• The Main Thing

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    Could you help me out? What’s the BIGGEST issue you are dealing with in your church right now? What’s keeping you up at night? DM or @ me.

    Todd Rhodes tweeted this today. And his question perfectly emphasized what I’ve been thinking about the last few days. This Fall, I’ve had the beautiful opportunity to run around the country  for work and in the course of doing so sit down and chat with people from all walks of ministry life. Big churches. Little churches. Senior pastors. Volunteers. On fire. Burnt out. Rookies. Seasoned veterans. It seems like I’ve had a chance to get the pulse of a pretty good sample of people doing ministry today.

    At some point in most of those conversations a single theme rang true: We need to spend less time on stuff that doesn’t really matter and focus more time on things that really change lives.

    More specifically, ministry-people want/need/long to focus more intently on presenting Christ than anything else! They want to focus more on the “main thing” and less on stuff like building an amazing program.

    It seems like the last 20-25 years of church ministry we elevated a ministry leaders value to “what else can you do?” as opposed to “are you a minister?” You’d hear things like “That person is a powerful leader of his staff.” “That woman runs the most efficient youth program in the world!” “He is an amazing worship leader.” On and on.

    Those are all value statements about ministry program skills and not the “main thing.”

    And people in full time ministry are pretty frustrated by it. We didn’t go into ministry to be valued by our skill set, did we?

    I experience this all the time. People seek me out to talk about “how I can help their ministry” all the time. It’s because I have a skill and not because of who I am in Christ.

    Certainly, it is nice to have skills that people seek out. (Don’t get me wrong!) But I’m often left wondering… “Do these people really think I’m all about social media, internet utilities, strategy, design?” I hope not. I hope they recognize that these are the means to an end. The reason I work so hard on these skills is to convey the most important message in human history! At the core of who I am is not a tech nerd. I want to be a nerd who passionately loves Jesus and wants to reach the lost. My skills are not my “main thing” and I shudder to think of others looking at me and thinking it’s my main thing.

    To answer Todd’s question: I hope people lay in bed at night thinking about their ministry. I hope the Holy Spirit stirs them at 2:00 AM to innovate powerful things. But I also hope they aren’t wasting their time and sleep on stuff that isn’t the “main thing”.

  • Notre Dame vs. Stanford

    Last night Kristen and I went to the game between Notre Dame and Stanford with my cousin and fellow Irish fanatic, Trent.

    It was a fun game with lots of points scored, lots of exciting plays, and a few times we thought, “they are going to pull away and win for sure.”

    That isn’t the way it worked out and it isn’t the way the whole season has worked out. A month ago they were looking at a BCS bowl bid and Jimmy Clausen was being mentioned as a Heismen candidate. Now it looks like Weis will be fired today, Clausen will likely leave for the NFL, and my favorite team will be back to rebuilding.

    We have become the Cubs.

    I have three requests for Notre Dame:

    1. Hire an experienced head coach.
    2. Join a conference. The Big 10 seems likely, but any conference will do.
    3. Tell NBC to go away. Nothing good has happened as the result of being on National TV. No Heismen’s. No National Championships. Nothing.

    There is always next year. I know that. But I really wanted them to win last night!

  • Rest

    Convention season is over. As you would expect, I am exhausted.

    My mind is marshmallow. My heart for the conventions is that I am there to serve and minister… And that I want to leave every ounce of myself “on the field.”

    All three cities left me physically spent. But in Atlanta I made a special effort to open myself to time with attendees. As a result I did a lot of listening and praying with fellow youth workers. This has left me emotionally drained. I have so much going on in my mind, but it just won’t come out in written word.

    The next few days I will be pretty absent. I just need to rest, think, pray, and be present with the most important people in my life.

    Until then, my feet will be up, I am turning it off, and I will see you all again soon.

  • YS/YW Announcement… What’s Going On?

    Finally!

    That’s totally how I felt yesterday when the news came to me that we were making an announcement about the deal for Zondervan to sell YS to YouthWorks. (Here’s the link)

    The last few weeks, since Marko’s departure, have been a roller coaster for me. The facts presented to the staff on that day were that Marko had been let go, the company was being sold… likely to YouthWorks. And beyond that.. that’s about all that was known!

    It was a lot to take in. A lot to process. A lot of emotions to work through. And then a lot to stuff back in my head as I still had two conventions to work at plus a bunch of major projects nearing completion.

