I’m taking a break from my series on youth ministry because I want to type about something else tonight. This won’t be a major post…at least I’m starting out with that idea in my head, but who knows what will actually happen.

Two nights ago, a student commented on Facebook that he “hated religion” but that “he loved God.” I wanted further explanation from him on his statement because I know he 1) attends church and 2) claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ. So he explained to me that he was tired of how church seems to be more about politics than spirituality, he feels burned by the church and hasn’t felt very religious in a while. Ultimately, his congregation frustrates him and he isn’t sure how to deal with these feelings.

We all go through this at some point. One morning, we wake up and we realize that the golden glasses we once viewed the world with were not accurate. Elders who were once seen as Champions of the Faith are now seen as imperfect. Preachers who are our spiritual guardians are revealed to be struggling and just as helpless as you or I. Youth Ministers who show energy and excitement at youth group but then it comes out that they have been battling with depression and feelings of isolation. And we think, “Was it all a lie?”

I understand these feelings. I completely get the disillusionment that comes with becoming an adult and realizing the world is darker than you once thought. And it is easy to come to a point where we make the claim that we “hate religion” or “don’t believe in organized religion” or “want to walk away from the church.” It’s been the hip thing to do for a while. Church makes an easy target. It’s filled with hypocrites. And it’s easy to point that out and claim that it’s all phony because we fail to see genuine change in so many of us. Or we fail to see genuine “true” change in ourselves.

I get these points of views and yet I am also tired of them. I hope I don’t come across as ranting here but let me be clear, you can’t love God but hate the church and still have Biblical faith. You cannot do it. The Church is flawed. It always has been. Have you read the New Testament lately? It exists BECAUSE the Church is flawed. It is filled with people who are still sinners. It is filled with people who are on a spiritual journey that isn’t complete yet. They make really dumb choices, just like you or I do. But that doesn’t mean they haven’t experienced a genuine connection to God. It simply means they are still growing. And just because you struggle and don’t feel like you’ve truly changed, doesn’t mean you haven’t. It simply means you are still on a journey, still growing.

I don’t think you can hate religion and love God. For one, religion at its most basic level is the belief and pursuit of a higher spirituality. It’s certainly ok to hate HOW people’s religious pursuits affect you, Jesus certainly seems to have. But you must be careful in these thoughts. These kinds of thoughts can very quickly turn into the villianization of those within the religion. You cannot hate people and love God because God is love and God LOVES the Church, in spite of its’ flaws.   

It is easy to lose your love for the Church when you begin to see the dark sides of the humanity that makes it up. It’s easy to get lost in the pain and hypocrisy. It’s easy to blame the church for its failures (and accurate). It’s easy, when some poor excuse for a historian (who read a book once and now thinks she is the expert on all things religious) comes along and makes wild claims about the church to agree with him because deep down you’re already struggling with faith. It’s very easy to let failures overshadow successes. We do it all the time. But when we come into these places, we are not living in love. When we choose hate (of any kind) we are living in the way of death and not the way of life. When we get lost in our frustrations at the church we become cynical, dark and can very quickly begin to slide into the way of death. The teen even acknowledged that if he kept going down this path he would lose his faith. He knew, in spite of exceedingly great frustrations, that the way he was going was leading to the way of death.

So if you find yourself in that camp; the camp of once loving the Church but now overwhelmed with disappointment. If you find yourself wanting to walk away or hopping on the ever increasing, yet magnificently shallow bandwagon of “hate religion, love God” allow me one suggestion. Change your perspective. Focus on the Cross and the Resurrection.

I don’t follow Jesus because I like the Church. I follow Jesus because of the Cross and the Resurrection. I follow Jesus because He reveals the God is enters into human suffering, validates it as a real experience, takes it onto/into Himself and then defeats it once and for all. If you want to know God, know Christ. Colossians attests to this truth, Hebrews 1 attests to this truth. Jesus, Himself, attests to this truth. Trust in Jesus not in the flawed humans who live in His name. Trust that for as frustrated you are with the Church, Jesus is even more so. Trust that Jesus died in spite of these frustrations.

The Resurrection of Jesus gives us hope, hope that God IS moving to bring about His kingdom. He is coming!! The Resurrection changed all of history. It adjusted the course of creation. It’s affects are still felt today. The Resurrection moves to bring life into places of death. It moves into our time to heal the sick, to point to the end of the journey. And the journey in this life will end one day! Everyone knows this. But we know the end of the story is not a day of death but a day of true and overwhelming life.  On that day, the weak, the broken the oppressed, the lonely will be picked up. The self-righteous will be cast out. God will make things right. God’s justice will prevail. The system of sin will be fully overcome.

Has it been fully overcome yet? Yes and no. Yes in the sense that we know the ending of the story and no in the sense that we haven’t gotten to that point yet. We’re still waiting. We’re still living in a world that holds the shadows of things to come. We live in an era of road signs pointing to the coming kingdom. But we haven’t arrived. We, like so many little kids on long road trips, are asking, “are we there yet?” And we’re not asking this because we believe we have arrived, we ask because we’re desperate to get out of the car. We’re desperate for the journey to end. And in these moments, hear the voice of God say, “Soon my children, soon.” 

