Star Trek and Biblical Disfiguration: A Discussion Guide

Logic vs. moxy, protocol vs. passion, ego vs. superego.  It is the core of one of the most brilliant pairings in all of cinematic history: Spock and Captain Kirk. In the latest (and BEST EVER!) installment of the Star Trek saga, we watch as Spock’s slavery to the rules of his logic endanger his life and career repeatedly.

In one way, this film is about Spock leaving that slavery for something better (and more logical in my opinion).  By the end, he has been able to hold onto logic while embracing a bit more of his human side. What a great parallel to the scripture!

When Jesus enters the scene, the place is rife with the same type of slavery: slavery to rules.  Not only were they obeying the 613 rules in the Old Testament, but the rabbis had set in place what they referred to as a “wall around the torah” that consisted of hundreds and hundreds more laws that backed up from the ones in the Bible so that no one would even get close to breaking the Biblical law. They were enslaved.

Then, Jesus walks in and makes a caricature of the whole thing.  He says things like, “If your eye causes you to sin, don’t just stop looking at bad stuff, or going where the bad stuff is.  I mean, guys if we are going to build a wall around it, let’s really build a wall! Let’s really get serious about holiness! If you are having a problem with eye-sinning, pluck it out!”

Right.  So, how many men are left in that situation with eyes?  Maybe a couple women, but if One Direction has anything to do with it, maybe not many girls in your youth group.

What is going on here?  A whole lot, but one of the things is that Jesus is pointing out how ridiculous an obsession with keeping all the law is.  The law is not where the power is, it is pointing to the power.  In the Old Testament, the Law is pointing to God and ultimately Jesus.  The whole thing is a big blinking arrow pointing at Jesus.

And that’s the lesson.  I know you needed a reason to justify taking your students to the movies again, so here’s a couple questions to ask after the movie is over... Maybe read Matthew 8:19 first and explain about the wall around the Torah.

• What is it in the beginning of the movie that is enslaving Spock?
• What does he have to to inside himself to be able to make the decisions that save everything at the end?
• How is Spock like the teachers of the law in the New Testament?
• What do you think Jesus would say to Spock?
• How can we make the same transformation we see in Spock?
• What is a first step you could take on that path today?

From: YouthWorker Movement

Why Children Ask Why and Shout NO

I am helping my daughter get ready a couple mornings ago  and when I give my her the clothes that she is supposed to wear, she says, “No, I want to wear my ballerina dress.”  And here I figured that after playing my role moments earlier in her pretend story, exactly as my three year old directed, would have won me the privilege of a “Yes sir” when it came to outfit choice.  I was wrong.

As frustrating as this is, I try and take heart in knowing that she is in the stage of her life  when she is trying to assert control over her world.  She is trying to take initiative and tell her own story. It’s all part of a widely-accepted theory about how children develop mentally and socially.  It is as beautiful as it is simple.

For the first year and a half, all that we need to do as parents is pick our children up when they cry, feed them when they’re hungry, and give them clean diapers when they need them.  During that time, all they are trying to figure out about the world is whether or not they can trust it, and it’s a good thing because the sleep deprivation most people experience zaps any amount of extra brain cycles available for higher level thinking!

During the second stage (up until about three) children are trying to develop a sense of autonomy.  This is why my 2 year old says NO! even when he wants something because he is discovering that he is his own person.  He doesn’t have to like the things I say he likes, and doesn’t have to eat a piece of cake when I give it to him.  They are beginning to exercise control over themselves which is why most children potty train during this time.

My daughter is in the next stage (that goes through age five) that deals with developing initiative and asserting control over other things.  This expresses itself in wanting to make decisions about clothing and making up stories (sometimes elaborate) that they may repeat over and over again as they begin to figure out the world through stories.

Why does this matter?  When I can remember exactly what they are capable of and how they are developing it really helps me empathize with whatever odd behavior they are presenting and helps me figure out how to respond appropriately.

This all ties into spirituality.  How can we help our children develop spiritually during these early stages?  They key is matching spiritual practices with their moment of development.  It is the heart of the four-week curriculum I developed called Baby Steps.

I am teaching a webinar for the General Board of Discipleship on May 22 on all of this information and giving away the Baby Steps curriculum.  You should register here for the webinar.

5 Tips on Lasting Long-term without Losing Mind or Family

“I wish I had spent more time with my family.”  That was the common answer I got from pastors when, early in my career, I started polling wise, successful ministers about what they wished they had done differently or known when they were starting out.  I tried my best to take that to heart.

I’ve been involved in professional ministry for the past sixteen years  and have had an incredible time without laying my sanity or family on the alter of work.  How do you accomplish that?  It’s not easy.  I guess what this is about is a continuation of what is talked about in 1Corinthians 10:11-14.  I want you to learn from my mistakes so that you can see a way out and live a full life!

1. Have the hard conversation:  How much should I work?

You have a job to do that is far more than any single person can accomplish.  That means that, even with being an incredible delegator, you will have to decide the point at which you stop, leave things uncompleted and feel good about what you’ve accomplished.

So, start with your pastors, SPR, or whoever it is that you consider your boss.  Tell them that you are working on setting healthy boudaries with work and want to clarify their expectations.  Then, say, on an average week without any special event or camp, etc.  what kind of hour would you hope that I was putting in?  How many of those do you expect to be sitting in my office on campus?

After you get a good idea of their expectations you take that home to your spouse.  Let them know the expectations at work and ask them how they match up with their expectations.  Those two may be different!  This is where the rubber meets the road.  Your job is to broker a treaty between your work and your family where you family feels loved, cared for and protected from the sin of absent, workaholism.

Then, DO WHAT YOU SAY YOU ARE GOING TO DO!

