Archive for April, 2009

No Transition to Adulthood

You would think that our churches would embrace their youth as their key strategy to impact the world of tomorrow for Christ. It would also ensure that they have a church of tomorrow. However, in the words of prominent theologian Rodney Dangerfield, they “don’t get no respect.”

After all, when does a person become an adult in our culture? Heck, you can vote when you’re 18, but you can’t drink alcohol legally in some states at that age. In most states, you can drive when you’re 16, but you can’t smoke a cigarette. You can go see a rated “R” movie when you’re 17, but in most traditional churches, you’ll never see a teenager on a finance committee. With such an obvious confusion in our culture and churches, is it any wonder that today’s adolescents are confused? Not only do we not give our teens a change to succeed in our churches, but any cultural observer can note that we have created a climate of postponed adolescence in our society as well, with many adults continuing to act like one might expect an early teen to act well into their 30s.

I think there are two optimal occurrences that we can seize for maximum impact in adolescence. One is the 13th birthday as an adulthood transition. The other is an adolescent’s first ballot: his car keys. When those keys first reach his pocket, he is given the power to vote with his presence where he will spend his time, Search for senior high students in most youth ministries today, and you will see they are “voting” to go elsewhere.

What can the church do to communicate the passage from childhood to adulthood? From being the center of their own world to being a servant in our ours? I believe the church must lead out in a cultural revolution that will bring purpose and meaning to our adolescents precisely at the time they are crying out for it.
Where can we look for such models of adulthood transition? Sit down and relax. Take a deep breath. Evangelicals, don’t get constipated here. I think we can look to Jesus’ people for it. We can look to the Jews.

You(th) Can Learn a Lot from a Jew

What element of orthodox Jewish culture is celebrated without reservation and carries immense symbolism for a Jewish youth? What exists already in Jewish life that communicates to their young that they are now “adults?” The bar mitzvah.

This ancient practice may hold immense practical wisdom for evangelicals today. When you consider the astounding proportion of Jewish youth that go on to become national leaders in politics, technology, science, education, finance… you name it, I for one think we must look at what happened to communicate to these youth at an early age that they “can.”

On the one hand, you take the typical evangelical congregation. When a child hits 6th or 7th grade, congratulations, you get to go to youth group! (Oooohh, aaaaaaahhhhh!) And so begins a six-year odyssey in which we not only segregate youth from the “life” of the congregation (I use life here very generously), but we proceed to entertain them with camps, retreats, concerts, endless supplies of t-shirts with war-like messages on them (won’t they endear themselves to our culture with messages like “Turn or Burn” cheerfully emblazoned on their backs), and a weekly youth group meeting that has no overall vision or strategy for what it wants to accomplish or produce in the lives of these impressionable youth (Adolescence is the age at which they’re the most impressionable. Billy Graham tells us that if a person hasn’t become a Christian by the age of 18, there’s an 85% chance they never will. More recent research suggests that the age is dropping, that youth are cynical younger, and that the key average age is actually more like 15.).

I suggest that each church form a youth strategy team that would actively research and then implement a plan for their church that would affirm a child as he reaches the age 13 and lay before them the vision of service and responsibility they will find within their church. This doesn’t mean we don’t have fun with our teens in church. It does mean that we will most likely hit at what we’re aiming at, that we will produce what we are organized for, that youth will meet our expectations of them.

Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, Arkansas was planted by a trio of friends that sought to address this very issue… with their own kids. Years later, lead pastor Robert Lewis wrote a book called Raising a Modern Day Knight. It’s principles are transferrable to girls in many ways. But he has also produced material called The New Eve. Both seek to begin the strategic instruction of kids much earlier than traditional churches.

However you consider it, if a church waits until a student reaches 18 to begin doing effective collegiate ministry, it will be too late. By the time a student reaches his or her teen years, their faith (or lack thereof) is firmly formed. I’m reminded of the admonition of Hebrews 5.12-14:

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Unfortunately, this verse as often as not applies to adult members of our churches. But that’s another series for another day. Perhaps we just don’t expect enough from our church…

Stay tuned…

I feel for those of you who are still on dial up internet. I do miss the quaint sound of a 56K modem, however. I told someone the other day that I want that for me ringtone. We’ve been on DSL for several years now, and it’s generally been dependable.

