Brenda Seefeldt

1. How did you get involved in youth ministry?

It has to do with a Corvette and the guy who drove it, in that order. And I was young. But it did lead me into youth ministry. No further questions.

2. How does Wild Frontier help youth workers?

Between the combination of my crash and burn (see below) and the original calling on my life (a short time after the Corvette), I began Wild Frontier in 1990 as a resource to help other youth workers “move beyond the great horizons” (as Randy Stonehill sings it). We began with a culture resource which was originally called Stuff. Then the mail version moved to a fax version called Stufffax. Then that version moved to an e-mail version of Stuffnet. All that to say that we’ve been collecting information on the youth culture to use as a window to do youth ministry differently for a very long time.

Shortly after that I started a mailed newsletter (which has also morphed into an e-newsletter) called Pair of Cleats which was just a place for my collected thoughts (and guest writers) on how to do youth ministry differently. The title is a twist on the word Paraclete with the twist being I am walking with you in my own shoes who also preach the good news (Romans 10:14-15). Shoes are an important symbol at Wild Frontier. While this national resource ministry has been around since 1990, I have continued to work in my local church. My “out there” thoughts in Pair of Cleats come from my real walk in a real youth group in a real church.

I hope we help youth workers by exposing them to different and real ideas so they can do the unique and “out there” ministry God has equipped them to do. We’ve been re-thinking youth ministry long before this became the “in” thing to do. And personally I’ve been re-thinking youth ministry while continually serving at the same church (which I started at also in 1990).

3. I know your model is not THE model but please explain how your church has put “family ministry” into practice?

I have come to call our version Church-Based Youth Ministry.

Around 7 years ago I became convicted of the fruit of the current youth ministry and the separation the youth had from the church family. Coincidentally (if you believe in that) all of the pastors had the same sorts of ideas so we did an entirely new thing.

We dropped our weekly youth meeting. Sacrilegious, you cry?! But we are in a very busy Washington DC metro area with world-renowned bad traffic. To continue a weekly youth meeting was too taxing on the parents who had to drive their youth to the meeting. The blessing wasn’t there anymore.

We boosted our Sunday school program since that was a weekly meeting where we could get the teens’ attention without adding a stressor. We turned our Sunday school class into a Faith Foundations (think Confirmation) 3-year program. We don’t cover topics like peer pressure of premarital sex during that time. It is all about what makes up their faith and all the teaching requires discussion so the teens are talking about what they believe. The fruit of this program in indescribable.

Part of my peace of mind about dropping the weekly youth meeting was encouraging the parents to become more of the faith teachers so ministry was happening throughout the week and just not at the church building. But I knew that in order for them to do it, I would have to give them resources and clues and ideas. So I created Moms & Pops Stuff as that resource. I can’t make the parents do anything with their children but I feel peace that I have given them everything they need to be an example, share their faith, and teach their faith day in and day out. (Moms & Pops Stuff is also available for free for every youth worker at FamilyBasedYouthMinistry.org.)

As a youth ministry we also meet monthly for events (a loose term) which require attendance of the teens and their parents. These are always something special and worth the scheduling and drive. These are also my opportunity to put parents, as well as other people in the church, into positions of passing on their faith.

Overall, I see my role as the youth pastor at my church as I’m the master of one big chess board and I’m moving all of the pieces of our church to interact with the teens. Every person from the widows to the nursery workers are my beloved pawns to set up opportunities to pass on their faith experiences to the teens. To do this I use everything that the church has to offer whether it is a planned event or the weekly bulletin. Everyone and everything is my pawn to grow the teens in their faith.

Wild Frontier takes me out of my church setting once or twice a month. With how we are doing youth ministry, my absences are not felt. The youth ministry rolls on without me because I can be the chess master wherever I am.

4. Describe a difficult time in your life or ministry/job and how your faith changed as a result.

I was 27 and burnt out to a crisp. My health was shot. My emotions were raw. I’ve always been an overachiever and so I overachieved a true burnout before my 30s.

This was the late 80s and I was running my youth ministry completely centered on me and my talents. Yes, also on Jesus and the life to the full Jesus promised to the teens but I was center to everything. No matter how many other adult leaders I had.

During this broken time I shut the ministry part of my life down, sought counseling, healed my body, and let God remake me into a new image. These were dark and lost days for me but it was also when I heard God’s voice the clearest which now makes them the most memorable days for me. A quote I found during that time truly sums up how that changed me:

"My God,
I have never thanked Thee for my thorns.
I have thanked Thee a thousand times for my roses, but not once for my thorns.
I have been looking forward to a world where I shall get compensation for my cross:
but I have never thought of my cross as itself a present glory.
Teach me the glory of my cross:
teach me the value of my thorn.
Show me that I have climbed to Thee by the path of pain.
Show me that my tears have made my rainbow." (George Matheson)

5. What seven books or other resources would you recommend to youth workers about family ministry?

Family-Based Youth Ministry by Mark DeVries – The “granddaddy” of this style of youth ministry, still a practical read.

