Father Greg Boyle on Unlocking Compassion and Kinship in Youth Ministry

hello everyone this is Russon Ed nundes I am diversity equity and inclusion manager and content producer at the Fuller youth Institute and I'm joanni panga and I am the social media lead at the Fuller youth Institute but I'm also a youth and college Pastor on the weekends and in this episode we're actually going to take a look at Compassion in the kinship of Christ that's right and we are so honored to welcome father Greg Bole to the FYI on youth ministry podcast father Greg org as the homies call him is a Jesuit priest he served as a pastor of the does mission in BO Heights from 1986 to 1992 and in 1988 he co-founded what is now Homeboy Industries some of the books he has written are tattoos on the heart barking to the choir and the whole language father Greg welcome thank you it's good to be here so much of the way that you relate what you've learned is through stories so I'm wondering if today you can share a story with us us about one of the first things that you learn about compassion that a young person taught you oh gosh I don't know I have so many stories you have homies who come through there who have have records and have done things and uh so it leads you to believe something that's quite radical I think about human beings that everybody's unshakably good and but they're caring a great deal and so uh and so you stand in awe at what they have to carry rather than in judgment they're juggling so many things kids and the job and cars that don't work and they have to choose between literally feeding their kids or or taking them to the doctor uh homies are always uh uh presenting you know the degree of difficulty there is in them navigating their lives because uh they've had to carry more than I ever had to growing up in the same city that kind of reminds me of how as um leaders in the church maybe or as youth leaders we think that we carry more than maybe young people do that our students might carry but you're mentioning people that are younger than us are also carrying a lot of stuff yeah I mean if you keep in mind that no hopeful kid has ever joined a gang in the history of the world and uh today I was talking to a homie who uh you know he's been shot he's he limps with a very pronounced kind of Limp I said when he came in I said how' I get so lucky you know to have a son like you and then he said he kind of sigh and he said oh I wish my dad could say that to me and I said well but you know the truth is you're breaking the cycle with your kids you know and have compassion with your father because you know he clearly is carrying pain and and perhaps trauma that he visited on you but you have you're in a place now in a you know and you've reaped the benefits of a community of truly you know cherished belonging and he's been able to arrive at a kind of healing that he can now you know present a certain kind of sanctuary to his kids that wasn't presented to him I love that um I want to backtrack it a little bit I want I think the listeners to get uh on the same page about compassion and kinship so uh father Bo how would you define compassion and how would you define kinship I I was at Fon prison as a Chaplain and I also taught a course because I have an MA in English so short stories and and there was a story by flanny oconor and a good man as hard to find as the name of the story story and so they were using interchangeably uh sympathy empathy and compassion so I said well what's sympathy and one guy said uh sympathy is when you hear that you're homie on the yard you know they're talking about the prison yeah and and his mom died he say I'm sorry about your mom I said well what's empathy well another guy said well empathy is when you know you go up to a guy and say I'm sorry about your mom you know my mom mom died 6 months ago so I feel what you're going through and then I said well what's compassion and so it wasit they were silent and it was like and finally one guy said well compassion that's entirely different that's compassion is what Jesus did he said and then he said compassion is God but that doesn't Define it still that just sort of identifies it a little bit yeah but the homies will say you know find the thorn underneath we're trying to create a community of kinship not a behaving community so we're not tripped up by Behavior The Compassion is is finding what's what's underneath stuff so you know we draw lines us and them they behaved badly they don't belong to us uh they're not in my Camp that's the other camp but compassion says you know what's you know what's going on here and it's the opposite of judgment and and it's you know demonizing is the opposite of who God Is So you decide not to do that of course I love that um it kind of reminds me of kind of my own story like uh immigrating to America at the age of four in in 1990 and um you know as part of my story I don't think as an Indonesian American or at least as an Indonesian at the time I don't think I would uh survive the immigration process had it not been for some of my neighbors because there were times when my my mom and dad were like struggling trying to find a sitter you know there would be uh some of my friends parents who would be like come over come over to arasa like my neighbors became like that kind of family um so that my parents could do their you know work um and so my mom knows how to make soap and tamales and um we drink chor in December like an Asian family drinking champor right and in turn they they know how to make um fried rice and egg rolls and like um all these other uh Indonesian and Asian Foods because of that you know exchange and so I think like it's that compassion that uh my neighbors had for us being like a newly immigrated family this is the what God had in mind it's God's dream come true to have kinship and connection and yeah and that's where where we're called to say no no that's okay come on in welcome you know I'll teach you how to make tamales yeah you know you know and so that's kind of a that's a beautiful image yeah um can we talk a little bit more about a young person and their relationship to uh kinship uh towards Christ I'm 3 seven and like I get to to say what I said because I get to look back had I been a young person then you know how would I think about Christ and my relationship or kinship to Christ um the Christ in me recognizes the Christ in you and so the idea is to see Jesus and to be Jesus in the end it's about uh living as though