Transcript of CS#55: Mark Hart Talks T3 Teen Bible Study and Lifeteen

Transcript of Interview with Mark Hart about T3 Teen Bible Study and Lifeteen. This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com

Listen Now to the audio version of the show.

T3 The Teen Timeline is available at The Catholic Company.
http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-gifts/4003553/T3-Teen-Timeline/

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Chris Cash: And today in the spotlight, we have the bible geek, Mark Hart, on the line with us. How are you doing Mark?

Mark Hart: I’m doing great. How are you doing Chris?

Chris Cash: I’m doing pretty good. I had kind of a rough morning this morning with getting my kids out of the house, but things are looking up I think. We had some more technology problems this morning, too. I know we mentioned last week that the devil was kind of working overtime on our interview, trying to keep us off. But I think we’ve figured out what the technology problem is for future reference now.

Mark Hart: Well, Romans 7:21 reminds us that every time we seek to do good, evil is at hand. So that’s just confirmation you’re doing something good, Chris.

Chris Cash: Thank you. I hope that we have many more confirmations that we’re doing something good but on a more positive note as opposed to the recording software saying it can’t hear anything. Today we’re going to talk about the new T3 bible study series, “Thy Kingdom Come” on Matthew. But before we start off with that, Mark, do you just want to tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and about the things that you do, both with being an author and as the – you’re Vice President or a President of LifeTeen?

Mark Hart: Vice president.

Chris Cash: Vice President; as a Vice President of LifeTeen.

Mark Hart: Not really a whole lot to tell. I’m a catholic husband and father, and that’s really where I put all of my time, energy, attention and prayer. I have an amazing, amazing life. I have three little girls. I’m the only man in the castle, the only king in the princess castle. Other than that, I started working in youth ministry I guess about since 16 or 17 years ago. I started working work for LifeTeen, I’m in my 12th year now, in full-time ministry. It’s just a great rollercoaster. I was raised *** [00:02:33] Catholic and really in my high school and college years was seeking to find truth, and thinking to find if the Catholic church was indeed the guardian of truth. After extensive study, travel, debate and conversations, of everything else you can think of; I never left the church, but I was definitely seeking while I was still on the church and ended right back where I started. I really felt like that God has given me a real specific goal, a real specific ministry, and that is to reach out to other fellow Catholics, just to kind of evangelize those are already coming to the churches and then maybe those Catholics who have left the church. Just anyone else who is seeking truth, just to reach out to them and help them understand this beautiful, rich and glorious deposit of the faith and this glorious gift that we have in the church.

For me, it was lost in translation for many, many years. If I can in some tiny, small, seemingly insignificant way, if I can help others come to understand some of the difficult teachings of the church, I can help them kind of start to understand scripture or anything like that, anything that’s going to lead people into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ through His Church that’s where I’m putting my time.

Chris Cash: Now you mentioned living in the princess castle there – I’ve always got to go for the slightly odd thing in what you said – does that mean that the majority of the house is in pink now?

Mark Hart: I live in an estrogen factory. It looks like a bubblegum factory, it’s all things pink.

Chris Cash: I have three daughter as well.

Mark Hart: So, you understand. Yes, absolutely. I gave up trying to have my corner, I gave up trying to have my area a long time ago. It’s just easier to go with the flow. Yes, the house is completely pink.

Chris Cash: That mean even like your office space, you’ve got little princesses on the wall?

Mark Hart: Honestly right now, I’m sitting in my home office, I’m looking at little notes that they’ve made and little pictures, drawings of princesses, and I actually had to move a Barbie out of my chair to sit down.

Chris Cash: My kids are into the Webkins right now.

Mark Hart: Are they really? Boy, those are time consuming, you got to be careful there.

Chris Cash: Well, not just time consuming, every time they get one they’re already making plans for what one they want next. We had to put the capuche on that.

Mark Hart: Yes, you have an important conversation, “I want it, but do I need it?” It’s not a big difference.

Chris Cash: So can you tell us a little bit about what the T3 bible study, the original one is, and how that came about? I know that it’s based on what Jeff Cavins did with The Great Adventure bible study, but you’re aiming at a more of a teen crowd.