2. Take advantage of your flexible hours!

Most churches assume youth ministry will happen in a more flexible time/location setting.  Though they probably (and should) want specific office hours, they are likely to be flexible with when those hours occur.  So, involve your family and decide when is it the most helpful and fun for you to be home when most adults have to work, and schedule your hours around that!

3. Take a vacation

If your minister came to you and asked you to take a 4 or 5% pay cut, you would be upset, but that is what you are doing by not taking vacation.  You need time off.  you need a break, and your family needs it too.  So, schedule it like a sumer camp.  Plan it in advance and take it no matter what.

4. Work hard at work

This one is huge.  I have worked with a ton of people who talk about how many extra hours they work, how they have to take stuff home, etc.  For at least half of them, it’s their own fault.  The reason they don’t finish their work in normal work hours is that every time I see them, they are not working.  No lie, I have worked with people who for the (sometimes brief) time we worked together, I never saw them do something related to their job.

If you are a social butterfly or are working with your best friend, do whatever it takes to keep your nose to the grindstone.  You don’t need to be rude, but you don’t have to have a constantly revolving door or full couch.  Shut your door, close facebook, and get to work.  If you have to, put a sign on the door that says please do not disturb or something.

5. Do something you love that isn’t work related

Sometimes ministry can co-opt our hobbies and turn them into work.  If you love to play the guitar, you end up rehearsing four chord Christian worship songs until the thought of playing anymore makes you sick.  If you enjoy graphic design, you end up making logos for every small group in the church until the last thing you want to see is Illustrator.  That is not healthy.  You need to have things you enjoy that are not part of your job.

Maybe it is hiking or sports, or playing music, or writing.  Whatever it is, schedule intentional time to do it, and no matter what, refuse to do it for work.  You can volunteer your graphic design services for the local food pantry or teach guitar in an at-risk school, but don’t make it part of your job.  Keep some fun thing aside to care for yourself.

From: Youthworker Movement

My Favorite Bible Background Sites

“Where does he find this stuff?”  It’s the question asked over and over again by people wanting to find the interesting tidbits that make for spell-binding teaching.  The unfortunate answer is often that a lot of boring research will yield one or two gems.

However, there are a few repositories for these gems online.  Here are three of my favorites:

Follow The Rabbi — Teaching by Ray Vander Laan on the Jewishness of Jesus that was a source of much of Rob Bell’s early teaching on the subject.  The site is not totally clear or easy to use, but it’s worth the extra time digging. For the largest portion of the stash scroll down to read, click on browse more guides, and then click on articles.

Biblical Archaeology Society — This is a fascinating site full of exactly what its name implies.  Pictures, ebooks, articles, you name it.  I will often log on to BAS and just search the name of a city or person mentioned in the text I am teaching to see what sort of archaeology there is to inform the text.

Wikipedia/Media — In Study after study, the accuracy of wikipedia has been verified as surpassing Encyclopedia Britannica.  However, I find it most helpful in finding links to articles on other sites.  But the real gem is wikiMEDIA.  It is full of great images, classic artwork, and some audio and video.  The best part is that it is all free to use.

Go forth and rock some Bible background!

From: YouthWorker Movement

What if They've Never Heard about Jesus? A Story of Miraculous Revelation in Ethiopia

An Ethiopian man I met named  Benjamin told me this amazing story: He was in a field in Ethiopia working with his brothers when he sees a vision of a man carrying a cross on the other side of the field. The man is beaten and bloody, and in a lot of pain. He realizes that his brothers in the field can't see the man and begins to become very distressed when he hears a voice say, "This is my son who died for your sins." These words about sin caused him to examine himself.  He soon realized that there were many things he had been doing that were bad, and quit cold turkey because he could not believe that someone who had never known him would suffer so much for him. Benjamin began to tell his brothers and friends about this man who he saw in the field. He would say that they needed to stop doing what they were doing, and live pure lives. Eventually the lives of those around him began to change as he kept retelling his vision. People began to refer to the man in the vision as the God of Beniamin because he did not know that it was Jesus.

Benjamin's father was not as happy. He kept urging him to "Stop speaking all this foolishness," but he refused. Beniamin said he could not stop talking about this man who suffered for his sins. His father eventually disowned Beniamin.

At this time Ethiopia was under communist rule, and as more and more people began hearing about Beniamin, he was taken to prison and asked to renounce his beliefs. He refused, but they had nothing to charge him with. Every day they would threaten his life, and then take him out to the streets to show him the people they killed the day before (that's where they dumped the bodies after shooting them... if someone went missing, people would search the streets every morning to see if they had been killed). Benjamin still refused. This went on for 21 days (or months it was hard to understand him here) in a row. During his time in jail one of the guards mentioned that there were several others in jail in the north for talking about a similar man. This gave Beniamin hope! He was amazed that there were others in Ethiopia who had heard of this man.

Eventually he was released from prison, and decided to go to the north where he met a couple of protestants who told Benjamin that he was a Christian. He continued to preach in the underground church, but was constantly being searched for by the police. He narrowly escaped several times (a whole post could be dedicated to the many stories he told about this). Eventually the communist government was overthrown and they were able to worship in public. He told of a story of a conference he helped organize during a spring break while working with an Inter-varsity organization where 14,000 people came to the Lord.

I am constantly answering the question: What if someone has never heard about Jesus?  My usual response goes something like this:  

The answer begins with the idea that we believe God to be loving and just.  If that is so, I don't know anyone who would say it is either loving OR just to hold people accountable to concepts that they were never exposed to, and there is a significant amount of the world for whom that is a reality.  However, God reveals himself to us in more ways that a teleevangelist's sermon on late night.  In Romans 1, it talks about the fact that God's very creation is a form of revelation.  He calls to us through beauty and sunset and if that is all we know of God, that can be a significant amount!

