A thought I can't shake...

While listening to a lecture in my youth ministry evangelism course, a short rabbit trail stuck out to me about who our neighbors and friends are.

"When little kids in gym class are told to grab a friend, they reach for the kid's hand right next to them. Teenagers and adults often look around the room and ignore the person right next to them."- Chap Clark

I do the same thing. I hadn't realized how the messages I received from my culture pressured me to ignore my neighbor. At my darkest I look to partner with people who can give me something or promote me or make me feel good. I don't have any profound things to add to that quote, just the image of children in some PE class grabbing their neighbors hand.

What kind of world would this be if we took to heart this notion of friendship? How would we treat our neighbors? our coworkers? our family?

This week my cohort is looking at economics and social justice issues and we will do some processing together about ways the church can speak to these issues. This is one of the first quotes I came across in my assigned readings.

Mother Teresa said, “The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, and deserted by everybody. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love.”
Arloa Sutter (2010-09-01). The Invisible: What the Church Can Do to Find and Serve the Least of These (Kindle Locations 448-450). Wesleyan Publishing House. Kindle Edition.

What is a convert?

This semester I'm taking two classes. One of which is with one of my youth ministry heroes, Dr. Chap Clark, Author of Hurt: Inside the World of Today's Teenagers (Youth, Family, and Culture). 

In our first few weeks we have been reflecting on something called Incarnational Witness. The basic idea is that our methods of evangelism should reflect the life and model of ministry Jesus practiced. This model dictates that evangelism should be motivated by the same things that motivated Jesus, like being sent by the Father. We should model our evangelism after Christ's example, leaving our place of comfort to go to the broken, the hurting, and the forgotten.

• These lectures are invigorating my love for youth ministry!
• The course material is also solidifying my belief in relational youth ministry as opposed to creating a class or a program for every kind of problem teens will face. When I look back at my adolescence, it was people who journeyed with me that made the difference and not classes or even sermons! I remember the way my youth pastor and youth leaders listened to me, came to my games, and took my questions. I pray that I can be that for our youth and train others in the same model. 

When you think back to your teenage years or even a recent crisis, what made the difference for you?

Are we welcome?

This past Sunday we had a service where our youth sent in questions via text message and our team took turns answering them. I was struck by one of the questions, "My parents and I used to be Jehovah's Witness and now we've made up our own religion. Are we welcome at Shoreline?" Most of my thoughts were drawn from Shaping of Things to Come, The: Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century Church

• First off, I posted about our predominant culture's posture towards 'do it yourself' religion and was not surprised to see it show up in our youth meeting. 
• I also spoke to her about our Church's philosophy. Shoreline wishes to engage Austin's culture and to say that they were not welcome to attend our services based on their beliefs of behavior wouldn't sit well with our leadership. We don't make attendance about belief and behavior, however we make no apology for teaching very specific things about how we believe and how our church family should behave. 
• Then, there was almost sadness in the question. "Are we welcome?" That part of the text, as it was read aloud broke my heart. In it I heard a longing for community, for belonging, and for connection. This is so prevalent in our culture, regardless of age. 

How about your experience with church communities? What is your experience with church community?  Are there things that people do or believe that would make them unwelcome?

Is there one way to Heaven?

In a service on Christmas day, our worship pastor made a comment about Jesus being the only way to Heaven. The claim was a little more direct than we usually make, but I thought it was well in the appropriate bounds for a Christian worship gathering. I knew there was a Muslim man attending our service to watch his son perform in our service. I remember glancing his way to see his reaction and I was surprised to see him clapping. Even more so, he came up to me after service to tell me how much he enjoyed worshipping with us and to thank me for mentoring his son.

That's not the first surprise. The people who were offended by the claim were from our congregation. This week, these two youtube videos are assigned viewing in my Contemporary Cultures class at Fuller. 

What do you think of these? Is there one way to Heaven or are there multiple ways? Has Oprah gone off the deep end here? How would you respond to these women?

I'm pretty conservative in my beliefs, but I'd like to know what you think. 

