• 10 Ways to Connect with Me at NYWC

    On Thursday, Marko and I fly out to Atlanta for the National Youth Workers Convention. It’s sure to be a fun week of connecting, training, and encouragement.

    I’ve always loved the convention and I’m stoked to continue to invest in making the convention an awesome experience for youth workers from around the country.

    Here’s my line-up of stuff. I’d love to meet you!

    Friday

    10:00 am – Creating an Online Ministry: Three Timeless Principles for Building a Sustainable Online Ministry

    4:00 pm – Getting started as a blogger

    10:00 pm – Cartel Meet-up – Party like a youth worker (RSVP here)

    Saturday

    8:00 am – Expanding the vision: Rethinking Volunteers (Fishbowl)

    5:00 pm – Free and awesome communications tools for youth ministry

    6:00 pm – Using Mailchimp for Ministry

    7:30 pm – Hosting a meet-up for event planners with folks from Eventbrite (contact me for more info)

    Sunday 

    10:00 am – Unveiling one of our projects in Big Room

    Monday 

    8:00 am – 3:00 pm – Extended Adolescence Symposium (tickets)

    A note for those who want to meet-up. I really do want to connect and catch-up. Feel free to contact me via Facebook or here to try to schedule something. A (very good) problem that Marko and I have this year is that most of our time is already booked with meetings and such.

    Random sidenote: Based on all the feedback I got on Twitter the other day. I’ll be spending chunks of this week transitioning my presentations from PowerPoint to Keynote.

     

  • 4-0 Sports Day

    I’m in full-on sports heaven lately. And yesterday was a prime example… my teams went 4-0 on a single Saturday.

    Football

    • Notre Dame vs. Maryland – When the best thing the media can say about your team is the ugly uniforms… you know your season is bad. And that’s the case fro Maryland. This was the closest they’ll get to a bowl game this year and they laid an egg. Notre Dame dominated this game from beginning to end. A lot of schools talk about how great their program is and how their fans are special. Take a moment to understand the Shamrock Series and you’ll see why Notre Dame is a cut above the most elite programs from a money perspective. No one else could pull off something like that.
    • San Diego State vs. Colorado State – I was actually worried about this game. Last year we struggled with their quarterback… but that became a non-issue when he was knocked out early with a sprained knee. Abel Perez has been a great kicker the past two years. But this year something is wrong. I can’t believe we haven’t added a replacement. He went 1-3 yesterday. Had he missed the 3rd yesterday it would have been the second game he’d cost them this year.

    If there’s a miracle and SDSU beats Boise State, UNLV, and Fresno State there is a chance they could face Notre Dame in the Independence Bowl… just tossing that out there.

    Basketball

    • Notre Dame vs. Mississippi Valley State – I didn’t even know this game was yesterday. I just saw it on their ESPN page. The Irish will struggle this year in conference play as they rebuild. But I think they will still get to 20+ wins.
    • San Diego State vs. Southern Utah – At one point the score was 24-3. I don’t know how bad Souther Utah is because they actually looked like they could play in warm-ups. But the team defense of SDSU put on a clinic. That lead to many, many fast break opportunities and some of the most ridiculous dunks I’ve ever seen in a live game. The final score was 70-37. It was actually more lopsided than the final score indicates.
    It’s pretty rare when all 4 teams are in action on the same day. And it was so cool that all 4 teams got victories! 

  • SDSU Aztecs Basketball Preview

    I missed the two exhibition games. (Which makes me a bad season ticket holder) That said, Megan and I made it to the season opener last night at the Viejas Arena.

    Bryant College wasn’t exactly a great opponent, which was good because the Aztecs weren’t really ready to play. The first half was defined by their lack of cohesiveness. That makes sense because Chase Tapley is the only returning starter. On top of that two other starters missed the game, James Rahon with an ankle sprain and Jamaal Franklin served a one game suspension for a suspected DUI arrest over the summer. Looking up at the halftime stats I thought the scoreboard was broken! They shot 39% from the floor including 25% from the free throw line. Somehow they still rallied to take the lead, 27-26 at the half.

