Youth Specialties

[Sing4Him]

A Time of Departing
Speaks On Youth Specialties

(Excerpt from A Time of Departing by Ray Yungen)
"In the fall of 1997 the Lilly Endowment funded [a] ministry experiment called the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project. The project directors are Mark Yaconelli (son of Mike Yaconelli) and Andrew Dreitcer. Mike Yaconelli is cofounder of Youth Specialties, a resource and training organization that has a major impact upon evangelical youth work across America. These men teach courses at the Youth Specialties National Youth Workers Conventions and the Canadian National Youth Workers Conventions. Course titles include, "Space for God: a Contemplative Model of Youth Ministry," and "God Encounters: Spiritual Exercises That Trans- form Students." In addition, Youth Specialties holds a national convention for pastors each year, three national youth worker conventions a year and over 100 seminars every year that reach over 100,000 youth workers worldwide - all with its current teaching on spirituality. Mike Yaconelli's attraction and acceptance of contemplative prayer is very similar to the story of Sue Monk Kidd. In his book, Dangerous Wonder, Yaconelli relates how lost he had felt after twenty- five years of ministry. In his confusion he read Henri Nouwen's book, In The Name of Jesus, and found himself wanting "to start listening again to the voice of Jesus." 29 In Nouwen's book we can find the method that began Yaconelli's claim to a newfound voice of Jesus: Through the discipline of contemplative prayer, Christian leaders have to learn to listen again and again to the voice of love and to find there the wisdom and courage to address whatever issue presents itself to them For Christian leadership to be truly fruitful in the future, a movement from the moral to the mystical is required. 30 Yaconelli took this admonition to heart and is now not only practicing Nouwen's prayer method but is also promoting it through his powerful organization."
http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/youthspecialtiesexcerptfromray.htm

[Sing4Him]

Youth Specialties President: "Christianity is an eastern religion." :doh:ohno

Youth Specialties President
Mark Oestreicher (Marko) Comments:
On Yoga:
"[Y]oga is really just about stretching and slowing down. Sure, yoga, I suppose, could focus on Hindi or Buddhist gods or something - but it can also focus on Christ. We received a couple stomping-mad complaints about the yoga at the National Pastors Convention, saying 'putting your body in those positions invites Hindi gods to enter your body.' I'm sorry - this just sounds like heresy to me. If we don't believe Hindi gods actually exist, then why are we concerned about them entering our bodies?"—A response to the charge that YS is embracing eastern religion by Mark Oestreicher

On Eastern Religion:
"Christianity IS an eastern religion. It has all its roots in the East! It's a bit baffling to me that people lose sight of this, and insist on creating a false separation between eastern religions and (apparently) western Christianity.—A response to the charge that YS is embracing eastern religion by Mark Oestreicher

On ContemplativePrayer:
"If a Buddhist is using a breathing exercise to bring some peace to her life, well, bless her. But that should have no bearing on whether or not I choose to focus on my God-created breath."—A response to the charge that YS is embracing eastern religion by Mark Oestreicher

"On saying words over and over again: well that sure is taken out of context. It's not like we would suggest someone grab any word ('Tree!' 'Towel!' 'Beer!') and chant it over and over again-which is her implication. There is a wonderful spiritual practice, however, of repeating a phrase from the Bible and seeing what God reveals to you about it (or about Him, or about you). It's prayer: not a chant.—A response to the charge that YS is embracing eastern religion by Mark Oestreicher----------------------------------------------------------------

Also see Youth Specialties Featured Book: The Sacred Way by Tony Jones


See the Table of Contents:

Labyrinths, centering prayer, icons, stations of the cross, the sign of the cross,the Jesus Prayer

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Youth Specialties Recommends a book by Maggie & Duffy Robbins .... Enjoy the Silence. But did you know that Maggie was trained at the pro-contemplative, pro Eastern mediation, Kairos School of Spiritual Formation?

A supplemental reading list for Kairos School includes the following authors: David Steindl-Rast, Thomas Keating and Morton Kelsey, all of whom are interspiritual contemplatives.
The Great Cover Up



Disciplines, Mystics, and the Contemplative Life
by Mike Perschon

An excerpt: "I built myself a prayer room—a tiny sanctuary in a basement closet filled with books on spiritual disciplines, contemplative prayer, and Christian mysticism. In that space I lit candles, burned incense, hung rosaries, and listened to tapes of Benedictine monks. I meditated for hours on words, images, and sounds. I reached the point of being able to achieve alpha brain patterns..."Also read: Mike Perschon,
Contemplative Prayer PracticesYouth Specialties Goes All Out For Contemplative Prayer


Youth Specialties magazine Youth Worker,
in this month's issue (November 2004)— Yes they are promoting mantra-style meditation. Youth Specialties is a growing leader in discipleship training for youth workers and youth pastors. YS also sponsors the well attended National Pastor's Convention.
But did you know that Youth Specialties promotes and teaches contemplative prayer and the silence?

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In the May 2003 Youth Specialties Update, they suggest their readers go to this web site -
ALTERNATIVE WORSHIP.

See What Is Being Promoted
Meditations, incantations, chants, guided fantasies, incense,
holding stones*


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How Are Youth Specialties and
Thomas Keating connected?
And who is Thomas Keating?

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ANCIENT FUTURE YOUTH MINISTRY
"It's Sunday just after 5 P.M. in the youth room. Seven adults are sitting around a 'Christ-candle' in the youth room. There is no talking, no laughter. For 10 minutes, the only noise is the sound of their breathing ... now it's 7 p.m. ... one hour into the night's youth group gathering. There are 18 senior highers and five adults sitting in a candlelit sanctuary. A gold cross stands on a table . They're chanting the 'Jesus Prayer', an ancient meditative practice."
(taken from the July/August 1999 issue of Group Magazine - a leading resource magazine for Christian youth leaders)

http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/youthspecialties.htm

[Sing4Him]

Taken from
Please Contemplate This
by T.A. McMahon of
The Berean Call



"Mark Yaconelli is co-director of the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project (YMSP), an Eli Lilly (makers of Prozac) endowed program which is introducing contemplative spirituality to young people throughout the country. He is also an adjunct professor of youth ministries at San Francisco Theological Seminary. His father is Mike Yaconelli, head of Youth Specialties, a major evangelical organization serving "more than 80,000 youth workers worldwide through training seminars, conventions, videos, magazines, and resource products." One Youth Specialties seminar is "Sabbath: A [Contemplative] Spiritual Retreat for Youth Workers," which Mark Yaconelli leads. In an article for the popular, youth-oriented Group magazine, Mark states, "The YMSP approach to youth ministry pushes for a return to God-awareness...[noting] that middle school and senior high kids are hungry to encounter God directly and eager to learn contemplative spiritual practices." In another article subtitled "How Spiritual Exercises Can Change Your Kids," he tells of implementing contemplative methods he first learned at "a weeklong retreat at a nearby [Roman Catholic] convent": Our [YMSP] project churches were introduced to a number of classical exercises from the Christian tradition: Biblical meditation forms like Lectio Divina and Ignatian contemplation; icon prayers and other visualization prayers; chanting; guided imagery; biblical imagination ... centering prayer; and prayers of discernment."


http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/yaconellimark.htm