like a fire

I haven’t posted a lot lately due to spending lots of time with people. Given the choice, I will always take people over face-time on the internet. But this last week has been one of many ups and downs. Cathy grandmother (Nanny) died Sunday morning and we had services Wednesday. I was glad to hear the stories about the legacy he left her family, but there was a longing there for some of that. It started hitting my identity, though I didn’t know it at the time.

Wednesday night, we had our normal youth get together, but it was far from normal. There were some huge connections that I really loved. I had already planned on talking about the soul and how God gives us a soul with a distinct identity. When we don’t know that identity, it is like we are a coffee pot being used as a baseball bat. Not only do we not make coffee, we can’t hit a baseball very well either. Worse than that, we get damaged trying to hit a baseball if we are a coffee pot.

I was thinking of several things in discipleship that ought to drive our relationship with Christ. In Christ, we see more and more of our identity. I’m not talking about how we are like him, but rather in the transforming presence of God that awakens the inner part of our soul. John Eldredge calls it the heart. Maybe that is it, but what ever you call it, there is something hugely powerful in knowing who you are. I was trying to explain this when a story came back to me.

When I served at Westminster PCA in Pennsylvania, there was a guy there who was unashamedly known as a virgin. It wasn’t because he was unattractive. In fact, this guy had plenty of opportunity. He was on the basketball team and was quite popular. Many of his team-mates gave him a hard time about it. They told him that he was missing out and that he would never have an opportunity this good again to sleep with as may girls as he wanted. I guess it finally pushed him over the edge, because eventually he let them know what he thought about them. I’ll never forget it.

He said, “I can be like you in five minutes. You will never be like me.”

I think that kind of conviction comes from identity. I don’t know if it possible to stand up for what you believe without a strong sense of who you are, knowing that you are loved and accepted, actually making a choice that is better, and/or full of confidence in what you believe.

I think that points to a necessary component of discipleship. How are we helping this generation see who there are, know that they are loved, know their choices are better if they are centered in God or confident in what they believe? Is it possible to disciple apart from that?

I just read the latest post from churchrelevance.com and I am just ready to unsubscribe. Early on they had articles that relate to churches being more effective and helpful to congregants. Lately, though, they have been focusing on the top lists of churches. That is to say, the fastest growing, most influencial, innovative, blah, blah, blah, church of what’s happening now lists. I am just wondering how that helps the kingdom.

Personally, when I look at the list, I just feel inadequate. I wonder why these churches get so much recognition and the church I serve doesn’t. Is it because we are doing something wrong? Am I to blame for not making the list? But after I think about this a while I just wonder why there is a list in the first place and why we have an innate desire to compare ourselves to others. Why are we so driven to measure up to our peers?

I’m not sure I know the answer, but I know an attack when I see one. I recognize how paralyzing this is to me and probably to many others who didn’t make the list. Then I wonder. A lot. Is there anything good coming from the list? Are there things that the list doesn’t understand or recognize? Am I serving the people of my local church well?

In this case, I am OK to not really measure up.

Wow, there are times in the church that just baffle me. I have been overwhelmed with the media coverage given to churches and Halo3. And disappointed… especially in my fellow youth pastors. The blogging world is afire with the debates on using Halo3 in church (here, here, here, here, here, here and here). I am trying very hard to figure this one out, but I am coming up with nothing. So here I go trying to understand this. Bear with my while I process this out.

Violence
The single rallying cry out there seems to be how violent this game is. The NY Times says “Thou shalt not kill unless in church” (paraphrase). So in Halo3, you shoot people who are highly stylized much like sanitized cartoon heroes who look like robots. I get that there is an element of violence inherent in this game. But many people are twisting the Bible to say something that it just doesn’t say.

Thou shalt not kill? Who actually died? Can teens not distinguish between play and reality? Are they so fragile that they can’t contemplate the meaning of death? If so, then they need to leave out most of the Biblical accounts of death and violence. For that matter, there could be no gospel message for them. The Bible is full of violence which is much more graphic than anything to come out of a video game, much less the somewhat sanitized violence of Halo3.

Visually, is Halo3 any more graphic or violent than the Passion of Christ?

Then there is the actual violence to talk about. Compare Halo3 to paintball or football for that matter. How many people watch football? Is it much different. People are pushing and tackling people, most of the time with intent to hurt them. There is often real blood and pain involved. In paintball, you draw sights on actual people and shoot at them. You see their face and hear them cry out when they get hit. I Halo3 you neither see the persons face nor have actual pain.

Evangelism 
Then there are questions about using Halo3 for evangelism. I’ll go on record that I don’t like any evangelism that uses bait and switch tactics, especially if you never get to the switch. I would include in this list: concerts, game nights, public speakers, retreats, mission trips, entertainers, VBS, etc. I go back to my buddy Grant who told me, “What you save them with, is what you save them to.” Don’t attract kids for one reason only to get a captive audience for your gospel presentation.

