An Exercise in Missing the Point.

A new job, a new responsibility. I always wrote short articles for the youth page of the newsletter in Assumption, but I always figured no one read those and mostly directed them at youth and/or their parents. Here, I write a full-page article for the monthly newsletter and imagine it may actually get read. 

I read half of a blog I saw linked today, then I got tired of reading it and wrote this response. 

 

 In the past several months, the topic of heaven and hell has kind of caught fire… so to speak. Rob Bell’s book, “Love Wins” seems to have touched off a flurry of books, blogs, public statements, and heated discussions about eternity.

-Could a loving God send people to hell?

-Won’t all people eventually be saved?

-Is hell even real?

    The questions keep on coming and continue to be replied to with still more variant answers. I think a person has to admit that some difficulties in the interpretation of scripture related to this topic exist, but personally I am beginning to think this is becoming an exercise in missing the point.

    Sure, this is a valuable topic to address. Sure it even affects the understanding or even the actual salvation of those who could be influenced by a person’s conclusions here.  So how is it missing the mark as far as relevance?

-Would God be pleased with a sermon where the focus is on how it is entirely unnecessary to be obedient to His call on your life?

-Would Christ be honored with the notion that his death on the cross was the excuse for sin more than the cure?

-Is the doctrine of universal salvation one that draws anyone to Christ?

    The answers seem obvious. Regardless of a person’s views on whether some spend and eternity in hell, or are punished for a limited time, or are immediately accepted into paradise, or are annihilated immediately – you have to ask the question of whether this is truly an argument worth prolonging. Is it a theological point worth centering your lifestyle on?

    The questions at the root of this controversy, it seems, is far too shallow. If we focus solely on what does or does not happen in and beyond physical death, we miss life. We miss abundant life, and so do those who could have been influenced by our witness.

    The good news is about eternal life, but also about a life on purpose. This life is more than a cosmic twiddling of the thumbs. We are called by God to salvation in Christ and a life empowered by His Spirit. The true test of this conversation may soon be in the question of not just how it affects the afterlife of the unbeliever, but how it affects the life of the believer.

A Whole Bunch of New Ways to Screw Up

So it has been a long time since I have made the time to sit down and write. I hate to say it, but I have been too busy. I am not that guy though, I am not busy. I like to think I am good enough at time management that I don't get to that point. I did.

In the last few months I have tried out for and accepted an offer for a new job, did all the summer youth ministry stuff in IL while preparing to do all the new preaching ministry stuff in NE, sold, trashed, or packed and moved everything I own into a house we located and purchased, and did all the little annoying things you have to do when you move. I think things are settling down though. I AM writing this about 15 minutes after I am supposed to be home, and that IS only because the old-lady-visit I had planned fell through... but it is slowing down.

So after 7-8ish years in youth ministry, I have made the rough transition into an area for which I am sorely lacking education and experience - the role of the senior minister. I feel confident that I have the ability to do this job well and the passion to do this ministry well, but I also have the ability to encounter many a misadventure along the way.

For quite I while I had considered what I would do if I were to become a senior minister, yet when the opportunity presented itself, most of those things flew out the window. I was worried about starting off right and setting the right tone until I realized that I want to be here for years and years and my first Sunday will be fairly irrelevant in reference to the body of work.

A church is a living organism and they are all different and constantly changing - even if they are fighting tooth and nail to avoid it. The church gets older or younger and bigger or smaller and more or less effective every week. I am starting to think that the key is to start making those changes on purpose, start making them take on a pattern of growth, and to start building momentum. Now to just figure out how...

Anger Door

My house has quite a few doors. I am rethinking starting a blog with that sentence. I might as well have started it, "You have my permission to stop reading now." My house DOES have several doors, though. I have taken to calling one the Anger Door. Not out loud, just in my head.

We live in a pretty old house, so everything is uneven and very few of our many doors work well. A quick mental count returns a grand total of 2 functional doors. My least favorite is the Anger Door.

The Anger Door leads to a small stairway down to a landing from which you can choose to either go outside or into the basement. One of the doors in the basement has the image of a clown on it created by gluing yard  to it in a clown shape. I don't know why. You can also access a pantry out the anger door by turning left before heading down to the landing. We enter and access this door multiple times a day - to get food, to let out our dog, to do laundry, to stare in wonder at the yarn clown - and each time the Anger Door does its work.

For some reason, in the last few months, this door has transformed to a poor fitting, cracked, ugly door into a uncloseable monster. A few years of use has conditioned us to simply shut the door normally and walk away, but now, inexplicably, it will not shut. If you shut it normally, it will just quietly swing it back open. If you slam it shut, it will make a loud noise then swing back open. If you really hulk out on it and actually get it to stick shut,  it sounds like you are completely enraged. Of course, though the door is shut, everyone thinks you actually are angry. More than once I have been asked why I was so angry after shutting the door. Sometimes, I just say - I'm not angry, I was just getting the door to stay shut. Sometimes, I AM angry because that was my fourth or fifth attempt at shutting the door.

Sometimes a person has to act out to get something done, and often that is misinterpreted. My son Jack used to get upset at me for yelling at mommy. He didn't understand that for a person who is upstairs to hear a person downstairs, your voice has to be raised - even if you are just asking for a pair of socks.

I have seen this rationale taken too far. Raising your voice, making a scene, or slamming a door isn't generally a mature way of handling conflict. Yes, you can generally get what you want if you are willing to act out in public, but when you do that you are a turd. I couldn't think of anything else I could put there. Turd will act as a placeholder for you to fill in an (in)appropriate word. Like a blog Mad Lib.

