Search results for: “good news”

  • Homeless Teenagers Among Us

    [Video enclosed]

    The poverty rate for those under 18 will soon hit 25% in America.

    This video from 60 Minutes broke my heart yesterday. While riding the trolley to work I listened to the audio and wept.

    16 million kids in our country are currently living below the poverty line. That’s an increase of 2 million in just 2 years as families slip from “middle class” into poverty.

    It’s where you live. In your city, town, suburb, gated community, or rural area. And it’s people who never thought they’d struggle. And certainly never thought they’d become homeless.

    As the video shows, millions of kids are now homeless. We hear about foreclosures and we think of the housing market. We forget that those are also displaced people. Families who lost everything.

    5 Ways You and Your Church Can Respond

    As I listened to this story, I thought about how can the church NOT respond?

    I thought about how churches and youth ministries could easily do a few things that could make a big difference. Ministry life just can’t go on as normal with a quarter of the families in our community unsure where their next meal might come from, or unsure if they can stay in their apartment another month, or unsure if they can even keep their families together.

    It’s one thing to preach Good News. It’s another thing to actually be Good News.

    What are some things you can actually do?

  • Start a food closet. There isn’t a church door in America that doesn’t get knocked on every week asking for food. If your church doesn’t have a food closet, start one. If the church doesn’t want one, just start bringing non-perishable food items to church every time you visit. They’ll figure it out when it starts to pile up.
  • Get out of your car and look around. In your routine where you drive everywhere, you won’t ever see the problem among us. Stop driving everywhere! Commit to start walking or riding a bike, and you’ll see things you never thought existing in your community. It’ll do your heart good.
  • Take a family in. There’s a part in the 60 Minutes piece above where they say that most families foreclosed on move into a neighbor or family members house. I know it’s easier to pretend you don’t see what’s happening. But a lot of people in a lot of churches have more bedrooms than people in their homes. Maybe you’ve got a big crib for a reason?
  • Convert some classrooms into temporary housing. It’s sickening how many churches have so much space that goes unused for 6.5 out of 7 days. Spend a tiny amount of money to convert under-utilized space into temporary housing for families so they don’t get split up. Convert a bathroom stall to a shower, buy some used basic furniture, and allow families a place to regroup for 60-90 days.
  • Open your youth room 5 days per week after school. There are some things that are so simple to do, yet we don’t do it because we get hung up by thinking too small. It would cost you nothing to have a volunteer staff your youth room after school every day from 2:30 – 5:00 PM. Hang some signs up at the middle and high schools. You already have space, just make it available to kids who need a safe and quiet place to study overseen by a caring adult.

    • How about you? What are some things you can do, as an individual or as a church, in the next 30 days?

  • The Trampoline Effect

    Myth: It matters who you know.

    I couldn’t be more of a nobody. When I showed up as a 17 year old kid on the campus of Moody Bible Institute I couldn’t have been more aware that I’d stepped into a world I knew nothing about, knew not a soul, and had no claim to anything.

    As I met people, they referenced relationships to people I’d never heard of. Famous pastors. Famous parents. Famous books. Famous and important allegiances that would take them far in life.

    Years later I learned that some of my early ministry job references were telling people that my biggest obstacle to a ministry career was that I didn’t come from a ministry family. “He’s a nice guy, but didn’t grow up in a ministry setting, so he can’t possibly ever be that effective.”

    Huh…. Really? 

    17 years later I can look up many of those people on Facebook and quickly learn that knowing all the right people and kissing all of the right rings hasn’t gotten them very far in life.

    Why is that? Because it doesn’t really matter who you know. That’s just a lie told by people in power to make you think you’re a nothing. 

    Your Secret to Success

    The Trampoline Effect: Who you don’t know isn’t nearly as important as what you do with who you do know.

    Give me a handful of friends who want to help one another and we’ll do 10000% more in a month than a pile of well-connected, entitlement fat, whiners who think the world owes them their next paycheck.

    It’s simple physics. 

    Potential Energy = 0 Impact

    If you’re a nobody like me. If you’re like me and your family lineage looks more like a bush than a tree. If your track record includes some famous failures. If you have dreams bigger than your budget or zip code. If you woke up this morning and realized that you have no more tricks in your bag.

    Than the Trampoline Effect is good news to you. Having the right friends is nice. But it isn’t the difference between success and failure! I’m living proof.

