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HELP!! I WANT MY KIDS IN CHURCH!!
I get asked this a lot and was telling someone just today what my standard answer to that question would be. So I thought it would make a good blog post. So here it is
How does a parent get their child involved in church?
First and foremost the parent has to model the behavior that they want their child to adopt. If you want her in church consistently then you have to be in church consistently. This will show them that it is serious to the parent and that it is more than an extra activity but a part of the way of life.
Secondly, you must be find a church that is supportive of the values and goals that you want for your child to absorb and commit yourself to that church and that church alone for a substantial duration of time, in your specific case I would say the remainder of her High School career. Children of all ages need consistency and in this world it seems that everything in their life changes so fast they can’t count on anything. When the church becomes a constant they are more likely to latch to it.
Thirdly a teen is going to be drawn where their friends are. If the youth group does not have anyone in it that the teen can or will connect with then they will feel isolated and alone and not want to go.
Fourth, it is important for any parent to realize that the principle influence in a child’s life will always be the parent. In turn that means that the one who must be discipling the child in Christ is the parent as well and that the youth minister and youth group are only there to support and enhance what the parent is already doing, which is why number one is so important.
Finally there as to be some lines drawn. If the previous four statements are applied first then this is an easier task. Not to say that it is at all easy but if placed first in the list it is almost impossible. The parent is the parent and makes the decisions if the parent decides that the family is going to start attending and participating in church then that is the rule and is enforced. Many times parents will tell me they don’t want to force their kids to come to church because they are afraid it will turn them off to religion. But the fact is that we force our children to do many other things and yet never consider to apply that principle. They go to school, eat their supper, go to the doctor, go to bed, have a curfew, etc etc etc. Again when the previous four are applied this becomes easier.
It is NOT about Relationships
At least not just ANY relationship. We can develop relationships all day long but if as Christians we are not modeling our relationship building after Christ then we ARE going to FAIL!
We see in Matt 9, Mark 2, Luke 5 and 19 the types of relationships Jesus invested in, relationships with people who were hurting, broken and condemned by society. We spend WAY too much time developing the wrong relationships with the wrong people for the wrong motives. Here are some examples.
1. Developing a relationship to gain financial support
2. Developing a relationship to gain power and control
3. Developing a relationship for personal glory and praise
4. Developing a relationship simply for personal friendship
While these types of relationships are not “evil” they are not what we are given by Christ as a model.
This is essential to pastors and ministers to understand and even more essential for the laity to understand and support their pastors in through allowing them to exercise their calling but also in rolling up their sleeves and joining in reaching out to those broken people Adam Mclane posted on His blog today that he was “not satisfied with reaching 5-10% of the population” and I agree. For far to long we have allowed churches to be community/family clubhouses and have forgotten the world outside.
Tomorrow I will talk about the types of relationships I am building in Youth Ministry and how I believe they are foundational in any youth ministry trying to reach hurting teens in their community.
The Book Is Not Closed!!!
I have always had an eclectic taste in music the only genre I didn’t take too was country but even some of those songs appealed to me. When it comes to worship music I lean heavily towards new modern music but there are hymns that are very special to my heart. What has always bothered me though was the debate between the two. I know where I stand, firmly on the side of modern music, but I could never put my finger on why that was or what about modern music was so appealing to me. It wasn’t until I heard of a conversation that took place in my church and then seeing a video a friend of mine posted that the wheels began to turn in my head.
The conversation went like this, the church wanted to buy the new Baptist hymnal and the music minister was campaigning to raise money for the purchase when a man came to him and explained that we already had plenty of hymnals in the church with over five hundred songs in them and that was as much music as we would ever need. The video was of a village in Africa and the villagers were singing “Jesus Loves Me”. Now the man had a point we do have a lot of hymnals and we have never sung all the songs in the hymnal I am sure. And do not get me wrong I love the song “Jesus Loves Me” BUT there is a problem that I see that is occurring. We as the people of God have mistakenly assumed that all the songs that were meant to be written have already been written and that god has closed the book ! When the truth is that God has just begun to write music through us! I believe Psalms 40:3 is true for every Christian and that in each culture God is raising up those with the gift of music to write beautiful music to Him but unfortunately we are not doing that. The case of the villagers is most disturbing to me. There they were with a native man trained to preach and singing a song written by an American women almost 150 years ago. Did any one think to teach the villagers to express their praise to God through songs that came from their own hearts? Surely they are not reading prayers and sermons of other people publicly. There is no doubt that they are encouraged to be open and true with God in those areas….but music is another story While God has obviously used this music and I will not deny that how much more impact would be felt if the words were from the hearts of their fellow villagers?
