CHRISTIANITY AS A THEORY CHANGES NOTHING

Christianity as a theory is, for the most part, inconsequential.

I was driving in rural Kentucky one day and I came across this old run down store. The front porch had been hit by a large truck years before, (I was told this by an elderly gentleman who was working on the building) the roof was sagging, and there was an entire section of the wall completely knocked down. I stopped to take some photos and was struck by an image. There, in an old worn latch was a pin, locking the door.

Inconsequential Christianity | Context Is Vital

There was an eight foot hole immediately to the left of the door (which I walked in through) where the cinder block wall had collapsed, but the door was locked. At some point that little pin was significant. A man or woman placed it there with all confidence that it would protect their stuff, and in theory, it worked, but in the context that it’s in now, it has no application.

Some of my darkest days have been when I woke up with the knowledge that most of the things I believed and said I stood for were just concepts and theories that I was not actually living, and not only that I wasn’t living them, but that I hadn’t forged any avenues to apply them. The hardest days, for me anyway, have always been church days. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Church, but so many times I am frustrated with myself when it’s all over, because I sing songs and make these incredible declarations about what I think and know about Jesus and His passion to reach the lost and help the helpless and the broken, but I haven’t and I don’t.

I have been a “professional” in the ministry field for a long time, years in fact. Those dark days were nestled right into this professional stage. For two years I lived in a church, literally, that I worked for. During the first half of that tenure I had absolutely zero impact on the world outside of the building, yet I was employed to be a “minister.” I had to force myself to find ways to connect with people who weren’t a part of our local church culture, to see people who weren’t part of the staff that I saw and theorized with everyday.

The problem wasn’t what I believed or the people I theorized with on a daily basis. The problem wasn’t church days or any of that. The problem was that my Christianity, the truths that I believed and held were out of context. There was no relevance to the Christianity I wanted so desperately to be a part of and the life I was living as a professional minister.

I found that a theory left unproven becomes a doorway to discontent. I have a friend who was also a full-time youth pastor at the time that I was going through this period of disconnect, he called it the Summer of Discontent. It was almost bizarre how similar our situations were. We didn’t sit around bashing the church, that’s never helpful. We had many conversations, however, about where we felt like the church was in relation to the world around us and how it seemed we were about the profession of Christianity as an industry instead of the possession of Christ as a lifestyle. We both felt deeply that church was about more than productions and events, but about the great passion of Jesus Christ to empower people to become who He made them to be by helping them remove (or at least control) the things that keep them distracted.

I was working for a group that was very image driven and he was working for one that seemed to be more driven by monetary gain. Image and money are important. If nobody trusts you as a spiritual entity and you have no finances to work with than you are going to really struggle to fulfill the purpose that God calls you to, but they are not the most important things.

I had a great conversation with a young Bible college student. We had lunch at Panera, which is actually a very spiritual place. There’s something spiritual about bread for me, so I go there and work and feel close to God when I see people making and eating bread, yeah, I’m weird like that. Anyway, our conversation gives me hope for the future of the Church. He has questions, like me (and probably you) about why we hold on to so many things that have nothing to do with the Bible and why we have so many theories and concepts that have absolutely no connection to real life. What gives me hope is the fact that he (and people like him) is thinking, thinking about what he believes and challenging its validity and, more importantly, its applicability.

It’s not so much that we are trying to disprove anything, what we’re trying to do is to prove that truth can be real in the context of our everyday lives, beyond a religious theory or a philosophical concept.

So many people think that Christianity is about going to church, but if it is, than it’s not about much. I sometimes dread (and this is no reflection on the church, it’s just me) going to another church service. I know we need Church and I’m not advocating that we stop having church, but I sit there and have to fight the urge to stand up and shout, “What the heck are we doing? We’ve heard all of this before, why aren’t we feeding the poor or doing something about poverty in the Appalachians?” while I run screaming at the top of my lungs out of the building.

There is an inherent danger in thinking. I’ve read history books about communist regimes that overthrow the former government of a free society. One of the first things that they do is round up the thinkers. They kill the artists and the musicians. Why? The only way to control a large populace is to create a system that makes thinking a crime and takes away the ability of the people to put new ideas into the context of their lives. Then you redefine context, making the truth you propagate the only thing that fits.

And there is the rub. Religious people hold onto things that have nothing to do with the Bible and have so many theories and concepts that have absolutely no connection to real life because their context has been redefined by a system that is more about control than it is about thinking.

This is why we have such a tremendous loss of young men and women who step out of their parents’ home and church into real life. They aren’t able to fit what they have been taught for so long into their everyday lives, because it never was part of their everyday life. It was a very small segment of their week and their whole Christianity fit into the time slot allotted by the church.

Then they walk into the arms of a college professor who challenges them to do the one thing about their Christianity that they have been taught not to do, think. So, they begin to think and usually they turn away because in their “real” life, none of it fits at all.

The job of the Church, than, is not just to try to build bigger buildings for larger congregations, but to empower men and women to think about what they believe and weigh it against how they live and what they do.

If they can’t fit it into the context of their lives, then maybe it’s not really Christianity.

Jesus kicked over tables and whipped the money changers in the temple. Why was He so hacked off? Here’s why, the religious leaders of the day had invented a new context so they could propagate their own version of “God’s plan.” They took what was meant to be a beautiful illustration of the salvation message and perverted it into a scheme where they could take advantage of the people who were coming to the temple. On the surface it was about the money, but the underlying motive, the true motive, was, and usually is, about control.

The Jewish people of that day were required to make sacrificial offerings at the temple. They would come from miles, often taking days to make a dangerous and exhausting journey. The temple priests had complete control over the acceptance of the animal that was brought to be sacrificed by the believer. Many times the priests would refuse the person’s sacrifice by citing some fictitious blemish on the animal (which was required to be blemish free by the Mosaic Law). Then they would point the weary, and typically angry, person to the acceptable and over priced animals they conveniently had for sale right there in the temple.

Not only that, but the only currency that was accepted in the temple was, you guessed it, temple money. The temple money was often valued higher than the currency the person brought from home. This translated into a loss for them monetarily as they exchanged their currency, before they could even buy the replacement animal. They had traveled so far to come to the temple that they would accept the reinvented context of the religious system and forgiveness from God became a burden and drudgery to them instead of the beautiful example He had intended it to be.

Jesus wasn’t angry because people were selling animals in the temple, it was because they had taken His word out of its true context and they forced a new and erroneous context onto His people. Remember His words, it should have been a house of prayer, but instead they had made it into a den of thieves.

They had redefined the context and by doing so they made their “truth” the only thing that fit.

Religious institutions are as notorious about redefining context as communistic governments. Religion is really about resisting change. In fact the word religion comes from the Latin word “relegare” which means to “tie fast.” Many of the traditions that are accepted as normal within a religious culture can be traced back to a redefinition of context. Here’s a humorous example: during the 1960’s there was a movement of young men and women to protest and resist social convention.