Mark Hart: Correct. Actually, I’ve met Jeff several years ago. It’s interesting, I’ve gone through his Great Adventure long, long time ago before it was even called The Great Adventure. It really came at a great time in my life. I really had dug my feet in and said, “Yes, I’m going to be Catholic, this is where it led back to.” It was sort of the tail-end of my study, and it was great because I was really getting more into scripture. But the problem with that was I was getting more into scripture from an apologetic perspectives. I was getting into scripture and I was becoming kind of one of those almost angry Catholics that was just really looking to pick fights with non-Catholics over doctrinologies and things like that. I was reading scripture for all the wrong reasons.

I remember when I first went through Jeff’s study I was astounded because all of a sudden the lights were going off and the dots were connecting, and all these stories were crystallizing. I was enamored by it, but what hit me was that it really well said. It was very intelligent, it was very adult. At the same time, I was leading confirmation classes, leading youth group things and going to Catholic high schools and I said, “There’s probably a way to adept this for a younger culture, a younger generation.” So I started working on it, twisted and tweaked a lot of the things that were in Jeff’s study. Then over the years, it just kind of evolved into a younger version of it.

Jeff had heard about that in different places, he and I met several times. He actually called me and said, “Hey, I’d like to talk to you, I heard this and that.” We got together and he just said, “I would love to be able to offer the Great Adventure to your younger audience, but I’m not just the person to do it. I’ve been praying, I really think you are.” He was great. He gave me a green light and he gave me a lot of liberty to adapt – the study is actually still the same. It covered a fair amount of area, the same demonic advices, the same color coding and time periods. But he really gave a lot of flexibility in how to get from point A to point B. The good people at the *** [00:07:28] and everyone just gave me a real vote of confidence. I kind of went into seclusion and prayer. It was 2-3 years ago now, I went in the studio and brought a bunch of teams along, just went through The Great Adventure timeline but for a teen, young adult audience.

So it’s a lot more story-based, it’s a little more interactive with the young people, really focusing in on a lot of those issues and questions and obstacles that specifically adolescents and young adult Catholics are really dealing with. T3, it’s just been really a huge grace from God. It’s really taken of and it’s being utilized in hundreds of Catholic high schools and Catholic parishes. Even in a lot of homes, I get emails all the time from parents who have said that they saw it in the Catholic bookstore or that they had heard about it when they’re at a bible timeline. They take the copy up and they watch with their families. It’s a lot of fun. Its got a lot of humor and it’s got a lot of depth in it. I’m just really, really proud to be associated with it.

Chris Cash: Now, we’re coming to Cycle A, or we are in Cycle A already actually, which covers a lot of the gospel of Matthew. So you got kind of the perfect time here to be coming out with the Thy Kingdom Come T3 Volume 2 on the gospel of Matthew. Can you just tell us a little bit about how you put together the Thy Kingdom Come set and what makes it a really interesting studies for the teams?

Mark Hart: Certainly. What’s great is that while the first volume really covers – and a lot of people probably already know this – the big picture of salvation history, really from Genesis all the way through Acts and in the Revelation; really broad stroke, you go so quickly. This new study, Thy Kingdom Come, it was really exciting to work on because we I had to focus just on the gospel. The Kingdom Come, the whole thing, it’s right half hour parts on DVD. So how much justice can you really do to 28 chapters on the gospel Matthew in eight parts? We were able to go really deep. We were able to give a nice, solid walk through how they come to understand Jesus sayings, *** [00:09:50], What’s great for young people is that Jesus is a little more than a narrative character. They have a hard time really understanding that, especially in today’s culture because we have become so technological and we had to come from a virtual reality based. That actual interaction with people is very distinct, it’s very different. Social interaction is becoming less and less.

When you’re trying to talk about having a physical encounter with Jesus and the sacraments, for instance, a physical encounter with Christ through his church, it’s a really foreign concept for most young people because they’ve become so ingrained in the virtual community like MySpace or Facebook. To do this, again we brought young people in studio, be able to give them this face-to-face encounter, be able to set the scene and be able to say, “You have to understand, if you know this and this and this, these three little points, this whole story of what happened really comes to life.” The whole story with Jesus’ family tree or with the temptations in the desert or a sermon on the mount or when gives the keys to Peter; these are really some poignant and amazing moments in the scripture that just pop off the page. Sometimes because it’s on a black and white page and it’s not in an LCD screen, your next generation seems less intrigued.

