For a few months, the YS forums have had an on-going, ever-growing list of things YP’s say “no one told me about in my training. I added to that list a few weeks ago some things that I’ve learned. I thought it was worth capturing here:

1. Sheep bite.

2. You will have to empty yourself on the table everyday before the Lord…

3. The job is bigger than you. (OK, they said this… But I didn’t believe it.)

4. Contact work is more important than sounding good at youth group.

5. Ministry is what you do out of the office.

6. The pressure of leadership will crush your creativity, enthusiasm, energy, everything. Whatever is left comes from God.

7. Satan has a special ministry just for youth workers.

The other day, another forum member commented on my #6 on that list. They wrote:

This quote really hit me. I have been working for a little over 5 months now, and I look back at my original enthusiasm and wonder how I can get it back sometimes.



The more you do this, the more you realize how hopeless it is if you rely on yourself alone. When the trials of this job start to get to you and you feel empty, you know that it’s not about you and you are only capable with God’s strength alone.

There are a lot of times when I wonder why I continue to contribute to the YS boards. Afterall, I don’t get paid for it and I certainly invest a lot of my personal time and energy to it. I guess the “big reason” I continue to go back there and to comment is t wo-fold. First, I like to encourage others. Sounds so simple but I really do enjoy helping youth workers who are struggling with issues. Some of the issues are simple, they need to be pointed to a resource, other issues are complex, they don’t know what to do in a nasty situation. Encouraging them encourages me since it often point back to what a great situation I am in. Second, I get a lot of help there. For the most part I know I can bounce things off of this group of 4000 youth workers and see if someone has experienced the same thing or if they have an ounce of experience to share with me. It’s been an excellent source of book reviews, game ideas, etc.

I like to tell newcomers to the forums, if you give you will receive. It’s one of those simple principals in life that is true even on the internet.

As I was about to leave for Huntington the phone rang. It was my professors wife again, class has been cancelled for Friday as well.

Phew! The roads are terrible, but my strong desire to get this school thing taken care of in the right way was driving my sorry butt to Huntington no matter what.

So, I have a surprise day off. I am sure I will take some flack from students that I didn’t hang up the phone and rush over to RHS to have lunch with them, but they will just have to deal with it.

I am still going to finish my little paper and e-mail it in. I guess that makes me a brown-noser. (I also have the highest GPA of my life right and don’t want to screw it up, a 3.75.)

In a few minutes I will climb into Big Sexy and head down to Huntington, Indiana for my grad class tomorrow.

With the weather looking as nasty as it does, let the record state that I am not looking forward to this journey. I have a good feeling that it will be OK, but I have little doubt that it will be a long, long drive. In good weather I can do the drive in under 4 hours but I imagine this will be closer to 8 today.

I’m sure to have a story to tell!

This is the first talk in our Winter/Spring 2005 series called Apolcalypse Now.



The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. (Revelation 1:1)

Since these words were penned sometime in the late 1st Century, Christians have been waiting for the things written in this book to unfold.

Within it’s pages are prophesies of things yet to come. While much of what we will teach in the coming months will be somewhat mysterious, one thing is for certain:

There will be a time in the future when the words of this letter will leap out of the Bible and into reality. As we learned in looking through Daniel, everything that God predicts will be fulfilled. Not in spirit, not in a round about way, but exactly as transmitted to us.

Personal story:



There were a few things I hated to hear as a youngster. One of them was “you’ll understand this when you get older.”

My brother is 5 years older than me, and he used to say this to me all the time.

– When we shared a room, he would make me get in his bed so the monsters would eat me first.

– He would quietly play with matches in his room, but I wasn’t allowed to tell on him.

– He would sneak out to go to his girlfriend’s house.

– He would knock on my window to let him in when he’d been out all night.

– He would have me delete the phone messages from the high school.

– He would change the oil on his car.

– He would talk about strange things with his friends.

– He would drag me a long to parties so he’d have an excuse to leave early.

With all of those things, he would say “you’ll understand this when you get older.” As the little brother I hated to hear that phrase because it was somehow demeaning to me… it was really saying “you are smart enough to figure out what I am up to… when you learn a little more you’ll start to understand somethings.”