    In a world of live everything– twitter, Facebook, blogs– there was simply no way for this news to stay completely out of the public eye. And of course my job was to keep an eye on all of that. There was so much to say while absolutely nothing appropriate for me to say… a pinch for “the online community dude.”

    So the news is out. I am very happy the news is out. When I saw the presidents of Z and YW together yesterday I really hoped that the news would come out. It was a very exciting/somber (and a bunch more adjectives/adverbs) moment to be a part of. For me, the bottom line was that the news was getting out and that is good.

    The people at YouthWorks are good people. (That’s been clear in the blogs/twitter/Facebook) The people at Zondervan are good people. (That hasn’t been clear, but trust me when I say that they are good people, too.)

    Thanks to everyone who is praying for Kristen and I during this crazy time. For us personally more is unknown than known. I would only ask that you add the rest of the YS staff to your prayers, as well. Michelle, Mark M., Dave P., Jay, Donna, Dave C., Urb, Roni, Holli, Mandy, Tash, Ian, Lara, Brittany, Bethany, and Amy.

    Now… this weekend isn’t about Youth Specialties, YouthWorks, Zondervan, or even me. It’s about serving and encouraging youth workers!

    Back to work.

  • Some Tatango Love

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    I’ve got a thing for companies that make youth workers look good. That’s why I’ve been so excited about Tatango. I shameless plug their service… it is just that good. Some people have asked me if I’m getting a kickback for referalls to them, not at all. I plug it because it’s a great service.

    Anyway, I looked at their newsletter today and… bam, a little love came back the other way. Check out the link to their newsletter.

  • Prayer for NYWC Atlanta Attendees

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    David sang to the LORD the words of this song when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. He said:
    “The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;

    my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
    my shield and the horn of my salvation.
    He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior—
    from violent men you save me.

    I call to the LORD, who is worthy of praise,
    and I am saved from my enemies.

    “The waves of death swirled about me;
    the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.

    The cords of the grave coiled around me;
    the snares of death confronted me.

    In my distress I called to the LORD;
    I called out to my God.
    From his temple he heard my voice;
    my cry came to his ears.

    2 Samuel 22:1-7

  • Anxiety in Youth Ministry

    Over the past several days I’ve started to put words to what I’ve been observing: The tribe of youth ministry is anxious.

    2009 has been a ridiculously hard year. Last October when Tony Campolo spoke in Sacramento he said something like… “Church, as we know it today, will collapse with the economy. And we will shake ourselves off and ask, ‘what do we do now?”

    Prophetic words.

    A year later we have to step back and acknowledge that in many ways Tony was right.

    • A down economy has forced tens of thousands of churches to re-evaluate how they spend money. Not a bad thing, but has caused stress at all levels of church staffing.
    • A shifting culture, and the owning of the reality that traditional youth ministry programs are fading in their effectiveness… more stress for youth workers.
    • Time to think, causes that stress to bubble to the surface.
    • The length of time things have been stressful (for some, 2-3 years now) causes this stress to manifest itself.

    And the manifestation of what we are all feeling is this anxious elephant in the room at the National Youth Workers Convention. It’s the tears shed as we go to worship. It’s the hunger in conversation. It’s the sleep in the hallways. It’s the lack of eye contact. It’s the nervous laughter.

    We are an anxious tribe. We fidget. We wring our hands. We bang our heads against the wall. We wonder what to do with ourselves. We wonder what the future of youth ministry is. We hypothesize. We position ourselves. We take our stress out on others. We blame ourselves. We blame our leaders. We blame our calling. We blame God.

    For me… recognizing this tribal anxiety and the disorder that goes with it is 90% of the battle. All of those symptoms in our tribe, I don’t know what to do with them. But anxiety, I know what to do with that.

  • Face to Face With a Deadly Seal

  • The weeks to come

    This is convention week. For the 5th time this year I will travel to a convention center to run social media. Two DCLAs (for students) and this is the third NYWC. (for youth workers)

    I have the best job in youth ministry. I get to meet youth workers from all over the world and remind them that even though their jobs are hard and thankless… they are being used by God to further His Kingdom.

    Awesome.

