Navigating the Career-Family Tightrope (Dad Edition)
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Surprise! You are going to be a dad (again)! To be honest, I never really thought that I would end up as the guy with four kids (fourth one is on the way) in six years. I knew I would be a dad, and wanted to be a great one, but had an entirely different idea of how that was going to play out in my head.
Here I am: minister, father, writer, husband (not in that order), and here I am trying to decide how to rock all of them knowing that it’s not really possible. So, I look for some article or magazine or something, but the funny thing is that most of the parenting stuff out there is for moms. I am far from qualified to give parenting advice, but I am going to spend a couple words here (and in the future) sharing struggles. And, if I find anything great, I'll share a resource or two.
“I wish I had spent more time with my family.” That is the refrain I have heard over and over again from older men when I ask them what they wish they did differently when they were younger. Before I had kids, I thought: easy. When I get there all I need t do is make boundaries and be a good dad.
Not that simple. A pastor friend of mine, Danny Doss, said that there is a tragic irony in that the same moment you are required, and have the most opportunity, to develop your career is the same moment you are raising your children in the early years. Hit the nail on the head.
I have these two deep longings for success within me: professional and familial. I am on this balance beam with them on either side, and I am constantly falling off. If I’m honest, my drive to provide for my family gives me the logic in my head that allows me to fall off more often on the side of career. But it’s odd because I feel a twinge of guilt whichever I chose. The only thing I have gotten relatively good at is not allowing guilt, fear or confusion to paralyze me.
Thank God I have a grace-filled wife who loves me and supports call. She is the anchor of our family. She is brilliant and loving and beyond patient. I look at her day-to-day and shudder to think how it all would end up if the roles were switched.
Right or wrong, the way we end up navigating all of this is through our relationship.
Somehow through the fatigue and narcoleptic television watching, we communicate. We ask questions and help each other hold it together when one or the other feels like falling apart. Sometimes, we even remember to pray. Though it looks like a mess, it feels like a plan and we come out together on the other side which is an outcome with which I am usually comfortable.
So there it is. Imperfect, relationship-based tightrope navigation. If I said any more, I would be making it up to sound like there was a real method beyond loving each other and God.
Time to go read the T-ball coach's manual before quiet-rest time ends (I believe nap-time is a fiction made up by someone to sell books).
Heaven, Hell and Poking Yourself in the Eye
What will I look like when I go to heaven? How can I know whether a friend or relative is in hell? Will we have real houses or sleep or know our spouse in the afterlife?
I am constantly asked these questions. It is usually prompted by a blog post someone read or some youtube video they heard or, unfortunately, what a televangelist said late on night when they were lying on the couch in that place between waking and sleeping. I both love and struggle with these questions.
I deeply love them because they motivate people to think about faith, spirituality and scripture. The question indicates that the person asking is not acting as a passive receptor for teaching but wanting to engage in the process and is seeking wise council. Those are all things I love and celebrate!
My struggle with these and other questions is in the inadequacy of my response. The more I research and consider the text of the Bible on these subjects, the less confident I am about committing to specifics. There are clear, broad themes like the immortality of the soul, the glory of God, and the wonder of heaven. But most of these things exist in some state or dimension that is beyond the ones in which we live. That means that the words describing those things are necessarily symbolic and metaphorical. They are meant to convey deep truths rather than specifics because the reality of those places and states are something no human has ever or can ever experience in this life.
I generally respond by validating some of what the youtube video or televangelist said as being a possible interpretation, but end up trying to move the discussion to the deeper truths that are being conveyed. But when you want to know if you are going to have your own house or live in a castle with many rooms, that response is very unfulfilling.
This doesn’t mean these questions have no answers or are not worthy of study, but when wanting to know what the Bible says about some thing or another, there are times we come up short. There are other sources for answers when the Bible is silent, but as far as the Bible is concerned, it is like the statement made to the author Lois Tverberg by a rabbi. He said that speculating on what God has not revealed is like pressing on your eyelids with your fingers. The light that you think you see comes only from your imagination.
We do not need to force the Bible to say something it doesn’t. Rather, we just use the wealth of information available in other sources to try and answer our question. It only means that those explanations cannot be made as if God said them, but as a best guess based on Scripture and everything else.
Video: What is Lent
This video talks about the meaning behind this season of lent. You are welcome to use it as you like!
What is Lent?