A subtle distinction needs to be made. When I am shutting the door with a level of violence because that is what it takes to shut the door, I am taking an appropriate course of action. If I am losing control of my emotions and lashing out at the door violently to bend it to my will, I am probably acting childishly. Is it the only way to shut the door? Yeah. Sometimes though, its best to just leave the door open for a bit.

Small victories, the only kind I get.

It has been far too long since I have taken the time to write. Over the course of 7 weeks in the time since I last blogged I had 5 scheduled weekend trips (one elementary students, one middle school, one high school, one middle and high school, and one family) and the added work of a sermon for one Sunday morning and one Lenten service. I never really "have the time," but I enjoy writing so I try to make the time - this stretch didn't allot for that even - so I have been holding it in.

Ministry can be discouraging and writing has been an outlet of sorts. It allows me to get my thoughts out and my experiences shared in a way that is generally healthy and sometimes even beneficial to someone other than myself. Oftentimes working full time in ministry can be unrewarding and work on burning you out. Trips like the ones I have been on recently generally help to counter that. Students can make leaps in spiritual growth, there is usually a new student or two invited on the trips, and often you see a bit of attendance bump from otherwise hit and miss students and new students. You get to watch and participate as students worship, as they become a part of something larger, as they start to "get it." It is a highly recommended experience... seriously, you should help me out - drive a van load of kids or something. Call me...

This year, we had the largest group of middle school students for the weekend conference since I came to Assumption. It was exciting. We came home and I was looking forward to seeing that group back  - it was only a few days until the next time our group would meet. That Wednesday only 2 of the 7 students were at youth group. That was fewer than usual even. We had maybe 5 kids total. Not a good week.

I put in a lot of time to prepare worship that is of the best quality I am capable of producing, a message that is relevant and engaging, activities that further the message, and small group time that helps them to personally apply the message... and less than 1/3 of the kids who were so pumped after this exciting trip made it last for half a week. I had plans to unveil the details for our big summer trip and be bombarded with immediate sign ups and it was going to be great and --- most of the people I expected to be there stayed home.

We worshiped all the same. I shared a message just the same. I presented the details for the summer trip just the same. Then something strange happened. They went bananas. Those few kids, some of whom were middle school students who DIDN'T go on the trip were so excited that they wouldn't let me talk. Kids who I never expected to step out and go on this trip were the first to bring back the deposit. Our small group time was cut to almost nothing because they were so fired up about the summer trip that they couldn't stop asking questions.

Expecting to go home crushed with disappointment, I went home strangely refreshed. No, our numbers didn't double overnight - in fact they went down. No, students weren't crying and making life changing decisions. Something was happening though. This was something new. This was a small victory. Sometimes that's all you get. This direction is right. This path, though difficult, is leading somewhere. Just a small victory. Sometimes that's all you need.

Understanding in a Car Crash

Sometimes I don't have anything new that I am really excited to write about. Sometimes that is because I still too embarrassed or endangered by my mistake to publicize it - other times it is because I don't find my gaff amusing enough to force the 6 people who somehow accidentally read this to suffer through it.

Today, I am going to take a page out of my Greatest Hits catalog. Today you hear about how my 1998 Pontiac Bonneville ended up teetering on top of a guard rail.

In the summer after my junior year at college, I got a great internship at a great church and spent the summer working with a few good friends and learned a lot from a few excellent teachers. It was also during this summer that I made one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made in youth ministry. This is, of course, how my car ended up perfectly balanced on a guard rail.

Near the end of the summer, the church hosted a vacation bible school. It was a larger church so it was also a larger VBS. As you might expect, us interns were asked to help with the program and spent the week leading games for what seemed like thirteen thousand little kids.

Gladly, we also had the help of a few of the more involved high school students. At the end of the program one night, my friend and fellow intern Robbie allowed one of these students to drive his car to a nearby restaurant where we were all going to grab something to eat and hang out a while. This student only had a learner's permit even though he was a senior, and since I also had a guy who fit that same bill in my vehicle I offered him the same opportunity. 

The guy in Robbie's car had driven with his parents and knew how to drive and was a normal human. The guy in my car had limited experience with go carts.

Having grown up in a more rural environment, I was used to pretty much everyone being experienced drivers by the time they were 12, so I assumed that a reasonably average 18 year old male could handle the job. At this point many would make use of a tired bit of wordplay to tell you what assuming does to a person, but I live in a town named Assumption so that joke has been done in my presence too poorly and too often for me to ever make use of it again.

We made it out of a small part of the parking lot with no more damage done than some jangled nerves, and I was starting to impress myself with my driver education prowess as I guided him around parked cars and away from retaining walls with relative ease. We made our way out to a lightly traveled side road and pulled up to a busy four lane road with a median where we were going to be making a right turn. Yeah, here we go.

I had him wait until there wasn't any traffic before venturing into the intersection and then, boy did he venture. He gave my beautiful Bonneville too much gas and shot us past our turn and into the far lanes before over correcting and turning a complete 180 and heading back in the direction from which we had come.

I feel it is important to note at this point that the name given to the youth ministry at that church was 180. In my mind that name had suddenly turned from a neat turn on the idea of repentance into a horrible sick joke.

We were heading directly towards a power line pole that had been to our right when we started into the intersection. The idea of simply using the brakes had not yet occurred to the driver. In what turned out to be a physics-defying move, he jerked the wheel right before impact and turned us 90 degrees to the left setting us in the exact direction we had originally wanted to go, except that we were not on the road. He had managed to turn the car precisely enough to fit in a space hardly large enough for the car and to get the driver's side wheels to run up a metal guard rail that ran to the ground next to the telephone pole.

He still didn't hit the brakes.

The car drove all the way up onto the guard rail before the wheels fell off and the car's momentum was stopped by a post meeting up with the underside of my car. Quite the rush.

