I remember the first time I travelled overseas. It was to a United Nations Youth Workers Conference in Hong Kong. I remembering landing and thinking this is different to home, this is not Australia. After landing I was taken by the number of neon signs and posters for products I was familiar with. Companies and products that I thought were from home. People were at the conference from around Asia, Australasia and the Western Pacific. They came from government, churches, other religious groups and youth organizations. We were there to look at common issues facing young people.
The issues shared were from rural areas to urban, from drugs to the affects of the rising globalism. We shared similar languages – although most sessions were in English. We wore similar clothes and shared similar approaches to what in many of the countries was an emergence of this new phenomenon called “youth”. It was a new stage of life for many of the countries and cultures represented at the conference. We saw many of the issues in similar ways and many shared similar strategies.
On the last night we were asked to dress in our national costume and to present something of our culture. Well the 3 of us from Australia scratched our heads trying to work out what we would wear and what we would present? In the end we gave up and decided to wear what we would wear “back home”. It seemed an authentic approach. When it came to presenting something that was a part of our culture we were really struggling. Again we basically gave up and decided to sing Waltzing Matilda. One of the worst things in coming from Australia was that they programmed alphabetically and we were first up.
People came in stunning national dress and costumes and we felt more than a little inadequate. They had been speaking our language, wearing our clothes talking about our struggles and issues around our common adversaries. All of a sudden we all looked different. Some people I didn’t recognize under their face makeup, headdresses and costumes. And when they spoke English – it looked and sounded quite strange.
Well, we got up to sing our song (Waltzing Matilda is really a German tune with indigenized Anglo-Australian words). We made it through the first verse ok, but when we hit the second verse, two embarrassing things happened. Firstly we forgot the words. However, even more embarrassing was that everyone else seemed to know the words - and were more than willing to help us out!
After this conference I attended the Asian Youth Mission Conference and then the full Assembly of the Christian Conference of Asia. Again my mind was blown to see Christian faith expressed in such a variety of ways. The same faith, interpreted through many national, regional and local cultures.
A couple of years ago, we were running a mission in Malaysia. One city we visited was on the south west coast of Malaysia called Malacca. The Minister for Culture was attempting to build 100 museums in Malacca. One of these was a Museum of Youth – bit of an oxymoron. Of course I was interested in visiting this as a Youth Worker. There it was, a photo of the final night of the UNESCO conference in Hong Kong all in national dress and the three of us from Australia standing out so conspicuously in western dress. I did not need to be reminded of that night some 20 years later!
What it bought to mind was the increased influence of global culture and particularly youth culture. One out of every 5 people in the world is between the ages of 15 and 24. This equates to over one billion young people around the world. They are the future leaders, movers and shakers and decision makers. They are the face of the future, the leaders and the parents who will shape the generations after them.
What we do and how we help shape young people in youth ministry will effect the generations into the future. Helping our young people understand the world in which we live, how to interpret it and live by the call of God is crucial in creating the future – not only of churches but of our communities and the world.
As a Youth Ministry Consultant I travel around different parts of the globe from the UK to USA, from South Africa to the Middle East, from Asia to the Pacific. I observe so many young people wearing the same clothes and shoes, watching the same movies and television programs (often dubbed into local language – and/or accent) listening to the same music and ideas and playing the same games and sports. However all these global influences are interpreted locally.
Someone once said Where we stand determines what we see. This is certainly true, not only from country to country but from area to area and from sub-culture to sub-culture.
I do not think that there is a global or a national youth culture but rather that there are youth cultures. Some are reinterpreted from global influences – that is global influences interpreted locally and some that rise up out of the local culture.
One of the results of increased globalism has been the increase in dominant forces such as North American media, the World Bank, multinational corporations and the USA as the single dominant world power. Out of this have come the forces of global decisions and the decline of national powers. The EU is one example of this. Others are that resolutions of the World Bank, the Security Council of the United Nations or of Congress and the President of the United States, often have much greater effect and influence than the decisions of National or Regional Parliaments and councils.
What we did not expect, even thought is makes sense in retrospect, is the rise of the influence of the local alongside of this global. And local is being redefined. By local I do not mean Local Councils or towns and villages but relational networks that have become very tribal. Peers and friendship circles and acceptance into these, have become the basis for much of the moral development and ethical structures of young people.
Local is not always geographical. Increased mobility by masses of people means people go to school, shop, play sport and even go to church – not in their closest facility but in many cases in the one that can best suit them. Many sporting teams do not play on fields in the suburb or town of the team’s name but where they can find the best facility. Many youth ministries do not attract people from the immediate local vicinity, but from the region around them and the relationships of the people in their ministry.
What we now observe has been the dual influences of global influences and local interpretations. The effect is being felt around the world in many different ways.
The riots of young people in the Kingdom of Tonga last year destroyed 80% of the Tongan capital. The mobs were mainly younger people, many of whom had lived in the USA and returned with Afro-American partners. They interpreted their local situation through what they had learnt about democracy and involvement in the political process in the USA. They were so frustrated by the lack of opportunity for young people to have a say and be heard that they rioted out of frustration. Global information, education and cultural influences are taking root in local contexts and shaking old systems.
For instance, I observe that minority groups such as many of the black street cultures in the UK and the Pacific Island street cultures in Australia and New Zealand have taken on the style of the Afro-American street language and taken on Rap and Hip Hop music as a key expression of how they are feeling about the world. They copy the style and expression but interpret it through their local filters, experience and world views. The feelings of inequality, lack of acceptance and injustice are picked up from Afro-American style but they are locally interpreted and expressed.
