Nostradamus vs Revelation
This past Sunday I taught on the similarities and differences between Nostradamus and the book of Revelation. We had a great time at the packed evening service, and I hope left with a lot to ponder (You can watch the video here by the way). My only wish is that we'd had more time to dig into Revelation a bit more. That is what this post is about.
To catch you up to speed if you weren't able to watch the video yet (if so skip to the next paragraph), we talked about the most difficult aspect of Nostradamus being the fact that his intentional "murkiness" (his words) made even a basic translation of the text difficult much less a interpretative scheme for spelling out its predictions; though, there are interesting arguments for his predictions of Hitler and 911. Revelation is not that way. It has clear, complete grammar and can even be read as an instructive epic (like the Iliad) as well as a book containing prophecies about the future.
We didn't spend much time on the other two major interpretative schemes for understanding the book of revelation. The first one understands all of the prophecies of revelation as having been fulfilled by the fall of the temple in 70CE. In Revelation 1:3, it says, "... the time is near." This method says that anything that interprets these prophecies as having to do with events thousands of years later is being irresponsible with this passage. It should be NEAR. The method draws guidance from John 23:34 saying that it should conclude within a human's lifetime, and says that Revelation has a clear message: God will judge the first century Jews for rejecting and crucifying his son.
Then they take the rest to be a prophecy concerning that judgement. For example, they take Revelation 6 and interpret it like this:
- v. 2 - depicts the Roman march toward Jerusalem to start the Jewish war in 67CE.
- v. 4 - refers to the pax romana
- v. 5-6 - talks about the famine resulting from the Jewish war
- v. 8 - is about the death resulting from the Jewish war
- v. 9 - is talking about the same thing Jesus is talking about in Mt:23:34-39
- v. 12-17 - is common language for the wrath of God (see Isaiah 13:1, 10)
- v. 14 - According to Josephus (a first century historian) Romans actually leveled mountains to pave the way for their armies.
Interesting to say the least! The other main way (of the three I mentioned) is the one popularized in Christian movies and novels. It looks at Revelation as predicting the end of the world. It provides a myriad of cross references and keys to understand what the book is talking about.
Take, for example, Revelation 13. This method gives a key for interpreting this passage (and all similar references in the book). Read this passage with the following interpretative key:
- Dragon= Satan... Lord of they flies, mayor of hell. You know the one.
- Beast= Antichrist - political leader at the end of the world. The one that every recent president has been labeled as.
- Second beast= False Prophet. Religious leader appointed by the antichrist.
With that basic understanding it becomes clear that Satan is going to give the Antichrist access to his supernatural powers. People will begin to worship Satan because of this. The head of this new religion will be the false prophet who will use his power and influence to wow the crows and call them to worship the antichrist and Satan.
Also interesting! So, which one it right? Is it an instructive epic, or prophecies about the first century, or about events that have not yet happened? I think the answer to that question is: yes. It is most likely a profoundly mysterious text with many layers of valid meanings (including all those I mentioned above). This layered understanding of scripture is right in line with the way Jesus (and all first century rabbis) viewed the scripture (more on that here: watch week 1).
Want a great book to go in depth with these different methods? Here it is!
Next week is going to be just as interesting. Archaeologists have discovered many gospel accounts that are not in the Bible. What are they? What to they say? Why aren't they in the BIble? Why does this matter when I wake up the next morning?
Skeptical Confessions
I have a confession to make: I am a skeptic, and always have been. However, the church is not always welcoming to people who question.
Instead of saying “I don’t know” or “I have never thought about that before,” when someone asks one of the off-limits questions, people in the small group or Sunday School often tend to shut them down. It is usually an honest, difficult question that challenges a fundamental belief. Those kinds of questions can be quite uncomfortable to consider.
It is out of that place of discomfort that people reply with “There are some things you just have to accept on faith” or worse by ignoring the questioner all together and switching the subject. If the questioner presses their case, the shut down continues with “I just believe what the Bible says” or “That’s just not something you can question as a believer.”