The reason I am a modern music guy is because it takes restriction out of the equation and I think you will see if you are watching that some of the most modern churches throw in a hymn and a choir every once and a while because they can not because they have to. There is a place for all of it. What we cannot do is attempt to silence the Spirit of God speaking through us or others in any form whether that be prayer, preaching, or song writing. Too many churches have left this out and I believe it has left a void in the souls of many musicians within the church.
We must remember the book is not closed!!! Keep writing keep praising keep showing God you affection!
Opened with Expectation and Closed in Profit
That is a good book which is opened with
expectation and closed in profit.
~ Amos Bronson Alcott ~
To really get your leaders on board with the vision that God has given you you are going to have to shape not only their thoughts but how they form them. Through the years countless books have been written on the church and what is going on inside and out. Most ministers/pastors devote a great deal of time to reading these books along with their normal Bible Study routine. Through these avenues we find inspiration and God begins birthing visions based on what hHe is revealing to us through these combinations of Scripture and teachings.
Here is the problem
Most church lay leaders are not deep in their Word much less reading other books about the church and culture so when we go to those leaders with a completed vision it is like we are talking an alien language. So in the process once the vision is developed we will go back from the beginning
1. Take your leadership into a deep study of the Scriptural foundations of what the church is and what the church should be doing. It has to all start in Scripture. As your leaderships sees you delving into Scripture and see the fundamental components of what you are leading them into their minds, eyes and hearts will be opened and they will be ready for the next step
2. Assign your leadership to read what you have read. As they read what inspired you they will start to glean terminology and methodology and see what roads you are going down this will prepare them to go even farther.
3. Discuss the readings with your team. These discussions will help you direct the ideas that are forming in your team’s minds and it will plant concepts that God has already birthed in you but in smaller form than the completed vision.
In this way once you have laid the groundwork then the vision casting will unfold with more acceptance and excitement. As you talk they will understand and identify and they will feel connected enough to support the vision. Ultimately setting up a more successful task and satisfied leadership.
Tomorrow I will identify another way we can build our leadership.
They Don’t Think Like You
One of the biggest mistakes that I have seen church leaders make is to walk into a situation and assume that the people who they are leading are on the same page. This tends to lead to conflict and confusion down the road when the leader starts moving in a direction that no one understands at best and no one supports at worst. The resulting domino effect is both heart wrenching and head pounding. This can be avoided, to some extent, with the proper preparation and cultivation. I want to cover some principles in the next couple of posts.
1. Understand that while you may be God’s called leader don’t assume that everyone will follow you solely or recognize your leadership. The church is complex and while you may be in a leadership position it takes many people leading to get a congregation moving in the same direction. Your church may be elder led or deacon led or staff led but the key is that whoever is in your circle is leading other people. If they support you they will lead others to support you. But to be able to support you they must understand and buy into what you are doing. Remember they do not think like you. They are not inside your head. You bear the responsibility of communicating not only your vision but the building blocks of your vision.
It is awesome to have a idea burdening your heart develop the vision and then cast it. It is quite discouraging, however, to see a bunch of blank faces staring back at you after you are finished. What is possibly a more effective approach is to take the idea develop it and then go back to what sparked the idea. And walk your leaders through it slowly. If they can see each step along the way they will not feel lost, in fact they will feel included and invested int he idea and they will in turn sell it to the people that look to them for leadership.
Tomorrow I will discuss some ways that you can cultivate the thoughts in your leadership.
The Nails
We studied Isaiah 53:1-5 this week in Collide, our Wednesday youth service. It was a powerful time and God really spoke through me and I was wiped afterwards.
Week in and week out we see people come in to the church and leave completely unchanged. They profess Christianity but they wallow in their sins daily with no evidence of remorse. It is time that we start calling sin what it is…..SIN!!
We have got to start taking our sin seriously- It is not okay that everyone is doing it. It is not okay if you are getting away with it sin is sin period and it separates us from God and deters people from Christianity when we allow it into our life without repentance.
We have got to STOP trying to legitimize our sin- I don’t care that you are a country boy/girl that does not make it right to cuss, drink,smoke, chew, dip, party on Saturday and go to church on Sunday and call yourself a Christian. That isn’t the Christianity I read about in the Bible! I don’t care if you are in the backseat of the car and you haven’t crossed the line with your boyfriend/girlfriend yet, your mind is FULL of sin and you need to repent
We have got to remember the consequences of our sin- Not the consequences that might happen, but the consequences that already happened. Your little white lie killed someone. That someone was innocent and you killed Him. He took on your sin and mine as well as the entire world no matter how small or how big it is. We forget the cost.
