A youth worker in Minnesota asked me to share my definition of worship with her as part of a lesson she’s preparing for her youth group. I thought it’d be fun to post my response to her (with her permission) for a couple of reasons.
I hadn’t thought about it like this before.
I like it when people call me a heretic.
What is worship?
I think the English word for worship is limiting versus what God asks of us. So I break up the act of worship into a bunch different categories. (Not limited to this list)
We come together to worship God in community.
We spend time in prayer, fasting, song, reading of Scripture individually.
Our work is worship.
Our attitude is worship.
When I give my talents and treasure to God, that is an act of worship.
When I journal, that is worship.
When I am alone with my wife, that is worship.
Everything I do… I can do as worship of God.
Now, how do I define worship? Worship is any intentional human actions which bring glory and honor to God.
What do you think? Is the intention what makes an act worship? Or have I overstated what worship can be?
If you are interested in helping fund the school in Wilnard’s church or perhaps your church (Or a group of Christian educators, or any combination) is interested in adopting this school to help pay the teachers, provide uniforms and shoes, or even feed the students, please let me know.
If you’d like, we can plan a trip together and I can introduce you to Pastor Wilnord myself.
The needs in Haiti are still real. The opportunity is still huge. Please don’t forget.
New pastors quickly learn that ministry life is full of big questions.
Questions that make you feel very small and insignificant. Questions that make God feel massively huge and almost out of reach. Questions that are so loaded and full of pain that they prime tears just to get the words out. Questions that have layers and layers of answers.
Questions in which the answers will define a persons walk with Jesus for years to come.
In those moments it is tempting to rattle off a pat answer. Or the denominations party line. Or what the board would rule as the right answer. Or something you read in a book. Or what you think the person wants to hear. Or a mechanical theological opinion.
My encouragement is that often times, the best first answer is simply… I don’t know.
Why did my dad die?
I don’t know.
Why did God chose me to get this disease?
I don’t know.
Was I born gay?
I don’t know.
Why did God allow my parents to divorce?
I don’t know.
Why can’t I have children and all my friends can?
I don’t know.
Why can’t the Cubs win the World Series or Brett Favre stay retired?
I don’t know.
Why did I lose my job?
I don’t know.
Why does God answer some people’s prayers but not mine?
I don’t know.
The list never ends. It gets longer and deeper every day.
Why say “I don’t know?“
I’ve found that when someone comes to me with a big question like that they really do need to know the answer to that question. But my responsibility, and what is ultimately helpful for them, isn’t to give them “my answer.”
I’ve found it most helpful in those situations to comfort, console, reaffirm, and point them to Jesus as the author, answer, and hope for those big questions.
With those questions I always point them to Scripture. I always make time to pray with them. I always follow-up later. I always affirm where the Bible is clear on a topic and where it isn’t. I always look in their eyes and say, “I do know this, that God always shows up. He always loves you. His ways aren’t always meant to be known by you.”
But my first response is almost always, “I don’t know.”
The temptation
I bring this up because it is incredibly easy to pretend to have all the answers. As if, a seminary degree is permission to have all the answers. It makes you feel powerful. It makes you feel like you know what you are talking about. It feels good when people come to you with big questions.
But the role of a pastor is not to be the Bible Answer Man or to just to give the hard, cold facts. (There is a place for that, for sure. But an initial meeting isn’t it.) More often, our job to point people wandering the desert in their pain, sorrow, and longing to the Grace Giver. To the only answer to life’s hard questions. To remind them that no matter what, Jesus thought they were worth dying for.
It was very hard to leave Jimmy and Ashley behind in Romeo when we moved to San Diego two years ago. In the last year he transitioned from Michigan to the Houston area and is working full-time for a church plant called, Thrive.
There are probably a lot of very intelligent people who know how to judge a worship leader better than me. But Jimmy exhibits all the qualities I’m looking for.
Vocally and musically talented. (This is actually the easy part, dime a dozen)
Fun to be around. Jimmy has a smile that can light up a room.
Versatile. Jimmy is good in darn near any setting. Kids, students, camps, adults, bars, inside, outside… he’s ready to roll.
Fun to work with.
Listens to God. When you are over the top talented its easy to listen to yourself or to what has worked for you. That’s not how Jimmy rolls.
Creative. He’s good enough to push past imitation to find creativity.
So, that’s why I like Jimmy. He’s a good dude. I’m stoked for his album to [finally] come out. I hope a bagillion people book him for shows, camps, and stuff like that. And one day he will be such a big deal that he’ll finish a song and his guitar guy will walk onto stage and hand him a new one.
A couple weeks ago I shared a post about discipleship that raised some questions about how we do things in our student ministry. Most of the comments were affirmative. Some of the more critical questions which arose required some follow-up.
With that in mind, I grabbed a few moments with Chris and Kathy, our staff members who run the New Heights Project to drill down into some of the questions that came up.
What is the New Heights Project internship all about?
Who we are and who we partner with?
Why intentionally hire non-Christian students to do children’s ministry?
What has been the effect of this method in students lives?
One additional thought. The thing that freaked most people out was the concept of intentionally hiring a mix of Christian and non-Christian students as interns. Every church I’ve ever done ministry with had students help in ministry areas who weren’t Christians. Any ministry leader is fully aware of that same fact. The only thing that is different here is that we’ve made it part of our strategy. Typically, ministry leaders know it but don’t acknowledge it because we’re talking about children of church members.