For the forty days (excluding Sundays... more on that later) prior to Easter, Christians observe the season of Lent. This is a time of introspection, repentance and preparation for Easter.
Its earliest observance was tied to the baptism of new believers into the community of faith. That's right. In some of the earliest years of the church, you did not make a profession of faith and instantly become part of the church. Instead, you were required to go through intense moral examination by the community as well as a period of repenting and fasting. Then, on Easter Sunday, you would be baptized and fully enter into the community of faith.
Our modern expression has expanded from those who are becoming part of the community to the church as a whole. It all begins with an odd ceremony: Ash Wednesday. During this special worship service, worshippers come forward and receive the sign of the cross in ashes on their forehead.
The symbol of ashes is quite profound. They have been used throughout time to symbolize repentance and mourning. It is this unique combination of meaning that brings clarity to the idea of repentance. True repentance has at its root a mourning over the profound disconnection created by sin, and when worn on the forehead as a sign of repentance, as we do on Ash Wednesday, the ash is a sign to others around us that we are taking time to mourn the loss created by sin and reconnect with God.
That is the focus of lent. We repent. We reconnect with God. This repentance and reconnection is most often practiced by fasting from something significant and spending that time in prayer. This spiritual practice is one that can feel very alien to a culture that is not known for its self-control. However, that means that it can be a particularly powerful practice as we seek to minimize the indulgence we usually give to our every whim, hunger, and desire and turn our eyes from self to God.
As we fast during the week we look forward to Sundays. Each Sunday in Lent is to be thought of as a mini-easter and most who fast, lift the fast during this time. Though we are to keep the somber, reflective mood of this season, we know that we do not live in a pre-Easter world anymore. It is because of this wonderful reality that we temper the reverence of this season with joy and anticipation each Sunday before Easter.
I hope that this Lent is one that fills your world with the recognition of sin, the blessing of forgiveness and a reconnection with God.
If you would like more information on lent, check out these other articles:
New Facebook Feature that Could Get You Fired
Who in my company likes to ski? Which of my friends like road trips? These are the types of searches available to you in Facebook’s new Graph Search. Basically, Graph search allows you to search all the public info that people have shared with Facebook.
The problem is that includes everything you’ve “liked” ever. Likes are always public pieces of information, but until now they have been buried in a list on your profile page in microscopic font size. Because of that fact, no one I know has ever gone through and managed this list.
Imagine, you weren’t the most perfect person in college (a couple years ago) and you liked a bunch of stuff like getting high, etc. Now one of your kids searches for: “which of my friends likes getting high?” He shows it to mom who prints it off and leaves it in your pastor’s box. Boom.
The moral of the story is: manage your likes. To do this, log into facebook, click on your name, and then click likes on the main bar next to photos and friends. Make sure to click “more” wherever it is shown and especially make sure to click show other pages. If you need to remove one, simply click on it and then click unlike on the page it takes you to.
Graph search is being rolled out gradually which means that most people don’t have it yet, but don’t use that as an excuse. GO MANAGE YOUR LIKES!
From YouthWorker Movement
Did God Choose the Winner of the Super Bowl?
Michelangelo
There I was in a musty church fellowship hall holding hands with a team of High School football players. The coach was the spiritual leader appointed to offer their hearts to God before they rode to the stadium for the playoff game.
“God, we trust in your word, and we have written it on our hearts. We claim your promise in Phillipians that ‘we can do all things through him who gives us strength.’ As your chosen people we claim that promise. You know where we are going tonight, and we ask for your blessing on this game. We ask that you help us to lean on your strength because we know that through the power of your spirit we can do all things. We can preach in your name, we can withstand temptation, and tonight we can beat our opponents. Give us your strength tonight. Lead us to victory, and we will give you the Glory. Amen.”
That was pretty much it. They were all wrapped up in the emotion of the coming game, and gave many murmurs and ‘Amen’s to the rousing prayer. But something didn’t feel quite right to me. Did God want my friends on the football team to win? Would he help them? What if the other team had more Christians?
In the same way, I am sure that God hears a lot about the super bowl every year. I know that each side asks him to give a victory. The question is, does God make that call? And more to the point, how hands-on is God?
What bothers me about prayers like these it that it makes God seem like a grand puppet-master directing every detail of world events to fit his or his followers’ wishes. Though that simple explanation (that God controls every detail of every moment) is tidy and easy to understand, the reality is far more messy.
