Grow(th) from Within

“ The school in which I did this study expected each student to spend from 45 minutes to an hour per day on homework for each class… meaning over three hours doing homework… (add to this) the need to be involved in athletics (two or more hours per day) and in extra curricular activities and clubs (such as… Key Club, faith based Young Life or church youth groups). And on top of all this, there is often an expectation to put in volunteer hours. Typically, then, a student who cares about being a “good student”, doing homework, and pleasing teachers and parents, starts the day before 7:00am, gets home after practice or a meeting at 5:00 or 6:00pm, does an hour of homework, grabs dinner before heading out to an activity, gets home at 9:30 or 10:00 and finishes homework around 1:00 am. The bulk of the students I observed, especially those who were active and involved, were often exhausted, harried and frazzled. There seemed to be little apparent systematic consideration for what these schedules, expectations, and pressures do to the development and health of midadolescents.

— Chap Clark, Hurt 2.0, p87.

“ Humans make bombs as well as music. They build torture chambers as well as hospitals and schools. They create deserts as well as gardens. And yet the vocation sketched in Genesis 1 remains: humans are to be God’s image-bearers, that is, they are to reflect his sovereign rule into the world. Humans are the vital ingredient in God’s kingdom project.

— N T Wright, Simply Jesus, 212.

1 note

“ We have domesticated the Christian idea of “good works,” so that it has simply become “the keeping of ethical commands.” In the New Testament, “good works” are what Christians are supposed to be doing in and for the wider community. That is how the sovereignty of Jesus is put into effect.

— N T Wright, Simply Jesus, 219

Funny RAD Night Sayings

Jr. Higher: “it is when someone cuts out your heart…”

Leader: “um… That’s not being heartless.”

Speaking to Teenagers - Sabbatical Book Review

One of the youth ministry specific books that I read was Doug Fields and Duffy Robbins’ Speaking to Teenagers.

I’ve taken preaching class before in Seminary and have regularly taught in youth group settings for 8+ years… but doesn’t mean that I don’t need to brush up on my skills and be reminded that I need to talk slower (ironically though this book recommended speaking faster in youth ministry settings).

This book was really a nuts and bolts type book. So instead of trying to provide a summary of the material I will just list some take aways from it:

1. In order to more effectively communicate God’s word in a transformational way, which means properly illustrating and explaining it to the context of the students, I need to develop and allow for more people to teach in our ministry settings. I definitely plan on developing a RAD teaching team for our jr. high group in response to this book.

Robbins and Fields layout a method called STICK: Study, Think, Illustrate, Construct, Keep Focused (yeah, I guess the K was a hard one to word), which is really helpful, but if one was to follow this method it is best they teach once maybe twice a week at most.

2. You need to have one main point in every talk you do. That is part of the “keep focused” element. This was hammered to us in seminary. People cannot walk away with 3 ideas and remember, let alone apply them during their week. Communicating one idea is essential. If the passage you are preaching has 3 points then you are preaching too big of a passage.

3. Context matters. We have kids in our group who don’t know Jesus, who are interested in Jesus and kids who are walking with Jesus in a committed way already. Somehow the message needs to reach all of these kids in some shape or form. So, knowing your group really matters.

4. It is best to allow a passage to germinate in your head. This means that if you can do your study early in the week or even weeks ahead and allow for time to think (which is hard to control, hence why having a lot of time for random thoughts to pop into your head or for you to be observant of illustration ideas is essential) is best. Right now I am teaching 3 times a week and typically only allow for a day to construct a message… which is why #1 is so important.

5. Remember that it is not about what you say but what they hear… so be clear!

6. On a completely practical note, I guess yellow is a really attractive color to the eye, so highlighting important words on the screen in yellow is a good call.

All in all, I thought this book would have been a great one for us to have read in our seminary preaching class. It isn’t super academic, but it was really helpful with tips and tactics for communicators and it uplifted God’s word and the Holy Spirit’s involvement in communication and transformation. However, a negative is there was some fluff and it probably could have been half the length that it ended up being.

Spiritual Vitality - Sabbatical Recap

If you have been praying for my spiritual vitality during my sabbatical, thank you! It was really hard to separate myself from work and ministry during the first two weeks of my sabbatical. It weird developing new routines and patterns to daily life.

I have enjoyed spending time with my family. God has blessed this sabbatical with good timing to pour into my wife and two kids; especially the valuable time with Katie since she is still so young, this time is really invaluable.

I also realized that I am more introverted than I thought. Coffee shop time with books became a treasured asset!

