A guest post by Aaron Kirkpatrick at RethinkingYouthMinistry.com offers this compelling thought against involving youth in “service projects”:
A project is a job.
A project is an assignment.A project is something that must get done, regardless of whether you actually want to do it. Cleaning the bathroom is a project. That fifteen page paper your seniors have been putting off doing is a project. My honey-do list is full of projects.But we’re calling our students to serve people, and people are not projects.When we refer to these times of service as “service projects” we immediately cheapen what our teens are doing, we limit the ministry our teens will do, and we hinder our students’ ability to be transformed through the experience of serving. At best, our words frame their service in terms of what they do instead of who they touch, and at worst they cause our teens to view people in an impersonal way that removes the love and compassion that is at the heart of Christian ministry.
What do you think?
Is there a line we should be aware of in making sure students are more than task-focused in serving?
Or… does any good deed have value?
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All of the items listed may be “projects” but i guarantee you that you mowing the lawn and fixing up shrubs for someone who physically can’t do it is not a “project” to them but ministry. I disagree with Kirkpatrick’s comment in which he said,
“When we refer to these times of service as “service projects” we immediately cheapen what our teens are doing, we limit the ministry our teens will do, and we hinder our students’ ability to be transformed through the experience of serving.”
How is helping out someone in need cheapening what they are doing? In no way do service projects hinder their ability to be transformed! Christ came and did things that no one wanted to do and he humbled himself to the lowest form as a servant. We should be doing lots of service projects with our kids because it shows them what hard work is, how to serve others, and work together as a team to get things done. I’m not sure if the author is just looking to fill a quota for his daily blog, but i thought it was a pretty weak arguement against doing those things. Just my thoughts!
Marc, great catch. The only alternative I’d offer is we have a family in our church who has real needs… only they’ve refused help because in their last church they felt like a project. People would come, do things for them and then leave. It actually was all without any relationship or community to it. Just this past week, I was finally able to get them to receive some help from us – but I had to tell them, “I’m going to stay one step out of this process, so that if you feel those involved with helping you cross a line you can come to me and let me know.”
Maybe that’s the kind of sensitivity the original article is offering. Tony Campolo and Mike Yaconelli used to advocate that if you have Christmas gifts for a group of kids, don’t ring the doorbell, enter in, watch them open it and take a picture of it all… it emasculates the dad or humbles the mom who couldn’t provide for the kids themselves. Instead, he’d offer, go ring the doorbell and leave the gifts while you run away so the gifts can be claimed in secret. I’m not sure that is the sure-fire solution, as it can make people feel like the people in my church felt in the past… but I understand the intentions of their point. What do you think?
One thing i’ve found in doing ministry is that you can’t help how other people feel and some people can change their attitude and soften while others are stubborn, rude, angry, and don’t ever plan on change. (And let’s hope God gets a hold of their hearts!) If people refuse help, then that’s on them. There are a ton of examples in scripture where people didn’t want Jesus’ help and turned away. (rich young ruler being one) and Jesus doesn’t chase them down and ask “are you sure” he lets them go on their way and they live with the choices they made. If all we do is “service” for people and never engage in conversation or help to meet some needs then i think we’ve missed the point of what we are doing. It’s like a job. If all you do is show up, work, punch in and out and never engage or develop yourself then you are missing out on so many other things.
Jesus does tell us to do things not in a boastful way but at the same time, that doesn’t mean like you stated ding, dong, ditch christmas presents. There are better ways to go about it.
All of the items listed may be “projects” but i guarantee you that you mowing the lawn and fixing up shrubs for someone who physically can’t do it is not a “project” to them but ministry. I disagree with Kirkpatrick’s comment in which he said,
“When we refer to these times of service as “service projects” we immediately cheapen what our teens are doing, we limit the ministry our teens will do, and we hinder our students’ ability to be transformed through the experience of serving.”
How is helping out someone in need cheapening what they are doing? In no way do service projects hinder their ability to be transformed! Christ came and did things that no one wanted to do and he humbled himself to the lowest form as a servant. We should be doing lots of service projects with our kids because it shows them what hard work is, how to serve others, and work together as a team to get things done. I’m not sure if the author is just looking to fill a quota for his daily blog, but i thought it was a pretty weak arguement against doing those things. Just my thoughts!