I want to be missional.

I've been a way a while because of work and school, but I have been reading a lot and I'm ready to start posting again. This one is longer than usual, but it encapsulates what I've been chewing on and wrestling with in my life and calling. I hope you enjoy!


The missional church is incarnational, not attractional, in its ecclesiology. By incarnational we mean it does not create sanctified spaces into which unbelievers must come to encounter the gospel. Rather, the missional church disassembles itself and seeps into the cracks and crevices of a society in order to be Christ to those who don’t yet know him.

The missional church is messianic, not dualistic, in its spirituality. That is, it adopts the worldview of Jesus the Messiah, rather than that of the Greco-Roman empire. Instead of seeing the world as divided between the sacred (religious) and profane (nonreligious), like Christ it sees the world and God’s place in it as more holistic and integrated.

The missional church adopts an apostolic, rather than a hierarchical, mode of leadership. By apostolic we mean a mode of leadership that recognizes the fivefold model detailed by Paul in Ephesians 4. It abandons the triangular hierarchies of the traditional church and embraces a biblical, flat-leadership community that unleashes the gifts of evangelism, apostleship, and prophecy, as well as the currently popular pastoral and teaching gifts.

Frost, Michael; Hirsch, Alan (2001-01-01). Shaping of Things to Come, The (Kindle Locations 346-356). Baker Book Group. Kindle Edition.

Spiritual Formation. How do you do it?

Just came across this quote while doing a paper on Character, Community, and Leadership.  

"There are no formulas-no definitive how-tos-for growth in the inner character of Jesus. Such growth is a way of relentless seeking. But there are many things we can do to place ourselves at the disposal of God, and "if with all our hearts we truly seek him, we shall surely find him" (Jeremiah 29:13, PAR)"

Of our studies this far, this book has impacted me the most. I have a feeling that there will be more to come. Back to the paper.

Elevate 2011 Summer Camp: Last Morning Service

homosexuality: stumbling towards a youth ministry response

You Were Born What Way? | Youth Specialties

I just came across this article on the YS site. It's about the first time a youth pastor had a young person tell of their struggle with sexual identity.

He walked into my office, a junior high student in my student ministry – a young man that I had led in the salvation prayer several years ago when he was still in our children’s ministry program.
This was my first year as a student pastor – a novice. A newbie. I thought I knew all there was to know and thought I was prepared for any situations that came my way.
I was not.
He sat in my office and quietly began to tell me that he was unsure of his sexual identity.

 This is not a new issue, of course. I am grateful for his perspective. Dealing with the topic of homosexuality is tricky for sure. In my experience there are no nuggets of truth to instantly take the struggle, feelings, or whatever away. I don't know of any homosexuals that have been argued out of their persuasion. 

If I could do anything differently… if I could somehow go back in time to that first encounter in my office, I think that I would want the first and last words out of my mouth to somehow communicate that I loved him. And then I’d take him out for a coffee or soda and try and let him know that I’d be with him for the long haul.

Honestly, I've been cautious to address homosexuality directly in our services, because I've noticed that highlighting a particular sin can sometimes make young people think that they SHOULD be struggling with that area. However, I do feel the responsibility to address the issue, but will another sermon really help? In my experience, the approach of the author is highly effective, it just takes effort, prayer, lots of time, and wisdom.

Does this topic come up in your church or youth group? How have you approached the subject? How have you seen God's redemption at work in this area?

Book Review: Jesus and Community

About the author: Gerhard Lohfink grew up in Germany in the midst of rising national tensions as nations built up to World War II forcing him to move many times. He excelled in the field of academics gaining permission to pursue higher degrees while serving as pastor and chaplain in various posts. His perspective as a German, a priest, and college professor uniquely qualify him to make bold claims with his thesis and to support it with evidence from scripture, early church history, and first hand experience.

About the Thesis: His thesis claims that Christian Community’s form must come from the practices of Jesus that we have in the form of the gospels, which was uniquely focused on Israel, gathering it together so that the world my experience the kingdom of God, bringing God’s reign into the earthly realm, standing out in the midst the dominant culture, and acting as Christ’s agent of change.

