like a fire

I must be grumpy, because I seem to want to rant about the things going on around me. First, I offend most of my staff with the “conspire” post and now I will probably offend most of the youth ministry blogging community with this one. Well call me grumpy, but I really just don’t like this:

“You’ve committed yourself to more Bible reading plans than you care to admit and you’re 187 chapters behind in your latest attempt. If this sounds familiar, then the One Minute Bible for Students is what you need to get back and stay on track.” - blurb for the book

I definitely understand the need for baby steps in taking on new disciplines, but this seems to say to me that I am really asking too much of myself or my students to commit to reading the Bible more than a minute a day. This really fits the attitude of, “C’mon, that’s really asking a lot of someone to do something like that and actually be committed to it.”

Honestly? I spend more time than that brushing my teeth everyday (well almost everyday). I spend more time bathing, more time looking int the mirror, more time wondering if I like carrots, or just day-dreaming. I certainly spend more time doing the “important things” of life, like watching TV and listening to music and updating my Facebook page. How could I be expected to keep up with that too?

OK, this is a rant, and I certainly understand and appreciate what Doug Fields and his staff are trying to do by making the Bible less daunting and more accessible to people. It’s not really their fault that we are lazy, unappreciative, uncaring babies who can’t feed ourselves. This one just stuck in my craw. Thanks for listening. It took me about 5 minutes to write this so I guess, with continued effort, I could write the 5 minute Bible in 365 days. Wait for it… wait for it…

It’s official. Christianity in America has gone beyond looking stupid. We are actually stupid. I’ll not beat around the bush with this one. I don’t know any other group as widespread that feels the need to impart meaning by making up words. My favorite - “missional”, though I don’t mind “shart” so much. I heard this word about a decade ago and thought, “What!?!? Is that a joke?” It is now probably in the top five hot words in churches across America. It is now in wikipedia and I would guess it will one day be in the slow to accept Webster dictionary

Are we no better than that? We can’t relate meaning in a better way than to make up words that imply meaning that has always been there?

Now, that is where I would say that we just look stupid. But here is where it goes over the top and actually becomes stupid. There is a certain church that is having a Children’s conference this week. Many people will attend and it is a given that people in children’s ministry lean towards the cutesy, touchy feely type of marketing. The name of the conference is Conspire. Not meaning what the word already means, mind you. No, this is a “play” on words combining two words “Connect” and “Inspire” to form a whole new word that already exists an has a meaning of it’s own. Hijacking a word for a conference? Hmm… It is so cute to do that!

So in an effort to lead the next generation, I have come up with a few words that I think might represent important concepts for the future of the church:

1. Paneral - the second meeting place of the church for small groups and staff meetings. Also a possible new STD.
2. Kingdomal - The next iteration of missional, since the definition of missional is relating to doing God’s mission.
3. Discipleshipal - taking to next phase in discipleship to invest the kingdom in people.
4. Cohortal - The way churches will grow in the future.
5. Housal church - Where George Barna writes most of his “statistical” (ahem) books.
6. Missionary - this combines two words that should never enjoyed any degress of separation, namely “Missional” and “Stationery” (forgive the spelling “ery”) Evangelism in the future will happen with the new cutesy stationery in the new Leopard Mail.

I got nothing else at the moment. Sorry.

Edit:

Institutional - Meaning we belief in “Instant” and “Satisfaction”.
Meta-narratival - Churches that focus only on the forest. Who needs trees, they just get in the way.
UGCal 2.0 - This is probably only for those who are uber geeks or bleeding edge people in the church, but when is the church going to catch the bandwagon of “User Generated Content”? Why does pastoral (haha) staff decide content for the rest of the church?

I have been really enjoying Marko’s posting some excerpts from his upcoming book Youth Ministry 3.0. If you haven’t read and of it yet, check it out. I’m wondering if this isn’t going to be the most important book for youth ministry on this next era of practice.

Having said that, Marko shares the idea of faith through the expression of the train.  The modernist view says that the faith train starts with the engine (facts) fueled by the fuel car (faith) with feelings in the caboose. For the modernist mindset, facts are the most important thing, since it proves what we can know. Feelings, again in the modernist mindset, can’t be trusted and are not necessary.

The postmodern view, one that most teens have, says that the train’s engine is actually experience, followed by the fuel car of faith, followed by the caboose of facts. Marko says it better than I can:

“Faith is still the fuel. But in a postmodern world, most teenagers (not all) come to a place of faith through their experience of the Divine: in others, in themselves, in nature, in spiritual community, in Scripture, in popular media, in pain, with the poor and mistreated, and all of the other myriad places God can be actively found. This experience (which always has an intimate relationship with feelings) becomes a pathway to faith. Facts are still there: it might be fair to say the caboose is more important in this scenario. But facts support faith and validate experience.”

