Recently I have been going through the book of Nehemiah with some of the college students I work with.  I will be honest when I asked students what book of the bible they wanted to look at next for our study I was a bit concerned when one of them said Nehemiah.  I even said are you sure you want to do Nehemiah?  Since no one had a better idea or at least no one would share a better idea I said fine we can do Nehemiah.  So then I went about the next couple of weeks doing some research and study into the book.  I am always amazed that college students can help me learn things by helping me to get outside of the box.  We are now about half way through the book and I have discovered something about Prayer and Work that I think is important for me to work through in my own faith life.

The book of Nehemiah is all about the rebuilding of the wall around Jerusalem after the Exile.  It has been interesting to say the least going through the history.  The part that I think is so important is the way Nehemiah dealt with struggle. He did what so many of us struggle to do.  He went to God in prayer.  The importance of prayer in my own life has been a low priority.  I pray from time to time but spending significant time in prayer has been a challenge.  I find Nehemiah’s constant prayer in all times as important and convicting of my own faith life.

As much as prayer has been important the work also needed to get done.  Nehemiah did something equally as important that I know I have seen as a struggle in the Church. I also think it is a struggle in many peoples lives young and old.  You see when most of us want to do something we may pray about it and pray about it and pray about it and never quite do anything.  This can be crippling for people because they never make a decision and move forward with their lives.

The other danger I think we fall into is praying getting the answer we think we want to hear and go and do what ever the task is at hand. Never bothering to come back to prayer while going through the work. Nehemiah Chapter 4 really seems to point to the idea of continual prayer.  I have been convicted by this idea.  We need to be people who seek out Gods will and continue to work and follow his leading. 

So my question for you and for me is are you praying continually while doing the work God has placed in front of you to accomplish? I know I don’t have the answer yet but the question has been haunting me for a week.  Maybe it is time to be in prayer again. 

I am always amazed at the event called 30 hour famine and what it can do for myself and for students.  Fasting is always something that brings out something in every student.  Sometimes it is frustration, anger and fear, other times it is joy and recognition of God and other times it is thinking and acting on a desire to help others in this world.

This weekend was the first time many of the students I work with have done anything like this.  For many of them it was a stretch, for their faith and their understanding of the world around them.  I am always fascinated by the different reactions.  Some students get whiny and just want food.  They complain and get testy with everyone around them.  Some students take it in stride and really enjoy the time they can spend in God’s word through prayer and fasting.  The thing I see most often during this event is an understanding of how well there families are doing by comparison.  This hunger is something that will be gone in a short time. They can go to a restaurant and eat until their hearts content. Which is what we did at an all you can eat place.  They learn of the Goodness of God in their lives and start the process of thinking about others out there who are in need.  If for some of the students this weekend they started to think about others this was a great success in my book.  But for me their was another moment that impacted me most this weekend and it was after we were done fasting.

After 30 hours of not eating anything and just drinking water this year I was very hungry when we went to break the fast.  I did something I told all the students not to do. I ate myself sick.  I was sitting their thinking wow I don’t feel good. Before I was hungry and I was thinking about how I rely on God to provide what I need. When I did break the fast I went in the other extreme. I took so much I made myself sick.  As  Christian man I think this is all to easy for us to do.  We go without then we over do it.  In my spiritual life I think I do the same thing I go from one extreme to the other. I can go from all bible study all the time but never living out my faith.  Other times I spend all my time serving and never being in relationship with God.  Both extremes are bad choices.  My question for is is how is your walk with Jesus going? Are you in prayer and fasting but also seeking ways to serve those around you?  I pray that we are people who balance well faith and action.

in Christ,

Steve

As I have been doing this thing called Youth ministry for a while I have come to understand something more and more every week.  Having theology training and thinking about how the theology I learned is playing out in a local context is extremely important to have a healthy ministry. Too often I think ministers and members of a local congregation get into trouble when they ignore theology or come to it after the fact. 

I have spent time over the years sitting with other youth directors discussing our frustrations in ministry at our congregation.  Most of the time I think we have gotten into trouble because we didn’t think through theologically what we were doing.  We have gotten into a new model of ministry, or spent time at conferences or read a psychology book about culture and spent time trying to put that into our ministry  or life without thinking about theology first.

One time I was talking with a Pastor friend of mine about ministry and the training we have all received. I was voicing frustration about the way we are trained and how Pastors, teachers, and DCE’s are missing important things to do ministry well. I thought we should spend more time teaching them the particulars of ministry.  His response was that in 20+ years of ministry, the theology he learned has served him much better than any accounting, management or psychology class.  The theology shapes what we do and how we do it.

So what is the point?  Well the point is we all need to spend more time in the word, more time thinking about theology, more time understanding what we believe.  That should be the first thing we understand.  I know I need to spend time in the Word and theology books to understand the theology of God.  I think sometimes we spend too much time in the other stuff of ministry, programs, self help books and curriculum.  If we are not firmly grounded in our faith and theology we will just wander around and never be fully grounded in God. 

Thinking about things theologically can also have a huge impact on our daily lives as well.  My prayer for all of us is that we think theologically before we do anything.  We spend time in prayer and think of our whole world from the basis of our theology. May we all continue to be theologians as we walk with our great and amazing God.

in Christ,

Steve Wilson

In ministry I have found that the pendulum is always swinging.  I haven’t been at this too long but the biggest thing I think I have learned in ministry is to be very careful and aware of the pendulum.  In ministry it moves form one side to the other and that balance is very important in everything we do as Christians.  When we focus on one side or the other we get a push back and swing side to side. Often my biggest mistakes were when I focused too much on something in reaction to something else.

The pendulum I have seen swinging back now is about the Church and what it is here to do.  Another way to put it is outward vs. inward focused churches.  Their seems to be two camps especially in the Lutheran Church but I see it in the greater church as well.  There is the the idea of being a church the focus’ on its own people and a church that focus’ on those outside of the Church.  The inside people could care less about anyone who isn’t a member and those who want to focus on the outside group tend to want to focus on always reaching out and being a part of the community.

I want to be clear that both have merits and I think Jesus talks about them a great deal in Matthew 28 when he tells us to go and make disciples.  The one thing a Pastor friend of mine says is  “God tells us the one thing we must do as a church is make disciples by baptizing and teaching the word of God.  Everything else we do in ministry is because we as a congregation have decided it is for the good of the people for the purpose of making disciples.” I tend to agree and think maybe the people who are all about mission have pushed the pendulum too far to one side.

I have seen this quote often and for the moment I want to talk about it. “If your Church disappeared tomorrow would anyone in your community care?” The implication most often is what are you doing to help your community? The answer normally seems to be nothing and that you need to do something that is a need; tutoring, mentoring, food bank etc.  While these are all good endeavors I don’t think it matters if anyone in community notices if we do these things.  I sometimes wonder if our goal with these things is to get our name in the paper so everyone knows such and such a Church.  If all they know is  our work maybe that isn’t the best way to share with them about the work done for us in Christ.  I know for me that I do these things to serve my neighbor so I can give people a glimpse of a gracious God who came to serve them.  I can do good works and they are good but they are not what Christianity is all about that is just a part of my faith.  I think we can be so focused on doing things in the community that we are lax in our understanding of the faith. As James says faith without works is dead I would also say works without faith is also dead.

I think the Church as two purposes sharing the good news and learning about the good news for ourselves.  When we push one side to the detriment of the other we lose our middle ground and the pendulum starts to push back the other way.  For me I want some balance. I want to be a part of a Church that reaches out to the community but also focus’  as much attention and gusto into diving into the scriptures, worship and learning about this amazing God that we have.  What do you think?