i feel like i need to apologize for my last post, which i've since deleted. today, a friend of mine brought to my attention that the comments i made could too easily be read as me trying to direct a point at some people i disagreed with. if you read the post and got the same impression, please know that i was not directing it to any particular person or persons, and i did not intend for it to read the way it did. i have a tendency to use wording that makes me sound serious, offensive, and sometimes arrogant when i'm not trying to be. especially when i'm trying to say something in as few words as possible, like in a blog entry. as badly as i want the inside of me to be visible to everyone, there's a shell on the outside of me that causes me to be perceived differently than i really am. my heart is not to offend anyone, and certainly not to be off-putting toward my family in God. instead, i want to see believers unite in a raw, up-side down kind of faith that messes up the status quo of the world we live in by infecting it with the message of Jesus Christ. when i see opinions or traditions that i think could prevent us from doing this, i often speak harshly without meaning to. the funny thing is, there are things i deal with in my own life that are just as incompatible with God's Spirit.
i thank God often for those he's allowed me to work around, both on staff at this church, as well as the student ministry leaders. i have a great amount of support that a lot of people in my position only wish for, and i want all of you to know that i appreciate and value everything you bring to the table. i would never intentionally offend any of you. i want to be faithful and effective in this calling God has placed on my life, and i appreciate your prayers and support, while i pray for and support you. thank you so much for all you do.

several years ago, i heard another youth pastor say that once you get past the age of 23, you're not cool anymore. then he said something like if you're 24 or 25, you still think you're cool, which is really sad. i laughed like everyone else who heard him say it, but now i'm starting to think he was serious. i thought i was doing ok until about 6 months ago.

it all started while i was getting my hair cut, and the lady doing the cutting said nonchalantly, "oh, you have a little white hair." white mind you. not a lighter shade of brown, not a little graying or even gray, but solid santa claus white. so i told her to pluck it out. and she asked if i wanted her to pluck all of them or just that one. all of them? how many are there? SEVEN. she plucked seven santa clause white hairs out of my head before i even got to my 27th birthday. (jeremy told me this would happen when i took this job).

so i'm keeping an eye on the white hairs, but otherwise i think i'm ok. i decided to let my hair grow longer than usual for a while, and got it cut short again recently. (remember, i just turned 27). so i walk in the office one day, and a student says "you're haircut makes you look younger. you look like you're still in your 20's." thanks a lot! i'll be sure to remember to keep my hair like this for the next TWO YEARS so i'll appear to be close to the age i actually am. what, am i looking like tim allen in the santa clause movie?

couple weeks later, i'm showing off a family picture from 8 months before, in which i'm sporting a soul patch that i thought was sweet. again, out of the mouth of a teenager, "oh, that's a such a good picture! the soul patch ain't exactly working for you though." guess my wife was right. glad i got rid of that thing. now if i can just find a way to redeem myself for the whole year i had it...


so what's next? what else? my clothes. not long after the soul patch comment, we took some of the students to the water park in greensboro. (no, i had no intentions of retaliating against the soul patch kid). knowing we're going to get wet, i did the smart thing - i wore my coolest pair of swimming shorts. i just bought them a year ago, they are a recognized brand (on sale at kohl's for $5), yellow with blue tropical flowers. my wife even picked them out. the first teenager arrives at the church, and the first thing out of her mouth is a very sarcastic "nice shorts." great! then, three days later, another student tells me "the 70's called, they want their sideburns back." i'm not even 30 yet. i would like to thinkd i still have more than half my life ahead of me, but i guess if i want to be considered cool, i'll have to hang out at a retirement home. oh well, my son's just 2 years old - maybe God's preparing me for what's coming. at least my wife still smiles at me. or is she laughing?

it's not my fault...

george barna says that half of the students regularly involved in a youth ministry have never accepted Christ as their own savior. he also says that 2 out of every 3 teens involved in a student ministry will vacate the christian faith upon high school graduation. his research also indicates that over the next several decades, only about 1% of this generation will be a follower of Christ. (for more alarming statistics, check out anything by Ron Luce).
i share information like this sometimes, and i get some responses that make me so angry my tie would catch on fire - if i ever wore a tie. most often i get the spiritual quitting response - "that's just a sign of the time, can't be much longer till Jesus comes back." i don't mean to sound offensive, but i don't think we should be wanting Jesus to come back if we have this attitude. in Acts 1, the disciples asked Jesus when he would make everything better, to which he replied (verses 7-8, NLT) "The Father sets those dates," he replied, "and they are not for you to know. But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power and will tell people about me everywhere--in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." in other words, don't worry about when Jesus is coming back. get to work and let's find a way to fix the problem.
sometimes, though, these facts start the blame game. the parents want to blame the church, the church blames the youth ministry, the youth ministry blames mtv, and satan puts another hot dog on the grill and enjoys the show. so who is to blame? who failed and who needs to do what to fix the problem? i think the solution is to realize that we all have to take responsibility for our own actions.
if you're a parent, what does God say about raising your child? and before you answer, are you sure that's what God says or is that just what you've always heard? do some research and ask God to show you.
if you're an adult in the church, what does God want from you? should you be a sunday school teacher? a small group leader? provide financial support? develop relationships with kids in your neighborhood? student ministry isn't for everyone, but those already involved are certainly not the only ones who should be. you should especially be asking these questions if you're not involved in a ministry at all. just sitting in church on a sunday isn't going to fix anyone's problem.
those of us who are in student ministry, are we doing what we know to do? are we seeking God's direction? are we willing to follow his direction at any cost? are we pushing the envelope, constantly looking to make this week's ministry better than last week's? or are we satisfied with what's always been done? (these questions could go on and on).
the point is, the only way to say we really do care is to open ourselves up in front of God, and then do what he tells us to do. we each have our own responsibilities, and nothing is going to get better until we play our own part. i may not do everything the way you think i should, and i have a lot to learn along the way. but i promise you i'm in this thing with the purpose of doing what God tells me to do in order to affect student's lives. will you do your part too?