What I found, at least in my experience, is that the bible does not bore people. The bible does not bore young people. Our presentation of the bible is what bores people. If we can set the scene in the right way, and this is the perfect time to do it because they’re going to be hearing the gospel of Matthew every week until December. So the perfect time to be able to say, “It’s summertime, we’re going to sit down as a family, for a few nights we’re going to watch this.” Whatever it is, it’s great time to be able to sit down and do this because if we give them just a few tools to help them understand how Matthew works, who he’s writing to or why he does some of the thing he does, why he writes about Jesus the way he does; every Sunday now when the priest of the *** [00:11:48] gets up to proclaim to living word of God and the gospel, it’s just going to pop, it’s going to bounce, the lights are going to go on in a totally different way for young people. You’re going to see reverence because the word of God is now going to have relevance.

Chris Cash: Now, as a youth ministry yourself, do you find that there is a best time to be starting a bible study such as T3?

Mark Hart: You know what I always tell people? A lot of times in a parish level we say we’re going to start a bible study because we think that’s what the young people want, and oftentimes it is, because we know what they need, and oftentimes it is. The problem is that we say we’re going to start a bible study and we’re going to do a weekly bible study in the parish youth center of the parish hall, we set up a time and we set up a day. Before you know it, we say we’re going to do it every week. But if after three or four weeks it doesn’t go well, the numbers dwindle, we’re frustrated and they’re frustrated, you have the same three or four teams coming who feel bad for you and they keep coming because they come every week at the parish. But what ends up happening is that we don’t usually try something. It’s almost like we create a program, but we don’t often test it.

I usually tell people about summertime is that in summertime, really the rules are off. A lot of youth groups kind of lined up a little bit for the summer; there’s travel, there’s service opportunities, cancer retreats, conferences. Catechists are kind of coming in and out. They’re looking for something else to do with their youth groups. You’re saying how did I pull of all those programming by myself, I’m looking for something different. The beauty of it is if you do for something different, if it goes great, then you can look at it and say, “Wow, maybe we should look at something like this after school starts again when there’s more teens around.” If it doesn’t go great, then you just say, “It’s something we tried,” and it doesn’t appear like a black eye on your youth group forever. It’s something we try, we try it seasonally. I used to tell people to pick advent, pick lent, pick summertime, pick a season. Your liturgical season or a secularized season, pick some time and just try some things, and you’re going to find out where you’re young people are at.

Oftentimes, I think some of us are afraid of the event because we’re almost afraid to know where some of them are at. But the truth of the matter is that really they’re hungry, our young people are so hungry. If we get the right things in front of them, whether it’s in book form or in video form, they’re so hungry for truth. They’re hungry for truth in a way that really speaks to them in an authentic way. We love big words as Catholics, we do. We love to sue big words and we love to kind of *** [00:14:18] sometimes. Young people can get into those things, but only after the soul of their heart’s been tilt. If we can meet them on their level and meet them where they’re at, just open their eyes to the beauty of what’s going on around them in the parish, then what we’re going to find is not teenagers who are dismissive or don’t want to be involved; what we find are teenagers, young adults, pre-teens who become so amazed by the enigma and the beauty of the church. They seek to know more, they want to know more. If you give teens a little, they’re going to give you back a lot.

Chris Cash: We’re going to take just a little short break here to hear from our sponsor. When we come back, we’re speaking more with Mark Hart about the T3 bible study. This is the Catholic Spotlight.

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Chris Cash: And we’re back on the Catholic Spotlight with Mark Hart, the bible geek. So, Mark, where’d you get a name like bible geek from?

Mark Hart: I wish I could say that I came with it on my own. It was really inspired by the Holy Spirit. It’s a long story but I’d give you the Reader’s Digest version, the quick version. When I was working at a parish as a minister, I was doing some bible study with the teams and I had to head out of town for a speaking trip, and I was unable to make the bible study that week. I wrote an e-mail – that was back when teens still use the e-mail before MySpace – to all the teens and just said, “I’m heading out of town and here’s what we’re going to focus on this week.” I threw in a couple of scripture verses and just a brief reflection, I just said, “Go to the chapel, read through it, pray for it, let’s see what that gives you.” I don’t know why, it was a late night, I as in my office at my house, this was 10 years ago or more, and I just signed it bible geek at the end. I don’t know where it came from, it was kind of funny and it made laugh.

