Communicating the Obvious
After watching a seminar put on by Tim at SYMC, I realized a couple of things.
I get social media and texting and twitter and blogging and Facebook and emailing pretty well. I do this stuff naturally. Sending a mass text message to students isn't a strategy, it's a habit. It's .... like .... duh.
Ok, but is it like that for everyone? Is it like that for parents of students in my ministry? Is it like that for other volunteers in my ministry?
Probalbly not.
Some people need to work really hard to pull off something that comes naturally to me.
I have to work hard to pull off something that might come naturally to others.
The point is this: we've got to communicate the obvious things. The things that are second nature to us need to be taught to others.
Who To Listen To Regarding Ministry
There are lots of voices to which you must listen. Listening to the various voices existing in your ministry is critical to being a leader.
If you're a youth pastor, here is who you've got to listen to:
- your own spouse
- your own kids
- parents
- teenagers
- pastor
- elders
- other church employees
- youth ministry gurus
- other churches
- books
- others inside of your church
- those outside the church
Get the point? There are TONS of voices that will fill your ears as you're working in ministry.
Notice any voices missing from the list?
God. Jesus. Holy Spirit. Scripture.
Sometimes we have a hard time hearing God's voice. I think it's because we don't know God's voice.
We haven't been conversing enough.
Jesus said that His sheep recognize His voice. As those empowered by a congregation to lead and make decisions, we ought to be so dead-set on recognizing God's voice and God's movements that the gigantic list of voices seems to fade away.
YOU shouldn’t be where HE is…
Reading a lot of books can be hard. I've learned about great men who've had great ideas. And I want to be a great man and have great ideas NOW.
The thing is, the men I've read about and the ideas they've shared are both results of a slow, painful process called "life."
I want to talk about business like Seth Godin, have the public speaking skills of Rob Bell, the financial prowess of Dave Ramsey, the passion of Francis Chan, the church planting strategy of Neil Cole, and sell stuff like Jeffrey Gitomer.
But all of those guys took time, experience, mistakes, luck and touch decisions to get where they are.
SO I shouldn't be there yet.
I can work,
but I've GOT to be OK with the story God's got for me.
15 minutes
My father is a Campus Life director at 2 middle schools in northeast Indiana. When I was 16, he and my mom decided to sell the family business (a farm) so he could start working with teenagers full-time.
It's pretty incredible to watch your family make that kind of sacrifice and follow God's promptings in dramatic fashion. I - and my siblings - have been crazy blessed to have witnessed faith like that first hand.
Anyways, part of my dad's life includes raising support. He sends out monthly newsletters to keep those who support him - with prayers or money. In his most recent newsletter, he wrote a story that - in my opinion - completely captures the goal of youth ministry.
I share this story - like most things I've done in my life - without his permission and with full knowledge that he - out of humility - would ask that I not go on about him like this.
Just imagine the fun of a three day trip to northern Michigan with 225 middle school students! we had an amazing camp to stay at with a tubing hill, gym, rock wall, and game room. Add to that two days on teh slopes. Most people would think this would be complete chaos, and at times it may be, but if you watch closely, you can see the Lord's amazing hand at work. This is one such time on the second night after our gospel presentation.
"Hey Eric I GOT to talk to you!" yelled Kyle - an excited 6th grader - after after a full day of skiing, supper, nightly meeting and team time. I had just left my team time with the eithgth grade boys and was running to the gym when I heard his voice behind me. I was running because most of the 225 middle school studnts were all ready in teh gym waiting for the dodge ball, basketball, ping pong, and pool tournaments to start and I had the brackets to start them with me. Knowing I needed to hurry along, I hesitantly turned and asked what it was that he needed. He exclaimed, "Eric, I asked Jesus into my life tonight! I don't have a Bible and I don't know what to do now. My team time leader said I should talk to you."
All of the sudden, the 224 kids in the gym (99 sheep in the fold) seemed to vanish from my mind as I focused on this one (the 1 lost sheep).
I took Kyle into the dining hall as it was the nearest building. He told me that he prayed for forgiveness of his sins and to receive Jesus into his heart with our speaker that evening. I told him this is the begginning, the first step in a livelong adventure in trusting God. I told him about going to church and that most of all, I was so happy to be his new brother in Christ. I prayed with him and said, "Come on brother, let's go play basketball!"
I'm thankful that I cannot run fast or I may have missed this divine appointment. Also, not one student in the gym complained because the tournaments started 15 minutes late.