What causes the mess is the fact that God has given us the gift of free will. That means that we can choose to follow God’s plan or not. If that weren’t enough, when Jesus left the earth after the resurrection he takes the whole plan and places it in the hands of the disciples. This is not a flowchart-friendly, actionable plan. This is to be enacted by empowering people to choose to do what God has called them to do.
If they don’t? Well, they don’t. That part of the plan fails. That can make it seem like God is hands off, but the opposite is the case. When you look at the scriptures, you get the sense of a masterful playwright/director who is constantly coaching the actors, rewriting scripts while he is working on bringing the whole thing around to the ending in his mind.
God is constantly calling, constantly empowering, constantly convicting, constantly working through us to both understand and follow his will.
What does all of this say about the outcome of the big game? It’s a messy answer. The things we know for sure about God’s will are that he seeks justice, love, compassion, honesty, integrity, etc. We know that he wants to make earth look more like heaven. All of these things are much more massive goals and directions than a football game. And, even if this game was a key piece of his grand design, he chooses to work through his people who can ultimately choose to follow themselves instead of him.
Why even talk about this? Because if we can stop thinking of God as a genie in a bottle and think of him as the organizer of a massive movement to change the world, maybe we will be more conscious of how our actions follow his plan. Maybe we will use our prayers to help us discern his direction, and maybe will will live a life that seeks to be used to do his will rather that use him to do our own.
Healthy Facebook Ministry
... Get it?
Facebook is the real world to your students. I know that may sound weird depending on your age or experience, but your students live their lives online and see Facebook in a similar way to the way they see their school.
I snicker every time I see the word “cyber” attached to normal teen issues because it betrays a lack of understanding of youth culture by the person writing the article. To teens, there isn’t cyber-bullying, cyber-sex, cyber-gossip, etc, there is just bullying, sex and gossip. It happens at school, on the bus, and on twitter.
Why does this matter? Because youth pastors have an incredible opportunity! If we can change the way we see Facebook, twitter and the rest, we can touch the lives of teens in a powerful way! Watch what happens when we see this as the real world:
Your student misses your weekly meeting. Before you leave the building, you fire up Facebook and post on their wall about how you were talking about gossip in small group (when they weren’t there ) and wanted to hear their perspective on why gossip is a sin. All of a sudden, they see that you aren’t just using Facebook to get them to come to your stuff, but you really like them and care about what they think.
One of your students post about their friend being sick. You comment on that post with a prayer for that student’s friend. Not only do you pray for them, but you identify yourself as a christian (and minister?) to the world of their friends and family online. You raise the level of the comment thread and actually display the benefits of being part of a community of believers.
This also helps us understand appropriate boundaries online. If you would do it in public, do it in public online, if you should do it in private do it in a direct message or better yet, in person.
What are your thoughts? Comment here, or better yet comment on this post on Facebook :)
From Youthworker Movement
Creating God in Our Own Image
In MY Image
We live in an incredibly diverse world, and through the myriad forms of media, we are increasingly aware of this fact. For some, that awareness creates a need to pull back and try and get closer with like-minded people. Whether out of fear or simply being overwhelmed by the range of options on any given subject, some of us begin to be hyper-loyal to their particular group of ideologies.
In our quest for limiting the number of options we have to consider on any given subject, we mentally marginalize options dismissing them as radical when they are much more mainstream. Instead of dealing with the diversity we ignore it and convince ourselves that most of the world sees things like us.
We do the same with God. Whether or not we try and use him as the ultimate trump card or just another voice in our echo-chamber, we use scripture and other Christians to reinforce our views. We make God in our own image.
However, God is not a republican, democrat, conservative, liberal, or member of any other group that we associate ourselves with. He is... God. Rather than looking to talking heads on television to judge our beliefs, God calls us to look at him. God asks us to make him the standard against which our lives and belifs are held.
Not just some of him. All of him. All of the scripture. Both New AND Old Testaments. Holding both the clarity of the proverbs, the hopelessness of ecclesiates and the drama of the cross together. And, it is in this diverse, beautiful, complex being that we find truth and reality.
It is with that hope that we enter a new series in our evening worship: Culture Shock. We will be looking at cultural issues with the hope of transcending the current debate, steer clear of endorsing a human ideology and find the beauty of God in the midst of it all.
