Jeans On Wednesday

What Can I Do?

One of the hard realities I constantly grapple with as a part-timer is that I will never have the time available that I want to spend with students. I won’t be able to hang out after school with them. I won’t be able to grab lunch with them whenever I want. They can’t swing by my office whenever and shoot the breeze. I won’t be able to get to know them and their families as deeply as I’d like. If at all, for some of them.

So what can I do?

I think back to my youth pastors and I remember what made the biggest impressions on me. I can teach them to love the Word of God. I can show them that a life spent in pursuit of God is a life well lived. That to be wholly committed to Christ is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it’s the best choice there is.

My students won’t remember 99% of what I say this year. But hopefully they’ll remember that their youth leader, a regular guy, stood up and said the most meaningful thing you’ll do in life is serve God.

I can live with that.

And That's That

We had our final young adult meeting of the summer last night. Had a bbq and swim party, sang some of our favorite songs (notably “Shut De Do”, which has become the group’s theme song of sorts), and wrapped up the SHAPE series we were doing. ((We also had a weekend retreat a few weeks ago that I didn’t get to write about. Good times were had by all.)

The core of the SHAPE series is really about serving. About finding how God has shaped you to serve Him and the church. Last night’s discussion was on the “E”—experiences. I was going to talk about how God uses our positive and negative experiences to ministry to others, even though the negatives are often painful at the time we go through them. And I did, but I cut it real short because of something I read on Friday.

My college friends Chad and Kendal are going to Papua New Guinea as missionaries with Wycliffe. He’s leaving behind a career in IT, she a teacher-turned-stay-at-home-mom, to take their family (two kids) across the world in service to Christ.

So last week I’m thinking about how to wrap up this big concept on how God has created you uniquely to serve him and what that looks like and the good and the bad and all that. Then I discover Chad’s already written it all for me. See, he keeps a blog where he has been chronicling the experiences of their rather unique process.

He wrote last week about the sadness of the process while being awash in the joy of serving Christ. I read it several times before last Sunday’s meeting, but I still got choked up when I read it to the group. I went through my (short) notes on the relevance of our experiences, read Chad’s post, prayed, and we were done. What he wrote summed up everything I could have wanted to say and show these students about serving God.

Thanks, Chad, for ministering to my students and I, even though it has nothing to do with your "declared" ministry. Just another example of how when we are focused on serving Christ, our life can have marvelous and unexpected fruit.

The Big "D"

The last few discussions have been good ones with the young adult group. Actually, all of them have been good, but the one from two weeks ago (off last week for a World Cup group bbq) was especially lively—talking about idolatry. What is it? Why does God tell us not to do it? How do we pervert our understanding of God when we have idols? How does idolatry pervert our relationship with God and our purpose on earth? What are modern day idols? Very spirited discussion. The week before that was gossip, also a lively talk. Lots of confessions, but lots of good thoughts about how to avoid it as well.

So I was a little hesitant when Laura suggested to make the topic for last night “doctrine”.

We’d gotten the latest issue of Connections in the mail last week and the cover article was “The D Word-Has ‘Doctrine’ Become The New Dirty Word?” Good piece about how modern culture and religious movements like the emergent church have begun to marginalize the concept of doctrine. Good article and certainly worth the read.

I wasn’t sure what kind of discussion it would be, honestly. A lot of them are church kids, so it could be totally boring with lots of “right” answers. Turns out I was wrong.

I started off by asking, “What comes to your mind when I say the word ‘doctrine’?”

The answers, by and large, boiled down to two themes:
• Doctrines are written by people smarter than me.
• Doctrines are boring and don’t matter much.

It was then that I knew I had my discussion cut out for me.

We spent the rest of the meeting talk about what doctrines are, how they differ from theology, why it is important to have biblically sound doctrines, what happens when we have bad doctrines, and then touched on a few of the biggie doctrines and their tenants that have come under fire—Trinity, Christ, Hell/Heaven, Exclusivity (and sufficiency) of Christ for salvation, omniscience of God, and some others offshoots.

As the discussion kicked in, I really wanted to help them understand that while they may dismiss the idea of studying doctrines, we all subscribe to them—whether we call them that or not. And the whole point of good doctrine is to lead us deeper into the Bible and into our knowledge of God, not to write research papers on.

I think to some extent the discussion helped open their eyes to the importance of doctrines and the role they play in our faith. And that they’re not mutually exclusive with having a “relational” faith. In fact, they’re central to having the right kind of relationships.

The more we learn about God, the more complex and mysterious we realize He is. Sort of a “How deep does the rabbit hole go?” type thing. To ignore doctrines because they’re complex or intimidating is cheapening our faith and robbing us of a deeper knowledge of a God who wants to be known.

Besides, Malcolm keeps telling me how readable Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology is, so I guess I don't have any more excuses.

Neglectful

That's what I've been to this blog. Poor little blog.

Set To Stun

For some reason, comments had been turned off. They are now back on. You can thank Steve.

That "New Ministry" Smell

With the youth group taking the summer off except for a few events here and there, Laura and I decided to take a stab at connecting with the most overlooked group in our church, the “college/career/young adults”. We’ve opted to just call it just the “Young Adult Ministry”.

Open to anyone from just-graduated high school seniors to 25 year olds, we meet from 6–9 every Sunday night in a home. We had a very generous family offer their (very nice) house for meeting and we took ‘em up on it.