Contemplative Youth Ministry by Mark Yaconelli – This is not about FBYM at all but all about how youth ministry has become “safe” and how to change that. A total Wild Frontier thinking book. I’ve read the controversies about contemplative practices but this book is not about that. It’s about Wild Frontier youth ministry.

FamilyBasedYouthMinistry.org – I know this is a Wild Frontier site but all of the other books I’ve read on FBYM don’t contain real practices of what you can do at your own church. I know there are idea books out there (I’ve got them all) but those ideas are so expected. My hope for this site is to be a true resource of real ideas that real youth groups use who are figuring out their own FBYM.

Since there are no other real good FBYM books, I chose these 4 other books as highly recommended from me:

Faith Shaping by Stephen Jones – Originally published in 1987, this the core youth ministry book. I don’t know why more people don’t know about it.

Hurt by Chap Clark – Truth about teens today which will cause you to ask what you are doing to add to the abandonment of today’s teen. Or how you can connect them better to the ready-made community your church offers.

Before Its Too Late by Stanton Samenow – A must-read for parents so you need to read this and provide a great resource for your parents.

Making Real What I Already Believe by John Fischer – I’m really a John Fischer stalker so I have to recommend one of his books. This one is an annual read for me.

6. What is the greatest joy you have in your ministry/job?

After all these years, I have so many so I’ll share the latest joy which happened at my church, or actually in a family’s backyard. For October we held a “backyard challenge” which is a lower ropes team building course I can set up in a backyard. The goal was to “initiate” the new 6th graders and their parents as well as re-strengthen current bonds.

I so happened to have chosen a weekend that a ladies retreat was also planned and a calendar snafu happened. No moms.

Currently I have a youth group of all boys. Seriously. It is unexplained. So for this event I had the boys and their fathers (or grown boys) without the mothers. Even my single-mother boys were there. In a moment when I let my guard down (we never finished my list), father-and-son wrestling broke out. Then football. Then a rousing, dirty, sweaty game of hide-n-seek, which is now legendary. When the moms returned, more than one told me that they heard every pain-staking detail about this game.

All during this sweaty time, I sat down and watched. I watched the worship leader of our church family tackle the boys. I watched the military, big-guy dad be chased through the woods by the boys. I watched the nerdy yet wonderful father be as dirty as the other men in front of his son who was also dirty. Nothing was centered on me. Other than that safety-eye that moms have, I was not needed.

Every teen grew a new bond with the men of our church family. That brings me joy. I know that the military, big-guy dad will speak wisdom and life to any of the boys in the youth group and I know that the teens are not intimidated to seek him out. The same for the worship leader, who not only leads in worship on Sunday mornings but can run surprisingly fast. The same goes for all the other dads who were there that day. This brings me joy because I believe these teens will grow to have a better hope and future because of so many adults who are a part of their lives.

7. What are some difficulties you’ve experienced in youth ministry because you are a woman? What advice would you give your fellow female youth workers regarding youth ministry?

Let me add to that “woman question” that I was a single woman in youth ministry for my first 15 years. And to further add, back in the 80s that was a rarity to be single, a woman and a full-time ordained youth pastor. During those years I was so confident in my call that I just did my call. Too much of an overachiever to notice that I was odd. I mean I knew I was odd in youth worker network meetings but what else was I to do? I was just living my call. I had no other choice.

So in that is my advice to other female youth workers. Are you truly called? If yes, set a visible spiritual marker (for me it was a stool) of what that call is so it is always in the forefront of your mind. Don’t waver and go forth.

Other lesser advice is be overly conscious of your wardrobe, your weight, your male friends, and situations. Because it is a man’s world, we don’t get the benefit of the doubt. Leave the judgers nothing to start rumors with while being in the God-given personality that is you. That is possible when you take the time to take care of these areas.

And e-mail me, girlfriend! Let my age--or wisdom--be good for something!

8. What's the most unique thing you've ever bought on e-bay?

My car, a 1999 BMW UZ3. After researching for my next car for nearly a year, I fell in love with this model when I was in Germany where it is much more popular. I came home and lo and behold, there was one on eBay. For those who know me in my local world, this car is my signature.

9. How would you love to see youth ministry change?

I’m taking Wayne Rice’s quote from a previous interview on this blog to answer that. He said, “…youth workers are not required to work directly with students and create specialized programs for them, but instead are required to equip parents, families and the church to come alongside students and integrate them into the overall ministries of the church.”

Let me add to that Mark Yaconelli’s quote from his interview for this blog, “It's time youth ministry claimed itself as the revolutionary arm of the church...and then refuse to be segregated from the rest of the church.”

I would love to see youth ministry change so that youth workers are not staffed to run a youth ministry program but to be chess players with the entire church for the sake of the teens.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Besides being in her 26th year of youth ministry, Brenda is married to John Amodea who is the editor of Paintball 2Xtremes Magazine. She unwittingly knows a lot about paintball too. Brenda is a huge Minnesota Twins fan and has raised 7 wonderful children. That is a whole other ministry story but her children are her true identity.