Not motivated at all...

Hello friends!

I am sitting at Starbucks, coffee in hand, seminary text books spread across the largest table I could get a hold of in the crowded coffee shop, and I simply cannot find the motivation to get any work done at all.

I have a quiz the very instant I get back to class on Tuesday night, and my professor has provided me with a study guide (for which, I am forever grateful if you're reading this Dr. Humphry!) but I am just struggling to keep going on the task at hand. I have logged an overwhelming number of hours already today on Facebook. I take frequent breaks to try to get my Pandora station to play exactly as I please. I have stared out the window longingly at the bright sunny day.

What do you do when motivation escapes you? What sort of things do you do to get things going again?

Please, comment soon. My grades may depend on it.

Godspeed,

J

Thank you!

Wow!

The J-Blog has hit 20,000 views! That means that 20,000 of you have accidentally found this website while searching for the Toronto Blue Jays, or that one person has been constantly refreshing to see if I will ever say something negative about Rob Bell. Either way, thanks for making the J-Blog one of the most fun things I do all week!

The Divine Hours

Hello friends,

With the new year, I've been trying to get back in the habit of keeping spiritual disciplines. This is hard for me! I struggle keeping any kind of habit alive, if for no other reason than my days are so unpredictable that I think I have a hard time keeping a schedule of praise. And so for the (what feels like) billionth time, I'm hitting the reset button on spiritual disciplines.

I've picked up Phyllis Tickle's (best name in all of Christian literature) Divine Hours and started to use it as a devotional. The Divine Hours is a continuation of the practice of fixed hour prayer, that is that three times a day, at the exact same time every day, I set aside a little bit of time to pray. So for me, I'm going to be doing my best to pray at 8, 12, and 9. I already slept through the first hour (or "office") today, but that's ok. This is a bit of a learning process.

So far (I've only been doing this for a day now) I'm really appreciating a bunch of things about the Divine Hours:

The Prayers are based largely on the Psalms. I think as Christians we tend to ignore the Old Testament, and the Psalms are some of the most beautiful pieces of Scripture in the whole bible. Using them as my prayers has been incredibly meaningful.

Repeated Prayers. Each office has the Lord's Prayer as a central component, and in addition each week has a prayer that is repeated at each office throughout the week. I am a forgetful person, and so being reminded of the same thing every day, and in this case, three times a day, can't be a bad thing. I know a lot of people are against the sort of "rote" prayer habits, but for me at least I'm finding a lot of meaning in them.

Habit habit habit. I am so bad at habit, but this book makes it fairly easy to try to break into a new habit for the new year.

Have any of you had any experience with the Divine Hours? If so, feel free to share in the comments!

 

Godspeed,

 

J

Back in the saddle and some prayer requests!

Hello friends!

Just like the guy on a buffalo, I am back in the saddle. The Christmas/New Years break is over, and so we have returned to our offices and returned to youth ministry.

To be honest, I really missed it! We still have one more week before we start back to Veritas, but even today with several planning meetings and dreaming and brainstorming sessions, the blood is starting to flow again. I was actually thinking today that I could really go for an excellent retreat, the kind where kids are opening up and late-night deep discussions are happening all over the campsite. We have a few of those opportunities coming up, so I don't think I'll be disappointed!

But I was also thinking today that there are several among us out there who are coming back and perhaps wish they weren't. I know there are several youth workers out there who are starting to feel the slow pains of burnout. And so this evening, my prayers are with you. I pray that you find the encouragement you need to keep going. I pray that God would open up new doors and new possibilities to you in the near future, and that God would allow you to see all the ways in which the seeds your planting are starting to grow.

If there's anything specific I can pray for you for, please feel free to post it here in the comments.

It's great to be back everybody!

Godspeed,

J

Humility

Hello friends!

Yesterday I was on a roll! Ed and I went duck hunting in the morning, as we have for the last three years, and I finally FINALLY snapped a two year losing streak by bringing home a beautiful (and delicious) drake mallard. Oh, the feeling was overwhelming! Such joy!

And then I participated in a online bible study, where I felt like I was really starting to get a good grip on the material we were working through. I had a couple of points that seemed pretty well received, and started to imagine myself on the stage of the National Youth Workers Conventions telling people how they can be super awesome better youth pastors if they follow my three step program.

That evening, I lit a candle at the dinner table. This may not sound like much, but we typically eat our dinners on the couch while watching Futuarma or something like that, so to me it seemed as though I should receive the husband of the year award or something, as if lighting a candle was some sort of revolutionary idea.

