Disguised Christ - Outreach Camp 2014

There are times in life that you are privileged to do one thing or another, and once the privileged time is over you're sad to see it gone, yet thankful that you were able to be a part of it.  Being Camp Pastor for Outreach Camp was an awesome experience for Pamela and I.  We spent most of the week, day and night, with a group of eight to twelve year olds who can't usually afford to go to a  week long camp.  Some of them come with only the clothes on their backs.  Some of them come bearing their parents', or grandparents', shame that they've placed on them on a daily basis.

Being ridiculed by those who are supposed to love them, it's rare they see adults who dote on them the love Christ has for them.  They stand amazed that these "cool" adults would take time out for them, and make them laugh, pray for them and give them encouraging words all week long.  We take so much for granted sometimes.  I have it so well, and my kids have it so well.  It was such a stark contrast to see kids that people don't love selflessly.

There's a whole population of children out there in the world who don't have that same safe refuge that most of us grew up with, knowing those who are in charge of us had our backs.  Some of these kids have to create their own safe places.  Places of hard living where no other person is going to intimidate them. Places where that little child is going to be harder, tougher and meaner than his or her surroundings.  It's a tough thing to see a ten year old with a hard heart because they've grown up in harsh environments.

There was a morning, where after breakfast the deans of the camp told every camper, in fun, that they couldn't leave the mess hall until they smiled at the Camp Pastor with their biggest, cheesiest grins.  Pamela  and I sat at the end table and smiled big goofy smiles at the campers as they were leaving to go to devotion time.  We had our biggest cheesiest grins we could muster at such an early morning.  Each one that went by flashing their best snaggle-toothed grins, I complimented each of them on how beautiful their smiles were.  There were several though, of these tough-skinned kids that weren't going to smile if the world's security depended upon it.  I chased one little girl out of the mess hall teasing her that she was going to smile at me whether she liked it or not!  She liked the attention, because as we walked out and I'm smiling so big my face was cramping, a grin began to creep across her stone-walled face.  Her eyes lit up, and for the rest of the week that little girl couldn't help but smile at me when I saw her.

A smile is such a simple thing, but when given to a child who has lived a pretty hard life it becomes priceless.  It becomes a bridge from your happy world into theirs.  Many such bridges were engineered and constructed this week at Outreach Camp.  Many of these children would come to us after our nightly worship services and would want us to pray for them.  One little boy came straight up to me and asked me if I would pray for him to be "bold and courageous for Jesus."  The kid was about eight years old.  I prayed for him, not sure of the world he would return to once the smoke and mirrors of our happy little camp seemed to him to be a desert mirage.  After praying for him, when he walked away, I prayed too that Jesus would help me to also be bold and courageous and not live this life for myself, but for Christ and for pouring out His love to those who need it most.

All the staff prayed that this week of Outreach Camp would change these children, change their destiny.  But I have a sneaking suspicion that the destinies changed might not just be those of the children, but ours. Mine.

One little girl that we prayed with, her name was Destiny.  I told her that she had a beautiful name, and that Jesus loved little girls named Destiny because that's what He likes to give them... a great, big destiny.  My mind wondered what her life will be like in ten years as a  young lady.  Will her destiny be swallowed up by the life and poverty she's surrounded by?  Or is there someway, somehow that the Christ she met this week disguised in camp staff clothes, tennis shoes, and devotionals be seed enough for the Holy Spirit to change her stars, so-to-speak?  I believe so.  I believe that the love of Christ is the most powerful seed that can be planted in young fertile hearts.  I believe that the apostle Paul was correct when he said, "Love conquers all."  I believe that God is bigger than all of our problems and bigger than all of our fears.  I believe that God is bigger than any mountain that these little kids will ever face.  I believe that God is faithful to His word and to the work that His servants perform.  I believe the disguised Christ will continue to show up in these kids' lives from now on because He loves them more than I ever could imagine.  Kind of like the way He loves me.

Digging in the Garbage Bin... At Panama City Beach

We were gassing up the rental vans and about to head home from our youth trip to beautiful Panama City Beach, Florida.  We had been there four days and by now I think we were all at our whits end.  Nonstop sand, surf, sun, late nights and early mornings, going all day long relentlessly pursuing beach fun, while intoxicating as it was, it has a way of becoming so wearing on our bodies that our dreams turn from hammocks on the beach to home.

