Have you compelled them to come to the banquet yet?

March 4, 2014April 7, 2015 / youthguysteve / Leave a comment

Recently I spent some time with some new and old friends talking about ministry. We were eating together, as is the case with many church workers. I enjoy food, but the guys I was eating with seemed to enjoy it just a little bit more… well actually a lot more. They love to share food with each other and enjoy the experience together. It was a great time. I love food and I love how good food can bring about such good conversation. It is a way for many of us to break down walls and really listen. (Mostly the listening comes from stuffing our faces with food.) Good food really does bring about great joy and conversation.

This eating together reminded my of a text of scripture I recently read while preparing some of my students for 30 hour famine. Luke 14:12-24, is one of my favorite texts in scripture. I love how Jesus invited the the lowly. He calls the crippled and the lame. The crippled, who in Jesus’ day were the outcasts. The people who wouldn’t have been allowed in the temple or anywhere God was present, because they were unclean, unworthy to be in God’s presence and grace. They were unworthy to join in the fellowship because they weren’t good enough. Jesus in this parable reminds us that we who sit at the table are the lowly beggars the sick and lame. We are not worthy to be in His presence but we are anyway, because of his graciousness. We give thanks to God for this.

More importantly I was struck by Luke 14:23 after the crippled and lame are invited he was to go out and compel them to come. I have always been fascinated by this part of the story. You see as a disciple of Jesus I am asked to be like him. He compels them to come in. How am I compelling my neighbor to come and be at the banquet. I think many of us just drop the invite and throw up are hands when they don’t come. Here Jesus seems to tell us to go and compel them to come. Be more forceful. Sometimes I wonder if when we got the invite and went to His banquet, why don’t I go to my friends, family, even enemies and share with them this awesome place of nourishment we have in Jesus. This place where we eat and are satisfied. Where we have true fellowship in God. I pray for myself to have heart of invitation and a want to compel my neighbor, not just selfishness for myself.

So the question remains for all of us. Have you compelled them to come to the banquet yet?

Sharing faith one person at a time…Dont play the numbers game.

February 24, 2014April 7, 2015 / youthguysteve / 1 Comment

The numbers can be a the hardest part of serving in ministry. We all want more people at Church. We all want more people to be involved in ministry. We all want more people to know Jesus. The problem is numbers can be a big reason people leave serving in ministry. Numbers can be a chock hold on how you serve in ministry because it becomes too much of the focus in ministry and life.

As I have been looking around at those I have seen in ministry the numbers game has been a big reason people leave. They get sick of it. They really miss just being with people. I am someone who looks at numbers in ministry. I track attendance and do look at how many people show up as a measure of successful ministry or events. It can tell you if you have done something with worth. The problem with numbers in ministry is, you can have big numbers and it mean nothing in peoples lives, you can get very little done for events or very few people show up, but you have been a part of changing people’s lives. You see numbers can be important, but people are actually the more important part. In fact they are the most important part. It is hard to quantify. It is hard to make a report that counts all the conversations, all the little comments that really helped someone through their day. A word of grace that you shared in their life that helped them see Jesus.

In ministry I spend time planning all sorts of events. I plan VBS, Sr. High youth group, chili cook-offs, mission trips, a multitude of bible studies, but those are all designed to do something. They are designed to help parents, adult and students have opportunities to share Jesus with each other. They are all designed to help them see Jesus.

So one of my problems with the numbers games is that I can spend 1000s of hours on things, and say we have 10,000 students at Youth events. The problem is that isn’t the right number. The right thing to look at isn’t numbers. The thing I try to ask myself is did I help the student, family, or friend through the parent’s divorce. Did I help the family deal with a student struggling with death of a friend, or parent. Did I sit with a parent as they struggle with their relationship with their child. You see those things aren’t easily quantified. Sometimes I will spend 12 hours over two days helping one person. You might say that wasn’t the best use of my time. I only worked with one person. Sometimes I don’t have the best planned youth event because I ran out of time. The reality is I spent time with a person who needed my time. I got to be a part of Jesus’s ministry in their life.

I am reminded of a great story in the Bible about the feeding of the 5000 (John 6:1-14). When the boy’s fish and bread are used by Jesus. I like to think of myself as the boy who gets to be involved in Jesus’ ministry. I get to have an impact on peoples lives.

The same applies for your life. It isn’t about numbers in my relationships. It is about the individuals I am ministering with. My goal isn’t how many people can I walk around and share Jesus with, but what few people am I going to invest in so that they know Jesus better. So they experience God’s grace.

The numbers are important, but individual people are more important.

Family Devotions…My biggest failure as man!

December 2, 2013April 7, 2015 / youthguysteve / Leave a comment

So my family has never been really good at spending time in Gods word each night. Heck I haven’t ever been very good at doing personal devotions but I know it is my responsibility to be the leader of my household and passing on faith to my children. We as a family are not super consistent and fail to do it every day but try to be faithful. So why is advent any different…Well it isn’t but it is a great time for get you family involved in prayer and devotion.

During Advent you have some very real opportunities to get you family involved in family devotions. It can be a time for everyone to spend time together. We have used this time because their are so many opportunities to share your faith with your family. It is a time you can get gather together to share the good news of Jesus and his coming.

So why is advent such a good time…well first you have a plethora of different devotionals put out by a number of great organizations and groups. Pick one and go for it. It should be short and should be pointing you to Jesus and his coming. You have advent calendars with ….chocolate! This can help you think about the anticipation of Advent. You also have children who after thanksgiving your children are looking forward to the eager anticipation of Christmas presents… well that is not really helpful. Lastly and my personal favorite is the advent wreath. It is a time to remind us of the light and anticipation for the Coming of Jesus again. You can talk about the hope we have in Jesus. It is just a great way for families to involve children in the devotional moment. My children are now asking about how they can be involved in the devotions. They light and blow out the candles, say the prayers, read the devotions and preform the blessings.