It was interesting because the e-mail I sent, every kid I sent it to wrote me back and said, “That was funny, that was a great name. I forwarded this onto my mom and my friend.” It was a great response. At that time, e-mail was novel at the time, people were really into receiving positive e-mails because they were getting so many negative ones. So, just on a whim, I just kind of threw it out on our LifeTeen several years ago and I just started saying, “Hey, if you want to receive a free e-mail reflection on scripture, just something a little inspiring in your inbox, it takes a minute to read, sign up here.” I’m not kidding, this is so just the grace of God. Within about a year, we had over 30,000 people signed up. It was nuts, it went all over the world. People were e-mailing in. After all the e-mail and the questions coming in, we kind patterned – we had a whole biology page within our LifeTeen website – a lot of the questions. There’s probably 300 somewhat questions I’ve answered now on scripture that are just free, anybody can look at; bible studies, lecture trainings and all kinds of things like that in there.

Really, it was just all kind of stuff from this one idea of sending those e-mails. From there, it just kind of grew. It was great over the years as that happened, a couple of books came out, *** [00:18:49] the bible geek and things like that. I really liked that nobody knew that it was me for a long time. I didn’t put my own name, it was just sort of like a pen name. What was great was that it gave me a lot of liberty to kind of have fun. People didn’t know if it was someone older or younger, a man or woman or anything. So when I go somewhere to speak, they might say, “Hey, here’s the bible geek.” People were really usually pretty shocked because they were expecting someone older, I guess somebody who looks more geeky even than I do or something.

It’s just funny, the name, especially the word geek, it’s so disarming for people. I think that especially for young people, when they’re expecting one thing and they get something else, they’re more inclined to listen. They’re more intrigued as to why anybody would be, in their mind, self-deprecating as to call themselves a geek. What’s funny is since then, things like Napoleon Dynamite have come out and now being a geek of cool. So, it’s really weird.

Chris Cash: So you didn’t go out wearing a pocket protector then I guess?

Mark Hart: No, I only wear that at home just so I always have a pen handy.

Chris Cash: Do you a lot of bible work on the newer media like Twitter or Facebook, podcasting, things like that?

Mark Hart: Podcasting is actually worth putting more of my time now. I have a free podcast that’s available. You can listen to it anytime on our LifeTeen website, it’s totally free. It’s called Sunday Sunday Sunday. You can also go to iTunes and you can type in LifeTeen.com or Sunday Sunday Sunday or Mark Hart. It goes up every Monday morning and it is a podcast, we keep it between 5 and 10 minutes. It’s just a quick podcast, it’s not an *** [00:20:37] because I’m not a priest and this isn’t a mass. I’m going to read the upcoming Sunday readings and I’ll say, “Here’s what the upcoming outcome of Sunday readings are, and here’s a few things you might want to know. Just to make it easier for you to *praise the event* [00:20:49] and an understanding ahead of time.”

So we’ve been encouraging people to go on anytime between Monday and the upcoming Sunday and listen to it. They can download it, they can listen to it on their treadmill or on the car or whatever or they can listen to it live online. We say pray for these readings and listen to this line right here. We say, “This reading is kind of tricky because there’s a lot of geography. This gospel is kind of trick because it’s very poetic.” What you have to understand is this, and if you understand these two or three things you’re going to see that while the point and focus of every mass if Christ and His sacrifice, the church and her wisdom selects these four readings; the first reading, Psalm, second and gospel. The church takes these four readings and they put them together in a very intentional way to try and paint a picture for us and to try and help the faithful grow closer to the hear of Christ. As they do this, there’s a strand that goes through the readings.

If we can just begin to understand this strand of the readings, what we’re going to find is that not only does our mass come more to life but our whole life comes more to life. Now the readings that we hear on Sunday were already prepared to received. So it’s not dependent now on how well the rector reads, it’s not dependent on whether or not there’s a lot of distractions in the church or that sort of things. We go into the parish on Sundays and our hearts are ready to hear and our hearts are in the posture to receive. So we already know what to look for, what to listen for. What we’ve really done is that we offer God back the gift of time, and God blesses that gift, that’s never outdone in generosity.

