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The hard thing though, is I often find myself doing just that. It’s easy when I lose focus and am just trying to go from week to week. I lose that creative spark, that little bit of something extra, something Holy Spirit-ish, that tips the scale and puts the group on edge about something bigger than themselves.

But it’s not about me. I can “do ministry,” convert kids, develop leaders, train disciples, have deep conversations with kids, but in the end, it’s not about me. His Kingdom is bigger than mine; His vision stretches into eternity when mine can barely see passed next summer; in His story He is the hero, not me.

Some things I feel God is teaching me:

1. If I pray, “Your Kingdom come,” then I have to surrender my kingdom.

Perhaps nothing is harder than surrending my own kingdom and giving up what makes me feel in control. And nothing is more liberating than giving myself up to the Kingdom, because His Kingdom bigger than me. God’s story is bigger than me. In the end, I’d rather play a small part in God’s story than have Him play a small part in my story.

2. If it’s God’s Kingdom, then He should get all the credit for growth.

The Apostle Paul says it best:

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.
-1 Cor 3:5-7 (NIV)

3. If it’s God’s story, then “my” volunteers are ministers accountable to God, not to me, for they have been invited into God’s story, not “my” ministry.

And I pray that I might lead my leaders to know that they are ministers with their own ministry. So what if I get the paycheck; it’s a pity that such a position exists! God might have given them to me to train and encourage them, but they are not mine, they are servants who belong to God! Even if their call is not to youth ministry, then I think I should at least try to help them get connected where they can be ministers for the Kingdom.

4. If it’s God’s world, then “that other youth group” is not the enemy.

And if I treat it as such, I am underminding God’s Kingdom. I should be working with that church. For there are many churches, but one Kingdom.

How often do I pray for that other church? How often do I rejoice when a student leaves my youth group but gets connected elsewhere and grows in God? How self-centered am I really when it comes to numbers?

5. If it’s God’s family, then “my” kids are not really my kids, but His kids.

Perhaps this is where I get the most selfish. When I started to get to know kids, I really start to like them. I like to hang out with them, to talk to them, to have them coming to our programs and our trips. Even if they’re annoying or loud or like to curse a lot, they’re still my kids and I still care for them.

But when they start making poor choices, I hate that the most. I fear for them. I hate seeing them make choices they will regret. I hate seeing guilt. And while I love to be able to share with them Christ’s forgiveness, I hate the sin. But I need to remember that God holds them tight to His chest and that He loves them more than I ever could. I should be privileged to know He has invited me into that love. I need to trust that God is taking care of them.

And I hate seeing them leave. Sometimes they leave because of schedule conflicts or because of their parents, or they find a “better” youth group. It’s the same issue though:  I need to let go and trust God is carrying them. I need to rejoice when they find a home in a different church because, again, we are many churches but one Kingdom.

I hope that we can begin to see that the wall of God’s Kingdom stretch long and tall around our communities. I hope we can catch on to what the Spirit is already doing in our schools. I hope we can trust that God has been planting seeds long before we got here, and that He will calls us to either plant, or water, or harvest, but in whatever He calls us to, that we rejoice in knowing we work for God Most High.

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Discovered via pomomusings.

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Incarnation is a pretty big seminary word we like to throw around at Fuller. But what the crap does it really mean? The idea comes from God coming down in human form, Jesus, to come to us, to meet us on our turf, to share with us the gospel. What does that mean to us? Maybe we need to stop inviting people to church and instead be the church to them, be Jesus to them, on their terms, on their time, on their grounds. Because some people, no matter how hard you coerce them, will never go to church. Those are the people who need Jesus the most.

If we are to truly embrace a theology of the incarnation, we must go where we are uncomfortable.

From the fiery tongue of Luther:

“The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared?” (emphasis mine)
-Martin Luther

And some other encouraging quotes:

“[...] reaching people far from God is messy.  They cuss…they have serious issues…they smell…they drink…they live lifestyles that are at times really repulsive.  Reaching people far God also means going to places that church folks have been taught not to go.  People FAR from God do not hang out in Starbucks or Junior League meetings…they hang out in bars, porn shops, downtown streets, bowling allies, courtrooms, emergency rooms and R-rated movies.  It’s not easy…it’s not pleasant…it’s not always rewarding.  However, reaching people far from God with the Gospel of Jesus Christ is what the Father called us to do.” (emphasis mine)
Chris Elrod, from his blog post, You Gotta Love That Sh*t

“If you’re uncomfortable, then you’re doing a good job!”
-Johnny May on contact work

I hope that you find God wherever you are, because He surely finds us wherever we go. He has entered into our reality, with real flesh and bone, to experience our highest joys and our lowest pains. May you know that God does not hide in church attics, but chases after the prostitutes on the street corners. May you trust that He cares more about you running into His arms than about you cleaning up your act. And may you see that God’s healing belongs to the broken and that His kingdom is in the @#$%.