I walk into the station to prepay for gas and hand the clerk a bajillion dollar bill in hopes to convince him to turn on the pumps and I see a dude rummaging through the huge garbage bin out behind the station. As I walk out, and begin filling up, I look to see if he's looking for cans or for food.  He leans out of the garbage bin with a Styrofoam take out plate, opens it up, sees no food and tosses it back into the bin.  One of our teens peeks her head out of the van and says to me with a tone of desperation in her eyes, "He's looking for food, Jeremy." I replied, "I know."

As I open the back of the van to our snack stash, another teen rescues a Wal Mart sack that seemed to be helplessly swirling in the cyclone of teen garbage from within our own rolling 15 passenger garbage bin.  We begin filling the bag with all kinds of crackers, chips, snacks, water bottles and can drinks. I head over to the man, a tall slender gentleman in his fifties. His long, unkept, dark hair was already drenched in sweat at about 9:45am from pursuant digging.  The warm, savory sea air switched quickly to the stale stench of hot, wet garbage.  I asked him if he can use the snacks and he says in a northern accent that reminded me of Michigan, "Brother, I tell you they won't go to waste."  He smiled at me a smile of relief.  He then offered to tell me in a somewhat sincere tone that he just can't find any work.

I wanted to say something to him... probably something religious, but I felt it disingenuous to preach at him coming from a position of priviledge.  Here I was in nice clothes, driving expensive air conditioned rental vans with a crew of well dressed teenagers shackled to iPhones, iPods and iPads.  The best thing I thought to say was just simply and honestly ask him, "You know God loves you don't you?"  His reply, "He must. He keeps sending me people like you."

I turn to walk away and he just points his finger straight to heaven as if to say, "You never fail me."

We drove off with the sea to our backs as salty tears begin to sting my sun burnt cheeks.  The thought racing through my head was, "God, you never meant for you children to live like that."  He whispered back to me, "Yeah, but I did mean for them to love like that."  Then His faithful words rang in my heart, "A bag of snacks offered in my name won't be forgotten in my kingdom."

I don't tell this story to pat myself or our youth on the backs.  We really didn't do much. I do, however, want to encourage us -- we who live in the lap of luxury and plenty -- to love like Christ. 

The guy refused to shake my hand because of the garbage on his hands.  I wish now I would have grabbed him anyway and hugged Him.  This is the image I see when I read in the scriptures how Jesus hugged the lepers He met in Panama City Beach.

Need Not Thirst // Project 2013

Project 2013 of Need Not Thirst begins with a story of teenage disappointment...

As a recent high school graduate, going to South Africa to spread the gospel with Teen Mania was just as much a matter of fact as was knowing that my acne was now going to completely clear up having exited the hallowed halls of high school.

I heard of Teen Mania at an event called Acquire the Fire at Ball State University in Indiana.  It was my answer to God's calling on my life..., to be a missionary.  So at the appointed time during the event, I found the Teen Mania booth and signed up to go to South Africa.  I came home stoked!  A few weeks later my South Africa info package was received in the mail. I took the package and opened it with baited breath.  Immediately, I began devouring all the information that I had been sent.  (I don't remember clearly, but I may have immediately put the Teen Mania t-shirt they had sent me on over my clothes I was wearing.)  I sat there, heart fluttering and imagining all the people who were going to come to Christ because I had finally reached the shores of South Africa.  I had this sense that they had been waiting on me to get there.  As I kept pouring over all the information, time lines, vaccine requirements, departure dates, etc., etc. I came across another sheet with a bottom line... .  Below this bottom line was a number.  And, with this number came a symbol.  A dollar symbol.

My jaw dropped when the numbers came into focus..., $3500.00, and I had only a few months to raise that amount!!! That number doesn't seem today to be as large as it once was.  When I was eighteen and pimple-faced, however, that figure might as well have read, "the National Deficit."

Needless to say, my feeble attempts to raise that amount of money ended in grave disappointment.  I felt too embarrassed to ask people for their money, and, if I were honest -- as opposed to all the lying I've been doing in this blog post?? -- the enormity of the amount made me lazy.  There was another part of me too that thought, "If God needs me there so badly, He'll send the money to me." -- well, I never received a letter.

