Stripping paint… How ministry can be tough when you don’t get to see the end of the project.

May 19, 2015May 20, 2015 / youthguysteve / Leave a comment

This past weekend I was on a retreat with High school students from Big Rapids, Muskegon, and Grand Rapids. I loved it. I loved talking about Christ with them and on the first night we spent talking about the term whatever. We focused on whatever we do, we do it for Jesus. If we hold the door open we do if for Jesus, If we clean up after dinner we do it for Jesus, If we scrape paint we do it for Jesus.

We scraped a lot of paint. In fact when we arrived we had thought we would be painting. We came to finish this great project. Instead we spent 8 hours scraping one building. It was hard work. The building was build in 1957 and had at least 6 coats of paint on it. The process was spread paint remover goop on building, wait 30 minutes scrape, get off a layer or two, and repeat. If you waited too long it got dry and stopped working. At one point someone said “Wow this is hard work.” And I said “Yes and we are paying to do it!” It was hard and to be honest. I am not sure we all had the satisfaction of seeing a completely striped building ready for paint. Being the scraper of paint is tough work and not very satisfying.

So I think scraping paint reminds a lot of being a disciple of Jesus. Sharing Jesus with students, friends, families, enemies and everyone in between is tough work. Sometimes when we spread the good news you don’t get to see it finished. even after you spend a lot of time on it. We would love for it to happen so quickly. We would love to be able to pray, talk and conversion happens. You don’t always get to see the beautiful building God is working them into. You see siding that looks beat up. You see the little bits of stubborn paint on a person that just isn’t wiped clean. Sometimes at the end of your time with the building, you don’t see the finished project just a building you worked on. I can be so frustrating.

I tried to tell the students this weekend. This project isn’t complete. We did what God had planned for us to complete. We followed Jesus. We served and one day the whole project will be finished. It wasn’t our job to finish it was are call to start the project.

As you think about that person, or family who needs to hear about Jesus, and are frustrated that the job isn’t done remember we all play a part and sometimes we don’t get to see the finish just are part of the process.

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. ⁶I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. ⁷So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 1 Corinthians 3:5-7 ESV

Rinse, Lather, Repeat…Discipleship

April 13, 2015April 13, 2015 / youthguysteve / Leave a comment

My body wash reminded me of something this morning. Every so often in the morning I want to stay in the shower. Sometimes because it is warm, but mostly because it gives men a few minutes to get my head on straight before I have to deal with the world of two young people and a teenager. Oh my kids aren’t that bad. They have their cranky moments and they act like all little sinners some times but I wouldn’t expect anything less. Their dad’s theme song is often chief of sinners though I be. Today I was in the shower and happened to be reading the back of my body wash. I know I am weird but like I said I like to take a few minutes. I was blown away as I read the bottle. Rinse lather and repeat as necessary, it says. As a guy I have never really thought about doing it twice. Most of the time if I have done it twice it is because I got so little sleep the night before that I forgot I did it in the first place.

When we talk about sharing our faith with our kids, families and for me Youth group, I forget that I need to rinse and repeat more often than not. I sometimes forget the importance of this process in making disciples of Jesus. I often think of Jesus and how he taught the same thing over and over again just so he could give them the holy spirit and then they would finally understand. We are a stubborn people in need of constant reminder. We like the Israelites, disciples, and really everyone else in the Bible have seen God work in great and amazing ways yet we constantly have to be reminded of the things God has done in our lives.

So maybe today you are struggling with teaching your family, your youth group, your Church, your friend or yourself. Remember we need to hear it over and over again. Like shower time it isn’t is a one time thing. The really tough stuff might even take multiple times in one attempt to get it clean. So lets all remember to keep bathing in God’s Word! Rinse, lather, repeat.

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. ⁷You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. ⁸You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ⁹You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Deuteronomy 6:6-9

Walking, reading my Bible and a table…the pain on the journey.

March 18, 2015April 7, 2015 / youthguysteve / Leave a comment

Recently I have tried to be more healthy. I also bought a fitbit about a year ago and have really been trying to walk my 10,000 steps each day. I know it isn’t going to change my life, and all the sudden I will be super buff guy. I do sit a lot and I thought walking would be better for me.

