Have You Seen Anything?

In the church, evangelism is a big deal. Well... at least the idea of evangelism. It's one of those big church words we like to throw around about sharing our great message with the world, but we don't always do a great job actually doing what we're talking about. So we've come up with classes and sermons and books to teach us how to evangelize. I get invitations and ads from conferences promising to make my students better evangelists by giving them the best techniques for sharing Christ and teaching them to make the most of every opportunity to tell someone about Jesus.

But all this makes me wonder... I'll grant that there's sometimes a deficiency in our outreach. But I'm not sure the problem is a 'how to' kind of problem. I don't know that the issue is understanding better methods and procedures for telling people what Jesus has done. Maybe the issue is actually seeing Jesus do something.

If you had to testify in court about events to which you were an eyewitness, would you need to go to a witnessing seminar? If you ask me about my children, I don't have to consult a parenting manual to be able to talk about them. If you ask me about a recent trip I took or my roofing project, I don't go to a seminar to learn how to tell you what happened. I don't need to because I was there, in the middle of what was going on.

May we learn to see with eyes that recognize Jesus on the move. May we see the Wind blowing and recognize its origin so definitively that we'll set set our sails to be moved ourselves. May we find ourselves living His story, full of experiences worth sharing. May we experience Jesus so compellingly that we recognize that we know someone worth talking about...

Planning Ahead

"Meeting with our creative team today to lay out all the sermons thru early 2013."

Is this a quote from the future?
A text from some preacher with way too much time on his hands?

No. It's actually a tweet from @PastorMark (Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle). In addition to leading a young family and teaching at this multi-campus church, he is heavily involved in Acts 29 Network church planting, Churches Helping Churches, and Resurgence. He also does an incredible amount of writing and leadership training with church leaders all over the map. I'm not listing that stuff to put him on a pedestal or anything, but to point to the fact that here's a guy who has a busy schedule. Growing kids, growing church, thriving ministry... and yet, he's prioritized time to plot a course for the next 2 years of his preaching.

I know a lot of preachers, teachers, and youth ministers who don't even know what they're teaching next week, let alone the next 100 weeks' worth of messages. How many Sunday school teachers will pick up their curriculum magazine this Saturday night and wonder why more people don't come to class Sunday morning? We think we can fly by the seat of our pants and call it being led by the Spirit or being responsive to circumstances.  But we know the reality, I think, is that we just haven't used our time for planning. Why?

Galatian Deception

Last year, I started reading through my Bible with a highlighter, which was kind of a big deal for me because I'm weird and have an issue with writing in books. (My therapist says I may be growing out of it, but all his textbooks are those MadLibs, fill-in-the-blank things, so I'm not too sure.) I've just been highlighting phrases or sections that seem to stand out to me, or that seem to have a little extra significance to share right here and now.

As I was reading through Galatians yesterday, I was surprised at how much I was highlighting! It's like the yellow pages of my Bible now, without the phone numbers and a restaurant section. But more than the amount of highlighting I did, I was reminded of the scope of that letter. Paul needed to remind the church of just what made them the church anyway:

Presenting

I've been reading Presentation Zen for a class I'm taking this Spring. Don't let the title scare you, I'm no more Eastern mystic today than I was last week when I celebrated the astrologically heralded birth of a Middle Eastern man who grew up to calm nature and to claim to be "the way" and to tell people they could live forever if they ate his flesh. Dang! Maybe I am a little mystic...

Anyway, the book is a great look at some of the basics of putting together a presentation that people will actually gain from, enjoy, and remember - a presentation that matters. If you have something to say, and you have the opportunity to say it to a bunch of people at once, this book could help you present your message more effectively. And that's pretty important, unless your message doesn't really matter. If that's the case, just skip the book and keep doing what you would have done anyway.

Don't Quit in the Middle

"And so, since God in his mercy has given us this wonderful ministry, we never give up." -Paul, the Apostle who got beaten, shipwrecked, & imprisoned as often than any other non-criminal I've ever heard of.