I wasn’t going to have this be a separate post when I started writing this morning. I actually was suffering from some major writers block. I knew I wanted this section to be a part of a much larger post, namely one about “being yourself.” However, when I started typing just to get the thoughts flowing, I decided I liked what I had. Plus, I’m trying to avoid having majorly long posts…thus this post was born. And while I spend most of this post focusing on social justice and hip movements, I believe flashiness applies also to the way we deign our youth rooms, the back grounds on our presentations, the endless need for bigger lights and color schemes in worship services.  Empty flash is not what God’s kingdom is about.

Youth Ministry, and perhaps ministry in general, has the tendency to be fad driven (like any expression of human culture, religious or otherwise). Remember Kony 2012? What about #takeapictureaboutsomehotbuttonissuewithasymboldrawnonyourarmfaceorhandtosupportnothavingsaidissuebearoundanymore…that was  my favorite. I remember the night Kony2012 went big, I was on my Facebook marveling at how quickly EVERYONE suddenly became either an expert on justice or an expert on Africa. It was ridiculous. And then a few days went by and then we all did a group shift to rant and rave how Kony 2012 was foolish bad and yadda yadda yadda.

  Now to be fair, my kids had been involved with Invisible Children since 2008 so of course my students wanted to be a part of this movement. And we raised money for them (as we had done in the past) and yes many of them lost interest a few weeks later. This is the nature of the beast and I’m not saying we shouldn’t support non-profit organizations or ignore every movement that addresses some hot button issue of the day. There are both strengths and weaknesses to getting involved in these types of actions.

                What I am saying is 1) make sure these movements are part of a bigger vision of justice that your ministry already embraces (or use it as a spring board to embrace whatever it is as a ministry/church wide vision) 2) make sure you spend more time living to be faithful and encouraging your students to be faithful than you encourage them to “change the world/ see yourself as changing the world.” Often times I’ve spoken and heard others speak in such grandioso terms because it’s marketable language, it’s thrilling…it grabs people’s attention. Faithfulness is not as flashy as world changing. Faithful doesn’t easily fit on a bumper sticker and it doesn’t raise money or have nearly enough celebrity support.

                But faithfulness is ultimately what we are called to do. We are not world changers. We are not called to change the world. We are called to be faithful to God. And (as I addressed earlier in an earlier post) I believe this God is changing the world, He is bringing about transformation, His kingdom IS coming. But let’s make sure we don’t put the cart before the horse. People are transformed by our faithfulness to God. The world does change when Christians follow Jesus…but let’s make sure we keep these actions and beliefs in perspectives.

 And more to the topic at hand (longevity) you will run yourself ragged trying to keep up with all the new fads and flashy movements that pop up on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, vine and whatever else. Social Networking has made the world increasingly smaller BUT it has not decreased the size of global issues. We may have easier access to knowledge but the answers to global problems are never as simple as a hashtag or status update make themselves out to be.

God calls us to faithfulness, not flash. Be faithful to Him. I’ll admit there have been plenty of times where I have been a better minister than a follower. I’ve run the program: organized events, called students, played games, written lessons all the while forgetting my first love found in Jesus Christ. And I know I’m not the only one. The only way to fight flashiness with faithfulness (and I’m pretty sure I’m sounding like a broken record here) is to look to the Cross. There is nothing flashy about the Cross. It’s ugly, painful, dark and broken. But it is the perfect example for the faithfulness in a world obsessed with flashiness.

 Here are two ways to practice faithfulness over flashiness:

1) Be faithful- You can’t lead students where you are not going or have not yet been.  If you aren’t being faithful in your own life how can you help other students be faithful? As I said there have been times in my life where I was a better minister than follower. I think one reason we get so caught up in movements and flashiness is because they are like conscience safety blankets. Just as the safety blanket provides the illusion of safety, so too can these kinds of movements provide the illusion that we are not selfish jerks at heart. “See I’m a servant, I care about children having clean water in Africa!!” While this may make you a decent human being (assuming real decency exists in any of us) it doesn’t make you a servant. Sympathy for someone struggling doesn’t actually serve them or help them in their struggle. In fact it uses their struggle for your own needs…namely your own conscience.

That’s probably a bit too cynical. But honestly, I think Satan can use good causes to distract us from Jesus (even Jesus made choices about healing people and not healing people Mark 1).  We must practice simple, non-flashy faithfulness. Maybe this is done through practicing the weekly tithe? Maybe it’s done through taking notice of the widows in your congregation and talking to them beyond doing some kind of “widows function” for your youth ministry? I know for me, having real relationships with church people has been a huge blessing. I also know that when I am a faithful first…it makes my ministry clearer and my calling firmer.

