"Remember your baptism"

This morning we had our first plenary lecture at the Duke Youth Academy. The topic was baptism, and it was presented by Fred Edie (who is also the faculty director of DYA).

Dr. Edie invited our students to consider creation by thinking about images of water - that life-giving substance that all plants and animals depend upon. And from the water of creation, he went on to talk about the water of redemption. Christians cannot think about who we are without thinking about how God has adopted us and named us as his own. That happens in the waters of baptism, where our creation becomes a re-creation.

Dr. Edie lectures in a very invitational style - he asks students to respond to biblical themes that he throws out, and at various points in a lecture he will ask his audience to turn to one another to engage in active reflection. This works great for a high school audience, and they seem to really connect with the interactive style.

In his lecture this morning, Dr. Edie remarked, "You need to stop thinking about baptism as only a moment in time. Baptism is a way of life."

He explained: Through anamnesis (re-membering and re-presenting) and prolepsis (anticipating and expecting) the entirety of God's salvation is offered to you in your baptism - past, present, and future. And because of that, baptism is where we begin in the Christian life. It is from there that we begin to discern our vocation, our calling in life & ministry. And in baptism, we also receive our identity.

Baptism tell us who we are. We are God's chosen children, and the stories wrapped up in baptism - Creation, Noah & the Flood, Moses and the Israelites passage through the Red Sea, and finally the life, death, & resurrection of Jesus Christ - these become our own stories, and they point us toward our future destiny with God.

"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his" (Romans 6:3-5, ESV).

All of this makes me think of those wonderful words I am blessed to speak to each person who comes forward to the font during a baptismal renewal service:

"Remember your baptism, and be thankful."

Thankful, indeed.

Gearing up for DYA

Tomorrow the Duke Youth Academy for Christian Formation begins here on Duke's campus. This is my second year to work for DYA as one of the Ministry Coordinators (essentially an administrative position that helps to organize and resource one of DYA's program areas).

DYA's website describes it this way:

"The Duke Youth Academy for Christian Formation is a two-week summer program for selected high school students to live in an intentional Christian community on the Duke University campus ... Days are patterned by worship through word and sacrament, reflection on scripture, study, service, play; practices ancient and modern that nourish the life of faith."

That's an accurate statement, but it doesn't do justice to the richness of the DYA experience. When the website overview goes on to say, "You will leave the academy challenged to consider your baptismal vocation, confident that God is shaping your future in radical and exciting ways," it's getting closer to the mark. To put it simply, I've never seen anything like what DYA offers to 16 and 17-year old youth.

As the outgrowth of Dr. Fred Edie's theological vision for youth ministry, DYA is centered around living an embodied Christian faith as part of a community of other young disciples of Jesus. That life is ordered around the symbols of book, bath, table, and time - with the book as Holy Scripture, the bath as Baptism, the table as Holy Communion, and time as the Patterning of Time in Christian Community. The high school students who come here each summer commit to living a semi-monastic life.

And get this: they love it.

I'm going to post a lot about DYA over the next couple of weeks. If you know of a youth who will be a rising junior or senior in high school at this time next year who might be interested in this experience, I'd encourage you to point him or her to what I post. In the meantime, here are some previous links you might find interesting:

A post from last year's Duke Youth Academy, which was my first as a member of the DYA staff. In the post I offer a little bit of an overview on the program based on my experience of it as a first-time staffer.

A book review of mine in the UM Reporter on Fred Edie's Book, Bath, Table, and Time: Christian Worship as Source and Resource for Youth Ministry. This is an excellent theology of youth ministry. A companion volume that will offer practical curriculum based off of Edie's vision is currently in the works.

A new look at Youth Ministry

A few days ago, I wrote a post on the Duke Youth Academy for Christian Formation, which took place on the campus of Duke University in July. DYA draws kids from all over the country (and this year, Haiti as well) so that they can experience two weeks of intentional Christian community and theological study. Many of the kids who attend are already discerning a calling to some form of ministry. The focus of DYA is on the practices of the Christian life in the areas of Scripture, Baptism, Holy Communion, and the Prayerful Patterning of Time.