Recently I was told that cable internet is faster. I didn’t really believe that, but as I looked into it, I discovered that our local cable company had upgraded their technology significantly since we left their service many moons ago. Several folks warned me that my connection would drag if there were lots of people on cable internet at the same time. I was told that it wasn’t dependable. However, a pastor friend was using cable internet and Skype for his phone on cable internet and assured me he’d had no problems.

So I decided to check into it myself. I called Cablevision and scheduled a hookup. The service guys arrived on the day they said they would and ran a line to where I requested. I chose to buy a cable modem rather than rent one from Cablevision ($5/mo). My cost was $43.73 from Amazon.com.

The only problem I had was my modem arrived on Wednesday, and it took calling repeatedly to Cablevision until Friday to get someone to return my call and tell me how to connect it all up. They had given me no login ID, no nothing. When I called 24-hour tech support (a third party provider), they said that my account showed that I had rented a cable modem. Grrr. That was frustrating.

Finally, however, I got a call back, and got things hooked up. Before I disconnected my DSL, I ran several speed tests using speedtest.net and internetfrog.com. Here are the results:

Then I hooked up the cable modem, configured my wireless router and was prepared to test my connection with it. This was tested using a wired connection, not wireless. Again, I tested several times. The cable guy told me that I would get different speeds at different times, but on average, they would always be faster than DSL. Here are the results of testing over a three-hour time span:

Frankly, I was amazed. Cable was much faster than the DSL connection. My mind was made up. Or so I thought.

I called AT&T to disconnect our DSL service. The rep looked up my account and said that I wasn’t getting the fastest speed they offered. My response was that when we had upgraded our service a year ago, we had opted for the highest speed since Carolyn’s business depends upon a good, high-speed internet connection (and because Sam and I play Xbox Live all the time). He responded that it had increased since then, and that he could offer me guaranteed 6mbs download for $30 per month.

Dilemma. 6mbs per month is still slower than what we’re seeing on average from cable. At times, it’s much slower. However, it’s half of what we’re paying for the cable internet ($49.95 for best package + $10 surcharge since we don’t have cable TV). The AT&T rep also began to explain why cable internet is sooooo bad… less secure, less dependable, more people on the net at a time means slower connections… etc.

That pretty much torqued me off. When a company can offer me twice the speed that I’m getting for the exact same cost as what I’m currently paying, why wouldn’t it tell me? We were totally in the dark about this. That’s rather frustrating. In my mind, the way to keep and make a happy customer is to proactively offer discounts.

“Sir, we did a periodic evaluation of your account. We noticed that you’re currently paying $30/month for an older DSL package. We would love to upgrade you to twice the speed at no extra cost. Would you be OK with that?”

Imagine how you would respond to such courtesy.

But, I guess that’s a dream world.

Anyway, I did grouse a little, at which the rep offered me a free month to try the new DSL speed and see how it compared to cable. I quickly took his offer.

Here are the results of the new, higher-speed DSL package:

That is twice as fast as what we were getting with the previous DSL package. However, it’s dismal compared to the average speeds of cable internet. It’s pretty obvious that AT&T has throttled their internet. The needle at speedtest.com hits a brick wall at 5. Don’t pass go; don’t collect $200. I have never received higher than 5mbs (in spite of supposedly paying for 6mbs). Soooo… therein lies my dilemma.

I now know that I can get much faster net speed through the cable company. Of course, you pay for it.

If you’re looking for better internet speed and are able to receive cable or DSL, I’d recommend cable at this point. We’ve had no down time (of course, it’s only been a week or so). At this point, we’re still trying to make the final decision. Since we will eventually be dropping our home phone and using Vonage or Skype for phone (in addition to our cells), we are really in a win-win situation.

The future for consumer communication choice looks very bright for us all. Now if we can just convince U.S. companies to quit throttling the internet in order to make more $ off of us.