When I was 16 I totaled my car. I had only had it a week. I remember sitting at the light and turning left the next thing I remember is being pulled out of the twisted smoking wreckage. I remember the taste of blood and the searing pain on bits of glass all over my body. I remember the look on my mother’s face when she got to the hospital and saw me for the first time, covered in blood. There was a song years ago called “Feel the Nails” It posed the question “Does He still feel the nails when I fail”. My tragedy has stayed with me and I still get nervous about left turns and it has been 12 yrs. I wonder if every sin that I commit makes Jesus cringe from the reminder of the punishment He endured. If so we have a lot of explaining to do don’t we?
“He was pierced for our transgressions, and crushed for our sin ……and by His wounds we are healed”
Our sins nailed Him to the cross and we are still driving them in everyday moment by moment….do we care?
Down from the Mountain
Having just come back from an amazing weekend with our youth group it is an easy thing to get down. After all we experienced coming back down to reality is a little depressing. Most of us in the ministry recognize this as a mountaintop experience and understand the brutality of the realization that we have to exist in the real world where it seems we are in a losing battle at times.
We need to understand though that this is not unique to our time or our place. In fact we are provided with a number of instances of this very problem in the Scriptures.
Moses- Ex 32
After being on the Mount with the Lord. Moses had to return to reality and the reality was that the people of Israel were already turning their hearts away from the God that had delivered them. Can you imagine how Moses must have felt? Here he was meeting with the Lord of Lords and his people that he had sacrificed so much for were worshiping a golden calf! Talk about depressing! So then Moses has to go into leader mode and rebuke the people. Not what I would want to be doing after meeting with God.
As a minister I can relate. It seems that the moment i walk in the door after coming back from a trip I am confronted with the fact that there are people even in my own church that are more concerned with worldly matters and there own self satisfaction than the movement of God.
Elijah- 1 Kings 19
In 1 Kings 18 Elijah has this amazing victory over the evil prophets of Baal. God worked a miracle beyond anyone’s belief and Elijah was left standing as His victorious prophet. Fast forward to chapter 19 and Jezebel has threatened his life. Elijah must have been wondering why God would give him such a victory only to allow him to be killed by the same evil that he had been trying to overthrow.
Sound familiar? I think we all know of someone that has come home from a mountaintop experience to be confronted with a life crisis. Whether it be an issue with work or home, personal, material or emotional we all know of someone that has had to face a crisis.
Jesus- Lk 9:41
Yes!! Even Jesus had to face this problem. Jesus goes up and is transfigured and discusses what His death will mean. I imagine that this was an exciting conversation. To be talking about the salvation of the people He had created surely got Christ pumped. But as He came down off the mountain the first thing He was confronted with was a complaint about His disciples. His response clearly shows His concern.
Don’t you just love to have to deal with complaint’s? They are bad enough when you are not coming off a mountaintop experience but having to be dragged down when you are focused on things much higher and nobler is quite rude.
The point is the world is going to be ready to destroy our optimism and excitement but we cannot let that divert us from the course that we must take. The closeness with God always reveals to us what we need to do so we need to do it!! Now go do it…..NOW!!
Green with Envy
I want to add a disclaimer to the front of this post that I did not intend to do a “green” post on St Patricks Day. But hey here we are let’s go for it.
I have been pondering this issue of envy for a while. I will be honest it isn’t because I recognize it in people around me and think that they need to hear about it is because I personally am a very envious person.
Oops…. I just admitted I am a sinner. Now I will be in hot water.
Seriously though, as a young minister with a heart on fire for God and a desire to be more than the status quo I find myself envying other ministers and ministries all the time. And I hate that part of me. In my heart there is a delicate balance between wanting to do all I can for the Kingdom and wanting to be like so and so minister at super church across town.
James 3:14-16 says this
14But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. 15Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. 16For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.
There are two distinct things that we as leaders have to face.
- Envy
- Selfish Ambition
OUCH!!! I have already discussed the Envy part a little bit but you throw the selfish ambition in and it is like twisting the knife.
Envy presents two problems
- It is disfavor with God’s favor on others
- When we take the position of envying someone for any reason it is immediately questioning God’s favor on that person. While it may be indirect the statement that we are making is that whoever we are envying is not deserving or is less deserving than we are. We may make comments like “it’s not fair” or “that could/should be me” etc.
