To Be Hungry...

The purpose of this post isn't to show that I'm a "Super Christian" because I'm not in any way. Nor am I trying to show off what I do. I just want to be able to share the way God has been blessing me through one on one times with him. With that being said...

This morning I had an amazing quiet time. I think I've finally found the groove that connects me to God in my quiet time. Someone once said "If you're bored during your quiet time, God probably is too." That made sense to me, and I decided there had to be some changes in our quiet time together.

There was a time when I was against having a quiet time with God, and I know some of you will gasp and wonder what I'm talking about but let me explain. I had a professor in Bible college that related our relationship with God to hunger. When we get hungry, we eat. When we hunger for God, we should eat. To me, that made sense. And then I learned about how each person connects to God in a different way. Some connect through singing. Some through prayer. Nature. Fasting. Silence. Solitude. Giving. I started to put things together that you don't necessarily have to have a quiet time every day where you read your Bible, but maybe taking one of those elements and doing it when you felt "hungry".

The problem is, our stomachs are naturally designed to tell us when we're hungry. We haven't really trained ourselves to listen to when our souls are hungry. I found that I was actually starving my soul AND I wasn't giving it a normal diet of different foods.

Scripture HAS to be part of our connecting with God otherwise we're having one way conversations. We do all the talking and we refuse to allow God to talk to us. Scripture is the way God connects to us on a one on one basis and shows us what we need to do and what we need our attitude to be. Thankfully, I figured this out a couple of years ago and it's been my life line to God in ministry. Now I'm going to just give a model of how I connect to God, feel free to end your reading now if you don't really care so much, I understand ;)

Here is how I connect:

1. First thing I do when I get into my office is open my Bible and either a) read where I feel God guiding me to read. b) Continuing on with a book. I read through the Gospels last year and now I'm reading through some Psalms.
2. I sometimes have a book that I'm reading and I'll read a chapter. Currently I'm reading this book and it's been amazing!
   
3. I have a journal that I keep regular entries in. I have a hard time praying out loud/in my head. My mind goes every where. So when I am able to sit down and write out my prayers, not only do I have a record that I can go back to and see how God answered my prayer, but I can focus on what I'm praying about. Gives me a little more concentration.
4. Sometimes I'll go up to our local forestry and take a lunch, a book, my bible and my journal and hike up to the tallest point in the county. I just have a quiet time and read and pray and it's just a wonderful time to spend with God. I call it a day of refreshment.

Spending personal time with God is essential in any believers daily life. He refreshes us. He corrects us. He encourages us. He disciplines us. He loves us through his words. Take time to be in his word.

Willow Creek Repents?

For those that know me well enough, know that I really cannot stand Willow Creek. I've never liked their methods, their shallow practices, and the fact that they charge outrageous prices for their materials.

Anyways, I came across this article this morning about how they decided their programs were just wrong. A direct quote from Bill Hybels:

"We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own."

It's an article from last year, but still worth the read. Read the rest here.

Youth Ministry is Broken

Let's face it. Youth ministry as we have known it is broken. It no longer "works". I've studied enough and been with enough youth ministers to know that the youth ministry that worked back in the 70's and 80's no longer works today.

Here is what we have done for the past 30+ years:

Church hires youth pastor.
Youth pastor creates fun and engaging programs.
Youth pastor encourages kids to show up and 'bring friends'
Friends become part of youth group.
The world is saved.

Heres the problem: We're still doing that today and it clearly is not working. I've had the opportunity to get to talk to a lot of different pastors here in the past 2 years. Some are my friends that I went to school with and some have been in it a LOT longer than me. They're having the same troubles that our church is having in relation to their youth. Namely not showing up and not getting involved. That makes me feel a little better as I've struggled for months believing that maybe, possibly it was all my fault. Of course there is still that nagging possibility that I am the problem.