With that said, I also had a mission on my sabbatical. It is only in the last week that I have overcome the huge hurdle of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) Ordination Exams. All the exams are turned in (though it doesn’t mean I passed them all!). These exams were a lot harder than I imagined they would be before I started studying. This became a huge focus of my sabbatical and to be truthful it weighed on me a lot. The exams have four parts to them - 3 sessions of testing for 3 hours each on Worship and Sacraments, Church Polity (and structure for the denomination) and Theology… these three components were physically exhausting. The final component was a take home exegesis (think in-depth study of scripture with a teaching outline component) that I completed and submitted yesterday. Nothing quite like 15 pages of writing + a lot of time reading and researching!

This description is not meant to give myself a pat on the back, but to just communicate the nature of how heavily it weighed on me. Needless to say, I was a mental wreck but I do not know how else I would have taken these exams if not for the sabbatical.

Almost immediately after turning in the exegesis paper I felt a sense of spiritual vibrancy that I have not felt in a long time. 8 years of ministry (and to be honest, I don’t take vacations well…) can weigh on you. God has blessed me with the opportunity to love students and to help them see and know Jesus. But, that comes at a cost usually and I have realized over the 8 years that I am more emotional than I previously thought.

With that said, if you have been praying for my relationship with God and for my spiritual vitality, thank you! God has been answering your prayers.

I am looking forward to spending time with my family over this last week of my sabbatical as well as thinking about the future for the youth ministry at MHPC.

Thanks again MHPC and my friends for your support in my life.

The Forgotten Ways: Sabbatical Book Review

The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch is a thoughtful critique on the “Christendom” church that we find our western world in today. I have rebelled a little against the “missional” buzz word because a lot of times it gets thrown around the church (not just MHPC) and all that happens is a new program is created where more people come onto the church property, which is the opposite of missional (which is the viewpoint of seeing yourself as a missionary to the community you are in… the main idea is going out with the gospel to the place that God has you). Hirsch’s book comes out of his inquiry of why the early church exploded from 25,000 Christians in 100 AD to 20 million pre-Constantine (310 AD); plus the more recent explosion of faith in China, which has saw the church go from 2 million pre-Mao Tse-tung to an estimate of 60 million today (p18-19). Those numbers are pretty amazing. What Hirsch has researched and discovered is what he calls the Apostolic Genius and mDNA (missional DNA), which he argues is in every believer and church by the shear reality that the Holy Spirit is present. The Apostolic Genius consists of 5 qualities centered with a focus of Jesus being complete Lord of all factors of life and worship.

1. Disciple Making - not intellectual assent to a set of doctrines, but hands on training in the way of following Jesus that replicates itself.

2. Missional-Incarnational Impulse - Sending people out instead of attracting people in. Incanational - involves a real presence among people on their terms and in their world. Hirsch argues here that each church is “pregnant with other churches” and has a big focus on church planting (p139).

3. Apostolic Environment - Apostle not as an office but a function which involves suffering and empowering the church vs. the CEO type leadership that we see today.

4. Organic Systems - seeing the church as a living organism vs. a machine-like structure. The main thrust of this chapter is that the church is profoundly interconnected in natural ways and that those connections should be fostered and developed to make disciples vs. programming people out of the world and away from any sort of interaction with people who are not believers.

5. Communitas (not Community) - Communitas is the idea of interconnected lives around a shared ordeal, humbling, transition, marginlization, mission or purpose (p220-221).

With that said, this is a book that is way harder to review than NT Wright’s After You Believe, which I reviewed earlier on my sabbatical. Hirsch’s book was deceptively academic and involved a lot of sociological study and principles, plus his own hands on experience with church in Australia. Also, Hirsch covers a ton of ground, so this is going to be really simplistic.

Pros:

The critique on the current state of church as too attractional and therefore not reaching people is valid. Attractional being that we set up our programs and church environment with the idea that people ought to come to us to hear about Jesus. Just look at the current statistics of how many people go to church and you can see that this critique is right. I think that latests statistics was something like 5-6% of Morgan Hill attends church on a Sunday morning. 94% of our community does not fall into the “seeker” category. Add into that the fact that church is largely passive (listening, sitting, etc) creates an environment that further a consumeristic mindset to church. Add to this the guilt that a lot of churches have by not being bigger or more professional. Look around, a lot of churches try to copy the polished mega church models that we have in the West, but the reality is that very few churches ascribe to that status. We do not have the money, resources or staff that a mega church has. And with that said, just because a church is bigger does not mean that it is more effective in real outreach, but there is still a lot of guilt involved and a desire to be more polished instead of thinking through how we can lead people we have relationships with in worship.

