For longtime All Blogs fans, it is known that I have whined about the plain boring old template for quite a long time.
So tonight, I finally busted out the color wheel and picked some new colors. It’s just a modification on a standard blogger template, but fun nonetheless.
Let me know what you think!
So today I was in my Equipping Strategies class at Huntington College Graduate School PA stepped on a landmine and sent some chicks off the deep end. Besides this little bit of fun, it was an awesome class. (See Why they Call it cemetery to read more about other experiences I’ve had here.) To say that this was the breath of fresh air I was looking for would be an understatement. I found the class to be stimulating and fun. I am actually looking forward to the next class!
Now for that landmine
Late in the day we were taking apart The Search to Belong and evaluating whether or not it held weight in our current church contexts. Basically, the premise of the book is that we all have four spaces to our lives (public, social, private, and intimate) and that the key to healthy personhood and belong in “church” is to have a balance of all of these. While not a specific formula the big idea is that if you have one intimate relationship you should have 4 personal relationships, 8 social relationships, and 12 public relationships. It gets a bit more complicated than that, but that is the basic premise.
So… About that landmine. The prof posed a question that went like this, “how do we strategize our ministries to connect those who attend our churches publicly but never want to get involved?”
The class seemed to think that in a postmodern world, it should be OK if someone wants to come to a church, but never really be a part of it. This is where I opened my mouth! I piped in, “but while that me acceptable in our culture, it isn’t biblical. 1 Corinthians 12 says that we are all part of the body. It’s not “if you feel like participating you are part of the body.” It says, “But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired” (I Cor 12:18) If you are a part of God’s plan and are there by His design… isn’t your choice to not participate handicaping the church? Then, since I was on a role I said… If you look at other passages, it is clear that if we “belong” to a church you MUST be a part of the body. Not being an operating member of the body is therefore sinful.” A lady chimed in, “well if someone is involved in being a part of the body outside of the church, isn’t that OK?” To which I replied, “Not really since that person isn’t submitting to the leadership… Even if they are doing a real ministry outside of the church, how can the pastor hold that person accountable? How can he know that his sheep are really contributing to the body? Isn’t a person who “belongs” to a church under the authority of the church and it’s leadership?”
This set 2 young ladies off. (I later learned that they are wanna-be feminist… this is somewhat commen on Christian campuses.) One lady said, “well I just have to shut my mouth before I say something stupid to you.” (Good, well thoguht out comeback!) To which I replied, “you can argue against this… But it is here plainly in the Bible, can you argue against it from Scripture?” Another male student popped in “what about Ephesians 4… Are we all individually called?” I said, “what about Ephesians 5, while we are all called indivually to a task, we are all called the bride of Christ? Doesn’t Paul use the body/members analogy in 4-5 different epistles? Are you uncomfortable with being under the pastors authority because of culture? Because if so, culture never supersedes the authority of Scripture!”
The classmates got heated and continued on… but they never brought about anything from the Bible to contradict what I said. If the word of God is the final Authority in issues of faith and practice, how come they could only offer citations from private experience and secular humanism?
Stunned silence. Later, on the golf course, the guys from the class gave me a hard time… For some reason I was “brave.” Figure that out.
I’m workng my way through this little book, The Search to Belong by Joe Myers. It has really gotten me thinking about the difference between coming to church, being a member at a church… and feeling like you belong there. There is a significant difference.
The cold-hard fact
I feel “community” and “belonging” and all that warm fuzzy stuff when I am at church and especially at Light Force. Deeper than that, there are certain people, adults and students, that when I am with them I feel something special with.
I feel understood among them, I feel like I am a part of their lives and visa versa. Sometimes we share things that are non-verbal… we can just look at each other and see life! Yet the hard fact is that I also can see and recognize that a lot of people don’t feel that way. They come but aren’t connected. They are members but don’t feel like they belong. They are in the community but don’t feel community. They look at the story of the prodigal son a lot differently than someone who feels community. We feel like the father, welcoming home the lost sheep and sharing a great feast to show off our beloved prize… but there are others who are “at the church but not feeling it” who leave the church and feel nothing. They aren’t connected, they don’t feel a sense of belonging… they go home and wonder why they came.
