Hsu: To oversimplify things, suburbia tends to be a material world. So suburbanites tend to define the good life in material terms, with all the requisite brand-name markers of clothing, possessions, technology and the like. Or we define the good life as the achieving life, or the popular life, or the busy life.

Youthworkers can challenge these suburban visions first by simply naming them and exposing them for what they are. And then they can hold up, live out and embody Christian

alternatives: for example, the truly good life is a generous life that gives away rather than acquires for one’s self. The truly good life is a contemplative life that is reflective and not just active or busy, or a life of service that is focused on ministry to others.

Goetz: My experience is with only those students in my faith community, so I can’t make general statements. And students, of course, define the good life differently. Often there is a primary driver: For some it’s athletics, for others it’s grades. For some the good life seems more relational and more focused on life in the present. A friend has a son who embraces the Emo values, and his good-life values are so different from the “smart” or athletic crowd.

I’ve always found it interesting how some students embrace the suburban values of their parents, buying into the grades and sports values, while other students completely chuck them.

Parents tend to feel good if their kids are part of the grades and sports groups but worried if their students are part of an alternative crowd. You wonder if the grades and sports students end up worse off, spiritually, because they view themselves as healthy or normal. But they are simply absorbed into the culture.

Normal takes on new meaning in the kingdom of God.

YWJ: What are stories/groups/programs that illustrate the best of suburban ministry?

Goetz: We both explored this, but I found that the best student ministries creatively figure out a way to cut through the socioeconomic structures of suburbia. They are not defined by size. There are effective large church student ministries; there are effective small church student ministries. They are ministries built not around the homogeneity principle but around grace and around a deep sense of mission in this world. The best student ministries are led by pastors who are struggling to learn how to pray and build silence into their lives.

They themselves work at swimming upstream against the suburban current of efficiency, control and incessant activity.

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Al Hsu is the author of several books, he lives in the Chicago suburbs with his wife and two sons, and he and his wife serve as worship leaders at their suburban church plant. His blog is thesuburbanchristian.blogspot.com.

Dave Goetz is president of CZ Marketing (www.czmarketing.com), a brand and strategy firm for the service and nonprofit sectors. He has written for Christianity Today and Christian History magazines and was the general editor for The Pastor Soul Series (Bethany House Publishers). He lives in Wheaton, Illinois, with his wife and three children.

For additional resources on suburban spirituality, go to www.deathbysuburb.net.