The poor guy was freaking out. I was oddly calm and strangely amused. By the looks of things I had just had a great ride and my only problem was that my car was stranded on a guard rail and my radiator was punctured by a wooden post. The facts that I hadn't done anything illegal and that I had car insurance gave me some false sense of security.

Well, we stood by while a cop came and checked out the situation and a tow truck struggled mightily to remove my car from its perch. All the while, a stream of what was likely more than 100 cars of VBS parents and students slowly passed by, trying to use that same intersection but with one fewer lane to turn into.

Later on a lady from my home church who had moved to the area called my mom and told her the story of how she had driven past the scene where someone (apparently high on something) had driven up onto a guard rail. I wish I could have listened in on my mom explaining that this crazed car owner was her son.

I eventually found out that my frame was bent and my car was totaled, that the parents of the driver had no intention of helping with the cost, and that for the third time in about 4 years I would be buying a new car with no down payment. I was at least able to salvage my sweet CD player.

A while later the driver was at the church using a sledge hammer to break down a cinder block wall and managed to explode his thumb with one swing. I sorta believed in karma for a minute, and I still don't feel guilty that I got some level of pleasure from his pain. People tell me I should.

A youth minister is not a parent. I know that now. I have that line firmly established. As a youth minister I serve as a resource for parents and function most effectively with the support of parents, but I am only taking on the role of the parent for my own children. Driving lessons are being saved for the parents or paid professionals.

I am not sure it really took this experience to teach me that. I had a parent of a student in a previous ministry who was going to 5 or 6 basketball games a week for a while because his daughter was a cheerleader for those games who got upset when I didn't go to any of them. I see the (limited) value in attending those games, but the roles of the youth minister and the parent in supporting the child in such areas are vastly different.

When I teach, I often find myself saying - you can go ask your mom or dad about that. The birds and the bees are firmly in parent territory. So is the specific explanation of physical circumcision. So are a lot of things.

It is great to be involved in the lives of students. Some of the most rewarding relationships I have ever had began that way, but the relationship was never one of father and child. It is different and those on all sides ought to take note of the validity of that fact. I can understand the line getting fuzzy when a student doesn't have functional parental units, but most of the time when conflict in this area arises, it comes from a parent who is actually over involved rather than the alternative.

Where do you draw the line? How do you balance family and ministry? What do you expect of your ministers?

Important questions to ask yourself before you end up with a child in a Bonneville on a guard rail.

Sounds like the end of a game of Clue.

The party is long over, but my indigestion lingers on

I have a short memory. Sometimes it is a gift and sometimes....sometimes it is a curse.

Today, I declare it a curse.

With two young children, you get sleep when you can. If at all possible, I go to bed when I first get tired because I know that they will wake me up before I stop being tired - the only flexibility in the sleep schedule is on the front end.

If you are reading this today, you know that yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday. As I am an American male over the age of 11, I watched the game. I didn't really care who won and based my rooting bias on which team had an alumnus of my favorite college team (Packers running back Brandon Jackson is a former Husker), so I was a fairly passive observer in the game this year. I was really all about the hanging out and the commercials and the food. Oh the food. I love food.

We spent the evening at a friends house with a handful of others and we all brought something to eat. The highlights for me were the sausage and cream cheese wontons (taste like biscuits and gravy) and the cream cheese and meat wrapped pickles (and I don't even like pickles.) Really though, I ate the most from my own personal contributions to the spread - homemade Caribbean Jerk wings and jalapeno popper dip. Yeah, I did that. It was amazing. I won't bore you with the details, but let me assure you - it was my pleasure to overindulge. I washed it all down with a steady stream of Wild Cherry Pepsi - a suitable substitute when Dr. Pepper is absent.

I knew before we left in the third quarter to get our kids to bed that a storm was brewing that would not be calmed. I didn't really eat too much, but the combination of greasy, spicy foods eaten too late in the evening with caffeinated beverages consumed after supper time assured that I would be awake through the night in a sleepless heartburny nightmare before being woken up for good by my children at an unholy hour.

I should have known better.

I have lived this story before. Many, many times. Every time I declare I will not eat for days and will never eat like that again. Until now I have never kept that promise to myself and today it is only because I haven't had enough time for the opportunity to present itself.

Given the opportunity to eschew real food for delicious bowel churning trash... I will do it again. It is always worth it when I am eating and never worth it when I am propping myself up with pillows praying for a few hours of tortured sleep before dawn.

I often challenge students to think and decide rather than just act. I urge them to consider their motivations and the consequences - to be informed and purposeful. I regularly explain how that sort of discipline saves a lot of heartache, and in my case, heartburn.

What was the spread like at your Super Bowl party?
Any favorites?
Any regrets?

Let my igloo be your muse

As is true with much of the country, the town of Assumption Illinois has gotten substantially more snow than usual this winter. Each time it snows, we check to see if it is the right consistency to make a snowman with my son. Three different times, my wife checked it out and had my son and I bundled up and rushing out the door in snowmanticipation only to find out that she had judged the snow incorrectly. We then play around in the snow for a while before going back inside so that getting on all our warm clothing wasn't a total waste of time.

This past week, a few days after the snowpocalypse, we finally got some snow we could work with. Now, this wasn't quite snowman snow, but I quickly judged it capable of forming a sweet snow fort, or, dare I say, a stinkin' igloo.

I ran into the basement and grabbed a sled with a pull string and the two snow brick forms my parents bought for Jack last winter and got to work. I started with the weakly fort we had formed in a previous snow by making a snow pile between a tree and a slide and digging out the middle and got to work shoring it up.