These sorts of responses say to the skeptic that the Christian faith is not strong enough to withstand scrutiny. It says that their type of curious personality is not welcome in church and causes many to unplug from the community of faith.
Not only can God withstand any level of scrutiny, but it is in scrutinizing that we come to a better understanding of the person of God and our Christian faith. Though it may be uncomfortable to question why we believe one thing or another, if we seek God, study the scriptures, search out wise counsel and use our own logical brain, we will come out with a faith that is stronger and more well defined.
Yet because it is such an uncomfortable task for the non-skeptic, we tend to shy away from asking the tough questions. That is why we need skeptics in our midst. Unhindered or unconcerned with the typical discomfort of questioning, they raise the questions that we dismiss or ignore. They help push us to establish firm foundations and clear understanding. We need skeptics.
Because God loves skeptics and because we have all been curious about taboo topics, we are going to spend some time in our 5:00 evening service honestly engaging with significant questions and discovering how they help us to live a life of obedience to God and grow closer as the Body of Christ. I look forward to seeing you and your skeptical friends and colleagues there!
Talk Tips: Know it in a Sentence
The typical youth worker spends a great deal of his or her time in front of a group talking. This article is part of a series of tips to improve your public speaking skills. One of my favorite professors of all time (Dr. Julie Gorman at Fuller) said something that I will never forget: If you don't know what you want to teach well enough to say it in one sentence, you don't know it well enough. So true. I have sat through way too many lessons (and sermons) that made me confused because the point was never clearly articulated. Take a second before you teach and ask yourself: what do I want them to know? Then, whittle it down until you have it in a sentence. THEN (and only then!) build your lesson around that concept making sure all of your ideas and illustrations tie in and support that point. And, it doesn't hurt to actually say that sentence a couple of times during the lesson either.
From YouthWorker Movement
Elijah and the Lone Ranger
Do you remember being a teenager? Do you remember how important it was in your world to have someone, anyone, to call a friend? It was so important that we often didn’t care who they were. Anyone who sat next to us in history and was relatively nice could qualify.Then you went to church and some adult spoke up and said that you needed to think about your friends. You needed to choose them wisely as their influence in your life could have massive effects on where you would end up. Then you though something like: Are you kidding me?! I can’t LOSE friends! They are the only ones I can get! Or, after looking at the way they lived their lives you might have decided that they were not the best people to hang around, but since you didn’t have any Godly friends, some friends were better than no friends.
But now it’s totally different. You are an adult. You are not just friends with the people who are relatively nice to you. You have a wide range of friends who you feel a real, deep connection with who don’t live near you, and that’s not to mention the way you work. You team up with a diverse group of people on staff to help implement your best stuff. You pull in volunteers who far outstrip your talent and give them ownership. And, you are careful to be aware of how those people’s character are influencing your own. Or not.
If only that were true. We are more likely to be like Elijah. You remember the story. He goes into hiding, and Ahab does everything he can to kill him and all the other prophets. Then, God calls to him and tells him it is time to return. There’s going to be a showdown devil came down to Georgia style (minus the fiddles and plus fire). On his way in, he meets Obadiah who explains to Elijah that he was able to save 100 prophets by hiding them in two caves and giving them food and water.
Then the oft-flannelgraphed drama happens: cutting, no fire, water, fire, and the end of a drought. As the people begin to return to God, Elijah runs away (again) and is curled up in a ball when God speaks:
“…‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’
He replied, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left…’" (1 Kings 19:9–10 NIV)
I am the only one left. I am all alone. I am fighting this fight by myself. Well, except for the 100 prophets Obadiah hid in those two caves. OTHER THAN THAT, I am all alone! Poor me!
If I had a dime for every time I was talking to a teen, adult, or minister and they said something along the lines of, “I’d love to work with more people, but there just aren’t any around!” BUZZ! Wrong! I have yet to be in a place where God has not allowed me to be surrounded by great people, but I have often chosen to ignore them to make myself feel better (or worse) about my situation. I have used my self-created loneliness to justify my unhealthy, lone-ranger approach to life.
