week 6 ask to listen by Matthew Beck n 2000 Jordan Seiler began to illegally cover up advertisements in his city with artwork. Dubbed Public Ad Campaign, Jordan and friends sought to take back public spaces. Still going today, they post every unauthorized public installation online.1 When asked what Public Ad Campaign was trying to say, Jordan replied, The intent is really to quiet those spaces. It s not about communicating any idea specifically other than the idea of interacting. 2 The movement was birthed out of the deep conviction that the thousands of ads we see every day impair our abilities to communicate with each other. Think of the marketing you see at your favorite coffee shop or fast food restaurant alone. The signs, napkins, straws, cups, wrappers, sauce packets, and bags all have the logo and slogan. Add a few TVs to the setting, get out your smartphone, and try having a conversation with someone. The flickering images and competing voices are dizzying. This is how we live having fragmented conversations. I
soulsh ft youth ministry leader s guide The goal of every advertisement is to steal your attention. Billboards and commercials are designed to interrupt, distract, and pull you away from what you re focused on and doing. And marketers are doing an excellent job. For a couple of years, Got Milk? installed advertisements in bus stops that emitted the smell of fresh-baked cookies. McDonald s recently created a billboard shaped like a box of their French fries with yellow search lights beamed into the sky. A series of seemingly blank billboards glow only in the dark with the iconic golden arches and the words, Open all night. While innovative, these advertisements seek to turn our gaze away from what is near and present. It s no wonder we feel disconnected from each other. And it should be no surprise when our students say they don t know how to hear God. The Bible tells us that at the start of all things, God said (Gen. 1:3). Creation began with God speaking. Throughout the Scriptures, we see a picture of a God who communicates. What sets him apart from every other pagan god of the Old Testament is that he speaks. God spoke at the beginning; to the people at Mt. Sinai; and to Abraham, Moses, David, and many others. At the beginning of his gospel, John called God the Word (John 1:1). The entire biblical narrative reveals a God who speaks. It is not a question of if God is speaking, but a question of if we are listening. Acts 17:27 says, God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. Did you catch that? We have to seek and reach out for what is not far. If it is not far away, then we should find it easily. 42
ask to listen But listening is a lost art. God is speaking, but we have to reach past the voices that are drowning out his. We have to seek a place to listen when the world around us is getting louder. Our task then as youth workers is to help students quiet the places in their lives that seek to drown out God s voice. We cannot do this for them, but we can model it and intentionally bring silence and solitude back into our programs and events. In 2007 my friends and I went on a solitude trip to Alaska. Alaska has only nineteen highways, so there are many places where you cannot hear the sound of a car or TV or get wifi on your smartphone. The purpose of the trip was to retreat from the multitude of noises in order to hear one singular voice. While trekking through snow along mountain ranges, I recalled the words written by Thomas Merton: To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. More than that, it is cooperation in violence. The frenzy of the activist naturalizes his work for peace. It destroys his own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful. 3 Our students are under more pressure than they have ever been before with academics, athletics, and other after-school expectations. It seems like we have to fight even harder to get them to be consistent in youth ministries. Therefore, when we get them there, we must create environments with enough space 43
soulsh ft youth ministry leader s guide for students to listen. It is in the noisy, hurried life that we go from voice to voice, asking. But in solitude and rest, we listen. To further illustrate this concept, think about New Year s resolutions and chocolate cake. In 2009 The Wall Street Journal published an article on the science behind why New Year s resolutions fail. I hate to break it to you, but 88 percent fail. Much of the article drew upon the research of renowned Stanford professor, Baba Shiv. A professor in neuroeconomics (the connection between the brain and marketing), Shiv conducted an experiment on several dozen Stanford undergraduates. Half of the participants were to memorize a two-digit number and half were to memorize a seven-digit number. Both groups were then asked to walk to the end of a hallway where they were offered a snack choice between fresh fruit and chocolate cake. What s interesting is the students who had to memorize a seven-digit number were twice as likely to take the chocolate cake. Now, brain science tells us that the prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain responsible for willpower the force we use to keep New Year s resolutions and resist chocolate cake. That prefrontal cortex acts like a muscle in that, like a bicep, it can only exert itself until it gives out. For the students in the experiment, all it took were five extra bits of information. The key then to keeping our New Year s resolutions is to understand our cognitive capacity and not to overload our brains. 4 And as our brains are overloaded, so go our souls. In a way then, the shift from Ask to Listen feeds the soil that allows every other SoulShift to grow in us. So how do we help students take 44
ask to listen back the space in their lives that is to be devoted to the Lord? We have to encourage them to seek solitude and teach them how to listen to the Father more and ask others less, just as Jesus did. Luke 5:15 16 says, Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. Here are some things to try with your students: Solitude Trips: Take your students to places where they can listen. Have them unplug from electronics. Students aren t used to this, so guided alone time is imperative. Sacred Space: Teach on sacred spaces. Have students take pictures of the place they meet and listen to God. Collect the photos and set up a photography exhibit so students can see where and how their peers and leaders connect with God. Silence: Work into your services the opportunity for students to listen, reflect, and be still. Times of silence with reflective questions on the screen can be worked in almost anywhere during the worship service. Ancient Prayers: Use ancient poetry and prayers like St. Ignatius Prayer of Examen. These can help students verbalize what they may be feeling. These ancient prayers may even spark interest in students to write their own prayer poetry. 45
soulsh ft youth ministry leader s guide Questions 1. Have you ever felt like you were having a fragmented conversation with someone? When and where? 2. What does Scripture teach about God speaking? 3. Why do you think we have to seek and reach out for what is not far away? 4. How can you quiet the spaces in your life that seek to drown out God s voice? 5. What measurable goals can you set to practice listening to God? Notes 1. Public Ad Campaign, accessed October 8, 2012, http://www.publicadcampaign.com/index.php. 2. The GOOD 100: Public Ad Campaign, GOOD, accessed October 8, 2012, http://www.good.is/posts/the-good- 100-public-ad-campaign. 3. Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (New York: Doubleday, 1966), 81. 4. Jonah Lehrer, Blame It on the Brain, The Wall Street Journal, December 26, 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/sb 10001424052748703478704574612052322122442.html?KEY WORDS=baba+shiv. 46