But that isn't to say that He wasn't acting on my behalf.  In fact, I believe my disappointment was His grand design.  I have come to believe in these last few months that my disappointment had a purpose.  And that purpose was to evoke action from me, at 34 years of age, to act on behalf of someone who God does want to send to South Africa, Uganda, Sudan, India or wherever that may be.

With Need Not Thirst, one of our two focus points of this ministry is to provide "eternal water" so that thirsty people "Need not Thirst" again (John 4).  By December 31st, of 2013, our goal is to provide a scholarship for at least one person who thinks God may be leading them down the path of foreign mission work. We want to provide an opportunity as well as foster God's calling in someone's life, by removing the hurdle of money and sending them on their way.  Hurdles aren't always bad, in fact they make us stronger.  But money shouldn't hinder some young kid from launching out into the possibility of Kingdom service either.

More information will be coming via our Facebook page www.facebook.com/neednotthirst and on this blog as to how we intend to raise the money and, through much prayer, select the candidate to receive Need Not Thirst's first ever Mission Scholarship through Project 2013.  

This story begins with teenage disappointment, but it ends with a renewed mission to send laborers into the field.  Now that I'm 34... still graduated from high school... and a few less pimples than back then, Need Not Thirst is sending a budding missionary to a nation who needs Jesus... will you be that person to carry this "eternal water" to a thirsty people?  If not, then maybe you'll be that person to help send them.  Help us to pray, support us by giving... and for goodness sakes help me find the Clearasil. This is becoming ridiculous...

Need Not Thirst

In February, I launched on Facebook a new ministry called "Need Not Thirst".  NNT is designed, prayerfully, with the goal in mind to "Bring both eternal and earthly water to all thirsty nations...".

Need Not Thirst is a recognized campaign of Blood:Water Mission, and we are partnering with them to help the people of Uganda through B:WMs water mission projects to that nation.

On Tuesday, February 14th, the day of love... we'll be beginning "40 Days of Water".  During 40 Days of Water you simply make tap water your drink of choice.  That's right... trade out sodas ("cokes" for all my southern family), coffee, teas and bottled water for tap water.  When normally you would make a dash to Starbucks for that grande-yummy-tasty-latte-concoction-to-keep-your-life-moving-forward with foam add caramel sauce, put that money away and save it!  At the end of 40 Days of Water, on March 24th, join us for Water:Walk (details to be posted on Facebook) where we'll simulate a several mile hike (like so many make daily in Uganda) to a water source to collect water for the day.  We'll donate all of our money at Water:Walk on March 24th, and then donate every penny to Blood:Water Mission.  All during the 40 Days of Water fast, we'll be praying for the people of the world, specifically Uganda, who are thirsting for water.  More importantly, however, for the eternal water from Jesus we all need.  He told the lady at the well, "I have water, that if you drink it, you need not thirst again" (John 4 paraphrase mine).  It's that simple.

Please check us out on Facebook at www.facebook.com/neednotthirst and "Like" our page.  Begin something great, "pray and do" for those who are in need...

I Prayed Some Heresy Today...

Today our West Blocton HS teens bury their friend, school mate and family member...

Pamela and I lay in bed last night after our Emerge Twenty-Something Bible study looking at our phones (Facebook, of course) in the dark, just reading and not saying a word to each other.  Neither of us told the other what we were doing, but we were both doing the same thing.  We were reading our teens' Facebook pages.  Not that Pamela and I have teens ourselves, per se, but we have a whole gaggle of them from our youth group REVOLVE!Student Ministry. We were reading their comments about their friend.

I finally broke the silence, "It's not fair, is it?"
"No, it's not," she sort of whispered back into the darkness of our room.

Both of us were hurting for our teens so we posted a couple of statements onto their walls to let them know we were praying for them and thinking of them.  It seemed small.  The prayers seemed small. 

I half feared that the tragic events would turn these guys -- not necessarily our students but the school friends, though I worry for our students as well -- away from God instead of to Him. (I half worry that confessing my thoughts of this here in this blog will spark the idea itself as if it hadn't been conceived in their minds already.)  If I, in my theological prowess, struggle with the fairness of it all, how would they not be struggling with it already too?

So I got up this morning and prayed some heresy...

Rob Bell's book, "Love Wins" has taken a lot of rightful hits and largely negative critique because of it's promotion of universalism -- the idea that all roads lead to God regardless.  Its heresy is seen as so dangerously influential that my far away hero, Francis Chan, wrote a response to it called, "Erasing Hell". 