I also decided this year I was going to read more. I am not good at sitting at my desk and staying off the computer so I thought why not kill two birds with one stone. So I started walking around the building and reading at the same time. I have gotten plenty of looks and even a laugh by the principal of the school who thought one day he might just put something in front of me to see if I noticed it. We both laughed because we both think that is funny and we are mean people.

So today it happened. I was walking and reading my daily Bible reading and ran straight into a table in the narthex. I hit it hard. I have a few bruises from the ordeal. The table won. I lost and well I was a little embarrassed that I didn’t see it coming. So why bring this semi embarrassing story to this blog. While I was thinking as I was sitting on the floor quite embarrassed and in some pain, that my walk with Jesus is very similar. You see God tells me he speaks through his word. He also tells me to walk this faith each day. In a sense we are all walking blindly or at least semi blind. Sometimes as we walk, and sometime we run right into the things that cause us pain. We should see it coming. Often we do not. Jesus never promised we wouldn’t experience pain or trouble. When we walk with Jesus we probably will. In that walk we get stronger when we are in his word. We hear from Jesus his words of life. We are reminded of His walk to the cross for us. His work to make us new and better. The journey will have aches and pain yet in the walk we have Jesus we are able to get up again. Tomorrow I may hit the same table, or I may miss it. But I know I will have Jesus on the journey. I will have Jesus with me even when I don’t always see the trouble coming.

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith- more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire- may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you don now see him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.1 Peter 1:6-9 ESV

Mountains and valleys…some days life and ministry are hard

February 23, 2015April 7, 2015 / youthguysteve / Leave a comment

Some days ministry I hard. Some days you have ups and downs. You have that event you have been planning for months fall flat, you have that relationship you work so hard at fall apart, you think you are doing it right and it falls apart. It can be a place of awful valleys.

Some days you have the right words, some days you feel like you changed a life for the better. In ministry I find my ups and downs can even happen in the sane day. I don’t want to live a life that doesn’t have these ups and downs. I can’t live in the middle I have to journey in the peaks and valleys. But how do we survive the journey in ministry and life?

I remind myself of the highs. I pull up the stories of joy, hope and changed lives. I have to be reminded of these because by nature Satan wants me to focus on the mistakes, the pain and the failures. He doesn’t want me to see and remember the changed lives or mountain top moments or remember the right words at the right time. He wants me to focus on the valleys.

Today as we sit down to pray let’s think about the mountain tops and not the valleys. Lets hold up the times God has chosen to show us lives changed. Lets hold on to them so we don’t fall but cling to Jesus who gave us these moments so we could follow him and trust in him as we walk alongside so many people He has placed in our lives.

Psalm 23 ESV
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust: The connection to the cross, and baptism!

February 17, 2015April 7, 2015 / youthguysteve / Leave a comment

Tomorrow I get to lead chapel at my Church School. Tomorrow is ash Wednesday and that has me thinking deeply today. Many of the children who will be here will experience imposition of ashes. My prayer tomorrow is that many of our students will take the time in worship to remember their sin and more importantly be reminded of the eternal life won for us on the cross, and given to us in our baptism as we are connected to the cross.

I know many people don’t like the imposition of ashes because of Jesus’ words in Matthew 6 about keeping our prayers and fasting to ourselves and not to show it off. Jesus is obviously right, and if the goal of ashes is to show the world we are repentant or how good of a Christian we are we have failed.

The purpose of the ashes placed on us is to remind us of our sin, remind us that without Jesus we are dust and without him we will continue to be dust forever. I love that in that moment. When we are brought to the realization of our brokenness. The part I think is more important and often overlooked is we are given the sign of the cross. The same sign we were given at our baptism. That this is not our end. We are not just dust but we are God’s child. We are the ones who are connected by baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection. You have eternal life today in Jesus and forever more. As we spend the next 40 days in a time of reflection on our sin we must not forget these two truths.

Tomorrow as you are reminded of your sin, and the death it brings, remember the life that comes in life with Jesus.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, “In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. 2 Corinthians 5:21-6:2