I know some of these people were simply being rebellious, but I’m sure there were some very intelligent young people who had simply come to the place where they didn’t believe and/or agree with what they had been taught and were willing to stand up in protest. This was the heart of the civil rights movement and had some very positive implications.

For many of these people the church didn’t have an intelligent response to their questions. So the protestors left. Before we judge too harshly, we should stop to consider that most of us consider ourselves to be “Protestant” in our faith. Yes, protestors.

One of the things that happened during that time in most churches regardless of organizational affiliation was strong pressure for the young men in their congregations to refrain from growing moustaches and beards. The thought behind this, of course, was to keep their people from identifying with the rebellious “hippies.” Most of these organizations relaxed their stance on this subject after the decline of the hippie era, some however, adopted this practice into their permanent church culture and continued to teach and preach against facial hair for “their” men.

In fact, I attended a church for over a decade that taught against facial hair as a matter of doctrine. I remember seeing books in the church library about facial hair. I never did read one, but I’m sure I would enjoy it. I only bring this up to make a point. I was taught early into my religious training that the reason we were to be clean shaven was Biblical. In reality, if I want to preach against something I can, if I look hard enough, find some scripture, however obscure, to back up my position.

It’s true that the Old Testament is a type or shadow of the New Testament and many of its physical examples have spiritual implications for us today. What I was taught, using this true principle, was that Joseph, one of the sons of Israel, had been betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery. In what is one of the most incredible examples of God’s faithfulness he ends up becoming the second in command in the most powerful nation on the planet. During the transition from slave to world leader, Joseph is placed in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. I won’t go into all of the details, but Joseph is summoned to appear before the Pharaoh to interpret a dream for him that his court of priests had been unable to explain.

As Joseph was being summoned to come before the “king” he shaved.

“Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon: and he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh.” Genesis 41:14

This, as I was taught, with no other reference to a scriptural basis, was why we as Christian men should keep a clean shave, because Joseph shaved before going into the presence of the “king” and we are always in the presence of the “King.”

So I shaved every day. The only reason that this teaching worked with me is because I was grossly ignorant of the Word of God and Biblical history. The way that this teaching was backed up was that we (Christians) should be submitted to those who were over us and to go against the teaching of the pastor was rebellion and rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and we all know what God thinks about those sorry witches. In effect saying that to have a different opinion or not agreeing with the pastor would put me or anybody else in hell with witches. “I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too.”

Now, I hardly think that the wonderful man who was my spiritual leader at the time did this with malice. He was simply perpetuating the teaching he had received. You know what’s funny, though, is that this teaching is ridiculously erroneous both in its basis and its enforcement.

Let’s take the first part, Joseph shaved so we should.

Joseph was in an Egyptian prison. When he was summoned to go before the Pharaoh he wasn’t going before a king, he was going before a false god. Yes, the people of Egypt worshipped this man as “god on earth”. The Pharaoh cannot be used as a type or shadow for God because that would contradict other scriptural principles. Also, when Joseph was called to the court of Pharaoh, he wasn’t coming in as a believer of the one true God (in Pharaoh’s eyes), he was coming in as one of the multitudes of other soothsayers and magicians. He was, essentially, coming in as a pagan priest, so in order for him to be acceptable to Pharaoh, he had to shave his face and probably his entire body. It’s very likely that Joseph shaved his head, eyebrows, arms, legs and everywhere else, because many of the Egyptian religions required their priests to be completely hair free as a rite of their priesthood. Hair was considered unclean. In fact, according to BlueLetterBible.org’s online concordance, the word used here for shaved is “galach” which means “to poll, shave, shave off, be bald.”

I’m not on a band wagon nor am I suggesting that everyone should grow a beard (especially not the women, but if you have one that’s o.k.). My point in all of this is that this passage of scripture cannot be used to support a clean shave doctrine, but when taken out of context, any scripture can be used to support any doctrine. All you have to have to make this work is ignorant people who are intimidated into not thinking contrary to the leader.

Which leads to the second point, you must agree with the pastor or leader because they are in charge. At this point some of my pastor friends are going to disown me and in earlier centuries this would probably add a few pounds of wood to the fire as the witch is being burned. As Nacho Libre said, “I smell cookies.”

The church does not own the people. The pastor is not the local demi-god who has complete control of the individuals in the congregation he pastors. I purposely didn’t say “his congregation” because it’s not the pastor’s church. For anyone to say that you are a rebel because you challenge the validity of a man’s opinion or stance is to take away one of the most fundamental ingredients of true Christianity.

I am not against pastors, I am a pastor. I am, however, against religious systems that take away the right (and obligation) of Christians to think and have a voice in their own lives.

Let me put it this way, each individual believer is the captain of their own ship. The job of the church leadership is to point in the direction that God is leading the church, try to remove the obstacles in the path of the believers or give them instruction on how to navigate around them, but we have no authority to grab the wheel and push them into the passenger’s seat of their own lives.

If you don’t agree with my opinion or my personal preference (which the facial hair issue and so many other issues are truly about) and I have no true Biblical basis for my argument than you pray and do what you think God is calling you to do. I am not authorized to override your relationship with God.

When we teach people we should welcome disagreement and invite them to discuss their disagreements and go to the Word of God as the ultimate authority, always striving to use the scripture in their true context.

Then, and only then will people be able to put Christianity into the context of their own lives.

Look, the captain of the ship in the control room and the passenger playing tennis on the upper deck are on the same vessel, making the same journey and in the same peril, but are worlds apart in their understanding.

The captain knows how to navigate the ship. He knows how to read the instruments and knows the location of the vessel in reference to its final destination. His job is to know.

The passenger knows when dinner is going to be served, approximately when he or she is going to get to the destination and that someone, somewhere is in charge of the ship. His or her job, in reality, is to be blissfully ignorant of most of the details. Even though he or she is on the journey, the context of everything is different. If something happened to the captain and crew of this ship, or the passengers were suddenly placed at the wheel, they would be in serious trouble because they don’t know how it all works and have never been instructed on how to guide the ship to safety.

If we are going to see young men and women continue to follow Christ when they leave their parent’s homes and go off to college, when they take the wheel, so to speak, we are going to have to get rid of the cruise ship mentality. The church is not a cruise ship. It’s a tightly knit group of individual rafts that are controlled by their single passenger. This is less controllable for a religious leader and there is less recognition for “Captain Pastor,” but it is Christianity in everyday context.

As the church we exist in concert, like a choir. The leadership of the local congregation stands in front and leads the choir because that’s his job, but the harmony of the song comes from the people who have equal access to the music and choose to sing, individually following the directions of the composer, as much or more, as the conductor.

Besides, I have a problem preaching against facial hair and keeping my eyebrows.