2) Don’t Recognize Every Issue- Now that might not be the best way to say it. But I think we spend too much time talking about every issue and not enough time doing something to find resolutions. But if we tried to do something about every problem, we wouldn’t be able to really help anyone because we would be so stretched. Consider picking your battles or more to the point: don’t get involved in every conversation. Maybe you don’t do a Facebook post about some new movement or non-profit you heard about. Or maybe you just pick one organization you’ll work with.

Ultimately, recognize that we are not the movers and shakers we pretend to be; God is the only true mover of man. We don’t have to give voice to every organization that espouses to help the poor, stop whatever new pandemic is happening or rescue such and such. There are simply too many of them! Be wise with how you spend your time. Be intentional with where you focus your energies. But don’t feel guilty when your intentional choices, means you have to say No to something that may be good. Saying “No” isn’t always a bad thing if you’re saying “No” so that you can say “Yes” to something better.

  And encourage your students to pick and choose. Encourage your students to think DEEPLY about what is really happening in the world and how they can really help. Maybe they will change the world but most likely, they’ll only influence the few people around them. That’s a noble and Godly goal to strive for. There’s nothing wrong with saying, “here’s my community…here’s where I can do real good.”          

It’s been more days than I intended between posts. Last week I was preaching and wanted to give my full attention to that time which meant no time for my blog =(. But fret not!! 1) The sermon went well which means 2) it wasn’t a wasted effort which leads to 3) I’m finished and thus have time to reflect and blog this week!! Huzzah!!

I wanted to title this post, “The Obvious Post” or “Things You Already Know But I Still Decided to Write About and I’m sorry if this was a waste of your time since you already know what I’m going to say” but the former didn’t appeal to me and the latter ended up being too long. If you’re in youth ministry, heck if you’re a follower of Jesus, you must seek to KNOW God. And when we know God we become connected to God. Being connected to God is a necessity when it comes to staying in youth ministry. Well, that may not be true actually. I guess that depends on how we define youth ministry. I imagine you could keep the title of “Youth Ministry” and run a really “good program” and be completely unconnected from the movement of God. So maybe we should say, for an effective ministry that gives glory to God, the youth minister must be in a growing and intimate friendship with the Godhead? I think I like that better.

The struggle is, however, the longer we find ourselves in ministry, the harder it may be to see God. Consider: because we’re ministers to teens, our lives are filled with struggle and angst because we are around a people who are finally able to process the angst of humanity, even if they are bad at it. Everything is a crisis to a teen because many of them are learning how to cope with the inherent depravity and brokenness that comes with being human. And as we walk with teens in these empty moments of pain and agony, it can begin to wear on our souls and drain our spirits (no matter how distant or objective we may try to be).

And thus God’s presence becomes clouded and we, much like Jesus on the Cross, can begin to feel abandoned and cry out, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me!” The once clear vision of the Holy Spirit’s mission is blurred. The energy of our early days is gone. And we are left feeling empty, and alone.

And I’m not saying this happens over years of ministry, it can happen within weeks. Heck, it can happen within a matter of days. And thus we must work and fight to keep a clear vision of God. We must work to know God and to never cease in that pursuit.

I’ve been focusing on Paul’s words in the book of Colossians the past few weeks (for separate reasons but I think they apply to this discussion). Particularly Colossians 1:15- “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” And 1:19, “For God was pleased to have His fullness dwell in Him.” Jesus says similar words, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.” In other words (an yes this is fairly basic theology) if you want to know God, who He is, then you know Jesus. And this is just as powerful of a truth as it is a basic one.

When we talk about God, we often talk about God in vague abstract terms like omnipresent, omniscient and so forth and so on (terms that actually tell me nothing about God…how can I really understand being everywhere at once…?). But there is a danger in talking about God in this way. The danger comes from the very fact that these words are vague and abstract.They are distant. They are impersonal. They are not terms given to us in Scripture either. God does not reveal Himself in abstract cognitive reasonings; rather God reveals Himself in action (For a much deeper reading upon God as action see Andy Root’s new series on Youth Ministry).

And what is the action of God? The action of God is typified in the self-giving of Jesus on the Cross. So if you want to know God, you must know and focus on what happens in the Cross and Resurrection (sorry if this is sounding like a repeat of the Serve Your Church blog…it won’t be the whole time…I hope). God does not start by revealing Himself simply by saying (and you need to imagine a deep sounding God voice as you read the next two sentences) “hey, I’m holy” or “hey I’m everywhere…make sure you write that down biblical writer guy person.” He starts with self-giving love. God does not start by revealing Himself as omnipresent, He starts by being present in the epic suffering on the Cross (you could argue God actually starts revealing Himself at the Exodus with Moses…and you wouldn’t be wrong, although the fullness of God is not known in the Exodus…to be fair). My point is in all of this is simply this: God does not reveal Himself with simple words or ideas but rather He reveals Himself (the fullness of Himself it seems) through the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus. That is huge for me!