The war in Iraq or the world oil prices may be covered by the BBC News and the same information may be interpreted very differently by Asian English people in Birmingham from what it is by Caribbean English in Camden to Anglo English in Colchester. A song about respect by Black Eyed Peas may be interpreted differently by young people in gangs in South London than it is by youth ministry in Hillsborough in Northern Ireland to a youth group on a USA base outside of Cambridge.
A friend of mine – in fact one of my old Youth Ministry Students – helped introduce the internet to a South East Asian country. It had been an effort to help young people in that country connect with the world after being a closed country for so long. What fascinated him was the ways in which the young people interpreted the information being received over the internet. Some were mesmerized by the glitter and glitz of the western offerings and others laughed at, what was for them, very silly fashion wear and modes of music and attitudes. Some were drawn out of their local culture and others were driven back into their local culture.
The thing that effects almost all of the recipients of those influenced by the dominant world youth cultures - is that things are different. There are other ways of living and thinking and reacting to the world around them.
Peter Drucker, the aged American leadership and management guru (and a deeply committed Christian) believes that when historians look back at this moment of history, what they will note is not so much the rise in technology, or the internet, or increased communications. What they will note is the profound change in the human condition. For the first time in human history, massive amounts of people have choices. Beforehand, where a young person was born, into what tribe or class, in which area; would have determined much of what they would be and do. Now people have choices and have to self-manage, and he notes – we have been totally unprepared for it!
What global youth cultures have bought is the understanding that there are many ways, choices and understandings – and young people are choosing rather than following!
This Global – Local has a two way effect. A key example of this is MySpace and Youtube. It is the epitome of grassroots local, using a global space to have a say, share an identity and express an opinion. This worked so well for Artic Monkeys and numerous other bands which have been catapulted from a local to a global band. Such websites help youth leaders get a sense of what is happening in many local scenes and what is being picked up globally. This is particularly true of music that remains the key vehicle of emotional and personal/local expression and potentially taps into globally felt issues, hurts and ideas.
Implications
God is still God – alpha and omega, beginning and end, past present and future. However Christian faith is a universal faith not only from culture to culture but from age to age. Just as missionaries have gone out from Christianised cultures to those who have not yet heard the gospel so we are now experiencing the need for youth leaders and workers to think like missionaries in our present realities. Interpreting the scriptures and the cultures, is key to effectively ministering and missioning to our young people in the church and in the community. The temptation to keep in our holy huddles and in Christian ghettos is very strong and needs to be so strongly resisted.
We are urgently needing to help nurture a faith in our young people that finds authentic expression in the present and emerging realities. Authenticity and integrity are emerging as integral to the ways we develop ministry. Young people can smell hypocrisy and insincerity a mile off. Not only when faith and life don’t match up, but also what is a “system” or a “package deal” is trying to be sold them. So youth ministries need to be grassroot based and shaped around the local, not top down with borrowed models. Being there, in the lives of the young people we are trying to serve, relevant to them and their world view, is vital. There are no silver bullet solutions to finding appropriate models and shapes for youth ministry as each local has specific threads of influence.
We are seeing a rise in global issue awareness that has local connections. Musicians and leaders that are able to connect with the compassion of young people are highly regarded. Whether the issue is addressing world poverty and environmental issues or dealing with issues of war, peace and injustice. Local connections for local youth ministries will become even more key to effective youth ministry because Gen-Y are a compassionate generation with so much information at their disposal. They want to do something. Project based ministries, from fundraising to local educational awareness campaigns or festivals, topical Bible studies, through to mission trips and Gap years, are growing the capacity to connect local and global, with faith and action.
Paralleling the global and local is the personal and universal. Experience has become key to young people’s faith and world view. There are forces that would cause wedges between the two wanting us to move into an “us and them”. This will give rise to increased racism, fear and isolation. As we live in a globally aware youth cultures it is becoming more important that youth leaders and young people experience other cultures and contexts and build closer relationships. Travel and mission trips, emails and follow up that connect the global experience/mission with local experience/mission will become even more important.
We will see a trend towards the importance of helping young people interpret global influences through local contexts. We see Paul doing this well in Acts 17:18-31. The Athenians are afraid he is preaching something foreign. So they take him to the Areopagus which was like a local censorship board to see is something was locally acceptable. It is a great story to unpack and relate to the Local-Global question in youth ministry.
Global Youth Culture influences have increased the effect of pluralism – producing many value systems and many lifestyles. We will see a trend towards decision making skills and life skills taking a central role in effective youth ministry. In Romans 12:1-3 Paul gives a call that is helpful in this context. Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God not living by the standards of this world by a daily inward transformation of your mind that you might know the will of God and what is true. Life skills of how to, not just survive, but thrive in the emerging context will be trend in the next few years. It will become key to authentic discipleship. The implications for youth ministry are that decision making skills are becoming key to effective youth ministry. Not only in our churches but also those that we seek to serve in the community. Christian thinking and values give frameworks and constructs that can help our young people discern what is constructive and what is destructive. It can also help to influence and give an understand of what might be gifts from God and what are not – and also the things that are not good or bad, but just different!
It is a temptation to think this is just a renewal of old ideas. It is more like a revolution. The ways we have done youth ministry in the past – is for the past - under very different world views and realities. Walter Brueggemann describes this process which he discovered in the Psalms and in the changes experienced in the Bible. He describes it as a move from orientation to disorientation then to reorientation which then becomes the new orientation. Let me suggest we are in a stage of disorientation trying to find out what all this Global and Local youth culture means. Eventually we will discover the new orientation – or at least our young people will. They will then be the leaders of the church and the world that will take them into the new orientation. These trends will be vehicles that transport us into that new reality through the grace and love and wonderful presence of God. The call comes for us to prepare our young people for what the future might hold and to realise – that best of all is that we are not alone. God is not only integrally present through the Holy Spirit, but wanting to build up, strengthen and empower his best strategy – us!