Thursday Night Lesson

An important lesson to learn early in life is one of personal responsibility. For the next three weeks our Thursday night teaching series will be grounded in responsibility. This week we are focusing on the principle, you reap what you sow. This principle fits perfectly into our overall theme of personal responsibility.

I was never good at speaking Spanish, let alone understanding it. I struggled through it for the first month of my freshmen year until I decided to take advantage of a good friend of mine. He was Mexican and spoke Spanish fluently at home. So we made a little agreement and he allowed me to copy off his tests for the rest of the year. I passed Spanish 1 with a B+. Not too bad if I do say so myself. The following year Spanish 2 came around and we were going to renew our agreement from the following year. I would copy his work and pass the class. However, there was a breakdown in the plan. He ended up taking Spanish 2 over the summer because he wanted to take auto-shop during the normal school year. Because of his choice (notice I put the blame on him) I now had to fight my way through Spanish 2 learning the basics that I was supposed to have already known while keeping up with the more advanced teachings of my Spanish 2 class. Never has the principle you reap what you sow hit closer to home then my first two years of Spanish class.

I ended up passing the class with a C- thanks to some extra credit reports and a website called freetranslator.com (which it turns out does a horrible job of translating English to Spanish). The website barely helped with my homework. I was able to understand the big picture but not all of the details. Example: I understood that I need to give directions on how to get to the library but I had no idea how to give directions. There was no way I could explain to him that the library was on the other side of town, he needed to take the gray taxi, which cost 5 dollars (cinco pesos?), and cross the street to the left.

If high school students understand that in life we reap what we sow apply it to their life it will be amazing to see what they have accomplished ten years from now. What have you been sowing? Are you scared or excited of what you will be reaping?

The important things in life

For those of you who follow my blog you are well aware that I focus on the serious and important issues in life. I ran across this video and it has helped me out in many social interactions. I hope it will be useful to you as well.

Faith and Doubt

This Thursday's message is dedicated to a student named Chris. His honesty and desire to know Jesus is contagious and inspiring. One night, while we were in the mountains for winter camp, he asked the question, "How do you know God is real"? from that point on I've been challenged to give him an answer that is helpful and honest both biblically and from my own experience.

While studying I searched through the scriptures to see if there were examples of people who doubted the existence of God and the words of Jesus. I was very encouraged. I hope you will be too.

1) John the Baptist: His ministry was dedicated to preparing the way for Jesus. His message was simple; Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near. He told everyone that the savior was coming. Fast-forward a bit to Luke 7:20 we read that John the Baptist, now in prison, sent some messengers to Jesus to ask, "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" He didn't know!!! He doubted. He wasn't sure that Jesus was really the one! I love that. As a pastor who points people to Jesus sometimes I find myself praying, are you really the one? because I was sort of expecting something a little different to happen...

2) Peter in prison: Acts 12 tells the story of Peter in prison while in Rome and how people from his church gather to pray for his release. Peter has the same prayer and then an angel appears to bring him out of prison and he thinks its a silly dream. Well he ends up at the house where the people had been praying and a servant girl answers the door and is so shocked that he arrived she leaves him outside and runs to tell the others. The others don't believe her as well and Peter is left outside standing at the door! Eventually Peter enters the house and the Bible says everyone was amazed to see him.
They prayed for his release and when it happened, they didn't believe it. I've had so many prayers like this one.

3) The Resurrection of Jesus: When the girls arrive at the disciples house after looking at the empty tomb they tell everyone that Jesus is no longer there. He has risen. And the disciples don't believe them. They have to see it for themselves. These are the guys that walked with Jesus and listened to all he had to say. Jesus told them this would happen and they didn't believe it when it finally did.

Throughout my study this week I have been encouraged by the fact that those who were close to God still had their doubts. My prayer for the students in our ministry is that they would remain faithful to following Christ even though they occasionally have their doubts.

Stuff Christians Like

I had two minutes to skim this book while in Barnes and Noble. I'm so excited to read it. I've grown up in the church and can say that I'm guilty of about 90% of these. I'll provide a list of some of my favorites below. I think the idea of "Stuff Christians Like" is brilliant. It reminds to me laugh at myself and reflect on why I'm really doing, saying, or acting a certain way. I love it. I'm going to pick up the book in a couple of weeks and I'm excited to do a book review! Check out a list of my favorites below. How many do you identify with?

#1. Putting a God spin on popular secular ideas.
#23. Tattoos for God
#34. Subtly finding out if you drink beer too.
#55. Getting a precise definition of virgin from your youth minister.
#71. Calling things “postmodern”
#80. Fixing things with “mo prayer.”
#96. Using God’s Favorite Word
#105. Wishing your testimony was more exciting
#106. The Side Hug
#121. Thinking God’s call will be long and detailed
#115. Kissing Dating Goodbye
#154. Breaking up after a retreat
#157. Testamints – Sending bad breath to hell
#188. Judging someone’s faith based on their Bible underlining.
#202. Thinking Vegas is slightly worse than hell
#231. Drinking Coffee in church.
#232. The magical power of denim
#252 Youth leader that makes everyone cry during games with his over competitiveness.

