|
| ...www.bullballarina.blogspot.com | | |
| I set here at my computer with a dilemma. This is nothing new for me for I have found this to be a common occurrence for the last couple of weeks. I am a youth minister in Topeka, Kansas. Just recently I graduated from Ozark Christian College (by recently I mean last May) with a degree in Old Testament. I got a degree in Old Testament because I wanted something with a little more substance than a degree in youth ministry. This is not bashing youth ministry by any means, but I just like getting reverence from those surrounding me when I tell them I have a degree in Old Testament Theology. I have not always wanted to do youth ministry. I wanted to avoid the problem of giving the same talk on respecting your parents and loving your friends that youth ministers are forced to deal with. In my attempt a avoiding these talks, I have vowed that I will take the youth group at Central Park, to another level in our weekly discussions and try to tackle some real doctrinal issues. This is where my dilemma comes in to play. We have been going through 1 Timothy 4.12 and challenging them to set an example in their speech, life, love, faith and purity. Last week I told myself that we were going to get down and dirty and define faith. They would leave with a solid definition of exactly what faith is and how it comes to play in daily life. After a week of study, and longer than that of thinking about it…I came to the conclusion that I was unable to adequately define faith, let alone in terms that Jr. High students could grasp. I thought about Hebrews 11.1 (quite possibly the best definition of faith in scripture): “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Simple enough, but I try to run my lessons in front of a couple youngsters prior to youth group and after ward they shot me some confused glances. So we scratched that one. I though of Bill Hybles definition: “Faith is not belief in spite of evidence, but obedience in spite of consequence.” Ummm…yeah. He is much smarter than I. By the end of the week I had nothing. This week is fine, setting an example in purity…no problem there. Got a good (check that decent) lesson. For a guy who has struggled in the past…and even currently, purity lessons come fairly easy. What I am really worried about is the following week. WORSHIP So many people don’t have this one figured out. I certainly don’t. What is worship, and how do you define it to Middle School students? David Erickson: “Worship is being called to a place you don’t belong, by a host you are to shallow to comprehend, to receive a honor you do not deserve.” Jack Hayford: “Worship changes the worshiper into the image of the One worshiped.” C.S. Lewis: “It is in the process of being worshipped that God communicates His presence to men.” Ummm…if I was to say that I still didn’t understand what worship is, would it look bad on C.S. Lewis? I have so many questions: (1) What is worship? (2) What role does spontaneity play in worship? (3) How do you plan spontaneity? (4) How important is the skill of the worship leader(s)? (5) Are there any parameters to what worship is and what is not? Is basketball worship? Is watching basketball worship? (6) Can one truly worship alone? (7) If worship is a chance for God to meet us…how can we allow God to meet everyone on Sunday morning as opposed to just the ones who like singing? (8) Does God still meet people with Organ music? (9) Does it cheapen worship if it comes from a fabricated experience? (10) I am going to a Third Day "listening experience" tomorrow, they sing worship songs. Am I going to a worship service or a concert? (11) I am listening to Hillsong United right now...the exact same songs that were played at CIY...I think I was worhsiping there...am I worshiping now? I have a lot more questions…but these will suffice for now. Any response would be helpful. | | |
| "I'll keep you my dirty little secret
Don't tell anyone Or you'll be just another regret My dirty little secret Who has to know." So the song, Dirty Little Secret goes. The video of this song shows people holding up index cards, with statements of confession on them. "I cheated on the SAT to get a scholarship." "Everything I have told my girlfriend is a lie." Granted some are petty things, such as taunting squirrels or leaving the toilet seat up, but some of these confessions cut to the heart. The video shows people holding the cards out infront of their faces, as if to say that this is who I am now. My identity is wrapped up in what this card says. I am my sin. Some years ago a group started a website called PostSecret. People would mail their deepest confessions to these people on a homemade, anonymous postcard, to have them posted in a blog, online. (postsecret.blogspot.com) The site became overloaded quickly. In much the same fashion as the All-American Rejects video, postsecret's confessions were quite revealing. "I am only happy when I'm hungary." "I killed someone and now someone else is in Jail for it." The cards revealed the darkest side of humanity. The fact that these cards are homemade and anonymous point to the fact that these people are only known by the sins they commit. Paul writes to the Corinthian Christians: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that
God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's
sins against them. (2 Cor. 5.17-19)
We no longer are known by our sins. Our identity has changed through what Christ did on the cross. Often times we get in the mindset of God only seeing our flaws. That is a very humanly way of looking at things. Adam and Eve were the ones that looked at each others nakedness and were ashamed. God has never said that about us. Let us drop the card's that we think we have to hold up. Let us drop the act of being taken captive by our sin, and allow our true identity to come forth and do what we were meant to do and..."approach the throne of grace with confidence," as the writer of Hebrews urges us. For the light of Christ that is brought before us, shines in our life, blinded Paul on the road to Damascus, came, not to condemn the world, but to save it. (John 3.17) Our secrets are brought to knowledge by the light surrounding us. The dirty, little things that are kept in our past, that rise up in our lives, that seperate us from who we were truly meant to be. God has that picture in his mind...infact he has had that picture of what you were meant to be in his mind for quite some time now. Psalm 139: For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mothers womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book before one of them came to be.