Having said that, does that rule out fellowship? Can’t you just get together with youth ministry kids and have fun? Is that not spiritual enough? I can’t tell you how many times I get together with kids for fun and they ask to spiritual questions. Even more often, I meet or get to know someone through a fun experience and that leads to a relationship of evangelism.

Unfortunately, what I hear from some youth pastors out there is, “If kids want to play Halo 3, they aren’t going to church to do it.” I can only ask, “Why not?” Why wouldn’t kids want to come to church to have fun. Is church supposed to limit itself to education? Or just things that aren’t fun? Maybe it’s only this kind of fun? Someone actually denounced all game playing because in every game there is a loser and that (according to them) is not indicative of the kingdom. I guess people from that youth ministry don’t suffer and die and go to hell?

OK, I’m a little lot agitated by this. I don’t really care one way or they other about Halo3. I play it and have it at church. We talk about the things I don’t like about it and there have been times when someone takes it too far. If you choose not to play it at your church, you have every right to that decision. Where I get sideways is when people start trying to make (twist) the Bible support their views. I don’t understand the idea that we should not watch video game violence, but it’s OK to watch it in sports or the news. I especially don’t understand it when you can’t read a lot of the Bible without encountering it. Violence is out there and we will all experience it. The Bible doesn’t even come close to saying, “Thou shalt stick thy head in the sand.” So for all the people I might have offended in this post, I’m not sorry (though I am open to correction).

Mostly, and this is where I run out of steam, why is this the issue that gets such a reactionary, closed minded response?

I recently posted something about the story behind the biggest video game release ever. Halo3 has people all over the world stunned with the graphics, the story and the game play. It is truly an amazing game. But there is another side of the Halo experience that I have been encountering lately that raises my sense of rightness and justice.

This concern comes from the experience of Halo on Xbox Live and from multi-player games over system link. There is nothing like playing the game of the year with several of your best buddies. The ability to play with up to 16 other players is definitely a part of what makes Halo so attractive. But the darker side comes out in these matches.

Most often, playing is a frenetic experience of kills and re-spawns. As with all games there is the tension of winning and losing, and as with all games, there are people who are good winners and bad winners. Getting to the point, the trash talking sometimes becomes too much for good fun. This is especially present in Xbox Live where there is a certain amount of anonymity. I would say that most games have this and we just have to deal with it. But something happened in my group of junior high guys last week that made me stop the whole game and talk about. The exchange went something like this:
“Hey man, stop camping that bunker!”

“I’m not camping!”

(Person continues to slaughter everyone from said bunker)

Then.

“You guys are worthless!” (Repeated consistently for personal pleasure)

It triggered something in me. Really? Worthless  because we can kill you when you have the sniper rifle and rocket launcher in the bunker? (Wait a minute) Worthless because we can’t play a video game as well as you? I don’t know what happened there, but I started watching the faces of these guys a lot more and I didn’t like what I saw. Unlike a basketball game where there is mostly personal interaction with the players, this video game made the players life-like bodies on the screen and faceless voices in the room. I didn’t like it.

I am talking to the guys today and asking them to think about impact of anonymity in video games and about their own voices in that. I am also going to ask that they keep it a bit more charitable. I know that some of this is pretty regular guy stuff, but I feel like I would do the same with a team sport if someone was behaving like that. It is just a lo harder to see it through the video  game lens.

I just saw the new Dove Campaign for Real Beauty video (above). They are definitely trying to help with the huge problem girls face in our society. I have two daughters and have already noticed how inundated they are with how they should look. Some of the statistics on the Ypulse site are pretty unsettling as well:

“Girls are being besieged with all types of media in nearly every corner of their lives:
- The average person sees between 400 and 600 advertisements per day - equivalent to more than one message for every waking minute.
- The average US girl has the opportunity to see an estimated 77,546 commercials by the time she is 12 years old.

This growing phenomenon is having a direct impact on girls’ self-image and even causing some to engage in destructive behavior. The Dove Self-Esteem Fund/Seventeen Body Image Survey also revealed:

- 93 percent of girls and young women report feeling anxiety or stress about some aspect of their looks when getting ready in the morning
- This could explain why more than 70 percent of girls and young women avoid activities when they feel bad about their looks including giving their opinion, attending school and even going to the doctor.
- 76 percent of girls and young women admit to partaking in unhealthy activities when they feel badly about their bodies
- 58 percent of girls describe themselves in negative terms, including words like “disgusting” and “ugly,” when feeling badly about themselves.
- Nearly four out of 10 engage in unhealthy eating behaviors, such as anorexia or bulimia.
- More than one out of 10 girls has used cutting or self-inflicted injury as a coping mechanism.”

Check out both sites for more info and resources on helping women see the beauty myth.