Working Sketch for "The Wealth We Leave" by Armando

As an artist I am in no way obligated to make social commentary, but I am moved by the things that affect my world and most importantly my children’s future. See more of my work at http://heredia.ws

THE OVERTHROW OF RELIGION

Cardboard Astronaut

Spiritually we all exist in one of three states, ignorant rebellion, passive acceptance, or informed resistance.

God has given us the gift of self-government. That means we as individuals create the internal laws that we use to control our own selves. (Self control is listed as one of the fruits of the Spirit, so rest assured, God is willing to help those who want to be helped.) For most of us our internal code is shaped by our environment.

If you grow up hungry in a home or neighborhood that is impoverished you can (to yourself) justify stealing to feed yourself or your family. If you grow up in a wealthy home with no lack you can justify (again, to yourself) a contempt for the poor and live in excess with no feeling at all for the hungry or the homeless.

When our internal code makes contact with an external one with which we are not familiar than we reach a crisis point. We are forced to choose one of the three above mentioned states in response.

Ignorance is the manger for poverty. Without knowledge the only perceptible savior is rebellion.  Many impoverished nations have seen bloody uprisings with thousands of men, women and children dying brutally at the hands of a civil war that replaces the current government with a new one that is, for all practical purposes, the same or worse than the previous one. Those in power continue in corruption because the masses are not educated to a better way.

Ignorance creates a cycle of bondage. Ignorant people are in a continual internal spiritual and mental war. They are constantly threatened by new and unfamiliar codes and will usually respond out of fear. Of course, ignorance makes a poor base to fight from and the ignorant rebellion usually becomes overwhelmed by their inability to overthrow the machine. Most often they fall into bitterness about their perceived injustices and pull others down and out with them.

“Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.” Hebrews 12:15

Ignorant rebellion chooses not to attempt to understand this external code and instead begins to rise up against it. Even though we are miserable (or perhaps because we are) we defend our internal code because our identity is so wrapped up in it. As obscure as this may seem, it does apply to our spirituality. True Christianity in many ways is diametrically opposed to the internal codes that we have carefully developed, especially for the affluent American who is bombarded with the idea that success is measured by wealth, possessions and/or social status.

Jesus Christ brought a new internal code to a people who were wrapped up in external legalities.

The religious scholars leading up to His time of ministry had taken an ancient external code and internalized it to their own advantage. The common person was completely at the mercy of the Temple and its elite. The fact that the common man was ignorant was not the violation, but that they were instructed into ignorance by their teachers.

The common man had been taught that they had no direct access to God and were therefore inferior to the religious class. Remember, ignorance is bondage. Though the entire nation was in bondage to Rome, the people of the nation were in bondage to the religion of the Temple. The key to their control was in keeping the people ignorant. This same pattern was used by the Universal Church of the dark ages with much the same result.

We aren’t able to see an entire panoramic of the culture of the day through the New Testament scriptures because they are focused on Jesus and then His followers and then on the churches they established. There were, no doubt, insurrections led by ignorant peasants bent on overthrowing the religious class as well as the Roman tyranny. When the disciples were brought into custody for resisting the established hierarchy one of the Pharisees named Gamaliel referred to two previous unsuccessful uprisings by Judas of Galilee and a man named Theudas. (Acts 5:34-39)

However, most people were content to be ignorant. This state will be referred to in this writing as passive acceptance.

Passive acceptance is as detrimental (if not more so) than ignorant rebellion. It is a place of death, where a person exists without a purpose to spur him into action. I would rather deal with one hundred zealots in the midst of ignorant rebellion than with one ignorant person placated by passive acceptance.

Passive acceptance allowed the death of thousands of babies on the whim of an insecure king, remember Herod? It allows children, six times the total amount that died in the Twin Towers on 9/11, to die everyday from hunger while wealthy religions and religious people content themselves with their piety and hide behind a façade of stained glass and “holy” living. It allows people to become commodities in the trade of human slavery called religion.

Let me interject this here, religion is as much about human trafficking as the hold of any slave ship. Religion looks at people for their economic worth, willing to place them in bondage to doctrines and rules for the sake of laying claim on the tithe and/or offerings that these people will be obligated to give.

I believe that tithing and giving of offerings are Biblical mandates and a part of any healthy Christian’s life, but when that is the end purpose of the organization than that organization ceases to serve Christ and becomes the agent of Mammon.

The moment a religious entity begins to function on the basis of economics it becomes what Christ came to end.

Passive acceptance leads to cold blindness.

Truth comes in fragments, sometimes truth has thorns, sometimes it is heavy, and it rarely fits into our pre-made little fire ring, but rather than expand our ring we throw down the pieces that don’t fit and wait for the one’s that do, even if they are few and far in between. Passive acceptance preserves its internal code, but in a different way than the ignorant rebellious, it does so by merely allowing that which seems to be to be that which is. I hate to sound too philosophical, so I’ll rephrase that statement. Passive acceptance does not fight what does not fit. It simply takes on the convenient shape necessary to be accepted by the status quo.

The inevitable result is a state of inactivity that leads to spiritual atrophy. In the past sixteen years of ministry I have seen the atrophy of passive acceptance bring great people to a place of complete spiritual ineffectiveness.

Atrophy is what happens when you completely cease to use a muscle. The lack of movement causes the muscle to shrivel and become useless. This is a preventative measure designed by God to protect the rest of the body from a perceived injury, disease or infection. The damaged limb is shut off to keep the healthy parts alive.

Passive acceptance requires no movement, and no resistance. Resistance however is the basis for strength. Why is there weakness in the Church? There is weakness because it seems easier to lead a group that passively accepts the doctrines and teachings that come from the establishment. Ask any hard questions and you’ll be labeled as a rebel and treated accordingly.
This type of leadership creates a chameleonic group of shape-shifters. So, the passive acceptance that seems so appealing to those who want to control the trafficked, is ultimately what causes the atrophy and death of its constituents.

A weak nation, society, or church is the direct result of leadership that uses ignorance to control its populace. The people will fade into their surroundings and die the death of obscurity. That’s why so many young people raised in a legalistic environment (who weren’t destroyed by ignorant rebellion) so easily fall away from their “faith” when they become adults and get out from under the oppressive thumb of the legalists.

The code is completely external and they have been taught that the best response is no response. They are the epitome of chameleonicity with no identity of their own. Why are they like that? They are like that because of their leaders. They are a direct product of religion. They have no capacity for any other response. I say that men who keep their people in ignorance to bully them into submission will stand in judgment for becoming the enemies of Christ. We’ve looked for a man to call the anti-Christ, and there will come one who will embody the type, but we have overlooked the spirit of the anti-Christ that is at work amongst us already, speaking in places of spiritual authority and putting men and women into bondage for their own personal gain.