the truth were true and putting first things recognizably first so this is a self a faceing god who's who's going no it's not about me it's about what I'm I hope you will create you know in terms of the kinship of God here and now where people connect so I mean again this is a rap that Christians at the moment have a bad rap you know that it's uh that it's hypocritical it's not about kinip it's about um who can we exclude yeah it's not about diversity and it's not about equity and it's not about inclusion it's about camps and and you're not one of us yeah so talking about that I mean you and everyone that works at Homeboy Industries there's diverse people there um and there are people who are even from opposing gangs or people that don't meet eye to eye on certain things um but they soon begin to see each other as homies and as Familia and as kin what's the secret SS right like what happens that uh that makes these people who are not um who are diverse who come from different backgrounds who have different perspectives what makes them become kin you know first of all our program is not for those who need help it's only for those who want it and it's like an AA meeting you know who's at an AA meeting well there's people who are 20 years sober and there's somebody who's 20 minutes sober and there's somebody who's drunk but they're there that's kind of what homeboy feels like because people are different places and then you create in a place that's safe that's where you begin that's sort of part of the secrets SCE and then people are seeing you know homies from prison especially will say I'm used to being watched I'm not used to being seen and then once they're seen they can they're vulnerable enough to be cherished and cherishing is the whole thing initi what you really want to do is welcome them and thank them for being there and and set them up so anyway but the point is what always works is not the hard message but the U the care that they felt immediately and the fact that they I know they felt seen but you learn that lesson over and over again cherishing people is not hard remembering to cherish people that's difficult so that's part of why you practice that's why you pray that makes me think of in youth ministry sometimes we have students that come in with their walls up or you know there's might be some attitude problems or sometimes you think oh no that student that like sometimes speaks out of return in class or is defensive about things and what I hear you saying is we need to cherish those students we need to cherish all our students but maybe they need it the most coupled with that I I hear it a lot a lot of like that cherishing and compassion for students right and students that um or people just in general that really need it and that's why they're hard on the outside but I think also whenever we give that cherishing or that compassion we need to know what it's like to be cherished ourselves so when it comes to self-compassion and self-cherishing how do you find that for yourself or how do you would you recommend that someone find that for themselves or give themselves those practices of self-compassion yeah that's a good question you know the the um I saw someone with a shirt the Micah um Act help me out actly love Mercy walk humbly yeah and um but it said love Mercy but there's another translation that says love goodness which I like better um because it's you cannot love I can't love goodness in you unless I Rec recognize that I have it here and once you know that everybody's unshakably good and that we belong to each other you can receive people you know you can allow your heart to be altered by people which is the whole point of ministry I I was taught for one semester by Henry Nan at Harvard Divinity and he uh did a uh it was a course on Ministry at one point somebody said what is Ministry and he was kind of in a B mood but he said can you receive people I remember him saying that and and we don't think of ministry that way as receiving people we think you know Pay It Forward make a difference uh give back into the rescue but he just said can you receive people and I thought yeah that's it but you can't receive people you know um if you have not made friends with your own wound then you're going to be tempted to despise the wounded and and that's what happens with the kid who comes in and who has an attitude but it is the relationship that heals so you want to stay anchored in it's not the information it's not the content it's the context so they all come in barricaded behind a Wall of Shame and disgrace and the only thing that can scale that wall is tenderness homeboy is the front porch of the house everybody wants to live in but you want to communicate that to the world to say it really could look like this where everybody believes that every single person is unshakably good no exceptions and that we belong to each other no exceptions teenagers in your ministry care about their world this is why FYI has developed compassion from the inside out a 4-we High School youth ministry curriculum so you can equip your students for a lifelong journey of faith-filled compassion cultivate compassion with your students through powerful discussion guides interactive prayer and reflection activities social media tools and so much more compassion From the Inside Out will Empower your teens to make a difference in the world find out more at Fuller youth institute.org curriculum How could a youth leader or how could a church connect with other organizations in their context in their Community to work on creating a broader sense of kinship and of compassion where they live yeah well I think you know part of the thing is even in volunteerism you know you you have that as part of every you know youth Ministries so you don't want to immediately give people stuff stuff to do you want to say dive in talk to people ask them their name you know listen and then always does that always work yeah it always works and but in the end it's all relational and so you're arriving at this relational wholeness that's um therapeutic and and it's and everybody is becoming healed in the process that also kind of reminds me and you kind of touched on this that we serve people but we're not really giving them something and I think sometimes we have that like white savior mentality right of oh we have something better or we're in a better situation we're going to go help others in our community but you're saying how are you going to change of out of having