10ST - Promoting Talent Over Integrity

10ST is an ongoing series digging into Geoff Surratt's Ten Stupid Things that Keep Churches from Growing and how those stupid things keep youth ministries from growing as well.

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Marking the mid-point of our excursion through 10 Stupid Things is the promotion of talent before the reinforcement of integrity. Short version: if you make a habit of ignoring character flaws in the people you're working with, you'll cripple your ministry.

Quite a Buzz

There's been a lot of excitement around here the past couple days. The buzz is pretty constant. Conversations seem to be drifting the same direction; "Miss America is one of our own". Not just from our state, but from our town. Not only from our town, but from our own church. Not only a Christmas-Easter member, but from a vitally involved family... small groups, missions, soup kitchens...

I've never been a huge fan of pageants, but when Teresa won Miss Nebraska several months ago, her response to that and all that has come with it began to change my mind. (Posts like this one are a big part of the reason.) Now that she's won Miss America, with all the doors that will now open for her, I'm excited to see how she continues to allow God to use her to bring hope to the world He loves. Her sense of purpose at such a young age is coming as a shock to a lot of people, but those who know her aren't that surprised.

If you're a pageant doubter, as I've been most of my life, watch Teresa over the next year. Don't make an idol out of her (that's the last thing she'd want), but hear her heart as she fields the variety of questions she'll face. I don't know that we'll get to see Teresa much at home this year, but I hope you'll join me in praying for her and her family. Their world has just had a huge twist thrown in - pray that they'll make the most of every opportunity. And never let the fact that you don't stand on a huge platform keep you from making the most of yours...

Renovating Reality (pt. 2)

In part 1, I wrote about not liking to work my butt off for only small changes - I'd rather pour myself out in an effort at wholesale renovation. I definitely lean to the wholesale change side of the chalkline.

I'm realizing how that can cause some tension with people who have to work on the same team with me. What if they like to put that last little bit of polish on a project? What if they really value the minor detail that I completely ignore? What if their comfort comes from the familiar piece of life that I'm suggesting we blow up to start fresh?

A recent examples come to mind:

Renovating Reality (pt. 1)

I spent much of yesterday afternoon on a ladder, painting window trim on our house. By painting, I actually mean priming, since we only got the primer done and still have the finishing coat of actual paint left to do. It was not the most pleasant way to spend an afternoon off, but it needed done. I really don't like painting trim, but I realized something about myself as I was perched on that step that says "do not sit or stand" here...

Besides having good enough balance to sit where it says don't sit (and not enough sense to follow the directions of the ladder makers), I realized that I don't like to put a whole lot of effort into incremental change.

An UnChristian Church...

I've mentioned here before how I grew up in the church. "If the church doors are open, we're there." was inscribed on the family coat of arms that hung above the fireplace, just below the swords and muskets. Ok, there was no coat of arms, but if there were... Being at church all the time shaped my view of Christianity very early. When I graduated HS, I got married and went to Bible College. Not too long after graduating there, I got my first 'real job' - in youth ministry, in the church. About 7 years after that, I moved to my second 'real job' - in youth ministry, in the church.

Being 'in the church' as long as I can remember has continued to shape my view of Christianity. I've always seen it from the inside. The church is my family. The church has been the environment where my greatest friendships have developed. I love the church. Even when the church misses the mark with crazy rules about where donuts and cupcakes belong, and with silly songs from the 70's, and with a deficiency of sugar in the VBS Kool-Aid... I will still love the church.

I just finished reading unchristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. Based on extensive research of people with a very different perspective, the book offered hard data to verify some of what I've noticed for a long time: A lot of people outside the church do not see what we should want them to see. At the risk of furthering misunderstanding, I will agree that "We have an image problem." When young people look at the church from the outside, they don't see God - and that is a problem that is not entirely their fault.

The subtitle of the book offers an explanation of what a new generation really thinks about Christianity... and why it matters. 10 years ago in my youth ministry, I determined that one of the biggest obstacles that I faced in trying to engage young people in the church was that many young people thought that church is boring. (To be fair, 'boring church' is all that many young people have ever encountered.) I have learned in my life that being connected and directed by the Holy Spirit of Jesus is anything but boring... so I determined to set about correcting that misconception. I still fight it, and will probably fight it until the day I die. Following Jesus is not boring... if the church is boring, you're not doing it right! {Note to students - I know I'm not the most exciting guy all the time, and I'm sorry for every moment I've ever bored you. Please dive deeper with me into Jesus and I promise HE will not bore either of us!}

When the young people I know think about the church, I want them to see Jesus. I want them to know the living, breathing Body of Christ that belongs to the mission of God. Unchristian is full of evidence that that's not what they see at all. I would like them to describe the church as compassionate and caring, loving and life-affirming, vibrant... Survey says... XXX

The most commonly used descriptions that Mosaics and Busters (the generations surveyed - generally between 16-29) used fell into 6 themes that are explored in the book:

-Hypocritical - Christians say one thing but live something entirely different.

