Sticks & Chisels 2.1

Yesterday, the groundhog saw no shadow on a day when a huge majority of our country is frozen solid, so we all look forward to an early Spring. Doesn't really seem connected to me, but... whatever.

Today, I took a looked back into the shadows of this blog and found some of my favorites listed among the most visited posts here over the last 6 or 7 months. Not sure what it all means for tomorrow's weather, but at least we're above zero.

#10  Humility of a Half-Marathoner - Some humble, post-race reflection after the CO half marathon. I can't even remember the pain anymore, but man that was fun!

  #8  Dear Youth Minister... - This is why I don't quit - and I'm glad to be hearing outside this blog how this has been an encouragement to youth workers I'd never have had the opportunity to encourage otherwise.

  #7  A Question Regarding a Church Planting Mindset - Eric Bryant sparked a thought in me that hasn't gone away. What if we were planting a church with a team as big as our current congregation and with the same budget? I'd love to have you go back and check this one out and dream together in the comments section, especially if you're from WestWay...

  #4  Help Us Help Haiti - An invitation to a concert we hosted to benefit the earthquake relief efforts in Northwest Haiti Christian Mission. There is still so much to be done...

  #1  Leaders Who Don't Know What to Do - An admission that sometimes, we just don't know what to do - and that puts us in pretty good company, and causes us to depend on Someone who does know what to do. This one got picked up by YouthWorker (the online home of YouthWorker Journal) for their blog section, which bumped it up from sixth (or so) to first.

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.

Humility of a Half-Marathoner

The 13.1 mile journey started last fall.  Some friends were talking about running in the Colorado Marathon right about the same time I was getting back into running.  (After the Lincoln Marathon several years ago, my running shoes got relegated to lawn mowing duty.) I got to looking at the details of the race, and everything seemed to be aligned for me to join my friends in their high altitude run.  Let me translate that: I looked at the course map and saw a marathon that is ALL downhill!

My friends were planning to run the half-marathon. I'm sort of an 'all or nothing' guy (at least when I vainly think I can handle "all") so I wasn't all that excited about the idea of running HALF of something. Today, on the day after that HALF something, I am very grateful to Jon, Michele, Scott, & Jennifer for reminding me of the difficulties of training for the full in the wind of a West NE winter. I can honestly say, I wouldn't have made it 26.2. Lesson in humility #1: Listen to your friends!

I've never been a very scheduled runner. I squeeze in what I can, when I can. Marking days with prompts like "tempo run," "speed work," and "long one" makes me feel like I'm running out of obligation instead of because I want to, so I generally just start running. If I don't have much time, I run fast - if I feel good and have some open time that day, I keep running. The problem with this training approach (or lack of one) is that it's more than a little haphazard toward actually accomplishing what a training regimen is supposed to accomplish: increase the capacity to run long distances efficiently. Going in to yesterday's run, my "longest" long run in the last 5 years was 7 miles. It's probably not a coincidence that my body started breaking down with about 6 miles to go! Do the math. Lesson in humility #2: Don't expect to perform like you've trained if you didn't.


The day before the run, my heart was not in it. I didn't want to leave, had a headache, just not in the mood... I don't know. But I had committed (and paid) to run, so I gathered my gear and headed to Ft. Collins. The room I'd reserved had somehow turned into a smoking room, but nothing else was available. I opened the windows and left the fans running, so it wasn't too bad (but did little to improve my outlook). I puttered around town a little bit, met up with Jon and Michele to retrieve my race packet, then headed back to the hotel to get some sleep (ha!). As I began to go through the packet with the reminders and race day details (not to mention the race tech shirt) the "clouds" began to lift, and I started to get a little more excited about what the morning would bring (aside from a 4:00 wake up call). The morning came quickly, we all met up downtown and rode the bus up into the Cache la Poudre canyon, where we'd start - after standing around in the cold for about an hour. It was a beautiful morning in the canyon (we Scottsbluff runners were particularly impressed by the absence of insane amounts of wind!) and, though it was cold, it warmed up quickly as soon as the mass of humanity began the run. The course was great - "standing in the canyon, painted hills around, the wind against my skin." Running through awe inspiring scenes, I couldn't help but think about how awesome our Creator really is. And aside from a few hundred meters, it really was downhill all the way! Lesson in humility #3: Stop feeling sorry for yourself and wait for it - the fog will lift!