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10:24 am – About to leave for Verdugo Hills. Nervous, like usual, but a bit more than I have been, maybe because last week there was no school because of Thanksgiving, or maybe because I plan on bringing in some food from Taco Bell (hence the free tacos). I’m not sure how they’ll respond, and I’m not sure I care, but it still makes me nervous.

10:53 am – In line at the drive-thru for Taco Bell. Ordering 20 tacos. All three kinds of sauce.

11:00 am – On campus. Run into Tamar, her brother, and Amanda (three Believer’s Club leaders). Head up to the library for a second to say “Hi” before the bell rings.

11:06 am – Bell rings and lunch begins! I head down out into the common area where everyone eats lunch and found where the kids I’ve been hanging out with lately were at. I start handing out a few tacos and they are thrilled to have some free food.

I hand out tacos to all of the kids I know by name and have a bunch of kids I do not know come up and ask for some. I meet a few new kids and try to have some conversations with them.

At one point this one kid, whose name I cannot remember, came over and asked for a couple of tacos for his friends, a couple girls who were too nervous to come down and ask for one themselves (I later found out he was just lying for a couple of tacos). But not satisfied with his request, I ask who the girls were and shouted out one of their names and toss a taco up to her. She had no idea I why I was throwing a taco at her, but the shot was bad and I hit another kid nearby (another kid I luckily knew already) and the taco exploded all over the place. It lands on the ground and another kid runs by and picks it up.

I tried to convince one of the kids, Arin, to eat nothing but the hot sauce. I even said I’d give him a dollar. So he went for it, but he didn’t get very far, and almost started to throw up! It was pretty gross. Another kid, CJ, though ate the hottest sauce and didn’t even flinch. I gave him the dollar.

I could tell most of the kids there were at least beginning to get comfortable around me because they kind of began to circle around me and all I did was sit there. With that in mind, it feels a lot easier to meet new kids, sometimes they join the circle and I make a point to find out their name, or I sit next to them and just chat for a little bit. I offered one kid a taco and make some light conversation with him. His name was Paul and I found out his dad lives in Chicago. The dollar I gave CJ was actually his, so I owe him money now! I never thought I’d be so happy to know I owe this kid a dollar. He had obvious seen me around because he asked me if I came every Friday to lunch–even though I didn’t recognize him before.

11:36 am – The bell rings to end lunch and I head over to the coach’s office to talk to Coach Mojica about helping out with track. The meets are usually on Friday, which works great for me. Practices are every other day, with the hard days being Tuesday and Wednesday. I think what I’ll do is go for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, and try to work in my 20 hours the rest of the week so that I can still hang out at lunch on Fridays.

12:03 pm - I head over to Olde Town Cafe on Commerce in Tujunga with Chris from Chapel of the Hills to talk about Life Hurts. God Heals., a program designed like Celebrate Recovery for students. We talk about possibly doing a program like this together for our kids and some of the kids in the community, for those who might need such a program to help them deal with the problem they are going through. We also get into a conversation about sharing leadership resources and even doing some “training” together. “Why reinvent the wheel?” He asks. We talk a bit about Phyllis Tickle’s analysis of the church today, and how churches can accomplish so much more for a community by working together instead of working against each other, even inadvertently. It was a good conversation.

Now I’m back home working on a final paper for a class!

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We played a game of hide-and-go-seek (which my high schoolers still love to play) and then headed into the youth room (which was a bit chilly). We talked about Gabriel appearing to Mary, announcing that she was with child, the Son of God no less! We focused in on how Mary responded to Gabriel’s words when she asked, “How can this be?”

I think sometimes we ask God this question when we’re told that God has a plan for our lives and God wants our lives to be full and whole and whatever else the church teaches us. When those things don’t seem to pan out the way we think they should, however, we can begin to doubt. I don’t know if Mary doubted Gabriel, but she wanted an explanation.

“And the Holy Spirit will overshadow you,” the same Holy Spirit that overshadowed the unformed earth during creation, to work in you and create in you something awesome that you could not do on your own.