The premise of Bell's book is to say that no matter how people lived their lives, or how they believed spiritually, that God's love is so strong, and so irresistible, that, even if He is rejected in this life, He will ultimately be accepted in the life to come.  The implications -- dangerous as they are mind you -- are that no one ultimately misses Heaven. (Notice here how I can't even bring myself to type the phrase "goes to Hell". "Misses Heaven" is such more more palatable and acceptable to our sensibilities.) 

So this morning, I prayed that this young guy who lost his life this weekend gets a pass.  Here's my prayer in a nutshell:

God I know the rules.  There's only one way to You.  I don't know what was in his heart, but I'm asking You to bend Your rules for Him if he didn't know You.  Please bend the rules... or let there be rules that we don't know about on earth; and that because of those unknown rules he gets to know you regardless.  Let Your love ultimately win out.

 I don't know this guy's heart, so this isn't a judgment on his eternal state of being.  The fact that I don't know, however, is what unnerves me.  I pray that he knew Christ, and now knows Him in peace and comfort and in eternal rest.  The thing, too, that bothers me is that he came to our youth service a couple of times.  My blood runs cold when I wonder what we did on the nights he visited.  Did I do my normal, stupid youth pastor junk that makes kids like me and coming to church?  Did we goof off and not get through our service because of other stuff?  Was the Word that night a side note to all that was going on? Or was there anything of substance that the Holy Spirit could use moments before impact in the back seat of a teen driven car? 

God help me?!

It's sobering to think that at any moment we're meeting people for the last time.  So I prayed a bit of heresy, and I don't think that God minds, because He knows how we're struggling to make sense of what seems so unfair.  I prayed a bit of heresy because I'm afraid ...my hands are actually trembling and my eyes are starting to sting at the corners because of tears that want to come at the next statement... I'm afraid that I didn't do my job very well the night he visited our group.  I don't know that for sure, but it scares me nonetheless.

God, you grant heretical requests, right?  For once, please, I hope you do... if this heretical prayer of mine is actually needed.  In the future, I can't hang my hopes on heretical praying.

Church Lighting and the Holy Spirit...

I'm in a bit of dilemma, well, perhaps dilemma is too strong a term, however I do face a conflict.

Last night I attended a presentation on church lighting, smoke machines and lasers. We are in the midst of a slow going youth room redesign project. And, don't get me wrong... I know that if you can't see the speaker’s lips it's hard to discern what he or she is saying. I get that. We do need lighting. The dilemma part, though, is that I'm in youth ministry, and in youth ministry things are a bit different than the Sunday morning adult worship services experienced all across America. We live in a generation where super computers are held in the palms or our hand and the media blitz is at an all time, staggering, height. We know more about Tiger Woods and whom he, um..., keeps company with than we know about anyone else, or care to know about, in our lives. Our teens are geared toward fast moving, thumb nail bytes of information at the click of a button. This trend is making it more difficult for newspapers to deliver the news because there's a generation of readers who know what it is to receive short 160 character text messages of info, and the papers' dilemma is how to get this generation to read a full news print article.

So, I'm in this presentation last night and the salesman was doing his thing to pitch to about 5 different churches what his company has to offer in the latest of lighting technology for church platforms and stages. At one point, he begins to talk about a preacher delivering his sermon and how he can use lighting to create a dramatic effect by "painting" the platform red or blue to achieve the desired mood that the speaker is stressing in his sermon. I turned to a youth pastor friend of mine sitting beside me and said, "We don't really need the Holy Spirit any longer do we?"

The thing, too, that I don't want to do is to necessarily demonize technology. After all, pen and parchment in the Apostle Paul’s day was their ancient version of the laptop. Painted iconography was used to tell, or show, stories and to teach biblical truth – again, technology. Technology isn't the problem, however I have this deep, guttural feeling that it's easy for the ministry to add an effect, such as lighting, smoke, lasers, than to seek and pray and agonize for the true Light who illuminates mankind's hearts. It's much easier to write a check, add some lighting, sound equipment, motion effects, lasers, etc. than it is to make bloody our knees in seeking God with anguished spirit. Plus, it makes us more competitive with our competition down the street, right? And I’m not talking about some bar or night club… no, the competition nowadays is other churches! If we through in some Starbucks coffee, doughnuts and a pastor with cool glasses and a penchant for taking spiritual truths, hipping them up, and forming life groups to discuss the talking points at some hip city location then you have a modern church recipe for modern day church success. All too often what we end up with is an ultra hip social setting that produces ultra hip church attendees and rarely, if ever, do these attendees go on to holiness in Christ. As our pastor put it so aptly, and strikingly, this past Sunday morning, we erect altars to God next to or between the altars of Baal and the Asherah poles (see Judges 6).

