Month: November 2005

"My God is so big, so strong, and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do…"

Remember that song as a kid? I do. Call me silly or whatever… but I am dumb enough to believe it. But as I look around the scope of my fellow friends in ministry I wonder if they have the same faith in the same BIG GOD that I do.

Here’s what I mean. I have friends who have no problem seeing how big and strong God is… but when it comes to "there’s nothing my God cannot do" they check out. They look at personality clashes… inevitable crisis… staff trouble… whatever… and these guys don’t rely on God, they don’t look at the mirror and see something about themselves they need to change… they simply check out. To a new ministry. Greener pastures. Bigger. Better. Same thing, different zip code. Some in turn check out of church. Some get tired and check out of ministry. Too many check into small god faith. They have itty bitty faith in a GREAT BIG GOD.

There is no excuse for this. There is no excuse for guys, good men and women in ministry, to be so petty and so selfish to check out of where they are at because of something they want or "feel" called to do. Again and again I look at that as a cop-out. The excuses sound like this… "I felt called to go to another ministry… and things with my boss weren’t working out." So the real problem is with a person… the "feeling called" was some convenient opportunity the enemy put in your way. Remember, a calling is something that comes externally not internally. You get called by the leaders of your church… not by a "burning in the bosom." This is what keeps you from feeling called to start a cult… it’s built in, Biblically founded, accountability.

Here’s the result in America. We have too many churches in some places and not enough in others. The American mentaility of church has become, sadly, like a franchise. Either you like your current ministry or location… or you plant a new one. What have we ended up with? You’ve got that scene from Shrek 2 when people run out of one Starbucks that is about to get crushed across the street into a new one. There are too many churches full of people ready and willing to run out of their old church into the new one across the street. And there are plenty of "called" ministry professionals who couldn’t play well with others in an existing ministry so they planted their own who will gladly accept any digruntled person from another church. Sure… those guys believe in a itty bitty god… but the have passion for it… they believe they are too good for the old churches who beleive in a GREAT BIG GOD… but since they view them as competition… they just call them rubish and discount their longstanding ministries as worthless. And these places grow like weeds! Why? Personality! So many itty bitty god believers aren’t looking for Jesus in their church experience… they are looking for someone exciting who will make them move and feel good RIGHT WHERE THEY ARE. Don’t want to grow? You know where to look.

But you know what? God really is GREAT BIG. In the end, these guys with exciting faith in an itty bitty god will be exposed. They are fakes. I love some of these guys… but they are leading people away from Jesus.

So… if you are thinking of checking out of your old boring church and checking into the new Starbucks church in your neighborhood… take the time to ask the people who are starting it… "Tell me how you came here? Where did you work last? Why aren’t you there now? Were you sent by the leaders of that place here to replicate it’s health.. or are you a boy who decided to take your ball and go play somewhere on your terms? What’s wrong with the other 25 good Bible beleiving churches in my town?"

Be wise. Make sure that they are leading you to the throne room of a GREAT BIG GOD and not an itty bitty one. Why ask these questions? You need to know… when I am not fun to be around, when this place won’t grow, when the going get’s tough… what type of person, what type of leadership is there at this place.

As for me… I prefer an old church with the intestinal fortitude to stand against the pressures of this world, to tanglibly meet needs, and to express faith in the GREAT BIG GOD for the long haul.

If there is a complaint against this generation of middle/high school students it is that they tend to be apathetic. Over and over again from teachers, administrators, and people in youth ministry I hear the lament, "Students today just don’t care about anything."

They are dead wrong. These students are passionate about some things, if you are seeing apathy, you just haven’t found out what they are passionate about.

Tribes of passion. That’s how I would describe today’s adolescents in general. Back even just 10 years ago you could walk on any high school campus and label kids. You’d have your goths, skaters, jocks, band geeks, nerds, 90120s, etc. You could categorize students pretty easily. With that knowledge you could figure out how to motivate whole globs of students at a time. Find the key and you can turn them on. That isn’t so today. Today’s adolescents form small niche` groups that display an extremely diverse economy of passions. You could have one tribe of girls that has a skater, a band geek, and snob, a punk, and a goth. What ties them together isn’t just exterior stuff… it is something deeper. So to motivate that tribe take a different type of key. Therefore, motivating that tribe is harder because… if you want to motivate an individual tribe you may need a whole set of keys. Teachers, administrators, and youth workers see this and go, "Holy cow… there is no way… I can’t do all of that!" and then they stop trying. They just looked at students as a locked door and walk away frustrated… then they call them apathetic.

The secret key to unlocking apathy. I have found today’s adolescents to be extremely motivated and focused on their passions. They tend to be so focused on what they want that whatever happens outside of that passion has little value. Or, more likely, they will devote as little attention to what they need to do so that they can fully enjoy what they want to do. This is why you have students who will practice for 6 hours to be the best at a Halo 2 level but will not open their books to do their homework. What is their passion? Being great at Halo 2. So they aren’t apathetic… in fact they are quite motivated and will forego everything to be the best at what they are passionate about. In other words, while extremely focused and passionate about somethings, adults are frustrated because the adolescents in their life seem apathetic about what the adults think is important when it isn’t in support about what the adolescent thinks is important.

So what is the magic key? In my experience, the key to motivating apathetic students is investment. In general, I have learned that if I invest extra time in a student… they will become motivated about what I am passionate about. To say that better, when the two of us start to share the same passion… when I have shown through my life that I am passionate about something and that I think it is worth my attention… we will begin to start sharing in that passion together. So if there are apathetic high school students that you want to see motivated… start investing your time in them. Learn what’s cool to them. But as time goes on… show them what’s cool in your world.

Singular Focused? I don’t want to oversimplify what I am saying. If you were to read that with a critical eye you’d say… "That McLane guy is a fake… he only wants to know about something so he can get you to do something… that’s manipulation and not motivation." That makes it sound so inauthentic when in fact it is completely authentic. In fact, the more honest I tend to be the better "results" I see. I don’t pretend to be into hunting to invest in a hunter. Or worse, I don’t pretend to like UM football so I can invest in a UM fan. Just like a hunter isn’t only into hunting… no adolescent is into a sole thing.

Here’s my example: Each Tuesday morning, a group of students walk through my back door at 6:15 AM. I can’t figure it out… but they keep coming back. We hang out, talk about life and stuff, and then do a simple Bible study. When I tell others about it they say, "How on earth could you get high schoolers to do that when I can’t even get ______ to take out the garbage?" (Trust me, this group probably whines about taking out the garbage too… they aren’t perfect.) The answer to that quandary is I have no idea how to get them to come because they want to be here… they are passionate about being here. The truth is, even though their coming here early in the morning probably makes me look good… I didn’t do much to start it. It just happened. We started it and I figured it would last a few weeks and fizzle out… but they kept coming. But it is the principle in action… sometimes when you invest a little into a tribe… you hit a button in the tribe and the tribe moves. Apathy doesn’t get up at 5:30 in the morning to go to a Bible study. But passion does.

Don’t sell this generation short. They really are an emergent tribe of world-changers.