Family Experiential Lent Calendar

Last year I blogged about my experience with the season of Lent and mentioned a calendar I was using that I found here. Since I work with students, children, and families in my ministry, I had an idea to come up with a similar kind of calendar intended specifically for families, the 2011 Family Lent Experiental Calendar. Before Ash Wednesday, I distributed it and posted it on-line. My hope is that as families participate in fasting-from and living-to during these forty days, they will draw closer to God leading up to Resurrection Sunday. I feel like our own family has benefitted from this already.

Click on the link highlighted above if the picture is too small to read. Just thought I'd share...

teenagers and "moralistic therapeutic deism"

There's an interesting article on cnn.com about teens and faith. Check out the full write-up here.

I didn't really agree with the whole thing (mostly because their claims relied on weak anecdotal support); however, I thought this passage in particular was compelling:

How 'radical' parents instill religious passion in their children

... [Dean] says parents who perform one act of radical faith in front of their children convey more than a multitude of sermons and mission trips.

A parent's radical act of faith could involve something as simple as spending a summer in Bolivia working on an agricultural renewal project or turning down a more lucrative job offer to stay at a struggling church, Dean says.

But it's not enough to be radical -- parents must explain "this is how Christians live," she says.

"If you don't say you're doing it because of your faith, kids are going to say my parents are really nice people," Dean says. "It doesn't register that faith is supposed to make you live differently unless parents help their kids connect the dots."

What do you think? Comment on here if you have any thoughts.

Pentecost and Babel

In honor of Pentecost Sunday tomorrow, I thought I would post an unique message I wrote a few years back.

Pentecost and Babel (Genesis 11 & Acts 2)
Think about the events surrounding the first Pentecost, and let’s look how it fits in the story of the Bible, God’s story—the story of Redemption. All the way back in the beginning, God created human beings in relationship to himself—in Eden, we see a picture of humanity at ease with God, close to him and one another, in a place of their own where they belonged… and it was good. When sin entered the world, God cast them from their home, sent them away from himself and began to tear them apart from one another. The good that was God’s image within his creation was marred and broken—we see this in Cain and Abel, in the evil during Noah’s days, and in the tower of Babel story. But in Genesis chapter 12 in the story of Abraham, God begins the work of redeeming his people, restoring what was lost, the beginning of bringing his prodigal sons and daughters back into the family.

In this story of God’s redemption of humanity, Abraham is the beginning of God fixing the problem and Jesus is the climax (and of course, the great wedding banquet in heaven is the final resolution). So what you have is a kind of roller coaster movement… it starts up with Eden, goes down with the Fall, begins to ascend again with Abraham, peaks with Jesus and resolves toward the restored kingdom at the Day of the Lord. So now at Pentecost we begin to see God working things out, the beginnings of the restoration, the reversal of the curses enacted at the Fall.

If you have studied literature to any extent, one thing you would be taught is to pay special attention to foreshadowing and mirroring in the texts because they bring fuller meaning to what is being said. This happens all the time in Scripture, too. God indeed is the Great Storyteller. The big theme is the curse and its effects and then the redemption—the reversal of the curses—and its effect. People, place, presence taken then restored. God’s image taken away and then restored in us.

But I want us to look particularly at two stories of two communities: Babel and Pentecost. Babel is the last story before the beginning of redemption and Pentecost is the first story after the climax of redemption in Jesus… immediately before the upturn and immediately after the downturn… the perfect spot that you might expect to see some parallels.

In Babel, the evil of mankind had grown and grown, their focus had moved away from God and completely on themselves (v.3-4). They had replaced the worship of the Lord with worshipping themselves and their own greatness. On Pentecost, however, we see a community that was amazingly selfless (v.42-47). Their focus was not on themselves but on God.

Again, in Babel, we see a people building a great tower so as to “reach the heavens,” essentially trying to achieve through their own strength a place with God. You see here humans working upward to God. But with Pentecost, you see God reaching down, entering into humanity’s lowliness. Men and women confessed their weakness and need and God gave himself to them there (v.37-38).