This was my fourth year to film Kim’s Dance Factory’s annual recital. I began doing it as part of my business, Noble Design, and it’s grown into an annual ordeal. While I have since backed off doing the elaborate editing with two video cameras, it still involves videoing three 2-hour recitals and then editing the footage down to produce three DVDs.

The Lord has continued to use this income from the sale of the DVDs to help us catch up from the incredibly slow months of December-February that Carolyn’s photography business usually sees. So while I may dread 12+ hours of setup, video and tear down (and then the week-long editing process), the expression “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” certainly applies. It’s all good, in other words.

Over the past four years, I’ve developed an ongoing camaraderie with Kim’s husband, her dad and Danny that all run the sound and lighting in the booth in the auditorium. Three years ago, we began using headsets which allowed us to communicate with Boss backstage (aka, Kim). More importantly, however, these headsets allowed us to make comments and snide remarks to one another as only guys can do as we endured enjoyed the prolonged drama and grace of dance recitals.

There have always been some great one-liners and funny moments, but they were usually of our own wit. This year, however, a set malfunction reduced five men in the sound booth to a quivering mass of schoolgirl giggling.

I was innocently (truly) filming midway through Friday night’s recital when Steve came walking into the alcove where I have my camera set up. He was grinning like a Chesire Cat and about to burst with revelation. Karl and I looked at each other, and then at him with expectancy. This is going to be good, I thought.

“Look at the wall,” he said, breathlessly. When Steve gets struck by something funny, he has this falsetto giggle that could put a soprano to shame. He was obviously holding it back.

I glanced down on stage in expectancy but missed whatever he was referring to.

“Look at the words…” he said.

Then I saw it.

The “I” had fallen out of the word “RECITAL 2009″ that was taped on the wall to the right of the stage.

It now read “REC TAL 2009.”

Enter school girl giggling. And stomping of feet.

I deserve a medal. I was able to continue filming the dance without interruption. Yes, I am a… hero. I selflessly kept filming rather than enjoying the belly laughs and guffawing of my comrades.

Whew. It was one of the best dance rectal moments of my life.

Afterwards, I quickly made my way down to the stage where Kim was visiting with girls and mommas. I snapped a few shots of the endearing slogan just for posterity. When Kim finally learned what had happened, she shot the messenger. Yep. Just because I was the one who told her (and Twittered and Facebooked the event), she held me responsible.

She exclaimed, “It’s all because of your stupid tape!”

I really had no idea what she meant. I thought she was referring to my need for a video tape change 90 minutes into the performance. I guess she thought that delay was what caused us to notice the butt wall.

It was on the way to Ray’s (local hamburger joint) that Caro pointed out to me – incredulous that I didn’t get it – what she meant.

I had stopped on the way to the recital and bought some cheap, no-name duck tape that barely held down my cords on the carpet. Kim had borrowed my tape to put those letters on the wall…. So it was my fault.

It was at that moment that the sheer joy of the night erupted all over me. Not only was I hero. But I had unintentionally caused the event to turn anal. Wow. How cool can I be?

• Segregation of Youth Groups

Our churches have ensured their own demise by segregating their youth into “youth groups”, entertaining these same youth for 6 years (instead of challenging them in daily discipleship), and then, as if to put the nail in the coffin, giving them sweet little graduation presents (like “Wisdom for the Graduate”) as they bid them well on the eve of their collegiate experience.

Such is a guaranteed recipe for mush. There is little or no thought about how to produce a disciple that will stay the course in many mainstream churches. One dismal statistic began alarming leaders a few years back: 89% of churched youth leave the church when they go to college. Those who leave may return, if at all, after they’re married and have their first children.

While some dispute this alarming statistic, a more significant, subjective tool can also be used. If your church is located in a community where there is a college, how many college students attend your church? Are the high school students that graduated from your church last year actively involved in a church right now? Ask them. You may be surprised at their answers.

The “black hole” of the church is soundless; it’s a great void that sucks life from every denomination. Where are the grown-up children? Where is the generation aged 18-25 in the church? Or even 30-somethings? Are they all flocking to the new megachurch in the suburbs, or are they staying at home, making Sunday the new Saturday?

