Revolutionary Christians

I've been thinking about this post for a while. I've felt this lack of revolutionary motivation in my world lately, and I think I know where the root of the problem is.

First of all, this all got swimming in my head again today because I read this article by Shane Claiborne. It's a letter written in Esquire, which is most notably not a Christian Magazine. To write that openly and honestly in that venue takes some guts, and I applaud Shane for taking the time to put those thoughts on paper.

It's one of those things that gets me all excited. I feel like there's this box around Christianity and Christians in general, and we are so terrible at stepping outside the box and engaging the world. There's a way things are done, and we shouldn't depart from it. But this letter doesn't live in the box (neither does Shane if you know anything about him). And that kind of attracts me to to it.

It feels like Jesus lives in actions like this. Jesus would want us to hang with people on the fringes, on the outside, the kind that the religious elite would despise. And that's what makes a revolution. It's not dressing like a hippie, wearing thick rimmed glasses, and looking down on people who don't drink fairly traded coffee. It's going where Jesus would go. It's being where the spirit would lead you. It's getting in tune with God's will in your life.

Francis Chan noted at the NYWC this year that you couldn't start a revolution any more than you could create waves in the ocean. It's not like I could sit here at my desk and come up with revolutionary ideas and implement them by dinner time. The truth is, we need to be open to the Spirit's leading, and trying our hardest to be in lock-step with Jesus' agenda, rather than trying to create our own.

So may we listen with open ears, see with open eyes, and pray with open hearts for Christ's leading in our lives.

Godspeed,

Jason

Pep Talk

Greetings bloggers!
I hope everyone is enjoying the Thanksgiving hangover that is Black Friday. If you were brave enough to hit the stores today, my hat is off to you! If you are like my sister, and had to work on a day like this, you are a hero! I still have not quite figured out what would possess a person to be up at 3 am to find any kind of "deal." Personally, I did some shopping on Old Navy dot com, and came away with some pretty good bargains. And all while sleeping in for the morning!

But I want to talk to those of us who find ourselves doing ministry. Consider this your pep talk.

This is it my brothers and sisters! This weekend represents the last moments of sanity you or I are going to possess until Christmas. You know it. I know it. It's a reality, and it stems through all kind of church work, not just youth ministry.

If you're the pastor, or if you find yourself preparing sermons for the coming Advent season, you're in trouble. Everybody has such high expectations for the Advent/Christmas season, and you better not let them down. Or at least that's what it feels like sometimes, right? You feel like you have to come up with something that's bigger and better than last year (while trying not to remind yourself that your congregation can't remember what you preached about last week, let alone what you preached on last Advent). And so you find yourself either locked in your office twitching in the fetal position or attempting to maintain some dignity while doing the same thing in a public coffee shop.

Or maybe you're in the Christian Education department. These little ones absolutely lose their minds around Advent time. Maybe it's the promise of presents to come. Maybe it's the ridiculous quantities of sugar they're consuming on a daily basis. Maybe it's the fact that mom and dad have a million Christmas parties to attend, and so every night they get to order pizza and harass the baby sitter. Either way, they're yours now, and that hour seems to tick by way slower for the next couple of weeks. You are tempted beyond all temptations to throw a Veggie Tales marathon, and take a little personal time. Don't do it. You'll end up hating them while they ask you a million questions through the film and wind up telling them that (spoiler alert) Santa doesn't exist just to spite them. I've seen it happen people. You do not want those phone calls.

Or (on a more serious note) perhaps you find yourself in pastoral care. My good friend Tammy assures me that while there is no physical or statistical data on hand just yet, it is true that the church will field more care calls during the holiday season (not meant as a cop out, just trying to find a way to cover Thanksgiving too) than you will the rest of the year. This is difficult. People will tie these memories to the holidays for the rest of their lives. Plus you will be run ragged. You will be from hospital to hospital, hospice to nursery, home visit to home visit.

Youth ministers, you have all of these things, but you will do them for 7-12 graders.