    What’s different about this week is a little pre-convention trip to Pittsburgh on Tuesday and Wednesday. (Host of NYWC 08) There I’ll be hanging out with Travis Deans and a bunch of youth workers in the Pittsburgh area. Travis is hosting two meetings of youth workers and I’ll have the opportunity to speak to them and with them. Such a blast! Travis and I lived on the same residence hall floor at Moody. That seems like about 10 billion years ago but I guess it was 1994-1996. We reconnected last Fall in Pittsburgh and I was stoked to learn that he’s been doing youth ministry since graduation! I will see if I can muster up a story about Travis to embarrass him. I may have to make one up.

    Wednesday night I fly down to Atlanta. The last U.S. convention is always the largest so that will make it a lot of fun. Since Thursday is normally my travel day to convention I will be working from my hotel room all day on normal work stuff. That said, I do have one detour planned! I’ve been a user and fan of Mailchimp for a couple of years. Their offices are in downtown Atlanta and I hope to pop in on them Thursday to see where they keep the monkeys.

    Friday through Monday… you won’t hear from me but I’ll be covering NYWC. (lots of live streaming of our rich line-up of speakers) Typically at convention, I’m busy all day with convention work and meal times are dominated by lunch with people I only see once per year. It’s hard to explain working through a convention season, it goes by fast and slow at the same time. I’ll blink and it’ll be Tuesday morning.

    I fly home on Tuesday the 24th, picking up a rental car, and heading home to do some laundry. Wednesday through Sunday… we’re headed to San Jose for Thanksgiving! My cousin and his family live up there and we thought it’d be a blast to hang out with them over the holidays. (And see the Notre Dame vs. Stanford game.) The last time Kristen and I were in San Jose was 2000! So I’m looking forward to that.

    The crazy thing about the next 2 weeks of travel? It’s my last scheduled trip. Last year, I had a similarly strangle travel schedule before the holidays… then didn’t leave San Diego county for almost 6 months!

    Blog posts during the next two weeks will be typical. Sporadic and random.

  • Set the 2010 Agenda

    2010-church-agendaIn 6 weeks it will be 2010. And as many pastors climb into the pulpit on January 3rd, 2010 they will give the annual State of the church message, as well as a road map of the 2010 church agenda.

    Lots of churches do this. The first weekend in January is perfect for it as Christmas is in the rear view mirror, people are naturally looking at plans for the year… and most importantly the pastor has had a few days of R&R. I love this practice.

    My beef is that too many pastors give a State of our church message as opposed to a State of the church in our town message.

    Set Your Agenda on Local Matters

    Read Revelation 2-3 from the perspective of the church in your community. You will see that Jesus did not judge those churches by their local individual meetings. He judged the church by a collection of churches in a city. Jesus was looking forward prophetically. He knew that before he came back we would be fractured into hundreds of thousands of groups… and yet his prophesy was tied to a community, not a local church. How can you deny that? I hope this drastically changes how church leaders look at their role. Likewise, I hope they set an agenda for their church body that is reflective of Scripture and not what they know within their denomination or theological tradition. Scripture is always right!

    Maybe this changes how we look at our role as a pastor in the community?

    • Our role may be to call local churches to come together for a common purpose.
    • Our role may be to call one another back to our first love.
    • Our role may be to ask the body of believers in our town to seek justice, speaking out against injustice to the point of change.
    • Our role may be to beg the church back to a period of societal reformation.
    • Our role may be to implore the local church to put the protest back in protestant.
    • Our role may be to remind churches that we are called to reach lost people, not put on the best show in town.
    • Our role may be to sound the alarm that the best way to reach the lost is minister to their needs, not entertain them.

    Phrases from Revelation 2-3 to meditate on as you set your churches 2010 agenda. First love. Perseverance. Rich in poverty. Faithful to the point of death. Overcome. Service. Hold on to what you have until I come. You have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Dressed in white, for they are worthy. You have kept my word and not denied my name. Endure patiently. I am coming soon. Buy from me gold refined by fire. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. Be earnest.

    What if, on January 3rd 2010, your church delivered a new kind of message? What if you called a meeting with some like-minded pastors in your community and set a common agenda for what the church will do in your town? I’m not talking about 100 things you will do… I’m talking baby steps. Here are 3 things we will do as “the church of our town.” And then on the first Sunday in January your agenda for 2010 includes a couple of things for what happens within your four walls… but also includes a few things that WE as the body of Christ in our town are doing together to be the Gospel to our town?

    Now there is an agenda worth rallying around! I’d give to that. I’d stick around for that.

    That creates new energy. Well, in me at least.