I am not dead

There is so much to write about I am not sure what to write about. So recently I have been given a mortal insult. If we still had code duello I would have to consider it. Personally everything that I am comes from personal piety. My faith is my source. That God is the most real and from that I do everything. My views of theology and philosophy are based on God. My views how what to eat and how to act are from god. If anything about me is nice then that is because God is so cool. If anything about me is crappy then that is because I did not let god in and I choose sin over God. So this guy mocked that. He scoffed at that idea that personal piety was important. That is about as bad as it gets to insult me. If you deny and mock the thing that I hold most dear then I have a problem with that. One cannot insult what a person holds most dear and then expect things to be good.

Also another negative note I am finding I do not like conferences. Christian conferences are not designed for introverts. They do not give the introvert time to relax and process what is being said. They just start to rush a person around. From the time I get up to until 8:30 they have me rushing somewhere doing something. Spiritual health does not come from business. One does not get closer to God when they are surrounded by voices crying for attention all day. It is driving me insane. I have started to skip things in an effort to get back under control. I have been trying to get as much sleep and reading for fun as possible. I am trying to relax and find some way to connect back to God despite all the noise. It is tough. I guess this reinforces my need for quiet in God and rest in him. Never let something suck your soul, but find time for God and chill in Him.

God suffers with us

I have learned that I need to believe a few things about God or I would be unable to worship Him. One of them is that God must suffer with us. I would not like a God that removed himself from our pain. I would not be able to love a God that could be uncaring. But I do think God suffers with us.

I was talking to a friend and he had some serious things weighing on him. I need to know that God was just as concerned as my friend. I can be empathic towards my friend, but God is feeling everything with my friend. I know that my friend is not alone and has God. I know that I am not alone when I suffer. I do need to remember that God is with me sometimes.

I think we are a little too quick to compare suffering. That if you do not great some arbitrary mark you should not feel bad. But I find suffering to be so subjective. I don’t think we can honestly disregard someone’s suffering because it is not “severe” enough. So God is in our subjective suffering feeling the pain we go through.

Now I also think that when faced with the suffering of others we can recognize that their suffering may be bigger and that humbles us. I do not think it is something we can force onto someone but it is within that we learn to hold the suffering of someone else in higher esteem.

God is pretty cool

I cannot ignore God. Things happen in my life and I realize that there most be a divine hand involved. The funny thing is that I generally dislike it when people blame God for everything. You meet a woman and fall in love, which is not necessarily God in my opinion. I do not think that God picks who you date or marry or decides who you hang out with. But I do think God takes advantage of situations and uses them for His purposes. I was in a class taught by an Anglican and my love for the Bible was reawakened. I started to love the Bible like I did back in high school. I do not think God forced me to take that class but I do think God take advantage of the professor to speak to my heart. So there God is inviting me back to loving him.

Then there is God bringing me back to ministry. I had a rough experience in ministry earlier. It shook my desires a bit. I am home for vacation and my home church wanted me to work while I was home. I would only be there five weeks and they felt it was worth the investment. That actually felt like some high praise to me. That even a couple of weeks would be good for them. God has taken advantage of this situation to tell me that I am still called to ministry despite my rough experience. I know that God still wants me to preach others the good news.

Some could say I am reading into situations. I may be doing just that, but I think it is alright because anything that glorifies God is alright.

I am back and culture.

I finally have some time. I was working at a church for a while but 4 months in I started getting some weird messages. Like you need to have a youth night, you should have started one a while ago. But no one ever told me that four months ago. Then I was told the hours I work on Sunday do not count as the hours I work for church. Sunday is the big day for pastors so that is silly. Some more bad stuff happened and I resigned. Then they called me selfish.

Now I have all sorts of free time. So that means posting some more:

Engaging culture is essential for ministry. If you read Stanley Hauerwas you may find that the church as been trying to accommodate to culture for a long time. I agree that the whole trying to synthesize rational philosophy, Christianity, and natural science is trying to accommodate modernist ideas and the issue that Christianity was very connected to the state. But I do not think there is Christianity without culture. Jesus would have started something totally new instead of being a good Jew. So /Jesus used the context and culture of his time to share his message.

As Christians we need to engage both faith and culture in a radical way. Christianity cannot kowtow to control but neither can culture be rejected out of hand. The church needs to address what people are concerned with and then share with them in those concerns. The church has a social justice role but is not the sole mover of social justice. The Church has a role of helping to guide the spiritually of people towards God. Without engaging culture the church cannot minister to people but instead stands off speaking its own language. If one visits a Christian college they see this “Christian Culture” at its finest unable to communicate to non-Christians without arrogance and pride. This is not something that there is an easy answer but it seems that the first step may be listening and approaching people in humility.

busy

Ugh work has me really busy right now. So here is a quickie.

Discipleship is just as important as outreach. It does not matter if you bring a lot of people into a church if there is no growth. When picking volunteers for youth ministry one chooses spiritually mature adults. Now if everyone in the church is new and not mature then there is no one who should be asked to volunteer. Disciple starts the life-changing experience that lead to someone impacting their world for God. Discipleship gives youth a foundation for them to live by and continue to grow no matter where they go. Discipleship and outreach are a combination that we should live by and not just think about getting more people into chruches.

(This is in response to some meetings going on at work)

Theological Youth Ministry

Something about youth ministry that is not very good or interesting is the lack of depth to it. Instead it is about playing games and getting kids into the church. Yeah it is good the kids are in church but what comes next is weak. They just do what any P.E. course does. PE sometimes does it better too. Youth need to be challenged more.

One way to challenge youth more is to actually teach them theology and the bible. One tells youth about sin. Not just a simple message of sin is bad and don’t do it, but sin separates people from God and leads to death. Then teach the youth about the sacrifice Jesus made for humanity. Youth are able to handle some theology. A High school student may be intrigued by the immanence of God and the Transcendce of god. What happens is a youth can start to use the mental capabilities they use at school on their religion.

Youth do not need to be coddled. They are not stupid. School work generally gets more complicated as time progresses. Youth need to be challenge to something deeper then they are experiencing now. Sometimes Christianity is made to easy for the youth. It is something that is just handed to them. Why keep Christianity so safe? They go to college and they face a world of hedonistic pleasure without a secure base. Where in youth ministry do with talk about the spiritual and theological ramifications of drinking? Where do we talk about the psychological and theological meanings of sex before marriage. Instead we just say that it is wrong. Youth go to college and find out that drinking can be a very enjoyable social experience. Some may have sex and then find out it feels good. That they do not feel bad for having sex outside of marriage. Then what they were told in their youth ministries is partly invalidating. These students have been left out without a solid reasoning and foundation. As a ministry there needs to be thoughts and reasons behind the lessons instead of a mentality that promotes legal rules based on authoritarian traditions.

This does not mean we use abstract reasoning with middles school students but instead that youth ministry combines the benefits and positive elements of theology and then combine that with street level ministry. There can be a new movement towards helping youth become lifelong Christians that will influence the communities they live in.