I really believe that technology while a lot of times people are down on it because of all the negative that comes of it. But things like this, Chris, like your show, things like podcasting, there’s so many wonderful things – Saint Paul would use the Internet, Saint Paul would use podcast. He would use these things. There’s so many opportunities we have now; there’s great ways to share the truth, to build the kingdom, to spread the gospel. So, that’s more where my time is going, and it’s been really wonderful. I just did the stats last week, we are in 53 countries that tune in to the Sunday Sunday Sunday podcast. It’s really nice.

Chris Cash: So you think Saint Paul would have his own Twitter feed, too?

Mark Hart: I think Saint Paul would just get such a kick out of the Internet, I really do. I just finished a new book that I co-wrote with my friend Christopher Cuddy on Saint Paul, it’s coming out in about two week through LifeTeen.

Chris Cash: By the way, this is also the year of Paul.

Mark Hart: Yes, that’s how we did it, we did for the year of Saint Paul that starts in June. We’re very excited about it. I’ve been immersed in Saint Paul the last few months. I think that he absolutely would love the Internet. I also think he would have been saddened by lot of things on the Internet, not just the obvious sins but even the virtual communities and things like that. I think he’d see the point, but for him nothing would ever replace the solidarity of having everyone together in one place worshipping.

Chris Cash: Now, having put together the bible studies that you’ve got, do you have any tips that you could give to someone who is trying to coordinate a bible study for teens? As far as how can they make this bible study really come together, get the teens in and engaged in watching a DVD on weekly or biweekly basis or whatever it is that you set up in our particular parish to do this.

Mark Hart: With the T3 series, I have youth ministers and the *** [00:24:25] teachers in mind. When I say I have in mind, I know the teens that you’re looking at and I know what they look like, I know the struggles. So I intentionally made the first video in each of them fun, upbeat and fun. I’m trying to make in engaging so that when the teen sits down to watch it they have one thing in mind, if it’s going to be boring, if it’s going to be this or that. By the time they get done, I’ve had a really good response from people. They said they were really excited to get right into the study of the first one. Just to kind of set the stage and say, “We know this can be confusing, we know it could even seem boring at times, but it’s not.” I think as leaders what we have to do is we have to be incarnational the way Christ is, we have to meet people where they are.

I think one of the principal mistakes we make as Catechists sometimes is that we become indoctrinational. We basically just say, “This is the truth, this is the church, and you come meet me where I am,” instead of just going to them and saying – like what John Paul II told us, we have to become traveling companions on the road to *** [00:25:20], we need to meet them where they are. We need to listen to their questions, we need to listen to what they’re saying before share truth. As we share truth, we keep walking with them all the way to Eucharist. First and foremost, you have to be incarnational, meet them where they are, listen to what they have to say, listen to what they want to know about, don’t get frustrated about it. Secondly, don’t assume that they know anything. A lot of times people will say, “My team, a lot of them didn’t go to Catholic school, this and that.” I hate to say this, but most of the teenagers I’ve met who go to Catholic school have treated and do treat their religious formation like another class, like math or science.

So, when it really comes to interpolating and taking these truths to heart, most of the teens I’ve met in a Catholic schools said they have a hard time doing that because it becomes another subject that they get tested on. Some of the great response I’ve had had been in Catholic high school settings with this. Again, not because it’s me or just because it’s the good system of learning scripture. But really because we’re being evangelistic, we’re going after the heart, and I think a lot of teens wasn’t that. They want people who are going to say, “This is church teaching, but this is how it affects you on a practical level. This is where it gets hard and this is how you pray. This is how you get through it.” Not to assume that just because they’ve gone through a youth group for a few years or just to assume because they go to Catholic high school that they know a lot of these stuff. I think we have to go on and assume that they heard a lot of these stories but they don’t know how the stories connect.