-Too focused on conversion - Christians are insincere and concerned only with converting others.

-Anti-homosexual - Christians show contempt for gays and lesbians.

-Sheltered - Christians are boring, unintelligent, old-fashioned, and out of touch with reality.

-Too political - Christians are primarily motivated by a political agenda and promote right-wing politics.

-Judgmental - Christians are prideful and quick to find faults in others.

If "perception is reality", then this is a problem. Before you succumb to the knee jerk reaction, remember, these perceptions have come from somewhere. Real people have seen hypocritical Christians slam sinners, only to be revealed indulging in the very sins they railed against. Real people have felt like targets who were quickly dismissed by Christian 'friends' when it didn't look they'd convert. Real people have seen the churches holding 'God hates fags' signs - and rolled us all up into that same stereotype. This isn't always fair to all of us, but it's happening. And even if the perceptions are not true, we can't just let them persist... we have to give evidence that the perceptions are false.

Kinnaman and Lyons offer a great deal of hope for the future here. Each of the objections is buffered by a new reality - a new perception that we, the church, should work to create. We should be letting people see:

-"We are transparent about our flaws and act first, talk second."

-"We cultivate relationships and environments where others can be deeply transformed by God."

-"We show compassion and love to all people, regardless of their lifestyle."

-"We are engaged, informed, and offer sophisticated responses to the issues people face."

-"We are characterized by respecting people, thinking biblically, and finding solutions to complex issues."

-"We show grace by finding the good in others and seeing their potential to be Christ followers."

I hope you'll join me in revealing a church that is more like Jesus than many people are seeing right now. We can't just say it... we have to live it.

Imagine... Obstacles Pt. 5

"One of the great dangers of leadership is this: we stop doing ministry out of imagination and we start doing ministry out of memory. We learn how and forget why. We stop creating the future and start repeating the past." - Mark Batterson

Painful Circumstances can also cause us to rely on memory/autopilot for ministry. Hurting people hurt other people. In ministry, often hurting people hurt those in leadership. Church splits, miscommunicated messages, death or illness... these things hurt church leaders deeply and when we hurt, we can tend to rest in places we already know are safe - reducing the risk of further injury.

But you can't do ministry from a shell. Ministry requires our hearts to be exposed in order to touch those around us. Instead of resting in the comfort of the cocoon, however, we need to lean into the blows that will come our way. Perhaps it's a fleshing out of the proverbial "turning the other cheek." You've given yourself in ministry and been hurt. You could withdraw into a mode of ministry that keeps you insulated, but that also renders you ineffective. Or you can choose to offer yourself again and again to the wolves who will snipe and bite at everything from your intelligence to your electric bill to your availability, to your character...

It doesn't sound very appealing to just say "I'm going to give myself in ministry to people who will take me for granted, chew me up, and spit me out." Honestly, it sounds pretty stupid, and my mind tells me that the people who would cause me pain don't deserve my efforts. Thank God that Jesus has a clearer mind than mine!

The imagination of Christ tells him to die so sinners can live.
The imagination of Christ tells him to open up his friend's tomb and tell him to come back out - after he'd been dead for several days!
The imagination of Christ tells him to pick up a cross and go where God is leading, even though it seems that God is not there.

I'm not advocating pastoral abuse here. There are plenty of stories of ministers who've just been emotionally and spiritually beaten up. It's not ok. But if you're in ministry (or any other type of leadership) there will be some painful circumstances that come along. Don't let them derail the holy imagination that God has placed within you. Don't let them dull the mind of Christ, creatively living within you. Play hurt when you need to. Make time for rest and recuperation. But don't give up hope.

At the Crossroads 1.2

Last night at youth group, a ping pong ball got broken. I know, right... Huge traumatic deal! Ok, maybe not such a big deal. The thing is, a girl came asking me for a ball because they couldn't find one. I asked the kids who I knew had been playing ping pong last if they remembered where they put the ball when they were done. "We don't have it."

"I know you don't have it, but do you know where it is."

"No."

"Where did you leave it?" (Knowing that ping pong balls don't generally go biped and walk off, I thought this was a pretty good question.)

"We didn't do anything."

"I didn't accuse you of doing anything."

....silence

...more silence

"We broke it."

Actually the confession was more like "We were hitting it and it broke all by itself." but the bottom line is the ping pong ball was toast.

Having no emotional attachment to the ping pong ball, I went to my office and got out a new one. No big deal. What is a big deal though is the way we try to cover up our secrets with lies. As soon as I asked about the ball, the boy got defensive and lied to me. Over a ping pong ball!

This is nothing new. Adam hid from God in the garden. Cain claimed ignorance of his brother's location even as he knew Abel's body lay right where he took the life from it. David covered up the theft of his neighbor's wife with a sneaky plan. When that didn't work, he made sure Urriah wouldn't live to know the truth. Ananias and Saphira lied to the apostles to cover up previous dishonesty.

