2019 Princeton Forum on Youth Ministry

In 1991, I was running summer programs and after school programs at our predominantly white, mainline church situated in an urban neighborhood of color.  In the last nine months of that year, I did nine funerals for young men under the age of 25. These young men had lived in the four block radius around our church. Those funerals re-wrote the script of my ministry, and re-framed the questions I was asking. The title for this lecture comes from a Danez Smith poem that asks: Do we (really) have time for joy? I think we do. But ministry reminds us that it’s hard to do the work we are called to unless we are facing honestly what is before us——the injustice, the bodies, and the mission of the Church. Who has time for joy? It’s the right question.