Despite my lack of adequate training (or nutrition, but that's a whole other issue), and the consequent knee pain for the last 5 miles or so, I finished in 2:18:59 still in sight of Jon, with whom I gladly ran most of the race (881st out of 1446 finishers). Maybe next year, we can work on a finish in the top half like Michele!

It's All Him

I often wonder if I'm tragically destined to beat my head against one wall after another. It just seems like I often find myself compelled to beat a drum that no one really wants to hear. It's a frustrating way to live, but the alternative feels like disobedience or faithlessness or maybe even rejecting the God who made me & telling Him I know better than He does.

I found a great reminder reading Perry Noble's post today - Why I Am Frustrated. He lists some conditions that lead to frustration, and the fourth one is "Not Realizing That Zechariah 4:6 is True!!!" He writes that,

"So many times I will work myself into a frenzy thinking that ministry results are up to me (which is SO dangerous because it either always leads to pride or depression!) God said it's not up to me...but up to HIM!!! This means I am called to do my very best...and then know that HE is going to bring about HIS fruit in HIS time!!!"

The city of Jerusalem wasn't rebuilt because a couple guys became great leaders and were able to rally the people to complete the project. It was rebuilt because the Spirit of God was moving to have it rebuilt. I desperately need to remember that the results of my ministry are not up to me.

I've always been wary of becoming prideful at the work God has done around me. I'm careful to remember that it's Him who's doing the real work on people's hearts when I see things going well. I can't really think of a time where I pridefully took credit for what God did (thankfully)... But I haven't done as well at knowing that forgetting the fact that "it's all Him" can lead me into depression when things aren't going as well. It's easy for me to become frustrated at the change that isn't happening (or isn't happening fast enough) and get into a funk that spirals downward, robbing me of the hope that anything will ever change at all.

God is in the business of transformation, and I LOVE to see that happening in people and churches and communities. I love to be a small part of God's transforming work. I just need to remember that the results are up to Him.

When I start thinking too much about the lack of outcomes or the perceived slowness of transformation, I can get so dejected that I fail to do my part. "It's not working anyway... why bother... someone else is going to just undo whatever good this great idea/sermon/song/event is going to do... it's not worth the effort..." These lies sap the strength from our efforts to do our part. They keep us (or maybe it's just me) focused on what WE are NOT accomplishing instead of what God CAN do.

May I see again what God can do...

May I simply do my part...

Even if that feels like beating my head against a wall.

Roadside Cleanup

Last night about a dozen of us went out and cleaned up trash on the roadside. We were assigned a stretch of road that actually includes the area right out in front of the church property, so that was pretty convenient. It's a funny thing, picking up someone else's trash.

I didn't make the mess...

It's not my responsibility...

No one picks up after me...

I'm challenging our students to look for practical ways to be useful in the community. It's not enough for us to just say that Jesus cares about people. We have to show them that we care. In the stretch of road that we covered we picked up a whole bunch of evidence that people don't care. People don't care what the community looks like - so they throw their garbage out the car window. There are so many other ways that people say they don't care about each other, about God, about even themselves.

To a world that doesn't care about anything, what does it say when the church says "We care."?

Jude Notes 1 - Humility

Reading through Jude, the first thing that strikes me is the humility with which he wrote. He didn't introduce himself as some high and mighty authority that the readers of his letter were supposed to listen to - but as a "servant of Jesus and a brother of James".

Often, we can tend to think in terms of credentials and qualifications. If we're looking for a job, we'll polish up our resume - listing out the experiences we've had that we think qualify us for the job. If we have a message we want the church to heed, we may feel tempted to preface it with a list of our accomplishments or successes in ministry. In short, we may be tempted to puff up ourselves before we deliver the message.