And what was the curse of Babel? What was God’s judgment on their self-centeredness and seeking achievement? Disunity through confused language (v.6-8). Ever since Babel, humanity has been cursed to live separated from one another, primarily by language—but more than that—by a failure to be on the same page and to have a singular purpose.

What happened at Pentecost? I admit there’s a lot about the Holy Spirit evidenced by tongues that I don’t understand, but could it be that Pentecost was an indication of God’s redemption, beginning to reverse the curse proclaimed at Babel? What do we see with this early community of believers? Not just understanding each others’ languages, but the restoration of unity, the beginning of real fellowship and community, living lives together with a single purpose… “All the believers were together and had everything in common…” (v.44-47).

So what does this mean for me? Are you living together with other believers? What is keeping you at a distance from real fellowship and community? Have you allowed all of God’s redeeming grace to work in your life? Have you allowed him to save your soul without letting him repair your relationships with others? Think of the community we could be by living in unity!

Listen to what God says about this kind of unity: “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” God wants to make us great and empower us—not for our own glory and not to attain a place with God—but in humility and by God’s Spirit we could make a huge impact for the kingdom of God right here. If what we celebrate at Pentecost is the birth of the church, what does this say about what church should be? I guess it means that church is a community of selfless people where God has come and, therefore, shares in real unity and fellowship with one another.

I love the story of God. Because Jesus has come and died and lives again, God has begun to restore us to his family and is making that family whole once again. Won’t you be a part of that story with me?

notes from symc

Last weekend, I attended the Simply Youth Ministry Conference in Chicago, Illinois with two of my youth volunteers. I always love these conferences, and here I'll attempt to give a few notes from that great trip. (Note #1: Gino's East pizza is amazing!)
One of the best quotes from the weekend was from Doug Franklin's seminar on student leadership. He said, "Youth ministry is not the church's ministry to students; it's the students' ministry to their world." When I heard it, I realized he had articulated clearly what I've been thinking for years. I love this shift in perspective, and I hope I can instill this in our congregation and students.

The "Branding Your Youth Ministry" workshop gave me a lot to think about (and makes me really wish I was a professional graphic design artist!). The purpose of branding is to build trust and connect with the group of people you are targeting. I know it sounds kind of business-y, but our church can do so much more through images, phrases, music, video, and other medium to speak more effectively to our culture. I sometimes go back and forth on how much to do this in my youth ministry (that, and I'm pretty uncreative), but I think I'd like give significant attention to our youth space in the upcoming year.

Also, we have a youth-led worship Sunday coming up in May, and I have several great ideas for it. Some possible skits and creative things, as well as some themes and thoughts to share with the congregation about our student ministry. I get excited thinking about our students leading in worship.

One of the workshops I attended was related to family ministry, basically supporting and communicating well with parents. I really liked some of the ideas for getting families more involved in my ministry, but an idea that I thought of while I was in there listening is a parent experiential calendar much like the Lent calendar I am following throughout this season. It would have a different exercise each day for parents to do, such as pray with your kids, lead a family devotion, write an encouraging letter, share a particular memory, play together, etc. I might try to do it next year during Lent or Advent, or some other time of the year when I want to encourage parents to step up in their role as spiritual leaders for their children.
Finally, this was the first year I attended one of these conferences with some of my volunteers. We had a great time eating Chicago pizza, hanging out, and talking about working with teenagers. Usually this has been a conference I attend with my wife, or even sometimes I will have been their with my brother who's a youth minister, or have seen other youth pastor friends around. But it was nice to see a few of my adult volunteers experience this kind of atmosphere where 2500 youth workers who love God and have a passion for students come and hang out together. I'm excited about what this might mean for them and what God is doing in their lives.

Random other notes--
* Set up a shared google document with my volunteers to share ideas and notes, especially with my small group leaders.
* "If you add something, you must drop something else." Very wise.
* One Meal One Day event sponsored by Compassion on October 20th, I'm looking at participating in.
* I heard Les Christie, a workshop leader, say that creativity is often tied to location, and so we might need to find other places than our office to spark creativity. I think this is true for me.
* Doug Fields' final thoughts to wrap up the weekend: Lead Strong + Love Stronger = Lasting Legacy (1 Timothy 1:3-5).
* Oh, and here's a little video from the conference for your amusement :)