This is a lot like the book of Revelation. Revelation is the culmination of all the other books of the Bible. It assumes that they reader knows “some stuff” about:

Creation of the world

God’s promises to the patriarchs

The story of the Jews

The story of Jesus

The story of the early church

And the story of the church today.

The simple fact is that if you are missing basic knowledge about the Bible you will be completely lost and confused with what Jesus teaches us about the future.

For this reason, in the last 3 years we’ve taught you Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Daniel before we’ve come to Revelation. All of that should act as background for what is to come because this is the language the author uses. He was a Jew and he used Jewish metaphors to communicate.

So when we start to look at Revelation we must first acknowledge that it is in harmony with the rest of the OT and NT prophesy about the end of the world as we know it.

Revelation from 10,000 feet



Author:

John

This is the same John who was one of the 12 disciples and author of the Gospel of John. John was in the inner circle of the disciples. (Peter, James, John) John was probably the youngest disciple and the one that Jesus was the closest to. This is the same man referred to in John 19:26-27.

By the time of this book being written, John was an old man. He would have been between 55-80 years old.

Date:

Among scholarly types, there is a lot of debate about this. We know for 100% certainty that it was written before AD 96. There are two primary dates people argue over (AD 54-68 or AD 81-96) but to keep things simple we are going to say it was written in the 1st Century AD.

Place:

John wrote this book from the Island of Patmos where he had been exiled. (Rev 1:9) The story goes that John was put in exile for refusing to acknowledge Domitian as god. But the emperor respected John and wasn’t much of a killer, so he exiled John to Patmos. He was released and went back to Greece after Domition was murdered in AD 96.

What was going on in the church around this time?

This is very important. In the spring of AD 70 there was a great upheaval in Jerusalem. History tells us that a Roman ruler tried to place a statue of Julius Caesar on or near the Temple Courts.

Obviously, since this is a sacred site for Jews and they thought putting an idol on God’s temple was dishonoring, they rioted! The result of the scuffle was that about 10-15 Roman soldiers were killed. As we saw in The Passion of the Christ the Romans were always fearful that they would lose control of the city and a lot of people would get hurt. So the Roman ruler sent word to Rome that there were problems in Palestine.

Rome responded with massive force. The Emperor Vespian and the Roman senate ordered that Jerusalem be destroyed. By late summer 2 legions of the Italian Regiment totally 20,000 soldiers arrived outside of the city. The city fell on August 10th, AD 70 and the people of the city either died, were enslaved, or escaped.

Up until this point, the church was still headquartered in Jerusalem. But after Jerusalem was destroyed, the church was scattered. Between AD 70 and AD 150 there wasn’t much central leadership in the church. It wasn’t until about AD 250 that the bishop of Rome, Clement, began to be recognized as the leader of what would eventually become the Roman Catholic Church.

During this period of time the church, though scattered in leadership, continued to flourish. (We’ll learn more about this next fall when we study Acts!)

Language and form:

Unlike the gospels or the epistles, this book uses a poetic language called Apocalyptic. This means that the language is visionary and by definition vague and symbolic.

For the most part, we teach you to read the Bible literally. Since the Bible is God’s love letter to mankind, we believe that it was written in a language that is easily understood.

Example: If I were to give you a sentence and then to ask you what it means… you would see that interpretation is important.

Lisa, in a few minutes go upstairs to my office and get a bag of water balloons, we’re going to use them for a game.

Understood normally: This would mean what it says, it’s a command.

Understood metaphorically: This would mean “Lisa is an important compatriot who is a skilled helper, she enjoys destroying dryness.

Understood poetically: This would mean, nothing since it doesn’t rhyme and isn’t lyrical it must mean that I have poor thoughts about Lisa.

Understood apocalyptically: This would mean, in a time Lisa will help me destroy the earth with a barrage of unexplained water bombings.

It’s important to note that we only look at the Bible “abnormally” when it is clear to do so. We will see that John’s vision is clearly laid out to be a time to look at the Bible apocalyptically.

Outline:

The book of Revelation can be broken up into 4 time periods.