    But the Aztecs came out of the locker room with a new attitude– an attitude I expect them to express for the next 25 games. Unlike last years team everything isn’t going to work. In 2010-2011 it didn’t matter what the game plan was because they were better at every position than most of their opponents. This year is different. With only 8 scholarship players they are going to have to take advantage of what the opposition gives them. Last night, they were ice cold from the 3 point line. (0-12 at one point) So in the second half they crashed the boards and shot a very respectable 79% from the field.

    Starless but not starproof

    I couldn’t get over the fact that almost none of the players who got time on the court last night would have played significantly last year. There is no player as dominant as Kwahi Leonard was last year, not even close. (I wish he’d stayed another year, especially with the NBA lockout) But that doesn’t mean that they can’t play together as a team and win 25 games to win their conference. It will all come down to gelling as a team.

    Last night the gelling of this basketball team happened during the second half. before our very eyes we saw a team go from gym scrubs to DI college basketball. Their non-conference schedule is substantially more difficult this year than last. (No one wanted to play them last year!)

    My prediction?

    They will enter conference play at 12-4. Overall I think they will go 22-8 in the regular season. Not good enough to get ranked, but good enough to get invited to the Dance for the third straight year.

  • Good News idea: Ring that bell

    Pretty soon you’ll start hearing a familiar Christmas jingle. No, I don’t mean the annoying Christmas muzak you’ll hear at the grocery store. I mean the jingle of the bell ringer outside.

    If you’ve rushed by the red kettle as quickly as possible your whole life, maybe you don’t know that it’s a fundraiser for the Salvation Army. Simply put the Salvation Army is a denomination (of sorts) built upon the idea that the Gospel of Jesus isn’t just for people who are accustomed/comfortable going to church. For more than 149 years the Salvation Army has ministered to the destitute, hungry, and homeless.

    In other words, the Salvation Army does the work of bringing Good News to those who most need it 365 days per year.  They are there every day for the homeless among us. They are there when disaster strikes. They are there when the hurts are bad. And they are there to help heal painful addictions.

    Here’s a challenge. From Thanksgiving to Christmas you will see these Salvation Army bell ringers outside of malls, grocery stores, and department stores all over.

    Don’t pass a single one. Every time you go in a store with a bell ringer outside drop in a quarter or a dollar. If you have your kids with you, give them the money to put in the kettle so they can start to see the connection between your money and what you do with your money for good.

    But wait? That might cost me a lot of money? 

    Yup, make a choice. You want to save that quarter or dollar– don’t go shopping. 

    Think of it as a toll. To get into that store you have to donate to the poor. Are you up for the challenge?

    Don’t just wish good tiding of joy. Be good tidings of joy. 

  • Love is an Orientation DVD

    I’m proud to be a part of the youth ministry session of this project with Ginny Olson. Together we talk about ministering to LGBT students in your youth group, creating a safe environment, and bullying.

    You can pre-order the DVD curriculum from Amazon here.

  • Left alone, you are weird

    Our society celebrates the lone wolf. We have a unique ability to pin the success or failure of a group effort on an individual.

    • Drew Brees led his team to a win.
    • All Stephen Spielberg films are brilliant.
    • Thomas Edison invented thousands of things.
    • Barak Obama is the most powerful leader in the world.
    • Bill Hybels leads Willow Creek Community Church.
    • Katy Perry is an amazing performer.

    In all of those cases we celebrate an individual who has become the figurehead of a much larger effort.

    Deep in each of those statements is a cultural lie. As we idolize those individuals and aspire to become them we look past the reality that none of them is a lone wolf, but we see that in order to get to those positions of “respect” we need to act alone.

    Video games and smart phones

    The posture of the individual

    We’ve grown up celebrating the first person perspective. When Duke Nukem came on the market in the mid-1990s it revolutionized the video game experience because you, the player, became Rambo. Instead of looking at a strategy game from a 3rd person perspective they put you in the 3D world of first person.

    Thousands of hours of acting as the lone wolf behind first-person shooters sends a powerful psychological lie to your brain, retraining it to believe that you can best control your destiny alone.

    If there’s anything disturbing about today’s smart phone craze, it’s the new posture we take in public settings. While it was once considered anti-social behavior to seek isolation in a crowd, we are now a crowd of isolated humans staring at our phones. The flickering pixels in our pockets are more alluring than the real world around us.