Studies have shown that well over 60 % of Christians leave their faith when they enter college. Religion shrugs its shoulders and points accusingly at the youth or cites the fact that prayer was taken out of schools in the 1960’s when in reality this is the only possible outcome of a system that is about conformity.

The dove and the fish have been replaced by the chameleon as the symbol for modern Christendom.

The third response is the state of informed resistance. Christianity doesn’t need a rebellion. The spirit of rebellion will never mix with the purpose of Christ. They are polar opposites, but there does need to be a generation of informed resistors, people who are willing to “know the Truth” so they can be set free. If ignorance is bondage, than knowledge is freedom.

The legalist will always hold as suspect the man or woman who dares to question the establishment. Young people are marked as rebellious when they aren’t willing to “accept everything by faith” and play by the rules and yet this is the very thing that will make them strong. Ask, seek, and knock, study to see if these things are so and to show yourself approved. Search out your own salvation with fear and trembling, be ready to give an answer for the hope you have. The truest Christian symbol is a question mark.

What is truth? If you take away the right to question you turn Christianity from a rushing mighty wind into a windowless room full of stale recycled air.

Are we willing to take everything that we believe and hold it in question and scrutinize it in light of the Bible? If we aren’t than we forfeit our claim to be “people of truth.” If there is any other document, manual, book or doctrine that takes preeminence over His word, than we must confess to the world, we are not Christians, we are just another stripe, shade or pattern that you are free to choose from among the many others that are available, we are not the flock of Christ, we are a group of chameleons.

Some colleagues of mine told me, tongue in cheek, that I am “the poster child for the fight against legalism.” I’m o.k. with that. I’m not interested in being a part of a rebellion, but there is a difference between rebellion and protest. Christianity cannot be another pattern or shape that I put on when I’m at church or amongst a certain set of people. If I have to change who I am depending on whom I am with, than I am not being true to Christ or His call, there should be no duplicity.

If this generation is to become what Christ called the previous ones to be than we have to let them ask the hard questions that make us uncomfortable and peel away the layers of religion that we have added to the faith. We have to be able to help them find an identity that is based on the never changing word of God. If we do this right, we will see them shed the chameleon skin and not die a death of obscurity in the land of darkness.

Christianity has never been about blending in. It has always been about coming out from among the darkness of Babylon into the light of Christ, no matter the cost, or better said, because of the cost.

From Cardboard Astronaut 2.0

WHEN TRUTH MATTERS

Truth doesn’t change because of relevance. Truth is truth. Culture can be relevant. Truth is contextual.

One day my son Benjamin asked me a question that I believe was the catalyst for a change in my own thinking. About Benjamin, he’s a deep thinker. He was only nine when he asked me this. He was reading in Exodus and he came upon the place where Moses is turned aside by the burning bush. Just as Moses is about to walk into his life changing encounter, God told him to stop and of all things, take off his shoes. “Why did he do that, Dad? Why did God ask him to take off his shoes?”

God was asking Moses to place himself at His mercy, to have complete faith in His motive. That translates beautifully in the life of a believer. When you really scrutinize what it means to have faith, it’s also about making yourself vulnerable. Vulnerable’s root word comes from the Latin, vulnerā, it means to wound. Vulnerable literally means “woundable.” When I am staring at a blank white page or canvas I have this initial fear that what I am about to attempt will be a failure, but if I am not willing to convey what’s inside, then I already fail.

God has placed this gift within us, earthen vessels, to glorify Himself in us. Through our lips in speech or song, our hands on canvas or sculpture, our body and feet in dance, every member is designed to create praise from vulnerability.

Think about what Jesus said about prayer. He said not to make vain repetition like the heathen, right? Well, why not? That’s a valid question, don’t you think? Here’s my opinion: He’s looking for His reflection as the Creator in you. Reciting a list of memorized words can be beautiful, no doubt, but they’re not your words.

Be creative in your approach to Him. Be willing to be wounded by people who don’t understand you or your vision. In the end nobody will know what you thought or felt unless you expressed it. Even God, the Creator, manifested, or made Himself visible, to the world as the man, Jesus Christ, the express image of God.

That’s a beautiful illustration about what God is trying to do through us, but here’s the point, God told Moses to take his shoes off in the desert and then told the Hebrew slaves to make sure they had their shoes on before they left to go to the desert. The fact that God told Moses to take off his shoes was irrelevant to the Hebrew slaves the night they were fleeing Egypt, even though it was true.

Why, because it was out of context. The truth here didn’t have to be relevant, it had to be contextual. If we are going to express the truth of God’s word today, it won’t be because we change it to make it relevant, truth doesn’t have to be relevant, in fact most people are getting tired of the watered down stuff we’re pumping out today. So much of what we are doing in the name of being relevant just becomes fodder for the next cliché. Truth, though, needs to be presented in a way that can be put into the context of the lives of the people you are reaching for. {From Cardboard Astronaut : Truth Is Irrelevant}

I was driving in rural Kentucky one day and I came across this old run down store. The front porch had been hit by a large truck years before, (I was told this by an elderly gentleman who was working on the building) the roof was sagging, and there was an entire section of the wall completely knocked down. I stopped to take some photos and was struck by an image. There, in an old worn latch was a pin, locking the door.

Truth is Irrelevant

There was an eight foot hole immediately to the left of the door (which I walked in through) where the cinder block wall had collapsed, but the door was locked. At some point that little pin was significant. A man or woman placed it there with all confidence that it would protect their stuff, and in theory, it worked, but in the context that it’s in now, it has no application. Did “truth” change? No, but the context did. The point here is not about relevance, a latch and pin are always relevant to a door, it is about where the door is.

Some of my darkest days have been when I woke up with the knowledge that most of the things I believed and said I stood for were just concepts and theories that I was not actually living, and not only that I wasn’t living them, but that I hadn’t forged any avenues to apply them.

The hardest days, for me anyway, have always been church days. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Church, but so many times I am frustrated with myself when it’s all over, because I sing songs and make these incredible declarations about what I think and know about Jesus and His passion to reach the lost and help the helpless and the broken, but I haven’t and I don’t. The ideas and theories were true and relevant, I identified with them, but I didn’t actualize them into the context of my life.

The fact that Jesus can heal is true for every culture and era, but until a believer takes the theory, in whatever form it was presented to make it “relevant”  to him/her, and contextualizes it, bringing it into action in their lives, it is irrelevant, regardless of how “relevant” it is.

Copyright Armando Heredia. 2009

Pastoring gives the mental picture of a shepherd meandering through deep grass, near placid ponds under a powder blue sky. Truthfully, it feels more like trying to shepherd a flock of bumblebees. His rod and staff have been traded for a net and a smoke machine.

Today’s teens have such a wide fast-paced array of choices. Though it seems counter-intuitive busy parents seem to plug them into everything available. They don’t have time to sit by still waters with their kids so the nurturing that demands time is substituted with “meaningful” activities. These things aren’t “bad,” but bad replacements for the kind of relationship teens need.