Section One: Past History (1-3)

Section Two: Tribulation (4-19)

Section Three: Millenium (20)

Section Four: Eternity (21-22)

Purpose of the book:

As John mentions in Rev 1:1, the purpose is to show the church what will soon take place.

Key verse:

Revelation 22:17 “The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.”

So that is an introduction to this letter, let’s dive into it!

Read 1:1-3

– An angel came and visited John.

Read 1: 4-5



– this is a personal greeting

– including a greeting from Jesus keys us into what kind of visit John must have had!

Read 1: 6-8



– this is a combination of two verses of prophesy about Jesus’ return.

– Daniel 7:13, “”In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence.

– Zechariah 12:10, “”And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit [a] of grace and supplication. They will look on [b] me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.”

– Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. This is Jesus acknowledging his eternality! He was, is, and is to come always God.

Read 1: 9-11

– I’ve already told you that John was on the Island of Patmos in exile.

– This happened to him while he was privately worshipping God.

– He was told that he was going to see a vision and he was supposed to write down what he saw and send it to 7 churches.

– These churches are all in Asia Minor, in present day Turkey.

Read 1:12-16



– This is the same imagery of a man used by Daniel. (Dan 7;9)

– John would have been well aware of Daniel’s prophesy!

– John also knew Jesus intimately, this was the first time he had seen Jesus since Jesus’ ascension in Acts 1.

– John described Jesus’ mouth as a “sharp double edged sword.”

o One commentator describes this imagery like this:

§ The sword is both a weapon and a symbol of war, oppression, anguish, and political authority. But John seems to intend a startling difference in the function of this sword, since it proceeds from the mouth of Christ rather than being wielded in his hand. (Expositors Bible Commentary p. 32, Alan Johnson)

§ Obviously, this is not literal language but symbolic.

§ It’s as though John is saying, “Jesus appeared to me… he was dressed for battle!”

Read 1: 17-18



– We get a feel for the intimacy in their relationship.

– John was so excited to see Jesus and in such awe that he dropped to his knees “as though dead.”

– Jesus recognizes his beloved disciple and reassures him, “I was dead, but I am alive forever and ever!”

Read 1: 19-20



– This is Jesus explaining to his disciple what is going to happen next. We’re not going to get to it today, but the 7 stars and the seven angels and the 7 churches are all talking about the churches that Jesus is about to have a message for.

Application:

I’m going to close today by drawing your attention back to the imagery of Jesus’ appearing to John as a soldier, ready for battle.

We like to think of Jesus as a nice man, with children sitting on his knee… he looks as innocent and harmless as Santa Claus.

But we need to remember that Revelation is teaching us of a Jesus who is coming back to both judge the world and enforce judgment.

Jesus is a strong and might warrior as well. He is no weakling.

I’d like to leave you tonight with a song. In the song, we’re going to hear a story about a man who goes off to war. He writes letter to his mom, his mom writes letters to him. She prays for him, he is sustained by her prayers during hard times.

But I want to leave you with this image because it is the exact image we should have in our brains as we await the return of Jesus.

The mother waits with anticipation every day for her boy to come home… so we too should be awaiting the return of Christ Jesus.

As the song plays, I would ask just that you quiet yourself and listen to the words of the story… remembering, that this level of emotion is the same anticipation we should be waiting for these things in Revelation to happen.

Play song, “Letters from War”

Pray

I only saw the big game for a few moments last night. I saw it long enough to know that there were a couple of big stories. Ashlee Simpson got booed as she performed at halftime. No one really cares about that. The second big story is that USC is better than everyone else in the country by far.

Last night’s trouncing of Oklahoma should leave Notre Dame uneasy. Maybe Ty Willingham did a good job by only losing by 31? Oklahoma was the #2 team in the country and they lost by 34!

I just hope USC is running a clean program. As most people see that they are just getting better each year, you hope it is because Pete Carrol is doing everything right and nothing wrong. Because if there is a scandal to be had… LA isn’t the place to avoid it. They aren’t in Lincoln, NE where they can cover things up. Nor are they in South Bend. USC is right in the middle of La La Land. As depicted in Shrek, L.A. is Far, Far Away.