There is a deep longing and draw for each person to feel connected to a community. God did not create us to be loners, he created us to belong to something bigger than just us.
A little experiment
I want to ask my readers to consider posting some comments. You can reply without leaving your name or you can leave your name, it’s your choice. But I’d like you to think about these questions.
When you think about the church… do you feel like you belong there?
In what setting do you feel the most understood?
Has there ever been a place that you look back to now and think “I wish I had that kind of community?” If so, describe it.
It’s important that everyone who reads this participates. Why? Your story is data. We can all look at it, learn from it… who knows? Perhaps your story will lead to a greater sense of community at your church or community.
Everyday Drama
I love what I do! It’s hard to imagine that for the last 3 years every dime that I have brought home to my family has been paid to me by faithful Christians who believe in student ministry.
One of the funny parts of what I do is that lots of times people look at it and say, “wow, that’s easy… You get paid to do this?” True enough, when I am taking students to fun places or cultural attractions or even on college visit weekends, my job looks fun because it is.
But at the same time they will say “you are pretty special, I wouldn’t want to do what you do.” For the most part this is because many adults are either afraid of dealing with adolescents or don’t want to learn the skills and patience to work with them on a daily basis.
In fact, and this is what makes me a weird person, I actually don’t mind the daily ups and downs of “teen angst.” I think it is fun to be a part of their growing up. I don’t see it like James Dobson describes it as “a tumultuous time” but rather an incredible time when God shapes men and women. At the end of the day I want to be a significant person in developing the next generation of Christian leaders. Hopefully, these will be the church leaders who welcome Christ back to earth for his millenial reign.
Certain frustrations
Lately I have been mired in relational no-mans land. This is what I mean, most of my “core students” are really wrestling with life… Here is what one of my leadership students posted in her blog the other day.
“everything changing when is turn around, all out of my control im a mobile” that’s how I feel. Like IM a mobie (like one of those things they hang above a baby’s crib that goes in circles, not a car) I’ve felt soo far away from my friends lately like no one wants to talk to me and stuff and i feel so let down, left out, and alone. i’ve also seen the bad sides of some people lately and it’s not too pretty. i don’t kno if it has always been there and i just never noticed or if it is just coming out now but it’s frustrating and kind of scary.
Reading that doesn’t scare me. It expresses true desires… She is saying “Life is changing and I want it to go backwards. I want things to be like they were when I was younger. But how this is manifesting itself in this student is scary. She is kranky, she is tough to be around. She has a lot to say but doesn’t say much to me.
Helping students understand their world
I’m here basically because it is a universal that parents and adolescents can’t talk. I wish I know why, but they just can’t talk about real life. Kids are wrestling with tremendous changes as they approach adulthood and almost all parents look at their teenagers and say “why can’t you be 9 forever?” Adolescents are wondering and looking for their place in the world while mom and dad are depressed that their little girl is growing up too fast.
Yesterday we had a chance to sit down with another student who was really wrestling with these developmental changes. She was ready to “give up” because she really wanted life to be simple… It only took me telling her the truth… Life is complicated… That stuff was always there but you didn’t see it… Now that you are getting older you are noticing these abstract realities… All relationships are messed up to one degree or another. What was manifesting itself to me was “PA has been rude to me and I won’t stand for it… I’m telling him to be nice to me or I am checking out of the youth group!” Most people are scared of that… I saw it as an awesome opportunity to teach her about how much she has grown in the last 12 months.