    Get together with a couple friends and show the world what you can do. 

    Kinetic Energy = Massive Impact

  • I choose hope

    Recession? Here's the NASDAQ Index July 2, 2009 -July 2, 2011

    Our culture loves despair. We ignore the facts and choose lamentation.

    Listen to an hour of the news and you’ll hear how dangerous our country is. (Crime is down significantly over the past 30 years) You’ll hear how horrible the economy is. (The image above shows the NASDAQ Index the past two years.) Public school stink. (In fact, most major metropolitan school systems have seen test scores steadily increase over the past decade.)

    Find a slow news and the media just goes back to the wheel of despair news stories that you love. Teen pregnancy, homelessness, violence in schools, date rape, sexting… you know the list. They go back to that wheel of despair because YOU LOVE THAT NEWS! Our culture is sick,  twisted, and upside down.

    We love to point to examples of bad news and apply them to our entire culture. Gang violence up 2% in Chicago? People in Arizona will go buy a handgun, just in case it spreads. A school in the district is struggling? Pull financial support, start a private school, all the kids with means will go there.

    We’re all going to hell in a handbasket and there’s nothing you can do about it. Armageddon is on the horizon, cope and deal baby!

    That’s our culture of despair.

    I reject despair for a posture of hope

    I refuse to be defined, to think of myself, or to allow myself to be manipulated by an evil system which loves despair. Jesus did not die so I could live a life of despair. He subjected himself, even to death, so that I could live life to full. (John 10:10)

    • My project is faced with impossible odds? I like my odds of winning.
    • Life biggest challenges afoot? I smile at the opportunity.
    • Less than 5% of our neighborhood attends a church? Let’s get to work loving our neighbors.
    • One of my students lives in ruin because of bad decisions? Today can be the next chapter in an amazing story of redemption.
    • 1.5 million people left homeless after the earthquake in Port-au-Prince? Well, let’s feed this 5,000. It’s a start.
    • The church cut the budget, staff let go, initiatives put on ice? Time for some soft innovation.
    • Everything that could have gone wrong today did? Tomorrow is a new day. Let’s learn from this and move forward.

    I choose to fear God alone and allow Him to have dominion over what He’s asked me to do. He’s not surprised by my circumstance. He’s never let me down. And He takes great pleasure when I put my faith and trust in Him despite the odds.

    The only story Americans like more than despair? A comeback. Your comeback can begin right here and right now. But you have to put on hope. You have to wear it like a jacket. You have to allow hope to define you.

    Hope goes beyond and attitude and a forced smile.

    It is a posture I choose to carry in all areas.

    If you don’t like hope. You won’t like me.

    Join me. Reject despair.

    Assume a posture of hope.

  • Inhibitions to the spread of the Gospel in your community

    The church is decreasing in America while our population continues to expand. One major factor contributing to this decline is how Christians think about themselves and their community of faith in the greater community in which they interact. This “self-talk” internally acts as a mental inhibition towards the innovation and creativity we need to reach lost people with the good news of Jesus Christ.

    Here’s some examples of inhibitions:

    • There’s nothing new under the sun. Really? I hear this dismissive tone nearly every time a new idea is floated. While there are certainly many, many who just redress the same pig and expect a different award at the fair– there are also tons of brand new ideas out there. In fact, the rate at which new information about our world is gathered, disseminated, and implemented continues to accelerate. There are actually new things discovered under the sun every second of every day.
    • People aren’t interested in Jesus. To the contrary every study reveals a wide gap between those claiming Christ and those actively involved in fellowship with other believers. While the gap changes based on the studies you read, let’s ballpark it at 20% of the United States population. That’s 61.4 million people in America who are walking around identifying themselves with Christ but are disconnected from the Christian community. When Jesus said the fields are white for the harvest he wasn’t kidding. Literally, 1:5 people you will meet today already call themselves a Christian but just need to get connected. (John 4:35)
    • I am not an evangelist. Good! People desperately need community. And people with microphones selling Jesus scare almost everyone. The good news is that the Holy Spirit is the best evangelist ever. Your job isn’t to tell every person about Jesus and ask them to receive Christ. Jesus said the two most important things you can do are to love your neighbor as yourself and love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. (Matthew 22:33-35) Anyone can do that, right?
    • I’m not a pastor. Cool, neither was Jesus. He was a carpenter and a lay teacher– A blue collar regular guy like you or I who went to work every day. He didn’t have a church to invite people to. If the last 50 years of church decline have taught us anything it’s that the “If you build it, they will come” strategy can’t reach an additional 20% of a growing population. We can’t build fast enough.
    • People don’t want to come to church with me. Who said they need to go to church? Giving your heart to Jesus and finding community with other believers doesn’t mean people have to join a church. You can form a community of believers who hate church right in your house. Who knows? As they discover that you aren’t a tool, maybe they’ll want to be a part of church later? And maybe that group of church haters in your house will grow… and become a church?