Sometimes it is because I don’t particularly like someone’s personality. Sometimes it is because I feel threatened by someone else’s talent, and sometimes it is because I want to wallow. Whatever the reason, it is unhealthy. We are not meant to be alone, and maybe it is time for you to reach out of the box we’ve made for ourselves and try living the connected, Body-of-Christ life that God created us to live.
From: YouthWorker Movement
Talk Tips: Avoid Overplayed Illustrations
The typical youth worker spends a great deal of his or her time in front of a group talking. This article is part of a series of tips to improve your public speaking skills.
If I have to hear about that kid that sits by themselves in the lunchroom one more time, I am going to vomit! Seriously! We all have our weaknesses and one of them is definitely slacking in the creativity department with our illustrations. Yes, that is an apt illustration in some moment, but the best thing in this case is to go cold turkey and stop the insanity.
Make a list of your most used illustrations (your students know them if you don't) and post them where you can see them, then repeat after me: "I will not use these overplayed illustrations for an entire year." Force yourself to be creative, and your students will be more engaged.
From
Rocking Your Minsitry Resume
Churches are smart. They realize that the possibilities of hiring a youth pastor (or even getting one on the phone) during the summer are slim to none, and hold off posting their jobs and interviewing candidates until the fall. Which means that for those of you in the market for jobs (hopefully not because of a tragic bobbing for pickles in lemon pudding accident), it’s time to work on your youth ministry resume. After having hired several youth pastors and talking to several youth ministry friends who have done the same, I have developed ten tips to help you put your best foot forward in your resume.- Check Your Grammar and Spelling: I wish I didn’t have to write this, but the number of horribly written and misspelled resume’s I get every time I post a job makes me mad. Seriously, you are a grown human being. You should be able to either write complete sentences or find an English teacher to proofread your resume (or both hopefully).
- Ministry Oriented Objective (abbreviated): If you include an objective in your resume, make sure it expresses some of your core values as a youth minister, but KEEP IT SHORT. Your resume is about telling us about your experience, education, and skills. Wasting space on a wordy objective is just that: a waste of space.
- RELEVANT Experience: So you worked at Chick-fil-a when you were seventeen. I don’t care. I understand that you may not have been paid to do youth ministry for very long, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a lot of experience. If you are light on staff experience, add in your internships and volunteer experience. And title the section just what it is: Relevant Experience.
- Ministry Education: Though it is important to show that you finished (or attended) college, it is equally helpful to list any ministry mentor relationships with a single bulletpoint about how you developed as a minister. And don’t forget to list any youth ministry education conferences you attended (even as a volunteer) like youth specialties, etc.
- Skills Make You Shine: This is a great place for you to shine. Even if you haven’t done youth ministry for a long time, you have definitely developed skills that are VERY relevant in ministry. Don’t get too wordy but list your most ministry-relevant skills NOT covered in the earlier sections here including any special software (photoshop, pro presenter) at which you are proficient.
- Keep it to two(ish) pages: I know every site online tells you to keep it to one page, but they are talking about business. If there’s one universal thing I heard back from the people I asked about hiring youth pastors it’s this. There is nothing more frustrating then getting a resume that keeps it to only one page, but leaves you needing more information. So, Put your MOST impressive stuff (experience, education, skills, publications) on the first page and then supplement or complete that information on the second. Really impress on the first page so that they will want to read the second. Only split a section between pages if it is too long and un-editable. For example, if your experience spans more than three churches, just put the most recent on the first page and finish it out on the second.
- Bullets are Syrup: They make your resume great, but too much is… too much. If you are light on experience, add a couple more bullet points to show that you have the core competencies of being a youth pastor covered. If you have a lot of experience keep it to the two most important and impressive points for each job. And remember, these are bullet points not paragraphs.
- Collateral Material: If you are insanely great at something and people besides your mom have told you so repeatedly, include ONE sample as an attachment or link in your email.
- Your Cover Email: The days of mailing your resume off are long past, but you want to be careful about the email that accompanies it. Remember, this is your opportunity to make a great first impression. Keep it short. Three or four sentences should suffice: Hello, I found your here. I have these requirements you listed. I think I am a good match for you because. I look forward to talking to you soon. This is where you can also add a line about it being confidential if you have a crazy pastor who will fire you if you interview anywhere else.