Just a glimpse of the opportunity we as staff get to see firsthand. Watching God stir in these young chaotic lives is an awesome sight. Thank you so much for all you do that allows this to continue to take place.
Sun Stand Still
In Joshua 10, Josh prays, "Sun, stand still...."
2 sentences later we learn that "the sun stopped in the middle of the sky.
Joshua asked God to stop the earth from rotating and - for whatever reason - God agreed.
I never pray for anything even close to stopping the sun. I've never prayed for God to interrupt the cosmos for something I was doing.
3 reasons we don't pray like this:
1.
The events that fill our time aren't important enough for us to consider asking God for crazy stuff. Think about it, Joshua was traveling the country with a massive army defeating every thing in his site in an effort to spread the fame of the Lord. His mission was life and death. His leadership would provide life or death for many others. Also, God's street cred was directly tied to Joshua's success. Joshua was all in. When you're totally invested, you're more likely to pray wacko prayers like these.
2.
In our world of reason and logic and plans and programs and strategies, we leave little room for God to stop the Sun. In fact, it'd totally throw off our plans if that happened.
3.
I think we have a hard time believing that God will do that stuff. Sometimes - for all practical purposes - we Christians might as well be agnostic. We live and pray and act and talk like God is real, but we also live and pray and act and talk like it's highly unlikely that God would intervene in our lives in God-sized ways.
the most lifeless hour of the week
I don't understand it,
but for SO SO SO many people, it seems to them that the 1 or 2 hours they're in a church building on Sundays is
the most lifeless hour
in
their
week.
What's wrong?
- Is it the people sitting in the seats?
- Is it that people sit?
- Is it the band?
- Is it the preaching?
- Is it the time of the week?
i ask for your thoughts on the subject...
Kary Oberbrunner: Your Secret Name
Yesterday I grabbed coffee with a really swell guy named Kary. Kary is a pastor, author and speaker. Kary isn't a guy who's just trying to push a book, but he's a guy who's trying to use the art of writing to help people encounter God.
Head over to his website.
Check out his new book (there's a LUANCH PARTY scheduled for March 13. LOTS of FREE STUFF IS BEING GIVEN AWAY!)
Check out the post Ben Arment did on Kary's rocks. (that sentence is typed correctly).
Religion vs Relationship
Yesterday I was listening to an old Outlaw Preachers podcast featuring Khad Young and Pastor Nar.
They were discussing the title of Pastor Nar's podcast. Nar's podcast is entitled, "Losing My Religion." Nar went on to say that there was a period when a popular phrase to use in Christianity was "it's not a religion, it's a relationship" and that - in all reality - that phrase was simply hollow. For all intensive purposes, the religion of Christianity seemed to overpower the "relationship" of Christianity.
BINGO!
Take marriage for example. Actually, take my marriage for example:
- When I focus on being the best husband I can be, I screw up.
- But when I think about loving Allison Rose Lehman in a way that she can best see/feel/recognize/enjoy it, I do great.
If you want something to be focused on a relationship, it can't focus on yourself.
And as long as Christianity focuses on what IT does, then it won't be a relationship
But when Christians (people) can focus on how Love God in a way that God can best see/feel/recognize/enjoy, then it's about relationship.
you don’t need celebrities
I used to follow a handful of celbrities on twitter. i followed them - not so much because I loved them, but - because I was afraid to miss something shocking, outrageous, or insightful from a Hollywood icon.
Same with pastors on twitter. Some of them (mostly those from the south) tweet more about college football than anything else. I find it annoying, irrelevant and - as a Big Ten fan - misguided.... I continued following them simply because they were pastors of churches with thousands of people in them. I have to follow them, right?
There used to be about 20 church leadership blogs I subscribed to that I found totally irrelevant and would skip on a daily basis. I subsribed to them because it seemed like I couldn't really be in the church blog world without being subscribed to them.
My wife and I just dumped our cable subscription. We were both a bit scared because there are a couple of shows that we really like that we won't be able to see anymore. Most of them were on the travel channel, food network, and espn. Our fear of missing out on sports updates, recipes, and exotic locations kept us paying $50 a month for something that was adding ZERO value to our life. We kept signed up because ... well ... aren't you supposed to have cable?
The point:
You don't NEED to be connected to celebrities. Ultimately, it'll distract you. You'll start wishing your life/church/faith were something else. You will start to envy the stories of others. You'll lose your creativity.
(Last night I asked my wife to keep me accountable with this, to not let me go on and on about celebrity pastors, tweeters, bloggers, authors, etc).
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