Post-modern youth ministry HAS to change in order to survive. How? Wow! I wish I knew the answer to that so I could write a book and make millions. My gut feeling is that parents have to take more of an initiative to get involved in the ministry process. Church youth ministry should ALWAYS be the complement to what is going on at home. The discipleship process should always start at home. When that influence isn't there at home, such as in the case of unbelieving parents, thats when the church becomes more instrumental in the discipleship process.

Something needs to change.

What I would love to do is completely cut off all church activity for a year. No Wednesday Nights. No Sunday nights. No events. Just worship on Sunday mornings. Getting OUT of the cycle of monotony and living the believers life in simplicity of every day life for just a year. Of course, I would be fired for such a suggestion as it is my job to keep everything busy. There...I said it, and I'm not taking it back either!

I always hear about big words like "missional" and "attractional" and why it is bad to be the latter and how we need to be the former. I would agree with that, but how do you share that mindset to other people? That is a complete paradigm shift and people will only believe it when they learn it for themselves. We're fighting 50+ years of church tradition, and that in itself is a near impossible task.

It is my prediction, that within the next 50 years, the churches that are refusing to make these radical changes will either cease to exists, or on the brink of death. I'm not saying that's a bad thing...maybe thats what we need. Being in a section of the country that you can throw a rock and hit 4 or 5 churches in a single throw, less churches may be a good thing.

We need a change. A drastic change. What kind of change, I haven't a clue and I'm always open to suggestions. Let us continue to seek the face of God in all of this as we struggle on making his Kingdom more of a reality here on earth.

The questions kids ask

A couple of weeks ago I started a "series" in our Junior worship (1st grade through 5th grade) about "Questions about God". I challenged the kids to write down a question that they had about God or the Bible or anything in the church and I was pretty excited that they accepted the challenge with an amazing gusto!

The first question I got? "How can God be three different people?"

From a 4th grader. We have a young theologian in our group!

But I wanted to focus on the question that I got this morning from a third grader. She asked: "Why do we do bad things that we know is (are) wrong?"

Good question, I wish I knew the answer to that. If I did, I'd sell more books than Rick Warren!

Paul kind of struggled with the same question in Romans 7:15

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing."

To sum up, we are evil creatures. This is the only part of my theology where I come close to being a Calvinist. I believe that we are totally and utterly depraved, unable to do any good EXCEPT through the grace of God. Only God allows us to come to him and accept his love and grace.

I often think about the decisions I make in life and ministry. Am I making this decision because it is what I believe God wants? Or am I doing this because I want the glory of it? The eternal struggle between what I want and what God wants is nothing new, it's been going on since day 10* of creation.

Only when we get to heaven will we finally be able to live in total and complete righteousness.

*Day of the first sin is only an approximate...but you knew that already.

No longer Christian, but disciple

I have decided to no longer call myself a “Christian”. Before you panic, let me explain. We throw around this term ‘Christian’ all the time. We talk about a Christian nation. We talk about Christian leaders and Christian families. Unfortunately, the name which used to signify someone being a dedicated and committed believer in Jesus no longer means that at all.

ABC News recently ran a poll and discovered that 83% of Americans call themselves Christians. Wouldn’t this country be a much better place if that were certainly true! I believe that the term Christian has simply become a term that someone believes in God. And that’s about it. Maybe they go to church once or twice a year for a holiday. There is no difference in lifestyle or worldview. Author Bill McKibben discovered that 40% of “Christians” can identify onlyfour out of the 10 Commandments.

The word ‘disciple’ has more of a deeper meaning and identification with Christ. If you remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 28: “Therefore go and make disciples…” Notice he didn’t use the word Christian, but the word disciple.

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:26-27.

The cost of being a disciple is steep. Being a disciple is more than going to church on Sunday. It’s more than participating in a committee. It is living out the faith every single moment of the day. From the time we wake up, to when we go to sleep. Faith is more than just calling ourselves “Christians”, it’s living it out every single day no matter how difficult it may be.

So I no longer identify myself as a Christian. That’s what 83% of Americans call themselves. I am a believer. A disciple of Christ.