Marc, great catch. The only alternative I’d offer is we have a family in our church who has real needs… only they’ve refused help because in their last church they felt like a project. People would come, do things for them and then leave. It actually was all without any relationship or community to it. Just this past week, I was finally able to get them to receive some help from us – but I had to tell them, “I’m going to stay one step out of this process, so that if you feel those involved with helping you cross a line you can come to me and let me know.”
Maybe that’s the kind of sensitivity the original article is offering. Tony Campolo and Mike Yaconelli used to advocate that if you have Christmas gifts for a group of kids, don’t ring the doorbell, enter in, watch them open it and take a picture of it all… it emasculates the dad or humbles the mom who couldn’t provide for the kids themselves. Instead, he’d offer, go ring the doorbell and leave the gifts while you run away so the gifts can be claimed in secret. I’m not sure that is the sure-fire solution, as it can make people feel like the people in my church felt in the past… but I understand the intentions of their point. What do you think?
One thing i’ve found in doing ministry is that you can’t help how other people feel and some people can change their attitude and soften while others are stubborn, rude, angry, and don’t ever plan on change. (And let’s hope God gets a hold of their hearts!) If people refuse help, then that’s on them. There are a ton of examples in scripture where people didn’t want Jesus’ help and turned away. (rich young ruler being one) and Jesus doesn’t chase them down and ask “are you sure” he lets them go on their way and they live with the choices they made. If all we do is “service” for people and never engage in conversation or help to meet some needs then i think we’ve missed the point of what we are doing. It’s like a job. If all you do is show up, work, punch in and out and never engage or develop yourself then you are missing out on so many other things.
Jesus does tell us to do things not in a boastful way but at the same time, that doesn’t mean like you stated ding, dong, ditch christmas presents. There are better ways to go about it.
I appreciate this post and can understand the concern, but I think that calling it a service project does not mean that the person we are serving is a project, but the activity itself we are performing. When I have a project at home to complete, my calling it a project does not imply that my family whom it serves is a project, but rather what I am doing is the project; it does not cheapen what I am doing nor the love I feel for my family.
That being said, I do think we need to be sure to encourage youth to think with compassion and love toward ministering to the person/people being served. If renaming service projects is the way to do that then by all means lose the project language, but most importantly distinguish between who we are serving (person) and how we are serving (project).
I think you nailed it, Liz – it really is about the heart. It’d seem we do live in a culture where words do matter, but hopefully motive can always trump anything we’d stumble over.
I appreciate this post and can understand the concern, but I think that calling it a service project does not mean that the person we are serving is a project, but the activity itself we are performing. When I have a project at home to complete, my calling it a project does not imply that my family whom it serves is a project, but rather what I am doing is the project; it does not cheapen what I am doing nor the love I feel for my family.
That being said, I do think we need to be sure to encourage youth to think with compassion and love toward ministering to the person/people being served. If renaming service projects is the way to do that then by all means lose the project language, but most importantly distinguish between who we are serving (person) and how we are serving (project).
I think you nailed it, Liz – it really is about the heart. It’d seem we do live in a culture where words do matter, but hopefully motive can always trump anything we’d stumble over.
In order for the teens at our parish to be Confirmed we used to have service requirements. At my church I changed things up a bit and called them “service experiences” and they were modeled off of the works of mercy taken straight from scripture. The teens were then asked to share how that journey impacted their spiritual life.
However, Recently, our Bishop reminded those of us who are involved in preparation for this sacrament that being serving others is part of who we are as Christians, not something to cross off on a checklist. It’s been a beautiful mentality shift away from doing the bare minimum and towards loving like Christ. We don’t have a requirement but we offer experiences and still discuss.
This is great, Sarah… especially seeing the way you and your Bishop complement each other on this. Hopefully your students will take that baton pass well!
What I have learned in almost 30 years of working with high school youth in the Catholic Church if we explain why it is important that we do service for others it changes the way that they look at it. I agree with Sarah. We have moved from a have to to a want to with regards to service and our youth respond in a great way. They are all in during the course of the year and then again on our mission trip in the summer. We are a parish without a school so that allows us to do more. If they push back on service explain to them that part of being a disciple for Jesus is feeding the poor and clothing the naked.