It’s been three weeks now and I love it. The first hour or so is eating dinner (Laura usually makes it, although I’m thinking of doling out dessert duties to a different person each week) and just hanging out. Then we do about three or four praise songs, hit a little prayer, and go into our topic for the night.

Actually, after prayer we’ve been going around the room and just sharing how our week has been. I like that, too. Maybe I’ll move that to before prayer and we can have more specific prayer time.

Then on to the topic. The group discussed what they wanted the group to look like the first week and decided to go for an informal topic-based discussion each week. Last week was science and God and how they mix. Last night’s was church unity, where we see schisms and how we can help mend. I think next week I might do gossip, what is it and what kind of damage it causes.

The biggest challenge is trying to keep them on-topic. As always, some are more guilty of this than others. Part of it is that they just don’t have the opportunity to get together with their peers like this and talk on spiritual things, so they tend to run all over the board. Which is good, but what might make for productive bonding can also lead to unproductive discussions. And since the rest of the evening is for bonding, I’m trying to figure out how to steer the discussion without forcing it down people’s throats.

However, the greatest joy is the excitement and energy they bring to the group. Almost everyone contributes every week. After months of trying to get more than three student leaders in the youth group to contribute each week, this is a veritable cakewalk. And the folks themselves are really enjoying the time together.

This age group has definitely felt left out in the cold (for a variety of reasons), so they’re enjoying the opportunity to fellowship and grow with their peers. I’m sure this ministry will take on new shape when half of them go back to school for the fall, but that’ll be fine. For now, ministry is happening.

Youth Ministry Blogring

I finally got around to adding the code for the blogring I joined. You can now surf around the Youth Ministry Blogs Ring at your leisure with the links at the bottom of the left-hand column. Enjoy.

Youth Sunday

Ah, Youth Sunday. A right of passage for youth workers everywhere. We were in charge of our first this past Sunday, and it went off without a hitch.

And when I say, “Without a hitch,” I really mean “nobody spontaneously combusted mid-hymn”.

Ten minutes into the service, we’re supposed to do “He Reigns” by the Newsboys as a praise song. But to mix it up a bit (for that is the purpose of Youth Sunday), we were going to show the Newsboys’ video of the song and have people sing along (lyrics were printed as an insert in the bulletin).

The DVD starts up, pauses, and the A/V guys says, “I’m very sorry, but a critical component of the sound system has failed. We won’t be able to hear the DVD.”

What he really meant by “won’t be able to hear the DVD” was “No audio will work at all. No mics, no monitors, nothing.”

So we hopped up on stage, grabbed the acoustic guitars, and went on to our next song, “Open The Eyes Of My Heart”. The show must go on.

It was a little tough for some segments without mics (especially for some of the soft-spoken girls), but in a way it relaxed everyone. Sorta broke the tension. I mean, hey. The sound wasn’t working, so how could this be a real service? Let’s just wing it and go.

Much fun was had and we received many positive comments, especially regarding the Lord’s Prayer skit we did (which featured the voice of God yelling from the sound booth in the back since we were mic-less). Three students spoke on wisdom from different passages in Proverbs and they all did an extraordinary job. All in all, a good service.

But one I’m glad is over.

And Then There's Joy

Last week we did a sort of wrap-up and review. The wrap-up went pretty well, but the review was cut short by an inordinately long game of Four On A Couch (which still ended in a tie). One of the things I did was pass out “review” sheets. You can have a copy of them if you’d like (Word or PDF) for your own use.

The cool thing was that several students wrote stuff like “We love you guys!” in the “Anything else?” section.

The funny thing was like 12 people checked “Game Night” as their favorite activity even though only three people came. Good to know the event was such a bit hit! Apparently word got around.

After writing about my frustrations last week, it was nice to get a little encouragement. Doesn’t mean we’re doing a good job, but at least they like us, right?  :-)

Comfort From Strangers

In light of my previous post, I've found this song very comforting lately.

Clumsy
By Chris Rice

You think I’d have it down by now
Been practicin’ for thirty years
I should have walked a thousand miles
So what am I still doin’ here
Reachin’ out for that same old piece of forbidden fruit
I slip and fall and I knock my halo loose
Somebody tell me what’s a boy supposed to do?

I get so clumsy
I get so foolish
I get so stupid
And then I feel so useless
But You’re sayin’ You love me
And You’re still gonna hold me
And that You wanna be near me
‘Cause You’re makin’ me holy
You’re still makin’ me holy, yeah

I’m gonna get it right this time
I’ll be strong and I’ll make You proud
I’ve prayed that prayer a thousand times
But the rooster crows and my tears roll down (again)
Then You remind me You made me from the dust
And I can never, no never, be good enough
And that You’re not gonna let that come between us

I get so clumsy
I get so foolish
I get so stupid
And then I feel so useless
But You’re sayin’ You love me
And You’re still gonna hold me
And that You wanna be near me
‘Cause You’re makin’ me holy
You’re still makin’ me holy, yeah

From where I stand
Your holiness is up so high I can never reach it
My only hope is to fall on Jesus

I get so clumsy
I get so foolish
I get so stupid
And then I feel so useless
But You’re sayin’ You love me
And You’re still gonna hold me
And that You wanna be near me
‘Cause You’re makin’ me holy
You’re still makin’ me holy, yeah