The bad news is you can’t change this. The good news is you can make a difference in their lives. Here’s how to shepherd bumblebees:

1. Be a flower.
   Don’t just look like a flower. Many youth ministries use gimmicks to get teens to come to their events. They’re like plastic flowers. Bumblebees won’t be tricked for long. They’re looking for the pollen and nectar that real flowers provide.
   Pollen is the powder that bees eat. It is also the basis for the fancy word “symbiosis”, the partnership between two things who share life. You are giving life to them, sustenance that will help them grow, and their life and experience will help your ministry be fertile and multiply.

   Nectar in Greek mythology was the life giving drink of the gods. Your teens need to find Life in your ministry. When they get the real stuff they’ll take it back to their hive and do the little dance that tells everyone else where to go.

   “Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth (pollen), and the life (nectar).” John 14:6a NLT

2. Make smoke.
   Incense is a Biblical type for worship and the presence of God. Several times His presence was so thick everything stopped. Contrary to the Bee Movie, smoke doesn’t harm nor put bees to sleep. What is does is mask the pheromones they give off when scared or ready to fight and causes them to eat as much honey (from nectar) as they can in preparation for evacuation.

   A time of worship that brings them into the presence of God will slow them down enough to push away anxieties and fill themselves with life before they zip away.

The net’s just for looks.

What Do You Do When Your Kids Become Sexy?

Oh No, My Son Is A Sex Symbol. What do you do when your kid becomes “sexy”?

Thesis statement: I was glad that my wife and I had three boys. I always joked that I would be the dad that carried a pair of pliers in my back pocket to take care of any boys who showed even the slightest amorous hint toward a daughter of mine; or looked at her with any kind of sexual over (or under) tone. Scratch that thought, I have unfortunately bred a fourteen year old, six-foot-three-inch, chic magnet. So, what do we do now? Maybe you are in the same boat as a parent. You have a son or daughter that, either by design or just by genetics, is becoming “sexy”. How do we help our children grow, feel confident with their identity and help them balance this tricky and dangerous time in their lives? Is there hope for purity for your kid in a culture that cannot differentiate between “attractive” and “sexy”? In this article we will explore this topic and some of the factors that influence our teenagers.

“I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…”

Psalm 139:4, NKJV

The more teen girls (and increasingly women of all ages) start to realize how wonderfully my son is made, the more I am fearful.

I was glad that my wife and I had three boys. I always joked that I would be the dad that carried a pair of pliers in my back pocket to take care of any boys who showed even the slightest amorous hint toward a daughter of mine; or looked at her with any kind of sexual over (or under) tone.

Scratch that thought, I have unfortunately bred a fourteen year old, six-foot-three-inch, chic magnet. The ooh’s and ah’s from women when he was a lanky little seven year old red haired cutie should have been some indicator of the problems to come.

Mind you, this isn’t my opinion, that my son’s myspace.com photos are the object of multiple dozens of different girls whose comments range from the casual “You’re so cuuuuute,” to the brazen sexual proposition of loosely-moraled young girls, are obvious indicators. Oh, and he’s a musician, a guitar player, no less.

I subscribe to the theory of intelligent design. It is difficult for me to reconcile with the idea that the intricate and complex people that I encounter daily are the product of random chance and process. The theory of intelligent design is defined as “the assertion or belief that physical and biological systems observed in the universe result from purposeful design by an intelligent being rather than from chance or undirected natural processes.” (Dictionary.com NP)

That being the case, I believe we were made wonderfully and with the desire to be attractive to each other. In its basest form, it could be a purely physical attraction for the sake of procreation. In reality, however, our attractions are based on multiple factors, many of which are defined by our culture, religion and/or traditions. In the end, every person wants to be considered attractive. Desiring to be attractive, to somebody and in some cases anybody, is natural and can lead to a lifestyle of good hygiene, proper exercise and a healthy diet.

In The Deviant’s Advantage, by Ryan Mathews and Watts Wacker, the authors allude to the decay of ideas as they are exposed to new and different contexts created by culture, including the media, marketing, and other social institutions. They call this the “Abolition of Context.” This is an inability of people within a society to find commonly agreed-upon reference points. Unfortunately, there has been a blurring of the concept of attractiveness in our culture with the idea of being sexy. The concept behind “sexy” is worlds apart from that of “attractive” when you get to the end of the road each ultimately points down. (Mathews/Wacker 65)

Attractive: Providing pleasure or delight, esp. in appearance or manner; pleasing; charming; alluring: an attractive personality. (Dictionary.com NP)

Sexy: Concerned predominantly or excessively with sex; risqué. Sexually interesting or exciting; radiating sexuality. (Dictionary.com NP)

The Fashion Book, a catalogue of works from 20^th century designers quotes fashion photographer, Mario Testino, or ‘Super Mario’ as he is called, as saying “Fashion is all about making a girl look sexy.” This statement is in reference to a photo he is credited with of model Nadja Auermann in French Glamour, whose left hand tugs at the bottom of the front of her micro-skirt, while simultaneously pulling her tucked-in shirt down from under her skirt bottom with her right hand, provocatively exposing her legs and thighs. (Phaidon 448)

In this context, when the goal of the fashion designers is to make “girls sexy,” intelligent design becomes about strategic display. Pants are cut to accentuate the hips and buttocks, shirts are designed to show cleavage or are made skin tight and semi-transparent to show off the torso and midriff as well as the “sexy” bra underneath. Mind you, these are the clothes in the winter season; summer is a micro version of the same provocative concepts. Yes, these are the clothes in the misses section, the ones designated for teen and preteen girls. The same can be said of much of the clothing designed for young men; low rise jeans that almost expose the pubic area, fitted t-shirts, and even body fragrances whose purpose is to “turn on” the opposite sex by chemically unleashing their sexual nature, thus rendering the female unable to control herself. Remember, when you say sex-y, you have said sex, every time, because that is what sexy is about.

This shift in mindset has changed the way girls and boys interact when it comes to sexuality and romance. After fifty years of young girls being advised not to call a boy on the phone, it is now the teenage girls doing the calling, or in the case of my son’s Myspace.com photo, the girls are doing the propositioning. Shmuley Boteach, a Jewish Rabbi and commentator in his book, Hating Women, is quoted “Whether they are influenced by the trickle-down effects of feminism, which has taught girls to be assertive in all areas of life, or have internalized the images of sexually powerful women in pop culture, American girls are more daring than ever… the teenage girl as sexual aggressor is a recurring character in music videos, almost macho in her pursuit of sex and advertising her pleasure in it.” (Boteach 119)

If a girl is supposed to be sexy then she must pursue sex and unfortunately trades her femininity for the degradation that almost naturally comes in response from the boys she pursues. “In a world without ladies, there can be no gentlemen.” (Boteach 118)

As of Tuesday, September 15, 2009, Facebook.com serves 300 million people globally (Zuckerburg NP). Myspace.com boasts 263, 920,012 members (Alexa NP), and 84% of teens own a cell phone and use it daily (C&R Researcher NP). Social networks and the proliferation of cell phones have changed the way our children interact. These “private” spaces have created a virtual gallery for our kids to parade themselves in front of their peers. While not all teens misuse their photo galleries, you owe it to yourself, and your kids, to check the photo galleries of their Myspace.com profile (and that of their friends). You may be surprised to see a menagerie of titillating pictures with suggestive comments including innuendo and some very brazen sexual dialogue. These social networks have created a venue for a new era of exhibitionists and a ready made voyeur audience of their peers.

