Category: hmm… thoughts

  • The Gospel is Social

    As I mentioned in my post last night, my head is spinning a little as I think about today’s evangelical church.

    And yet I know that simply by saying that the evangelical church should stop doing church the way they currently that some people will instantly categorize my thought as “social gospel” in order to ignore what God is doing in my heart.

    Here’s the thing. The gospel a social gospel. Pure and simple. Jesus didn’t just come to make a way for us to experience salvation. He also came that we may “do good works” to help bring the Kingdom of God to the people. This means bringing justice and mercy to people who experience injustice and no mercy.

    This is what I’m really asking. Is there any way that the church can stop discriminating? Is there any way we can try to reach all people? Or are we doomed to see the evangelical church target rich white people for another generation? And will that generation tolerate classism towards everyone who is not rich & white?

    What do you think?

  • Head spinning night

    I just want to pause right here, recognizing that my night may not be over. See if you see the thread of God doing something.

    #1. At community group we got really stirred talking about us, not our church, being a people of mercy and justice. (See 1 Samuel 2) One person from our group mentioned this video. You need to see it and decide if you can act on it.

    I just learned this tonight, but San Diego is apparently the human trafficking capital of the United States.

    #2. You need to listen to this week’s podcast from This American Life. It’s about going big. Instead of thinking of small changes in your community, reaching one or two people… you can do something massive! I mean, why not?

    #3. Again at community group, we were talking about something that is truly shocking in church today. At every church I’ve ever worked at we turned away people looking for help. Think about it, the Holy Spirit prompts someone in need to seek assistance (money, food) from the Bride of Christ and we (I) turned that person away. No food, no shelter, nothing but a swift kick to the curb. Is there any doubt why God won’t bless a church like that? We decided we wanted to be a people who helped the hurting… no matter the cost. Go to a church? You need to find out if your church turns people away, and if they do… you need to tell that church leader to start being a pastor and serve the needs of the community. I truly am ashamed of myself.

    #4 After community group we received a little surprise. There was a lost dog in my front yard. While that seems like an unrelated thing, I had to wonder… was God doing something? Here we just sat in my house thinking about doing BIG THINGS, and talking about the massive injustice in our own neighborhoods, and how the church systematically chooses to not love their neighbors… and a dog is on my front porch. What was I going to do about it? It was as if the Holy Spirit was asking me, “Adam, you want to change the world? You want to serve people? You want to see justice in your neighborhood? Let’s start with a dog.” So, for the last hour or so I’ve been waltzing this pouch around our neighborhood. I gave it some water and I knocked on some strangers doors. It’s a weird, yet interesting, way to meet neighbors.

    Right now, my next door neighbors are walking the pup over to where they think she is from. So I am stuck with the question… “what are we going to do?”

    Quick update: They brought her back. I guess I have to keep her overnight or call the pound.

    10:55 PM Update: Some other neighbors helped me chase her into the backyard. Animal control doesn’t open until 9:30 AM. So she is going to spend the night in our yard. We’re hoping she is microchipped and we will figure out where she goes.

  • What if you’re asking the wrong question?

    With some of my friends I’ve had the same soul conversation 100 times. Together we bang our heads against the wall asking the big question we are facing. With various friends that soul question takes various forms. “Why aren’t my kids following Jesus? Why isn’t my business taking off? Why do I struggle with my faith? Why can’t life be easier? Why does God not answer my prayer? Why isn’t my church growing? How can I be better at running my youth group?”

    Let’s face a truism. All of us have a deep soul question. Whether its a matter in your relationships, your faith, your profession, or somewhere else… we are all able to identify the one nagging quesiton that haunts us day and night. Go ahead, fill in the blank. My soul question is ____________________________?

    Dang, it feels good just to say it, doesn’t it? Know this… While your soul question is unique, we are all united in having a question our soul longs to see answered.

    My thought here is simple.

    Have you ever stopped to wonder if you’re just not asking the right question?

    Let’s be honest. If you’ve had this soul question for more than a couple weeks, you are probably asking the wrong question! With myself and the people around me there comes a magical moment when we realize we’ve been beating our heads against the wall for years… and continuing to bang it harder and harder isn’t producing anything more than a headache.

    So what do I do about it? Ask a different question. I can speak from my own experience to tell you that the answer is not more introspection. For me, the answer to finding peace with my own soul questions, more importantly… my ability to reframe the question so that I know I’m at least asking the right question, tends to lie in one of these three sources.

    #1 Seeking wise counsel. That’s spiritual mumbo jumbo for saying I talk to people who are smarter than me on the given field my question seems to fall into. Many times I’ve had someone look at me and say, “Adam, you’re missing the point. The point of what you’re talking about is ______.”

    #2 Reading the Word. You knew that was coming, didn’t you? Here’s what I’m talking about. The story of Israel found in the Old Testament is full of leaders asking the wrong question… then God leading them to the right question. These stories help me reframe the questions in my life.