Soon I was slowly making progress, alternating between loads of snow and trips around the yard with Jack in the sled. Once the base was done and I could start setting in rows of bricks, slowing sloping them towards the center, the work went pretty quick. Eventually I made a full arch over the doorway with Jack handing me bricks while I held the sides of the arch in place until the keystone was set.


That was the last help Jack provided. After that point I split my time between the igloo and Jack -- looking up to see he had disappeared and mounting the search to find him in the front yard, convincing him not to climb on or knock down the igloo, and asking him if he was alright as he laid on his side in the snow for more than a quarter hour.

The work wasn't easy, and the day after I am sore all over - but the hardest part was mentally convincing myself to keep working. Jack would have rather knocked it down than sat inside and wasn't all that interested in having a completed roof, so I quickly realized that I was a man of nearly 30 years old making a snow fort for myself.

Soon after I became encouraged that the end was in site, the construction got difficult. I was working on a small space inside the igloo, the snow was getting softer, the sides weren't sticking, and I experienced a few minor cave-ins. I was pretty close to declaring it "close enough."

Then Jack went inside the igloo and suddenly it was cool again. He wanted a ceiling, he liked his igloo. He wanted to help me make bricks and put them in the sled and pull it over. I took a step back and looked at the thing and it actually kinda looked like an igloo. I knew it would come together and it would be worth it if for no other reason than that I could show it off in pictures and give Jack that memory.

Filling in that last section wasn't pretty - it involved a few tries and some oddly shaped snow chunks and at least one frustrated outburst - but I did it. I don't know what use we will get from it, or how long it will even last, but I am pleased it is complete.

Sometimes we invest a lot of time and energy in projects and when the work starts to get tough, or our initial motivation wanes, or we experience set backs and discouragement, we declare it "good enough" and abandon the effort.

How much satisfaction do we miss out on when we close down shop early? How many successes do we turn into failures by cutting bait right before something takes the hook?

I am horrible at encouragement - in fact, if there is an opposite of a spiritual gift, that is what I have in that area - but let me offer this: if the goal is worthy, then perseverance is in order. Oftentimes the hardest bit is the bit right before we taste success. My six month old son Liam cries the hardest just before he gets to sleep. It is the most frustrating part of a given experience and it often doesn't make much sense that the goal would be attained so shortly after such upheaval, but let my igloo be your muse. Because it rules.

What or why?

In an average week, I teach in a formal setting at least 4 times. Four different lessons for two different basic age groups. Out of those four lessons, I prepare two entirely myself and work from curriculum on the other two. Each of the age groups gets one of each. I didn't do that intentionally, it just works out that way. I kind of like it that way.

I have found that I get far more excited about teaching and preparing for the lessons I am writing myself. I am forced to study the material more and familiarize myself with it to a much greater extent. Occasionally I will read back what I have prepared and realize that I stumbled onto something that I find to be even more applicable to my situation than to that of who I am teaching to.

This week I taught from Matthew 23 where Jesus woes the Pharisees. It is really kind of a funny chapter if you work hard to put yourself in the shoes of a person hearing it the first time around. It clarifies why, exactly, the Pharisees hate him so much. Jesus calls them out for tithing on their herbs but missing the bigger picture - straining a gnat and drinking a camel (not actually possible, but fun to think about). He then compares them to a dish that is cleaned on the outside but left dirty on the inside. If they didn't catch the subtlety there, he says they are like tombs that are nicely painted outside but are fully of decaying corpses on the inside.

I imagine that by that point people were trying to peek at their reactions without letting them know they were looking - and I imagine those stolen glances were greatly entertaining. He kind of started out mild with the herb tithing bit then got serious quick when he said their insides were dead and rotten.

He kind of made too points when he was calling out the Pharisees:
First, don't focus on the small things to the point that you miss the bigger picture and
B. Worry more about doing right than looking right.

So that is all out there already, but I got a bit more from it on the way. Jesus is focused on WHY we do something much more that WHAT we do while the Pharisees were so focused on WHAT was being done that the WHY became irrelevant.

I am a details oriented guy. Sometimes to a fault. I like to have everything neat and tied together. I have had to stop and take a step back at times to make sure that I am not planning based solely on the whats and that it is all centered on the whys.

The church here seems to be in a season of refocusing. It is easy to limit yourself to just the whats. Every aspect of normal church life can be reduced to the whats - and suddenly it becomes a to do list in the hands of the members who are willing to take care of things rather than a way of living together. Coming to a midweek ministry becomes a chore. Serving in the kitchen becomes a hassle. Taking time to talk is merely a roadblock to be avoided. Joining a small group is a life sentence and agreeing to teach one is a death sentence.

It could very well be that the whats don't change, but when the why's get lined up... things are entirely different. Taking time out of your week to serve or attend something immediately transitions from a task you dread to an event you look forward to. It isn't the what - the time and energy you spend as a thankless childrens' ministry volunteer, it is the why - the opportunity to dramatically impact the life of a young person who may otherwise have zero spiritual influence and few positive adult contacts in their lives.

When you worry more about the why that the what, you shift your focus from the little things to the big things and from outward appearances to inward reflections of Christ. Very often the only thing that needs to change in your life for dramatic spiritual growth to happen is a subtle change of perspective.

I have spit up on my sleeve

As I have been sitting at my computer working this morning, I keep noticing the white spot on the cuff of the right sleeve on my black hooded sweatshirt. The spot is of no surprise to me - I watched it happen. My five month old son spit up and it dribbled down his pajamas and ended up on me. This happens pretty much every day. Usually, a wipe of the burp cloth remedies the situation, but apparently this goop is made up of something special and it will not be removed.

