The Things That We Yearn For…

It’s funny how some words become commonplace in a community or culture.  As a resident of Los Angeles you hear a lot of talk about "sex" and "sushi."  It seems that these are two things that Angelenos highly esteem.  So when I came across the book, "Sex, Sushi & Salvation: Thoughts on Intimacy, Community, & Eternity" by Christian George, I knew I must pick it up.  Rarely do you see the word "salvation" in the previous word mix, but I knew as a college pastor these are important topics to the community I minister to.  People’s worlds often revolve around sex (i.e. intimacy, connection, belonging, love, etc.), sushi (i.e. food, sustenance, community, great conversation, going out) and salvation (i.e. God, Jesus, transcendence, community, eternity, etc.).  George says:

Since humans are made in the image of God, we have three basic passions–intimacy, community, and eternity. We burn for them, save for them, pay for them, and pray for them. But only the God who fulfills these desires within Himself can perfectly fulfill them in us. This is a book about sex, sushi, and salvation–a book of snapshots–the ups and downs, the failures and fortunes, the smiles and trials. In these chapters, I retrace my travels around the world, from pagan temples in Greece to Transylvanian mountains in Romania. I confess my lust and love, my struggle with truth, and my quest for Christ.

Fasten your seat belt.  It’s going to be a wild ride. And along the way we just might discover that the God who satisfies us with Himself joins us for the journey.

As I was reading the book, and when I reflect back upon it, there are three basic aspects that really stuck out and drew me to it.

• First, George writes from a real narrative perspective.  And what I mean by that is that often you get a book that is fairly dry with a lot of concepts and ideas, but there is no overarching narrative to pull the reader into the content.  Christian weaves a story that makes you want to turn page after page, and because of this, I think the reader is better able to understand the concepts of intimacy, community and eternity in biblical, practical and earthy terms.

• Second, George really writes from his experiences of traveling.  This is not new stylistically for him, as he returns to a successful writing form that he uses in Sacred Travels: Recovering the Ancient Practice of Pilgrimage.  Humans love traveling, and it is often in traveling, away from our comforts of home, that we are stretched, challenged, and find ourself leaning more and more on God, dependent on Him for direction.  So with the narrative storytelling, the reader will find themselves enjoying different places around the world and how they view intimacy, community, and eternity.  And as you read about his travels, I think that you will think back upon your own travels and how these concepts came to life for you.

• Third, George tackles issues that I think are important not only to everyone, but I think ones that are really prevalent to a college, emerging adult stage of life.  He is obviously not the first to use the metaphor of journey in relation to our life with God, but I think that this metaphor is a much needed one right now, especially in a culture that is used to immediacy and instant fulfillment.

All of these elements combine for a powerful read, and with only 183 pages I think many will want to read it again.  George reminds me of some of the writing Donald Miller has put out recently, especially in its narrative approach to story telling, and with an honesty and vulnerability that I think people are dying for.

I highly recommend this book, so let me leave you with a quote about sushi as I close this post.

Sushi also reflects our search for community.  C.S. Lewis once said ‘Friendship arises out of mere companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste.’  In the 1950’s, boy met girl at soda fountains.  Today they meet at sushi bars.  According to the National Sushi Society, the number of sushi bars in the United States quintupled from 1988 to 1998 alone, and food trends expert Phil Lembert remarked, ‘Sushi may well be the new pizza.’

Why do we want community–whether at a sushi bar or a ’50s malt shop?  Because we burn for belonging.  (Just look at a middle school cafeteria when everyone’s finding a seat.)  God gave us the desire for community so He alone could satisfy it.

 

More Thoughts on “Unhooked”

About a week and a half ago, I posted on what the “unhooked” culture means for youth ministry. As I finished reading the book Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both, a few thoughts popped into my mind as to the implications for ministry to today’s adolescence…

Going Beyond the “One Time” Sex Talk

So often we encourage parents to talk to their kids about sex, and many parents that do end up talking to their kids about sex muster up the ability to only have “the big sex talk” with their kids and think that will suffice. Also, it seems that the talk parents are having with their kids about sex is the mechanics side of sex and the human body. This is stated in the book:

“Opportunities for instruction on the mechanics of sex are plentiful, but conversations about the context and aftermath of sexual relationships are not. This is in part because [people] are frequently uncomfortable talking about the negative, as well as positive, emotions of intimacy. So they put the entire responsibility on students to figure things out for themselves.”