i love the sausage, egg, and cheese mcgriddles from mcdonalds. now that i've picked the egg out of my keyboard, let me just say how proud i am of my son! he's only 2, but he's already got cuts, scrapes, bruises, and scars on his legs like a soccer player, can flip over the back of the couch quicker than jack bauer, loves to climb on the coffee table, and laughs hysterically when i trip him while he's running through the house. of course, his mom is proud for other reasons (he uses refrigerator magnet numbers and letters to count to ten, line up his abc's through k, and spell his name. enough of that, back to the good stuff).

shannon's sister baby sits him during the day, and also keeps two girls for another friend of hers. (this is the good part). jayden absolutely loves the girls. i droped him off this morning, and he wouldn't even acknowledge me once we got there. he ran up the stairs, smiled at shannon's sister, ran into the house right into the middle of where the girls were playing, as if to say "you can quit what you're doing now, i'm here. all eyes this way." i was lucky enough to get a wave by-by from him, which is not usual. but it was just a hand in motion, he wasn't paying any attention to me. it was all about the girls.

the funny thing is it reminded me of the beverly hillbillies episode where uncle jed tells jethro they are going to go find him a school to go to. ellie mae says "can i go too?" uncle jed says "no, i think ms jane's got plans to put you in some girls school."
jethro: "can i go too?"
uncle jed: "now jethro, i just said it was a girls school."
jethro: "i know uncle jed, that's why i want to go. i like girls."

oh well, as long as jayden doesn't start wearing a rope belt with his blue jeans...

am i really shopping for jeans?

greg stier recently shared a story on his blog that got me thinking about some of my own experiences, and what God is trying to get me to learn through them. greg shared that he was in the grocery store with his kids recently, when a woman asked him to help her read some juice labels. thanks to the woman's dog recently being hit by a car, along with greg's son being very talkative, it turned out to be an opportunity for him to minister to this lady who was angry with God, not so much because of her dog, but more so because she had recently lost her son to cancer. (follow the "greg stier" link to the right for the whole story).

some months back, i was in the mall shopping for some jeans. while in one particular store i felt the need to initiate a conversation with the sales clerk in an attempt to share God's message with her. i asked some questions about where she was from, what Christmas was all about to her (it was a week or two before Christmas), that kind of stuff. as it turned out, she had grown up in church, but really didn't understand the whole point of faith in Jesus. i had the opportunity to explain to her that God created us for a reason, and that no one exist by accident. I told her that because of God's perfection, our natural tendency to do things our own way instead of God's way permanently separates us from God and there is no amount of good we can ever do to erase all the bad. i explained to her that because of God's love for us, he was unwilling to leave things the way they were, so he sacrificed his own son to pay the price for everything wrong about us, and that by receiving the gift that Jesus offers, we can be reconnected to God. it took some time and she had some questions, but she was receptive to everything i said. the interesting part is that, although she had grown up in a Christian church, and had Christian parents, she had never heard the gospel in an understandable language. she said, "thank you, no one has ever explained it to me that way before." she told me that any time she ever asked questions, she was told "just believe the Bible."

don't get me wrong, following Christ is all about faith. without faith it is impossible to please God, and we are saved by God's grace because of our faith in what he has done through his son Jesus. but that's a different topic for a different time. the point is, i thought i was shopping for jeans, but God had something else in mind.

i've had similar situations recently. a couple months ago, my wife and i were eating lunch in a restaurant, when a guy recognized me from a job i had about 5 years ago. i politely exchanged a "it's good to see you again," finished eating, and went on to do some shopping. wouldn't you know i ran into the guy again - and this time a conversation developed. turns out, the guy had recently become a Christian, but was somewhat discouraged by some things he had seen other "christians" involved in. our discussion progressed into the topic of God paying such personal attention to our lives, and the amazing part was seeing this guy's eyes almost literally light up as he realized that every day we wake up, we have a purpose for that day, given to us by God. He never intends to waste any day of our lives. he left the store that day with a renewed excitement for following Christ, and i left hearing God say, again, i want you to be ready for anything.

