Murmuration

https://vimeo.com/31158841

Amazing video of nature! I love to reflect on the glory of God through the wonders and majesty of nature.

FINALLY – a Hover Car! Been waiting for this since 1977!!!

Now, how do I get one?

Week 2 – Truths about Sexual Temptation

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This past Wednesday we talked about “Truths about Sexual Temptation”. This was week 2 of our series called, “How Not to Get Caught”. This is a series I got from Doug Fields and Simply Youth Ministry.

Check out the notes from this past Wednesday at the bottom of this post.

Anyhow, my son has been joining us for youth group lately. Even though he is in 5th grade, he is the age of a 6th grader and has been showing a greater interest in spiritual matters, so we’ve allowed him to be a part of things. On the way home from youth group, this following song was on in my car and my son asked me what the song was about. I told him it was about the same thing we had just been talking about in youth group. Great lyrics, check it out:

Anyhow, one of the things I shared with the youth is that I worry for them. Through most of human history, people got married much younger than today. And given the barrage of sex in TV, music, advertisements & movies, not to mention the constant innuendos and talk about their piers, then to have to go through years of being single in the midst of this sex-obsessed culture, how can one make it? I told them that they have to have a passion for remaining pure. I asked them for a couple examples of things they were passionate about. One youth said music, another said dance. They don’t have to go around telling people they are passionate about such things, people just know because it becomes a part of who they are. I challenged them to have the same kind of passion for remaining pure and waiting for marriage. I also shared with them the benefits my wife and I had in waiting – one of which is being able to tell my wife that I loved her years before I ever met her, by waiting for her.

Anyhow, here are the notes from this past week:

HOW NOT TO GET CAUGHT
Week 2 – Sexual Temptations

TRUTHS ABOUT SEXUAL TEMPTATION

1. You are not ALONE.
“The LORD himself will go before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forget you. Don’t be afraid and don’t worry” (Deuteronomy 31:8).

“For our high priest [Jesus] is able to understand our weaknesses. When he lived on earth, he was tempted in every way that we are, but he did not sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

2. You were created with SEXUAL DESIRES.

God is for sex.
Sex is intended for oneness.
God created sex for marriage.

3. Your sexual desires are intended to lead to ONENESS.
“So a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one body” (Genesis 2:24).

TEN ACTION STEPS TOWARD WINNING WITH SEXUAL TEMPTATON

1. Realize that sexual temptation is CLOSE TO EVERYONE.
“So I tell you: Live by following the Spirit. Then you will not do what your sinful selves want. Our sinful selves want what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit wants what is against our sinful selves. The two are against each other, so you cannot do just what you please” (Galatians 5:16).

2. Establish your STANDARDS BEFOREHAND.
“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous, it does not brag, and it is not proud. Love is not rude, is not selfish, and does not get upset with others. Love does not count up wrongs that have been done” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5).

3. You make your VALUES KNOWN.

4. Keep your mind FOCUSED AND CLEAN.
“Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely, and dwell on the fine, good things in others. Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about” (Philippians 4:8).

5. Realize your sexuality isn’t a “ME” thing; it’s an “US” thing.

6. Choose character over INTIMACY.

7. Find ACCOUNTABILITY.
“Share each other’s troubles and problems, and so obey our Lord’s command” (Galatians 6:2).

8. Decide on A PLAN.

Know the bottom line
Communicate your position
Stick by your convictions
Avoid compromising circumstances
Get out

9. Don’t put yourself in SEXUAL SITUATIONS.
“But run away from the evil young people like to do. Try hard to live right and to have faith, love, and peace, together with those who trust in the Lord from pure hearts” (2 Timothy 2:22).

10. Develop a GROWING AND INTIMATE relationship with God.

You’ll have a natural desire to please him
You will have power to resist temptation
You’ll be more attracted to godliness.

“…because you were bought by God for a price. So honor God with your bodies” (1 Corinthians 6:18).