- References Communicate Confidence: Though it is far from a requirement to include references with your resume, if you have people who you can trust to keep your job search on the DL, a list of references communicates confidence.
- A Physical Copy: Though the days of mailing your resume are over, take one printed on nice paper with you to the interview and hand it to them at the beginning. There’s something about the response to nice paper and clear print that puts you on a positive footing, and it looks especially classy to those older adults who never had to email a resume.
From: Youthworker Movement
Talk Tips: What to Do?
Sometimes lessons can have a great point, an excellent concept, but be meaningless as far as being able to be lived out in the lives of the people. That is because in the glory of coming up with a great teaching goal, we can forget that our ultimate goal should be life change.
That means that on your lists of questions to ask yourself when getting ready to speak or teach, you need to ask: what do I want them to do as a result? If at all possible, try to have some part of that action goal happen during or right after your lesson. That often translates into two goals for me in this area. I will have a big goal like: live in harmony with their siblings and then find a very simple, specific action like clean up your sibling's room for them, or bring them their favorite treat as the immediate action goal.
From YouthWorker Movement
Shutting My Political Pie Hole
Please repeat after me: Jesus is not an American. Jesus is not a Republican. Jesus is not a Democrat. Please feel free to repeat as necessary.Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about the role of the pastor in a politically heated climate. I believe firmly that there is a key feature of how all pastors should interact with most of partisan politics: silence. I say that not because I may lose members of my congregation by making highly partisan statements, nor because I may get bad press. I say that because in a world filled with political talking heads, my people need a pastor more than ever. The way I understand it, the role of a pastor is twofold: prophet and priest.
The priestly side of my job involves all of those moments where I am the nurturing, comforting presence of Christ in the world of an individual. It is those moments sitting next to a student while they are grieving, counseling a mother at her wits end, or walking with someone through how to study the Bible. In the realm of hot political topics, it is being a calming presence helping people find the image of God in each other.
That does not mean that we do not engage seriously with the world around us. The oft-confused role of the prophet is to call the people back to God. In the scripture, this included dramatic statements and dramatic actions to help the people see how they had drifted. But here’s the key: the people were drifting from God. The focus on the prophet is the divine. The peoples’ actions were not the focus, it was how their actions separated them from God.
The prophet at times pointed out how being calloused bigots separated them from God and at others how their open, permissiveness was doing the same. In a heated political climate people need pastors, in their prophetic role, to help them remember that God is their focus, not a political party or stance.
It is our role to point to the wild injustice that goes unnoticed as millions of children are trafficked in modern day slavery, as over 1 billion people live in deplorable conditions of the world’s urban slums, and, though the world produces plenty of food, 16,000 children die from hunger each day. It is our role to talk about the death of the church in Europe and its massive decline in America. It is our role to lift up the person of Jesus and call people to turn away from their elephants or donkeys and run as fast as they can to his feet.
So I will vote as always because I love my country, but I will keep my political pie hole shut so that my people can have the pastor they need in what can be difficult political times.
From: YouthWorker Movement
Study the Bible in Three Questions
Studying the Bible can be intimidating. Not only is it by far the largest book most people pick up, but it was originally communicated to people who lived between 2,000 and 7,000 years ago (give or take a grand). Though I love to use outside resources, devotions, and study guides, it's nice to have a simple tool to help you plunge into its depths wherever you are. These three questions are a great guide for exactly that type of study.1. What is this talking about? This question seeks a very simple answer. What is the LITERAL meaning of what you just read. This is important because if we are not careful, we have the tendency to skip over words, phrases or concepts that are confusing. Nailing down what the text is literally (not metaphorically... that's later) talking about helps force you to clarify those elements. For example, Proverbs 20:10 talks about the practice of cheating people in the marketplace by using a weight on a scale that says one pound one but is not to give people less of an item (like grain) than they paid for. It talks about a lot more too, but that is its basic, literal meaning.