About the Structure: He supports his thesis using a 4-section structure. First sections define Jesus’ model of Community as implied by his actions on earth and Old Testament precedent. The final sections outline how Apostles and early followers continued the important aspects of community instituted by Christ. These practices include but are not limited to: praying for the sick, living as a contrast society, bearing the identity of “God’s people,” passively resisting the kingdom of this world, and cultivating a community of equals that serve each other.

Personal Reaction: Lohfink’s repetitious structure aided my understanding of his thesis. With out the repetition of a claim, a scripture, an explanation of the passage, and conclusions, he would certainly have lost me. Thankfully we did not have to read it in German. From my perspective these insights are valuable, but perhaps too familiar. This may be a byproduct of the generation I’m a part of and the generation of people I work with, but I found myself too easily agreeing with Lohfink’s highly authentic, communal, egalitarian, peaceful, and accountable version of Christian community. After reflection, I find myself asking, “Why don’t more people in my stream of Christianity know about this book?”

About Application: As for application to my ministry situation, I think this book will find it’s place in a stockpile I’ll return to in a search to provide Shoreline’s youth an alternative to consumerism. The image I found most vivid was in the introduction. It talked about a priest, a counselor, and physician roaming a city “on call” (Location, 84). This vivid picture illustrates a tension I currently feel in ministry to a large church. We want to help people, but Lohfink challenged my thinking about the way Mega Churches serve congregations. There certainly isn’t anything wrong with serving a parishioner, but what if the structure of a community actually encourages individualism? If Jesus was in charge of my youth group, (a bold thought, I know) what would he say about our programs and the impulses they feed? How would they compare to the picture of Christ’s community provided by Lohfink?

Initially, I think we have a long way to go as a contrast society. We have a gathering, but I wonder about how much of Lohfink’s community we experience. There are brilliant moments that punctuate our program, that come in Small Groups, Retreats, and Summer Camps where young people catch a glimpse of what God’s Kingdom might look like, but this rarely translates into the day to day life of our community. This issue cannot be solved with a sermon series or a small group study. Perhaps I need to look at my own life and ask if I’m buying what I’m “selling?” My gut level hunch is that young people will not do it until they see it, so perhaps what our group needs is a contrast society within our community.

Book Review: Spiritual Leadership: Moving People onto God's Agenda

     About the authors:The name Blackaby carries a great amount of influence in many church circles, particularly with those in the Baptist denomination. Both Henry and Richard have pastored churches and written books together, Experiencing God is one of their more well known projects. Their background is conservative, but their influence reaches beyond those on the Theological right, which is evidenced by the glowing endorsements they receive from ministry leaders. Training leaders is a huge part of what they do and the heart of this work is to point leaders, and especially pastors toward drawing primarily from God as a source of ministry strength.
     
     Thesis: The authors use their thesis to claim effective leadership is dynamically connected to a leaders correctly understanding God’s calling on his or her life (Location 141). For a leader to function at full capacity, an understanding of “God’s call” and “God’s agenda” is absolutely critical (Location 140).
     
     Structure: The Blackabys organized this book by topic. There is a linear flow to the way the topics progress beginning with the challenge of leadership in section 1, establishing the leader’s role in section 2, sections 3 through 9 deal with practical issues facing a leader such as casting vision, time management, and the kind of person a Spiritual Leader is. Sections 10 and 11 warn of leadership “pitfalls” and unveil potential rewards of leading God’s way. These sections support the thesis by unpacking leadership principals and then showing the positive and negative consequences of leadership decisions. Though there is a flow to the logic from definition to outcomes, these sections need not be read in order and can be used as a reference for anyone interested in specific topics.