Now... the real question (do they get into heaven) is one that I cannot answer. I cannot answer because over and over Jesus says surprising things in the Bible about who Gets into heaven that basically add up to him saying, "There will be some people you are sure will be there who aren't and people you never thought would be there in a thousand years who are."

But, this story always gives me hope that there is another answer as well: God is miraculously revealing himself to many who will listen and see.

A Confession and Prayer for Desensitization

Crucifix by Michaelangelo

I need to make a confession.  I forget about the cross. I’m not talking about the one that is all over my home and office.  That one (the empty one) is part of the fabric of my world.  It’s the other one... the one with Jesus on it that doesn't stick with me. And every holy week, I am convicted by this forgetfulness.

I know the reason for the empty cross.  I know Jesus is risen.  I know that he is no longer on the cross and that the resurrection is key to salvation.  The problem for me is that my empty cross allows me to forget about the gruesome, bloody torture that Jesus endured to provide for my sin.  I forget about the back that was ripped to shreds by forty lashes with a cat of nine tails.  I forget about the fact that he died from asphyxiation, and that every word spoken from the cross came at the cost of lifting himself up on the nails.

My forgetting about the terror of the cross makes me forget about the seriousness of sin.  When the blood is out of sight, my sins just seem like little mistakes, a couple of “oops” along the way.  I ask for forgiveness, if I think about it, and go about my day.  

But the cross has another message altogether.  Its message screams across millennia that sin is serious.  Like the nails in Jesus' body, sin breaks things. It creates pain and death and causes people to lose the ones they love.  When I look at the cross and see the blood of Jesus, I realize I have desensitized myself to sin. I have minimized its consequences in my mind and have allowed myself to think of salvation and forgiveness as common, cheap things when they are the most costly things in my world.

A friend of mine came up to me after talking about this and said that maybe the Catholics have it right.  Maybe we need more crucifixes so that we cannot forget the sacrifice.  Maybe. 

Either way, my prayer this holy week is that God would help me not end up in the same place next year lamenting my desensitization.

Who Gets Into Heaven? Downton Abbey Explains.

Highclere Castle (Downton Abbey)

Are Jews Going to heaven?  What about my friend who was a pious teenager but has lost his way?  How about my father who lived a good life but committed suicide?

These questions are as tragic as they are common.  They seem to be on the hearts and minds of almost every believer I interact with, yet they flow as a tragic consequence of recent church History. Yet, they are solved quite elegantly by Downton Abbey.

For those of you who have ignored the Downton-shaped hole inside each of our entertainment spirits, the show is about the lives of the family and staff of an English Lord at the turn of the century (19th to 20th).  The previous era was one in which there were firm walls between the staff and family.  Though they shared space, they lived in two different worlds with the staff constantly serving every whim of the family with no real relationships between them.  

Over and over again, the show puts on screen characters who are hopelessly bound to the old era’s strict, clear wall between the classes, but the family and staff at Downton  are in the middle of the delicate process of taking down the wall.  There are moments where huge portions of the wall fall like when Sybil, the daughter of the Lord, marries an Irish revolutionary who is their chauffeur. 

Then there are moments when it is taken down a brick at a time like when the Lady of the house says to the head housemaid who is fearing cancer that, “if you are ill, you are welcome here for as long as you want to stay. Lady Sybil will help us to find a suitable nurse. I don’t want you to have any concerns about where you’ll go or who’ll look after you. Because the answer is: here and we will.”

What was a bounded system that was focused on making a clear delineation between who’s in and who’s out begins to focus more on the wellbeing of the estate as a whole.

Alan and Debra Hirsch, brilliant missional thinkers, explain in their book Untamed that the Church is in the exact same place.  For a long time, we have existed in what he describes as a theological bounded set.  A lot of thought, time and communication has focused on understanding where the line between Christian and non-Christian exists, and exactly how one crosses that line.  

Hundreds of books and thousands of rallies have been held focusing on this line.  Though understanding what it means to be a Christian is important, the focus on making a clear in/out distinction ends up having some negative consequences.  When all that time is spent on the wall between Christians and Non-christians, what is within that wall (namely Jesus and every aspect of the faith) takes a back seat.  And what is on the outside of that wall (namely those who do not know Jesus) are more separated from what’s inside.  Hirsch describes it as having a hard edge and a soft center.

What’s more, when Jesus talks about this wall, he constantly explains it in ways that say that in heaven, there will be a lot of people there that you never thought would be there.  Likewise, there will be a whole lot of people not there that you thought would be there.

The solution according to Hirsch?  Take down the wall.  Instead of spending all your time on deciding who is in and out, spend that time on lifting up the teaching and person of Jesus.  With Jesus as the focus, our call to the world is the same as Jesus own call: follow him.  

This opens Christianity up to everyone.  You do not have to be in some certain proximity to Jesus, you don’t have to have your life together, you don’t even have to have attended a Christian rally.  You merely have to turn to Jesus.  Wherever you are.  Whoever you are.  Then, follow him.  And that next step, the step of following, is totally different for a buddhist in Thailand, a rock star in Ireland, and a minister in Alabama.  A different step, but the same action: following Jesus.

Who is a Christian?  The people who follow Jesus.  Who goes to heaven?  The people who follow Jesus.  Who gets to make the call of who is following Jesus?  Me.  

Actually, the opposite of that.  No one gets to make that call.  The determination of who is following Jesus is something that only Jesus himself can decide, and I am so glad he takes that off my shoulders.

That means its time to stop arguing about once saved always saved.  It’s time to stop arguing about infant baptism.  It’s time to stop arguing about last rights, and start talking about Jesus.  Start sharing his message of love, peace, grace, and repentance.  It’s time to start calling the world to follow its savior.