Next I would say that a lot of times there isn’t a lot of preparation. The beauty and the bonus of the DVDs is you don’t have to do as much preparation as needed, but there’s still a little bit. In that I mean that no young person is going to believe that you read scripture if you don’t because it shows all over your face and it shows in your life. If you really are reading and praying scripture, there’s a peace about you and there’s a joy about you. Everybody that I’ve ever met, any Catholic or Christian I’ve ever met who reads scripture, there’s an enthusiasm about scripture. You can’t fake it, it contagious and there’s an urgency. When people see that in you, they want to know – as Peter said in 1 Peter – the source of your hope. They want to know the source when you say it; the sacraments, with the scriptures. They know if you get on the Eucharist on a daily basis. They know if you’re getting in the scriptures on a daily basis. So, nothing ever replaces it.

I think sometimes we’re looking for that kind of quick fix, we get a bunch of kids around, we want to teach them the faith, we want to get the youth group going or this and that. Nothing replaces authentic prayer on our part. So what I always tell bible leaders first is before you ever start a bible study, you need to be praying. You need to be praying for awhile before you jump into this because you need to remember that it’s God working through you, it’s not just you doing this. Then there are several other tips. I actually wrote a whole lot of other comments. If anybody wants to see some of the most common mistakes that every bible study leaders make, we have a website for adults. It’s totally free it’s called YM.Lifeteen.com. You can go there, you click on the blog section, click on the bible study section. There’s several there.

There’s so many mistakes that I’ve made. Really what I’m only doing is I’m sharing all the mistakes that I’ve made over the years that have left me feeling abyss or left the bible study completely derailed and left me, feeling like I was sitting in a room filled of crickets. So I free share all of my failures so that other can avoid it themselves.

Chris Cash: One of the most profound things that I’ve learned in putting on bible studies for teens myself is never go mina assuming that you’re the teacher either. Every time I go in, I end up learning more from the kids than they probably learn from me.

Mark Hart: Certainly, it’s absolutely astounding what they come up with. Honestly, it’s amazing what they can retain. I’m usually stop and say, “Wow, before I had kids and a mortgage and all these other things, I didn’t pay attention but I was able to retain a whole lot more. It’s like more space and more neurons firing when I wasn’t so sleep deprived.”

Chris Cash: I resemble that.

Mark Hart: I mean, I’m just astounded. My five year old now, we’re discussing Pentecost, the amount of detail she was able to retain – she was mentioning *** [00:29:47]. She looks at me just out of the blue, while driving in the car, she’s like, “Daddy, where is Mesopotamia?” You just stop and you say, “My goodness, you really…” As long as it’s in a story context, you can retain in, and that’s the beauty of the timeline theories is that it puts all these random stories into their context but it also gives the back story of each story. Everybody loves a story. No matter how uninterested they might seem, no matter socially unavailable they might seem, everybody like a good story. It’s so true, it’s been true for centuries and it’s going to stay true until God calls us home.

Chris Cash: Now after you finish up with your Saint Paul book that you’re putting together, what else is on the horizon for you? Are there going to be some more T3s?

Mark Hart: It’s funny you said that, I just got an e-mail from the team over *** [00:30:37], we’re putting the finishing touches on timing and what it’s going to look like. Right now, we’re kind of going to schedule, we have to go back in studio this fall to shoot the third part. Right now it looks like it will be a dual study on probably the Acts of the Apostles and the Book of Revelation. We’re very excited about that. This will kind of finish off the foundational studies for the adults, for The Great Adventure, this would finish off the foundational studies for the teens. So I’m excited about that.

I have a new book that I have to get manuscripts. I have to finish it this summer, that’s due this fall. Then we’re looking at a couple other really exciting possibilities, all pretty much scripture based, that’s where I get most excited. That’s supposed to be coming out. But really, I’m just kind of trying to pray through, there’s a lot of different things I love to put my time into and love to kind of spend what little free time I have left. But really, primarily, I’m just all focused with family, the primary location. You have to keep the primary location primary. So, I’m actually more excited about my summer vacation with my family and getting my girls out of school and that kind of thing. That’s number one on the radar, and any other time I have is God’s.

Chris Cash: Thank you very much, Mark, for sharing a little bit of your time with us and with all of our listeners. We very much appreciate it. You take care of yourself and those girls. God bless.

Mark Hart: Thanks for inviting me, Chris. God bless you.

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Transcript of Interview with Mark Hart about T3 Teen Bible Study and Lifeteen. This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com

Listen Now to the audio version of the show.

T3 The Teen Timeline is available at The Catholic Company.
http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-gifts/4003553/T3-Teen-Timeline/