The World As Best As I Can Remember It

On the way to work this morning, I had my iPod on random and this song came on by Rich Mullins from The World As Best As I Remember It, Volume 1. I would not say that this is a great song musically, but the lyrics have always caught me. I found myself tearing up a little listening to it. All the stories are interesting and moving to think about in the song – and how there is pain, joys and sorrows in each of their stories, for sure. And then Rich does a great job of using really interesting metaphors at the end of each of the stories that helps convey the sense of these sorrows, disappointments and broken dreams, but also a sense of hope in the midst of them all.

The story that particularly strikes me is the first one about Leah. I can only imagine the pain and struggles she must have had to know that she was not initially desired by her husband, but that Jacob really wanted to marry her sister Rachel. If you don’t know the story, basically what happens is that Jacob meets Rachel and asks her father Laban to have her hand in marriage. He agrees if Jacob will work for 7 years for him. He does this, but then on the wedding night, Laban switches the sisters and gives him Leah instead. Jacob doesn’t realize this until the morning and then asks for Rachel to which Laban tells him he can have her if he works another 7 years for him. So he marries Rachel and then works another 7 years, but, “…his love for Rachel was greater than his love for Leah.”

Anyhow, that’s something I really like about the Bible – is that it gives these stories that aren’t all neat and tidy with happy endings but more like real life! Yet in the midst of it all, all the pain, disappointments, sorrow and failures, there’s God and there’s hope. So this all, of course, got me thinking about all the pain, sorrows and disappointments that my family has been having over the past few months trying to get this house deal to go through. It is finally going to go through–praise the Lord–but not the way that we wanted it to work. And there is a lot of frustration and anxieties coming up with trying to figure out how to get all of this to work with the timing, because we’re supposed to be out of our rental by the end of this month, but now it looks like the closing for our new home won’t be until into May and a house full of six people and a lot of stuff to move!

So we’re just waiting and trusting and leaning and hoping & praying for people that will be willing to help us out with the move and such. Ugh. I know we will get through it all in the end – but at what cost? That’s the hard part.

Anyhow, we covet any of your prayers out there. In a good connection for to all this, check out this song that a friend shared with me, who’s wife is going through chemo treatments. In the meantime, through my anxieties, pain and hurts, I will continue to wait, trust and serve.

How Not to Get Caught

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Last night we started a new series in youth group called, “How Not to Get Caught”. This is a series I got from Doug Fields and Simply Youth Ministry.

We also watched this awesome video: He is Alive!  

Check out the notes below on our lesson. One important thing that I want to make sure to always communicate to the youth (and all of us, including myself!) is that we are “saved by grace” and so we live by and follow a gospel of grace, not a gospel of sin-management. I explained what this meant to the youth and will continue to reiterate this over and over to them weekly, especially in the midst of this series. It is sooooo important that we remember, that God is utterly, deeply, amazingly and unconditionally in love with us. This is hard for us to accept, so we have to keep reminding ourselves and each other of this. And this is especially important in dealing with a series like this. We work on trying to live a holy and righteous life, not because we’re trying to earn God’s love and favor–there is nothing we can do that would ever make God love us less or more–but because of our love for God and because sin hurts our connection with God.

My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it. 
Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

With all that being said, youth group went really well last night. We had a good worship time singing, How He Love Us, Forever Reign and Even Though I Walk.  The lesson time seemed to go well with good feedback from the youth as well. Looking forward to this series! All to the glory of our Abba & King!  :)

Week 1 – When Temptation Wins

WHAT HAPPENS TO OUR LIVES WHEN TEMPTATION WINS?

1. It robs us of our CONFIDENCE.

2. It leads to BIGGER PROBLEMS.

3. It brings death to RELATIONSHIPS.

4. It makes us feel like HYPOCRITES.

5. It leads to a HARD HEART.

6. It deflates our power to SHARE CHRIST.

HOW TO HELP TEMPTATION LOSE

1. You and I can stop BLAMING GOD.

“When people are tempted, they should not say, ‘God is tempting me’.  Evil cannot tempt God, and God himself does not tempt anyone. But people are tempted when their own evil desire leads them away and traps them. This desire leads to sin, and then the sin grows and brings death” (James 1:13-15).