    These devices aren’t just statements of convenience or entertainment, they reflect a great cultural reference to the first-person perspective.

    A call from individualism to communion

    We don’t celebrate individualism, we celebrate communion

    As a Christian I know that individualism is the enemy of communion.

    Communion is a powerful technology that changes everything.

    While our culture celebrates and romantacizes the lone wolf, Jesus calls us into something greater. It’s reflected back to the Garden of Eden. God looked at his creation and one by one said, “It’s good.” But when he looked at the man, who was alone, he said “It’s not good for man to be alone.” So he made woman. We are so hardwired to think about the sex part of that statement or even the idea that God made a helper (completer) for Adam that we miss the first part… it’s not good for man to be alone.

    Satan wants you alone. He wants to convince you that you are better off acting as a lone wolf. He whispers in your ear– “You don’t need them. You want to change the world, do it your way.”

    Satan’s technology is getting you alone where you are vulnerable. God’s technology is communion, where you are never alone.

    Jesus’ life calls you and I into communion. We don’t merely take communion as a representation of our 1-1 relationship with God. We take communion as a representation of our 1 billion – 1 relationship with God. We actually don’t take communion… we ingest it as a rejection of Satan’s technology of the lone wolf and exchange it for God’s technology of communion.

    When we stand, in communion, with a billion other believers we are an unbelievable force for change. We have the power to make a busted world right.

    That’s why we share communion in community. You simply can’t do communion alone, it’s impossible.

    Jesus isn’t calling you or I to merely take communion in remembrance of what He did. He is calling you and I to live communion together.

  • Seek everyday beauty

    Life is full of unexpected, frivolous, everyday beauty.

    But you’ll only see it if you slow down enough to notice.

    You don’t take time to notice beauty. You make time.

    May I seek this today. Amen.

    UPDATE

    Shortly after I posted this I put Jackson in the Baby Bjørn and headed off for a trip to the bank. (Praise God for checks!) Our bank is about half a mile away, an easy walk. I cruised over there, made my deposits, and was cruising home. About half way back it hit me. I wasn’t acting on my prayer. I was rushing right by so much ordinary beauty. Worse yet– poor Jackson was just along for the ride.

    So we stopped. Right on our walk. And looked at leaves on trees. The tiny creases. The pretty colors. I put leaves in JT’s hands. We looked at them closely. Next came flowers. Yellow ones, purple ones, burgundy ones. We took turns smelling the flowers and grinding the petals between our fingers.

    Prayer is a verb.

  • Romotive – I had to have it

    I can’t wait to play with this around the office.

    $78. Here.

  • Have you done your daily devotionals?

    The mantra of a daily devotional has been used as a holy guilt trip for as long as I can remember.

    Let’s examine this sacred cow.

    I think with a little examination we’ll get to the bottom of what we’re trying to accomplish while granting us the ability to re-imagine better ways to accomplish the same end goal without all of the weird, cultural baggage.

    Here’s what I’ve heard from students recently.

    “I’m a good Christian if I read a chapter of the Bible every day.”

    “I haven’t really read the Bible recently, but I learned a long time ago it’s easier to just lie about it and say I have. That’s all my parents want to hear.”

    “I try to read the Bible every day, but it doesn’t make any sense and seems kind of pointless.”

    “Yeah, I read the Bible every day. But I’m just kind of picking a random chapter from somewhere and reading it.”

    Unpacking the Daily Devo

    Because I’ve actually read the Bible several times I know that there is no command anywhere in Scripture to do an individual daily devotional. (Such as daily Bible reading or reading a commentary.) That very concept is completely a cultural creation bearing little historical context.