A few weeks ago I went to a meeting and didn't realize I had a large spot of the same stuff on the upper portion of my chest, right where my son's face had been earlier in the day. This, friends, is the young-parent equivalent of walking into the room with your fly down. In a fit of self-conciousness, I just now checked to be sure my zipper was up. I would guess that 30% of you did at the same time - and by now that number is probably upwards of 50%.

Making a public appearance of any sort can be embarrassing when your lunch or someone else's lunch has secretly taken up residence on your apparel. Of course, the embarrassment really only comes later on when you look in the mirror and see a dribble of ketchup or a spray of Coke on your white shirt. It almost leads to a obsessive check down before entering the public arena. Clean shirt? Check. Clean pants? Check. All zippers, buttons, snaps, and otherwise in their full upright and locked positions? Check. Any stray head hairs, nose hairs, or boogies? No? Check.

We rarely pay so much attention to our attitudes and behaviors, but often experience the same regrets. We are often left wondering if we should have said what we said the way that we said it, or if maybe we should have done what we did in a different way than we had planned to do.

I believe there is a saying that says something about an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Google confirms. Google also lets me know that is a quote from Ben Franklin and links me to a page of his quotes featuring his bust on a coin with its' mouth moving.

When I think about what to say before I say it, the things I say are less stupid and sometimes they are even less offensive. When I make plans for what I plan to do, everything happens in a way that is much closer to what I had hoped. When I hold a burp cloth between my son's face and my clothes, I get puke on me way less often.

The value in being strung out

I asked for new guitar strings for Christmas; specifically the rust-resistance Elixirs that can stand up to the weather inside the church building and my neglect to change them often enough. I got a set for my electric guitar, which is nice because I had broken a few prematurely rusty strings and replaced them with acoustic strings of a different gauge and it played and sounded weird.

John, the other guy who plays guitar in the church here told me that when he bought his first guitar at a store the guy made sure to show him how to string it. The first thing he told him was to make sure they are all strung in the same direction so you are always turning the tuning pegs in the same direction when you tune the guitar.

I strung the top E string in the wrong direction. This is beginner stuff. It was the first string I put on and I always string my guitar the same way and it is in the wrong direction - it was strung in instead of out. You can imagine my confusion when I got to tuning that last string and it was going in the wrong direction. I was doing the right thing, but this object was not responding as expected.

One time a guy wanted to have a debate about the value of church and how he could get more spiritual activity completed on a nice walk. In a setting without ground rules, he may have won handily on the basis that oftentimes church attendance and the attached interactions do not have an entirely positive effect. When we both started with the same set of assumptions - namely that church operated as it is supposed to rather than how it often does - his point was impossible to argue.

When you have a problem, it is fairly imperative to identify to root cause.

Treating your dysentery is almost pointless if you don't also recognize and resolve the contamination of your water supply.

Putting on deodorant to cover your man musk won't do the trick when real problem is that you haven't showered in four days.


You can change every part in your car but if you don't address the fact that an empty gas tank is the true reason you chugged to a halt on the interstate, you are stuck in park.

Changing the music in your church won't solve anything if you don't first address the attitudes from which the complaints about the music originated.

I can turn and turn and turn that tuning peg, but if I don't make the realization that it was strung incorrectly in the first place, I will only get further from resolution.

Thank you very little

Today on my way from one place to another I got a call from Sandy. She needed $9.71 to pay for something and wanted me to stop by Casey's to get some cash. I had already passed Casey's so I went to the closer of the two local gas stations to grab a few things and get some cash back with my debit card.

At this point you may be wondering why I went to the extent of buying something and getting cash back instead of just hitting the nearest drive-thru ATM and getting twenty bucks. Allow me to enlighten you. You will thank me later.

When you go to an ATM, you almost invariably have to pay a fee - usually it is around $2. Personally, I bank out of town so there isn't many options for an fee-free ATM. Oftentimes your bank also charges you for using someone else's ATM and you can end up paying like $5 to get $20. Stupid banks.

Getting cash back when you purchase an item is free. This means that it is a much better option to get a little something from the gas station and spend a few bucks for a snack instead of spending even more for nothing more the transaction: essentially you are getting your snack free and still pay less than you would have in fees. Genius, no? I didn't think of it, so you can feel free to note the genius of the idea without attributing it to me if you please.

Back to my story. I was closer to the Freedom Oil here in town than I was to the Casey's so I figured that for my current purpose it was just as good. I filled up a cheap fountain drink (one of only one way that Freedom may be better than Casey's) and grabbed the snack Sandy suggested I buy so I could take advantage of the cash back gambit. When I got to the counter and asked for cash back I was told I couldn't get it. I was confused and said,
"I can't get cash back with a debit card?"
She said,  "No, just with check."
I said, "Ah man, let me put back the snack - I just got it so I could get cash back."
She said, "Sorry"
I said, "No big deal"
She said, "If you need cash back you can go to the other gas station down the street."
I said, "That was my plan."

I didn't say, "Thank you very little."

Then she gave me my receipt and I was on my way. I had a big cup of sweet tea so I wasn't too upset. Of course then I looked at my receipt and noticed that she hadn't gotten the snack taken off before I got charged for it. Still wasn't upset really - I mean, I still got the snackage. I went back in said something about since I paid for it I better go grab it. She hadn't realized her mistake and confirmed it on a receipt and apologized again and I told her not to worry about it again and took off.

Most people who know me well recognize that I am not a peerless example of self control so understand that I am not setting myself to be one, but let me make note of a few things that happened here. When I found out that my plans at getting cash back were foiled, I was noticeably disappointed. I realized, though, that it wasn't her fault - a cashier does not make such policy decisions - and I didn't take it out on her. Me having a bad day isn't a good reason to make her have one as well. No amount of telling her about how I was feeling would change how I was feeling - it could only change how she was feeling.