Solid stuff, Kevin. Especially how this is what it means to follow Jesus – not merely to do good deeds or earn spiritual points, but because “this is our identity.” Thank you for your years of service, too!
In order for the teens at our parish to be Confirmed we used to have service requirements. At my church I changed things up a bit and called them “service experiences” and they were modeled off of the works of mercy taken straight from scripture. The teens were then asked to share how that journey impacted their spiritual life.
However, Recently, our Bishop reminded those of us who are involved in preparation for this sacrament that being serving others is part of who we are as Christians, not something to cross off on a checklist. It’s been a beautiful mentality shift away from doing the bare minimum and towards loving like Christ. We don’t have a requirement but we offer experiences and still discuss.
This is great, Sarah… especially seeing the way you and your Bishop complement each other on this. Hopefully your students will take that baton pass well!
What I have learned in almost 30 years of working with high school youth in the Catholic Church if we explain why it is important that we do service for others it changes the way that they look at it. I agree with Sarah. We have moved from a have to to a want to with regards to service and our youth respond in a great way. They are all in during the course of the year and then again on our mission trip in the summer. We are a parish without a school so that allows us to do more. If they push back on service explain to them that part of being a disciple for Jesus is feeding the poor and clothing the naked.
Solid stuff, Kevin. Especially how this is what it means to follow Jesus – not merely to do good deeds or earn spiritual points, but because “this is our identity.” Thank you for your years of service, too!
I think you’re talking about verbage… which is fine. Doing the actions is also fine.
I think as Leaders, the way we convey our message is important. We need to help the young people we’re leading to see the “Acts of Service” they perform as part of the mission they are on in spreading the message (which is comprised of more than just words) of the Kingdom of God!
So, if by using terminology like “Service Projects” seems to objectify the recipients of the Acts of Service, then maybe a change needs to be made.
Similar to being a prisoner and being given a number, that prisoner ceases to be a person in some people’s eyes. They are now just a criminal and their number is 192837465. They’ve become just another statistic.
At the same time, maybe this just gives us an opportunity to draw a deeper understanding of the things we do for others and the relationships we develop after doing them. Being an American living in the UK, All kinds of terminologies caught me off guard. Many were very unhelpful (and still are), like “Filter-lane” rather than “Turn Lane” or “Pavement” rather than “Side Walk”. One is definitely more descriptive than the other and surely that’s what is so useful about language, it’s ability to describe something in one or 2 words.
But these things are simply something to get used to and may only become an issue once someone brings them up. Which is why we have a buzillion translations and interpretations and versions of the Bible, much to the confusion of the non-Bible-reading public.
Well-worded phrase here, Bryce: “…much to the confusion of the non-Bible-reading public.” It reminded me of how much insiders language we have on these matters, even in regards to this verbiage. Maybe the catch is making sure we speak as missionaries (in the language of that culture versus our own).
I think you’re talking about verbage… which is fine. Doing the actions is also fine.
I think as Leaders, the way we convey our message is important. We need to help the young people we’re leading to see the “Acts of Service” they perform as part of the mission they are on in spreading the message (which is comprised of more than just words) of the Kingdom of God!
So, if by using terminology like “Service Projects” seems to objectify the recipients of the Acts of Service, then maybe a change needs to be made.
Similar to being a prisoner and being given a number, that prisoner ceases to be a person in some people’s eyes. They are now just a criminal and their number is 192837465. They’ve become just another statistic.
At the same time, maybe this just gives us an opportunity to draw a deeper understanding of the things we do for others and the relationships we develop after doing them. Being an American living in the UK, All kinds of terminologies caught me off guard. Many were very unhelpful (and still are), like “Filter-lane” rather than “Turn Lane” or “Pavement” rather than “Side Walk”. One is definitely more descriptive than the other and surely that’s what is so useful about language, it’s ability to describe something in one or 2 words.
But these things are simply something to get used to and may only become an issue once someone brings them up. Which is why we have a buzillion translations and interpretations and versions of the Bible, much to the confusion of the non-Bible-reading public.
Well-worded phrase here, Bryce: “…much to the confusion of the non-Bible-reading public.” It reminded me of how much insiders language we have on these matters, even in regards to this verbiage. Maybe the catch is making sure we speak as missionaries (in the language of that culture versus our own).