I remember as a kid that sometimes, I wanted to quit some certain activity mid-season. Usually it was some activity that had caused my parents to part with money in exchange for the opportunity to participate. Often, it was with much weeping and gnashing of marbles that I'd convinced them to part with the money. Some days it was piano lessons, or little league baseball, or swim team, or pretty much any other endeavor that was requiring more sacrifice than I was in the mood to make...

Thankfully, my parents never let me quit.

Last Minute Shopping?

The week of the last minute deal is upon us, all decked out with holly jolly tinkling bells! Can't you just feel the excitement in that guy down the street trying to pass off his 4000 flashing lights and boom box as a high tech Christmas extravaganza for the whole neighborhood? Or maybe you caught it's whiff in the lady that just snatched the last almost passable sweater virtually from your grasp?

I once had a year where I proudly refused to buy any Christmas presents for anyone until the final week before the day. It was amazing. Well, not so much amazing, but that's not the point, now is it? (It's not, I promise.) I've noticed a couple different kinds of last minute shoppers out there:

• "Oh, Crap. It's Christmas Already?"You see these guys, who've been diligently working to put food on the table all year long zipping around the mall like hummingbirds sucking all the tinsel tinged nectar the Buckle and Bath & Body Works have to offer.

Interrupting Mimes?

I got a phone call this morning to go help a friend tow a car. I left the office and got the car where it needed to go, but when we got done I decided to stop at home for lunch a little bit early rather than go back to work just to leave a few minutes later.  (Not like we're in a huge city where that's a big hassle, but still, early lunch sounded good.)

About 5 minutes after I got home, Lizzie decided to carry a geoboard (fancy name for a square block of wood with a pattern of finishing nails sticking up) into the living room. She tripped. She hit her face. She bled all over.

Instead of lunch, we took her to urgent care and got 3 stitches. That chin is really small for 3 stitches! She also knocked a recently capped tooth loose, so we get another trip to the dentist Monday. So thankful her face did not become a well measured graph of 1" squares though!

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As I was writing about this, my wife sent me a message to let me know the phone was not functioning, so I just got back from a quick trip home to force the battery into submission. It would have been much easier if we'd had industrial strength tweezers to pick at the tiny wiring harness! I guess the elves who made it thought it would be funny...

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Have you ever felt interrupted? You have everything (or at least some things) all mapped out and ready to go, but then something unexpected holds up your thought train like a gang of Old West mimes. You thought I was going to say bandits, didn't you? Desperados? Gunslingers? Nope. Mimes.

They're not exceptionally dangerous interruptions... just terribly inconvenient and awkward.

So do you let the mimes get through their schtick and then simply get back on course, or do you just run them over? 

(Bet they'd make some noise then!)

Wear the Name... Reflect the Reality.

I found myself being fairly critical yesterday. The Big Ten came out with a new logo. I checked, and the design firm that made it is NOT run by 4th Graders, it is NOT the Graphic Design Team of the Blind, and it is NOT staffed by invertebrates or crustaceans. I suspected at first that the press release was a leak from the GAP in a desperate attempt to recover from their own logo mishap not too long ago, but it turns out, the Big Ten really did commission a logo that is that bad.

In defense of Pentagram (there's a clause I never imagined writing), the design team tasked with imaging the new identity of the Big Ten, they had a rough place from which to start. How are you supposed to create a logo for an organization whose very name has nothing to do with what it actually is or does? They've done other work that's great. So why this dud in Carolina blue? There's no Carolina even in the Big Ten, but that's beside the point.

I wonder if the Big Ten has lost its story in order to cling to its name. Why call a conference which has not been limited to 10 schools for 20 years the "Big Ten"? I know, I know, "tradition... oldest conference in the nation... heritage..." But it's not 10 schools anymore and hasn't been for quite some time. Don't get me wrong, the Big Ten is a great conference - it's just not 10.

I know it's always easier to criticize than to actually do something... so I humbly offer a few alternatives (in unskilled jest, of course). 

• The Big Ten played in the first Bowl game (in 1902) and this new conference will certainly see its fair share of bowl games far into the future. Maybe a name change to something reflecting the Midwest nature of the new set of 12 would be in order... 

• The TV deals and Big Ten Network are sure to keep these 12 great schools in front of a lot of eyeballs. Maybe they could just become the TV Conference... 