Now what does this mean for us? Well, for one it means that God can be known. I hate when people talk about not really being able to know God because He so big and mysterious. I hate this idea, not because God isn’t big and mysterious, but because it seems to be so often used as an excuse to simply ignore ideas or it’s used to excuse theological laziness. Yes, God’s ways are higher than our ways…but God clearly says He has revealed Himself. So while we may never really understand everything about God…we can certainly KNOW God.

Second, the bigness of God should only further encourage our pursuit of God and not discourage it. Because God is so BIG, because the Cross is so wonderful, we should never run out of things to reflect on. We may run out of energy to explore these things but then we are simply allowed to rest at the Cross. We may run out of the ability to understand the Cross but that doesn’t mean we don’t know God. We may find more questions than answers but if we’ve found Jesus, we’ve found all we need to KNOW God.

Again, this may seem very simple and basic but that might be because we’ve made this whole thing overly complicated. You don’t need to understand the differences of transubstantiation or consubstantiation. Sure there can be some benefit from it but don’t confuse understanding these theological ideas as knowing God. Yes, there is some merit in discussing Calvinism vs Arminianism. But at the end of the day, both of these ideas are still just human attempts at working out the bigness of God. We tend to get so lost in these big theological issues that we lose track of our home, our starting point, namely the Cross.

In my moments of pure exhaustion, utter disappointment, indescribable happiness, fantastically excited planning or just regular hum drum day…I must constantly, consistently and continuously refocus myself on the Cross. Otherwise, I may run a good youth ministry program but I won’t actually be a follower of Jesus Christ because I will have forgotten God.

So here are my two ways for Knowing God better:

 First, Act On Your Faith- God intended for us to be doers of His will and participants in His movements. One of the best ways to focus on the Cross is to practice your faith. Paul talks about doing this at the end of his rejoice soliloquy in Php. 4, “whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me- put into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. When you move where God is moving, you discover God. You discover who God is. You discover how God thinks (the mind of Christ). You see His ways, His plans, His movements. Don’t limit knowing God to simply cognitive reflections.

Simply put, don’t make your Christian walk what it is because you’re a minister. If you talk to your kids about caring for poor people…then actually care for poor people. If you want your kids to evangelize to their friends…then you evangelize to yours. Be a follower of Jesus BEFORE you are a minister for Jesus.

Second engage in community discussions- The Bible was not meant to be read solo. Our faith is a faith for a community, to be shared, discovered and explored together with others. Don’t simply let your reflections be in your head…let them out. Find a group of people you can do theology with. People you can wrestle with the deeper truths of Scripture with. Maybe these are people in your Church (if you can find people to see you as a fellow Christian and not as “their minister”…which is not easy) or get together with a group of ministers. Whatever. Just don’t stay by yourself and only focus on individual quiet meditation. God filled His people with different gifts. God gave His people different experiences. Share yours with others around you. Listen and take in their ideas as well. We were not meant to know God, solely as individuals and thus we are not meant to think about God solely as individuals.

If you know me you know one very important fact about me: I love flip flops. My love of flip flops started in my freshman year of college. There’s just something so freeing about the flop that flips. I bemoan the coming of winter like a member of the Stark family because it means I have to wear shoes and rejoice in the coming of spring because spring brings the liberating presence of flip flops!! I just am not a big fan of shoes. You’ll also know, I don’t think suites are a MUST wear for the church members. I’m a supporter than God doesn’t care what you wear. 

This wasn’t the most popular thought among some of the older members in my congregation a few years back. They believed we should wear our best and that shows respect for God. In the early days, this created a riff between me and some of the older members. They saw me as an immature kid who didn’t care about them (which was only partially true…the immature part, I mean).  But I refused to budge on the issue and stand on my “God doesn’t care what you wear” soapbox.

Looking back on it now, I think I wasted a lot of time with this issue…and others.  If we say something is “not that big of a deal” then why do we make it a big deal? Why do we fight on every single mole hill treating it like *insert famous really big mountain name here*? Here’s the thing: the only cause worth fighting for is the idea that on the Cross and at the Resurrection, Jesus gave of Himself for our sins and suffering so that we might attain a new life and be redeemed for God’s glory.

Everything else…it’s up for grabs.

Everything else…it’s worth having honest, helpful, healthy dialogue.

Everything else… is not worth dying for; it’s not worth fighting for.

Sure we have our well thought out reasons why our opinions and agendas are better and would help the church grow. We may even be firmly convinced of this in our own mind. But it’s still not worth trying to force them onto other people. If this is you, you need a new model for life and ministry.

Consider, Philippians 2: 5-8, “⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: ⁶ Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; ⁷ rather, he emptied himself by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!

Before we explore models of ministry like being purpose driven, family driven, student driven, or intergenerationally driven (not that these are bad models…they just aren’t the place we should start with in our ministries), we need to be firmly rooted in the model of the Cross. As followers of Jesus we must center our models, our messages, our volunteer training sessions in the Cross. And by this I mean focusing less on our response and more on what God has done through Jesus on the Cross. And when we center our lives on God’s actions we see that our calling is to serve our churches beyond just our students and their immediate families.