One reason we may not be seeing these ages in the church is because they don’t feel like church “belongs” to them. Our churched youth have no sense of ownership of their church. As soon as they began thinking for themselves, they were ushered off into a segregated church-world. Most have no voice, no vote, and no influence whatsoever on their church. Add to that problem the issue of the occasional youth minister that perpetuates that “us vs. them” mindset in his youth group, and well, why should we wonder where youth are going? They don’t get a fair shake in the only place in the world they should expect one.

Another reason that youth may not be in the church is that the church just isn’t into youth. Too many churches think they’re doing “collegiate ministry” by providing Sunday School classes for them. Yet these students, who are old enough to defend our country, drive, and even drink alchohol are not deemed mature enough to serve on most church leadership teams or committees.We treat young people as lower class citizens in the church. They’re great for numbers, but we don’t want them having voices of influence.

Articles on the Christian collegiate dropout problem:

• Lifeway Research
• Busting the Dropout Myth
• Church dropouts

The remarkable trend of the last 40 years of a separate, high-octane “youth ministry” may have produced a lot of noise and created the church van industry, but have youth ministries effectively prepared and discipled students? Are they reaching the college campus able to not only defend their faith but thrive in it?

To be continued…

I served as a collegiate minister on the campus of the University of Arkansas at Monticello for 8 years. They were precious years of enduring ministry. Both of our kids were born during that time, and I’m convinced that there is no better environment in which to raise your children than around college students who are passionate about Christ.

This series looks at the state of collegiate ministry and asks the question, “Where should collegiate ministry begin?”

Each fall in our collegiate ministry, we geared up our student leaders up for “Welcome Week.” The first few days of school are incredibly influential on a student’s collegiate destiny. Imagine: a freshman arrives on campus and is in the first few hours invited to several parties, most sponsored by fraternities. That first night on campus, a lifestyle is established that may persist through four or more years of college and then influence a career and family.

And so our collegiate ministry sponsored as many high impact events as possible in the first several days of school. We not only wanted to offer an alternative, but we actually wanted to save students from themselves. A student’s destiny is measured heavily by how he spends his first 10 days on campus. Heavy stuff, huh? Welcome Week was immensely important to us, but that is not where collegiate ministry begins. It’s not even close. Collegiate ministry must begin before a student reaches college, and it must begin in our churches.

As we talk about where collegiate ministry must begin, please understand that it isn’t as simple as revising our generational ministry strategy. It’s not the Net Gen that we aren’t reaching. It’s not even Gen X or the Mil Gen. Simply put, the church is missing people. The church spends so much time trying to reclaim what it’s lost that it spends minimal time trying to proclaim to those it’s never found. It makes it all the more difficult when those the church hasn’t reached yet don’t want to be reached. They are actively avoiding the American church (specifically, people age 15-30) like one would swerve to miss roadkill.

If collegiate ministry is going to become more effective, then we must honestly address some problems in the place it must begin – the church. They include the segregation of youth groups, the lack of an adulthood transition, low expectation, and the disappearance of “testimonies.” Remember, we are only dealing with those who have been impacted by church growing up (a teeny minority these days). This series will not deal with the staggering challenges of reaching the never-churched people in our society.

To be continued…

If it was real flowers I were talking about, I think they’d wilt before they got there.

However, I’m talking about the University of Arkansas at Monticello girls softball team. They’re the Cotton Blossoms! They’re pretty darn good this year (currently in first place of the GSC West Division (32-7, 11-5).

One of our church members is a pitcher on the team, and when I first approached her about taking the Blossoms to Poland this summer, she was a little hesitant. The main issue it seems, was money. Most of the girls are on scholarship and like other college students just don’t have $1500 to pack up and go to Central and Eastern Europe.

However, after several interest meetings and constant encouragement, there are now seven girls who are committed to going with us. I’ve told them time and again that we could raise the money for them all to go. Lou Arnold, another member of our church, has raised 105% of her goal through her Facebook ChipIn page, so I figured that between creative internet fundraising and old-fashioned bake-sale-car-wash-type fundraisers, we could send these girls to Poland.