I know, I know, the devil is using all the technology and lighting to keep teens distracted in the social settings we call the world. And, if we don't compete with him using the same tools, then we will lose that generation. I don't know if we've looked around lately, but we've already lost them..., and we've used the greatest materials technology has to offer. Maybe dilemma isn't too strong of a term after all.

Technology isn't the devil and can be used to enhance a setting. However, what is the devil is letting anything be a replacement for the true fire on the altar of God. Any illegitimate fire on the altar results in certain death... maybe that's why we've lost a generation to counterfeit fire. We’re too cool for school…

Judgment House Theology...

This past weekend our youth group wanted to go to a Judgment House... so we went. For those of you who may not be in the "know" on this, a judgment house is basically a haunted house for Christians but with the gospel message.

How are these the alternative for haunted houses? Glad you asked... . First, they're only done in the month of October and are held around the same time as Halloween. Secondly, their intent is to scare the Hell out of us... literally.

Basically Judgment Houses all follow the same M.O. They are a dramatic presentation of what happens in the after life. The groups attending the Judgment House are introduced to a family who you will follow through several scenes of their lives. The members of the family never seem to really have time for church and are all basically "good" people. The one our youth group visited had the mother character volunteering at a local soup kitchen yet she was not a church attending Christian. Then as the scenes go, your group is escorted by a narrator through their lives.

In one scene we are taken to a youth group drama team practice by one of the daughter's friends. At the practice after seeing the gospel performed in a skit she asks her friend how she can accept Christ into her life after her friend witnesses to her in their conversation. The daughter's mother enters the scene to pick her up and the girl excitedly tells her mom that she got saved. The mother is quite turned off and quickly changes the subject about going to get something to eat at a local side walk cafe type of restaurant.

The next scene we are escorted to shows a horrific accident where the daughter and mother are killed by a car jumping the curb onto the restaurant patio where they were eating. We enter the scene just after the accident and bodies are laid all over the place with EMTs attending the scene. The narrator then explains, "This is what happens next...."

At this point, you are escorted typically to a funeral scene where the remaining members of the family contemplate where the others who have died might be. They are all explained to be in Heaven by the father because they were such good people. Then here's where it gets intense...

The next scene is - for some reason - the judgment of the family members who have died. I'm no eschatologist, but what we refer to as the Great White Throne Judgment doesn't happen each time someone dies. This is the judgment that is being depicted but according to scripture is the final judgment after Satan and the demons have been thrown into the Lake of Fire. This judgment also takes place after the Millennial Kingdom is completed (Revelation 20:7-15) not each time someone dies. In the gospel account of the Rich Man, he dies, is buried then lifts up his eyes in torment. No indication that he goes to a preliminary judgment place is indicated. When Lazarus dies he is immediately escorted into Paradise.

Judgment Houses always have the dead family members standing before "the Judge." The daughter - in our case - was brought before the Judge and pronounced righteous and gets to exit the scene into Heaven.

Then the mother is brought forward who is so confident that she is about to get into Heaven as well. She is stopped short by the Judge who looks into the "Lamb's Book of Life" (another clue that we are at the Great White Throne Judgment) and cannot find her name in the book. The Judge pronounces her doom and then very dramatically demons appear from a side door, grab the mother - kicking and screaming violently - and drag her out of the scene and into Hell. Then for dramatic affect the judge begins to call out the actual names of members in your group and brings them forward. He then says something similar to, "Today is not your day, but when you stand here before me will you be ready?" We then exit to Hell... .

At the eventual Great White Throne judgment God will not use demons as his lackeys to take doomed humans to Hell. They will be thrown into the eternal judgment as counterparts in the rebellion. They will not be in a position to gloat over lost humanity.

