Hiding from Love

Embarrassed and ashamed, they hid from their Maker. Their state of attire hadn't changed. Their reason for being hadn't changed. The fact that they'd been designed for relationship with God and each other hadn't changed. But their awareness of their own (and each other's) inadequacies, that had changed drastically. With an act of experimentation beyond a clear border God had placed, Adam and Eve broke the very fellowship with God that they were made for. And we've been following their path ever since.

The irony is that ever since, we've also all been seeking for someone to love us. As the song says, "We all want to be loved... tell me what's wrong with that?" There's nothing wrong with that - it's what we were made for! What's wrong is that we spend so much time hiding from the only one who possesses a love deep enough to satisfy our need to be loved.

We hide in our jobs, a general busy-ness that keeps us blinded to Love's advances.

We hide in sex that is divorced from love, a counterfeit to the true intimacy God intended.

We hide in money, and power, and iPods, and weed, and church, and movies, and books, and any number of other things that can serve to numb us to the reality of God's love for us.

Embarrassed and ashamed of how we've fallen short, we hide. And God still asks, "Where are you?"

Maybe it's time to come out of hiding, faults and all, and let yourself be loved.

Guitar News

I've been fortunate to have guitars that tend to stay in tune pretty well while I'm playing - either that or I'm tone deaf enough to not hear when it's out! Now, for those who are less fortunate and find themselves re-tuning far too frequently, a self-tuning guitar! It's even a Les Paul.

If only the tones of our lives were so easily adjusted...

Empty Passion

"I am learning not to be passionate about empty things, but to cultivate passion for justice, grace, truth, and communicate the idea that Jesus likes people and even loves them."

-Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

In some recent staff discussions, we talked about our passions and serving God out of our passion. What are you really passionate about? What types of things get you really energized and excited? What gives you a sense of accomplishment & satisfaction? Are those the areas where you're serving God? Could they be? Should they be?

So I've been re-reading Blue Like Jazz and came across this quote that's got me thinking again about those questions and measuring my responses with the ideas of justice, grace, and truth and thinking about the ways I'm communicating to people that Jesus loves them. Does the flow of a week for me reflect God's passion (which would be justice, grace, truth, and us)?

I love the church. I love seeing seeing people in action together as His Body, reflecting His heart. I love traveling with students in the moments when they're just on the edge of discovering their place in His Story. Taking in the view with them as they reach the next ridge and discover the grandeur that God has set before them. I love seeing the church find new ways to love people and call attention to God.

Unfortunately, I can find myself absorbed in lesson plans and evaluations and scheduling trips and following up on issues and putting out fires and assuaging hurt feelings, and buried in new books and seeking new methods and untangling teen dramas... It's been a good reminder that my heart needs to beat with the Heart of God. My activity needs to be directed by His passion.

December Series

Next month I'll be going through a series of lessons with our students about God's story and their place in it. Also going to be using this time to introduce new students to our youth ministry. (If you know any 7th - 12th Grade students who come to WestWay but haven't ever plugged in to the youth ministry, let them know about this - and let me know about them so I can get in touch.)

Birthday/Christmas List

For those of you who've been asking... Here's a link to some options:

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.

Kidney Stone

I had another kidney stone last week. About halfway through Wednesday morning, I could tell I had one and started drinking tons of water. I figured if I could drink enough, and keep it down, I could flush the stone out... but not this time.

Friday morning the pain was finally so bad I had LuAnn take me in to the ER, where they eased the pain and did some scans and found a stone they said was big enough that it may not pass on its own. So on Saturday, I had surgery to remove the stone. It's been a painful week or so.

I've done some more reading on what causes kidney stones and how to prevent them and haven't really found anything conclusive. Lots of "secret" home remedies that I can get in on for $37 or $17 or... whatever. It's frustrating. People are in pain and don't know what to do... let's make some money.

You can't sell hope. It's discouraging to know that for the rest of my life, I'll probably have kidney stones - and maybe the only thing I can do about it is take drugs every day that don't really do anything to change the root of the problem. I want to know why my body has become a rock factory and what I can do to shut down production.

Maybe chugging olive oil will do the trick. Maybe I need to drink lemonade everyday. Maybe it's coffee... no don't drink coffee. Here's a special kidney bean concoction to try. Cranberry juice... stay away from salt. No, it's your thyroid... try this secret mix of three common grocery items... eat more basil... don't eat kelp...