a relationship with these other people that you are um in the end sure helping but the change initially starts with us when we're going to serve when we're going outside of ourselves to go meet in relationship with others yeah so the goal is exquisite mutuality you know of course where there is no us and them so service is the hallway but it's leading to the ballroom which is kinship so don't stop in the hallway and and I I kind of wish we would retire you know uh giving back pay it forward make a difference if I said those things it would all be about me and it can't be about me so you don't go to the margins to make a difference because then it's about me you go to the margins so that the folks at the margins make you different now that feels passive it feels like no I need to give them stuff no what what happens is you go there and suddenly your heart is altered and suddenly you've entered this whole other place of mutuality so I had a home a Latino covered in tattoos and I gave a talk he came up to me afterwards and he said how do you reach them meaning gang members and I found myself saying well you know for starters stop trying to reach them can you be reached by them well that sort of turns everything on its head but it also it is the antidote to burnout you won't burn out because then it's you're you're being reached by people you're receiving people but if it's about me fixing saving and rescuing then it's depleting and then you're burnt out but unless it becomes tender you know there's no connection and and that's what you know that's what the hope is so uh a couple years ago I actually got to um sit down at um Homeboy Industries uh to watch one of your meetings I remember just how like well kind of fun like it was like it was just very like loud and fun and um what I left from it um was this feeling of Hope and joy but partly because in the beginning I think you got you all do something like celebrations is that like something that you you yeah so it's also ritual you know so it begins if I do it you know you see announce the day you know it's it's August 4th and then uh so I have a list of who's been assigned so Mario where are we standing so he comes up and he reads the land acknowledgement and then then it's birthdays and who are our providers Dr so so so so so so big Applause I'm going in order then the curriculum so someone comes up and say the class the special class of the day we have lots of classes but then they highlight something we announce you know who's the case manager of the day therapist yeah and that's a beautiful moment because people will be very funny they'll say please stay inside today we think it's oh my God what because shamita just got her driver's license you know everybody goes nuts yeah you know or or someone will say you know I got my kids back and people are sobbing yeah no I I love that because it's a it's a ritual it's a practice it is fun and it it it gives Who We Are like an identity of of homeboy and you know collectively too the sense of belonging like just oh wow like you guys can really be real you know with yourselves and even in front of like people who are just there for the meeting and and there's a kind of call and response you know so so they they'll say please silence yourselves and then everybody yells and yourselves one of the reasons I also brought it up is because it it felt like home because especially in my my church in my youth group that's something we actually do before we even start Church there's like that kind of sense of of liturgy and um codery and um and ritual you ritualize some things yeah do do you have any other like spiritual practices that you might want to recommend to like young people yeah I you know at homeboy you know it's uh we do have the prayer and when it started you know when we first started to have morning meetings which we didn't have until you know maybe 15 years into our 35 years hey lead us in a prayer and and I remember some guy started this thing where he says everybody bow your heads and and now for you know 20 years everybody begins the prayer that way and then they pray to the god of the alarm clock you know thank you for waking us up today yeah and there's a kind of sometimes there's a rotness but it's it's always beautiful people are terrified to speak in front of yeah you know and they ask they kind of ask different people hey do this you'll be fine just a real pref so you've modeled it yeah no I I remember that day specifically just because um it was our tour guide she she was the one who was asked to pray and she was like are you sure like me like you don't want me to pray and then like but she prayed and then the rest of our our like uh tour group was like you got it girl you got it that's great you know yeah and so he just reminded me of that kind of like childlike Faith so to speak you know and it just brought me back to my own students and just like um sometimes they're like shy like that and um as soon as the rest of the group kind of affirms them um they they they come out we're also very diverse you know so we have atheists and Muslims and and Buddhists and uh every variety of Christian denomination so there's a kind of a I mean people can pray however they want to pray sure and uh you know Richard Roar always used to say only the false self is is offended by anything so then you're not offended by anything you just go how rich this is you know and nobody's being forced to to pray a certain way or to believe a certain thing and uh you know I like that I think that's as it should be you know uh what I'm hearing in there too was the sacredness of the everyday things um and you know making a practice making a spiritual practice out of maybe complimenting someone or affirming someone in that uh cherishing someone in a in a particular way or delighting in how they set a prayer or um the way that they give an announcement um and so whenever we think of spiritual practices we might think of that right of prayer or um reading the Bible or um like Jina or something like that but what if we thought more of those the sacredness in the everyday or the sacredness and the in the lived reality of our students and of our youth ministry and the the things that seem banal but are so great for us to cherish with them I think that's the whole thing you know you want people to connect to finding God in all things as St Ignatius used to say and and so other it gets too narrow it there's here's the language you should be using well why we're