Kids are going to learn about sex. The question is through what means will they get their education? Just because parents talk about it once, does not mean that kids will “get it”. For those of us working with adolescence, we need to continue to encourage parents to be proactive in the sex discussion, and try to provide them resources to help provoke discussion. Also, I think we need to try and create spaces and opportunities in which parents and kids can dialog about the sex and sexuality.

Dating is Subjective

What I mean by this is with books such as I Kissed Dating Goodbye to I Gave Dating a Chance and everything else in between, dating has to up to the individual person. For some people dating is fine, and they can develop healthy boundaries within which to work, and for others dating is not worth the time and effort. No matter where you stand on the dating continuum, we need to educate adolescence to date for the right reasons. The ultimate goal of dating is not sex, but I think so often our culture communicates that sex is the pinnacle of a relationship. Dating should be about teaching adolescents how to care and love for another person through easy and difficult times, learning to identify and deal with the range of emotions that comes with “falling in love”, and helping each other discover who God has made the other person to be.

Modeling Healthy Sexuality

It’s no surprise…Kids are influenced by what they see around them. Going deeper with this idea: Research continues to show that the way kids see the world and the choices they make relies more on the parents then any other entity (more than friends, media, church, etc.).

“Here it was again, a reminder that girls, like guys, learn how to love, care for and be sexual with a partner first by what they see at home. I heard this from each girl in this book, dropped casually in conversations, little details about how their parents did or did not make time for each other, did or did not play with each other, did or did not express affection for each other, did or did not negotiate differences well.”

Sex and sexuality will not necessarily be learned in a seminar or a series of teachings at church or schools, but it will be learned at a child’s home. For married parents, their kid’s view of marriage and how to treat someone and expect to be treated themselves, comes from the interaction mom and dad have with each other. For single parents who choose to date, this is a tremendous opportunity to redeem what was lost in that kids will watch how they approach dating, and pursue relationships from this point forward.

Hooking Up Makes Sense to the Stressed Out, Overcommitted Kids

One of the consistent themes throughout this book is the idea that kids choose hooking up over dating because they just don’t have time or energy to put into a relationship. Amidst trying to get into grad school, preparing for a career, and building a portfolio, being in a relationship is the last thing these kids want. One of the students said:

Dating is a drain on energy and intellect, and we are overworked, overprogrammed, and overcommitted just trying to get into grad school, let alone get married. It’s rare to find someone who would…want to put their relationships over their academics/future.

This contributed to one of Stepp’s theories:

In order to accomplish the goals that their parents–and by this time in their lives, they–want, they believe they can’t afford to invest time, energy and emotion in a deep relationship. Hooking up appears to be a practical alternative.

While trying to create a system and a culture in which kids do not have to be stressed out is a huge task, I think that we need to make sure that we are not contributing to this epidemic in the church. So often we create program and activities that depend on the adolescents to “head up” or be in charge of in order for it to work. While I get the whole “creating student leaders”, I can’t help but wonder if in doing so we might be contributing to the stressed out adolescent, and in turn contributing to the hook up mentality? I’m not saying today’s student leaders are on the fast track to hooking up tomorrow, or even that student leadership is a bad thing, but I definitely think that we need to re-examine how student leadership might be contributing to the “stressed out, overcommitted kid” and his/her tendency to hook up in the future.

These are a few of my thoughts…I would love to hear what other implications this hook up culture has on youth ministry, and our dealings with unhooked adolescence and emerging adults.

 

If you think “hooking-up” isn’t a big deal…then you should start reading some of these books!

As more and more studies, surveys and research is being done on the “hook-up” culture, especially in college, there are a slew of books that are beginning to emerge. One of the interesting things about the “hook-up” culture in college is that it is producing young adults who carry on the same behaviors, and are unable then to carry on any meaningful committed relationships.

RO just blogged about it at our collaborative youth ministry blog Collection of Crumbs. In the book Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both, she writes:

Young people have virtually abandoned dating and replaced it with group get-togethers and sexual behaviors that are detached from love or commitment–and sometimes even from liking. Relationships have been replaced by the casual sexual encounters known as hookups…Hooking up’s defining characteristic is the ability to unhook from a partner at any time.