I could have also simply left the fountain drink and snack at her counter and walked out. She actually indicated that I didn't have to buy it - but I declined her offer and let her know that there was no reason to waste the drink that couldn't be put back.

You'll notice that when I left and noticed her mistake that I came back in and corrected it, but I didn't berate her and allowed her to check the receipt to make sure everything was kosher. It is likely that she could have refunded the purchase, but I weighed whether it was worth the $1.59 that I was getting a snack for anyway and decided it wasn't. It wasn't just that it wasn't worth my time or whatever, but it wasn't worth her time and energy and the potential effect on her day in general.

Somewhere along the way we decided that we deserve certain things and that, in those cases, no social conventions apply. If I paid for this meal, I deserve to be able to tell you exactly what I feel about it and demand a refund and send it back repeatedly. If you made a mistake that in some way inconvenienced me, it is well within my rights to take it out on you.

I recently read about how Christians are often brought up in a way that leaves them overly passive and ineffective in conflict or confrontation. The book emphasized being good over being nice. I kind of liked the idea. Nice people are very often unable to assertively stand up for themselves and are prone to being walked on and taken advantage of. Sometimes you need to speak up in a way that may be perceived as rude or mean as a matter of defense against a bully of some sort at work or school or home or in the community. This is being assertive, but not aggressive. This is defending, not attacking. This is being good over being nice.

If I had given the cashier a piece of my mind, many people would have said "Good for you!"

The problem: not only was I not being nice, I wasn't being good either. There is a wide space between being assertive to avoid being purposely taken advantage of and being aggressive in response to taking some sort of loss by the accidental action of another or as a result of circumstances beyond their control. One is a defense against a bully, the other is being the bully.

It shocks me that Christians often do not make the distinction. It is like they believe that when they pay for a meal the option to talk down to and berate the restaurant staff is a part of the price.

In Chicago there is a restaurant named Ed Debevic's. At this restaurant the wait staff is mean. This isn't my personal review of a place I had a bad experience with once: this is their business plan. They make jokes at your expense and mock the way you make an order and you are expected to fight back. You pay extra for this experience - whether you want it or not. Ed Debevic's is a lot of fun and no one's feelings get hurt because everyone is in on it.

Applebee's is not Ed Debevic's. Neither is Olive Garden or McDonald's or the Chinese Buffet or Freedom Oil.

When the service or policy of any establishment causes you inconvenience or any sort of pain consider your response carefully. Are they purposely trying to take advantage of you or rip you off? If it is a bank, the answer is probably yes but that is a bitter aside that I will save for later. Is your problem a result of their poor service or mistakes?

If they aren't purposely taking advantage of you, get over it. You didn't pay enough to be entitled to ruin the day of a server that you probably weren't going to tip appropriately either way. What have you really lost in this interaction? I personally got everything I paid for, I just didn't intend to pay for it. What do you possibly have to gain by lashing out? I would have only felt guilty and, living in a small town, would have made a fool of myself in a way that could easily come back to me in short order. I can't really think of a great example of when it makes sense as an adult, as a generally decent person, and especially as a Christian to behave in a hostile manner in such a circumstance.

Notice that I didn't just leave without taking what I had paid for. If your steak is bloody, have them cook it more. If you ordered fries, go back and ask for your full order. You don't have to be a jerk to get what you paid for, but if you are seeking to get what you feel like you "deserve" you probably are being a jerk.  A sense of entitlement is petty and childish.

When I was done at Freedom Oil, I went down the street to Casey's.
I didn't get something I couldn't put back.
I asked for cash back in advance.
He offered $20.
I asked for $10 - a five and 5 ones.
He joked, "Now you are just being picky."
I said, "Oh I know... believe me, I know."
He laughed.
I did say "Thank you."

By the time I count to three...

Somewhere along the way, Sandy and I started using a new method of Jack-management. When we asked him to do something (or stop doing something) and he failed to comply - we would start counting.

1... 2... 3...

We never talked to one another about this new parenting strategy. We never told Jack that he better do what we told him before we got to three. But guess what? It works. Every time.

The higher the number, the more urgently he acts. Usually he hears the "one" and either ignores it or slowly starts to act. By the time we hit "two" he either greatly increases his speed of action or has already completed the command given him. If we get to "three" he moves furiously to complete the task before time runs out. Even though we never told him there was a specific deadline for his action, I have never gotten past the number three.

One of my friends in college used to save up assignments until the night before they were due and pull all-night study session to complete his projects. He did this on purpose. He didn't let things slide until the last minute, he purposely chose to save them up until time had almost run out and then act. I suppose the added motivation ensured that he didn't even have the choice to lose focus or procrastinate further.

If we don't impose deadlines on action, action will generally fail to occur.

Lend me $50. I will pay you back. Someday. Probably.

If you don't remind me or at some point say - "Hey, I will be seeing you Monday, can I get that 50 bucks then?" I might easily assume you never really wanted me to pay you back and it was little more than a matter of courtesy that I said I would pay you back.

That isn't my actual course of action when lent something so you can let me borrow without fear, but that is a reasonable expectation on a request for action without deadline. I let my friend Matt borrow a table and chairs of my indefinitely. Will I ever ask for it back? Probably not, but if I ever have need I will have to place some sort of deadline - formal or informal - on the return of that furniture.

Generally this principle works on a shorter scale of time. If I am asked to do the dishes and agree to do it, it may take me a few days before I get to it. Sandy may actually do them herself before I get to them. I wasn't lying about my intentions, but since she didn't add a deadline of any sort to the request, the lack of urgency allowed me to easily slide it down my to-do list.

If I switch gears over to church life, this discussion takes on a whole new life. When a preacher says we need to change, we might decide then and there to do so and never "get around" to it. That doesn't necessarily bring our sincerity into question, it is merely a sense of urgency.