I talked in the last post about silly discussions that are really satanic distractions. The best way to get beyond those is to embrace the mindset of Christ…to serve and empty ourselves for the good of the Church.

We’re youth ministers, which means, that many of us live and breathe for conflict. This is probably because most of us were borne out of some kind of conflict or another. But here’s the thing…at the very heart of the Cross and Resurrection is conflict. There is the conflict of overcoming suffering, there is conflict of life coming out of death…the Cross and Resurrection revolves around conflict. This means that working to bring people into this new movement is going to have conflict. There is conflict enough in proclaiming the power of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.

We don’t need to force conflicts. Sometimes we do whether we should or not. Sometimes we have our own agendas and those agendas create unnecessary conflict. But as youth ministers we’re not called to push our agendas, we’re not called to “change the church.” We’re simply called to proclaim Christ’s power and to live for His mission of bringing life out of death. When we push conflicts (like I did with my whole God doesn’t care about flip flops in Church soap box) we lose sight of what really matters.

The Church has enough people who want to force things to be a certain way. The Church has enough people who fight with the methods of the world through passive aggressive manipulation, wild threats, loud angry rants and blind siding the leadership with difficult observations at a congregational meeting (because blind-siding the leadership with your question and expecting an immediate answer and change is always a sign of healthy communication).  The Church needs more people who are willing to shrug off the weapons of the world and lift up the service exemplified in the Cross.

True resolution comes through service and love not force and conflict. Jesus became weak in order to conquer death. So we must also become weak if we are to truly empower our Churches to find Jesus.  Your church may have lots of things you don’t like about it and things you might want to change. Bring up your ideas but do so in a serving way. Be in relationship with your church members. Live life with them; get to know them beyond the shallow greetings that are most Sunday morning interactions (it means you’ll have to do something not on Sundays…). And as you serve them as you open your life to them and they open their life to you, then you’ll be able to dialogue in a natural holistic way (perhaps you’ll discover that your agenda isn’t as “God’s Agendaish” as you thought it might be). And perhaps those changes will come…but even if they don’t your role is to imitate Christ and serve…so chill.

So here are two ideas I have to live this out practically (I bet there are plenty more…and I hope these are actually practical):

1) Be quick to say “I’m Sorry”

I wish I could say that in my experiences, when I do something that offends or bothers someone in church, they most often come speak to me one on one to work out whatever issue may have happened. Unfortunately…that isn’t how I find out about it. Usually they vent to someone and then through various lines of communication it gets back to me that “So and so is ticked off because you did whatever I did.”

When this happens, I usually get very frustrated. I feel disrespected that so and so didn’t come talk to me first. I feel defensive and attacked. I feel hurt that someone doesn’t trust my decisions for whatever reason. And honestly, I feel a slight pinge of superiority because I’m the Bible trained individual…I know what I’m talking about (I don’t actually feel this way normally…this is just how I feel when I get angry).

And I could stand on my horse of self-righteousness (named Justice the Horse of Righteous Indignation) and say, “well it’s their responsibility to come to me” and then do nothing. Or I can remember that Jesus calls us (and models for us) to go to people who we need to be reconciled with and…well…be reconciled to them.

This means finding them, calling them and working towards solving the issue that came up. We begin with “I’m sorry I did not communicate well enough” or “I’m sorry this upset you, that was not my intention” or “I’m sorry…*insert your line here*” We say “I’m sorry” first because this is a non-offensive engagement. It waves a white flag before arms have been raised. It BEGINS the conversation from a place that recognizes brokenness in the relationship and a desire to find healing.

Remember, serving is not about being right, it’s not about feeling superior to the other…it’s about considering the other as more important. Maybe they don’t “deserve” that kind of treatment. Maybe they mistreat us. But then we look to the Cross, and all that matters is His example, His drive for self-love and we in turn…are transformed.

2) Remember, the Holy Spirit brings the Transformation

The other day one of our members and I were talking. There was a young man there who looked rather sloppily dressed and was wearing a hat on his head in the middle of church service (which for many people is a sin akin to adultery and kitty kicking). He mentioned how he saw that hat on and he wanted to go over there and ask him to take it off, he felt that the kid was being rude (somehow hats inside are super offensive…which I still don’t get).

But then the member said, “But I didn’t because I realized, I don’t know that young man. I don’t know his story and honestly, it’s not a big deal he’s wearing a hat…at least he is here today.”

That member didn’t come to that conclusion because we did a series on clothes and church. That member came to this conclusion over a long period of time of self-reflection and a realization that some things really aren’t that important. And you know who led him to this conclusion…the Holy Spirit.