2. Believe you have the power to SAY NO.

“But remember this – the wrong desires that come into your life aren’t anything new and different. Many others have faced exactly the same problems before you. And no temptation is irresistible. You can trust God to keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it, for He has promised this and will do what He says. He will show you how to escape temptation’s power so that you can bear up patiently against it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

3. Acknowledge that temptation produces CHARACTER

“Dear Brothers, is your life full of difficulties and temptations? Then be happy, for when the way is rough, your patience has a chance to grow. So let it grow, and don’t try to squirm out of your problems. For when your patience is finally in full bloom, then you will be ready for anything, strong in character, full and complete” (James 1:2-4).

4. Be thankful for your SPIRITUAL GROWTH.

“At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then He told me, ‘My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.’ Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size – abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become” (2 Corinthians 12:8-10).

Youth Culture Window: (More) Trouble with Texting

Youth Culture Window: (More) Trouble with Texting

The Misuse of Tech Still Plagues Teens
An article from Jonathan McKee and David R. Smith atTheSource4YM.com

Excellent, excellent article here. Would love to hear anyone’s thoughts on this. Good thing for us to think through as we’re looking into getting a cell phone for our 2nd child here soon. I certainly have been concerned about the whole sleep thing. We tried to have a rule with our first that she not bring her cell phone into her room at night – but found ourselves not following up with this very well. We’ll have to be more intentional about it all with our 2nd. Thoughts?

The Apostle Paul Looks at Today’s iTunes Top 10

Interesting take here from Jonathan McKee – kudos! Love his site, btw (http://www.thesource4ym.com) – free resources, including a youth ministry game customizable search feature – love it! Anyhow, I have a tendency to lean toward being less alarmist toward today’s music scene. I guess this partly comes from a reaction to when I was younger and heard the over-reaction side. It’s also hard when you really like some songs or bands that have bad lyrics. For example, I love the groves of songs by LMFAO, the Black Eyed Peas and Lady Gaga. But hearing Jonathan bring up what would the apostle Paul say if he looked at some of the songs us or our teens listen to made me stop and think about this more. And on the Youtube page for this video, someone posted this:

Not quite sure, but I think Jesus would offer the following advice to us today: “If a song causes you to sin, immediately delete it. If a TV channel causes you to sin, block it. If the Internet causes you to sin, call up your provider and cancel it.” I think, as Jonathan often says, that we (teenagers and adults alike) think the garbage that gets thrown our way each and every day is completely harmless. It’s a great thing to look at things from St. Paul’s (or Jesus’) perspective.

Good point! Would we be ashamed if Jesus came into our homes and asked if he could listen to the song I was listening to? And thinking about that quote above, I know we often think things are affecting us much less than we realize. We don’t realize how it is affecting our subconscious or the slow erosion that is occurring to our own spiritual sensitivities. Just something to think about.

What are your thoughts on this?

The End of the Professional Youth Pastor?

This following is taken from Marko’s blog on innovations i’m convinced are needed in youth ministry:

models and practices for non-professional youth workers
sorry to be the doomsday guy, but the era of professional youth workers is going away, eventually. it might linger longer in certain denominations (like, southern baptist) or geographies (like, the south); but it’s on the decline, and it’s not going to return.

small churches, of course, have long done youth ministry without paid staff. but mid-sized to large white, suburban churches (where the majority of paid youth workers exist) have no idea how to even think about youth ministry without paid staff; and very soon, the money is just not going to be there.

I love and whole-heatedly agree on Marko’s first two points (not quoted here). I reluctantly see this third point – and it saddens me on some level, being what I have built my life doing. My question, based on Marko’s point of contextualization would be for those in the Midwest and particularly in the Chicago area, do you agree with this and how do you see how this may evolve in the near future?

Parker Palmer, Depression and Resurrection!

The Threat Of Resurrection from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

Wow, I found this moving and powerful. Especially as one who deals with depression. What a powerful word of hope and life through the image of resurrection and obviously how for me in my faith, that this is rooted in my faith and relationship with Christ – as in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Parker Palmer’s book, To Know as We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey, was a powerful book for me.

Points for Bromances!

Testosterone-boy-friends-and-dyslexia

Brilliant – I knew I married well!