Here's what the road ahead looks like:
- 1/13 American Jesus: confusion of faith and culture
- 1/20 Was Jesus married?
- 1/27 Does God care about Global warming?
- 2/3 Are Christians supposed to be Pacifists?
- 2/10 Is Jesus pro-life?
Favorite TABOOs and the Beginning of Investigating Christmas
The past couple of months has been some of my most enjoyed months preaching through the TABOO series. I am a skeptic at heart, and it has been wonderful to come together with others who are ready to ask difficult questions and try and hear God's voice forming us spiritually as we engage these tough issues.
Just as musicians have their favorite songs, preachers have their favorite sermons. This series has had several, but I think my top three favorites were The Forbidden Gospels, The Homosexuality Debate, and Can Evolution and the Bible Coexist. Those videos are below, you can check all of them out on the TABOO page.
Investigating Christmas is just as exciting as was TABOO. We are going to delve into the Birth of Jesus with as much tenacity as we addressed the topics in TABOO. Everything from what the Bible says about Angels to uncovering the fictitious parts of the cute manger scene decorations we have on display. Check it out in person at 5pm each Sunday or online as soon as the video is available!
The Weaponization of Theology
I don't know about you, but I am tired of fighting with people from different theological perspectives. For some reason, over the past several centuries it seems that we have taken honest differences in interpretation of faith and practice and turned them into weapons.
Somewhere in the fog of theological argumentation, individuals have risen up and taken discussions between brothers and sisters and turned them into implements used to exclude, wound, and separate in general.
It turns out that we have been disagreeing from the very beginning. Out of those early disagreements came some of the most important documents of beliefs in the Church's history (usually called creeds). The questions was (and still is): what are the core beliefs one needs to have to be considered a Christian?
They came to several important decisions around that. They generally include the humanity and deity of Christ, the nature of the Trinity, the role of the Father and Spirit, and the necessity of Jesus for salvation. That, along with a couple more, is what all denominations, sects, and factions share.
What is always interesting to me is the host of "hot button" issues that are not in there. Just name your favorite, and look for it. You will most likely not find it there.
That means something beautiful: those things have no bearing on whether or not someone is a Christian, and after we disagree we can work together in service of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
That's the key. My heart is that we would take our theological swords to Jesus and have him turn them into something that is useful and helpful. I want Jesus to take my theological distinctives and use them to minister to the world and help me to see that he is using those "other people" to minister through their distinctives as well.
"He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore." Isaiah 2:4
From: MORF
Dealing with Controversial Topics Without Getting Fired
I have been spending a lot of time recently dealing with controversial topics in the church as part of a message series I am doing in one of our adult worship services. Though it is possible to get a lot of people interested, it is equally possible to end up with a bunch of upset parents, kids, and pastors. So, in order to help us all keep our jobs and not have to shy away from every controversial topics, here are some tips I have picked up along the way in dealing with controversial topics.
- Wait – Never, ever, ever even consider thinking about possibly attempting to engage a controversial topic without taking time to think about it, its implications, and develop a clear goal for your lesson.
- Use Your Longevity – By that I mean, if people have not known you very long as their pastor they are going to be reluctant to listen to your perspective. Unless you have to address something, wait until you know the people you are serving, and they know you.
- Remember They are Controversial – Topics are controversial for a reason. Usually, either people do not agree or there is some cultural taboo associated with it. If it is because people do not agree, make sure you don’t act like it should be obvious that one side is true. If it has a taboo associated with it, make sure you speak appropriately, and carefully. Do not use slang, do not joke about the taboo.
- Give Parents a Heads Up – Make sure that parents know when you are addressing it, and the basics of what you are saying at least a week ahead of time (preferably 2-4).
- Make Them the Main Thing – If you are going to address them, do not do it off the cuff or as a sub-point to another topic. Make sure you spend plenty of time addressing it completely.
- Stay Focused on the Spiritual – This is your place of authority as a minister. When people listen to you, they are wanting to hear what it has to do with their spiritual life. For example, if you spend all your time talking about STDs and no time talking about the image of God, you miss the boat. Everything is spiritual, and it is your job to open their eyes to that reality so they grow closer to Jesus through these controversial topics.