I’m scratching my head a little at both these perspectives. I have always railed (he he) against the idea that facts actually lead to faith. That means that something is only true if we can rationally explain it. There are just too many things that we can’t explain with words, like faith, but also scientific phenomena like gravity. We understand it, kind of. but still can’t explain why it happens. Which would mean there are no facts about them. Who can explain why they have faith, much less how? As far as I know, facts are the opposite of faith, since, with facts, you believe in your own powers of reason rather than God. Likewise, experience is also the opposite faith since it relies only on what we can observe (don’t even get me started on Heb 11, Faith is the evidence of what we can’t see).

So neither of these seem to work for me, though I agree with Marko that many build their faith in these ways. I hope that Marko has some ideas about this that give us a direction in moving people to a more solid foundation of faith. I will most likely be reviewing the book when I get it. So check back for more when it comes out.

I have been reading a lot of Marko lately. I don’t know if his blogging has changed or if I just didn’t get him before, but he really has my attention lately. Specifically, he is writing a book on youth ministry that I can’t wait to get my hands on.

The latest chapter preview is on identity. This is one of my hot topics and I have been teaching a lot on it lately. Marko provides an excerpt (teaser) for us:

“For our purposes, we’ll define identity as the “who am I?” question. Simply put: one’s identity is the sum of one’s self-perceptions. This includes self-perceptions about character, values, purpose and potential in life, caste, emotional make-up, appearance and body type, intellectual and spiritual and emotional strength or weakness, relationship to family and friends and culture at large, and many other factors.”

He then goes on the describe how preteens don’t have generally have the abstract thought to develop a sense of identity, It is in the teen years that this becomes paramount.

I am so ready to hear what Marko has for this, especially if he has any insights into how we help teens find their identity, especially if they are believers. Check out the post if this whets your appetite.

My thoughts have been gathering for this for a couple a years. What were we created for? What specifically am I here to do? Where is my place in the kingdom? My counselor pushed on most of those questions to make them much more specific. What would I do if I could do anything? The best and hardest question though still has me thinking.

What are five things about you that will always be true?

I still think about that and wonder. I have a couple of answers, but not a complete answer to the question. That question has become a great source of freedom for me. It is specific to me, rather than the vague leaning of my identity in Christ. It helps me know when I am being true to myself rather than living for other’s approval (a big problem for me). So I was thinking about this and the importance of identity when reading John 13 the other day. One word changed my perspective on identity.

John 13:3 Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. 4 So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, 5 and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel he had around him.

The word “so” changes my perspective on the passage. Basically, because Jesus knew where he came from, where he was going - who he was - he did what followed. Did identity drive Jesus’ mission? I can’t see how he could have done it apart from that knowledge. So that is my new goal and teaching point on identity. Where do I come from, where am I going, and who am I? Thoughts?

I am amazed at myself after reading this post by Andrew Jones aka Tall Skinny Kiwi (ht: Marko). Not because of what he is saying. But because I remember a time when I needed to hear what he was saying and wouldn’t have been able to hear it.

Apparently, some people out there are making a strong case for ignoring the context of the gospel. I’m not even sure about how they got there, but I remember myself back in the early nineties. I was doing youth ministry and was convinced that teens just didn’t want all the cheesy, context that came along with the teachings of most youth ministries of the day. I remember thinking, “Man, why can’t they just sit down and have a conversation about Jesus without making someone eat chocolate pudding out of a diaper?”

What I realized later was that it wasn’t the absence of context that was the problem. It was the wrong context for that situation. Dressing a certain way, changing the content to match the context, or relying completely on context alone is the worst direction the church has taken (If you don’t understand what I mean by the last sentence, try listening to Joel Osteen). But that doesn’t mean that context isn’t necessary or beneficial.

It seems now that people are so tired of the consumeristic mindset of the realization of that thought, that they would throw out context altogether. While I do agree that we don’t want to rely more on the context than the content, I don’t think we can ignore it completely. I can’t think of a single scenario in the Bible that gains anything or doesn’t lose some depth by removing the context in which it happened. I also, having taught scripture to teens for years, know that sometimes they just don’t understand some of the Bible outside of it’s context relating to their context.

My Point: Most people are either incapable or unwilling to receive most everything apart from the context it is in.

Having said that, I think I would love to hear what most people think context actually is. I’m not sure there would be a lot of agreement. Maybe that is the issue more than the use of it.