     Application: Since I have a Christian worldview, the thesis is difficult for me to argue with. I know that if I’m not dependent on God to lead effectively. I find this thesis important because sometimes we can become so familiar with a truth that we forget it (Willard 1998). I came away from our seminars with a preconceived notion that somehow this resource would not be my cup of tea because of its linear more modern structure. I still would prefer that the authors celebrate the interconnectedness of these principals, but I found the information practical to my ministry experience and beneficial to my day-to-day life.
     The section on making decisions (Location 3216) immediately drew my attention because I am self-conscious about this leadership competency. My grandfather was a ‘big time’ church leader and showed strong leadership in our home as well. I learned to follow, but did not exercise decision-making capabilities. This regularly hampers my ministry life. The Blackabys gave me much comfort in this area by relieving the pressure to come up with the right answer on my own (Location 3244). I was hoping that the topic of people pleasing would come up more but I did find the thought of being first and foremost accountable to God very helpful (Location 3403). I have already gone forward with a change in youth ministry teaching format to a more “guide on the side” approach because I know it’s the right thing for our group to do, instead of worrying about what people will say.
     Practically, I plan to use this book in meetings with my paid staff, our volunteer youth workers, and Leadership college. Each chapter lists key ideas outlined in bullet form and they lend themselves to serve as a map for discussion, which will be great for my staff meetings and monthly volunteer meetings. This content would be beneficial to our leadership college students at Shoreline Church, but I will have it on our ‘suggested reading’ list because I feel its language is more readily beneficial to paid staff members of a church who oversee several people.

Book Review: A Community of Character

A bit about the author: Stanley Hauerwas plainly says that he identifies strongly with the (Southern) Methodist tradition, but is open to ideas from other streams of Christianity (Page 6). He’s the son of a workingman from Indiana, who pursued higher education instead of staying close to home. He taught at Notre Dame and currently teaches at Duke Divinity School. He’s a prolific author and thinker, whose books are required reading in many theology programs.

Thesis: Hauerwas claims that the Church is to be a group of people who view life through the lens of Biblical Narrative and live in such a way that is true to those stories (Page 1).  That is the main way that Christians will “reassert” their relevance to culture (Page 1).

Structure: This book is a collection of essays grouped into three sections. Part 1 explores and explains what Hauerwas means by a narrative and it’s implications for community. Part 2 builds upon the definition of narrative and broadly traces it’s development and usage historically and ends with implications for spiritual formation. Section 3 takes advantage of the stage set by previous definitions and explorations and delves into critical areas in Christian Social Ethics. These issues are a definition of family, politics, how to talk about sex, and a response to the issue of abortion.

Personal Application: I am grateful for the way the thesis challenges the Church to be different from the world without withdrawing from it. Growing up in the height of the Religious Right’s popularity, left me questioning if the church’s main responsibility was in the arena of social policy, especially politics.  He supports his arguments and even includes many ideas contrary to his own position. This made his ideas more credible, even if it was hard to stick with the overarching thoughts in each essay. It was a stretch for me to read. I found myself agreeing with his positions, but perplexed as to how to apply it to my discussions with teenagers and parents.

The biggest challenge for me is how to apply these thoughts to my own family. I found myself without a quick answer to why I want children (Page 157). I’ve wanted to be a Father as long as I can remember, but I found myself without a vocabulary to explain why. After this read, and a little bit of thinking, I can say that I want my family to be ambassadors of another kingdom. I want us intimately involved in our neighborhood and church community. Now comes the hard part, doing this on purpose. Marie and I used to dream of taking our daughters to outreaches, doing things for our neighbors, and modeling a different way of life for them. However, much of this fervor gave way to the daily pressures of life. Hauerwas gives hope to this as well, as we can even see the mundane as “heroic”  (Page 174).

Jesus and Community

     I just read somehting in this book that really struck home. In the introduction Lohfink talks about a mobile pastoral unit that operated in West Berlin in the 1980's. It was comprised of a car, a short wave radio, a priest, a psychologist and a physician. They would patrol around ready to serve needs of various individuals.

