for how we would navigate through the next set of rapids. That awareness was so important so that we could work together as a team to safely navigate even the choppiest rapids.
Enjoy the ride. Yes, I got wet… more wet than the rest of our group. Yes, it was a little cooler outside than I would have preferred. And, yes, it rained for about half of our trip. But you know what? I had a heck of a time. It was a blast!
As we drove home from Pennsylvania yesterday after the rafting trip, I spent some time reflecting on the lessons above. The reality is that my life, and life in youth ministry often has the same feel as “drop and pool” Class III whitewater. There are seasons that require intense navigational skills, awareness, and just holding on, and often those seasons are followed by a bit of a “break”–calmer waters that give us time to just enjoy the scenery and catch our breath. So, as we’re navigating this crazy adventure called life, let’s remember these important lessons:
Pay attention to the wisdom of those who are more experienced. Chances are they know a thing or two about what’s coming down the road, and you never know when you might need that advice.
When an unavoidable situation happens, own it. Then learn from it. Own your mistakes and blunders, and then use them to improve yourself.
Stay calm. Sometimes life is going to get really rough. Keep your head above water. Stay calm. Trust your guides. It’s important to have a safety net of community to pull you back out of the water, but in order for them to do that, you’ve got to be keeping calm.
Be aware of what’s coming. Watch for warning signs. Pay attention to what’s going on around you. Watch and listen so that you can be ready for the next season of intensity.