how many times do we miss out on what God wants us to do because we aren't ready? the people we work with, the neighborhood we live in, the stores we shop, the restaurants we frequent, the hobbies we enjoy, the sports teams we are involved with - are these really just coincidences, or did God direct our lives here for a reason? 2 Peter 3 tells us to always be ready to respectfully answer anyone who ask us about our faith, and Jesus tells us to spend our lives proclaiming His message. when we chose to follow Christ, we didn't become employees who clock in, clock out, take weekends off, go on vacation... we became soldiers enlisted for every moment, the rest of our lives. God wants to do the big stuff. He wants us to "turn the world upside down." in Christ, He was reconciling the world to himself, and has given to us the same ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5). the only question is, are we always ready?

more on the thought of the july 25 post...

when we registered to do the new york trip with EPIC Adventures back in december, they sent me a book called Conspiracy of Kindness by steve sjogren. since reading the book, i've really been thinking about this servant evangelism thing. i had heard of people passing out bottles of water at a park before, but the concept never really made sense to me. i, like most everyone else, thought evangelism was just the word used to described confronting people, usually strangers, face to face, with the message of the Bible, followed by a choice. don't get me wrong - this is effective and certainly necessary at times. a lot of people have come to Christ through this method, and some Christians are gifted at sharing Christ in this way. but i don't think this is the only way to go about it, nor do i think it's the right way in every circumstance.

the people of new york, for example. there are a lot of ministries in the city that specifically target the homeless and the inner-city population, but not many that go after young professionsals - even though they need Christ just as much as anybody. but those good people are so busy, how practical would it be to try to engage them, one at a time, any time of day, long enough to present them with the gospel and answer all of their questions? the last several times i've carried on a conversation with someone about the gospel, it's taken anywhere from 15 minutes to nearly an hour - and none of them, at that particular moment, decided to turn to Christ. but if we give them something of value, for free, along with an attractive invite to the church, we've not only sown seed, but we've also tilled the ground the seed is falling on. and guess what, anyone can do it! and it's fun, too. hey, if we're all responsible for evengelizing, why not find a method that doesn't leave some of us wishing we could have a root canal without anesthesia instead?

i like the "tilling the ground" analogy. i know Mark 4 doesn't say anything about tilling the ground, it just tells us to sow the seed. but i think the principal is there. even hardened ground, or ground with a lot of weeds (like my front lawn) can be turned into a fruitfull garden if someone puts the proper work into it. maybe people wouldn't be so hardened to Christianity if they thought we really cared. is this effective, though? well, the jouney church started from scratch about 4 years ago, and today they have about 500 members, while their sunday attendance averages around 1,000. of that 1,000 in attendance, about 40% of them (that's 400 for those of you who don't like percentages) say they got into the church because of an intentional act of kindness, ie free gum, water, granola, etc.

my wife and i recently celebrated our 4th anniversary by spending a couple of days at the beach. we were walking on tuesday morning and got free lemonade! some students from buffalo baptist church were on the beach, giving out free lemonade just so they could tell people "God loves you." i'm glad i'm a Christian, but if i weren't... maybe it's worth considering.

what a week! it's wednesday again, and i'm finally back in the office. did i say 1.8 million in new york city? i meant 8.1 - i think. the first night we were there, one of the staff people at the journey church said 1.8, but another guy said 8 million a couple of times later on. i think the second number is closer. 1 million doesn't seem right.

i didn't think we would ever get back. every time i've flown with the church, we've had some kind of problem. on the mexico trip last summer, we missed flights both ways, and even had to stay over night in dallas, texas. this time, we got to the airport at 6am, to find our flight had been delayed 3 hours. so we had breakfast, coffee, and snacks a couple of times while we waited for a new part for our plane to be flown in and installed. then, on the way back, we boarded the plane on time (a sure sign something wasn't right), then sat on the runway for2-1/2 hours before being taken back to the airport and told our flight had been cancelled. we were supposed to have gotten on another flight at a different gate, but suffice it to say the guy at the desk severly lacks customer courtesy skills. the short of it is we didn't get on that flight either.

so we spent the night in the laguardia airport. the good news is we got free blankets! at about 4am, we got in line to check our bags, and were told we were in the wrong terminal. so we hauled our luggage about 1/2 mile to the other terminal, where, after spending some time in a long line, were told we weren't on the flight. in a final attempt to make a long story short, we finally got on a plane that took us to richmond, virginia, (a flight i honestly don't remember) where we waited for three hours on a plane to bring us back to charlotte. but we made it! and our team did great the whole time. i guess it's a big lesson in keeping a good attitude, even while being treated poorly by airline staff. then again, one of the girls on our team had been praying for patience - so i guess the whole thing is her fault. (this is the sarcasm i'm so naturally inclined to. don't take it seriously).

really, the trip was great, and i would definitely do it all over again. i feal like we actually did something we can bring home with us. now all we have to do is stop the world long enough to put it into practice.