At the crossroads, there is no room for hiding. Here, you must stand out in the open before God and bare your soul to Him. If there is any hope of finding your way (and there is), it requires you to show yourself. To openly place yourself in the hands that have so wonderfully made you. Hands that already know you.

Check out Psalm 39. Go ahead, read what you find at that link, then come back and answer these questions.

What are you trying to hide from God? How is that affecting your relationship with Him?

"Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it..."

See you at the crossroads.

Being Known

I've not posted much of anything lately. And the little bit that I have written here recently has been way on the 'lighter' side of content ~ I mean, "greener" bombs??? Come on...

It's not that I haven't had anything to say. I've actually had quite a few things that I wanted to write about lately (working with a summer intern, fixing my race car, visiting the art gallery, reading Dostoyevsky, new music, moments with students...). But whenever I begin to actually put the words together, I find myself insanely filtering what I want to say. Then I decide this distilled, nuetralized (or is neutered?) version of what's on my mind isn't really worth saying anyway. So I delete it and move on to something else.

(I'm fighting with myself right now even ~ finish the post or filter it then scrap it? I'll keep going and see what happens...)

I think this may just be a part of my tendency to question everything - especially myself. In that case, I'll just keep digging for answers, writing and deleting my way along. But it also may be some fear of something outside of me, looking into the part of me I put on display, and deciding they don't like what they see. When I started this blog, I was feeling pretty secure. I knew if anyone had a problem with what they found here, we could deal with it together. I had a confidence in what I had to say, even when difficult issues led me to say things I knew people didn't want to hear. I was known. I knew myself and felt like I was on firm enough footing to defend if I needed to.

I feel like all of that is missing now. I'm not known. I don't want to say what people who don't know me don't want to hear. (We're not very nice to people we don't know when they say things we don't want to hear, are we?) I feel like Jeremiah maybe, with a message to deliver that I don't really want to. But he couldn't keep it in, and I'm sure I can't either...

Not that I'm trying to stifle the message of God for the sake of my own security. Or maybe that's exactly what it is. Maybe I know deep inside that the masses of consumer christians don't want to hear the call to create and produce something in keeping with the faith they claim. Maybe I know within my soul that the herds will always value conformity above true beauty. Maybe I've just been listenning to too much Coldplay...

Struggling...

A note was found that had been inadvertently left behind by some students the other day. Scribbles back and forth - made to pass the time during a time of worship on Sunday morning. But the content was not just some innocuous bantering back and forth to fend off the boredom. It was sexually explicit declaration of mutual intent between a couple kids.

At this point, I'm not sure exactly who wrote what, but every student in that section has grown up in church. Something is very wrong when someone can spend every week in church for 15 years and be so far from Christ... I know that attendance is not an indicator of any depth whatsoever to relationship with God, but you'd think that somewhere along the way something would have sunk in.

I'm tired of seeing people play the game. Tired of the shiny, happy faces hiding very dark hearts. I am sick of seeing kids and parents keeping up appearances while they trash their own lives. And yet, I know these kids are only pawns in Satan's attempt to derail the church from God's mission. They may be casualties or prisoners, but they are not the enemy. May God illuminate the corners of our lives that have stayed in darkness. May he continue to use me to bring life to dead students...
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An interesting article has popped up on several youth ministry blogs that I've read recently. Learning to Lie shares some interesting sociologic insight gained from recent study into understanding why kids lie. It's interesting to think about this article in the context of the church. Are we inadvertently teaching kids to hide sin by never really exposing our own?

Parenting 101

A couple important parenting tips:
1) Your child is not entitled to most of what our culture is training her to think she's entitled to.
2) Actions have consequences.

An excellent parenting example: "'Meanest Mom on Planet' Sells Teen Son's Car After Finding Booze Under Seat".

Deadly Viper

"Character isn't a destination, but a journey towards becoming a more whole, fulfilled, and healthy person."

Recently finished reading a fun, but challenging book called Deadly Viper Character Assasins by Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite. Basically the book is a warning to pay attention to your character before the Assasins tear you up. An essential part of being a person of integrity that can stand up under attack is to have someone fighting with you. Mike and Jud have made a commitment to fight for each other - to help the other maintain his own honor.

That kind of relationship is something all of us need, and sadly, few of us have. We may have a lot of business associates, work buddies, or just 'the guys' - but how many of us have real friends who know us well enough to see when we're slipping and love us enough to tell us so? How many of us will dare to be real enough with someone else that we allow them to see the cracks in our lives and the wounds in our souls?

The warning in Deadly Viper is that to fail to do exactly that will likely lead to catastrophic failure of your character. Don't go there. Find someone to help you maintain your integrity. The hope of the book is grace. As much as it is a warning to watch out for life's common pitfalls, it is also an offer of a chance to climb out of the muck you may have found yourself in. Grace. Mistakes. More grace...

I'll probably come back to some of the topics of the book in further blogs, but for now, check out the Deadly Viper Site for more, and get a couple copies of the book for you and a good friend and start today to build the character you need to survive.