This leads me to my last and final point. Get your children involved. A few weeks ago I lead a advent devotional program at Church for school families and shared with them ways to get the kids involved. I even gave them an outline I would like to share here. (I actually think this a variation on faith inkubators family five)

Invocation in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit, (My 5 year old daughters favorite part is doing the sign of the cross over the whole family and then herself.)
Highs and Lows for the day
Bible reading (Kids take turns reading the short devotion or Bible verse)
Prayers (sometime items from Highs and Lows, sometimes Lord’s prayer, apostles creed of 10 commandments)
Blessing Anything would work but we use (The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all) Again the sign of the cross to remind us of the blessing of our baptism.

So with all that being said don’t think of this as a law moment. This isn’t about guilt or look at how well we do it.  This is about spending time in the Word of God to help your family grow in faith.  May Christ bless you this year as you eagerly await the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Do you feel God?

November 12, 2013April 7, 2015 / youthguysteve / 1 Comment

Do you feel God is a question many students have asked this question in their lives. Students, adults, and everyone in between struggle with this issue of feeling God. It is a tough question because often is reveals how people are doing in their faith life. When we forget about who works faith in us we start to ask the question do we feel God.

Your emotions are what make us human. We cannot follow Jesus without at least thinking about our emotions. I get very frustraited with Lutherans who say emotion has no part in the life of a Christian. Chrsitians will always have emotional responses to the world around us. We will respond in worship with some emotion. Think about the last service you went to and tell me you didn’t have some response to the music, liturgy, readings or sermon. You can’t avoid emotion but you can put it in the proper context. Emotion is a gift of God but it isn’t what saves us.

So how do I feel God. I think it is the wrong question. What people are really saying is I don’t feel God do I have faith? So here is my answer. Remember your baptism. Remember in your baptism God declared you his child. In my life I have had moments of ups and downs. I have had moments of time when I struggled in my faith and wondered if it is really there. I remember a professor I had in college who reminded us all one day that when we have those moments we should remember our baptism because it is the one thing we couldn’t mess up, it was done to us. You see in baptism we don’t have to trust in our works or how much we feel Gods presence. We receive the gifts of forgiveness of sins purely by the Grace of God connected to the word. We are saved not because we feel God’s presence but because of what Christ has done for us in that moment. Remember your baptism it will help when you are going through those moments of doubt.

Why Youth Ministry isn’t destroying the Church!

November 5, 2013April 7, 2015 / youthguysteve / Leave a comment

Recently I have been seeing more and more articles on Facebook from Christians bashing youth ministry because we are segregating teens and destroying their faith. I do understand that in blog posts we can all use a title that is a little over the top in order to get a point across. My problem with these articles is they seem to throw the baby out with the bath water and attack us in ministry who are dedicating our time to try and reach youth with the gospel.

These articles seem to come to the concussion that any segregation will lead to youth having shallow faith focused solely on themselves. Having a youth ministry that focuses only on teen’s leads to problem in the Church as a whole. I totally agree but this is not the goal of most youth ministries. The problem with this view of youth ministry is twofold. First almost every youth ministry I know has seen this problem and been addressing it for years. Most of us in youth ministry have for a long time now been working to get more adults involved in our ministries. We have been focusing on bringing adults and students together in meaningful ways. Not just manual labor but real ministry. We in youth ministry take very seriously the faith of the young people God, parents and the congregations have entrusted to our care. To say we haven’t been doing this misses out of the goal of every good youth ministry to bring kids to a greater faith in Christ.

So here is my problem with the no segregation crowd. It just doesn’t work in real life. My experience of trying to do family based bible study and everything else together has problems all the way around. First we struggle to make something that is meaningful for all the age groups. Whatever group we gear our bible study or other activity for we miss another group of people. The second issue I have is that most parents are very ill equipped to share and answer questions of faith they have not grappled with themselves.

We currently live in a very de-churched culture with little biblical knowledge to pass on to our children. Youth ministries are there to help parents share the faith. When we don’t segregate we can’t always speak to that group. I have found that in our confirmation ministry is has been most helpful making parents attend class as well. It allows them to grow in faith and have chances to share faith with their kids. But it isn’t the whole answer because many of our families don’t have two parents or even one parent that this is where having other adults, and teens to speak to each other can be very helpful. Also many students are not willing to ask us questions when their parents are in the room. They need to deal with these issues with adults and teens together. You just can’t expect teens in a group of adults talk about issues in a group where they aren’t the majority and feel safe to talk. Youth ministry needs to have adults who can share faith with them but saying we have to do everything in a large group setting misses this dynamic.

Lastly the biggest problem I have with no segregation is it seems to assume all kids and student have two parent homes. My experience is that many of the youth in our youth ministries do not have two parents at home. Many times in my experience they may not even have one parent who is Christian. This youth ministry you are so quick to attack for many kids is the only adult and teen in their life who can speak Jesus into their lives. Youth ministry can be a safe place they can attend in order to hear the gospel when they don’t hear it at home.

So I guess what I am saying is stop trouncing youth ministries. Stop attacking those who are dedicating their lives to share the gospel with students in a way that speaks to them. Don’t pretend like sitting us all in a room when we will teach like all adults will work. When having events geared to youth is some kind of bad thing. Sometimes it is the only way we can reach them. To my youth ministry friends. Let’s make sure our youth ministry programs don’t get in the way of our youth participating and experiencing the greater Christian Church. We have a lot to learn from each other but it is ok to have things geared toward our students to help them grow in faith.