• The existing Big Twelve now only has 10 teams. Since these are heavily within the gravitational pull of Texas, maybe they'd trade names and pull in a negative space T for themselves just for fun.

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I'm wondering why I find myself writing about college athletics right now, and here's a thought that's haunting me. These conferences' names reflect absolutely nothing about their reality, and that bothers me. What bothers me more is that I've recognized the same problem in the Church. How many Christians wear that name only out of heritage & tradition? How many wear the label, yet live as if Jesus is long dead and gone? How many people throw a fit about cashiers who don't say 'Christmas' to them, even while they imbibe with drunken stupor on a consumptive holiday buying binge that would have sent their precious baby in a manger into a table throwing fury? Jesus wasn't meant for a manger, he was meant for a throne. We (myself included) could do a whole lot better, Church. 

Wear the name... reflect the reality.

60 Days of Nothing but Spuds

My mom tells me of a period of my childhood when the only thing I could eat was french fries and bananas. I don't know how long this time lasted, and I have no idea just what precipitated such a starch & K weighted diet. In fact, I really don't remember any of the details well at all (but I do remember the subsequent force feeding of fried liver quite vividly). This may have been a contributing factor to my entry into Kindergarten at the weight of a small 2 year old. When the teacher said to "Get in your desks" I could comply in a way that was much more literal than she'd hoped for (which is a pretty funny, but completely unrelated tale).

Last week, I came across a story out of Washington (the state) that reminded me of my pre-school starch experience. Chris Voigt is the Executive Director of the Washington State Potato Commission (I still suspect they were secretly behind the political disappearance of Dan Quayle a few years ago). In an attempt to prove the nutritional value of the spud, Voigt embarked a couple months ago on a 60 day journey of deprivation from all foods - except potatoes!

For 60 days, he ate about 20 potatoes a day. My spidey-math senses are telling me he ate about 1200 potatoes during October and November - and nothing else. No birthday cakes, no ice cream desserts, no Thanksgiving turkey... just fork after fork of potatoes. Mashed, baked, rebaked, broiled, sliced and put in the toaster (hope not)...

He lost 20 pounds and dropped his cholesterol levels significantly. I'm sure when word gets out, this will have people rushing out to the nearest corner store to stock up on bags of chips in hopes to shed a few holiday pounds. Bad news... your couch just called to say it's not going to work.

This all has me wondering?

What if I could only eat 1 thing for two months?

• 60 days of Nutella on hard rolls sounds kind of good, but I'm afraid of what that would do to my youthful complexion.

• I'd contemplate 2 months of smothered TDO's from Taco de Oro, but there's not enough Charmin in the Bluffs to counteract all that pork chili-taco salad goodness.

• I really like donuts. I think I could handle donuts for 60 days. Unfortunately, a new wardrobe of stretchy pants is not in the budget - besides which, I already have enough trouble with finding new pants!

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What would you eat exclusively for 60 days? What do you think would be the results?

Hearing a Voice?

In a discussion the other day with a minister friend, we were talking about books as we rode down the highway, and Francis Chan's Forgotten God was mentioned. It really is a great book that addresses what I believe is the root cause of so many churches finding themselves less effective than they want to be - without the power of the Spirit of God, we simply cannot accomplish the mission of God.

I was challenged with a question: "So, how did the book impact your life specifically? What are you doing different because of it?" (This is a great question to ask someone when they tell you how good a book was.) I blathered something about trying to pay more attention to the Spirit and spending more time digging through Scripture, becoming familiar enough with the voice of God in Scripture that I recognize it more readily outside of Scripture.

Another youth minister who'd been at the meeting we were at all day had commented earlier about feeling that the Holy Spirit was pulling in a particular direction. Some in the meeting sort of chuckled at that idea, jokingly accusing him of trying to drum up support for an idea by invoking the Spirit of God as the idea's generator. It was a lighthearted moment for most of us, but I wonder... why are we so cautious (even skeptical?) when a trusted servant of Christ with a good reputation and a level head shares that God is leading him?

When the wind blows, why are we so afraid to let ourselves be moved?