Hirsch extends this idea out saying that the church in the west does not reach out well beyond those who are already like us. Think of the barriers that exists with reaching people with the gospel (culture, history, language, sub-culture, etc), the western church doesn’t do well reaching out to people where those barriers exist, instead we focus on reaching people like us. So, there needs to be a refocus on the sending out of people on a mission into places that would normally not hear the gospel or be interested in it.

Lastly, the focus on discipleship as being a hands on learning environment was great. Too often we have discipleship classes instead of seeing it as a relational endeavor to communicate what it looks like to follow Jesus and through that people will represent Jesus in their place in the world. Hirsch put it this way, “If the heart of disicpleship is to become like Jesus, then it seems to me that a missional reading of this text requires that we see that Jesus’s strategy is to get a whole lot of little versions of him infiltrating every nook and cranny of society by reproducing himself in and through his people in every place throughout the world (p113).” With that in mind, churches need to actually really be about mentoring, and not just mentoring kids, but mentoring adults in the faith. This is not through a memorization of creeds/catechisms or taking a class or joining a small group. But, it takes place through shared relationship with believers and through putting into practice the ways of Jesus.

Cons:

Reading this book is intellectually and emotionally exhausting because Hirsch makes a pretty persuasive argument that the church needs to be different from the ground up.

Another con is that apart from a work of the spirit, I don’t see the American church doing things differently on a large scale. Hirsch makes a little bit of an argument that the tide seems to be turning in the Western world. I know that many people are upset by the idea that we are losing our “Christian nation” status. Hirsch sees this as an opportunity for the church to explode in the West like it is doing in China and did in its earliest days. However, I think that the Western world elevates tolerance and that the environment in China would not be mimicked here. And the Western world is too comfortable and complacent. So, this begs the question, would smaller-missional communities work in the West?

Main take-away:

We need to not just add missional to a vision/mission statement and call it done. A lot of churches have done this, without changing anything about how they “do” church. Likewise, if you are in two bible studies and serve on Sunday morning, but not loving your neighbor and stepping out incarnationally in the world than you are missing the point. The church is about corporate worship and the edification of the saints, but those are just two parts of the equation. The problem with this is that many of us do not like this idea because it is uncomfortable and we want people to come to us. So, instead of thinking through how we can get people into our doors of the church, we should strategically think through how we can get them out of them. With no agenda besides witnessing the gospel to them in words, love and action.

Leap Over a Wall: Sabbatical Book Review

Leap Over a Wall by Eugene Peterson is practical theological reflections on the life of David. Peterson has the goal to eliminate the professional vs layperson divide in church and spirituality. Obviously, Peterson did not “achieve” this goal in how we look at church 13 years after this book was published. However, he does present what he calls “earthly spirituality” in the person of David (who surprisingly has the largest chunk of narrative in the Bible… I would have thought it was Jesus). David is a scriptural character many can resonate with. A desire to know and follow God whole-heartedly, but with flaws and failures. With that said, Peterson goes through the narrative of Davids life comparing him with other characters in the story to talk about things like spirituality influencing work, grief, community etc. The main theme though is that God was not an abstract concept to David, but a present reality in David’s life. this type of interaction with God is key to having “true spirituality”.

With that said, the main take away from this book for me was the repeated look at how the wilderness influenced David’s life and understanding of God. Peterson made the argument that it was during the times of wilderness that David was most alive to God (composition of the psalms, development of his ragtag community of misfits - which is a precursor to Christ, and even during the Absalom rebellion he renewed his distancing relationship with God in the wilderness). Conversely his biggest sins in life came during a time of rule and reign in Jerusalem in the midst of a growing complacency (Bathsheba, Uriah, ignoring his son Absaolm’s sin/grief, and the census). Many of us run away from the wilderness because we see it only as a place of danger and not as a place of beauty. But, if we follow Peterson’s consistent interjection of its necessity than we should embrace and not escape the wilderness. Peterson would even go as far as to say that anyone who has had anything to do with God spends time in the wilderness (p72). This is because the wilderness teaches us to experience God.

With that said, I recommend this book for people who want to learn more about the life of David and how God can intersect with our day to day life.

Strengths:

- There is an intentional connection of the life of David to the life and ministry of Jesus.

- Eugene Peterson is insanely quotable

Examples:

”Reality is made up mostly of what we can’t see. Humanness is mostly a matter of what never gets reported in the newspapers (p45).”