So I challenge you, next time you begin to doubt whether or not God does want to use you for His kingdom, that you would remember that it’s not about you, it’s not by your power that He does this, but His power and for His purpose that He will use you.

Coming up: Christmas caroling, next week perhaps? Will work with Debbie (Kid’s Club leader) on that. Then Christmas party! White elephant gift exchange, Christmas music, Christmas games. Any ideas?

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We had a late start waiting for one car to arrive, but it was no big deal. We got right to playing a game involving baby bottles, Sprite, adult-sized diapers, and sitting on laps! Tyler and Zach reluctantly donned pairs of adult-sized diapers and light-up Santa hats, then were fed “baby formula” (Sprite) via baby bottles while sitting on the laps of Brittany and Tiffany. Finally, the boys had to finish their “formula” and burp as loud as they could.

Then we played another round of doing cell phone “pranks” and broadcasting the call with an amplifier. First Britanny sang along with her friend to “Jingle Bells” (even though she forgot all the words!) and then Nikki tried to convince her friend to go on a blind date with Zach. Even though I think she cheated a bit, we still awarded her a prize.

We went inside to talk a bit about our Thanksgivings. It’s amazing how much comes out about kids’ families when you just ask them about the holidays. You really find out the kind of tense family situations that kids have, when one kid says her mom and aunt don’t get along so one ended up not coming to dinner, or about celebrating a first holiday after a loved one passed away. It was just supposed to be light chat that turned pretty deep very fast. I think our group is still awkward and still trying to get used to one another, but I hope that we are being trustworthy leaders to these students.

Our talk was on Jesus’ ministry of healing in Mark 5, where one of the religious leaders of the day, Jairus, pleads with Jesus to heal his daughter. While en route to Jairus’ estate, a woman with an issue of blood touches Jesus’ clothes. We see here that Jesus paid no mind to status, but addressed each of these two people as individuals in their own problems. Jairus was a well-established man and a leader in his community, while the woman with the issue of blood was not even given a name in the Bible. Yet both of them find a miracle of healing from Jesus.

Afterward, we spent time over at McDonalds grabbing some ice cream, as has suddenly become our tradition! We played around a bit in the play area–I didn’t realize how small those tubes seem when you get to be as old as I am! Besides some of the crude jokes some of the kids were telling, it was fun just hanging out and hearing them interact.

We plan on going out to a restaurant next Club to grab a Young Life Christmas Dinner as a group. It should be fun!

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At about 11 pm, the girls attacked our cabin with rolls of toilet paper and silly-string. It was a pretty massive blow and our cabin was trashed. We knew we needed to seek revenge. It was the last night of camp and we would not let them have the last laugh. By now it was passed curfew and staff would be out on golf carts patrolling the grounds. It was spontaneous and foolish. But we had to do it. We were called to it.

The plan was simple:  we were going to Axe bomb the girls’ cabin to lure them outside, then we were going to hose them down with a water hose.

The Axe was easy to find; all us guys had it. The hose was a different story.

Only a few of us remembered seeing any hoses throughout the entire campsite, save one that the camp used to water their water slide. So our first mission was to steal the hose from the slide and relocate it to the girls’ cabin (and use their water spout).

A few of us ventured out first. We dodged the golf carts from building to building until we finally made it to the water slide. Getting the hose off was hard enough and we made quite a ruckus doing so. We had a few close calls, but we finally made it with the hose over to the girls’ cabin. We hooked up the hose and ran the water to make sure we had it working. Then we sent for the rest of the boys who were still hanging out, waiting anxiously for us to call for them. By now it was well passed 2 am.

We poked a hole in a couple of Axe sprays and tossed them in the girls cabin and readied ourselves for the ensuing escape.

The plan didn’t exactly go according to plan.

Instead of twenty-something girls fleeing from the rancid spray, only two emerged: the adults. They looked at us kind of funny, then told us to go back to sleep. We didn’t spray them. We walked back to our cabin, a bit downcast, but knowing we had the last laugh on the last night of camp.

It was my boss that summer that taught me,

If you’re not getting into trouble, then you’re not having any fun.
-Scott Brewer

Daring Playfulness.

Perhaps my favorite chapter so far, Mike Yaconelli paints a picture of a playful Jesus; a Jesus full of adventure and daunting; a Jesus that whispers in your ear, “Let’s go build a sand castle.”