I know, I know... how do you know the wind will take you where you want to go? How do you know it's really the Spirit of Jesus and not some other? How do you really know you can trust what you're feeling God wants? I offer no easy explanations for these questions, but I wonder... is our fear of the uncertain keeping us from connecting with the very power to do what we ARE certain should be done? We know, for example, that the church is here to continue on His mission. Do we really think we can accomplish the mission of Christ apart from the power of the presence of the Spirit of Christ?

The early Corinthian Church may have thought so, and Paul reminded them of God's foolishness. He concentrated only on Jesus and His death on the cross (which is not how you start a global movement of any lasting significance). It wasn't Paul's exceptional rhetoric that convinced those early believers - it was the Spirit of God.

Paul told them to stop fooling themselves, "Don't you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?"

Do we need to stop fooling ourselves, too?
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Maybe this is more of an issue within myself... How are you seeing the Spirit of God lead you? What are you doing to recognize and respond to His leading?

Dear Youth Minister...

Dear Youth Minister,

I know sometimes your job well done goes unnoticed and you feel taken for granted... A lot of people just don't seem to understand and they seem to be too busy to really, genuinely care or even take an interest in the next generation for which you are pouring yourself out... Just thought I'd send a quick note to remind you why you don't quit.

You don't quit because you don't work for them. God has called you into His mission to rescue young people from the sin and apathy that subtly choke the life out of them before they even have a chance to fully live. He is the one that works through your efforts to resuscitate a generation that is desperate for a breath of true hope. You're not responsible to the hearts of the people who look right past you and the students you love - but to the Father who loves us all... so you keep moving forward with Him.

You don't quit because your kids are awesome! They may be ignored by most of the adults in their lives, but you've seen what can be... you've seen the glimmer of life that blooms when Jesus moves in. You've seen them set aside their own egos and agendas in order to do what God is calling them to do, even if they don't know the outcome. You've seen them try - and keep trying and praying and learning to work to reveal the Kingdom to their friends who don't see it... so you keep working with them to help them hone their craft and offer the best of what they have to give to a King who deserves nothing less.

You don't quit because you've seen the future. If the church abandons the young the way much of the rest of culture has, it will be further relegated to a place of scorn and shame, set on a back shelf to collect nothing but dust and mold. As long as it is called 'today' you'll not let that happen without doing everything possible to see God turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. You love the Bride of Christ too much to let her be put out to pasture like some old cow... so you keep showing up in some strange stretch of time, trying to connect yesterday with tomorrow.

Your job in student ministry will result in waves of change you may never fully see. But those waves are part of a history shaping tide that will demolish the gates of Hell. It's never going to be easy, it's never going to be finished, and nothing in this world will be an adequate reward... so work hard, stay fresh, and remember Who you work for. May God strengthen you and sustain the work He's doing in and through you.

In Hope and In Faith

A Part of Your Tribe

Christmas Series...

I'm  excited for the series that we're doing for the next few weeks. Advent is a time of anticipation, excitement, waiting... But do we really understand what we're waiting for? What are we supposed to be doing while we wait? What if it's time to stop waiting?

Pulled Together

We had a great night with our student ministry Wed. night. We did an open mic night where I encouraged the students to share what God had been teaching them that they could pass on to the rest of us. There were some really good comments shared by the students and even more after we were done. It is awesome to see the students really taking ownership of their faith and responding to what they see God doing around them. They want to be a part of His mission! I'm excited to see them continue to grow and to see what God will do as more hearts are open to Him.

Last night followed that up with a good time with our small group. We haven't all been together for a while, so it was great to meet again. There was nothing too urgent on the agenda, but it was great just to get together to talk and pray together and to bring together some resources to send to a great ministry's (3:18 Ministries) Christmas project. It's awesome to be brought into community with people with a pretty wide range of backgrounds & interests to encourage each other as we join God in His mission, and to be pulled into His momentum.

God is on the move in our community of faith. He's at work to rescue what's been wandering... to find what's been hiding. Today as I sit here reflecting on what's been a pretty good week, I'm so thankful to be able to be a part of it.