Make Your Church like Apple Stores (6 Steps)

A couple weeks ago Apple was recognized again as having the most profitable retail space per square foot in the world.  They topped the second place company (Tiffany Co.) by almost double!  Though I’m sure your church administrator would like to increase your tithing per square foot, I think there is a lot more that we learn.

1. Apple stores facilitate anonymity

Sometimes, I want to go into a store and browse the products and buy something without having to talk to a bunch of people.  I appreciate someone saying hello but I don’t want to be distracted by sales people.  And they respect that.  Apple gives me my space and allows me to set the boundaries for my interaction with them.  You can even make a purchase with your iPhone without ever talking to a sales person.

Sometimes people come in the door of our churches needing the same anonymity.  They aren’t ready to shake the pastor’s hand or meet everyone around them.  Sometimes people are hurting, skeptical, or really introverted, and there’s nothing wrong with any of those things. Neither is there anything wrong with someone waiting to sit in the back and check it out totally anonymously.

We need to value our cultures “check it out” value by not forcing people into fake interaction.  We need to be intentional about how we facilitate a healthy level of anonymity.

2. Staff are acutely aware of the customer

Though they are committed to anonymity, staff are paying close attention to all the customers.  As soon as someone exhibits signs of frustration, confusion, or exasperation, an employee is by their side asking a non-invasive, “Can I help you?”

How many of our greeters/ushers/touch team are really spending their time hanging out with their friends or reading a newspaper.  I recently walked into a church on a Sunday morning, walked up to an information desk and stood for a little while before being noticed because the information volunteer was reading the sports section.

All staff and volunteers need to be trained to to three things: 1. Understand what it looks like when someone is lost or confused 2. Be able to answer basic questions 3. Know where to go to get any unknown question answered right away.  They also need to be given permission to be late if they are helping someone like this.

More than that, we need to engender a culture of awareness.  Instead of being on a mission to get wherever we are going we need to slow down and look around.  We need to increase our awareness!

3. Apple cares about aesthetics

Apple stores look cool, and yet not intimidating.  They are simple, clean, and open.  They spend a lot of time and money thinking about how the stores look, feel, and flow, and it shows.

We need to be thinking through the same things.  We need to be asking ourselves that we are communicating about Jesus through our physical spaces. Do they feel warm?  Do they feel current?  Do they make sense and flow?  Do they feel clean and open?

I don’t think that your church or youth room needs to look like and Apple store (unless you are thinking about selling consumer electronics), but we need to spend the same kind of time and energy thinking about the aesthetics of our facilities so that they are saying what we want them to say about who we are and why we are there.

4. Help is everywhere

Every staff person in the Apple store is easily identified with a same-colored shirt and professional name tag (because everything there communicates high-quality) on a lanyard

How easy is it for a person to identify who at your church is there to help?  How does someone know where to go for help?  I am far from being the person who wants everyone to wear the same shirt on Sunday, but if there is no other way you can see to identify the people there to help, go buy some polos!

5. Focus on community 

You might think Apple stores are about selling Apple products.  They’re not.  Apple stores are about community.  Don’t get me wrong, they want to sell products and aren’t sitting around in a circle sharing what their spirit animal is, but they believe that the best way to sell products is to have the store be about servicing the Apple community.

You can walk into any Apple store, check your email, post on Facebook and charge your iPhone without ever feeling that you are sneaking around.  In fact, many Apple stores are full of people who are not there to buy anything, but are just using the wifi or the computers for whatever they wanted to do.

And, if you do need something fixed, that is the first place you go.  They are known for their first-class customer support.  Each support person is given incredible freedom to comp services and give free replacements to help customers.  Why?  Because Apple actually cares about their customers.  They want them to be happy, and they want them to feel like Apple cares about them more than profits.

I wish church was like that.  So many times I have felt like I was intruding or inconveniencing someone.  I have heard over and over people express that the church only cares about attendance rather than people.  It is time for us to shift our focus from attendance to care.  And not just superficially.  We do not do care for people so that more people will come.  We care for people because WE CARE.

6. Apple utilizes square footage

There is not a bit of wasted space.  Tables are spaced far enough apart to be comfortable, but no space is empty or unused.  It is all used to the max.

If I had a dime for every church parking lot that sits empty all week long, I’d be a rich man.  I understand that you may not have a bunch of things going on, but there are people in your community who need space.  There are small business groups that have to pay for meeting rooms in hotels, there are board meetings and civic groups that would love to be able to use your space.  And, imagine if you staffed it with volunteers who cared for them.  What might happen if those people began to feel about your church the way they feel about the Apple store?

That’s it.  Time for me to go talk to my team about making our church more like the Apple store.

From: Youthworker Movement

Lent, Seder, and Preparing for Execution - Updated

DaVinci: Last Supper

I had a question a couple years ago during lent: How did Jesus prepare for the cross and empty tomb? During lent, we spend time preparing our hearts for Easter, reflecting on our sin, and living with the knowledge that we bear part of the blame for what happened on that dark Friday.  Just like us, it is quite clear in the Gospels that Jesus knew exactly what was coming in the final days of his life.  He knew there would be arrests, trials, crucifixion, and ultimately resurrection.  So, what did he do before all these events transpired?  

He ate the seder meal with his disciples celebrating Passover.  Every aspect of this meal pointed to what was about to happen.  The sacrificial lamb that was slaughtered to deal with the sin of the family was then consumed and nourished them.  The many cups of wine that symbolized the sanctification of God’s people, God’s judgement of sin, their hope for redemption and their life of praise all pointed to Jesus.  It was all then tied to God’s history of redeeming his people and fulfilling his promises throughout history.

This is the meal we reference once a month when, before communion, we say “On the night that Jesus was to be betrayed, he took the bread, broke it, and after he had given thanks said, ‘This is my body which is broken for you...’” Jesus fulfills all the signs and symbols that are wrapped up in the Passover seder meal and then imbues them with a whole new meaning.  The meaning that we celebrate with the sacrament of communion.