The frustrating thing is the 'just hand over some money and we'll help you out.' attitude. Conditional assistance. I wonder if that's what we offer in the church sometimes. "Talk like us, look like us, arrange your daily schedule like us and we'll share with you the answer to all your problems." As a sufferer, what I'd really like to see is help. Help me through my struggle as I am, and when I've come out the other side, I'm yours because I know it's really me you care about. We need to give the love we've been given - without qualification - and then see real transformation take place.

Beyond the Sheen

Yesterday, we went up to the monument for our staff meeting. No real agenda except a brief time out of the office for prayer. The plaque at the top of the monument always gets me thinking... a tribute to a man who died within reach of help, but didn't make it - abandoned by his friends. I often wonder if that's still happening today? People dying for eternity - abandoned by the church.

It's not that we don't care. I'm not so cynical as to think that most people in the church really don't give a rip about their neighbors. We do. But I'm afraid we've forgotten just what is at stake.

A team from our church just returned from Haiti and they're talking about how dark a place it is. The voodoo and witchcraft that are so visible there have made the evil palpable. This thought of blatant darkness has converged in my mind with some recent conversations and sermons having to do with the materialism so prevalent in our own Western culture. We have so much - and often what we have has blinded us to the spiritual reality that without Christ, we are dead.

As I looked out over the view of our community from the top of the Bluff, I noticed that there are a lot of white buldings in town. Coupled with the glitter of glass on the sunny day, Scottsbluff looked like a shiny, bright sparkle in the midst of the browning fields.

As these contrasting thoughts collided, Nehemiah came to mind, surveying the city of Jerusalem and finding the rumors of desolation and destruction to be true. When we survey our cities, do we look beyond the glitz to see the grime?

A beautiful darkness has crept upon us -
----but darkness, nonetheless.
This beauty illumined is no beauty at all -
----but greed, and pain, and death.
But who wants to expose the ugly?
----"Paint the town white!"
----"Cover it up with a little shine!"
So we whitewash our tombs,
----extinguish our lights,
----and go blind to what's dying inside.

Challenging Video

Just came across this video montage of some of Mike Yaconelli's speaking on Knotter's blog. Good stuff...

Ministry via Master Chief???

I read this NY Times article the other day about youth ministries featuring Halo. Video games have been and will continue to be a sticky issue for a lot of people. Right now, as part of some revamping of our youth ministry, we're talking about setting up a few video game systems and this is an issue we're talking about. How do we decide which games are ok and which are not? I've gotta say that the arguments used by some of the people in this article to justify their practices sound pretty hollow to me.

I've played the Halo games with some of my kids. Had fun. Pretty sure I'm not emotionally scarred for life as a result. But if you ever hear me utter the words 'Halo' and 'relevant ministry' together, please come and pluck the XBox out of my eye so I can see better. The whole baiting the hook thing really makes me feel kinda queasy.

Are our youth ministries so devoid of meaningful substance that we can't survive without the latest gimmick? Do we not have a passion for what students really need and the ability to transmit that message in ways that they'll receive it? Or is this just the easy way out - trade kids a 20 minute spiel for a little game time?

Please don't take this as one self-righteous youth worker looking down the barrel and taking pot shots at other youth workers and their methods. I'm wrestling with this issue myself in my own ministry. I like video games. I like playing video games with my kids. I will continue to play video games with my kids - including some games that some people don't like. But to say about Halo that "It is crucial... to reach the elusive audience of boys and young men." just takes it too far.

Dick Staub also had an article about this same issue on his blog today. Read the whole articles and see what you think, but the following couple quotes say a lot:

Marty O;Donnell, one of the creators of Halo and himself a Christian agrees-- I too read the article in the New York Times today and was disappointed and shook my head. Once again (I believe) the modern evangelical church has misinterpreted Christ’s injunction to be “fishers of men”.

and the bottom line...

I think Youth pastors face a huge challenge--gamers play Halo because it offers sensatory excitement, a good versus evil storyline and a real sense of connection in community. If we love kids we will serve them in ways that address those needs more deeply than Halo can…

Job Shadow

One of my students has to do a job shadowing project. Someone told him he should do one with me and his response was, "Mike works? I thought he just went to church and stuff..." So tomorrow, he's spending the day with me at work.