A Jesus Moment In A Restaurant

I was sitting in my booth and I overheard a conversation between two women. They have not seen each other in about six months and decided to meet up in the desert to have a "girls weekend." They sat down and began updating each other on everything that has been going on. As I listened in I realized that updating each other on life really means complaining about everything. Here is what I mean...

One women began talking about how her husband continually screws everything up around the house. She joked that he's a horrible husband and she she only stays with him because he brings home a lot of money which she can spend when she goes shopping with her friend. The other women jumped in with annoying habits that her co-worker has. They seemed to have found common ground about work because they hated what they did, hated the people they worked with because they were idiots, and hated the paycheck they received from it. They then started to complain about how Obama has screwed up the economy and how their 401k has taken a hit, and on and on and on they went.

I realized that I spent my whole lunch break listening in on their conversation and they complained the whole time. Then I had my Jesus moment. Ephesians 4:9 popped into my head - Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

I began to reflect on my life and realized that I too, can complain with the best of them. I have tried to take this week and be thankful for what the Lord has provided for me and my wife. We both have jobs, a paycheck, good health and friends. Is everything perfect? Of course not! But I have seriously tried not to be apart of conversations where people complain about other people. Having conversations that build people and benefit others who listen in is a difficult task. But, it is a necessary one. And for the times I find myself wanting to complain about someone, I have found that I better having actually talked to the person who frustrates me. This seems to talk care of the issue and we both benefit.

Complaining is a very easy thing to slide into. I wonder what goes through the mind of non-Christians when they know we're supposed to love our neighbor but all they hear us talk about is how inept they are and how we can't stand them.

Back to Basics

My dad didn't care much for basketball, but he loved legendary coach, John Wooden. He would always tell me stories of how successful he was as a coach and try to explain to me John's coaching principles. One of the stories my dad liked to tell was at the beginning of each season coach would sit down with his players and teach them the basics. He would walk out on to the field and explain to everyone on the team what a gym sock was and how to properly put it on your feet. John always said that if you don't put your socks on correctly you'll get blisters and you won't perform at your best. He would then go on to explain what a basketball was, how to properly lace your shoes, wear your uniform and then explain the rules of the game. He did this at the beginning of every season. Personally I thought this was a bit much and if I were a senior I'd get really frustrated with the first month of practice!

Another story that my dad liked to tell is how the coach new the strengths and weaknesses of every player. He know the personalities of everyone on his team. He knew that the best way to motivate one player was not necessarily the best way to encourage another player. He would scream and yell at some players and quietly walk over to another player and put his arm around him and give him a little pep talk. Growing up I thought this was unfair because I was probably the player getting yelled at and would get frustrated to watch another player screw up and not get yelled at. It just didn't make any sense to me.

I never really understood the importance of these principles until I began ministry. There are moments in ministry where you need to take a step back and start from the ground up. I love taking a Sunday morning to pause, hold my Bible up in the air and tell students, "This, is a Bible! there are rules and principles in here on how to live life. There are stories in here that will help you know who God is. And if you follow what is in here you will truly be living life, not just getting by." I once heard a story of a pastor who was always accused of not going "deep" enough in his sermons. He always talked about God and loving your neighbor. His response was brilliant. he said, "Every time we gather as a church I will teach about loving God and loving people, once we master that, we can move on to something "deeper." He was teaching the basics. Come to think of it, Jesus seemed to always be teaching basics.

I also learned from coach Wooden the importance of knowing your students. Every teenager that steps into our ministry has a different background and brings with them their own baggage. Teenagers don't respond the same as their peers do. So, conversations, teaching and discipleship must be done differently for every student.

As our ministry continues to grow I am making a conscience decision to always go back to the basics of sin, Jesus, and love. I'm taking time to learn more about my students and how to appropriately respond to them. And once we have mastered the basics of loving God and loving people we will move on to the other stuff.

Reflections of winter camp

Instead of telling all the amazing stories that happened up at winter camp I've decided to do bullet points of all the high lights. For all the details of the story ask your kids!

The BEST memories and experiences at camp!
1. Watching our students truly enter into worshiping God.
2. The Piano Kitty.
3. Late night conversations in the cabins.
4. Being snowed on!
5. Feeling the burdens of sin lifted off everyone's shoulders as they embraced God's forgiveness.
6. JUNK FOOD!
7. Not having to preach and run the weekend retreat!
8. The worship leader sounded like Eddie Vedder meets Scott Stapp. It was magical!
9. Piano Kitty.
10. Seeing old friends and developing deeper relationships with my students.
*BONUS*
11. Witnessing the spiritual growth and relational change in everyone from PULSE. Our youth group is turning into a family. Its exciting and encouraging.