From: Youthworker Movement
Talk Tips: But Everyone Cried at Camp
I don't care if it made everyone cry at camp, or if it just came out in the theaters/happened on the news. No matter how cool an illustration is, it is a distraction if it doesn't clearly reinforce what you are saying. If it is as deeply impacting as you think it is, the students will remember the illustration rather than the point you were trying to communicate.
How can you tell if your amazing illustration is disconnected? If you find yourself spending more than a couple of minutes trying to figure out how to make it make sense with your talk: PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR AND BACK AWAY SLOWLY. Write down the illustration, stick it in a file, or save it on your desktop (where everything else is) for later.
Though, it is generally a bad idea to plan a talk around a cool illustration, you are probably going to do it anyway because this was so great at camp. So, here's how to rock it in three steps:
- Take a moment to watch the video or re-read the illustration and boil its message down into a sentence.
- Write down the sentence, put the illustration away, and write your talk.
- Then close with it. There's nothing worse than opening with something that is way better than the rest of your message. You want to build to this awesome thing and then use it to make your talk a grand slam.
From: YouthWorker Movemen
Three Things All Methodists Should know about Baptism
by Davezelenka
Baptism is one of the two sacraments recognized as such by the Methodist church. Maybe it’s because we don’t talk about sacraments enough, or maybe it’s because the Baptists have done such a good job making their case in many regions of the country, but many people are a bit foggy on the whole idea. What’s more, why do we perform it with infants!? Here are the three things you need to know to clear the muddy waters.
1. It is an everyday mystery:
To understand the sacraments, one has to start with the fact that these sacraments share in a profound mystery; however, the mystery is a common one that each person experiences every day of their life. We are both spiritual beings and physical beings. Most people can easily point to a place where they experienced something spiritual: a divine encounter at a camp, the Bible giving clarity to a problem, or a friend speaking truth into our lives out of the blue. Likewise, we can see our physicality clearly. We get hungry; we need sleep.
Yet, we don’t experience life as if we are two people. We don’t experience life as two personalities; we experience life as a single being. That is a great mystery, and that is the mystery of the sacraments. The bread and wine of communion and the waters of baptism are definitely physical things, but there is something happening there that is beyond the water, bread, and wine. It is something spiritual.
2. Circumcision for the New Testament:
The sacrament of baptism begins before the baptism itself. Before we are baptized, we experience the grace of God. Even before we choose to follow God, God calls out to us; he extends his wooing grace to us. Baptism is the culmination of the wooing grace of God, it is a celebration of that grace.
What happens in baptism? What is the point? I think the simplest way to understand it is by looking at the baptism of Jesus.After Jesus goes into the water and comes back up, the heavens open up and God speaks. He says, “This is my son, whom I love…” (Mt 3:17) that is what baptism is. Baptism is the sacrament by which we are included in the body of Christ. It is the sacrament by which we are recognized as sons and daughters of God.
This is not a new thing. In the Old Testament, God makes his covenant with Abraham, and it is sealed with the sign of circumcision. From that point on there was an interesting conversation had with any guy who decided to become a follower of Yahweh: “There’s good news and bad news: you will be part of the family of god and be part of God’s blessing to all the nations, but you are going to have to have a little surgery before it’s official.” Circumcision confirms the covenant, and includes new people into that covenant.
Baptism does everything for us that circumcision did for the people of Israel. By the sacrament of baptism we are included into the body of Christ with all that means and implies. It is through our inclusion in his body that we can share in his death and resurrection.
3. Beginning and Ending for Infants
The interesting thing about Jesus’ baptism with John is that it begins with John but is not complete until years later when he dies and is resurrected (check out Luke 12:50). That idea is the key to understanding infant baptism. We believe that, just like the covenant with Abraham, the seal of the covenant is for the children of believers as well as adults who want to become part of the body of Christ.
Children are incorporated into the body of Christ as the parents and the church covenant to be the agents of God’s grace wooing the child to God so that one day the child can confirm the covenant through their own decision. In infant baptism, the sacrament begins in baptism and is completed in confirmation.
The reason we do not rebaptize in confirmation is because it is not about our actions. We don’t have within us what is required to deal with sin. The only person who can deal with sin is God. That means that the sacraments are a divine act, not a human one. The fact that we didn’t get chill bumps or don’t remember it because we were too young has nothing to do with the power of God. He is both faithful and powerful. When he does something, he doesn’t have to redo it later to make sure it Took.