allergic to at home boy putting the bar up and asking folks to measure it because our God doesn't do that ever it's never about measuring instead we hold the mirror up and say Here's who you are you couldn't be better you could not be one bit better I don't let homies talk that way I don't let them talk about you one day I hope to become a better man I go no what are you talking about you couldn't be better now you may not fully inhabit you know your unshakable goodness but it's Untouchable God isn't waiting for anybody to do something or to not do something too busy loving us I've been thinking about delight and love and being cherished and even being childlike from you know when Jesus gets ask who's going to be the greatest in heaven and he says don't worry about being the greatest be childlike and to me it means a little bit of don't worry about being the greatest just rest in in the fact that God Delights in you and you use the word rest you know U and rest is not sleep you know it's a rest is Anchor rest is groundedness rest is Center and and once you have rest in that sense then it's the place from which you can love but there's nothing more consequential than our notion of God that that has gotten so Twisted you know and and me eart who um I've been reading a lot lately and he says it is a lie and he talk of God that doesn't comfort you you were created because God thought this you might enjoy it you know and then it becomes so much easier once we understand that to live with compassion exact and to extend the and to receive people and to you know to be a beneficial presence well we have reached the time what no stop we're going for well at the time for our lightning round oh okay oh the way there's more I'm sorry there is more a little bit more it's a fun bit it's a fun bit um these questions are inspired by interviews that we did for one of our research projects which is called character and virtue development research project and and um these are entirely subjective we're not looking for like a dissertation of any of on any of these this is just like the first thing that pops into your head and it's a onew or a one sentence answer yeah and we're not like Pharisees we're not going to like ENT trap you anything you know um okay are you ready no well give you a little bit of time to think no no go ahead I okay when you were a teenager who taught you the most about love uh my dad okay what is the greatest lesson you've learned about forgiveness that we shouldn't settle forgiveness we settle for forgiveness we hold out for Mercy which is uh the father running down the road to greet his prodical son okay in the season of your life compassion looks like in the season of my life like the fourth season Seasons no in this season like in your age right now oh so you're saying I'm old so what do geezers think about compassion I just you need to be clear yeah I don't know because yeah you do you do feel uh you know diminishment and it's freeing and wonderful and especially now at homeboy I step back so the homies can step up so it's nice to hold um past the torch to the new generation but a homie who I did I still told that to and he goes I just hope we don't set the place on fire he said that's okay you got this okay um what or who gives you hope uh the homies give me hope because you know they battle and they become uh these just incredibly loving they inhabit their true selves and they live from their truth that's very helpful thing to observe so this is a little bit of a trick question um but it's a really fun one on a scale of 1 to 10 with one being low and 10 being high how much humility do you have oh zero okay can you do you want to explain a little bit no I don't know I mean I I does a humble person answer that question that would be my guess that's a trick question you it's like I have no idea we got a lot of fives and sixes yeah yeah because they think oh I too much I'm a little bit I get it okay um when something is hard what is a practice that helps you persevere well I you know I I think God protects me from nothing but sustains me in everything so you know you just I have a a mantra person so I'll have different mantras every day that kind of get me through so I can listen so I can be attentive so I so I can be a one on that humility scale and not a [Laughter] five what which one was it so so 10 was 10 was high mean meaning very humble yes oh that so that I could be a 10 that's it well um this season we are asking Our Guest to help let's wrap up each episode with a blessing so father Bo in light of our conversation would you honor us with giving us a benediction sure loving and faithful God I pray uh that you bless all of us in this room and Beyond and those who are viewing this may you remind us of the truth of who we are that we're exactly exactly what you had in mind when you made us may you fill us with the deep and abiding sense that you love us without measure and without regret may you help us move our faith um from our head to our heart and truly to our feet so that we can put one foot in front of the next and and be in the world who you are compassionate loving kind may you teach us that kindness is the only non- delusional response to everything and that with kindness Everything Will Change and we make this prayer confident in your name amen amen amen thank you so much thank you all good great being with you this podcast is one of the many free resources produced by the Fuller youth Institute you can find similar resources at Fuller youth institute.org blog or in your inbox if you sign up for our newsletter check out the show notes for links to all the resources mentioned in today's episode and thanks so much for listening finally here is one more thought from a young person do you have a moment or an experience when you felt compassion for someone else or when someone gave you compassion I have a friend I really didn't like her at first because I'm someone who's very quiet and she's someone who's like very talkative very bubbly and I'm like please don't start with that and then one point she told me her story of her life and I was like oh no you don't deserve me treating you that way like I hugged her and I'm like I'm sorry and I even wrote to her in a letter um to not listen what the others have to say about her to just keep being her so

Channel: Fuller Youth Institute

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Length: 32min 1sec (1921 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 02 2024