Recently I blogged about the book Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student. She states:

More relevant to my patients at this stage in their lives is that oxytocin is released during sexual activity. Could it be that the same chemical that flows through a woman’s veins as she nurses her infant, promoting a powerful and selfless devotion, is found in college women ‘hooking up’ with men whose last intention is to bond?

I then saw this today at Ivy Jungle’s Campus Ministry Update. It says:

A Textbook on Hooking Up: Kathleen Bogle has published her book, Hooking Up as an analysis of research into the dating and sexual behaviors of college students today. Conducting in depth interviews with students at two unnamed universities - one large public school and one smaller Roman Catholic school, she describes the casual hook up as the “center for college social life.” Her research shows that students overestimate the frequency of hook ups among their peers as well as “how far” those encounters go (kissing, intercourse, etc.). She is quick to point out that such behavior is not new to campus life, but technology and informality have turned it into what she calls “the dominant script for forming sexual and romantic relationships on campus.” She also points out the damage of a hook up culture on women. First, women are much more likely to receive a bad reputation for hooking up. Secondly, her research shows that women do not get what they want (i.e. a relationship) from the casual sex of a hook up - but believe it is the only way to meet men. The culture is also affecting young adults after graduation. When these young adults enter more formal dating environments, many say they do not know how to go on dates and establish relationships outside of “hanging out” and “hooking up.” A full interview with the author is available at www.insidehighered.com (Inside Higher Ed January 29, 200

Books:

• Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both

• Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student

• Hooking Up: Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus

There are plenty of more books out there on this topic, plus the books that are in favor of hooking up and how to go about having casual sexual relationships. I think that I am concerned more and more for the students I work with who really don’t think it’s a big deal, and fail to think about the long term ramifications of their actions. And usually in the process it is the woman who gets hurt the most as the research is showing.

I think Bogle’s statements are pretty telling:

“center for college social life.” Her research shows that students overestimate the frequency of hook ups among their peers as well as “how far” those encounters go (kissing, intercourse, etc.). She is quick to point out that such behavior is not new to campus life, but technology and informality have turned it into what she calls “the dominant script for forming sexual and romantic relationships on campus.”

 

This book should be a primer for all college pastors (well, anyone working with youth that is)

I posted the below over at Leadership Network’s Book Blog because it has been a very important book for me in college ministry. This book is actually really relevant for anyone working with youth, because if you work with youth I know this topic has come up.

I’m going to begin to post more about this in the next few weeks at this site, as well as at my own blog, Rhett Smith. I would love to hear about this topic from you. If you are a youth minister, or work with you, what is your thought on this topic? Is is an issue in the ministry you work in?

Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student

I’ve been slowly reading through Miriam Grossman M.D.’s new book, Unprotected, and I’m having a hard time finding the right adjective to describe my thoughts…depressing, enlightening, sad. One of the reasons that I picked up the book was because I have been working with college students for almost ten years and I (among many others) have noticed the affects of the “hook up” culture in college circles.

“Hooking up” is nothing new in college, and in fact it’s even made easier through social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace which allow you to find “hook up” partners at the touch of a button. But now for the first time in many years, those in the medical, psychological and religious fields are taking notice of some of the long lasting effects of this sexual encounter. Dr. Grossman who has been working with college students for over twenty years, and the last ten working as a psychiatrist at UCLA’s Student Psychological Services, wrote this book out of her experiences of working with thousands of college students, and more specifically women on college campuses. Miriam writes,

“Now young people are advised to use latex, and have a limited number of partners (as opposed to unlimited?). There is a tacit approval of promiscuity and experimentation: one study of college students speaks of ‘primary and casual sex partners.”

She goes on to say that,

“More relevant to my patients at this stage in their lives is that oxytocin is released during sexual activity. Could it be that the same chemical that flows through a woman’s veins as she nurses her infant, promoting a powerful and selfless devotion, is found in college women ‘hooking up’ with men whose last intention is to bond?”

As a college pastor this is a necessary book as I interact with students who live in a “hook up” culture. And for the first time in many years, Grossman from a psychiatric perspective is confirming what Christian teachers have been saying.