- It is displeasure with what God has given to us
- Whatever situation we find ourselves in and in whatever state of life it may be , we must hold onto the fact that God has placed us there to be stewards of what He has given us. Our displeasure is the equivalent of shaking our fist at our Lord and saying that He does not know what is best. DANGEROUS place to be to say the least.
Envy itself presents itself in several forms.
- Relational Envy- When you envy someone’s relationships and the qualities they seemingly have.
- Material Envy- When you envy someone’s material possessions
- Physical Envy- When you envy someone’s physical appearance.
- Developmental Envy- When you envy someone’s advancement in life.
- Skill Envy- When you envy someone’s ability to do something or do something better than you can
I had never thought about these but when I really started delving into this issue it cut me deep.
Relational envy can destroy friendships and marriages. I causes drama period, ever known a person to try to get between two friends….that is relational envy.
Material envy is probably the most well known and thought of. It consumes people and their time. It is why we have so many workaholics.
Physical Envy is what the fashion industry is built on. But we can take that further, do you think the makers of P90x and Insanity SlimFast and any fat burner at GNC are really interested in your health. NO!! They are preying on your physical envy
Developmental envy is my failure. But it goes deeper. A kid who can’t wait to be 16 or an adult wishing he could be a kid again. Or a minister wishing he could be in a church that was really reaching people and experienced the freedom to do ministry apart from church politics
Skill envy pulls us into comparing ourselves to everyone else.. You will never and I mean NEVER be the best… the minute you are someone comes along and is better. You need to deal with it. Accept the skills God has given you give them over to Him and develop them for HIS glory.
Envy is destructive. Look at Cain and Able, Joseph and his brothers, Judas, the Pharisees and Jesus, all examples of envy invading the heart and causing great sin to follow.
Bottom line we have got to stop comparing ourselves to everyone else and move on with what God has place before us. Envy can accomplish no good and James tells us that it is directly opposed to anything of God. It is earthly not heavenly, unspiritual not spiritual, and of the devil not of God. According to 2 Timothy 2:22 we are to flee evil and so we should run as far away from envy as we can.
Search your heart…..what is God telling you/
The Final Unleash Word
After all was said and done I LOVED Unleash. I have a new respect for NewSpring Church and affirmed respect for Perry Noble. That being said I wanted to address the controversial jab that Perry made at his critics during the second session. If you weren’t there and haven’t heard let’s just leave it as “rude”. I have talked with several people about it and some of the reactions bothered me.
First let me say personally that I believe it was way over the line. It is one thing to refute a claims validity or a persons integrity but when you get personal I think you need to take a step back. But as we do with so many things we cannot just look at a sliver of the pie and get the whole story.
1. Perry is brash that is what makes him successful as a preacher, he tackles things in a very open way and speaks his mind and people like that. With that type of personality comes slip ups. Just as with an adrenaline junkie there will be broken bones.
2. Perry has been under constant fire for a long time. Eventually that takes its toll and the thick skin is broken. I think that is what I saw and heard Thursday
3. Someone made the statement that it ruined the whole message. Listen if one sin in a persons life can ruin the message then you are either idolizing a man and are dismayed because he isn’t perfect or you are looking for imperfection so as to not have to listen. Truth is truth and there is no way around it
4. No blogger or stranger is going to call Perry out and get him to apologize or change. He is a pastor of a HUGE church and every DAY there are probably HUNDREDS of complaints that their church has to field. What has to happen is that someone in a position of trust needs to say something OR God needs to convict. All of us on the outside looking in simply need to pray for one of those two things to happen
5. Just to let you know, Perry is human…… Just saying
6. I don’t know a pastor that doesn’t struggle with sin. Some just do a better job of keeping it hidden. Perry is Perry and at least you know where he stands
Those are my thoughts. After ministering in churches over the last ten years I have seen a lot and I can honestly say that the good always comes with bad. It never changes. I will continue to thank God for churches like NewSpring and pray that their leadership will stay close to Him.
Finally I doubt that Pastor Perry will EVER find this hole in the wall blog but if he does let me say this:
Pastor I am one insignificant blogger that sees you as a great man of God still growing and maturing in your faith, something that we all continue to do.While I don’t always agree with you I definitely support you and admire you. Thanks for being obedient and for influencing a generation of believers and pastors. Keep up the good work and know that there are bloggers out there that won’t rip you to shreds.
Well that wraps up my thoughts on Unleash I have a lot to process and will be chewing on these things for a while.