What does this say to us about our lenten preparation? Whether you are fasting, meditating on the accounts of the last days of Jesus, or some other practice, it is important to focus not just on the practice itself, but on the meaning behind it.  

This season is about being repentant.  We fast as a way to express our sorrow for our sin and overindulgence.  We fast because as we limit things that are indeed necessities, we are more mindful of our true dependence on God.  We fast because we are called to live self-controlled lives and do not.  We meditate on the passion of Christ because share in both the guilt of the crucifixion and the salvation it provides.  

This month may we prepare with repentant hearts and celebrate with Joy as our repentance turns to Joy with the salvation provided by our living Christ on Easter.

If you are interested in celebrating the Seder meal with us on March 28 at 5:30pm, you can register online by clicking here

Update:

After receiving a great email from one of my readers, I think it would be helpful to clarify (or muddy) the statement above about the link between the Gospels and Seder.  If you want to read a little over 5,000 words on the subject there is a great article here.  Here is the gist.  For a long time people have equated several elements found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke to be pointing towards the final meal Jesus shared with his disciples being the passover meal.  That was supported by quotes from a first century historian (Josephus) and several references in rabbinical texts.  I find all of those references compelling, but the most current scholarship casts those into doubt.  

On top of that, Seder, as modern Jews practice it,  was not formalized until about 40 years after Jesus' death when the temple was destroyed.  However, I think that the references in the rabbinic literature at the very least point to rabbis bringing together practices that had been developing in the community, adding some new ones and writing it all down.

It is my personal belief that you can see elements of the seder that were present in the (pre-seder) passover meal and that was the meal Jesus shared with his disciples on the night before he was to be betrayed. That means that celebrating the passover can have many great benefits for us as believers.  Not only does it remind us of our Exodus story, but it gives insight into communion and the Gospel accounts. 

We will be celebrating the Jewish meal, remember our story in the exodus, and looking at the parallels with Jesus last supper.  I hope you will join us.

Wesley for the Broken Hearted Lover

Wesley and Sophie 

Most accounts of Wesley I’ve heard in Methodist churches set him up as the sanctified, theologian who worked harder than anyone you’ve ever heard to spread the Good news of Jesus and call people to scriptural holiness.  He is put on a pedestal as an example.  The problem is that the pedestal tends to be too high to see any of his flaws.  But, there is power in flaws.  The power for us to not only see an example, but identify our struggles with someone who has gone before.  It is often through this sort of identification that we open ourselves up to be taught by those who are placed on pillars.

As it turns out, John Wesley was not perfect.  What’s more he was human.  In his younger years, he set out on a great adventure to go to the Colonies (Georgia in particular) and do his best to get back to the roots of Christianity and do ministry like he saw in the book of Acts.  When he arrived, a new friend introduced him to a beautiful young woman named Sophy Hopkey who was related to a powerful local magistrate.

They hit it off immediately, but she left to go visit a relative in another town.  After a while, John went to visit her and found that her spirituality had slipped.  Then, he made a gamble that showed how much he cared for Ms. Hopkey: he told her.  He pointed out exactly how she had slipped and implored her to move back to the city that encouraged her spirituality: the city in which John lived.  She did.

Once there she even consulted a friend as to what a woman should wear to attract a minister who disliked “all gaudy attire.”  She wore white from that point forward.

Over the next several months they spent hours together doing the sorts of things people did who were falling in love, and she even sat with John during a five-day long fever nursing him back to health.

John was ready.  He wanted to pop the question, but decided to consult a board of church elders to make sure he wasn’t getting ahead of himself.  After some deliberation, the board told John that he was not to marry Miss Sophy. As far as I can tell, modern Americans would say that he was crushed, but he obeyed. Sophy was equally hurt.

John was caught by surprise about a month later when Sophy Married a Mr Williamson whom John described in is journal as “not remarkable for handsomeness, neither for greatness, neither for wit, or knowledge, or sense, and least of all for religion.”  I know exactly how he feels.

Poor John did not get over it easily.  Under what seems like an excuse to get back at Sophie, John refused to serve her communion.  Because she was not just your average colonist, John ended up being brought up on charges and eventually skipped town for England shortly after the local officials told all the officers of the colony to prevent his departure.

What a tragic story, yet it is not for from the stories youthpastors, teachers and parents hear week after week from teens and young adults navigating the waters of dating or courting or whatever your church calls it.

Why tell this story?  Because John did amazing things.  He had brilliant ideas, and made a huge impact in the world.  He did all of that despite a heart that was broken.  He made it through and came out whole on the other side.  There it light at the end of the tunnel.

I say, we take the words of Corinthians (11:30) one step further.  We boast not only in our weakness but in the weaknesses of our founders and theologians.  And who knows, maybe that boasting will help us take those people off their pillars and re-direct our focus to the God who changed the world through those broken people.

If you want to read an EXTREMELY detailed account from people who really love Wesley, it is here.

From YouthWorker Movemen

Navigating the Career-Family Tightrope (Dad Edition)

Surprise!  You are going to be a dad (again)!  To be honest, I never really thought that I would end up as the guy with four kids (fourth one is on the way) in six years.  I knew I would be a dad, and wanted to be a great one, but had an entirely different idea of how that was going to play out in my head. 

Here I am: minister, father, writer, husband (not in that order), and here I am trying to decide how to rock all of them knowing that it’s not really possible.  So, I look for some article or magazine or something, but the funny thing is that most of the parenting stuff out there is for moms.  I am far from qualified to give parenting advice, but I am going to spend a couple words here (and in the future) sharing struggles.  And, if I find anything great, I'll share a resource or two.  