     The author didn't see this as a good thing because it nurtured peoples consumerist attitude toward Churches. I'm not even finished with the introduction. I had to stop and ask myself what the main thrust of my ministry efforts is going towards. Am I in customer service or am I interested in the Kingdom of God? No doubt the two are held in tension. The Church (big C) should take care of people for sure, but I'm really interested in this new layer that Lohfink suggests: we can do it in such a way that encourages people to participate in community, rather than leaving them in the gutter of individualism. Thus we will avoid being a supermarket church where people can come in, shop, grab what they need, and then go back on their merry lonely way?

How have you seen a church help someone in a way that nurtures community? Ideas?

My first Hendrickson FCA

One of the healthiest things going in our youth group at the moment is a group of young people at Hendrickson High School. There are a number of fantastic things going on, but I just came from Hendrickson, so that's why I'm singling them out.

They led the praise and worship and discussion time. I mostly "sat on the doorsteps" and was so grateful that they invited me in! It was so encouraging to see this group share openly and honestly about real struggles that they are going through. They ministered to each other and it was powerful. Tears were shed and laughs were shared.

It reminded me that even youth growing up in the suburbs have real pain and baggage to deal with even if they look like everything is all together on the outside. We all have hurts don't we?

I was also encouraged by the tone of the meeting. It was authentic without getting over emotional. It was youth led, but adults were still in the loop. Tonight reminded me that I'm doing exactly what God made me to do.

New Metrics

Last week, Tim Ball the youth pastor at Promised Land West invited me to a talk George Barna gave to their staff. Barna, talked to them about his research into how churches can determine how they are 'transforming' lives. I re-payed Tim's kindness by showing up late and he re-payed my tardiness by killing me at fooseball afterward.

The information presented was provocative and held tremendous implications for the way churches in America do ministry and evaluate the success of their efforts. Here are some questions I came away pondering:

• How do we really tell if the people we serve are living 'transformed' lives?
• What are the stops along the journey of transformation that a Christ follower passes on his/her journey toward maturity?
• How can pastors better create atmospheres for peoples lives to experience transformation?

Ideas?

Update: I have a new job

Things have been busy around the office lately. Our church has been moving people around to position our staff for the next season of ministry. We're starting a West Campus and our South Campus is moving into a permanent building location.

Our high school youth pastor, Ben Calmer moved up to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma to take a fantastic ministry opportunity. I deeply miss him. He's one of my truest and best friends as well as some one I deeply respect. We did ministry together for five years and there is no way I can begin to articulate what I learned from him in the area of youth ministry.

I'll be adding his responsibilities to my own. So that leaves Marie and I with 6-12th grade groups of Shoreline Church's youth and Shoreline Leadership College. It's a little disorienting ministering to the 12 year olds on Sunday and adults 18-65ish on Monday, but it's really fun!

In addition to our new responsibilities, I officially began Fuller Seminary's MAGL program two weeks ago and we're expecting our second child in July. Every thing seems to be happening at once.

How do you balance your time between your family, job, and personal developement? I'm open for suggestions!

Five Hardest things a youth pastor has to do.

So you wanna be a youth pastor? Here's a post from Josh at Morethandodgeball, a great youth ministry resource for programming, nuts and bolts advice, and an inside peak at what it looks like to be a youth pastor. I highly recommend it. Check out this list of "The Five Hardest Things A Youth Pastor Has To Do" he posted recently.

1. Do the funeral of a Student in your Ministry.

2. Help hurting students as their Parent’s go through a Divorce.

3. Be with a student as they explain to their parents they are pregnant.

4. Say Goodbye to a Ministry you are leaving.

5. Explain to your Youth why you got Fired without causing further damage to the Church.

I would replace number 4 with guiding your youth group through a church scandal or church split, but that might be too rare of an occurrence. I used to think that working at church would be like working at Disney World. I pictured people praying spontaneously in the hallways, and the senior pastor plopping down in my huge office to pour into my life. We'll at Disney World sometimes Mickey takes off his head, and Pluto and Goofy don't get along. Thankfully, I have not checked off every number in this list, but my expectations of what it means to be a youth pastor has changed drastically in the past 10 years. What do you / did you think working in youth ministry would be like? How has your experience differed from what you expected?