If USC is just getting better in 2005, look out. They’ll win another National Championship and people will start making references to UCLA of the 1970s.

This is our second winter here, so I am feeling more free to whine about some of the dumb infrastructure stuff in our area.

I’m certain this will be read as a political rant, but it is really just intended to be a reality check.

1. It’s called asphalt. It goes everywhere. Why is it that Oakland and Macomb counties are so rich yet they haven’t bothered to pave the roads? I’m not talking about upkeep, I’m talking about paving busy roads that are completely impassable. Isn’t this a safety hazard?
2. Rich white people who live in the burbs but like to think they are in the country. If you live in Macomb County and you don’t have fields planted or harvest an orchard, you are suburban not rural. Get over it. Stop fighting commercial building, shopping centers, and multi-family housing. It shows that you are bigoted and elitist and the polls show you vote democrat… I’ll remind you that you aren’t that rich to be so elite. It annoys me to hear this argument from people who live in brand new homes on dirt roads. “Keep our township rural” is what they cry. What it really seems to be is rich white folk trying to keep minorities out. They figure if they keep multi-family housing out and dirt roads they won’t have to allow for diversity. Why don’t they just burn a few crosses while they are at it. This is America baby… Diversity is our strength. Democrats give all that lip about wanting a strong economy but don’t want to see their community have any elements of this at all. They just want rich white people and that’s it. That’s not a strong economy, who is going to sustain this economy when the inevitable happens and the auto industry flees the unionized north for the cheaper labor south?
3. It’s called salt, put it down while it snows not afterwards. I am amazed that such smart people seem completely inept at snow removal. People around here live in denial that we even get snow and act like Floridians when we get it. It’s a shame that schools close for no reason. Two or three inches of snow shouldn’t result in a disaster! It should take more than a foot overnight to shut things down.
4. Dirt roads are unsafe, not a status quo. This goes along the lines of the rich white exclusion thing. Why do people live in established areas and still have roads like they are in rural Columbia? I mean give it a rest. Every single road in this county should be paved. The argument from silence is “who will pay for this?” It’s called an assessment, you send the landowners a bill. You want to build a $500,000 house in the middle of nowhere, unless you are declaring that “private estate” it’s own independent nation, the municipality has a right to send you a bill.
5. canceling things because of poor infrastructure is a shame not “just how it is.” I am sick of hearing this. It can be fixed and it should be. It’s time this area stopped pretending to be in the dark ages and dealt with some reality. You don’t “pre-cancel” school because it might snow. We live in Michigan and we should know how to deal with the weather… It comes every year!

We got a call today that my class for Thursday has been cancelled. Not sure of the reason, but I will gleefully accept this present.

This will give me a chance to relax a little tonight. In case I haven’t mentioned it yet this week, this is a disaster of a week.

In golf terms, this is a person who isn’t performing at his best but still manages to finish the job “good enough” to make the cut or maintain his spot.

On tour, there are guys who never have ups and downs… Who just grind it out. They relish in the term “he’s a grinder.” It’s not that they are losers because they finish in the money all the time. Those who grind it out keep their card all the time. By nature, grinders don’t take risks. They play it safe right down the middle, aim for the middle of the green and make two putt pars. For a grinder to win the field has to come back to them or they have to have some nice “misses” that end up close to the pin.

On Tour, being a grinder is a good life. Risk-takers win a lot of tournaments but they also miss a lot of cuts. For those guys it’s feast or famine. Sergio Garcia is a risk-taker. Kenny Perry is a grinder. If you aren’t a grinder, you want a grinder on your team since they are always going to post a nice score. In a scramble event you always put a grinder with a risk-taker. While the risk taker will occasionally get you an eagle he also makes plenty of mistakes… So you end up with a lot of safe steady birdies and a couple of chancie eagles.

On the golf course, I am a risk taker. In the last year I’ve been teaching myself to grind it out when things don’t go well. In fact, as I reflect back I can remember late in the summer being mad at myself because I had developed into a grinder. I hit irons off the tee instead of hitting the big stick. Consequently, while I was making nice scores or 39-42 every day I wasn’t having any fun. In fact, my low round of the season happened like this. For 8 holes I was grinding it out. Opened with a couple of bas shots so I went into safety mode. But on the 9th hole I hit a great drive and was just to the left of the green with my 2nd shot. I got up and down for a rare birdie on 9. I was happy that I ground out a respectable 40 when I deserved a 42.