“I wish I had spent more time with my family.” That is the refrain I have heard over and over again from older men when I ask them what they wish they did differently when they were younger.  Before I had kids, I thought: easy.  When I get there all I need t do is make boundaries and be a good dad.

Not that simple.  A pastor friend of mine, Danny Doss, said that there is a tragic irony in that the same moment you are required, and have the most opportunity, to develop your career is the same moment you are raising your children in the early years.  Hit the nail on the head.  

I have these two deep longings for success within me: professional and familial.  I am on this balance beam with them on either side, and I am constantly falling off.  If I’m honest, my drive to provide for my family gives me the logic in my head that allows me to fall off more often on the side of career.  But it’s odd because I feel a twinge of guilt whichever I chose.  The only thing I have gotten relatively good at is not allowing guilt, fear or confusion to paralyze me.  

Thank God I have a grace-filled wife who loves me and supports call. She is the anchor of our family.  She is brilliant and loving and beyond patient.  I look at her day-to-day and shudder to think how it all would end up if the roles were switched.  

Right or wrong, the way we end up navigating all of this is through our relationship.

Somehow through the fatigue and narcoleptic television watching, we communicate.  We ask questions and help each other hold it together when one or the other feels like falling apart.  Sometimes, we even remember to pray.  Though it looks like a mess, it feels like a plan and we come out together on the other side which is an outcome with which I am usually comfortable.

So there it is.  Imperfect, relationship-based tightrope navigation.  If I said any more, I would be making it up to sound like there was a real method beyond loving each other and God. 

Time to go read the T-ball coach's manual before quiet-rest time ends (I believe nap-time is a fiction made up by someone to sell books).

Heaven, Hell and Poking Yourself in the Eye

What will I look like when I go to heaven?  How can I know whether a friend or relative is in hell?  Will we have real houses or sleep or know our spouse in the afterlife?

I am constantly asked these questions.  It is usually prompted by a blog post someone read or some youtube video they heard or, unfortunately, what a televangelist said late on night when they were lying on the couch in that place between waking and sleeping.  I both love and struggle with these questions.  

I deeply love them because they motivate people to think about faith, spirituality and scripture.  The question indicates that the person asking is not acting as a passive receptor for teaching but wanting to engage in the process and is seeking wise council.  Those are all things I love and celebrate!

My struggle with these and other questions is in the inadequacy of my response.  The more I research and consider the text of the Bible on these subjects, the less confident I am about committing to specifics.  There are clear, broad themes like the immortality of the soul, the glory of God, and the wonder of heaven.  But most of these things exist in some state or dimension that is beyond the ones in which we live.  That means that the words describing those things are necessarily symbolic and metaphorical. They are meant to convey deep truths rather than specifics because the reality of those places and states are something no human has ever or can ever experience in this life.

I generally respond by validating some of what the youtube video or televangelist said as being a possible interpretation, but end up trying to move the discussion to the deeper truths that are being conveyed.  But when you want to know if you are going to have your own house or live in a castle with many rooms, that response is very unfulfilling.

This doesn’t mean these questions have no answers or are not worthy of study, but when wanting to know what the Bible says about some thing or another, there are times we come up short.  There are other sources for answers when the Bible is silent, but as far as the Bible is concerned, it is like the statement made to the author Lois Tverberg by a rabbi.  He said that speculating on what God has not revealed is like pressing on your eyelids with your fingers.  The light that you think you see comes only from your imagination.  

We do not need to force the Bible to say something it doesn’t.  Rather, we just use the wealth of information available in other sources to try and answer our question.  It only means that those explanations cannot be made as if God said them, but as a best guess based on Scripture and everything else.

Video: What is Lent

This video talks about the meaning behind this season of lent. You are welcome to use it as you like!

What is Lent?

For the forty days (excluding Sundays... more on that later) prior to Easter, Christians observe the season of Lent.  This is a time of introspection, repentance and preparation for Easter.

Its earliest observance was tied to the baptism of new believers into the community of faith.  That's right.  In some of the earliest years of the church, you did not make a profession of faith and instantly become part of the church.  Instead, you were required to go through intense moral examination by the community as well as a period of repenting and fasting.  Then, on Easter Sunday, you would be baptized and fully enter into the community of faith.

Our modern expression has expanded from those who are becoming part of the community to the church as a whole.  It all begins with an odd ceremony: Ash Wednesday. During this special worship service, worshippers come forward and receive the sign of the cross in ashes on their forehead.  

The symbol of ashes is quite profound.  They have been used throughout time to symbolize repentance and mourning. It is this unique combination of meaning that brings clarity to the idea of repentance. True repentance has at its root a mourning over the profound disconnection created by sin, and when worn on the forehead as a sign of repentance, as we do on Ash Wednesday, the ash is a sign to others around us that we are taking time to mourn the loss created by sin and reconnect with God.

That is the focus of lent.  We repent.  We reconnect with God. This repentance and reconnection is most often practiced by fasting from something significant and spending that time in prayer.  This spiritual practice is one that can feel very alien to a culture that is not known for its self-control.  However, that means that it can be a particularly powerful practice as we seek to minimize the indulgence we usually give to our every whim, hunger, and desire and turn our eyes from self to God.  

As we fast during the week we look forward to Sundays. Each Sunday in Lent is to be thought of as a mini-easter and most who fast, lift the fast during this time.  Though we are to keep the somber, reflective mood of this season, we know that we do not live in a pre-Easter world anymore. It is because of this wonderful reality that we temper the reverence of this season with joy and anticipation each Sunday before Easter.

I hope that this Lent is one that fills your world with the recognition of sin, the blessing of forgiveness and a reconnection with God.