From YouthWorker Movement
The Homosexuality Debate and the Body of Christ
Communion du chevalier Reims by Vassil
When I spoke about the homosexuality debate recently (Video Here), I began by looking at the Nicene Creed (Post on the creed here) as the standard for what beliefs are central when one calls themselves a Christian. What we observed was that there is a whole lot (including your beliefs on human sexuality) that are not in there.
So, the debate over a person't beliefs about human sexuality does not decide whether or not that person is a Christian. So, the question turns to how on earth we live as the body of christ when we disagree so passionately. I believe the key is to recognize that what we all share in common, what we all need so desperately, what hold us all together is the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
That is one of the many reasons I love communion: because it is a sacrament of the church that reinforces our unity as a body. It reinforces our connection with all Christians in all places in all times. So, I wanted to post a prayer for this debate that is part of the communion liturgy. May this prayer define our faith more than any disagreement or theological distinctive.
Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood. By your Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet. Through your Son Jesus Christ, with your Holy Spirit in your Holy Church, all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, now and forever.
Running off at the Mouth with God: Theology and Practice
Prayer Meeting, First Stone by George Bellows (1882-1925)
I have been doing a good bit of deep thinking lately prompted by some tough situations I have encountered as well as great questions I have been asked. I have returned in each instance to one of my most deeply held beliefs: theology informs practice. Or put in a non-seminary way: What we believe ABOUT God tells us HOW we do what we do as a church and Christians.
Early in my ministry I had a pastor tell me that I souldn't have any silence in my prayers when leading the congregation because it might make some people feel uncomfortable and because it sounded weird on the radio. I was totally caught off guard by the comment at the time and, trusting his experience, tried my best to plan the prayers so all the time was filled with words.
After a couple of weeks of the most uncomfortable public prayers of my life, I took a step back and reconsidered the validity of that advice. The pastor was basing his up-front praying practice on the demands of radio and making everyone comfortable. It seemed clear that that neither radio nor comfort was (or is) a valid criteria for how we pray in worship or elsewhere, but what was?
After a bit of pondering it came to me in a flash of insight: the WAY we pray should be determined by our BELIEFS about prayer! Now the question was clear: what did I believe about prayer?
I developed a couple of specific beliefs about prayer during that time:
- Prayer is meant to be two-way. We are to talk AND listen which means, for me, that any prayer without silence (listening) is violating one of my key beliefs about prayer.
- Like any conversation, prayer can have many effects including comfort, confession, revelation, venting, expressing love, conviction, etc. which means that focusing on a single outcome all the time artificially limits the scope and purpose of prayer.
- Prayer should accurately express your heart and mind to God. However, when encountering the divine, your own words can fail you especially when you are trying to compose them off the top of your head. Though prayer should be genuine, sometimes the most genuine thing you can do is to pre-write a prayer or read one written by someone else. When words fail, we can use the words of amazing writers and poets that have gone before to help us out.
So, I started pausing in those prayers again and would even read a prayer from time to time. Not out of rebellion, but out of a commitment to the theology of prayer I had developed.
That is what I hope to do over and over again in my life and ministry. I do not want to solve problems with practical solutions that violate by beliefs about God and Christianity. When I encounter a problem, issue or concern, it is my dream that I would check the disfunctional item first against my beliefs and then proceed to work on a solution that reflects those beliefs or clarifies an incorrect one.
Talk Tips: Sanctified Fellowship Brother Jeremy
Jargon is specialized wording that is not easily accessible by people who aren’t in the know. That includes words like fellowship, sanctification, and even salvation. Even normal words used in an unusual way, like brother, can count as jargon. My main concern when using these words is that it makes God feel inaccessible, bookish, and irrelevant. What's worse is that if your students pick up this stuff, walking into your youth group can feel like walking into some weird cult or foreign country to those on the outside.
While it is important for them to learn what many of these words mean, keep in mind that your audience has not spent nearly as many years in church as you have. If you use these specialized words, make sure you define them, but try to use easily understood synonyms when possible.
And yes, I see the irony: "jargon" is usually jargon.
Why are there so Many Religions?
Symbols of the major world religions
I recently spoke about "Is the God of Muhammad the Father of Jesus?" (You can get the video here). One of the things I mentioned was the idea that if we truly believe that there is only one God, that person is the only being that a human can be attempting to worship.