Here’s what they’ll be doing:

• Sports clinics (softball, baseball, etc.)
• Conversational English classes
• Coffee houses
• Cultural tours
• Attending Polish church worship service
• Trip to Auschwitz

The overall purpose of the trip is to help the missionaries in Poland build lasting relationships with more people with the hope of leading them into a love relationship with God in Jesus Christ. I’m confident that this trip will also be a life-changer for many of those going as well.

Here’s what I’m asking you to do:

• If you’re on Facebook, join the Blossoms to Poland page and leave the team an encouraging note.
• Donate the cost of a tall coffee at Starbucks to the trip ($3). If you’re feeling extra generous, donate the cost of a large pizza at Pizza Hut ($12). You can use the ChipIn widget below (we have to manually post the donations, so don’t worry if your donation doesn’t show up in the totals immediately).
• Pray for the girls and the others going on this trip.
• If you’d like to receive an autographed softball by members of the girls softball team, please leave a $25 donation, and email me your mailing address using the contact page above.

I’ll keep you posted here as to the status of our fundraising.

I’ve written about Hellotxt.com before. It’s a wonderful service whose main competitor is Ping.fm. Another noteworthy alternative is Loopt.com (especially since they have a nice iPhone app). All these services provide you the ability to update your “statusphere” (multiple online social services) with one, single update. It even allows you to update selected services if you don’t want your “@somebody” responses on Twitter to go to your Facebook account.

While I use both Ping.fm and Hellotxt.com from my iPhone almost interchangeably, my web preference for status updates has shifted to Hellotxt. In fact, the Hellotxt.com website has had a significant, although quiet, update in the last month or so. It now streams the status updates of your friends from Twitter and Facebook. You can also reply to them directly from the Hellotxt site. Very nice.

While there are lots of desktop apps out right now that allow you check the status of your friends, the advantage of Hellotxt is being web-based. You take your social stream with you everywhere. If you haven’t signed up for an account yet, I highly recommend it.

I’m curious. If you update multiple your statusphere with a service, what is it? What desktop apps do you use to monitor it? What other websites are you aware of?

Sundown Friday. In years long before my own ancestry can be traced, a man’s body was removed from rough wooden poles before dusk. For religious reasons, the body must be buried before dark. He was dead, certainly. A staggeringly unusual death. Drama. Political intrigue. Controversy. Desertion.

In only six hours, a man hailed as the nation’s next King-Deliverer was no longer preaching or healing. He was simply… dead. As were the dreams and hopes of all who had dared imagine that this man, this strange man, from a ridiculed backwater village offered more than just welfare. He had claimed to offer life.

Unceremoniously, he was urgently thrust into a new tomb. The gathering dark even prevented proper annointing. Women would return later to properly prepare his body. Friday night signaled the Sabbath’s beginning, however. It would be no sensational worship event. Jesus was dead.

As I pause to reflect on this “Good” Friday, I am sobered by the truth that it is only good because through Christ, I am now good. His death meant my forgiveness. His sacrifice meant my salvation.

In the soaring chorus of Nothing But the Blood, there is a line that I am today cherishing:

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

When Horatio Spafford wrote these lines in the early 1870s, he was suffering the loss of his children on a transatlantic voyage. In fact, his wife survived the crash of two vessels and telegrammed back to him these words: “Saved alone.”

As he traveled to join her, he was notified when his ship passed over the location of the shipwreck that killed his children. It was on that ship that the above words were penned, along with the astonishing chorus:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

On this silent night, with gathered dark threatening victory over all souls so many years ago, I for one am grateful that God was not inactive. Rather, He was purchasing for Himself the souls of all who would through faith trust in Christ alone.

My sins, not in part, but the whole… They are thrown as far as the east is from the west! Allelujah. Truly. May Christ be praised.

Such joyful truth has prompted John Piper to write the following entry on this Good Friday:

CHRISTIAN:

Hello, Death, my old enemy. My old slave-master. Have you come to talk to me again? To frighten me?

I am not the person you think I am. I am not the one you used to talk to. Something has happened. Let me ask you a question, Death.

Where is your sting?

DEATH, sneeringly:

My sting is your sin.

CHRISTIAN:

I know that, Death. But that’s not what I asked you. I asked, where is your sting? I know what it is. But tell me where it is.