Youthbeat.com, a site created by C & R Researcher, published a report that claims that 60% of tweens (preteen children) and 84% of teens surveyed owned their own cell phone. In the past parents added an extra phone line to make sure that the main line wasn’t tied up by their kids, now teens have cell phones that they use as much at home as away. “Cell phones are the ‘kid’s line’ of the 21^st century.” (C&R Researcher NP)

Here is the quantum leap when it comes to your kid’s voyeur generation, the entrance of the cell phone as an integral part of their social life. In 33 Million People In The Room, Juliette Powell defines the term social network as an online platform where people can connect with each other. We used to send letters, and then we waited on phone calls, from there it shifted to emails which were substituted by text messages; now we connect through our online profiles, and become “friends” with each other on Facebook.com, Myspace.com or we follow each other on Twitter.com. The advent of the smart phone, a cell phone that is basically a portable web enabled computer, now gives teens the opportunity to be connected to the internet and their social network twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

The first thing people with smart phones do when they sit down together is take out their phones and set them on the table. “There may be two people at the table, but there are 33 million people in the room.” (Powell 7-8) Conversations become fodder for status updates on their social networks, in real time, right from their phone. A “private” conversation is broadcast to their whole network, instantaneously. Every party or get together is a photo-op with pictures taken and uploaded to their online magazines, in almost the same breath. Every conversation is a press release to the hordes of other people who are first level connections (direct friend connections), and like the studies done in the past about promiscuous sexual relationships, everyone that their connections are connected to (friends’ friend connections).

There is nothing inherently insidious about technology. In some things we can find balance, from others we abstain. The technology and its use or misuse is not the disease, but a symptom of something else. The question we have to ask after “What are they doing?” is “Why are they doing it?”

“Think sugar, say Splenda.” The little yellow packet may be the key to this whole dilemma. The artificial sweetener business is a $1 billion dollar industry and Splenda has captured 50% of those dollars, edging out other giants including Equal and Nutra-sweet. (Gogoi NP) What does this have to do with your teen being sexy? One word: substitution.

Splenda is touted as an artificial substitute for sugar, made from sugar, which tastes like sugar. The one thing that Splenda is not is a “cheap” substitute; in fact it costs considerably more than natural sugar. In the same way, the current sexually charged, hyper-connectivity within our kids’ culture is a substitute for the true intimacy that should occur within a strong family.

“Youth…need media for guidance and nurture in a society where other social institutions such as the family and the school, do not shape the youth culture as powerfully as they once did.” (Rainer 109) Media, what we’ve traditionally referred to as television and music must also include social networks and cell phones.

What is being substituted? Guidance, nurture, affirmation, acceptance, love, intimate relationships, all crucial elements needed to shape and develop a strong, healthy identity are substituted by instant messenger/multiple-person, multi-line cell phone calls/status updates and comment discussions, all happening simultaneously (guidance), photo comments (affirmation), top friends lists (acceptance), sexual dialogue and comments/online relationships (love), public dialogue about shallow and even profound topics (intimate relationships), these are not “cheap” substitutes, either. They are the investment of your kids’ entire lives. The reality is that the word “artificial” is a nice way of saying “fake.”

There is one group that we must hold solely responsible for a generation of teens who have completely substituted sexy for attractive, it’s not the media or fashion industry, it’s the parents. We purchase the clothes, provide access to media sources through our funding of cable and internet, and open the avenues of communication by paying for cell phones. I am not advocating a knee-jerk reaction that will send all of our kids scrambling back into the dark ages. I am, however, advocating that we can make a difference in the lives of our kids if we take the time to pay attention to what our kids are wearing and doing.

In order to be a positive balance in your child’s life, you are going to have to know what is actually going on. That may mean that you become more than “dumb ole’ Dad or Mom.” I wouldn’t suggest that you go and buy a pair of black sunglasses and an ear piece, but you may need to look at your job as a parent somewhat like a CIA agent, and begin gathering intelligence; but it’s not just enough to “know what’s going on”, you must play an active role in their life. Secondly, we as parents, whether in a traditional marriage, mixed family or single parent home, must begin to refocus our efforts on creating an environment in our homes that nurtures our children and gives them the “real thing” instead of the substitute; it will end up costing much less in the long run.

Works Cited

Boteach, Shmuley. Hating Women. New York: Harper Collins. 2005

C&R Researcher. Youthbeat.com. 27 November, 2009

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/2be698e9#/2be698e9/

Dictionary.com. Various definitions.

Accessed November 27, 2009. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/word>

Gogoi, Pallavi. “How Far From Sugar Is Splenda?” Businessweek.com. Feb 2, 2005. November 29, 2009

<http://businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2005/tc2005022_7832_tco24.htm

Mathews, Ryan and Wacker, Watts. The Deviant’s Advantage. New York: Crown Business, 2002.

“Myspace.com” www.Alexa.com.  27 November, 2009

<http://alexa.com/siteinfo/myspace.com>.

Phaidon Press, Inc. The Fashion Book. New York: Phaidon Press, 1998

Powell, Juliette. 33 Million People In The Room. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2009

Rainer, Thom S. The Bridger Generation. Nashville: Broadman and Holman Publishing, 1997

Zuckerburg, Mark. “300 Million and Beyond” Facebook.com. 15 Sep. 2009.  27 November, 2009

<http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=136782277130>.

Copyright Armando Heredia. 2009

Because it’s so easy to progress from one stage of a relationship to another, being a preteen/young teen, it is probably better for you to keep your guard up when it comes to any kind of physical touch with your perspective boyfriend/girlfriend.
Look at it this way, in your life is a series of fences. Each fence is set a little further away from your heart. The way a relationship should work is that first you have the person on the outside of the furthest fence. You get to know each other more through talking, texting, emailing about general things and you will either realize that you really don’t have as much in common as you thought and move on or that you have a lot in common and want to bring the relationship closer to your heart. A person’s conversation can give you an understanding of the direction they want to take your heart.