If a leader says  - "You need to meet as a ministry or committee this year," the members of said group may actually plan to meet. That meeting generally does not happen because it is easy enough to say - we still have 10 months, or 6, or 3 - until it is too late. If the same leader says - "You need to meet quarterly AND you need to set a date for at least your first meeting today," -- those meetings will most likely occur.

The closer we get to our deadlines, the more urgently we act to complete our tasks. Without those deadlines, we don't have the urgency.

Setting deadlines isn't telling people what to do or how to do it, it isn't micromanaging and looking over shoulders, it is merely communicating the value of the act happening within a set time frame. It is establishing urgency. If a limit isn't set, the importance of completing the undertaking is minimized.

To emphasize the critical nature of the operation you don't have to set up all sorts of ultimatums or consequences if they aren't done. If you set up those consequences without telling them when they will be enacted they are irrelevant. Set the expectation and the time line and see what happens.

What happens if we get to three and Jack hasn't been obedient to what we asked? We don't know, it has never gotten to that point.

When maintenance is not enough...

In the past week, I have been pretty excited about the direction we have been starting to take as a church - specifically in the leadership. I personally have spent a lot of time trying to get to the root of our problems and the more time I spend focused on the topic the more often I am able to get down to the lowest common denominator on any given issue.

Yesterday, I was asked to give an announcement - really more of a charge - at the end of church. We have apparently had problems getting the church cleaned in recent years. Each year, a list with about 10 different jobs is set out. When you sign up for any given job, you are put in a rotation with others to complete those tasks weekly for a month at a time. It is a pretty easy gig, but they have had a hard time filling the sheet. I could give a whole lot list reasons for that, but in preparing what I was going to say I stumbled upon a different and less contentious realization that I want to share.

In the process of exhorting people to sign up to clean, I took the opportunity to inject a note about helping with King's Club - our midweek ministry for PreK-5th grade students. Every year it seems we make progress with King's Club - the volunteers get better and more numerous, the program gets better organized and more purposeful, the students seem to get more out of it, and the number of students increases. Today, we are at a point where we need more adults in place to serve as leaders and mentors for the children who are attending before we can progress much further.

Maintenance is never enough.

When we simply hold the line, we fail to see new faces and kids begin to lose the excitement that keeps them coming back and bringing friends. We may always have a certain amount of kids coming up and replacing those who graduate out of King's Club into middle school - but quite often the Pre-K kids we get are the younger brothers and sisters of other students in attendance. When a 3rd grader brings his friend, that friend, if he sticks, eventually brings his siblings. Without the influx of new youth in attendance, the older kids will pass out of this age group and the numbers dwindle to about half of what they currently are.

In the sermon on Sunday, it was noted that something like 30+ people moved out of town from this congregation in the time the preacher had been in town (a bit more than 7 years). More than ten had died. I have personally noted that in some cases, one dying meant that a spouse slowed or stopped their attendance. Some have taken sick, have moved to nursing homes, or have become confined to their homes. At least one family has left amicably, and still others have left the church because they didn't like it for some reason.

By my count, the church has lost no fewer than 60 attenders in that amount of time.  The number probably approaches 75. In a congregation of this size that is a staggering number. 60-75 people represents a massive percentage of current attendance. To be fair, this sort of turnover happens everywhere: people move, get angry, get sick, and die regardless of the church situation. Gladly, some of those people have been replaced in the pews here, but we aren't keeping pace.

Maintenance is never enough.

As I pondered all these numbers, I suddenly realized that it isn't merely some superficial numbers game we play. The desire to maintain is a failing attitude.

Spiritually speaking, when you seek to sustain the status quo personally, it is natural to regress, not progress. The goal is not to stay the same as you, but to grow towards being the same as Jesus. That is a goal that you can never personally attain, so there is never a point at which you can choose to merely manage your faith.

Viewing the Church from this same point of view can change to way we work in many aspects of church life. We would seek to constantly update and upgrade our facilities rather than merely keep them presentable. We would seek to promote financial stewardship rather than just pay the bills. We would seek make each aspect of our worship service more meaningful instead of only seeking not to upset anyone. We would seek to train more and better teachers and equip them with better and more functional supplies and spaces rather that to just keep the positions filled. We would seek to encourage serving and loving the people around us in our everyday life over only having that sort of connection with other members.

Maintenance is never enough.

It is the easy way out, it is a regression to the mean. It is a failure to be on purpose and seek progress.

Seeking more than to maintain requires us to meet and think and pray and work more. It requires of us more time and love and effort and discipline and accountability. Now, to sit and write those words and make that my charge is also not enough, it is almost cliche. Telling you that if you work harder, things will be better is pretty naive. This is different. This is saying to work harder in one direction, with a singular purpose, with a new motivation - that of progress over maintaining the way things are and have been.

Maintenance is never enough.

I don't know how jello works...

Every week of youth group I try to have something fun to do that illustrates the point being made that week. Sometimes it works great and fits right in. Sometimes I try too hard to get it to fit and whatever we do is either too complicated or too dumb to be worthwhile. Sometimes I spend hours brainstorming and end up with nothing and do something entirely unrelated.

Tonight we are starting a series on Purity and I am just introducing the idea and kind of defining "purity" in spiritual terms. I am using a bit of illustration about physical purity and health and how that relates - so I figured I would go with a bit of old school cliche youth ministry and make them do something gross (impure). I'm not a big fan of that sort of thing so I won't be throwing a Happy Meal in a blender or anything. Sandy had the idea I am using actually - make them dig through a jello mold with their face to retrieve candy or something inside - the "impurities" as it were. Should be fun and delicious... unless chocolate and jello are gross together, which would make it all the better.