The next scene is the reason I decided to blog about Judgment Houses and their theology. We then enter into the Hell scene and the room is dark, lighted only with black lights, splattered paint that shows up under the black lights to resemble fire or blood; it's 80 degrees plus in the room to represent the fire in Hell and screams are being pumped through the PA system. The intent, as you can tell, is to try to represent Hell the most horrific way possible to get people to realize the nature of this place.

Then enters Satan... he is dressed in black with a horrific "Satan" mask. Over on the side you can see the mother being whipped and beaten and kicked by demons. Satan begins to get into the face of the crowd screaming and laughing. He grabs the mom and brings her over to the crowd where she begins to plead with us not to ever come to this place and to tell her other family members who were left behind (similar to the Rich Man in the New Testament pleading for a warning for his brothers) about this place.

The problem I had with this scene is that in Hell Satan is not the lord or ruler as some so commonly think. He and his minions don't have thrones in Hell where they rule on beds of lava.

Hell is their judgment just as much as it is any human who dies and goes to that awful place. The old adage, "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven," can't be further from the truth. Satan is called the god of this world referring to Earthly realms. He was cast down from Heaven onto Earth as Isaiah describes. Hell wasn't designed as an eternal bachelor pad where Satan gets to further torment those created in God's image. Also, at the judgment, demons are not going to be the eternal escorts of those who are given Hell - as their choice in this life - by rejecting Christ. Satan and the rebellious angles aren't the reciprocal expression (mirror image) of God and His kingdom. They are created beings that will also come under the same judgment of God as such - created beings.

Now to wrap this up... are judgment houses bad? I don't necessarily think so. The intent is to answer the questions of what happens after this life and how there is an eternal reward of punishment awaiting. At the end of the drama the groups are escorted into a counseling room where the scenes are explained. Our speaker admitted that the scenes we saw in no way depict an accurate portrayal of what Heaven and Hell look like (glad he clarified that point!). But he then took time to explain the gospel and gave the group an opportunity to pray to receive Christ. Many responded and prayed and considered that day the condition of their heart and what their eternity might look like. This is a good thing!

Do judgment houses give impressionable teens bad doctrine on the nature of Satan, demonology and the end judgment? Yes they do. Is that an irrecoverable sin? Of course not, but we do need to be careful not to embed bad theological thinking as common place.

Teens and adults alike can come away with a further cemented theology that Satan and demons are God's partners in tormenting humans. This taints God's image because that isn't the design He intended nor is it at all consistent with God's loving nature in regards to humans. God has no desire to torment humanity, nor does he delight in the death of the wicked according to Ezekiel.

God has went to amazingly extraordinary lengths to buy humanity back from its separation from Him. A human only goes to Hell after having rejected all attempts by the Holy Spirit to draw humanity to Himself. No one ever goes to Hell with an excuse that they didn't know the Way. No one ever goes to Hell and lifts his eyes in torments without knowing fully why they are there and why they deserve their choice to be there. It's not the ignorant unknowing who go to Hell, but the guilty rejectors of Christ who remain eternally separated from Him. In an act of human will, God gives man to his choice, leaving intact dignity of human choice. He doesn't violate mankind's free will, but desires from that free will those who will choose to die to self in this life and, through Christ, gain eternity with Him.

Happy Fall/Harvest/Festival holiday!

Emerge... Twentysomething Ministry...

We recently re-designed our College & Career Bible Study to take on a new form... yes, a coffee shop. Of course, what else right?

We have young college students, the budding young minds of tomorrow, who need an outlet where they can look smart and cool and studious and feel connected in a bohemian-vagabond-artsy sense so we started a Thursday evening coffee shop worship service called Emerge... each week @ 7:30pm.

Emerge features acoustic praise and worship music by our Emerge Worship band lead by Aaron Griffin (vocals & guitar), Brett Hand (bass), Steven Garmon (drums, djembe) and Joseph Pierson (guitar). We also feature - twice a month - worship leaders from the area who come in a do an acoustic worship set; the likes of Kenneth Belue, Cody Stutts, Rock Sandretto and Chace Austin Butler who will be with us October 8th. We host an open mic night every last Thursday of the month and I provide a teaching or discussion each week.

The purpose of this ministry, other than the obvious ministery to this group and giving them an outlet of worship expression, is to be a community for the community in our area. One recent, yet repeated, statistic is that 85% of church-ed kids who graduate high school will actually leave the church most of them indefinitely. Only a small precentage will ever return.