Youth Pastors and their Weight

I'm thinking that the only more dangerous thing for my health than being a youth pastor is a week in New Hampshire with Marie's family. I thought there was a lot of pizza around doing youth ministry, but wow.

A quick word about pizza:
The pizza in New England is amazing. I came here for Christmas 2005 and ate nothing but pizza. No joke. We were living in Japan at the time and I was seriously craving pizza over all foods we left behind in America. I knew I was in trouble when even my fat jeans didn't fit well anymore.

Youth ministry can be harmful to a person's health. Everywhere you turn around there is ice cream, pop corn, pizza, and other things covered or busting with trans fats. Be careful youth ministry friends. We not only model behavior for our family, young people, but also our congregations. Connecting with kids does not mean we eat like a teenage boy again. I've got my waistline work to do in 2011 for sure, but here are some ideas that keep me from doing too much damage.

• Kick soda. You don't need to drink your calories.
• If you meet people at star bucks, don't ge Frapuccinos. More empty calories. You might as well eat a big mac. 
• If you must eat at McDonald's only order their fresh fruit...no matter how hungry you are. 
• Chipotle vegetarian burrito bowls are the lesser of the evils at this chain. 
• If you have a smart phone download an app to help you keep track of what you are eating. The simple act of capturing everything you eat helps you see poor eating habits. 
• Realize the simple equation: if you put in more than you burn, it has to be stored somewhere!

More than any quick tip you must realize that you cannot earn God's love or lose it. If your motivation for trimming your waist is anything other than health, you will most likely deeply struggle in this area. These are little tips to help you resist the youth ministry belly bulge, but they do not address the deeper emotional issues that youth ministers foster. May you crave healthy food, enjoy life, and may you do it in healthy ways!!!

What's Cookin'?

A few years ago (2003) I went to Rob Bell's Poets//Prophets//Preachers conference about the art of writing a sermon. The core idea of the conference was, "becoming the kind of person who has something to say."

Before attending, I was terrified of preaching, despite doing it for nearly 3 years prior. The idea of not scripting out every word of a sermon, lesson, or teaching intimidated me so much because I came from an acting background. I thought somehow the words mystically came to the preacher during the teaching moment.

I learned that isn't true and in one of the last sessions we talked about the concept of 'radar.' This concept simply put is collecting ideas in a reliable format that is easily accessible and reviewable. Just think, if you have/find/see one idea a day and capture it, you have 30 ideas! After a while those ideas start to connect with each other. I have tons of files from conversations I've had, movies I've watched, ideas that came to me in the shower, and so on and so forth. This discipline helps my creative rhythm so much. Sitting down on Saturday night to write a sermon for Sunday morning is no way to live. I'm just not wired like that.

What sort of process do you use for collecting teaching ideas? Once you get good ideas, what sort of organization method do you use in preparing the material you are going to teach on?

There's always a fight.

A few weeks ago Bobbi Houston said something in a sermon she preached at Shoreline that really hit me. "There's always a "darn" fight. She forgot that Austrailians can use stronger language than thier more conservative American cousins do. After the laughter died down, the truth of that statement really hit me.

There is always a struggle isn't there?

Up until that moment I held on to an unconcious expectation to hit a platau someday. If I just worked hard enough or recruited enough leaders, then I would finally be able to set the ministry on auto pilot and it would run itself. Problems would simply ricochet off my to-do list. People would disciple themselves etc etc. Of course if someone said the same thing to me, I'd tell them it doesn't work that way, but I still kept that false expectation in the back of my mind my whole adult life.

I don't always expect to struggle with the same projects, relationship problems, and challenges, but now I do expect to struggle. Perhaps struggle is too harsh a word. I expect to surrender. My family, my job, and my ministry all take upkeep. I like the metaphore of farming for ministry. Jesus seemed to. It would be madness for a farmer to expect to plow his field so well that the seeds didn't need to be sown, or to harvest so well that the next years crop planted its self.

Today, as you "tend your fields/vines" I pray that you find strength for the struggles you go through and that you struggle well.