    • Jesus’ disciples did not begin each day by spreading out alone and spending 15-20 minutes reading God’s word and writing in a journal.
    • Even if there was high literacy among God’s people in the Bible, they had virtually no access to the written books we call the Bible today. It wasn’t really until the late 20th century that Christian families started to have a Bible for each individual in a home.
    • In preaching on this concept we (church leaders) often take things out of one cultural context and apply it to our own, the daily devotional concept is an excellent example of this. Yes, Jesus went on a mountain to pray. But none of the Gospels say this was a daily occurrence. Yes, many times Paul encourages believers to stay in the habit of meeting together, of regular prayer and fasting, but that doesn’t imply that this was something done daily nor was it a measurement of a persons worth.
    • We lump prayer, something the Bible obviously teaches and provides examples of, as part of a daily devo. But most often when we refer to “daily devo” we are really asking people if they’ve read the Bible.
    • The very concept of individual Bible reading is foreign to the people of the Bible. While they would have lived the Shema by talking about God’s word while going about their daily business, when they read or heard someone read from the Bible it was only while they were standing at the Temple or synagogue or attending some version of school.
    • If people were to “spend time in God’s word” daily, it was because they had memorized it. (Something our culture has little patience for.)

    If Protestants really want to dig into this phenomenon they need to understand it in context of the Reformation and not necessarily something the early church did. (There are lots of great books and commentaries about early church culture if you’d like to dig into this more, likewise there are many wonderful books about the Reformers.)

    Is reading the Word of God good? Absolutely. Is a daily devotional life a biblical command worthy of the holy guilt trip we lay on people? Not so much.

    Let’s understand that the very notion of “doing a daily devo” is a cultural creation. And let’s rethink that in light of what we are actually hoping to accomplish with the daily devo… a love of God’s Word.

    Passing on a love of the Bible guilt-free

    As I mentioned above from comments from students, we emphasize the daily devotional as a measuring device for spiritual well-being. Very quickly, students and adults learn that to be seen as spiritually mature they either need to actually do a daily, individual Bible study OR learn how to lie convincingly enough to make it appear that they do.

    That’s legalism at its finest, right?

    Instead… let’s think of ways to teach a love for God’s Word. And, as James says, not just a love of God’s word but a love for obeying and applying biblical principles into our lives.

    Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

    James 1:22-25

    What are some ways we can pass along a love for the Bible without defaulting to a method which (could) lead someone towards hypocrisy and/or legalism? 

    I can’t speak for you… but I know when I think about the adults, students, and even my own kids… I want to pass along a fervent, ravenous, sickeningly healthy, blood bond love for the Bible. (And the Christ it points to!)

    The question to wrestle with is: How do we do that? 

  • Coming to Chicago Dec 13-18

    I’m coming to Chicago for a small release party for the Love is an Orientation DVD curriculum on Saturday December 17th… so  I thought I’d expand the trip a little by coming Tuesday night and leaving Sunday evening.

    Here’s what is scheduled so far:

    December 17th – 2 classes now open for registration

    10 -12 pm – Growing Your Business with Mailchimp

    2 -4 pm – Blogging 101

    That’s right. That means I have all of December 14th, 15th, 16th, and most of the 18th wide open.

    I’m spending a couple of nights with my cousin in Oak Park and a couple of nights with Andy in Wrigleyville. Kristen and I lived in Chicago for 8+ years so I don’t really want to fill my days sight seeing or visiting museums, I’d much rather spend my time connecting with you. (Though I am willing to attend the Bears game on December 18th, just tossing it out there!)

    Let me be blunt. Since I’m already going to be in Chicago and I have so many free days, that means that you can get my services pretty cheap. Some things you could have me do at a cut rate.

    • Come to your organization/church to lead a workshop on any variety of things I teach regularly on. Social media for churches, Mailchimp for non-profits, Blogging 101, Creating a sustainable online strategy, Free and awesome communications tools for non-profits, or a hybrid of any of those to meet your needs.
    • Spend a day or half day consulting with your team regarding your website or online engagement strategy.
    • Teach at youth group or even fill your pulpit (free or nearly free)
    • Meet to discuss a possible project for The Youth Cartel or McLane Creative

    I’m open to spending up to a full-day outside of the city, as well. Maybe you live in Northwest Indiana or Southern Wisconsin or downstate Illinois and would like me to come teach my classes? I’d actually love an excuse to spend a day in the South Bend area.

    Of course, if you want to hang out and grab a cup of coffee or an italian beef… let me know. I’m obviously down for that.

    Drop me an email and let’s connect.