Most average sized churches (65 members +/-) in our area don't have a consistent outreach to this particular group. Our near-future plans are to begin to partner with area churches to provide Emerge as an outlet for their high school graduates and twentysomethings.

My thinking on this is that if we all have a little, and we all put it together, we can all have a lot. (I know that sounds a little socialist, but in this case it's not so bad... anything we can do to reach our liberal college brothers, right?!?! Trust me, we won't be passing out Theories of Surplus Value as our weekly reader. LOL)

If you're in the area and would like to talk further about coming together on this, then I would love to get with you. You may leave a comment here - just your name and church will suffice - and I will look you up and get with you. I will be eventually getting around to each church, but don't wait on me!

Peace and blessings!

March Calendar...

What up, REVOLVE? Here's our calendar of events for the month of March! A lot of cool things are happening and you don't want to miss out! Like always let me know if you have any questions. See you @ REVOLVE!

Long Lost Friends... FaceBook!

I just signed on to this , FaceBook thing... I know! I'm old school behind the times. I've peeked in on a few old acquaintances and I've got to admit how fun and addicting this is. Eleven plus years of forgotten friendships... and then bam! It's like you get to catch up on an entire decade all at once. Kinda like a bad episode of Back to the Future II.

I'm shocked to see how many of my old friends have hooked up and married other old friends and now they have mortgages, babies (multiple), Ph.D's, etc., etc. Some of us have gained a few more pounds than we probably wanted to; some are barely recognizable because of the pounds they've lost. It seems we are all working together to balance the planet.

What has been shocking though are the extreme make-overs some seem to have gotten... not in looks, but in character. A few of my old buds were good, godly guys and girls and now their pictures tell a different story. Life has gotten them. Better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven? Maybe?

It seems like we all suffer from identity crisis. Now remember, some of these guys I'm seeing for the first time in more than a decade. A lot changes... nothing rarely stays the same.

If I drop off FB and don't visit for another eleven years, do you think it will all cycle back ending a bad nightmare? We of course then will be in our forties and a decade closer to the big show. Will mortality matter? I hope none of us are planning to die in our forties, but will our libido be settled so we can finally focus?

I doubt it... Hopefully, we'll loose our desire to "be something" and set our goal to become focused on the things that make us of no reputation. Then we can get centered on Him and these types of things can't be corrupted.

Broom Ball!

Hey, REVOLVE! Don't forget to bring your "A" game when we play Broom Ball tomorrow night... Remember, we are meeting at church at 6:45pm and leaving at 7pm to go to the Pelham Civic Ice Arena. We are going with Mission Baptist, so get ready to mingle. Bring your buds and the cost will be $10 for two hours of icy-cold-broom-balliness... okay, maybe I should just shut up! See you tomorrow night...

"She..." Series "Great Mate" Intro to Session Three: "I Am Woman"

Tonight I begin session three in our series, “Great Mate.” We will be looking at the role of women tonight! Just for this occasion, I had my lovely wife sit in with me while I studied for this session and give valuable input on her fellow gender... Because when it comes to women, they are a great mystery…

So complex, yet simple… a paradox yet every part of her being a complimentary whole. She is strong and aggressive but as gentle and fragile as silk thread. Beauty unparalleled, curved and sculpted by the same hands whose beautiful works have been emulated in many a painting through the centuries yet never duplicated in splendor nor in wonder.

It’s the female bear so greatly feared when a hunter crosses paths with an unattended cub.

She comes with a warning, “Better to live in the corner of a rooftop than in a large house with a brawling woman!” Anger and passion, quiet and gentle; a force to be reckoned with... who can understand the depths of a woman’s heart? Tears given to her to break the most stubborn heart, yet a smile so warm to cure any a world’s disappointments. Statuesque and sassy, yet the warmth of an intimate embrace is the opium of the man.

She is a truth serum making the strongest of men malleable putty in her hands. The force of strength… the spine she is to any man deemed Great. She is behind the scenes quietly making things happen or behind the lectern stealing the show. She has the wiles to ignite a mighty nation’s political parties; both favorably and unfavorably, but it is she the sparking igniter. Craved and lauded yet pushed down by masculine fears.