    What are other inhibitions, mental blocks, that are impacting the spread of the Gospel in your community?

  • The weekend ahead

    I’m looking forward to a fun and crazy next 5 days.

    We’re going to Disneyland!

    We might be the only family in Southern California who has never been to Disneyland. And that’s all Megan wanted for her 10th birthday. So today, after school, we are going up to do just that. We’ll be in Anaheim tonight through Sunday. I’ve actually never done anything at a Disney park, either. So we’re all pretty amped up about it and a little nervous, too.

    Sunday morning, I’m getting up at the butt crack of dawn to leave Disneyland and come back down to La Mesa to teach at Encounter. My talk is called, “So I’ve been thinking about how to be good news in my neighborhood.” It’ll be all about unleashing your creativity to be good news. (I’ll post the notes in the free section.) After church, I’m back to Anaheim to hop in the pool and then drive everyone home.

    Monday afternoon through Tuesday, I’m off to Chicago to help out my friend Andrew Marin. He’s working with a publisher to produce some training materials for his smash hit book, Love is an Orientation. Actually, I’m not 1000% sure what my role is in that. But I know that I’ll be speaking into the youth ministry portion of the content, helping youth workers practically minister to adolescents in matters of sexual orientation.

    I’d appreciate your prayers for this whirlwind 5-days.

  • Sleep deprivation and the American teenager

    To meet all of these demands, surveys show, high schoolers usually stay up close to midnight on school nights. And then they have to get up early the next morning, typically around 6 or 6:30 a.m., to get to school on time, as most high schools start classes around 7:30 a.m.

    —

    “Most studies show a fairly consistent 9 1/4 hours sleep requirement,” says Emsellem. “So there’s a huge gap between what they’re getting on an average school night and what they require.”

    An adolescent’s biology bears some of the blame for this sleep problem. As teens progress through puberty, unprecedented growth occurs in body and brain that requires a lot of sleep.

    Read the rest

    In youth ministry we joke about all-nighters. I’m quick to point out that when hosting an all-nighter that I take tactical advantage over my students. First, I play with chemical warfare by loading my students full of sugar and caffeine early in the night while I load up on water and fruit, followed by a lot of physical activity. Second, as an adult I actually need less sleep. Third, I sleep well regularly so I’m not tired going into an all-nighter.

    Yet sleep deprivation is a serious ailment for our students. Missing out on 33% of sleep each night (on average) has loads of consequences.

    Here’s a quick list of problems with chronic sleep deprivation that I’ve seen:

    1. Struggling in school academically. Some schools are compensating by starting high school later. A nice step, but doesn’t solve the problem if they just stay up later.
    2. Compensating for tiredness with caffeine & sugar might help them stay alert but leads to weight gain, doesn’t help acne, excessive odor, etc.
    3. Inexperienced drivers + sleep deprivation = recipe for disaster.
    4. Overly dramatic/depressive mood swings. Teenage girls have a unique ability to make a mountain out of a molehill. Staying up late thinking about it isn’t helping.
    5. Laptops in their bedroom and unlimited, unsupervised, broadband internet doesn’t help them make wise decisions.

    With all that a teenager is doing in the areas of social, physical, sexual, and cognitive development the brain is working overdrive. Not giving their brains the time to rest, recover, and work while they are sleeping is just going to lead to being developmentally delayed.

    Discussion questions:

    Parents: What can you do to make sure your kids get the sleep they need?

    Schools: Short of nap time or delaying the start of school, how can you help in this area?

    Youth workers: How can your ministry be “good news” to sleep deprived teenagers in your community?

    All: What do you think this has to do with the elongation of adolescence?

  • The other 90%

    I think some people are writing me off as a deconstructionist. As if I’m a leftover from a bygone fad when it was hip to rip on the church.