Photo by goto10 via Flickr (Creative Commons)“Let’s go watch freshmen arrival day!”
I have a sick sense of humor. But I loved being on campus the day the new freshmen arrived at Moody. And one year I really did take the day off to enjoy the drama and help out a little bit with confused parents and freshmen.
It’s a day full of highs and lows. For incoming freshmen its a huge day when their parents drive away and they have to figure out life without the security blanket. For parents you can tell its a bit rough. Well, not for everyone. But its rough for some parents!
The joke was that you could tell birth order by how many people made the trip.
First born: The whole family came even if they drove from across the country. Mom, dad, and siblings all waited in line for the dorm room keys and welcome packet. Little brothers wandered the courtyard while mom and dad made nervous small talk with other parents. After they get all of their kids stuff into the tiny dorm room, they explored campus a little before taking their child out for one last meal together. They walked, ever so slowly, back to campus. If mom can think of anything they’ve forgotten she will stall it by making a trip to Target. But in the end, before dinner, there would be tears as they drove away. The first born would hold it together at least until the car was out of sight.
Middle child: Typically, one parent made the trip for boys and both came if it was a girl. Since they knew what to expect they would make their child stand in line while the parents unloaded the car. With keys in hand they did the whole routine a bit faster. And the whole thing was noticeably less emotional. They would drop everything off in the room, make a quick run for lunch, and try to get out of their child’s hair fairly quickly. Interestingly, it was usually the child who was left crying on the curb as the parents drove off. Almost in shock… as if to say, “But when you dropped off Chip you stayed a lot longer, you just left me here?” Once a middle child, always a middle child. Suck it up, kid.
The baby: This was an either or scenario. And the truth was that I would just hang out on freshmen day to see how it went. Some families just sent dad. You could always tell this scenario by where dad had parked. He would pull into the visitors lot in the family minivan and park in the 15 minute zone. Immediate loading and unloading only. Dad would get out of the van looking at his watch. He’d carefully unload all of the kids stuff onto the sidewalk while the child raced to go get a cart. Typically, the child would return just as dad was finishing up. The child expected dad to load up the cart and go upstairs… just like they had with the other kids. But dad would look at his watch, then point to the 15 minute parking sign. He’d give a hug to his baby and get in the car. Stunned, volunteers would help the student with her things while dad zipped out of the parking lot, and the child cried. Dad would give one look back and race off with a huge smile. The other scenario was equally funny. Mom and dad would make the journey, unpack the car, give their kid a hug… and hold hands as they basically skipped back to their car. As they pulled away, the windows were rolled down and Barry White was blasting. Something tells me mom and dad got a hotel room nearby… just in case their child needed them, of course. Freedom!
My first freshmen day
I was an atypical freshman at Moody. Since I needed to pay my own way through school, I actually had moved to campus in May of my senior year to start working full time. (I skipped the last 2 weeks of school, then came for graduation.) But about two weeks before classes started they allowed us to move from our summer dorms onto the floor we’d been assigned.
This meant that I was the only one on the 7th floor for two weeks. (Uh, since I had a master key, I confess I moved in a few weeks early. Don’t tell the dean.) Since I wasn’t arriving for freshmen orientation and I was done with my campus job, I actually lost track of which day people showed up. Somewhere in there my RA had came. But he had gone to a retreat and was never around. Essentially, I was by myself on a floor with 16 rooms. It was a big empty space and I’d had fun figuring out things to do in my spare time.
Somewhere in those two weeks it became a habit that I’d not carry clothes to the showers. It was funny as an 18 year old to walk the long hallway to the bathroom naked. Who am I kidding? Given the same choice I’d probably do the same thing today.
So, on freshmen check-in day, I was leaving the bathroom and heading back to my room. I had my towel over my shoulder and that was it. As I went to put the key in my door I heard a gasp. Yup, a first born was checking in down the hall. Mom, dad, and kid sister had an interesting first meeting with their sons floor mate!
Oops.
After that, I got dressed and went through the line to officially check-in. The girl in front of me wouldn’t stop talking. She thought she had met her husband. And I got introduced to the idea of a stalker.
When I’m “on” I have the ability to poke holes in everything. I always see things from another point of view. I can find fault in any system, organization, strategy, person, nation… darn near anything.
My personality is a double-edged sword. Sometimes I see things so clearly and I think, “If things are going to change I need to change THAT.” That’s the positive side of my personality. The negative side is that I am slow to look at myself and say, “Before I can point out the speck in that persons eye, I need to deal with the plank in my own.” Matthew 7:3
So that’s my prayer. When I am anxious for change I need to pause and ask God, “Change my heart, first.“
You might need to click on the image so you can take in the awesomeness of this moment. This couple was completely oblivious.
This was Sunday, early evening, at La Jolla Shores. (The most kid-friendly beach in San Diego, one of the best beaches in California.)
There were families and young children everywhere.
Lisa (former youth group student of mine and retired RA from Grace College) couldn’t resist the cameo. She tried, it was too awesome.
My favorite part of this picture is the kids playground in the background. We’re not talking about a secluded beach spot for a private make-out session… this literally is in the middle of family-friendly central.
They cleaned it up by the time we took this picture. There was a time when she was on top of him. And also a time when when hands were in all sorts of places.
Yeah, it’s weird we took a picture. You never stop being a youth pastor and this is always funny. It’s like a middle school girl farting in the church van. You just find it funny!
New pastors quickly learn that ministry life is full of big questions. 
