Hope is not a strategy

I love phrases. They help put big ideas into a sentence that can be remembered. I have a list of them--some I have created, some I have stolen, and some I have no idea where they came from!!

This one is one of my favorites: Hope is not a strategy. Every parent I know of hopes that their kid turns out well. They hope their kids keep going to church and make good decisions. Every parent hopes their kids are "happy"--whatever that means. (That's another blog...) Every youth worker hopes their ministry impacts kids and helps them. Every church hopes that they make a difference. And the hopes go on. But, remember...Hope is not a strategy. God bless you for your good feelings, but it won't really matter in the end if you don't build some intentionality into your hope. More parents need intentionality. More youth ministries need a strategy to go with their energy. More churches need clarity and intentionality to add to their busyness. Intentionality does not mean you lose all spontaneity. It doesn't mean you become super-organized and a Type-A personality. What I am talking about is simply being clearer about WHY we are doing things and WHAT we are hoping will happen because we are doing them. This issue of relying on our hopes is creating a culture of ministry and parenting that is based solely on our feelings. That may help to create some sense of "we care" about our kids--but it loses any chance of actually being strategic. In the process, we are losing so many of our young people to a culture that is relentlessly pursuing them. Depending your your study, we are losing between 40 to 60 percent of the teenagers who are presently involved with our youth ministries--but will be disengaged from church life, and their faith, by the time they hit their late teens and emerging adulthood. And, this is NOT A DETOUR--this is the EXIT RAMP from church and faith life. This is incredibly significant. And hoping it will change will do nothing. Until parents and churches begin to strategically address this issue, the slide away from church and faith will only continue. I am not a pessimist by nature, but this one is serious. What can parents do? What can churches and youth ministries do? What WILL we do? My dream is that it is more than hoping....In fact, I will be doing an event on Monday night, May 21 at Cornerstone Church in Crystal, MN where we will be discussing this issue. If you are in town, join us. The information in on the Youth Leadership website. Here is to your action steps. Start somewhere. Do something. I'd like to hear what you think.