    #3 Reading books. I’m drawn mostly to biographies, autobiographies, and non-fiction in general. There is so much wisdom in reading of others folly, upbringing, life transformation, and triumph. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been reading a persons story and I realized… I’m asking the wrong question!

    The point isn’t the methods I use to reframe the soul questions in my life. The point is that, if you are wrestling, make sure you’re asking the right question.

  • Weekend in Vegas

    This weekend we’ve been hanging out with my mom. She lives about 1 mile off the strip in Las Vegas.

    Saturday morning, we went to our first ever dog show. It was a small one at a local park. Besides being a bit warm (reminder of the last half of Revelation, right there.) We had a good time. My mom was especially pleased that one of her yorkies won the toy breed group.

    All afternoon, we swam. Megan and Paul really enjoyed this. We still haven’t managed to get Stoney to swim… more beach therepy needed!

    Last night, Kristen and I drove down the strip. (Takes about 30 minutes.) Then we got out and wandered around for a few hours. Starting at the fountains at the Bellagio, headed to the other side to the… um, crappier side of the street, we walked through some casinos, strolled around before crossing back over to the “nice side” of the street, walking around Caesar’s Palace, looking at the fountains a few more times, and then heading home.

    If you’ve never walked the strip let me just tell you… it’s worth doing. And Saturday night seemed to be great people watching! For some reason, every person who comes feels like they need to dress up. So everyone is walking long distances in dress shoes or heals. Almost everyone carries around alcohol (like Halloween in Romeo) and open stupidity is the rule.

    #1 A woman weeping, I mean WEEPING, at the fountains after the Celine Dion song, “My Heart Will Go On.” It was a fountain display lady. The next one happens in 20 minutes.

    #2 Three young 20ish women having a major argument as thousands of people walk by. Of course, it was about something that happened back home.I like how it climaxed with “Don’t curse at me you **** **** slut.” Maybe what happens in Vegas won’t be staying in Vegas, after all?

    #3 Parents walking around the strip with their young children at midnight. Seriously, 3 year olds playing in fountains! It’s midnight people, put the short people to bed.

    #4 I can’t decide which is more annoying… the endless streams of people trying to hand you cards advertising strip joints or the guy with a bullhorn talking about how fornicators cannot go to heaven. “If you’ve ever had sex outside of marriage, you are destined for hell!” Ur,really?

    #5 There may be wall to wall people walking down the sidewalk, but that never stops a photo opportunity. Just whip out your camera, we’ll all wait while your drunk buddies take the “drunk cigarette shot” you’ll post on facebook later. Yeah, that’ll help you get the new job dingbats.

  • Lies of Youth Ministry, part 2

    The second lie of youth ministry is that it is all about discipleship. This is a lie which starts with bad hermeneutics, continues with training built around selective theology, and is encouraged by inward looking church leaders.

    Here’s how this lie plays out. Most youth ministers are wholly focused on building the size of their program. If they work for a church, having a large and busy youth program means that they can justify their salary and spend their time thinking about ways to add more programs to make their programs bigger and busier. If they work for a parachurch it’s even simpler as givers like to see numbers… as in the United States big numbers mean you are significant so “hundreds” sounds so much more significant  than “tens.”

    The thinking of both is backwards because we think that if we disciple a lot of people, we will grow. And, if you are in a church context the busier you keep the church kids the more “discipleship” you are seen as doing from the bosses and parents perspective.

    In fact, as I was trained, discipleship predicates evangelism. To state the lie more clearly, most youth ministries training programs teach that in order to reach more people we have to focus on training those you have. And some of the training I’ve received suggest 2-3 years of discipleship before you try to reach a single person.

    Two quick theological points for this lie.

    #1 Check out the parable of the lost sheep. When you do ministry in a community with “lost sheep” (meaning students who haven’t heard the gospel) do you think you should focus your attention on “the 99?” I think youth ministry should be focused primarily on evangelism and reaching the lost and secondarily mentoring the found. A lot of my fellow youth workers like to mention that Jesus only had a small discipleship group of 12. But let’s not forget that he had 12 disciples while reaching, feeding, and performing miracles to the multitudes.

    #2 In a single sitting, read Acts 2-4. Go ahead. I’ll wait. So what did you see? I saw that the leaders didn’t wait for 2-3 years while new believers were being discipled. They were compelled by the urgency of the gospel! In fact, they discipled while reaching multitudes. The more institutional the church gets the less people they reach. So while many youth workers build programs, they miss thousands of opportunities to be on the front lines at their schools reaching lost kids day-by-day.

    You see, if youth ministry is all about discipleship, it never would have gotten started in the first place! The reason parachurch youth ministry got rolling in the 40s-60s was because the “church” thought Jesus’s salvation was for the church kids.

    Youth workers (paid, volunteer, expert, rookies) don’t get caught in the lie of reaching the found and being satisfied with the lost finding you. Coddling the apathetic, baysitting the saved, and entertaining the church’s youth is not why we do youth ministry. We do youth ministry to reach the lost!

