So Absurd

            In 2009, I traveled to Kenya with Don Pittman.  We worked for about a week in Nairobi before taking a couple of days to go on a safari.  Safari, by the way is a Swahili word simply meaning journey.  If you go to Huntsville, you are going on a safari.  Of course, this safari was the kind with all sorts of wild animals.  Apart from the animals, the scenery alone was remarkable.  God truly outdid himself in Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Park.  I have personally never felt so tangibly close to God as when I was there.  The animals were just as magnificent as the landscape.  Seeing a giraffe up close does make you wonder if God was a little off he day He created those creatures because their design is very illogical.  But they are beautiful and so very graceful as they prance across the savannah.  As we were driving along the dirt roads, dodging elephants and getting within reaching distance of lions, I was struck by the absurdity of the situation.  It is so incredibly unlikely that a guy who grew up in small town Alabama and a guy who grew up in small town Tennessee would make it halfway across the world to see in person what most people only witness on television or in National Geographic Magazine.  It was a totally foreign world to most people, but we were blessed with the opportunity to spend two days in it.  To this day, I still laugh at the absurdity of situation.  

            I’ve come to understand that God enjoys absurdity.  He likes doing things that seem illogical to us.  Jesus explicitly states so in Matthew 11:25-26 when he prays, “thank you for hiding these things from those who think themselves wise and clever, and for revealing them to the childlike.  Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way!”  God’s ways are not our ways, and many times God’s ways make no sense to us (even those of us in His church).  For example, consider how Jesus dealt with the apostles.  In Matthew 28, his last recorded words in that gospel are commissioning them to “go and make disciples of all nations.”   He’s telling them to go change the world.  We would likely never expect a mere 12 men to be able to change the world in such a fundamental way.  We especially would never expect them to do so with no formal training or financial resources.  Knowing that he would one day give them this task, Jesus did not send them to school for 20 or so years.  He did not even enroll them in a single church growth workshop.  He simply let them walk beside him for three years, teaching them as he had opportunity.  He didn’t leave them with a large endowment to provide a work fund either.   Instead, he told them to mooch off of others.  Most experts would dismiss that strategy as flawed at the very least and deem it failed even before implementation. 

            At Central, our stated purpose is very simple: make disciples who make disciples.  This doesn’t apply just to the paid ministry staff, shepherds, or ministry leaders.  This responsibility belongs to everyone.  One might say that he/she is an unlikely person to be used for that purpose, possibly due to a lack of knowledge, mistakes from the past, or youth/inexperience.  Whoever says that is correct.  We are all unlikely people to do that job.  But, that’s just the way God likes it.  Just like the apostles, we have the very Spirit of God empowering and guiding us.  That, not our own capability, is what makes us competent ministers.  Guess what? It will work for us as unlikely people just as it did for the absurdly unlikely apostles.  That’s how God works.        

How Our Youth Ministry Works

The phrase "youth ministry" means different things to different people.  To a few, it is an addition to scripture and therefore wrong.  To others it is a babysitting service.  To some it is a group that they know little about except that they go on trips occasionally.  Over the years, youth ministries have perhaps been all of those things at certain times and in certain places.  Books and articles abound about how youth ministry should be done, and many of them offer contradictory opinions.  However, there is a new trend emerging and we seem to be ahead of it in many ways.  Central's youth ministry is quite unique.  Since we have many new families in our congregation, I want to take this opportunity to explain how and why we do what we do.

During the "Ministering to Millennials" class , we talked about how many teenagers today (even those who grow up participating in church activities) have a very shallow faith. Somehow, they haven’t learned what it really means to be a follower of Jesus. We discovered that as churches try to figure out how to reach this age group, we need to keep in mind that we will never be more entertaining than our culture.  Churches  just can’t compete in that area. Traditionally, youth ministries have operated under the assumption that we can. The idea for many decades seems to have been that if we could just have enough fun events or play enough interesting games or go on enough cool trips that we would be able to keep teenagers around long enough for some sort of Biblical understanding to rub off on them. The world of youth ministry has been changing a lot in recent years. It would appear as though everyone is realizing that youth ministry needs to be much deeper than it has been.  People are understanding that if all we do is entertain our children we haven’t accomplished very much because they won’t have a lasting faith to take with them when they leave. It’s true that here at Central, we give the teens opportunities to go on trips and thereby have fun together. We do a several entertaining events. But the fun is in a much different context than it once was for many in the youth ministry world. When we get together to "have fun” it’s in the context of fellowship. It isn’t fun just for the sake of fun. The purpose is to foster the development of relationships so that those relationships can be used to make disciples.