The Landing After I Leaped Before I Looked

First a little disclaimer: Do not read into this post anything that I did not explicitly write. Don't jump to conclusions and try to assign blame. The adventure began like this and it's about to end with a fully shingled roof and some valuable lessons. That's a good trip. It's been discouraging and frustrating at times, but satisfying and even a little fun at others. The whole experience has highlighted some problems to me during the last month. I write this to propose some solutions, not to place blame or lay on the guilt.

I write this with tongue in cheek (and possibly foot in mouth), so please take it lightly. I harbor no ill will toward anyone who couldn't help, and only a little toward whoever made me think this was a good idea in the first place (just kidding, that was me).
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I have a lot of friends on facebook... but I don't have a lot of friends on my roof.

This has been frustrating for me lately. I've needed help. Roofing's one of those jobs that's kind of tough to tackle on your own.

Black Friday for me was tar paper black. My birthday was Saturday and a lot of people stopped by my wall to wish me a good day. I would have felt pretty good about that except for one thing - Zero of them stopped by my roof to help me finish the shingling. This was my first weekend at home since August and I got to spend it roofing. My 11 year old daughter and 8 & 7 year old sons have learned where shingles need to be and when. My mom lugged tarps full of shingle scraps to the roll off dumpster for her Thanksgiving vacation and my dad spent 2 days up there with me stripping off the old and laying down the new. They may still be in recovery. They may never come to visit again! My wife has made lots of trips out of the house to bring me stuff I forgot to take up with me. A couple of my 16 year old students have helped out a lot (except when both of them could come and distract each other). A few of my friends have spent several hours helping out, but most just couldn't make it.

Now, before this starts sounding as bitter as Marshall's coffee (hopefully, not too late) I need to say that I don't think this is an indictment of my friends. I sort of want to feel sorry for myself and be mad at them, but I'm not. I sort of want to moan about how my hour of need found me alone, but I know I'm not alone. I sort of want to be hurt by serving in a church full of people who watched the Huskers and Broncos, and "decked their halls", and took family holiday pictures, and played around for the long weekend while I sent nail after nail into tar and asphalt and wood... but the truth is, I'd have much rather been doing those things, too. Roofing's not nearly as fun as those things, or others... like pulling out your fingernails, or eating fried wombat hair.

I've identified a few possible reasons I've had less help than hoped for:
1. Maybe I suck at asking for help. Apparently, "I've never done this before and I'd love it if you could come help me put shingles on my house." doesn't mean what I thought it means. I've never thought of myself as someone who appeared to have everything under control, but maybe I do because if my friends knew the true level of need, I can't believe they wouldn't have helped. I know this because we've helped others together in similar endeavors. I think I need to communicate my need more accurately. But I don't want to use guilt to motivate, so I always leave an open door for people to say no. Maybe that open door makes my friends think I don't really need their help.
2. Maybe we live with no margins. We are a busy people. I mentioned earlier that this was the first weekend I'd been able to spend at home since August. Soccer, funerals, weddings, work trips, anniversary celebrations, family emergencies... all of these things keep us running from one thing to the next with no buffer zones... no empty spaces to simply be, and to breathe, and to be available. I wonder if we're just too busy.
3. Maybe we're just afraid to try. I realize that most of my friends are not roofing experts, or maybe even all that savvy regarding nails and hammers and construction type stuff. Neither am I (which is why I say construction type stuff, I don't know what most of it's really called). Once, when I was a kid, I hauled a few shingles onto a roof my dad was shingling for some lady that needed help, but that's the extent of my roofing experience. I'm not a handy guy. I usually can only fix the things that I've broken and seen exactly how I broke it. It's a whole different ball game to deconstruct a time honored method of getting the wet off the top of a house, and then to actually successfully do the work necessary to secure the shingles where they need to be. But guess what? I learned. Why do we let what we don't know stop us from trying?

So here's what I propose, friends:
-Let's stop mitigating our speech and say what we really mean.
-Let's stop filling every moment with something and create some margin in our lives (not just for our friends, but especially for our Father).
-Let's never let what we don't know scare us away from trying.

Bad News About That Pardon

Some turkeys have all the luck. About 200 million turkeys will be eaten in the United States this year - a large percentage of which will be consumed tomorrow! But just a few days ago, two of them received the coveted Presidential pardon. One of those quirky little holiday traditions that don't quite make a lot of sense... two turkeys (the star and his alternate) are culled from the masses to be saved from your dinner plate.