If you would like more information on lent, check out these other articles:

• Why Ashes This Wednesday (Another Article by Yours Truly)
• United Methodist Church's Post
• Wikipedia (more than you ever wanted to know)

New Facebook Feature that Could Get You Fired

Who in my company likes to ski?  Which of my friends like road trips?  These are the types of searches available to you in Facebook’s new Graph Search.  Basically, Graph search allows you to search all the public info that people have shared with Facebook.

The problem is that includes everything you’ve “liked” ever.  Likes are always public pieces of information, but until now they have been buried in a list on your profile page in microscopic font size.  Because of that fact, no one I know has ever gone through and managed this list.

Imagine, you weren’t the most perfect person in college (a couple years ago) and you liked a bunch of stuff like getting high, etc.  Now one of your kids searches for: “which of my friends likes getting high?”  He shows it to mom who prints it off and leaves it in your pastor’s box.  Boom.

The moral of the story is: manage your likes. To do this, log into facebook, click on your name, and then click likes on the main bar next to photos and friends.  Make sure to click “more” wherever it is shown and especially make sure to click show other pages.  If you need to remove one, simply click on it and then click unlike on the page it takes you to.

Graph search is being rolled out gradually which means that most people don’t have it yet, but don’t use that as an excuse.  GO MANAGE YOUR LIKES!

From YouthWorker Movement

Did God Choose the Winner of the Super Bowl?

Michelangelo 

There I was in a musty church fellowship hall holding hands with a team of High School football players.  The coach was the spiritual leader appointed to offer their hearts to God before they rode to the stadium for the playoff game.

“God, we trust in your word, and we have written it on our hearts.  We claim your promise in Phillipians that ‘we can do all things through him who gives us strength.’  As your chosen people we claim that promise.  You know where we are going tonight, and we ask for your blessing on this game.  We ask that you help us to lean on your strength because we know that through the power of your spirit we can do all things.  We can preach in your name, we can withstand temptation, and tonight we can beat our opponents.  Give us your strength tonight.  Lead us to victory, and we will give you the Glory.  Amen.”

That was pretty much it.  They were all wrapped up in the emotion of the coming game, and gave many murmurs and ‘Amen’s to the rousing prayer.  But something didn’t feel quite right to me.  Did God want my friends on the football team to win?  Would he help them?  What if the other team had more Christians?  

In the same way, I am sure that God hears a lot about the super bowl every year.  I know that each side asks him to give a victory. The question is, does God make that call?  And more to the point, how hands-on is God?

What bothers me about prayers like these it that it makes God seem like a grand puppet-master directing every detail of world events to fit his or his followers’ wishes.  Though that simple explanation (that God controls every detail of every moment) is tidy and easy to understand, the reality is far more messy.

What causes the mess is the fact that God has given us the gift of free will. That means that we can choose to follow God’s plan or not.  If that weren’t enough, when Jesus left the earth after the resurrection he takes the whole plan and places it in the hands of the disciples.  This is not a flowchart-friendly, actionable plan.  This is to be enacted by empowering people to choose to do what God has called them to do.

If they don’t?  Well, they don’t.  That part of the plan fails.  That can make it seem like God is hands off, but the opposite is the case. When you look at the scriptures, you get the sense of a masterful playwright/director who is constantly coaching the actors, rewriting scripts while he is working on bringing the whole thing around to the ending in his mind.  

God is constantly calling, constantly empowering, constantly convicting, constantly working through us to both understand and follow his will.  

What does all of this say about the outcome of the big game?  It’s a messy answer.  The things we know for sure about God’s will are that he seeks justice, love, compassion, honesty, integrity, etc.  We know that he wants to make earth look more like heaven.  All of these things are much more massive goals and directions than a football game.  And, even if this game was a key piece of his grand design, he chooses to work through his people who can ultimately choose to follow themselves instead of him.

Why even talk about this?  Because if we can stop thinking of God as a genie in a bottle and think of him as the organizer of a massive movement to change the world, maybe we will be more conscious of how our actions follow his plan.  Maybe we will use our prayers to help us discern his direction, and maybe will will live a life that seeks to be used to do his will rather that use him to do our own.

Healthy Facebook Ministry

... Get it?

Facebook is the real world to your students. I know that may sound weird depending on your age or experience, but your students live their lives online and see Facebook in a similar way to the way they see their school.

I snicker every time I see the word “cyber” attached to normal teen issues because it betrays a lack of understanding of youth culture by the person writing the article. To teens, there isn’t cyber-bullying, cyber-sex, cyber-gossip, etc, there is just bullying, sex and gossip. It happens at school, on the bus, and on twitter.

Why does this matter? Because youth pastors have an incredible opportunity! If we can change the way we see Facebook, twitter and the rest, we can touch the lives of teens in a powerful way! Watch what happens when we see this as the real world:

Your student misses your weekly meeting. Before you leave the building, you fire up Facebook and post on their wall about how you were talking about gossip in small group (when they weren’t there ) and wanted to hear their perspective on why gossip is a sin. All of a sudden, they see that you aren’t just using Facebook to get them to come to your stuff, but you really like them and care about what they think.

One of your students post about their friend being sick. You comment on that post with a prayer for that student’s friend. Not only do you pray for them, but you identify yourself as a christian (and minister?) to the world of their friends and family online. You raise the level of the comment thread and actually display the benefits of being part of a community of believers.

This also helps us understand appropriate boundaries online. If you would do it in public, do it in public online, if you should do it in private do it in a direct message or better yet, in person.

What are your thoughts? Comment here, or better yet comment on this post on Facebook :)

From Youthworker Movement

Creating God in Our Own Image

In MY Image

We live in an incredibly diverse world, and through the myriad forms of media, we are increasingly aware of this fact.  For some, that awareness creates a need to pull back and try and get closer with like-minded people.  Whether out of fear or simply being overwhelmed by the range of options on any given subject, some of us begin to be hyper-loyal to their particular group of ideologies.  