Why are you fidgeting, Death? Why are you looking away? Why are you turning to go? Wait, Death, you have not answered my question. Where is your sting?

Where is, my sin?

What? You have no answer? But, Death, why do you have no answer? How will you terrify me, if you have no answer?

O Death, I will tell you the answer. Where is your sting? Where is my sin? It is hanging on that tree. God made Christ to be sin—my sin. When he died, the penalty of my sin was paid. The power of it was broken. I bear it no more.

Farewell, Death. You need not show up here again to frighten me. God will tell you when to come next time. And when you come, you will be his servant. For me, you will have no sting.

O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55-571 Corinthians 15:55-57
English: World English Bible - WEB
55 “Death, where is your sting? Hades, where is your victory?” ⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

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It’s not just my sin. It’s yours too – the whole. Victory in Jesus, our Savior forever…

Go to church this Easter.

We’ve had several days home now after our incredible trip to Alaska. I’ve processed a lot about our trip, and I know that our time spent with our friends there will continue to be used by God to teach us life lessons long into the days ahead. However, here are “10 Things I Learned in Alaska:”

1. A volcano is more than a science project. They’re real.
2. A 185 lb. 41 year-old moves quite fast on a sled and often emits a curious, girly-sounding scream that closely resembles sheer panic when rocketing down a long snowy slope in Hatchers Pass at rates that would pass the space shuttle.
3. There is a lot of yellow snow on the roadsides in Alaska, especially in Talkeetna. I’m hoping it was from animals.
4. One house + four kids + four adults + one bathroom + moose sausage = trouble.
5. If you have a small storage building and know how to make hot water, you could open up a coffee shop in Alaska. There’s one on every corner and in every parking lot.
6. It’s more difficult to become Sarah Palin’s running mate for the 2012 elections than just showing up at her Wasilla church and hoping to bump into her.
7. Most Alaskan towns would be stumpers in any spelling bee.
8. There are more ways to die per square mile in Alaska than in Arkansas.
9. No one thinks it’s funny when you respond to a question, “I don’t know, but Alaska” even though you chuckle about it every time you say it.
10. 4053 miles and two years are not enough to disrupt true friendship. 

The volcano refugees are almost home. 

We woke up this morning in Memphis. Not where we’d hoped we’d be when we left Anchorage yesterday morning. But we’re grateful to not have an ornery volcano spewing ash over our plane routes home.

When we sat in the Alaskan Air plane yesterday a.m., we all breathed a sigh of relief. My family’s eyes lit up when they saw me walk on the plane with just minutes before takeoff. I had to go standby to get on board with them.

As we prepared for takeoff, the pilot announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, Redoubt erupted again 30 minutes ago.”

There was a collective intake of air as every passenger sucked in the oxygen around them. Would we be bumped again?

“But it shouldn’t affect us yet, so we’re cleared for takeoff.”

There was applause throughout the aircraft, and suddenly the two seatmates on either side of me that had been strangers moments before were now comrades. We chatted it up all the way to Chicago.

In Chicago, we realized how confused our ticket situation was. Our connecting flight to Memphis had our names but no ticket numbers. Alaska Airways took care of that. Our experience with them has been nothing but positive.

But when we arrived late in Memphis (11:30 p.m.), only my luggage rolled off the belt at baggage claim. Then when we made it to Budget Car, they had no rental for us. In spite of Carolyn having reserved one just hours before on the phone from Chicago. They were nice enough in helping us get a hotel.

So one way or another, we’ll be home today. We’ll either get out on the 9:45he 9:45
English: World English Bible - WEB
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WP-Bible plugin a.m. flight to Little Rock that Alaska Air put us on (only a hold, no ticket numbers apparently), or we’ll get out at 2:45 p.m. on another flight that the Northwest folks were able to get us on last night via phone.

We’re pretty sure our luggage will go at 9:45. Let’s hope we make it with those bags. Otherwise, the ones under our eyes will weigh more by the time we make it home.

However, we’re extremely grateful for how close to home we are. We had an incredible time in Alaska. “But there’s no place like home.”