This here has nothing to do with purity. This here has to do with the jello production I just completed. I don't know how jello works. I know it has something to do with gelatin and science and I heard it comes from horse hooves. I don't understand why I have to add boiling water and stir for a long time before I add cold water. I don't know why it takes four hours of just sitting in the fridge to solidify and why that process doesn't really go backwards if you leave it at room temperature afterwards. I don't know why the side of the box said don't try to add pineapple and gingerroot and some other fruits because then it wouldn't work.

Jello works. You get a whole bowl of jiggly goodness by adding water to a little packet of powder and waiting.

None of what you put into it really resembles what you get out of it, and the process doesn't seem like it should work at face value, but it does. Trust me. Or trust the box directions and the millions of other satisfied customers.

In working as a youth minister it seems like putting it all together and helping students to grow as disciples isn't entirely unlike putting together jello. To the outsider it often seems like what is going on couldn't possibly combine to make something firm and lasting, but it does. Sometimes you would think adding pineapple would make it even better when it actually short circuits the process and ensures the change will never come.

When you know what is in the ingredients and the science of the process it all makes sense. When you know why adding certain things that seem right will spoil the whole thing and what those things are, it can start to click.

Oftentimes the most frustrating and confusing thing is the last step. Just let it set. Let it chill. Let it transform into something new and different. Let the outside forces you aren't directly control take effect. You have to wait to see if everything went together right and sometimes you have to start the process over. Sometimes you face the frustrating fact it just takes longer to solidify and pray that all the ingredients and processes you can't begin to grasp take hold.

Church growth in a nutshell.

Over the past few years  have read quite a few books relating to Church growth. I have read the statistics and the interviews and the survey results and the personal experiences and the anecdotes and have slowly been taking parts that make the most sense while filing away the ones that don't quite jibe. Man, it is a complicated issue. The factors are many and include details such as age of the church, the age of the congregation, the denominational structure, the size of the town and its demographics, the current staff and leadership and size of the church, the history of the church, and on and on and on.

What makes a church grow?

Most books identify principles and offer advice. Many tell the story about what worked for their congregation. I have read quite a few who do extensive surveys of churches, pastors, attenders, former attenders, potential attenders, etc and note the trends to highlight potential reasons for growth or stagnation. The whole topic is really very fascinating to me.

What can we physically do to affect something that is so inherently metaphysical?

Clearly it begins with the factors that are more spiritual than anything. Right living, prayer, and seeking God's will are kind of the basics that you have to start with before you can begin to address the physical, organizational issues. But what's next?

I have been thinking about this a lot this week. We had a meeting on Sunday and I was excited to hear some of the questions being thrown out. The key is finding the right answers. I have been working through things and trying to synthesize the most simple way to church growth for us. We can make a lot of changes and do a lot of good stuff and get nowhere - what does it all come down to?

My answer? Purpose, expectations, and accountability to those two standards.

I really think that most of the books and success stories ultimately point to these ideas in one way or another. It gets much deeper and more complex, but this is what I find lies at the base of it all. Different pastors and churches find vastly different ways to carry this out, but it all starts here.

Purpose statement, mission statement, simple process of discipleship, vision statement - it all basically means the same thing. What is God's plan for you - what is it that He wants to do through your church? Somehow, someway, he wants to use the Church to move people from unbelief to belief. He wants your church to transform lives of individuals into disciples of Christ.

Your purpose is not only the what, but the how. When a church has a firm grasp on their mission and process, and they refuse to let go or stray from that central, singular vision, they are on their way. It is easy though to stray. Somewhere along the way, someone will have a great idea that diverges from the path the church is on. Somewhere along the way, someone will have a personal preference that is contrary to the process the church uses. Somewhere along the way decision making will become lackadaisical and someone will become indifferent.

It is great to start out well, but if accountability isn't set up and applied, it is natural to slide away from that good start, and to create a nice comfy rut to ride in. The most disciplined, mature, and well-intentioned fall into this trap and it always leads astray. Pastors and elders and deacons and members need to know the purpose of the church and hold one another accountable to their adherence to that purpose.

Accountability is needed even earlier in the second aspect of church growth I identify with most: expectations. I haven't the time to explain why this is so important - it takes up chapters in books - but I think having clearly communicated expectations is key to church growth. Ministers need to know their role and be held accountable to doing it well. Elders and deacons need to know what their job is, not merely what the qualifications for the office are, and be held to those standards. Members need to know that being a Christian doesn't automatically make you a "member" of the local church - and they need to know what does.

If we aren't told what is expected of us in any situation, we either do nothing or we create our own patchwork standards. It is kind of cruel to not tell someone what is expected of them - they have zero chance at success when they are operating on uninformed guesswork.

Oftentimes members do little more than attend occasionally because they don't know there is any more to being a disciple of Christ within the local church. What separates a member from a visitor? We need to know!

In this case, accountability means asking questions. It means having a time and place for the leadership of the church to hold one another accountable to the clearly communicated expectations set before them and an opportunity to suggest that if they aren't fulfilling the role of the office, the name no longer applies. It means having standard to hold members to and a way to let them know that they haven't met those standards and the name "church member" is no longer practically applicable.

Starting there, it gets far more complex in how you apply the purpose and expectations of a church. All the factors to church growth I mentioned above are colored by these two principles when you really get into them - or at least they need to be. The church is about taking a person outside the church and bringing them in. It is about introducing them to Jesus and teaching them how to follow him. It is about continually reinforcing the standards set forth by Christ and continually growing as we walk that path.The church is about teaching us HOW to be happy rather than giving us whatever claim will make us happy here and now. The church is about HIS purposes over our own. The church is about His expectations of us, not merely our expectations of Him.