Youth Ministry Academy

By: Mark Hayse

Professor, MidAmerica Nazarene University

“What is global ministry, anyway?”

That’s the question that kept crossing my mind as I read Gary Hartke’s comments in the first issue of The Academy Today. What defines global ministry? Programs and sermons that look alike and sound alike no matter where you go?

As David Gonzalez wrote in the last issue, we live in “a great global village” sustained by transportation and media technologies. Technology truly brings the world closer together. However, those same technologies that can make us one also threaten to make us all the same. For example, Facebook may free us to talk together across cultures, but it also restricts our speech by reducing our creativity to the same format. We make that trade every time that we use media technology. Media technology both sharpens and dulls our communication at the same time. If you would like to read more about this idea, then check out these two books by Shane Hipps: The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Your Faith, and Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith.

(more…)

Each month, the Youth Ministry Academy blog will feature a guest column written by one of NYI’s seven global regions.  The Guest Column will feature opinions on each month’s topic at the Academy.  The inaugural Guest Column, on the topic of Global Ministry, comes to us from NYI Director Gary Hartke

By: Gary Hartke

In June 2009, 713 NYI delegates gathered for the 22^nd Global NYI Convention. This was an historic event as delegates participated in the convention from 8 locations around the world including: South Africa, Germany, India, Philippines, Ecuador, Trinidad, Dominican Republic, and the United States of America. Throughout these days delegates participated via video conferencing technology in general sessions, regional caucuses, and partner region meetings. This was another “first” for NYI. Expanding the convention worldwide was another step in the NYI journey of being and becoming a global ministry.

Today NYI is working in over 150 countries of the world, in 13,706 local churches, 433 districts, 47 fields, and 7 regions. We are a worldwide family. Yes, we are divided by borders, languages, cultures and customs; however, we share a common belief in God and desire to journey together with other young believers that we may never meet here on earth.

(more…)