    And we disciple our church kids best by being Christ-like in our walk with Jesus. Read Acts 2-4 again... it’s a two-fold plan for discipleship, isn’t it?

    Church leaders: Wanna see your church grow? Try reaching people without a program. Get out of the office and start serving IN your community instead of serving OUTSIDE of your community.

    Part one: The 10% Rule

    Part two: It’s about discipleship

    Part three: You have to have a youth pastor

  • DIY Antimetabole

    Tonight on NPR’s On the Media there was a segment that talked about the hot trend in politics to use antimetabole. For those who need a refresher from 11th grade english literature class.

    antimetabole is the repetition of words in successive clauses, but in transposed grammatical order (ex: “I know what I like, and I like what I know”). It is similar to chiasmus although chiasmus does not use repetition of the same words or phrases.

    So I thought it would be fun to challenge you, my readers of the highest intelligence, to create your own antimetebole.

    Some famous examples:

    #1 Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. (JFK)

    #2 The first shall be last and the last shall be first (Jesus)

    #3 “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” (Winston Churchill)

    A couple of my own examples:

    #1 Do I love to eat spicy Thai food or does it like to eat me?

    #2 Can I find my phone or will my phone find me?

    Your turn! It’s a challenge of your brain and antimetobole wit. Leave a comment or start your own blog post with your favorites.

  • Dedicated to English Language Learners

  • Shifting Passions

    If you listen to Dr. Phil you’d think a zebra couldn’t ever change his stripes. I’ve heard him say things like, “You can’t change a man’s heart.” Well, here’s news for Dr. Phil. God changes the hearts of men all the time.

    Over the past couple of months Kristen and I have seen our hearts change a lot. We can feel our heart opening to a new community, different situations, and the passions of our new life. Concepts, events, and programs that kept me up just a few months ago no longer get me charged. (Notice people aren’t on that list, you can’t ditch me Romeo people.)

    But here are things we see ourselves getting passionate about:

    – Family time. Dude, don’t tread on my family time.

    – Our community. Not all of San Diego, just our hood.

    – The mission of YS. The more I get into this gig, the more I believe in its a needed thing.

    It’s just odd how much passions can change so quick.

  • Secret Sex

    I’ve been around Christians long enough to know that they like to talk about sex. In fact, I know enough about internet traffic to know that only one thing is more popular than a post about sex. In fact, most of you are reading this because you clicked on a link with a keyword you like to click on, “SEX” and are wondering what the secret is all about.

    What’s the one thing more popular than a post about sex? A post about sexual behavior Christians “shouldn’t do but like to talk about.”

    – Homosexuality

    – Cheating

    – Masturbation

    – Pornography

    – Getting caught looking at gay porn and masturbating.

    Here’s some data behind this Christian propensity to search for and click on things about sex. Notice the #1 read item at YMX over the last 2 years by a wide margin… it’s an article called “Solo Sex” and its about masturbation. In the 2 years that article has been on the site it has averaged 25 readers per day! Likewise, my blog data shows that most of my google visits from google searches arrive on terms such as “Christian dating” or “Christian sex.”

    Proving this point further, stop for a second and think about this: “Why are you reading this post? What about the title ‘Secret Sex’ made you click here?” Did I trick you to come here with my blog title? Did you click on a delicious link I served on Twitter? Or were you googling something like “Christian love advice?”

    Here is my theory, disagree with me if you like. I think that internally many evangelicals are wrestling with sexuality. I don’t mean they are worried about their gender preference or even secretly longing to do sinful things. I think that within Christian circles it just isn’t safe to talk about sex which leaves many adult Christians very immature in how they handle sex. So the result is that we talk about sexuality in very immature fashions. (And then we wonder why students have messed up views on sexuality!)

    While in non-Christian circles it isn’t unusual to have some safety within your peer group to talk about sex in an intelligent manner, I know I’ve never found Christian friends willing to have a serious conversation blushing it off as either “naughty” or diverting to childish jokes. (Of course, maybe its just my friends?) So while it may be normal and/or healthy to seek out talking with a peer about something intimate… in our circles we repress that discussion and look for answers privately.

    And I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

    I wonder if that repression of the discussion, which in and of itself is amoral but breaks a Christian taboo, is exactly what leads to the gross sexual dysfunction within many churches and marriages. Why can’t Christians just talk about sex? Why do Christians scour the internet searching for answers?

    Sidebar: Of course it could also be that there are so many people out there googling anything to do with sex that this disproportionally elevates the click through rates of posts about sex… that’s a theory worth contemplating without devaluing the overriding question.

    So, what is it?

    – Victorian cultural leftovers permeating Christian culture?

    – Fear?

    – Our mommy told us never to talk about sex, just learn about it the way she did in the library?

    – It should just be repressed. Asking this question proves that Adam is a pervert and just likes to say “sex” a lot.

  • New toys

    Kristen got the new ipod touch.

    Adam got the new nano. (green)

    It’s was a good day.

    Now, what to do with our old ipod? It served us well for more than 2 years!