Men will beat bloody fists against each other for only the hopes of attracting her attention. Men will aspire to poetry and painting to try to encompass her beauty yet poems and paintings cannot express gentle kisses given from her passion nor tightly held embraces. Paintings and poetry become blind and deaf in her shadow. She is graceful and clumsy and makes both beautiful. Man will leave the security of father and mother and will sweat and toil to provide her the same security and shelter he abandoned. He will break his back to be able to place on her neck costly pearls and diamonds both of which she will make their beauty fail against the backdrop of her simple neck.

She is created in His image the same from the rib of man, and man will pursue with all his power and striving to have her remain by his side. Who can explain and understand fully who she is? She is woman… she is beautiful mystery… She…

Speaking at Green Pond CoGoP...

Hey, REVOLVE! will be leading worship and I will be speaking Sunday evening at a youth service at the Green Pond COGOP. I appreciate their invitations and look forward to hanging out with these guys this week.

As always my faithful compadres will be accompanying me leading worship... Aaron, Joseph and Cameron. Thanks again guys for the being there...

Also, that afternoon after the AM service REVOLVE! will be playing flag football... yeah, we can't let go of football no matter what time it is... and, thankfully we have decent enough weather at times in February to make this happen, however I believe this particular weekend is going to be cold so bundle up guys! See you there...

4 Rules for a Youth Pastor's Blog Photo...

For this post I'm not going to incorporate a picture...

For all of we blogging youth pastors there's an MO or mode of operation (I can't spell the Latin off the top of my head and I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment) that is particular to each of us . It has to do with that of our blog's pic for ourselves. Here's the breakdown:

1. A picture of us and our wife/girlfriend...
2. A picture of ourselves with a gaggle of our own children...
   
3. A picture of ourselves that doesn't show how fat we are getting...
4. A picture of ourselves doing something that only we think is funny...

Now by itself #1 is the most popular followed in second place by rule #2. If you don't believe me, click on my profile (Rule #4), and then click on "occupation - youth pastor". Go through each of these and see if a picture of the youth pastor of any given blog profile isn't posing with his girlfriend/wife. If you combine rules #3 and #4 then it will be by far the most popular, but standing alone I think rule#1 is king.

What these rules say about us as youth pastors...

Rule #1 says I'm cool enough to hook up with a chick so you should definitely hang out at the student group where I'm the youth pastor. That's the basic point. This especially applies to the youth pastors who post pictures of themselves with their girlfriend. Those of us fortunate enough to be married only post this type of picture b/c either we married up (which is 95% of us... the other 5% happen to be female youth pastors in which this rule would apply to their husbands) or we are afraid of our wives and don't want to catch grief.

Rule #2 is self explanatory. It's for the youth pastors who have discovered the joy of life in having children. We then become that annoying person who always wants to show off pictures of ourbaby's first drool, first doo doo, first anything... and yes, I am that guy now (x4 - but not all at once).

Rule #3 is also self explanatory. That's why you will see youth pastors who are 31 and are still using that picture of themselves when they went to their Sr. Prom and were somewhat good looking back in the day. This explains to the students we pastor that I wasn't always this fat dude who's married up and now has four children. I would have loved to use this type of pic for my blog profile, however I'm over being fat now and just want to be funny.

Which leads us to rule #4... After we are over the fact that we are married to a beautiful woman and that somehow we pulled that off before having gotten fat after having babies and gaining weight that my wife didn't gain while she was growing a human being inside her stomach (my 7 year old's words) we post the picture that we think encapsulates our God given ability to be funny which is why God called us to youth ministry in the first place. Being funny is all we have now! Being funny is what makes anything we would have to say in a pulpit anywhere ever matter. Being funny is our excuse to incorporate two forces of nature into our sermons, God's ability to love us unconditionally and saying the word fart in front of a group of teenagers who still think fart is a funny word (and, yes, I giggled while I typed fart... oops I'm doing it again... giggling not farting).

It is an amazing thing to get to be a youth pastor and requires the 4 rules for a youth pastor's blog photo as a requirement to be able to do our job. It's probably why so many youth pastors are guys. Check the profiles we are all 25 to 35 and all think we are funnier than we actually are. I guess that's why I type this blog thinking it's so funny that somehow it's going to make its way into the hands of the Pulitzer prize board people and that they are actually going to award the prize to me. Being a youth pastor is a great and awesome thing so I applaud you all! Especially the dude that has the picture of himself looking like the incredible hulk doing a push up. Believe me if you don't make the connection on that one, then you can't be told!

God bless the youth pastors!