Then, still in safety mode, I parred 10-11-12 then bogied the long 13. When I played safe shot on 14 I got angry with myself but still managed a “safe bogie” to get to +6 after 14 holes. On 15 I walked to the tee box thinking I had a nice round, but a safe one in hand. It was going to be another boring 80. I remember having one of those risky business moments, I said to myself “why not just go for it and have fun?”

The 15th hole at Romeo is a 110 yard par 3. My safe play there is to hit a little pitching wedge. As long as I take a shortened swing I almost always hit the green. I love to hit my lob wedge that far but sometimes I lack control. While I could easily hit the ball pin high I could chunk it and leave it 20 yards short or blade it and lose it in the bushes. I pulled the lob wedge out and laughed at myself as I made my practice swings.

Then I took dead aim, swung hard and knocked the ball to within 2 feet. That left me +1 for the back nine.

The 16th hole at Romeo is a very short par 4, 320 yards, with trouble left and long. The safe play is to hit an iron 160 yards or more. Generally I say to myself “anywhere in the fairway is fine.” I almost always hit a 6 iron… So I pulled my driver. “Why not have some fun and go for the green?” I ripped it hard down the right side of the fairway. The ball hit the top of the downslope and I wasn’t sure if it had hopped into the stream or popped onto the green. To my delight I found the ball about 10 yards short of the green on my side of the stream. It looked as though the ball had been placed there. I was left with a very simple chip, almost all the way uphill. I could expect to hole 1 out of 10 of these shots. So I confidently lined up, and chipped the ball to within about a foot for an easy birdie.

This left me even for the back nine, 4 over for the round heading into 17.

Seventeen is a short par 5, 490 yards. But it is a 3 shot hole as the majority of the landing area for a driver is a pond. The pond comes into play at about 240 yards from the tee box… Plus it’s downhill into the pond and the ball never stops. Again, 9 out of 10 times I hit an iron off of this tee just to get it into play. Most players can’t hit anything longer than a 4 iron on this hole. So I pulled driver.

I knew that I couldn’t fly the ball 290 yards. So in order to hit driver I would have to aim into the right rough and hope it didn’t draw and definitely didn’t want to push it right. I hit it perfect again well down the right side, and long.

I was left with a routine 150 yard 8 iron. It was uphill, but I like my 8 iron. The flag was in it’s typical Sunday location. In the left center, just off the slope and 10 feet right of the bunker. The safe shot was to aim right of the flag so if I missed short or long it would still be on the green. I took dead aim at it. While the shot was online, it was short by about 15 feet and left me with an ugly left-to-right hanger. I’d have to give it enough to get up the slope, but still not too hard so it would catch the break. As I lined up I thought to myself, “you’re 1 putt away from being 2 under.” That thought usually screws me up, but not this time. As soon as I hit it I knew it would go in. It dropped.

Laying -2 for the back nine and +2 for the round on the 18th tee box felt great. But I still had quite a test left on 18. 18 is a 520 yard par 5. It plays longer than that as the narrow landing area makes for a scary tee shot. Right or left into the trees makes for a hard par! I always hit driver here but rarely hit the short grass. This time was no different. I got cocky and wanted another bomb down the right side. I ended up with a driver that went short and barely got past the last set of trees in the left rough. Eagle was out of the question, birdie was a dream.

In grinder mode, I would have hit a safe iron shot to try to leave it at 100-150 yards for my 3rd shot. But since I was in risk-taker mode I decided to hit a 3 wood since I could technically hit it that far. I had about 250 yards left. As I lined up I was both confident and Leary at the same time. If I hit it perfectly it would blast out of the rough and draw nicely down the fairway, maybe even trickle up the fringe onto the green. But if I didn’t strike it crisply anything could happen.