2. What is this REALLY talking about? This question goes the next step from the literal meaning to explore what the passage is implying or suggesting through metaphor or other comparisons. In this case, Proverbs 20:10 is clearly talking about being honest and fair in your dealings with everyone.
3. What does this say about me? Now we personalize the study by asking what it is that God might be saying to me. This is the moment that we try and see ourself in the Bible. We are part of its story and should seek to read it as if it is about us. Proverbs 20:10 might be talking about how I am fair with some people and unfair with others, or it might be confirming to me that the inequality I experience is, in fact, wrong.
That is it. Though it is simple, answering those questions can take as much time as someone has, and when you begin to process long pieces of scripture or figurative bits, it can turn into an epic adventure all its own.
Fathering Tips from Abraham: Kill Your Son
Curing Teen Apathy or Whatever
This article originally appeared on YouthWorker Movement
You give it your all; you preach/teach your heart out. Then, you look out at a room full of teenagers with the blank stares that communicate the same thing as last week: we don’t really care. Why?
I believe that part of the reason is we often are trying to sell them on concepts they have no interest in: self sacrifice, suffering for Jesus, and serious study to name a few. In a world of over-indulgence and instant stimulation, these are not very attractive offers. Yet, we do our best to make them attractive dressing them up with movie clips, doing all we can to make them look cool and relevant, but it’s just a show. They aren’t attractive. They aren’t cool. They aren’t what students want.
I’m not suggesting that we stop calling teens to this high level of living. I’m not suggesting we water down the message, but we may be more successful if we take a step back. You and I know that students can smell a fake from a mile away, and if all we are doing is dressing up unattractive concepts in attractive clothing, we are doing just that: faking.
What I’m suggesting is that we do our best to show the spiritual and moral benefits of these concepts and then recognize, even verbalize, how unappealing they are. St. Teresa of Avila put it most honestly when she cried out, “Oh God, I don’t love you, I don’t even want to love you, but I want to want to love you.”
Let’s be honest. Americans live an easy life; most want for nothing. We get popcorn in 3.5 minutes, we don’t have to move from the couch to peruse hundreds of channels of television that are created to merely entertain and occupy our time, and we live most of our lives in whatever temperature we find most comfortable. When that bleeds into our faith, we can approach the things of God with the same mindless apathy we have when we channel surf.
Maybe the cure for apathy is not to figure a way to dress up unappealing, non-easy concepts. Maybe the cure is to show them for what they are, both beneficial and difficult, and recognize that, more than not sacrificing, we do not want to sacrifice. I believe that if we are honest at this level, we have the hope that our students can, like St. Teresa, want to want to sacrifice (and a whole host of other unappealing-yet-vital practices). And that is not only a start, but the beginning of the end of apathy.
Jewish Jesus: Yom Kippur and the Meaning of Atonement
The Death of the UMC Connection
This article originally appeared on the Youthworker Movement site.
The idea of connection came unto its own during
a moment in church history that was contentious and dramatic. As America began to find itself as a representative democracy, its citizens began to desire what they saw as a more democratic style of church structure, and they began to turn more and more to congregational styles of organization where each church was on its own seeking its own success and loosely related to the other churches in its denomination.
During this same time the Methodist church came under fire because of its very un-democratic episcopal structure. There were charges leveled against the church of being unchristian and anti-american (which is a totally different from now). We pushed back by saying that our structure was not about being mindless servants of an autocratic bishop, but that we were a single unit that was facilitated by the Bishop and other superintendents. It was about connection.
You saw the connection in how we operated. Yes there were individual churches, but they were constantly teaming up and coming together in small or large groupings to do everything from having a camp meeting to starting a hospital. We were different because we were not duplicating efforts, we were not fighting amongst each other for members; rather, diverse congregations were working together in a network (some might say a body) to accomplish far more for the Kingdom of God than any one of them could do on their own.