The problem with that is, it ignores the fact that we're only messengers - or at least that's what we should be. If the message is only mine, it's going to come up short of what the Body really needs. One of our seniors will be preaching in a couple weeks and I want him to be aware of that fact. He needs (and I need) to simply say what God wants him to say. His job is not to craft the greatest sermon ever heard (by the half of the congregation that will still be in town). It's to search the heart and mind of God for His message to His people - and deliver it as His servant.

Jesus had a brother named Jude. And another named James. It's not too much of a stretch to say that it was probably this same Jude, Jesus' own brother, who wrote this letter. We know His brothers didn't believe in Him until after His death and resurrection, but that they did come to belief. But Jude doesn't write on the authority that "Jesus is my brother, so you better listen up." He had something on his mind that he wanted to share with the people. And he did it as a servant.

Whatever ministry you and I may be sent into, may we go there as humble servants.

Igniting What Could Be...

This past weekend, I got to take some students on a winter retreat.  The theme of the weekend was "Ignite" with the idea of not being lukewarm.  There was a lot of focus on real practical implementation of our faith.  It was awesome to hear (and see my students hear) so many echoes of what I've been feeling and teaching lately.

A college friend who is now preaching at Calvary Christian Church after being the youth minister there for a number of years was the speaker for the weekend.  My kids really got a lot out of the stories he shared of real, concrete ways that other students had put feet on their faith when they stopped living for themselves.

Saturday was skiing for the morning and afternoon.  Up until Thursday or Friday, there was very little snow, so I'm not sure many of us were very optimistic about the skiing.  But Friday night it snowed enough to provide a little cover for the ice-packed hills.  About the time the slopes were freezing up again (after about an hour of a few hundred people skiing on them) it started to snow again and didn't stop most of the day.  There was plenty of snow.

One of the greatest parts of the weekend for me was the music.  Not so much the music itself, but Tommy, the worship leader.  This event is located at the church where I went when I was in high school, and Tommy was one of the Jr. High kids there at that time.  Back then, no one that I knew of would have imagined that he'd one day be a worship leader - but God did, and now he's the worship and youth minister at that church.  It was awesome to worship with Tommy and his brothers leading and think about the transformation that only God can bring about.

It was humbling to be reminded of a small thing I did while Tommy was in high school that was a part of his "ignition".  A spark that stayed around in his life long enough to find fuel and combine with a lot of other flickers until a life is now engulfed in passionate love for God.  How many times do I miss those little things I could be saying now that will spark something later on?  How often do I let my frustration blind me to a future fully in His hands?

May God let us see what could be...

The atttitude of Jesus

I've asked my students to write a short essay on living with Jesus' attitude, so I thought I'd post an example of what I'm looking for (this is on the short side of what's assigned, but it's enough to get the idea):

"What does it mean for me to live with the attitude of Jesus?" I suppose it means that as much as possible, my thoughts, feelings, reactions, etc. are His. It means that my perspective on life is seen through His eyes. I can tend to get a little cynical sometimes, my outlook a little bleak. Sometimes I see situations that are obviously messed up and doubt that there's anything I or anyone else can do to make them better. A lot of people don't really want to 'get well'. That can be very discouraging for me.

But when I have the attitude of Jesus, my perspective changes. Flickers of hope begin to melt away my cynicism. I come to understand that my job isn't to make things better, but to "awaken possibilities" within others - to take a spark of life near enough to them that they will be driven to seek out the Source of that Life.

This means that people are not seeking out me. It's not relationship with me that they need. They're looking beyond me, through me, to see the One whose attitude I reflect. And that's ok. Having Jesus' attitude means I don't want their attention to get stuck on me. I want to direct their attention to God, our Father. If that means being ignored and taken for granted, I can live with that. Jesus' attitude says, "Life is not about me."

Jesus set aside everything for the sake of others. He humbly laid down His right and privilege in order to serve humanity. If I'm going to have His attitude, I will be willing to do the same.