That is our one and only goal in the youth ministry here: to make disciples who are capable of making other disciples. About 3 ½ years ago, we sat down and asked ourselves what it would look like if we had an intentional process for making disciples. We concluded that discipleship involved three primary things.  Therefore each week we try to give our teens opportunities to do each of them: get closer to God, get closer to each other, and do something to serve others. During the Millenials class, we talked about why youth ministries haven’t been more successful in passing on true faith to teenagers. Dr. Kenda Dean, author of Almost Christian says that it is because for many years we’ve assumed that youth ministers do most of the youth ministry [click here to watch my interview with her]. However, her research has found that parents and other mentors are far more effective at passing along real faith than youth ministers. Her thesis is that the best way to pass along genuine faith to our teenagers is to let them see it lived out every day in real world situations. In fact, she says that parents typically get what they are when it comes to the faith of their children. If you want to know what a child’s faith will look like, you just have to look at his or her parents. It may sound odd to hear a youth minister point to a study that indicates that he doesn’t do most of the youth ministry, however, my point is that many people tend to misunderstand the role that a youth minister should play.

If a person expects a youth minister to be an effective mentor to every single student in his ministry, that person will probably be disappointed. Youth ministers can serve as great teachers and mentors but we’re just talking about one person. It would be like expecting the head coach of a football team to have a really successful program without having any assistants. Imagine a head coach who was responsible for running every practice, working with every player, drawing up every play. That coach is going to work himself to death and not have a lot to show for it. So, schools allow the head coach to recruit other coaches to help. He gets a quarterback coach to work with the quarterbacks. He gets a defensive back coach to work with the defensive backs. He brings in people who can work in specific areas with specific players because he knows that he can’t be effective in coaching each player himself. In my mind, that is a picture of what a youth minister is.  Youth ministers are like the head coach of the youth ministry. They coordinate events and hold everything together, but they won’t be successful in coaching each student without a great group of dedicated assistants. More than anything a youth minister’s job is to put the right people in the right places so that everyone can learn and grow. The research shows that it is mainly through those mentoring relationships that lasting faith is instilled in young people.

I want to take this opportunity to encourage any of you who would like to help mentor Central's teens to email me and let me know. You may think that you’re not qualified, but actually there aren't many qualifications.  If you can be honest and real, then you’re qualified. Our teens would love to learn from your wisdom. In addition to being backed up by research (and more importantly) this idea is backed up by scripture.  Take a look at Ephesians 4:11-12.  God puts people in certain positions and gave them certain gifts so that they can equip the saints for ministry. That’s what I try to do every day with out teens. Continuing with the football analogy, at some point the coaches have done their jobs and it’s up to the players to go out on the field and play the game. The students in Central’s youth ministry are similarly expecting at some point to begin doing actual ministry. We adults are here to equip, to encourage, to teach, and to motivate, but they go out on the field and play the game.

Over four and a half years, I’ve been watching them do that. I’ve been watching them take on more and more responsibility for actual ministry. They absolutely amaze me as well as anyone else who is their to witness their dedication and talent. They’re playing the game well. Every day, I am more and more amazed with their maturity and their understanding of spiritual matters. We have a youth group that understands being a Christian is not just something you do a few times a week. They have made it a lifestyle. More than that, they are teaching their peers to do the same thing. We truly have a group of young disciples and they are very serious about making other disciples. They inspire me on a regular basis, and I believe they will inspire anyone who looks closely enough to see what they’re doing.