She posted in a comment to a friends blog bashing me:
I know what its like to feel rejected and stuff cuse that’s how I feel lately. And I’m gonna say something please don’t get mad…I talked to PA on Sunday, explained to him whats bothering me and stuff, and he was really cool about it. But also, his life isn’t really easy right now either, its not fair to him for us to expect him to always do whatever we want him to do and say whatever we want him to say. We take our stress out on him, so we can’t really complain about him taking his stress out on us, thats just what happens when you are close to somebody and around them a lot. We treat PA like crap and then we expect him to raise us up to a level thats higher then everybody else, including himself. Yes, he is a youth pastor and some of this comes with the job, but that doesn’t mean that he isnt a normal person, going though things that everybody else goes through, experiencing emotions that everybody, including you and I are feeling.
All of this is part of their process. When I shared with PB all of what was going on in the emotions of our students he said, “Aw man… Maybe you’ve got the wrong leaders identified…” I thought about that for a while. Maybe he was right? But then I thought some more. What he is seeing is adult immaturity… No crap, they are still kids! But at the same time they are influencer’s on their campus. They are growing up emotionally, physically, and spiritually… They might be a pain in the ass right now… But I love to see how much they are growing and to see the infantile potential of them as Christian leaders!
All this to say… Life is complicated. Beautiful, but complicated.
Yep, I’m all done with my taxes. All I can say is that I am glad I overpaid my state taxes… that almost completely covers my underpayment on the federal side. Gulp!
Since it all ended up being a bit less than I had been planning on, it looks like I will be able to go over to Romeo G&CC and pay my 2005 dues. Phew.
It’s tax day in the PA house. I’m not too excited about it since I always have to pay. I/m hoping it is a lot like 2003 when I thought I owed $2500 and I ended up only owing like $400. The 2004 tax season could either put us near the poor house or get me on the golf course. We’ll see in a few hours.
This is where the family is headed today. There is nothing finer than spending a nice Spring-like day looking at animals and spending time with your kids. If you’ve never done it before and have small kids, a zoo membership is perfect!
This isn’t me! But it is what I felt like in the last two days as I’ve started to get the shag bag out.
So…
Over the last 2 days I’ve been knocking the ball around the church yard in the evenings with a student. While I haven’t whiffed or done anything poorly, the swing isn’t feeling so good. Pretty soon I’ll have to pony up the clams and rejoin my golf club. While it isn’t a ton of money, I still have to wait until I can get enough cash together.
Quick tale…
The same student, who is merely curious about golf, was hitting balls while I was setting of for LF. (Which was pretty good last night) Before I ran home for dinner I walked out and asked if I could hit his 5 iron. I had never swung the club and after a couple of quick practice swings… I guess I was ready. We were in the far northerwest corner of the church property. I figured I would miss hit it and it might for 100 yards and dodge off to the right. I was very wrong. I hit it crisply and it went right down the target line! It was a bit of a flyer and was launched. I looked at my student and said “uh-oh… Too far.” We both watched it as it flew over the top of the softball field… I said “uh-oh” again as I heard a click as it hopped over Campground Road. We think it either came to rest in the guys yard or maybe hit his driveway and kept going. Oops! We both looked at each other, I asked him if he wanted to get the ball back… Then we scurried inside!
My Masters prediction…
The first groups are yet to tee off at Augusta. But I will make my prediction. I will say that Tiger will win it. Phil Mickelson won’t be in the top 10 and a foreign player outside of the “Big 4” will finish second. Tiger’s “got the look” and this is a good course for him. Last bold prediction, one of the “Big 4” of Els, Woods, Singh, or Mickelson will miss the 36 hole cut.
OK!
So I’ve had a couple of day to mourn some of the things that didn’t go well last week. Get over it… It’s time to focus on the positive. There was a lot of it and I’ll spend a few minutes here documenting what I felt was awesome.
As I think about it, there are tons of good things to talk about. Too many to list. There are just the good things that happened to my group! At another time I will share the good things that came from me working with Mr. B. (A kid from the neighborhood who met Christ at 10 years old… And is now an incredible teacher in his old school.)