Fast-forward to the present and it is difficult to see that radical contrast to the congregational approach being lived out in our Church. The Connection may not be dead, but the signs of its imminent demise are everywhere. Since we are talking youth ministry here, lets use it as our test case. It was not long ago that conferences had thriving youth programs that were a beautiful collaboration between adults and youth from all over the conference. They did camps, retreats, mission projects, evangelistic rallies, you name it. What was even more beautiful than that was the fact that these events grew out of districts that were doing the same thing on a local scale.
Now that is quickly becoming the exception rather than the rule. More and more conferences are dissolving the youth ministry position because it has become irrelevant. If no one is coming or participating in those conference events, there is no need for a staff to facilitate them. Why? The big churches say the events are too low quality (translation: we can do it better by ourselves) and the small churches are concerned that if they join in with the bigger groups, their students might like the bells and whistles somewhere else better and leave.
Wow. How competitive. How unhealthy. How un-methodist.
I'm not sure exactly where it all jumped the shark, but one thing is clear to me now: we are on the brink of losing the beauty of the connection altogether. You know the story. After a couple of conversations with the DS, you get a new pastor. A couple months later there is electricity in the air when he takes to the pulpit to unveil his new "vision" for the church. You are going to have coffee in the lobby, go to the local mission once a month and even start visiting the people who visit your church. People praise him for being a visionary leader and follow willingly. When that pastor moves on, the church repeats the cycle with yet another pastor and yet another vision.
You can't blame the pastors, it's what our culture expects. Jim collins pointed out in Good to Great that over the past several decades, our culture has grown to associate this visionary-hero style leader with the pinnacle of leadership success. Around this leadership style has grown enumerable conferences, books and seminars that help even the most introverted step up and step out to cast their vision to the masses.
The problem is, this leads to isolated, suspicious, non-connected churches. Each church is out for its own success in its own mission with its own members. This is done in part because the churches have asked for a visionary leader and in part because that is how they are evaluated. They are evaluated for individual success. But that's what we want, right? We want vital congregations. We want accountability. We want growth in each individual church.
And there it is: each individual church. Not the connection, not the body, each church must exhibit the same hallmarks of vitality. That is a congregational view not a connectional one. In a connection, each congregation will have different functions. Some might be the thriving evangelistic arm while another might be the missional outpost. One might be the writers and teachers who develop amazing curriculum while another might be incredible at hospitality. There may be churches with a few, committed members that perform a vital function within the connection that allows the connection to be successful and reproductive; while the church is not reproductive in itself.
There is a church like that in our community. It is small. It is not adding members each year. It is not converting people each year, but it is a vital part of what God is doing in our community. That church houses and cares for a host of missional interns that serve our community and reach out to the poor, ignored and oppressed. Those interns are not a ministry of that church (though they are a ministry of the Methodist church). The church doesn't get statistical credit for all the amazing things those interns do, but without that church, that growing, innovative, vital edge of ministry in our community would be crippled if not gone altogether.
I think there is hope, but I think that our treatment for this illness has to have a multi-faceted approach.
The first step is to address that which is immediately under our control: ourselves. We need to get over ourselves as leaders and churches. It is not about us rising to Hybelian heights of leadership glory or growing into another mega-church with a crippling addiction to mortgages. We need to leave our vision meetings and long-term congregational strategy groups and start dreaming together. What could we do together that we could never do apart? What does the part-time youth leader excel at in her ministry that eludes the multi-staff mega church youth group? What would happen if we stopped thinking about our personal success and threw ourselves together for kingdom success?
However, we won't be able to transform our methods if important, vital voices are shut down because they aren't getting the right types statistical success. I work with an incredible pastor who is prone to pithy, wise outbursts that are as true as they are corny. One of them is that you can expect what you inspect. I agree. If we want to be a connectional church, we need to start valuing the types of success that grows from connectional ministry. Congregations that act as isolated, non-connectional bodies need to be seen as less vital (no matter how large or growing they are) than those who are using their resources to do something with the connection to impact their community.