If you are a family who is new to Central or the parent(s) of a child who has just moved up into the youth ministry, we invite you to join us in making disciples.  We are here to partner with you.  Together, we want to enable these young people to use every talent that God has given them to grow in their own walk and then enable others in the same way.

On July 12, we will be having a dinner at the home of Greg and Sandra Chambers for all of our CYM parents.  We hope that you will join us and take part in the ongoing discussion of how we can best produce passionate, dedicated, and hard-working disciples.  In the mean time, please feel free to contact me via phone or email.  As always, you can go to www.cymathens.com for the most up-to-date information or text the word CYMATHENS to 84483 for weekly mobile updates.

An Ocean of Sin

During the cold and sometimes rainy months of January and February, it is easy for people to feel down. We are content with cooler temperatures in the previous several months because they indicate that football, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are near. However, on January 1, we are left with frigid temperatures, overcast skies, and no major celebrations to make our discomfort seem worthwhile. Therefore, many people start dreaming about the warmth of May, June, July, and August when they will be outdoors frequently and able to more fully enjoy time with friends and family. Often, plans start to emerge for that all-important summer vacation. Anticipation builds toward experiencing a warmer climate with better scenery. When I was young, this meant a week in Panama City Beach with my family and several others. This was a tradition for us, and a highlight of the year.

As soon as we arrived, even before going to our room, we would walk directly to the beach, take off our shoes, and put our feet in the naturally heated Gulf of Mexico. During that entire week, we stayed there. We loved floating in the salt water and rolling with the waves as they neared shore. Because we were so focused on enjoying our time at the edge of the gulf, we rarely thought about how vast it is and how incredibly forceful it can be in when it shows its strength. Obviously, there are extreme examples of that power such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In a matter of hours, the sea thrust such destruction upon the land that 7 years later there are still homes in New Orleans that bear the scares of that night. However, that dominance can also be experience in more subtle ways. One year, several of us decided to float to a sand bar about 30 yards off shore. The water was calm, and once there we were able to stand easily with the water only reaching our knees. In a matter of minutes, the waves got higher and crashed onto us with more force. Before long, the waves overcame us. We would stand up only to be knocked down again. We clung to our plastic pool floats, hoping that somehow we would manage to escape the literal grip that the ocean had on us. We were helpless. Fortunately, an experienced local came to our rescue and muscled us back to the safety of the beach. The incident was a good reminder that beyond a certain point, it is easy to lose control and be trapped by a force that at first seemed so innocent.

James tells us that Satan operates in much the same way. He writes that “each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire” (James 1:14, ESV). We each have different things that tempt us. We each are enticed by things that we want personally. Satan lures us into situations in which it seems possible to have those things. Much like with the ocean, we believe that we can have a little fun at the edge without being trapped. Yet James further explains, “then desire, when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” It is a process. The process begins when we want things that we know we shouldn’t have. Then, we try to have as much of those things as we can while still remaining “safe.” However, the end result is that we go further than we wanted to go and become ensnared by sin and that eventually leads to our spiritual deaths.

It almost seems as if James is saying that there is a line between righteousness and sinfulness. Because we have sinful desires we try to get as close to the line as possible without actually crossing it. Satan though, being good at what he does, is able to drag us across the line before we even realize what has happened. He lures/leads us into a process that results in us being separated from God. That’s why the advice in James 4 is to run away from that line: “So submit to God. But resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7, NET). It is much easier to be dragged across a line when you are standing right next to it. If you stay far away, though, it will be much more difficult for you to be enticed.

In 1 John 1, the apostle seems to indicate that there are two types of believers. There are those who accept a sinful lifestyle and there are those who believe they are immune to sin or that their sin does not matter when compared to their good works. The truth is that all Christians must realize that they decide every day how far to venture into the ocean of sin. They must decide how far they are willing to go, risking their own destruction. All sin is serious. All sin can separate us from God. Through Jesus, though, we are given the power to overcome sin, and be transformed into righteous people. We must make the decision to flee from sin and draw near to God, not see what sin we can get away with hoping that it won’t carry us too far from the shore.