In our quest for limiting the number of options we have to consider on any given subject, we mentally marginalize options dismissing them as radical when they are much more mainstream.  Instead of dealing with the diversity we ignore it and convince ourselves that most of the world sees things like us.

We do the same with God.  Whether or not we try and use him as the ultimate trump card or just another voice in our echo-chamber, we use scripture and other Christians to reinforce our views.  We make God in our own image.

However, God is not a republican, democrat, conservative, liberal, or member of any other group that we associate ourselves with.  He is... God.  Rather than looking to talking heads on television to judge our beliefs, God calls us to look at him.  God asks us to make him the standard against which our lives and belifs are held.  

Not just some of him.  All of him.  All of the scripture.  Both New AND Old Testaments.  Holding both the clarity of the proverbs, the hopelessness of ecclesiates and the drama of the cross together.  And, it is in this diverse, beautiful, complex being that we find truth and reality.

It is with that hope that we enter a new series in our evening worship: Culture Shock.  We will be looking at cultural issues with the hope of transcending the current debate, steer clear of endorsing a human ideology and find the beauty of God in the midst of it all.

Here's what the road ahead looks like: 

• 1/13 American Jesus: confusion of faith and culture
• 1/20 Was Jesus married?
• 1/27 Does God care about Global warming?
• 2/3 Are Christians supposed to be Pacifists?
• 2/10 Is Jesus pro-life?

Behind the Scenes with Old Saint Nick

Sinterklaas

The person known as Santa to us has developed over many years, coming through a merger/acquisition between Sinterklass and Father Christmas inc. in western Europe after Sinterklass’ fame surged as a result of a book highlighting his exploits in the 19th century.  

There was of course the dark period when Sinterklaas was outlawed in the 16th and 17th century mainly because Martin Luther didn’t like his Catholic heritage. Luther encouraged people to celebrate ChristKindle (the Christ Child) instead, but his new term ironically morphed over time into Chris Kringle.  

It all started with a holiday named Saint Nicholas Day (December 6) that celebrated a pretty cool guy named Saint Nicholas. Before Nicholas was “saint,” he was born to a wealthy family on the coast of what is modern day turkey.  He spent his early life in school and church waking up to celebrate communion before dawn with his family each Sunday.  

Unfortunately, his life was not to be all candy canes and wrapping paper.  When Nicholas was only eighteen years old his mother and father passed away.  Though the young Nicholas took it well, he wanted to spend some time contemplating the direction of his life.  He now had a huge inheritance and total independence.  After much prayer, he decided to spend his life and money in the same way: however God wanted.  

It was at that point that the young man Nicholas began to work in the church.  As he was preparing for the ministry, he became aware of a family in his town that was in a precarious position.  There was a father who had three daughters who was desperately poor and was not going to be able to provide a dowry for the daughters when they came of age.

This may not seem like the end of the world to us, but in the world of Nicholas in the late 200s this meant a life of prostitution for the man’s daughters.  Nicholas would not allow that to happen.  So, on the eve of the eldest daughter’s coming of age, Nicholas went out in the middle of the night and tossed a bag filled with a portion of his inheritance through the window to save the life of the eldest daughter.  The next morning the family awoke to salvation in the form of a small purse filled with money.  

Nicholas repeated the act of kindness with the second daughter.  When it came time for the third daughter to receive this extravagant gift, the father decided he would wait up all night to see if he could catch a glimpse of this generous saint.  Like clockwork Saint Nicholas walked up to the house and tossed the purse through the window.  The father leapt to his feet and ran outside thanking Nicholas profusely.  Nicholas gave a simple response.  He asked that the man not tell anyone that the gifts came from him.

The rest of his life was a roller coaster that saw him ordained bishop around 35 years of age, imprisoned for being a church leader shortly thereafter, released by Constantine and being one of the bishops in attendance at the Council of Nicea.  In spite of his success and eventual fame, he followed the same pattern of generosity throughout his life.  

In that area, people would often leave their shoes outside at night.  When Saint Nicholas heard of a need in a community he was serving, he would go out under the cover of darkness, take a portion of his own funds, and leave it in the shoes of the family in need.  

No wonder within a short amount of time after his death Nicholas was one of the most popular names in the region. No wonder he was one of the most painted saints (second only to the Virgin Mary). No wonder his powerful memory has pushed through the centuries making it all the way to today.

It’s funny though that we have taken this model of selfless, anonymous giving and made him the justification for a particular sort of selfishness that surfaces this time of year.  I am hoping to be different this year.  I am going to try my best to honor the memory of Saint Nicholas and make this Christmas about reaching out to those in need and helping them without any credit.  Imagine the power of Christmas if we all followed Nicholas’ example.  Here’s hoping for a happier holiday!

If you are interested in more Saint Nicholas Background, you can watch the full teaching here.

Favorite TABOOs and the Beginning of Investigating Christmas

The past couple of months has been some of my most enjoyed months preaching through the TABOO series.  I am a skeptic at heart, and it has been wonderful to come together with others who are ready to ask difficult questions and try and hear God's voice forming us spiritually as we engage these tough issues.

Just as musicians have their favorite songs, preachers have their favorite sermons.  This series has had several, but I think my top three favorites were The Forbidden Gospels, The Homosexuality Debate, and Can Evolution and the Bible Coexist.  Those videos are below, you can check all of them out on the TABOO page.

Investigating Christmas is just as exciting as was TABOO.  We are going to delve into the Birth of Jesus with as much tenacity as we addressed the topics in TABOO.  Everything from what the Bible says about Angels to uncovering the fictitious parts of the cute manger scene decorations we have on display.  Check it out in person at 5pm each Sunday or online as soon as the video is available!