When you listen to some people talk about their ministries, you’d think they never heard of this guy (or celestial being…or gender neutral third part of the Godhead, unless you don’t believe in a Trinitarian God in which case…um…I don’t know what to tell you on that one). They talk with the force and weight that it’s our job to bring change to the Church. But it’s not our job. Transformation is the work of the Holy Spirit.

Consider this, when it comes to change, we’re thinking only on the surface behavior level. We’re thinking only on the actions. But the Holy Spirit brings a change that is deeper…it cuts to the very core of the individual and through the Holy Spirit we are ontologically (a big school word for our being, our essence) made new and different. When we forget about that, we become manipulative, coercive, and prideful and a whole slew of other feelings that are from the sin-system which Christ saves us from.

The Holy Spirit moves inside all of us. Let’s get out of His way. Let’s let Him work. Remember, we are invited to join in His work, His actions, His movements and not the other way around.

Let me tell you about my church. I work at the Eastside Church of Christ in Antioch, Ca. My church has been here for about 60 years (give or take). The building was built by many of our current members back in the day. We run anywhere from 150-186 (unless it’s Easter or Christmas and then we discover we have 250 members). About two thirds of the congregation are above the age of 50 it seems.

We are part of the Christian flavor that was born out of the American Restoration Movement of the 19^th century. We are acapella (which means no instruments). We take communion every week and recently we discovered that at baptism, we are literally indwelled by the Holy Spirit (to be clear there wasn’t a fire that rained down on someone, we just read the Bible and had some really good discussions). We struggle financially at times. Many of our members seem to be content just coming on Sunday mornings. We have chili cook-offs and bake sales and the occasional potluck. Our staff is me, the preacher and our secretary (who will mess you up, so don’t cross her…or print color copies).

We’re not cutting edge on anything. We’re pretty normal and probably as average of a congregation as a congregation can be. We love God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. We consider ourselves a family (which is true to some extent because half of the congregation is related to someone else in the congregation).  We have a huge pantry ministry. But the thing I want you to know most about my congregation is:  

I LOVE MY CONGREGATION.

We aren’t perfect. We won’t be getting a spotlight or invited to talk about how great of an outreach ministry we have. We haven’t written the book on how to have a worship service that is always energetic and inspiring. But I really love my congregation. I love the people I get to work alongside. I feel at home here. In many ways, I grew up here. I would take a bullet (maybe even more than one) for my church.

Why do I love them? Simply put, because they’re MY church (I mean MY not in the personal possessive, as if I own them sense but rather the “I belong here” sense). Ever since I met them back in 2006, I felt a deep sense of calling to be out here, to be at this place for however long the Lord asked of me. I believe this is one of the central reasons why I have been here as long as I have (another blog in the series will discuss calling). Above everything else, beyond the disappointments and struggles, I love my church and that won’t ever stop (even if I do leave one day…but that’s a separate blog for another day).

Church work is hard. It’s probably because church people are so remarkably frustrating at times. How is it that someone who has been a Christian for 60 years can still hold the capacity to act like a 13 year child? How is it that we are so deeply attached to one style of song that we grumble and complain if we change styles and lose interest in worship? Why does it really matter if I wear shoes on Sunday if the Lord can see my heart? I’ve had lots of silly conversations,  which do seem to be more like Satanic distractions than honest pursuits of God’s kingdom. And sometimes…it can get very tiresome.

But I believe that my love for the Church (Big C and Small c) is not built on conditions and what I get out of it.  I believe this love for my church came when I really began to understand the unconditional love of God. It was a few years ago (maybe 2009) and I was very frustrated with some things going on. The type of frustration that says, “I understand why ministers leave.” But I didn’t leave because I decided that since God doesn’t give up on me, I wouldn’t give up on my church (also I made a five year commitment when I got hired…more on that in a future post). I decided then and there to love my church regardless of what happened (and for the life of me, I can’t remember what those factors were anymore).

A great analogy is the love I have for my son. I have loved my son even before I knew him. And the minute I saw him, I loved him even more. It’s not like he did anything to earn this love (in fact, at times he seems to actively try and do stuff to make me not love him). I just…love him. It’s hard to describe but it’s entirely unconditional.

 We need to rediscover this kind of love for churches. Churches today (because of negative media attention on the worst of the worst of Christianity) have a bad rap and as ministers it is very easy to jump on the band wagon of “churches suck.” This is why unconditional love for Churches in general needs to be revitalized. We discover this love when we reflect on and examine the Cross of Christ. If we lose this connection, if we lose this unconditional love then we cease to run ministries…we cease to follow Jesus. At this point we become nothing more than a somewhat lame social club or a night as creative service group (or dare I say the babysitting service that so many parents treat us like).

Perhaps we have lost some understanding of unconditional love because the love of God doesn’t seem as shocking as it once did. Consider John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…” Often times we go to this verse as a proof text for faith in Jesus (or to hold up at a sporting event). Anytime you proof text, you take the true weight of the text away, you have depowered it by butchering it to fit into your little box. But this verse speaks something very shocking that we often times miss: God loves the world.