Hooray for freedom... right?

But what happens then? We can safely assume that these birds aren't just turned loose to wander the West Wing, and you know what's going down if they start messing around in the garden. No, the pardoned turkeys over the past decade or so have gone on to live out the rest of their genetically altered lives in such amazing locales as Disney Land, Disney World, or the (hopefully) ironically named Frying Pan Park (I did not make that up, it's an actual place - here's a link).

How great must it be to be those pardoned turkeys? Maybe a gig at the head of Disney's parade... A nice jaunt in the woods when the mood strikes... No fat guy trying to squelch your gobble... Just kick back, watch the Lions get massacred, do a little shopping...

Actually it's not that great. Today's turkeys are bred to be eaten. Those tender cuts of white meat goodness may look great on the plate, but they don't do a turkey body any good. They actually lead to an early demise for poor Tom. Despite their pardon, the turkeys usually die within the year, anyway.

Oh, well.

Let's eat!

Abandon the Bleachers

I'm a terrible fan. I just don't get the whole idea of fan-hood. I 'became a fan' of exactly nothing on facebook (though I'm a little better at 'liking' stuff). I did have a poster of the Broncos' 3 Amigos when I was a kid (Can you name them?) and a hat that was autographed by Sammy Winder... but they're long gone now. For the most part, my life has been free of any 'fan' related paraphernalia. No giant foam fingers, no cheese or corn heads, no crazy colored body paint... I'm just not a good fan.

Don't get me wrong - I love sports. Almost all of them. I do have issues with basketball, but I can sit for hours watching cars turn left, Franco-Italian guys roll around on the pitch as if that beautifully executed slide tackle actually hurt them, grown men throw each other around like my boys do (minus the giggling), huge hulks of men in pads slamming into each other trying to move a weird shaped ball down the field, & even an occasional puck and ice related clash... But I'm just not a good fan.

But I don't want to be. This weekend's Husker-Aggies game only reinforced that. To put it quickly enough to make both sides hate me... the Huskers lost, their fans are bitter about missing out on that last little stab at A&M before they take their ball and go play somewhere else, the Aggies were saved by Cyrus Gray and Black, White, & Yellow, and their fans are left trying to defend a win that was not as completely earned as they would have liked. I have good friends in both camps. If I were a good fan... I'd be outraged by the poorly timed calls and the 'how could you not see that' no calls and the pinching of the nether regions. But I'm not (except the pinching stuff... that's just wrong in any context).

My favorite teams have always been the Broncos and Rapids (Colorado's good football team this year!) and Cowboys (of Laramie, not Dallas) and Huskers. That's not likely to change, but I'm also not sculpting my bushes into Cowboy Joe, I'm not painting my house red & white, and I'm not spray painting the rock part of my yard orange (although, that one does sound kind of fun, now that I think about it).

Here's the thing: I don't want to be identified by a mass of face painted wackos, I don't want my day ruined when my favorite teams lose (I remember being baffled when I saw the depression, seriously, of Husker fans when they lost one game one special season long ago), and I don't want to be forced to defend an outcome I had no hand in determining.

I don't want to kick the dog because what I'm seeing on tv is driving me mad. I don't want to sit in the stands and scream - I want to be on the field, pouring out everything I can to make sure my team comes out on top when the clock hits 90:00 (+3 or whatever) or zero if you're stuck in that football. And I think I've just wandered away from the realm of sport... but I think Jesus has too many fans in the church.

What if you got off your couch and stopped telling the church what to do to be better... and DID something to BE a better church?

What if more of us stepped out of the crowd cheering for the King as He rides in on a donkey (a fickle crowd that incidentally screamed for His death just a few days later) and joined Him in His work to win back the hearts of His people?

What if we stopped patting the preacher on the back for a job well done and actually did what the Word he's sharing says we should do?

Jesus doesn't need us to rabidly abandon all logic to defend Him. He doesn't need us to buy the latest and greatest Jesus junk, or to hold up our foam prayer fingers at all the right times...

He wants us to step onto the field with Him.

Abandon the bleachers.