On that swing I swung a little too fast and the ball came out hot. It left me with an awkward shot, awkward distance, awkward lie. I had about 30 yards left, clump of trees at my back, carry a gravel cart path, down and right green, pin left and over the bunker. With the overhang of the oak tree I couldn’t hit a high shot. My preferred shot there would have been to chip it… But that was too high of a risk as if I left it short I was in the bunker and even if I hit it perfect it would probably scurry past the hole 15-20 feet for an ugly downhill snaker. So I was forced into the safety shot… The bump and run. No chance to get it close. Only hope I could get it within 15 feet… But it would give me a putt for birdie.

I lined up and hit the shot crisply. It was a nice shot. But I wanted it to be closer. I walked up figuring that I would 2 putt from there. To my surprise, I raked in the long uphill putt for a nice finishing birdie. 33 on the back nine, 73 overall. For the last 4 holes I was 5 under par! It felt good to strut off the course that day. I couldn’t wait to get on the course the next morning to hurt the course some more with my new found prowless. (Of course, it didn’t happen… That’s golf!)

I wouldn’t have felt that way if I had not taken the risk. If I had been a grinder those last 4 holes I would have had a nice round, but not the feeling of exhilaration I felt on the 18th green.

Like the old song says, “you’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when fold ’em, know when to walk away, know when to run.” I had played those holes as good as anyone could and it was because I had taken some risks.

That’s how I feel sometimes in ministry. I am a risk-taker by nature who has spent a year and some change grinding it out. It’s taken a lot of pride swallowing to become a ministry grinder… But I’ve also learned that in playing it safe I can still get a lot done.

It’s not that I’m a flashy guy on the job, I just like to be an innovator. I cannot wait to get this place back to the point where we can afford some risk. Likewise, I loved it when I was the safe guy and the SP was the big risk taker. I hope that happens again soon. I recognize that in order to really transform the culture of Romeo we must step out of grinder mode and take some risks.

It’s not like I dislike my job or disdain where I am at ministry-wise. In fact, I’ve learned a lot and even learned to appreciate the grinder mode… But I can close my eyes and imagine this place in the fast lane. Our community desperately needs a fast lane church and I want it to be Romeo.

I’m walking off of the 14th green and wanting to reach for the lob wedge. Will I grab it?

With the launch of lightforceministries.com I have started to wonder how I can possibly start using the internet in a more effective manner in communicating with my students, parents, and web passerbys.

I wonder:

Can we use marketing techniques to draw interest to our ministry?

Can I better inform people of what we are all about?

Can I draw the curious without spooking them?



I’m trying this on a limited basis now and plan on trying it some more as time goes on. There is even a sign-up for the LF newsletter below. If it goes well I plan on creating one for the church as well. More on this to come.

As I reflect on this post, I am amazed at the millions of different direction my job takes me on any given day. Absolutely amazing.

It kind of feels good to be at work this morning. Even though I didn’t get the week long vacation that a lot of others took and I didn’t even get to take 2 consecutive days off, I still feel refreshed and happy to be here today.

I am trying hard not to come up with new goals for 2005 since I already have so many for the 2004-2005 school year. I like to take the summer to reflect and rebuild for the year to come.

Along the lines of a good start for 05 is that I finished half of my reading for grad school this week. I completed the first 15 chapters of A History of Christian Education last night. I’ll get started on Church History in Plain Language later today.

I’ve also got a running start on Sunday school for this week, as well as a syllabus for the whole Winter quarter. I’ve even got the summer schedule put together for Sunday school. Don’t tell anyone, but the youth guy might be the most organized guy in the whole church! Ssshhh!

Light Force is a little less planned. The worship team will be practicing music on Tuesday afternoon. (Way late!) I’d also like to get a schedule for talks for the whole series on Revelation but that may get done while I’m down in Huntington. It would be nice if I could come up with a clever title for the series and everything. (That part would need to be done before Wednesday.)

I do know that I’ll be interrupting the series to do the love and dating and infatuation series in February… But beyond that I don’t anticipate any interruptions.

There is something so cyclical about the calendar. Perhaps God designed us for the ups and downs of the lunar calendar or perhaps we’ve merely adapted ourselves? That’s a good question not worth exploring right now.