”We have dealings with hundreds of people who the moment they set eyes on us begin calculating what use we can be to them, what they can get out of us (p54).”

”Always, in the wilderness, there’s a tension between the beauty and the danger, between pristine simplicities and sinister threats. And because most of us can’t sustain this tension for long, we live in towns and cities (p74).”

”When we grow, in contrast to merely change, we venture into new territory and include more people in our lives - serve more and love more. Our culture is filled with change; it’s poor in growth (p136).”

”We have a finite number of ways to sin; God has an infinite number of ways to forgive (p190).”

”And now David dies. No life is complete until there’s a death. Death sets limits. To be human is to die. By dying, we attest to our humanity. Death doesn’t so much terminate our humanity as prove it (p217).”

- Really good focus on the “layperson” since David is considered to be such. One of my favorite quotes from the book was: ”Work is the primary context for our spirituality. (p27)” One of the biggest hindrances of being a staff person at a church is limited interaction with “the world” and the wrongful elevation of the job as being “more spiritual”.

Weaknesses:

- Peterson has the ability to fly the plane, but not land it. He does not want to give his readers a clear pathway to how to practice what he is writing and reflecting about. This is good (forces us to do the hard work and to listen to the Holy Spirit), but also hard because it can be frustrating trying to think through some of the “so what?” of what he is exploring.

- Every now and then Peterson will show you how smart he is by using words that you have only heard once in your life. Other than that though he is pretty accessible in his writing.

“ For prayer is practiced from the perception that the reality of God is immediate and personal; and poetry is the use of language most immediate and personal. The recovery of poetry in our lives goes hand in hand with the recovery of prayer. The fact that David is a poet is as significant in recovering our true humanity as the fact that David prays.

— Eugene Peterson, Leap Over a Wall, 209.

Sticky Faith: Sabbatical Book Review

Find a copy here.

Early on in the book the authors Kara Powell and Chap Clark state that “Pursuing kids is not a ministry strategy but a conviction.” The main argument of Sticky Faith is that kids experience Jesus when an adult with no hidden agenda loves them with God’s love.

Though the book was not perfect, it will still be a valuable resource for parents and is in fact written for parents and not church ministry leaders.

Powell and Clark were part of an extensive research project with high school and college students to determine why some of the staggering statistics about kids walking away from the church and Jesus exist. The reality, as they researched, is that 40-50% of active youth group kids do not stick to faith during college and only about 20% of those planned on walking away. Likewise, partying and binge drinking is experience by just a little less than 50% of college students monthly. The average college senior has experienced 7 ”hook ups” (sexual activity with no emotional connection). And, of 69 Christian students surveyed 100% consumed alcohol in college. The research points to loneliness and a search for friends as the driving force behind this activity. Powell and Clark mentioned that in particular the first two weeks of college were important because, according to the research, they set the pattern of college life.

I thought a lot about why this exists over the course of my time as a youth pastor. These statistics are not new… in fact they seem to be lower than when I last heard them. There are some obvious factors that lead to this experimentation and spiritual wandering. As Powell and Clark pointed out, loneliness is huge. But, just thinking through it, a lot of students have not experienced freedom and when freedom is there they don’t know how to handle it. They have not been prepared to be an adult. Part of this is because of extended adolescence and the reality that many students only really experience responsibility in life when it comes to academics…. but not much in other areas of life.

So what can be done? Two big things stuck out to me as I read the book.

1. Parents: you cannot outsource faith development to the church.

Parents ranked #1 for quality and quantity of support from students. How Parents express and live our faith is the most important element for spiritual growth in kids (p23, 29).

What percentage of conversations in your house are about Jesus? According to Powell and Clark most family conversations area bout logistics. And the authors admit that actions speak louder than words, but that words still do matter according to the studies. With that said only 12% of families had any sort of regular conversation about Jesus…. and only 5% of student surveyed had conversations with their dads about faith (p71). This is a huge indictment on fatherhood (for other books see Father Fiction by Donald Miller or The Fatherless Generation by Jon Sowers). Fathers, even Christian ones, have been hands off in parenting according to statistics nationwide, both in this book and in the ones listed above.

The church exists for discipleship and worship (Connect, Grow, Serve), but if it is not happening at home then it is less likely to stick. In fact looking back on my 8 years at the church the students whom struggle the most when they hit senior year are the ones who do not have the gospel taught and reinforced at home. Nothing is a guarantee, but having a real, vocal, demonstrative and sincere faith at home is huge for having faith stick in the lives of your children.