Why is this shocking? In the gospel of John this is shocking because “the world” represents darkness and sin, the place of chaos and disorder. Why in the world would God love a place of chaos and disorder? Why would God love a place of darkness? We take for granted the fact that He created us when we forget the shocking truth of God’s love. We think, “of course He loves us…He made me…duh.” It should actually be, “Woah…He loves us…He shouldn’t…but He does.” That’s unconditional love for you. When everything says, “Don’t love this” you say, “I love you.”

To close I want to think about two practices that can help us rediscover love for our churches (or practices to help us increase the love for our churches…depending on where you find yourself).

1) Do not Compare Your Ministry to Another

                Yes, there is a lot of frustrating moments in church work and often times we can become discouraged by the problems we see in our ministries that we begin to look for a better ministry with less problems. Let me be clear: EVERY MINISTRY HAS PROBLEMS!! It is very easy to believe the grass is greener on another lawn in church work. That is because church suffer from (excuse the crude metaphor) HFFA syndrome (Hot From Far Away…again, very sorry for the crude illustration). Religious people have been masters of pretending like we are perfect and faking our beliefs since the dawn of religions. At a distance (especially when you’re frustrated) another ministry might seem like the best decision ever. But that’s only an illusion brought on by a distant perspective.  You don’t see the whole story and what you see is already rose colored because you think “surely anything is better than this.”

                Remember also, at the Cross we see that God is best known in human suffering. I believe we see the fullness of God expressed on the suffering servant Jesus, the self-giving sacrifice of the Son. God uses that brokenness to bring about resurrection and transformation. Throughout all the Bible we see that God uses broken vessels for His glory. God uses those frustrating moments to better the kingdom…if you’re see them all the way through and listen for God’s voice in them.

2) Brag About Your Church

                This shouldn’t be hard for a youth minister. I believe there’s a certain level of egotistical behavior that exists within everyone who feels called to youth ministry (no offense to anyone, but doesn’t it seem like many of us are just insecure little boys?…maybe it’s just me). Because of this we love to brag (especially at conferences). But the problem is we brag about the wrong things. We brag about the numbers, the fun activities, the dumb things we got away with. We need to reinvent the art of Church brag.

                Let’s instead brag about the adults in our churches. Let’s practice making them heroes of our stories instead of the frustrating villain who stands in the way of whatever super important agenda item that came from God that we absolutely must push and push now!! We lose love when we forget that god is working in our churches. We must throw off the burden of frustrations and put on the ….um…shoulder pads (need a better illustration) ?…of good news about our churches. We need to practice Philippians 4: 8-9 with our churches.

                So let me tell you about my church.  Let me tell you about June Chandler, the grandma of three of our students who brings them to church on Sundays and every Sunday when I stand up to lead worship (I lead worship every Sunday) she waves at me in front of everyone…and I love it. Let me tell you about Vickie and Dennis Easterday who went to Honduras last year and fell in love with the people and mission there. This year they’re going back and taking three teens with them (without me…which is sad because I want to go D=..but it’s also good).

So if you want to stay at your church…you got to learn to love the people for who they are, just as God loves you. The rest of the posts won’t be this long…sorry for the length.

A week or two ago I read a quote from Mark Devries on a friend’s blog about youth ministers needing to work on longevity at their churches. My friend and I agreed that Devries comments were true and good. But I want to take the conversation out of the “hey that’s a good idea” into the world of “hey that’s idea is good and I want to actually pursue it and here’s how.” Thus I’m writing a few blog posts about how to stay at one church for longer than 2 or 3 years. I thought this would be a fun topic for my blog…especially since I rarely actually type about youth ministry on my blog (look at me…growing as a person with a blog!!).

Now let me be clear, most of these thoughts are probably just theoretical…I hope to be practical but I’ve never been very good with action plans or anything…sorry. Also, while I have been at the same church since 2006, I’m not really sure I’m qualified to speak to the subject of longevity in youth ministry. I’m honestly not sure I’m qualified to speak about much, but I believe youth ministers must work to staying longer than many of us do, and I’m passionate about longevity in ministry so whether or not I say anything helpful, I do enjoy being part of the conversation.

At the beginning of this series, I want to explain why I believe youth ministry is a viable ministry for today’s culture (remember a year or two ago there was this one movie about how youth ministry was unbiblical and bad? Yeah…those people are silly and I firmly disagree with them). God is moving in this world to bring redemption and healing to an enslaved and broken creation. At the cross we see the self-giving love of Christ (as being the best expression of God) for humanity’s forgiveness. At the Cross Jesus stands alongside the suffering, the rejected, the broken, the hurting and the despised. At the Resurrection, Jesus conquers death and breaks the bonds of sin that are so deeply wrapped around our world. At the Resurrection, something wholly (and holy) new begins; a new era, a new age…a transformed movement where God is bringing His kingdom and His justice to bring freedom to all.

