eZine 06.16.2009

TheSource4YM.com
	Jonathan’s Resource Ezine

• Featured: My Comrades?Jonathan Blogs About His Experience at a Dynamic, Growing Russian-American Church
• Youth Culture Window: The Sex Text Hotline- Teens Use Tech to Have “The Talk”

It’s fun, it’s informative, it’s gritty… it’s Jonathan’s Blog.

Yesterday, Jonathan’s Blog took a peek at a unique sub-culture that does church just a little bit different…

My Comrades
Posted on Monday, June 15, 2009

Last night I spoke at a youth service for a Sacramento area Russian church known as the House of Bread Church. It was a really fun experience on several levels.

First… it was intriguing to note some of the cultural differences from these English speaking Russian Americans. Not only was this group professional and well dressed (yes… even the teenagers), they were also much more polite and attentive than the typical U.S. youth group. More on that in a minute.

A little background. Most of the people in this group were born in Russia, the Ukraine, Estonia, etc. and moved to the U.S. with their parents when they were toddlers or young kids. Most of their parents moved here to escape religious persecution. Many of these students have stories of their parents or grandparents spending time in jail because of their faith. 22-year-old Eddie started off the story in prayer, sharing a story of his grandfather in Russia years ago refusing to renounce the name of Jesus. All he needed to do was deny Christ and he would be set free- he refused.

A powerful legacy that many of these students were left with.

Because of this legacy and tradition, most of these students have grown up in very strict Christian homes, attending churches where the girls wear dresses and the boys wear ties. The services are in Russian, because, as my new friend Anna explained, “Anything too American was seen as bad.”

So this particular church is a little radical, by Russian standards, because they do an English speaking service. Anna and her team of leaders respect the old traditions, but at the same time have noticed an open door to reach English speaking Russian Americans with an English worship service.

The age group of these ?students? varies from 16 to young twenties. Apparently many of these Russian groups organize their age groups a little different than the traditional American “jr. high” and “high school” group. These Russian groups reach kids, then tweens and teens up to about 15 years old, then 16 to young twenties (which, ironically is dictionary definition Gen Y). The group I spoke to last night was this group of 16 to young twenties.

A few random observations:

• This group was in much better physical shape than typical “born in the USA” Americans. I am 5 foot 9 and 185 pounds (about 15 pounds overweight- basically, I can hide my gut in a big shirt, but not in a swimsuit)… and I was by far the fattest dude in the room!
• This group was well dressed. Anna, Jimmy, Eddie and the leadership team described this group as casual, remarking how radical this was for a Slavic church. But when I got there, the most casual guy there was jeans, a nice shirt and dress shoes. Everyone had on dress shoes. No flip flops in this CA church…

Jonathan McKee, president of The Source for Youth Ministry, is the author of numerous youth ministry books including 10-Minute Talks, and the award winning books Do They Run When They See You Coming? and Getting Students to Show Up. He speaks and trains at camps, conferences, and events across North America, and provides free resources for youth workers internationally on his website, TheSource4YM.com.

“When is a person not a virgin anymore?!” “If u have sex underwater, do u still need a condom?” “Why do guys think it?s cool to sleep with a girl and tell their friends?”

These are just a few of the questions teens are anonymously asking complete strangers regarding sex.

The Sex Text Hotline
The Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign based in Durham, NC has been making headlines for several months due to its unorthodox approach regarding sex education (and counsel) given to teens. The APPC allows teens to anonymously send their questions to The Birds & the Bees Text Line and get answers about sex from adults who work with the state-funded program. The popularity of this program has quickly swept across the country, and now students from all over America are sending text messages to North Carolina, as this article from the New York Times attests.

There are two basic reasons for the program?s popularity. First, um…lots of teens are having sex. The website for the APPC claims that “63% of North Carolina high school students report having sexual intercourse at least once.” Reinforcing that number is the 2007 study from The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, which found that 47.8% of high school students (grades 9th ? 12th) admitted to having sex at least once. (Unfortunately, the numbers go up as the teenagers get older.)

And all that sex comes with consequences. For instance, The Center for Disease Control recently reported that 26% of teenage girls in the U.S., between the ages of 14 and 19, have a sexually transmitted disease. Additionally, preliminary studies point to an increase in teen pregnancies, ending a decade-long decline. (This table shows teen pregnancy rates by state.)

But there is another reason for the rampant use of this system by teens: privacy (from parents). The system allows teens to be discreet when asking questions and receiving answers for awkward inquiries concerning sex. That obscurity is an attractive feature for many teens.

But what kind of advice are teens getting when they let their thumbs do the talking?

My Test Text
Frequent readers of our Youth Culture Window articles could probably have guessed that I would contact the Birds and Bees Hotline. What the heck, right?

I sent the following message to the text hotline because of the frequency with which I had to answer it as a youth pastor: “Since I am about to marry my girlfriend is it ok to have sex with her?” Within about three minutes, I received this short and courteous reply: “Thanks for texting the Birds & Bees Text Line. Someone will respond to your text within 24 hours.”

Sure enough, inside an hour and a half, my smart phone buzzed, letting me know I had received a message…

David R. Smith, is the Director of Content Development at TheSource4YM.com, providing truly free resources and ideas that help youth workers reach kids. David speaks and trains around the U.S., sharing the gospel, and equipping others to do the same.