2. Students need to participate in intergenerational worship.

Powell and Clark commented a lot about adult-kid segregation in the church. They likened it to the kids table at Thanksgiving. It is no surprise that kids don’t find a church in college when they have never seen or experienced one in high school. If all they have experienced is youth group then they are missing out on something more. High schoolers who worship in intergenerational settings tend to have a sticky faith. Powell and Clark said that there was no sure thing in their research, but this was the closest indicator for kids who made it in faith and those who did not. Here is another indictment to the church: students ranked their support networks, guess who came in last place? Adults in the church ranked last (p98-99). I have had conversations with adults who have complained that they felt like the high school students were not approachable. But, adults, as mature and faithful followers of Jesus, it is not your job to sit back and wait. ”More than any single program or event, adults’ making the effort to get to know the kids was far more likely to make the kids feel like a significant part of their church.” (p99).

Sticky Faith covered a lot more material than just those two items.

Other factors that help faith development were service, having a web of relationships among adults, a bridge from senior year to college, etc. But I don’t have space to detail all of that here. Grab a copy of the book, though it is not perfect, it has a lot of real and practical examples for parents.

*Side note: I realize that a lot of this information ignores that they Holy Spirit convicts and calls people and that prayer is hugely important. So do not forget those elements as well. Powell and Clark’s focus did not ignore those elements intentionally, instead they tried to examine and process data and offer parents and ministry leaders practical suggestions. You can follow all of the information in Sticky Faith and still have a kid reject Jesus, and we know from the fact that kids from non-Christian homes come to faith that the reverse is true as well. The big question though is as parents and church leaders, do you want to create an environment for students to see and Know Jesus in your home and in your church?

After You Believe: Sabbatical Book Review

After You Believe by NT Wright is a tough book to review because it is 280 pages of somewhat dense theological and scriptural ideas and arguments. Pamela and I laughed because NT Wright talked about how he wrote it to be “accessible”.

The main question Wright addressed is a good one, “what happens between conversion and salvation?” Wright makes an argument that Christian character matters in day to day life because God is in the process of making all things new through Jesus. Following the rules out of duty is misguided, but living our the character of Jesus points people towards God and ushers in a heaven on earth lifestyle.

The problem many of us face is that character doesn’t develop overnight or we have communities that emphasize spontaneity over the idea of a plan/discipline/effort to form character. We somehow think that conversion happens and spiritual maturity takes effect right away. Most people in the church will not articulate it that way, but think about how one feels when a newly converted friend or family member still struggles with sin and spiritual immaturity? Don’t we usually assume that people should have it all together right away? Part of this is the fast food, instant download, etc. culture we have.

Conversely, Wright argues that character is formed from many small decisions over the long haul so that when the big choice comes up the right decision happens automatically. Knowing the goal + what it takes to get to that goal and developing regular habits to get there are important otherwise the sanctification process doesn’t happen. We are told in Col 3 to “put to death ________ and put on __________. This doesn’t imply spontaneity. In the midst of this, Wright does not seek to down play the work of the Holy Spirit, but writes to emphasize that a mentality of “sit back and wait” is misguided.

This does beg the question though, why does it all matter? Sure holy living is important, but why? This is the main thrust of the second half of the book, which makes the point that by practicing Christian character we can show what new/true humanity looks like and anticipate the new creation where these actions will be common place. In this process we function as priests to the world, showing God’s nature and participate in his work of restoration. This is important because often the question comes to mind (at least my mind) ‘what’s the point’? Is it just to evangelize people who will evangelize people who will… etc. Not to knock evangelism and people coming to know the forgiveness and grace of Jesus. But, Christian faith is more than just a numbers game. There is something real that we are called to as people who know God and are known by God. And, the more we practice character and virtue the more “second nature” it becomes.

The part of the book that I found really valuable is the last chapter where Wright landed the “how does this look in practice section”. I am always wondering how it is that people change and are transformed. Wright’s “Virtuous Circle” is Scripture, Stores, Examples, Community, Practices (think: corporate disciplines), back to Scripture. All of these function towards building character in individuals as well as the corporate body of the church. This is really a good paradigm of core values that should shape ministry. I may think through how this interplays with some other thoughts I have on how people change and come away with some key values for the MHPC youth ministry that we should emphasize in how we disciple students.

The main takeaway: God is at work, but that does not excuse us from cultivating Christian character in our lives and in our churches. To make Christian character “second nature” we need to regularly practice it, even if it doesn’t come naturally at first. The more we cultivate Christian character the more the world will see and know God and the more we will experience what it is like to be truly human as it was intended to be.