Take Me to Your Leader

Since the 50's, cartoon aliens have been making the demand, "Take me to your leader." Get me to the one in charge because I'm too important to be dealing with a peon like you. You can't possibly be able to answer my questions or be interesting enough for conversation, so take me to someone who is. Take me to your leader. The phrase has entered our culture so deeply that it's been used by everyone from the Newsboys to Ninja Turtles.


But, what if you and I were really asked that question? Who are your leaders? Look back over your life objectively - what is it, or who is it that has led you to where you are today?

Shifting away from an individual focus for a minute, I want to ask the church something. Together, who are our leaders? Who are we following? I know the easy answer to throw out is 'Jesus', but if Marvin the Martian showed up Sunday morning with his ACME ray gun and demanded to know who's in charge around here, would we all point to the stage? The elders & staff? Teachers and small group leaders?

As followers, how do we balance our loyalty to our flesh and blood leaders (and our own preferences) with being disciples of Jesus? As leaders, are we doing everything possible to lead people to follow Him, not just us?

Who You Serve I'll Serve

Famine had forced Naomi and her husband to leave their home and live as foreigners in Moab. When her husband died, Naomi was left with her two sons and their new wives. When they'd been there about 10 years, her sons died as well - leaving her nearly alone in a foreign land. It's easy to see why she wanted to change her name to a word that meant bitter. She'd lost just about everything important to her and was forced to head home to Israel, to live out the rest of her life as a begging, bitter widow.

But there was one friend she'd gained in all the suffering. Her daughter in law, Ruth.

As Naomi left for Israel, her sons' widows went with her, as part of her household. But they were young and Naomi had no hope of being able to provide for them, so she sent them home to their own families. Ruth wouldn't go. Despite the difficulty she knew she'd face in aligning herself with Naomi this way, her words reveal a commitment to a relationship that ran deeper than any desire for self-preservation.

"Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.  Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."

There's a Chris Tomlin song (I Will Follow) that I've been singing with my students lately that echoes this same thought and reflects our commitment to Jesus. May our desire to go with Jesus, wherever He's going, reflect Ruth's love and devotion to Naomi. I pray that we will truly love those who He so deeply loves and that we'd humbly serve those He desires to serve. He draws a pretty wide circle... find someone you can serve today.

Curious? or Ignorant.

"But they didn't understand what he was saying, and they were afraid to ask him what he meant."

When Jesus told his closest disciples that he was about to be killed and resurrected, this was the confusion that ensued.  They weren't getting it.  They'd missed his point, but the more discouraging thing is that they let their fear keep them from understanding.  How many times had they had to ask Jesus to clarify?

The Messiah you are looking for is Jesus.

In Acts 18, both Paul and Apollos are said to be working to convince Jewish congregations that "Jesus was the Christ." Now, I've had enough Sunday School lessons and Life of Christ lectures in Bible college to know that "the Christ" is a pretty significant title, and it's the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew term Messiah. And so, as I grew up reading this verse in the NIV (as many of my generation of church goers have), I always pictured these two guys reasoning and explaining to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah they'd been waiting for.

This morning, as I was reading in the New Living Translation, the phrase jumped out at me both times I came across it in a fresh way: "The Messiah you are looking for is Jesus." For whatever reason, having it phrased this way made my mind jump a couple thousand years. People are still looking for a Messiah and they have lots of choices fighting for their attention. Most are not looking for the Jewish Messiah described in the Old Testament (even many Jews have given up that wait) - but they are looking for someone or something to deliver them from a life void of meaning and substance. People are trying just about everything possible to escape the aging and death that each of us experiences. We all want our lives to mean something.

But your job will not be a source of significance for you beyond a few decades.
The excessive drinking and drugs that offer an escape only last for a moment.
The accolades and achievements we so diligently pursue will not satisfy forever.
Even the humanitarian service we give to others, as good and right as it is, does little to permanently convince the soul that it is good and right.