Then today, I found this spoof video on Fess's blog that some of the youth staff at Saddleback did. Maybe I'll let him watch it for part of our 'day' tomorrow.

Well... back to work!

Praying for a Friend...

I cried for you today.
I saw them entice you and drag you away.
I wish you could see from here
The joy in your eyes - you replaced it with fear
and the pain they inflict
makes you sick to the heart.
I know you don't know but you're falling apart.
Wake up look around
He'll be found nearby.
Lift your eyes to His gaze - stare into His grace.
He loves you.
He's just dying for you to come home.
We love you.
We're crying for you to come home.

Lifehouse "everything" skit

Kids Matter.

Just thinking through some final thoughts for tonight. One of our core values at Wind and Water is that 'students matter to God'. I think to most of the world the young are a source of cheap labor and expendable income. Students are often pushed to the edges of society. Unfortunately, many churches reflect our culture in this area. "Keep them out of our hair... keep them so busy they don't have time to get in trouble... keep their messes out of sight... can't they find something used that someone wants to give away..." Doesn't sound very much like Jesus' "let the children come..."

So I'm talking to the students about how they matter to God, even if they aren't valued by our culture. I keep coming to how I imagine God values the creativity and passion and energy that are so obvious in youth and the fact that we all are made in God's image (a creative, passionate, and energetic God). When we sin, we mar and scar His image within us.

When we push youth to the fringes of the church, are we missing a glimpse at the image of God? Could it be that the image of God can be seen more clearly in their passion/energy/creativity because they've had less time to stamp it out? When I find myself without energy and passion and creativity... what does that say about my spiritual health and vitality?

God, may our students live lives that remind us what you look like!

Wind and Water...

Next month's newsletter article...

Wind and Water Student Ministries is more than just a name for our youth ministry here at WestWay. It’s also a developing strategy for how we do ministry with students. Those two elements (wind and water) capture the essence of what we’re all about: Bringing Students to Life… and Taking Life to Students.

Jesus didn’t just come into this world to teach people how to behave. I remember as a kid being told to ‘mind my manners’. While that is important (and often lacking in the world today), that’s not what Jesus came for. He came to bring life to people who were dying. He came to restore us to the life giving relationship with His Father that we were made for.

Over and over again in Scripture, there is a connection between the breath of God and life. (Genesis 2:7, Ezekiel 37, John 20:22) Without His Spirit, there is no life. Make no mistake, most people aren’t really living, they’re dieing. We want our student ministries to be driven by God’s Spirit to bring students to life. In everything we do, we are striving to be a ministry that is breathing life into the student body of our valley.

But we are not content to stand on the sidelines of the world and shout about life, we actually have to go into the shadows and take life to students. Expect to see an even stronger emphasis in our youth ministry on serving our community. Our students are developing a heartbeat that is in tune with God’s heart as it relates to serving those in need. They are coming to understand that “religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:27) Jesus talked about offering water to the thirsty. He offered a water that quenches thirst. We are here to do the same.

What Church Looks Like

This is what the church should be doing more of. It's exciting to read about this kind of passion for service.

Now, I'll admit, I don't know these people and I've never been to their town, but I've got to imagine that a church serving its community this way is making an impact. As much as I don't like how "externally focused" is becoming another buzzword bandwagon model for churches to jump on, I love the heart that this church has been planted with to observe, serve, and be in community with... its community. We in God's Kingdom should all be so externally focused.

What's Being Distributed?

I was just reading the Ethur blog and came across a post that included this quote:

"The future is here. It is just not widely distributed yet."I think it is important to take a look at our efforts and evaluate whether we are distributing the future or the past. Some organizations/individuals clearly do one or the other. When looking at what you pour your time, energy, ideas and resources into, which one do you think you're helping to distribute?

This made me think of Jesus' words, "the kingdom of God is at hand..." in Mark 1. Jesus was the very presence of God, Himself, here on Earth. God's kingdom isn't just some far off, mystical, "somewhere up yonder" place - it's His people here and now, living in His presence, as His body. We should be Kingdom distributors.

Think about your "time, energy, ideas and resources"... Where are they going? What are you pouring your self and your life into? Preserving what you've had... or distributing what is to come?

"Father...Your kingdom come, Your will be done - on Earth as it is in Heaven."