So, you open the gate to the next fence and allow the person to come closer to your heart through different things. You begin to talk about things that are more important to you and not so general, you begin to share feelings, dreams and hurts. Simply put you allow your heart to trust him a little more. If that trust isn’t broken then you will usually open the next gate and allow him closer to your heart again.
Intimate: (of an association, knowledge, understanding, etc.) arising from close personal connection or familiar experience. From the Latin intim(us) – a close friend

This is where a lot of people begin to call each other boyfriend and girlfriend. In other words, I promise to be in an exclusive relationship with you. No other guy or girl is going to have access to my heart while we are in this relationship. This should take some time. Don’t feel like you have to rush this at all.

Exclusive: disposed to resist the admission of outsiders to association, intimacy, etc. from the Latin exclūdere to shut out, cut off

If you’ve read this far you’ll realize that there has been no physical contact. This is important because the basis for allowing anybody to touch you in any way has to be trust. Trust that they don’t have the wrong motive, that they aren’t selfish or aren’t going to try and hurt you or take advantage of you and that they understand your moral stand when it comes to purity. This fence doesn’t need to be opened for a long time.

The mistake that people make (especially in our society) is they jump straight to this fence, climbing over or tearing down the most important ones which are based in knowledge that leads to trust. So they go off of assumption.

Assume: to take for granted or without proof; suppose; postulate; posit:

Once this fence has been opened it is very hard to close. Many young people (and even adults) have opened this fence too early and ended up getting into trouble because they never built the trust and understanding with their boyfriend/girlfriend they needed to guard their heart.
This is where “at my age” is very important. At your age you haven’t had the time you need to completely understand yourself and set up all of the fences your going to need to protect your heart and that goes for the person you may have thought about even holding hands with. It’s also important for you to shy away from getting into relationships with people older than you, because they may be too advanced in these areas and have opened fences in their lives you haven’t even put up yet.

Remember, once you’ve opened the fence of physical contact the next fence is intimate contact (kissing, hugging and other things), and those fences can almost seem like they open by themselves and they are very hard to control and almost impossible to close again.

As crazy as it sounds you waiting to hold hands is going to make it much easier to guard your heart and that will help shape your future.

Here’s a scripture:
Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.
Proverbs 4:23 NLT

PRACTICAL OUT OF THE BOX MINISTRY

Decide to be a youth pastor.

This sounds simplistic in black and white, but in reality it’s a big thing. This ministry has been used as a stepping stone until “real ministry” happens. It’s like a transitional time until the person can become a “real” pastor. If that is your goal, than you are not a youth pastor. Skip it and give the youth the privilege of having someone work in their lives because they have a passion for it, not as a rung in their ladder to success.

One of the reasons that youth ministries struggle so much with leadership and consistency is because so many youth pastors walk away from youth ministry in their early thirties taking years of experience with them. The misconception is that if you are going to be a youth pastor you have to be young but youth ministry is not restricted by age. I have met some fantastic youth pastors in their 40’s and 50’s and some young youth pastors that didn’t have a clue.

If you are just starting out in youth ministry find a couple of youth pastors that have been serving for years and connect with them. Your drive and willingness to take risks as a young person are an amazing asset to the youth ministry you are working with. The wisdom of veterans will be a great asset and balance to you. If you have been in youth ministry for a while you should take an inventory of those around you. Are there any people that you have mentored? Are you connected with the next generation of leaders? If not you should reevaluate your core ministry goal. Why are you doing this?

Establish an Identity.

One of the most important, if not the most important thing for a teen and/or young adult is identity. A foundational part of developing a solid and vibrant youth ministry is to create an identity for your youth group. This can be tricky because we have bought into the idea that youth ministry is basically about slick marketing and advertising savvy.

If you hire somebody to design a good logo, or come up with a catchy name you have not developed identity. You have developed a brand.

Branding is good and it can be important, but it’s not the same thing as identity. Kids don’t wear a certain brand because of the name or the logo, they wear it because it means something, something they can and/or are willing to “identify” with. The brand and logo are secondary to this more important concept: What does your youth ministry “mean”?

Define the ministry not in terms of cool graphics, catchy slogans or nifty logos, but in terms of purpose, value, cultural significance, and community. Is what the name and brand embody big enough? If you boil it all down is their something significant about what your youth ministry is doing other than creating an audience for you to speak to or a large number of teens gathered for bragging rights by you or the congregation you’re a part of?

What difference would it make in his/her life or world if a teen decided to buy into your concept? It’s got to be about more than coming to your church. If Christianity is about going to church it’s not about much.

Expect Greatness not Perfection.

When people say the words “young people” they are really saying “youngpeople.” One word, as a noun. Try it, out loud say young people the way you would normally say it. Why does this matter? Because when you say “youngpeople” instead of young people, you change the meaning of the words.

Youngpeople are a kind of quazi-human creature that are outside of the realm of normal expectations. On one hand we don’t expect a whole lot from them. We’re just glad they come to church and don’t have drugs in their pocket. On the other hand we expect perfection from them. “The ‘youngpeople’ should be the supreme example of what a person should be as a Christian. Their friends and family and the entire world are watching them and may be turned away from God if these “youngpeople” don’t do it exactly right.” I am exaggerating (a little) but you get the point.

Let’s look at the term the way we should, though. They are young, and they are people. I’m not trying to be sarcastic and yes, I know this is a simple concept, but it could change the way you relate to your “youngpeople.”

They are young. This means they aren’t going to have a lot of wisdom because they haven’t lived long enough to develop it. It means they are going to trust freely (for a while) and trust the wrong people and the right people. They are going to be fiercely loyal to their ideas, their music, their friends and the other things that make up their identity. They are going to be reckless and impulsive. The reason they are is because they don’t have a lot to lose. All of the investment has been from their parents. That’s not wrong or abnormal, it’s youth. Think maybe God designed them like that so they would be willing to go out and change the world? Do you remember when you thought you could do anything? They are going to be passionate. Your job isn’t to shut this all down and make them like you, they are not miniature adults, they don’t think like you because they don’t have all of the risks you have. Your job is to help them harness all of this energy and power, yes power, and point them in the right direction so they can make a difference in their world.

They are people. They are going to do amazing things, normal things and incredibly stupid things. They are going to be subject to their emotions, peer pressure (you still are), ups and downs and everything else everybody goes through. Don’t put them in the “youngpeople” category and limit them to that paradigm. They are people, created by God for a purpose with a capacity for greatness, but the propensity for failure. Expect greatness, but don’t expect perfection.

Be Intentional.

Most of these things will seem like no-brainers. It’s these simple things, however, that can make the difference between a good youth ministry and an effective youth ministry.

Can a youth ministry be good and not be effective? The answer is yes. It depends on the goal of the ministry. If your goal is to create a venue where teens can congregate, have good music and hear preaching you can certainly do that, but that doesn’t necessarily equate effectiveness. If it doesn’t change the lives and/or direction the teens are going in outside of the venue, and there is no transformation, no development, no difference in the lives of the teens than the ministry in Biblical terms it is not effective. Is it good? Yes. Fellowship in a positive environment is good, but is good what we are looking for as a youth ministry?