My point is this: we know it's coming. We know it's just around the bend. But we also know that we serve a God who will never throw anything at us that we cannot handle. If you're anything like me, you've taken a couple of days off here around Thanksgiving, and you'll probably be a celebrator of National Associate Pastor's Weekend (the service after Christmas). Take these times to make sure you're ready to do God's work in the world. Remind yourself that his grace is enough to cover you through this season, so if you don't get to everything and you don't perform as well as you'd like to, his love for you is unshakeable. Take some time to pray for the people who are going to need to hear an encouraging word from you, and pray that you can be attentive to God's Spirit and distribute it appropriately in their lives. And most of all, make sure to spend some time with your family and assure them that they are your first priority. It's easy for them to get lost in the hustle and bustle of what comes next, don't let that happen!

There's your pep talk team! Now go out and get em!

Godspeed,

Jason

Plans (Part Two: The Playbook)

 

Welcome back bloggers!

As we left at the last post, we realized that we had significant goals for our kids when it came to what we would like to see in them when they graduated.  The goals ranged in variety from a willingness to pray out loud to an absence of jail time, and everything in between. The question that naturally followed was if we knew where we wanted to go, how are we going to go about getting there?

 

("A Garmin costs how much?")   

And so Ed and I put our heads together over a couple of hot dogs and quite a few laps of Mario Kart and came up with four main focuses for next year. Now, of course I'm taking advantage of you the blog readers, as I assume you fall into one of three categories. You are either A) a fellow youth worker, whose input I would value tremendously, B) a friend or family member of mine who doesn't work in the church, but has a fair amount of opinions as to how a church should work, thus making your input also highly valued, or C) one of the youth from my youth group, whose input would be valued above all. So no matter what group you find yourself in, would you be a dear and weigh in on what I'm cookin up here?

 

(Oh boy)

Focus One: Small Groups

This idea got traction at the National Youth Workers Convention this year I think, as everyone seemed to be reacting to the mega-church model that has over-run the Christian culture. It seemed as though everybody was talking about how to make bigger groups seem smaller, and that really resonated with us. 

We have two things working (either for or against us, depending on your perspective): a really healthy 5th and 6th grade program, and a very small amount of seniors. This means that we are super bottom loaded. The first year we will graduate any significant number of seniors will be when this year's freshmen graduate (2012). Each year from now till then, our 5th and 6th will give us roughly 15-20 students a year. We currently have about 35-40 on an average Wednesday night. Assuming a ton of stuff that we seem to think will happen, that means that by 2012 our youth group will contain anywhere between 100-120 kids. Can you say mosh pit?

 

So we want to be intentional about getting the kids involved in small groups. This of course doesn't happen by saying "Hey kids, get into small groups". We'd really like for them to know how to make their own small groups, for that day when they will be off in college. We're still planning that out, including some heavy reading on my part. Hopefully we'll have some answers by June or July, so we can start recruiting more leaders. 

Focus Two: Testamonies

Let's face it, we as Presbyterians (if not all protestant faiths) have the hardest time when it comes to sharing our faith. Personally I think we hide behind the "If I act nice enough and am very different from the rest of the world, people will assume I love Jesus" battle plan a bit too much.

 

("Can I introduce you to my friend Jesus?")

So we want to get kids in the habit of sharing their faith. Not in the same old traditional ways either, as if sharing your faith doesn't count if you're not doing it with a megaphone and some handouts. We're hoping to bring in some special guests to share their faith, and talk about how they view sharing their faith. Then we're hoping to create some space to share our faith in house a little bit to get us geared up to share our faith on the outside world. Again, there are people who think this is a horrible prospect, but our hope is to show them that sharing testamonies is a terrific joy, and less like a root-canal.

 

Focus Three: Mission

This one has been well in the works for a while, we just want to build on it a bit more and make it a bit stronger. Ed's mission trip sold out a week before the deadline. Are you kidding? That never happens! On top of that, we have kids who do things like this:

 

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I am convinced beyond all doubt that our kids could change the world. While other people seem to think that youth are incapable of behaving like adults, I see things differently. I see endless potential in each of our kids here at Veritas, and I'd like to tap into some of that potential.