    Part of me says, “Call me what you want, who am I to tell people what to think?”

    But I think that’s an incorrect label.

    My aim is the opposite. I want to be a reconstructionist. I have this crazy, insane belief that the best days for the American church can be in front of us and not behind.

    If you need to label me something, label me this: “Passionate about the other 90%.”

    I will take that to the bank all day, every day.

    The simple fact is that I won’t be satisfied with reaching 5-10% of the population with the Good News of Jesus Christ. If that were a grade in school it wouldn’t even be an F… it would be an I.

    Incomplete work. I know we can do better. I know I can do better!

    I’m unashamedly passionate about that. And I readily admit that I keep company with people who think the same way.

    When I run into “satisfied Christians” I kind of wonder what is wrong with them? How can we be so comfortable and happy when we believe what we believe and 90% of the population doesn’t even care?

    • Nearly all Christians believe that a life on earth knowing Jesus will be better than a life lived on earth without Christ.
    • Nearly all Christians believe that when you die you will be judged. Those who know Jesus spend eternity with Christ, those who don’t know Jesus spend eternity separated from Christ.

    That drives me to think: What is “wrong” with the “system of church” we practice that leads to reaching only 5-10% of any given community? And what could we change, while holding on to what is dear and true, that would help us (the church, the body, the people of Jesus) reach… 11%. 20%. 25%. 45%. In my lifetime.

    It is up to me and you.

    When I go down this road, people always say the same thing: “Adam, we don’t have the power to do anything about that.”

    I reject that idea. Flat out.

    You may not be able to change entire systems of power or government or even the momentum of your church.

    But you can change you.

    And if you can change you and God has called you to lead others. They will change, too.

    When I look at reaching 10% of the population I don’t first think, “We need to change everything.” I first think, “What do I need to change about myself?”

  • From information to action

    click to see full size
    click to see full size

    Our society is in desperate need of Good News

    Therefore, the question for church leaders is simple: Will you be the source of Good News in your community or will someone/something else?

    The Sunday Disconnect

    Like clockwork, we have trained our people that the place to be on Sunday mornings is the church. That is a great thing: People show up!

    There is expectancy in that. Something innately in us instructs us, “Sunday morning is the time we gather for corporate worship of our God.” Whether its your first Sunday, you’ve been in the church your whole life, or you work at the church, we all come together on Sunday mornings: We are going to the church to worship God!

    That togetherness ends in the parking lot. As we arrive at church I find that we each family & individual has a slightly different agenda as they come on Sunday morning.

    The difference in agenda is fascinating, mind-numbing, and ultimately a sign that we need corrective leadership.

    My Sunday morning agenda – aka “Things I am hoping for“

    1. Get there, all of us. On time is preferable.
    2. Get the kids to children’s church.
    3. Corporate time of worship, prayer, and the reading of God’s Word.
    4. Drop off my offering.
    5. See some friends during the soft time after service, meet some new people.
    6. Avoid invitations to help out with things that don’t interest me. Check in with things I am interested in.
    7. Hear reports/testimonies of what God is doing in my neighborhood through His people.
    8. Hear about corporate opportunities to do something. I only have 2-3 hours available per week, but if something can be done, I want to do it.
    9. Hear what’s going on in my neighborhood.
    10. Share ideas, process what’s going on, and form action plans for the week to come.

    The Sunday morning agenda of the staff – aka “Things I perceive they need to see the morning as a success.“

    1. Make sure the building is ready for visitors.
    2. Make sure all of your people are in the right places and they know what they are supposed to be doing.
    3. Invite people into a deeper relationship with God.
    4. Communicate God’s Word. (Song, sermon, prayer, etc.)
    5. Announce stuff.
    6. Check off the mental check list of people to reach out to (Some, to see how they are doing or follow-up. Others, to recruit or check-in about stuff you are announcing.)
    7. Make sure the service happens. (You want it to be worshipful for yourself, but largely it’s not because details overwhelm you.)
    8. Oversee staff, volunteers, and check-in with all of them after to see how it went.
    9. Count stuff. I don’t know why but church staff have to count everything.
    10. Troubleshoot. Something always manages to go wrong.

    See what’s happening?

    Largely, the people coming want to be called to action. Sure, they want to gather. But they also want to do something with their faith outside of the walls of the church in their own community.