Our sin stands in the way of the very reason we were
created, to stand and worship in the presence of God. To walk and talk
with him. To laugh and sing with him. The cards we hold onto so
dearly, the ones that we are convinced tell the truth about us, our purpose,
and our identity is a gap God desperately wants to span…through whatever means
necessary he was willing to bridge the gap.
In the words of C.S. Lewis, “St. Augustine says ‘God gives where He finds
empty hands.’ A man whose hands are full of parcels can’t receive a gift.”
| | |
|
There is this rumor going around that some men hear from God
constantly. Some men are able to consistently hear God's voice in
everything that they do. If there is a decision to be made, God
speaks. If there is a lack of choice, a time in life without the
pressures of a taxing problem, God still speaks. In the shower, on a plane, with a fox, on a
train, God is speaking to these men.
I have come to the conclusion, that I am not one of these
men. Call it lack of Faith (it could
be), call it deafness (probably a little of that too), call it a chasm of sin
between me and God (could be that as well) but my ear is seldom
graced by the spoken words of God. The
audible voice of God is something that I do not doubt and occasionally have
concocted and imagined what God’s voice does sound like (I picture a little bit
of Barry Manilow mixed with Virgil Earp from Tombstone and Simon from American
Idol…this is not suggesting that God is English by any means, I am just simply
commenting on the pitch and tone of his voice, not his accent…but since the
question has been brought up I do believe that God sounds southern…like the
band Lynyrd Skynyrd).
This whole lack of listening on my part was brought to
fruition last Wednesday during an elders meeting. There is no way that I could keep anyone up
to date with the latest doings here at Central Park,
but I will try to hit the high points.
We have a building project, buying project, or no project coming up…we
have the opportunity to build on, buy a different existing building, or do
nothing. Options are fun. The elders have been meeting and discussing
exactly what to do in this situation.
Near as I can tell, there are about 4,320,426 different methods, uses,
and situations that could come out of this project. To be completely honest seeing some of the
most Godly men that I have ever met, scratch their head in wonder was one of
the most inspiring things I have ever seen.
There was not a single man in the room that was entirely clear on what
God was saying…Why?
My Answer: Because
God has not said it yet. If it was just
me that didn’t know, I would understand that I had missed the voice…as most
will attest, I do this often. However,
this was 7 of the most God-hearing men I have met and yet they were still
clueless on where to go!
God will speak…these men will hear. Undoubtly it will be Danny as he plays with
his grandkids (Colby, Paxton, and Cale) or it will be Bill as he holds his new
born baby (the tenth one he has had) or it will be Charles as he is cleaning
the sanctuary, Steve as he mows his yard, or Terry as he watches K-State
(doubtful because we all know God resides 100 miles to the East in a little
town called Lawrence). God will speak…these men will hear. They will tell me what he says, because I
will have missed it and in doing so have taken myself out of the ground floor
of God’s working in this whole endeavor.
Alas, in a couple months the decision will be made and I will be there
with my ear to the ground.
I shall pray for the tympanic membranes and the organ of corti
in those who have better voice recognition than I.
| | |
| Went to guys d-group tonight. I had a pretty good time. Listened to a couple childrens stories, a rap version of Jesus feeding the five thousand, and drank Mt. Dew. All in all a pretty good night. A couple things stood out to me while I was there. 1) There is a pretty good group of sponsors at CPCC. Jason Hildebrandt did an excellent job tonight leading the lesson and Dan Force had some really good insights and some challenging questions that forced the guys (myself included) really work some things out. These guys are awesome Godly men who embody what it is to follow Christ. It is no doubt to me that these guys are part of the reason that the youth group is growing as it is. 2) Upon reading how David chopped the head off of Goliath, one of the guys mentioned that he was unaware that the Bible was that violent. As I was thinking about that statement I myself was taken back at the violence portrayed within the Biblical text. Babies getting smashed on the rocks, people getting disemboweled, eaten by worms, killing themselves. Then of course there is the most guresome scene of Jesus on the cross. The question is this: What, if anything, can be the lesson that we take from the Bible being a violent text? | | |
|