I wonder if the church has lost something in its relentless attempts to be religious. I think we we forgotten how to play. We try so hard to prove ourselves to God we’ve forgotten the reckless abandon we can experience when we know that we are already loved.

What if our strategy to win the world was to “play” people into the kingdom of God? (page 79)

And who says we can’t? I have been guilty of wanting to see God work in my students through somber and serious moments. Maybe I’ve forgotten how to play.

One of my favorite movies is Finding Neverland. Yes, I know, that probably knocks me down a couple of levels on the manliness scale, but something about the story of J.M. Barrie getting inspiration for his next play from a group of children is powerful to me. He tries to teach them how to have an imagination in the face of reality, and I wonder if maybe that is similar to my call: teaching students about a God they cannot see who wants to teach them how to fly.

Below is a video with clips from both Finding Neverland and Peter Pan mixed together to a song called Fly by Blind Guardian. It speaks volumes, I think. (plus I enjoy the work that went into putting this together.)

No one ever dares to speak
It’s nothing else but fantasy
It’s make believe
Make believe

No one ever dares to speak
It’s nothing else but fantasy
But one day
It all will come to life

Step out of line
And I’ll teach you how to fly
Then away we’ll go
Leave your mark land of mine
-Fly, Blind Guardian

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C.S. Lewis describes Aslan, the Christ figured in the Chronicles of Narnia, as a ‘not so tame lion.’ The reason so many of us have lost our childhood curiosity is that we’ve been tamed. Our world is populated with domesticated grownups who would rather settle for safe, predictable answers  instead of wild, unpredictable mystery. Faith has been reduced to a comfortable system of beliefs about God instead of an uncomfortable encounter with God. Childlike faith understands that God is as capable of destroying us as He is of saving us. Risky curiosity breaks us from the safety and comfort of a tame faith and ventures into the terrifying presence of a ‘not so tame’ God. (page 40)

Some of the most recent conclusions from research going on at FYI suggests that students are more likely to keep their faith in college when they are given opportunities to ask questions and are given permission to experience doubt in high school.

This idea seems entirely contradictory to the idea that we are trying to raise up young lovers of Jesus. Any expression of doubt is usually viewed as spiritual immaturity or weakness. Question are seen as a lack of trust in the cheap answers this world often provides; or worse yet: the cheap answers the church provides.

I wonder if our fear of mystery has led us to create cheap, shallow, and artificial answers to cover up the deeper questions our souls long to ask.

In chapter 2 of Dangerous Wonder, Mike Yaconelli proposes four assumptions that the world makes regarding questions:

1. Questions can be embarrassing. (they show a lack of knowledge)
2. Questions can make people uncomfortable. (they force us to reevaluate our faith)
3. Questions can be dangerous. (they have overturned kingdoms)
4. Questions can be “right” or “wrong.” (there are some questions that are not appropriate)

But questions can also be liberating. Questions can lead us to new discoveries and deeper understanding. Doubt is the shadow cast by faith (Hans Küng). Questions lead us into the darkness in hopes of finding the light.

Sometimes the only answer is, “I don’t know.”

I think God has purposely allowed us to ask questions that science, philosophy, not even religion or the church can answer. I think He has done so because it requires us to trust in Him, and in Him alone.

Childlike faith and a faith that longs for God and seeks Him wherever he may be–even in the place of no answers. (page 48)

In the end, isn’t that what faith is about anyway?

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The introduction is a bit depressing:  Mike talks about how everyone reaches a point in life where we lose our childlikeness; we lose our ability to hear God clearly. But the book promises to lead the reader to discover the “dangerous wonder” of a life that follows Jesus. I pray I might live such a life.

Chapter one jumps right into the thick of obstacles that prevent us from experience dangerous wonder:  dullness, dream stealers, predictability, and the banal. Mike argues we’ve been inundated with media that even the simple act of watching the sun set is drowned out by noise. Then there are those who try to prevent dreamers from reaching their dreams. Or we get stuck in the “same old same old” routine. Lastly, we might find more security in our financial stability rather than in the arms of God.

Christ is the Dream Giver who wants us to listen to His dream for us so we can run like children in the fields of His grace. (page 28)

I hope that I might be able to see God even in the mundane, daily tasks. I pray that God would help me to run with arms high and heart abandoned to the One who gave it all. (Hah, yes, that’s a line from a Hillsong United song.) I want to see my life as an adventure and I think God is calling me to leave my comfort zone and pursue Him into enemy territory where His heart for the lost bleeds.

Give me courage, give me strength.

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