The monotheistic belief says that people can not worship other Gods because those other Gods do not exist. Which is how we ended up resolving our primary question. If there is only one being, then contradictory statements about that being cannot both be true.
However, this concept is the beginning to an answer of why there are world religions in general. In Romans the Bible says that since the beginning of the world God has been revealing himself to us through what has been made so that we have no excuse (Romans 1:19). That idea, called general revelation if you are ever on jeopardy, is saying that through sunsets, roses, and giraffes, God has been calling to us telling us about who he is.
That is why when we look up to the stars, all of humanity has begun to long for connection with the God who made those stars. When we have looked at a sunset we have longed to connected to the artist who painted it in the first place. That is where the religious impulse coes from. That is why there are so many religions.
I think general revelation is also the reason that so many peoples, especially in the ancient world, developed polytheistic or animistic religions. Because God was calling out to them through creation, the mistook the voice for the person and began to worship the creation for the person.
That is our primary task as believers. Not to argue theological minutiae, but to live out the revelation of the one God all humanity has longed for since the first time they gazed upon the night sky.
If you would like to read more about the Islam and Christianity piece, I recommend the chapter of the same title as my sermon in the book: Theology in the Context of World Christianity: How the Global Church Is Influencing the Way We Think about and Discuss Theology
Catholics are Christians, but How do I Know?
The Council of Nicea in 325CE
In my sermon on the Apocrypha, Saints, and the Blessed Virgin (Catholics Have a Bigger Bible), I began by clarifying that Catholics are Christians. Though it seems odd to even have to say it, it did need to be said.
But you might ask how it is that someone judges whether or not another denomination or church are Christian, and that is an important question. It is important to take a moment to figure out what is the bottom-line list of non-negotiables that decides whether or not an organization is a Christian church or some sect or cult or other religion altogether.
I am far from the person to make that call, but luckily, I don't have to. A long time ago (not in a galaxy far, far away) Christians had to face this question and come to a consensus. Their consensus was the Nicene Creed, and has been the key standard for orthodoxy for centuries upon centuries. Such an important document is worthy of being quoted in full:
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
Wow. Simple, beautiful, profound. This is so important that most Christian worship services recite it (or some version of it) every time they gather for worship. If a group believes something in conflict with this, it is generally regarded as not Christian. But what about the Saints, the Virgin Mary, and the extra books the Catholics have in their Bible? You can watch that video here.
Talk Tips: The Giglio Effect
This is one in an ongoing series of posts to help you hone your skills as a speaker either in an up-front setting or a small group.
I can't tell you how many times I have heard Louie Giglio's talk, How Great is Our God, the one with the planets and the cross-shaped molecule, and only once has a person actually given him credit. Besides the obvious moral problem, you are not Louie Giglio. You will almost never be as effective giving someone else’s talk as you will giving an original.
There’s nothing wrong with using source material and even those prefab talks you get in a lot of ministry products, but make them your own. Change the order, illustrations, and wording so that it makes sense to you. And please, please give Louie credit for his amazing work. If by some fluke, you are one of the few that have not heard this talk "borrowed" (without credit) you should check out Laminin... it is really interesting!
The Forbidden Gospels (Not in the Bible)
Gospel of Thomas Fragment
When I spoke on this subject (you can find the video here), our main focus was on the content of the gospels that are not in the Bible and their reliability as scripture. Though I believe it is clear that they cannot be relied upon in the same way as the Biblical gospels, the question remains, how should we use them?
I mentione that some are more like a novelization of scripture. The passion of Peter is a particularly good example. It takes the story of the passion from the Bible and adds all sorts of details that may or may not be true (and a little of outright contradiction). Just as it would be fun to read a print novelization of the Bible (there is a great recent one here), it can be interesting to look at these to help bring the story to life in our imagination.
The main thing that is helpful about these texts is to reveal to scholars the theological development of the church. By dating these ideas and looking at their prevalence, it can give insight into how different people in different parts of the world were discerning what was truly scripture.
The average believer who reads them should be careful, but can benefit greatly. By reading things you know are a bit off (or even way off), it forces you to clarify why. When you read about Jesus zapping some kid down who bumped into him in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, you know it's not right, but why? Where in scripture do you find your support for that? If you are willing to wrestle with those kinds of advanced research and discernment issues, you can purchase a copy of all the existing translations of all the existing and hypothetical gospels here.
Or, just watch the video.
Peace.