You may be asking why. Why not just give in to our cultural history and go full-congregational? Why not just throw in the towel on an outdated and ineffective system? Because I believe that the connection is the key to our success in the coming era. Look at our world. It is decentralizing all around us. Fifty years ago the best metaphor for almost everything was a building with a foundation, walls, and roof. Now, it is the web. More and more we are giving up these hierarchical silos for nodal, interconnected networks. We are moving into an era of connection, and we have connection in our DNA! We have a system that is ready and has the potential to be far more relevant than anything else in that sort of world. I hope that we can save it before it's too late.
Jewish Jesus: Feast of Trumpets and the Meaning of Repentance [video teaching]
We explore the roots of the Christian faith again. This week is on Rosh Hashanah (The Feast of Trumpets). You can download the handout by clicking here.
The Avengers and The Body of Christ
This discussion/lesson guide originally appeared on the
site
Yet another blockbuster movie has been able to get your students to skip the youth fundraiser and spend their $15 on a ticket. Of course the main reason you were upset about it was because you were stuck at the church doing yet another fundraiser instead of being where everyone else wanted to be this weekend: The Avengers. I won't spend a lot of time making this into a review. So, I will review the move in one made-up word: Incredibleawesometacular. Now that my bias is clear, here's a list of questions to get students thinking and talking about the movie: Fun Creative Exercise: Ask students in the group to think about themselves and decide what some of their strengths and weaknesses are. Then tell them you want them to exaggerate those strengths and weakness and come up with their own super-hero persona. Name, Logo, whatever they can think of but the most important part is their main 1-3 super powers and their main weakness. Take a moment to allow them to share with the group.
Openers:
- What was your favorite part of the movie?
- What was the funniest line in the movie?
- Where did you see God or Christianity reflected in the movie?
The Super-hero theme:
- What is it about super heroes that makes people get excited?
- What need does that point to inside us as humans?
- What about villains? What is it about them being so incredibly evil that makes these movies so good?
This group of super-heroes/villian:
- Every super hero has a strength and weakness. What are they for each of the avengers?
- How do their strengths and weaknesses support each other? Where do you see that happen in the movie?
- Think about their personalities. Do you think their personalities help each of them or hurt them?
- How do their different personalities compliment each other? Where do you see that happen in the movie?
- What do you think motivated Loki to attack earth?
Avengers Scripture:
- Read Romans 12:3-8
- How can the difference in strengths and weaknesses in The Avengers help us understand this scripture?
- If the body of christ were a super-hero group, what do you think Paul would say is the key to it being effective?
- What is one thing you can do over the next week to be more supportive of/connected to the Body of Christ?
Jewish Jesus: Understanding Pentecost Through the Feast of Weeks
Bold Suffering
General Conference 2012: iOS app review
Of course the app is not easily named, nor is it particularly beautiful (both a big surprise I'm sure). It is called "The Official Mobile App of The United Methodist Church General Conference 2012" which meant that the only way for me to find it in the app store easily was to follow a link from the UMC site. Try typing that with your thumbs! However, the app is pretty solid on the whole.
You are able to search for and view individual petitions, read the current news and watch a live stream. That about covers every aspect that I was looking for, but if you are one of the lucky few to have been sleeted to spend 12+ hours a day on the ground a General Conference, it also has some features that will help you navigate the ins and outs including a schedule and a map that can link into the iOS location data to help you get where you need to be.
All in all, I'd say every United Methodist that cares to know what is happening over these next critical days needs to download the General Conference app.
I Want More Texting During My Messages
Students are going to text while you speak no matter what you say or how many texting spies you place in the audience. Why not use this evil distraction for good? That’s where Poll Everywhere comes in. It’s a really simple process. You don’t even have to sign up to try it out.
You put together a poll of some sort that you want to receive votes on, throw up the website on the screen. Now, your students not only get to vote on the poll via text, but they get to see the results update live as they come in!
In addition to straight polls you can create open ended questions with students’ answers appearing on the screen as they come in.
All of that is free for up to 40 respondants per poll! If you want to pay, you can get the ability to moderate responses (especially useful for the open ended questions), make custom keywords they use intead of numbers, and get more tech support options. Whatever you do, make sure you take a moment and check it out for yourself: Poll Everwhere.
From: YouthWorker Movement