 

(Climbing off my soap box)

Focus Four: (Deeper) Prayer

There was a Sunday in youth ministry that will stick with me for all of my days. It was day one as a "professional" youth pastor. We were gathering for our evening meal, and we asked if anyone would like to offer up a blessing. One girl raised her hand faster than I'd ever seen someone raise it before. I was pumped! Then she proceeded:

"A B C D E F G...Thank you God for feeding me. Amen."

 
 

(Stunned)

So needless to say, I was thrilled to come to Westminster and see kids who were absolutely awesome about praying for each other throughout the week. Sometimes on Wednesday nights, Ed or I have to step in and stop the prayer so it doesn't take all night. This is wonderful.

However, there's so much more to prayer than just praying for and about each other. We want to make sure we spend some time this year teaching about the other kinds of prayer (examine, centering, lectio divina, etc), and equipping the students to do so on their own. We have some specific plans to do this, but we'll talk more about that later.

This of course is all in addition to the things we're already about. I'm super interested in your thoughts, so if you would be so kind as to leave a comment and let us know how all of this strikes your fancy, that'd be stupendous. 

More later,

J

 

Diary of a Lunatic: Give up

(Hey everybody! I write a monthly article for our church's newsletter. I thought I'd share this month's article here on the blog. Enjoy!)

I remember as a young boy going to youth club (our church’s version of the much better named JAM) during the season of lent. At first, I thought everyone was saying lint, and I was a bit confused as to why we had a Christian holiday to celebrate that stuff dad makes me pick out of the drier. But later that night, we met with our youth leader and she discussed what lent was all about.

Somewhere in the discussion, we were told that one of the key points of Lent is that Christians the world over would choose something to give up between Ash Wednesday and Easter. My initial response was to give up vegetables, but I was quickly overruled. As it turns out, you are supposed to give up something of value to you that is in fact getting in the way of your faith.

As the years have come and gone, I’ve given up a whole host of things for lent. Chocolate. Pop. Fried Food. Coffee (that was a bad year). And yet, the whole thing seemed a bit unsettling to me. I would give up whatever I felt was standing in the way of my faith (as I type this I have discovered that apparently what I eat has a lot to do with my faith walk...), but then Easter morning I would relapse and begin consuming it, sometimes with even more passion and zeal than I had the day before. It just didn’t seem right.

Or how about Marti Gras? The whole celebration is based on the idea that the next day (being Ash Wednesday) you’re going to give up whatever it is you love the most, so you better consume or celebrate it as much as you possibly can now! Kind of like going on a spending spree at Diary Queen the night before you start your big diet.

Is it me, or is that kind of approach to lent misleading or even misguided? In reality, the season of lent is designed to strengthen our walk with the Savior, to enhance our faith. As I think about it now, I think the early church fathers were brilliant in the timing of this season. Just as winter has lost it’s majesty and beauty and has turned into ugly slushy muck, we’re given a chance to strengthen our faith. If you’re like me, you’re going to need it to get to spring.

What if instead of giving something up, we gave in? I’ve been talking with a bunch of my friends about the concept of Irresistible Grace, this idea that no matter how hard we fight it, Christ chases us with his love and we will inevitably give in and love him back. So what if we spent this season of lent giving in to that love rather than giving up something that will only come back into our lives at Easter?

Maybe instead of giving up, we should be adding on. If you’re anything like me, your quiet time with God usually lasts for a day or two, week tops. Then the life’s insanity takes hold, and you’re left asking yourself where the days have gone. What if instead of giving something up, we added on to our faith? A new spiritual discipline? Perhaps a renewed zeal towards quite time, or scripture meditation, or even a weekly walk on the Westminster Labyrinth.

The obvious problem with this approach is that it’s a little bit harder. I admit it would probably be easier to pick something I could probably live without anyway and go on a 40 day cleanse. But this “give in” approach requires attention, or discipline. So I would recommend a prayer partner, or an accountability group. Someone you trust, someone who can keep you honest about your faith and what you’d like to add on to it. After all, the entire idea behind church is the idea of community.

And while you’re at it, stop by my blog every now and again. (http://psychoyouthmin.blogspot.com) I’ll be sharing tips and tricks along the way throughout lent to help us all add on to our spiritual lives.

May we all give in to the love that pursues us.

Godspeed,

Jason