Effective comes from intention. You will see specific results if you have a specific plan. Are you trying to create community in your group? What community enhancing events have you planned? Do you have a group of kids that need to be born again? What have you done to create a pathway for them to gain the understanding of this somewhat abstract concept and apply it to their lives? Do you have a group of church kids that are inward focused and not reaching out to their school, family or world? How have you decided to lead the outward.

Effectiveness doesn’t just happen, it’s planned for. We sat down in November of 2008 and had a planning session for the first quarter of 2009. Our objective was to share the message of salvation with our students, many of whom were not familiar with the Biblical message. We planned to preach and teach about repentance in January. We then went into February teaching about baptism in Jesus name, what it meant and how it applied.

When we started into February we let the teens know that on the last Wednesday of the month we would be having a baptismal service. Needless to say on that last Wednesday we baptized 12 people and had several more over the following weeks. Were we surprised? No, we planned it, we were specific and focused. In March we taught about the Holy Ghost and it’s availability to us. Several students have received the Holy Ghost. This is what we planned, what we intended to happen and it did.

What needs to happen in your group? Find it, plan it, focus on your plan and see it happen.

If All Of Your Friends Think It’s Cool…

If you’ve got a “great” idea, a revolutionary idea even, that you are going to spring on your youth group and you call up all of your youth pastor friends and they think it’s “cool” and slap you on the back and hold their thumbs up, you might need to be worried.

Do you have one or two, maybe even a small group of young people who are your advisers? Could I use the word “mentor” here and you not be offended? I have now, and for several years since I passed out of the “cool” stage, had a few teens and post high school students who are my C.A.B. (I just made that up) Cool Advisory Board. My job isn’t to be cool, it’s to know what cool is.

“I’m not cool and I’m OK with that.” Yeah, my friends all laugh at me and finish my sentence when I start saying it, and if you visit Granite City you’ll see some “cool” stuff happening and every bit of it has been filtered through a young person because that is who it’s for.

We are trying to reach into a different generation, like missionaries. The first thing a missionary should do when they put their feet on the ground on the mission field is find someone that can translate the culture, not just the language. You need to do the same. You have young people around you (or you should) who understand their culture and the mission of the youth ministry. They are Ambassadors and are as important, if not more so, than the youth pastor because they are who truly interfaces with the youth culture.

You are reaching into their culture, they are in the culture. So before you move forward with this amazingly cool idea, ask a few of your mentors what they think. Chances are they might think it’s cool, too. But maybe not.

Teens Are Sensual

Of course, because we expect teens to be walking hormones, when you read the title you assumed (and I am assuming this) that I was going to talk about how all teens are sex crazed lunatics, but that, first of all that is not completely true and secondly that’s not the point of this blog. What I mean by sensual is that they are driven, like everyone, by their senses. What they hear and see affect their emotions and how they feel is what they go by.

What I’d like for you to consider is this, people’s lives are dictated by externals. As we grow in maturity, we begin to be able to balance those externals with wisdom, hopefully, and become more stable, mostly. We are still affected by externals and media producers have come to understand that in order to get our attention they have to use sensationalism. BANG, POW, BOOM!!! You get the idea. The news is filled with the biggest stories, the series on TV are flashy and the movies, musicians, tabloids and such are always over the top because they have to be in order to cram a (!) in our face so we’ll turn our head. (!) is big, it’s outrageous and it demands your attention now!

Your teens aren’t opposed to (!) in their lives, they are all about (!) because they are at the beginning of their foray into the world of independent sensory decision making. Before now their parents dictated where the (!) would be in their lives. They were told what was important, what was worth their time and how they should feel about things from their parent/guardians perspective. They didn’t choose their movies, books, friends, etc. so if there was a (!) anywhere it was filtered through their parents’ wisdom. This is true in most cases, but not in all and you may have some kids in your group whose parents are morons (yep, I said it) and let their kids fill their little mental pockets with whatever (!) they could get a hold of since they were five. That’s the kid you need to keep closest to you for his/her sake and the sake of the other kids in your group.

That’s why teen magazines and movies are sensational! You’ll see (!) in their lives when it comes to relationships!, emotions!, problems!, fears!, ect!, etc!. They seem to thrive on (!) and gather around it like moths to a flame. This is normal and you should expect it.

You can be a very effective youth pastor if you understand that you are not going to be able to take the (!) out of your youth group and instead you become a (!Filter). Find out what’s going on in their world and without being condescending give them insight from an external perspective, that being yours, to what they are watching or listening to and what they are being affected by.

One more thing, if your teens are all about (!) and your youth services or small groups don’t have (!) in them, you will not reach into your kids’ lives. They will be bored(!) and hate(!), not dislike, hate(!) coming to your class or meeting. Your messages, discussions and gatherings need to generate (!) in your youth. They need to address the things that are affecting your teens in their everyday (!) filled lives. So, start right now thinking of how you can be a !Filter and how you can generate (!) in your youth services, otherwise they’ll see you as a (,) in their lives. A moment of pause between two ideas, neither of them being you or your ministry.

Get In The Groove

In August of 2009 we had a series for Flashpoint called “In The Groove” with a message called “Dream On.”

When you dream there are always risks involved. Some people may mock you, scoff at your dream or even hate you because of what you desire or what you see in your future.

Sometimes your dream isn’t too big for you, it’s to big for them. It may be better for you not to share your dream with everyone. Find someone who believes in you. Share your dream with them, let them speak into your life and challenge you.

A believer isn’t going to say, “You can’t do that.”
They will say, “How do you plan to do that?”
They won’t say “That’s not possible.”
They will say, “What steps are you taking to make that happen?”

A dream is a good thing to have because it’s tomorrow wrapped in hope. So many people who have lost themselves in drugs or alcohol or have given in to violence or self-abuse have done so because they don’t have a hope for something better or a dream to drive them. Dictionary.com defines a dream as “an aspiration; goal; aim.”

The word aspiration is a beautiful word to use to describe a dream. To “aspire” literally means to “desire to breathe.” When you have a dream that drives you it becomes as important to you as your breath. So dream, dream with your eyes wide open and with a plan to make it happen.

Joseph dreamt he would rise up and become great and he was hated for it, but he never gave up on the dream.

“And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told [it] his brethren: and they hated him yet the more.” ~ Gen. 37:5 KJV
He had plenty of opposition and the dream even put him on the auction block of the slave trade and in the dark prison of Egypt, but in the end he did rise up and become great. Joseph’s dream saved his whole family, because he believed it and never gave up on it.

My prayer for you is from Psalm 20:4 in the NLT: “May he grant your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans.”