None of these offer the true rescue we're seeking. Because "the Messiah you are looking for is Jesus."
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The young generation today is looking for meaning in so many other things. They are looking to be saved by sex and good grades and football letters... drama and debate and Halo... drinking and cars and hip-hop... but they're recognizing the emptiness of these pursuits. And so, they keep looking - they keep trying the next thing. The Messiah they are looking for is Jesus. It really is as simple as that.

Help them see Him.

Thanks for Helping Us Help Haiti

The benefit concert for Northwest Haiti Christian Mission with Remedy Drive was a blast. It started with an email listing a few open dates for the band and fell together more quickly than I could have imagined. That seems to be the trend with the whole experience.

I knew there'd be a bit of a 'built in' crowd because we were doing it on Wednesday night instead of our regular worship time with the students.  I hoped to convince a couple other youth leaders to bring their groups as well, but wasn't sure - we churches aren't always the most prone to changing plans at the last minute. As it turns out, there were several congregations that were willing and able to do exactly that! We had groups here from Scottsbluff, Gering, and Alliance and people from all over the valley that made it to the show.  (My brother and a few friends even came up from Laramie.)

All because I'm such a great publicist/promoter... Ok, that's definitely not it! Maybe it was because everyone out here loves Remedy Drive... That's definitely more likely than the first claim, but I think there was something more happening. We were able to bring people together because we were doing something that matters. This wasn't just about the music - although Remedy Drive and Gabriel Tyce Bruton were great. It was about the church bringing hope to the hopeless. It was about Jesus opening doors and mobilizing His rescued people to be a part of the rescue of others.

I walked into the newspaper office hoping for a little blurb in the community calendar. The benefit concert ended up as a front page article. That turned into a TV interview with the local news station (which was followed up today by another short interview that should air tonight). The response from the community has been great. We raised just over $2300 Wednesday night for NWHCM - in addition to about $10,000 given to WestWay to send to NWHCM over the past couple weeks!

I'm feeling sort of like the little kid who gave up a few loaves and fish at the lake one day. Jesus took them and turned them into a whole lot more! He's pretty good at that... Don't just stay feeling helpless because you feel you don't have much to offer. Give the 'little' you think you have and watch what He can do.

Leave Me Alone?

As I read through Matthew 8, I can't help but think about how awesome Jesus is. As he's traveling around, he healed a leper, healed a Roman officer's suffering and paralyzed servant from a distance, healed Peter's mother-in-law, calmed a freakin' storm (!) and cast a bunch of demons into a herd of pigs.

Jesus is incredible and we need to not forget that. (Not just because of these amazing things, but because of who he is.) I love how Jesus stops the crowd for a moment when the Roman officer told him he wasn't worthy to have Jesus come to his house ("Could you just heal him from here?")... Jesus was amazed.

Does our faith amaze Jesus? Is he astonished at how we trust his authority? I'm afraid too often we're like the people of the town near the pig-in-a-lake incident. "The entire town came out to meet Jesus, but they begged him to go away and leave them alone." His authority threatened their system - He made it obvious that whatever control over their little slice of the world they thought they had was only an illusion. So they told Jesus to go away. One of the saddest moments in the Bible - Jesus was there with them, the power to make them whole... and they sent Him away. I know most of us would never say those words to Jesus - but the way we try to control our own lives speaks loudly to our Creator. "Leave me alone. I've got it covered. I can handle this."

But the truth is, we can't. Sometimes in difficult circumstances, you'll hear people say that "God will never give you more than you can handle". That may be the biggest load of crap ever twisted out of misinterpreted Scripture. But He can handle it. He is not surprised by the circumstances that cause us to go Psalm 22 ("My God, my God... why have you forsaken me?"). He wants to see in us a Psalm 23, amazing faith. ("I will fear no evil, for you are with me.") May we remember how awesome Jesus is (even if His followers make some colossal blunders sometimes) and lean on His authority in our lives.