    Largely, the church staff want to call people to help make church happen. They want to do stuff outside of the church, too. (Don’t read that the wrong way… the church staff largely is on staff because they want to impact the community!) But they can’t even think about that unless their bases are covered.

    Questions: What are some first steps to alleviating this disconnect on Sunday morning? What are ways you can transform Sunday morning from information sharing to a call to action?

  • Living what you believe

    In some circles, what I’m about to say, will cause people to snicker:

    I’m an Evangelical Christian. I studied at Moody Bible Institute. I tend to approach the Bible from a traditional, literal, cultural perspective. I’ve work at Baptist churches. With altar calls and hand raising. I know all of the words to a whole slew of hymns. (Well, most of the words.) And I kind of like them over the never-ending repetition of some of the new stuff rolling out.

    Yes. I am “one of those.”

    Except.

    By “one of those” I mean that I take the Bible at face value. Which isn’t all that radical. But, I suppose, what is radical is that I hold that in authority over the culture that evangelicalism has created.

    As I read the Bible day-by-day I refuse to be bound by the trappings of a church-created culture. Church culture holds no stone to the boulder of Biblical authority. For too long the church has stood for the wrong things for the sake of protecting their little-k-kingdoms in the face of BIG K calls to action. As I study Scripture I see that Jesus didn’t just come to earth so I could raise my hand and say a prayer which was a magic token to eternal life. As Ephesians 2 teaches, it’s no more important to “present the Gospel” as it is to “present yourself as the Gospel.”

    Jesus didn’t die so that I could run around sharing Good News. He also wanted me to be Good News. To stand up for the poor, to give special attention to children, especially orphans, to put women on equal footing with men, to seek justice for the oppressed, on and on.

    I refuse to over-emphasize Pauline epistles and forsake the radical words of Jesus in the Gospels. Or, for that matter, to ignore principles taught the Law which Jesus says he didn’t come to replace but to fulfill.

  • How to be a great church leader

    Sometimes I think that being a great leader in the church looks like being a great leader in everyone’s eyes. After all, greatness is not achieved until you are publicly recognized as great, right?

    • I start to read books about being a business leader and think, I want to do that!
    • I like to listen to interviews with politicians who have done amazing things around the world, and I contemplate a life in public service.
    • I’m drawn to quotes of big time leadership speakers plastered all over Twitter. Wow, I want to say things that brilliant!
    • I feed off of and find energy from success stories of non-profit leaders making a big impact in our community. How can I do stuff with that much impact?

    I confess that when I gobble that stuff up I secretly start to aspire to be like those people. I envy their roles, positions, and greatness. I want to measure my success against the big things those people are doing. I would love it if people looked at me and said, “Wow, Adam is a great leader. Look at his list of accomplishments.”

    Yesterday, my pastors message was just the reality check I needed. I needed to be reminded that in Jesus’ upside down, bottom-up leadership economy… it’s the servant who is a great leader. (And not “servant” for the sake of saying you’re a servant leader in sermons, books, or as a public persona in the way the Christian media portrays it.)

    At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. Matthew 18:1-5

    Want to be great in God’s upside down leadership economy? Serve the least of these. (Matthew 25:40)

    • The guy who vacuums the carpet in the sanctuary is greater than the guy playing the guitar in front of the congregation.
    • The nurse who wipes away the vomit from a disabled child’s nostrils at 2:15 AM is greater  than doctor who’s name is on the door.
    • The pastor who visits the sick, has homeless people move in with him, or runs a middle school small group is greater than the pastor who preaches in front of thousands, meets only with the powerful in the church, or assigns visitation to lesser employees.
    • The pastor at the tiny church in a small town people wince at when you mention it is greater than the megachurch pastor in Americas Finest City.

    The good news of becoming a great leader in the church

    • No pedigree required.
    • No seminary degree required
    • No ordination required
    • No recognition from a governing body required
    • No board approval required
    • No website required
    • No money needs to be raised

    All you have to do, to be great in Jesus’ upside down leadership economy, is to serve the least.

    Then he told them what they could expect for themselves: “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat—I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? If any of you is embarrassed with me and the way I’m leading you, know that the Son of Man will be far more embarrassed with you when he arrives in all his splendor in company with the Father and the holy angels. This isn’t, you realize, pie in the sky by and by. Some who have taken their stand right here are going to see it happen, see with their own eyes the kingdom of God.” Luke 9:23-27, The Message

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