DYA faculty director Fred Edie takes those four essential elements of the Christian life and examines them in relation to youth ministry in his new book, Book, Bath, Table, and Time: Christian Worship as Source and Resource for Youth Ministry. I read this book in preparation for my own work as a Ministry Coordinator at DYA this year, and I've got to tell you, it's one of the best practical theology-oriented books that I've read in years. I just published a review of Dr. Edie's book, which you can find here if you'd like to read it.

Dr. Edie's work takes dead aim at a lot of the market-driven, highly individualistic, experience-heavy approaches to youth ministry that are so fashionable today. (I had never thought about how problematic youth ski trips could be; the first few pages of the book offer a devastating critique of them.) He suggests that teen fashion bibles like Revolve are exactly where the market approach to youth formation is going, and he wants the church to step in and say, "Wait!" Dr. Edie calls on the church to realize that it already has the resources it needs to form youth into mature Christians, and these resources are found exactly in those sacred gifts that the Holy Spirit is constantly offering the church: its book (Scripture), bath (Baptism), table (the Lord's Supper), and time (a form of life patterned by worship and prayer).

Don't be mistaken. This is not a book that's going to offer you the 10 Hottest New Ideas in Youth Ministry. But it's going to do something much better. It's going to engage you in thinking about how we form (or fail to form) our youth in truly theological ways. It's going to help you realize how new the oldest practices of the church can be, exactly because we haven't been using them with our very own children and youth. And it's going to suggest that it is really possible to integrate youth ministry into the full life of the church, instead of treating it like some odd appendage on the body of Christ that no one is sure what to do with.

This is a great book not just for youth ministers, but for pastors as well. Dr. Edie is an engaging, witty, and theologically insightful writer. Check it out.

Duke Youth Academy

The Duke Youth Academy for Christian Formation here at the Divinity School began on Sunday. I am the Ministry Coordinator for Community Practices at DYA this year, so I have the privilege of spending this week and next with about 60 very talented high school students who are here to participate in two weeks of intentional Christian living.

The DYA website describes the community in this way: "Duke Youth Academy ... is an intensive encounter with Christian life. Days are patterned by worship through word and sacrament, reflection on scripture, study, service, play; practices ancient and modern that nourish the life of faith." But such descriptions don't do justice to the richness of what goes on here. This is the best formational program I have seen in terms of helping teenagers grapple with serious theological questions while also showing them an almost monastic way of going about the Christian life.

A typical day begins with a communal breakfast, followed by morning prayer. Students then hear a plenary lecture by a member of the Duke Divinity School faculty, and they follow that up with a workshop on worship planning. Following lunch, students have a mandatory rest period where they spend sabbath-time in their rooms. Afternoons consist of different activities: On some days, students will go out into the community for service and work projects. Other afternoons, they attend art workshops and prayer practice workshops where they get to engage in hands-on learning and practice around art-as-theology and different prayer traditions. Following supper, the whole community worships together and then students split up into "Mentor Groups" where they get to engage in conversation with a theologically-trained mentor.

We are only halfway through the first week, and I am amazed by this program. The faculty director is Dr. Fred Edie, who also teaches at Duke. His theological vision for youth ministry (which you can read about in his new book, Book, Bath, Table, and Time) drives the structure and program of DYA. The rest of the staff, led by Assistant Director (and current Duke student) Katherine Smith, is a talented and committed group of Christians who pour everything they have into forming young disciples of Jesus Christ.

DYA will certainly be keeping me busy for the next few days. And by the way, if you know a kid who will be a rising junior or senior in high school next year and would benefit from DYA, point them our way! All the necessary information is available on the DYA website, where you can also read reflections on daily life at the Academy from this year and past years as well.

[Note: I'm reviewing Dr. Edie's book for the United Methodist Reporter. When that appears online, I'll provide a link to it.]