like a fire

Two pieces of scripture have always been pretty powerful for me. The first is:

John 10: 10 “The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full.”

That one is great because it is a blessing and a warning. Jesus tells us in one breath that he has come to be a good shepherd to his sheep, but that there is danger from the predator.

Another, great piece of the bible comes from 1 Samuel 31.

“34 But David persisted. “I have been taking care of my father’s sheep,” he said. “When a lion or a bear comes to steal a lamb from the flock, 35 I go after it with a club and take the lamb from its mouth. If the animal turns on me, I catch it by the jaw and club it to death. 36 I have done this to both lions and bears, and I’ll do it to this pagan Philistine, too, for he has defied the armies of the living God!“

What an image! David says that this giant is no problem for him. He has taken on lions and bears. I think that is a pretty great picture for life. I’m not saying that I can grab Satan by the jaw and club him to death, but I can fight the lies that come from him.

For me, that is the essence of youth ministry - teaching teens and their parents how to fight in the kingdom like that.

Put that in your Heroes pipe and smoke it.

Just a little something for Friday night.

Here.

Earlier this week, I wrote an article about Generation Y. In response to the Virginia Tech tragedy and in realization of the many public acts of terror that this generation has always known, I was asked the question of how does this generation see the gospel and how does it speak to them. Because of the way that lives have been taken in the past ten or even twenty years, I don’t really see this generation have the same regard for life as the generations past. The reaction to war shows how this perspective has changed. In the world wars, young people felt a responsibility to do their part. Today there is much criticism about the reasons for war and even how we go about it. Most people just assume that they can understand and reason out the need and cause for war at least as well as our generals and leaders. This attitude is represented in many other areas than war.

Our society has a very arrogant perspective, and it is strongly represented in this generation.

Arrogance is a funny thing. The Webster definition of arrogance is: an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions. That doesn’t encompass arrogance though. Arrogance is bred from a feeling of inadequacy or lack of value. I think that Christians become arrogant when they don’t realize their value, and non-Christians don’t have any grounds for anything but intrinsic value.

Arrogance is misplaced because it is based on personal intrinsic worth not God’s extrinsic value in us.

The gospel has something to say to a teen who is trying to find his place in this world with little regard for life and the sanctity of living. The messages I see them getting are that life isn’t valuable unless you are successful in at least one area. It might be professionally or it might be in a hobby, but it is important to be the best at something. For teens this plays out in academics, sports, friendships and many other areas. They see their parents working too hard and too much, and they equate that with personal value. They see their friends succeed and wonder if they could ever be as good as them. The gospel meets them there and tells them that they are valuable apart from anything they ever did or will do. They are God’s glory.

This is turning into a long post so I’ll sum up what I’m saying here. Because we are all God’s glory, we have inherent value that has nothing to do with what we do. The work of the youth leader is to help them see their value in the kingdom and give them to tools to use that value for God’s glory. I can tell that I am going to have to give this more teeth as I explain it to people, but it is a start.

I haven’t watched much TV in the past couple of months. It wasn’t a conscience decision, really. I just don’t like much of what is on. I used to be a real fan of Lost, but this season has just been a big disappointment. It has been plagued with so much back ground information and catching up the back ground that there wasn’t really any forward motion. House is always good in my book. I love to hate Dr. House and his arrogance (even though I see myself in him way too much). But then there was this period when it just wasn’t on, and it lost its momentum. Then there is Heroes. I really thought it was going to be a cheesy something to hold me over until Lost came back on, but it has turned out to be a lot more compelling and deep than I origianlly thought.

Two episodes ago, there was a great part of the plot where one character was going to kill the kingpin character that was behind so much of the sinister plot. He was asked if he would like a life of happiness or a life of purpose. What a great question! I think the others are just filler now that Heroes is back on.

I still wish that there was a couple of month interruption though.

OK, I have somewhat serious for the past couple of posts. Time to loosen up. So, I am getting pretty excited about the Halo 3 Beta coming up. I have been looking at some videos and they look very hopeful. I really loved the original Halo, but never really clicked with the second iteration. Hopefuly the next one willbe more true to the original.