After dinner, Sarah and I went to the gym, where I met Ed to take a spin class. I had decided a few days ago that it was time for off-season training for the summer's cycling events to finally pick up and start going somewhere, and so I thought a spin class would be no problem. I have in the past ridden 150 miles, so what could one spin class do to me?

I should have seen it coming...

To those of you who are regulars in spin classes, my hat is officially off to you. About 10 minutes into this class, I was no longer following the commands of the entirely too cheery instructor. I was just seated on the bike, pedaling a little bit, and trying to find my breath. I chugged water like a fish, and kept an eye on the clock the whole time hoping that the hour would be over soon so I could go home and not make eye contact with any of the in shape people.

I think God does a pretty good job keeping me on a short leash when it comes to pride. There aren't a whole lot of days where I think I'm the boss, I'm usually more than willing to give that title to someone else. And I don't think I let it slip into a kind of self-esteem vacuum either, where I'm getting down on myself because I don't have what it takes. I think more often than not, because of the grace of Jesus Christ, I'm exceptionally happy to admit that I don't have what it takes. I wouldn't want to.

But sometimes I forget. Sometimes I forget that my life is to God's glory, and not my own. Sometimes I forget that the select few times I have a personal winning streak, it's really because either God has provided the opportunity, or God has gifted me with the skills required. Karl Barth said that all sin comes from lack of gratitude. I couldn't agree more after yesterday.

And so we search for a balance. We look for ways to realize we don't have it all together, and ways to truly ultimately come to peace about that. I am a wreck of a human being. But I am the wreck of a human being whom God loves, and pours himself into. I can live with that. Actually, I can rejoice in that. And I hope you can too.

Godspeed,

Jason

The Puzzle

Hello friends,

I am knee deep into Term II of Seminary, taking a course on the New Testament. Specifically, the Gospels, Acts, and John's letters. The course is set up as an introductory class, meant to teach us about the history surrounding the Gospels, how they hold up to other literary works of their day, how to read certain passages, etc. So far, I've really enjoyed it.

I just wrapped up reading a (rather long) chapter on the way scholars view the Gospels today. Some people have come before, reading this material, and have lost all their faith. Some scholars do an amazing job of breaking things down and claiming they are worthless, and these scholars take great joy in some of the issues presented within the Gospels.

One approach to fight these scholars off is to claim that there are no issues presented within the Gospels. That's just silly to me. There are some issues we need to take a pretty hard look at. Matthew and Luke present two totally different genealogies for Jesus. The details of certain parables, or even the interpretation of some of those parables, varies from author to author. John is all by himself when it comes to placing certain events in the life of Jesus in the same order as everybody else. There are issues.

But this does little to rattle my faith. In fact, it just makes me want to fall in love with the Word even more! Why are they different? Are the authors trying to tell us something? Do the differences actually point to something important themselves? What if Jesus told the same story a bunch of times, but used it to mean different things (a technique I employ ALL THE TIME!)? When was the last time you could get four youth pastors to watch an event and then recall it later exactly the same? Does it make the story and less credible?

Jacob wrestled with God. God broke his hip. But at the end of the day, Jacob was rewarded for wrestling with the Lord. May we never stop wrestling with God, especially with God's word. May we never try to avoid having our hip broken by ignoring the difficulties of our faith. May we with childlike wonder approach the scriptures with curiosity and desire!

Godspeed,

Jason

Encouraging Doubt

Greetings friends,

Between writing sermons, Veritas talks, attending classes, and getting caught up with all the reading for said classes, I've been working my way EXTREMELY slowly through two books that I see have a pretty sizable connection. You Lost Me by David Kinnaman and Sticky Faith by Kara Powel and Chap Clark. The question ahead of us in both books is, why is it that young people are leaving the church after their high school careers, and what (if anything) can we in the church do to avoid it?

There are lots of answers to those questions to be sure, and I'm only a chapter or two into either book. But the one thing that struck me about these opening chapters is the importance of allowing our teenagers the freedom to doubt, to express their doubts, and to face down the questions that will surely be asked of them when they leave the safety of the Church. All too often, I think we're too afraid to allow our students the time and the space to wrestle with their faith. I think we try to hand them neatly packaged answers, even if the answers we have are for questions that our students aren't asking.

What's to be afraid of? For starters, the kinds of things that our students may be doubting in our youth rooms are the kind of things they will be faced with in their college careers. So why not introduce the questions now, in a safe space, where we can help them learn how to use the tools God's given us to discover in our faith? Jacob wrestled with God and was rewarded for it. Don't you think we and our students will be rewarded for throwing the mats down and letting our kids wrestle with God?

I'd love to hear some thoughts on this from you in the field. How do you encourage doubt in your students? What are the kind of doubts that your students are facing?

Godspeed,

Jason