As a part of that God equips His people to be His ambassadors with this new message of transformation and hope. He sends His disciples throughout the whole world proclaiming the power of Jesus inviting others to be disciples and to participate in all that God is doing. As disciples we go out to different cultures and people groups. We learn about their values, their symbols, their beliefs, their hopes, their hurts…we learn about the people (or rather the person…we disciple persons not just groups). Adolescents is its own culture and sub-culture. Within these different sub-cultures (that make up Adolescents) we see a variety of values, symbols, hopes and hurts. God cares about people where they are and sends us out into these cultures to bring God’s Good News to them.

Youth Ministry is ultimately an expression of this work. It responds to the invitation to participate God’s action to the culture of today’s adolescent. This is why we do what we do.  While we certainly help (please not the word help there) parents who are already believers raise their children in light of the work of God on the Cross and through the Resurrection…we are not meant to be purely inwardly focused. While we do educate and teach about God, we are not simply teachers and educators.

Youth Ministers (and I mean this term in the broadest sense, namely, anyone who wishes to help today’s teenager/ adolescent join in and participate in god’s actions) are people who enter into the world of the adolescent and get to know the individuals we meet.  We walk alongside these people as equals, seeing them not as secondary citizens, but as humans who have real problems, real hopes, real experiences. We invite them to be equal partners in the kingdom of God who God will also use for His glory, in their own experiences with their own friends. We reach out to them as God has reached out to us. We show them love, we show them compassion, we stand with them because we know our God is doing all of this and more.

Ultimately, youth ministry (like any ministry) is a human expression of the divine actions of God. It is our privilege to share the Good News and to help adolescents find the space in life for the Holy Spirit to speak and be heard in the depth of their very souls.  It is a holy calling one not to be taken lightly. So as we enter into discussions of longevity and ministry, let us remember that we are not talking about a simple job. We’re not talking about how to earn a pay check. We’re talking about participating in the Cross and Resurrection alongside a sub-culture that is crazy, funny, frantic , insane and is made by people who bear the image of our Holy Creator (like all of us).

The other day I came across an article about Pizza Hut’s new Crazy Cheesy Crust. It’s their new attempt to stuff as much cheese into a pizza as humanly possible and while, the heart healthy side of me is concerned by this (he’s also teamed up with Major Buzzkill Kyle to point out this is simply another symptom of the rampant gluttony that is our national stomach…I hate both of them so much for being ruiners and parade rainer oners) the other side of me that likes lots of cheese on my pizza thinks this is awesome…to have only once. Around that time, I read another article about the Pope Francis (whom I lovingly refer to as New Pope) giving a child with cerebral palsy a hug…and going out of his way to do so I believe.

And then a ray of brilliance and epicnitude struck…I want to eat the Crazy Cheesy Crust with the Pope!! I mean…why not? I think New Pope is so far proving to be a fantastic addition to the line of Popes. I mean come on…the main held a Mass in a Juvenile detention center and then WASHED THEIR FEET!! That is just profoundly inspiring.

Now of course, some in my flavor of Christianity are opposed to all things Catholic Church. And they have their right to their opinions but I know some deeply spiritual and faithful people in the Catholic Church and I don’t see a need to condemn them…besides, the call to decide who is in and who is not in belongs to God and Jesus and I think it’s best not to try and steal that from them. But I want to explain why I want to meet this Pope.

I want to meet this Pope not because he is some holy man and I would do well to be blessed by him, nor is it because I like people who wear funny hats and ancient attire and are bilingual. Nor is because I’m particularly fond of Argentinians (which is not to say I’m particularly opposed to Argentinians either). I want to meet New Pope and have pizza with him because he is someone, who has achieved the highest point in his career, the most power in the Catholic Church and instead of lording it over people…he bends his knee and washes feet (oh who does that sound like…oh what’s his name…tip of my tongue). I want to meet New Pope because I would be better by surrounding myself with models of selfless love who give or God’s kingdom (even if we have particularly vast disagreements about Mary).   

But today I got to thinking…what is so special about New Pope? Aren’t I somewhat missing his example and message if I begin to treat him like a Rock Star because of his humility? Isn’t that a touch of irony? What makes New Pope more deserving of Crazy Cheesy Crust pizza over the guy on the corner who claims to be homeless? It’s certainly a more popular story I guess and perhaps would be more memorable…but it wouldn’t be more like Jesus. It might give me a great shirt idea…but it wouldn’t take the least of these in this world by the hand and show them love.

So I’ve resolved two new ideas: First, I want to start having pizza with guys on the corner. Just share a Za with the man or woman and talk. Hear their story, know their name and do this more and on a somewhat regular basis…maybe once a month.  Second, I want to have Pizza with the Pope (because papal pepperoni would still be fun!!) but now I think we should have pizza in the tenderloin of San Francisco. An even better day would be to sit next to Francis and a bunch of people who live on the streets and just sit and eat some Za as equals. This would be a perfect slice of Heaven in this world!!

Now…how to make this happen…Joe any ideas?