unChristian

Do you ever find yourself thinking that things are just different than they were 10 years ago? The world is constantly changing, not just the physical earth, but the culture we live in. I can remember it was only 7 years ago I got my first cell phone. I was fresh out of college and I actually needed one. Now, if you don’t get a cell phone by your freshman year in High School, you are behind the times. When I was in college, the cool thing to do was IM on ICQ. We thought that life was great, especially when you are ICQing the person in the room next to yours. We always thought that was fun, although we usually felt stupid and stopped because we were only 15 feet away. Nowadays, kids sit on the same couch and text each other. You can whisper to them and they would hear you. This is normal for the teens and tweens of today. Facebook and MySpace are the normal ways of letting others knowing what you are doing. And if that wasn’t enough, we now have Twitter so we can instantly know what the people we are following are doing. We can constantly be in “the in” on what others are doing. Gone are the days of just wondering what your friends are doing and waiting till Friday to talk to them again. Culture has changed so much in the past 10 years, and it has changed immensely in the last 20 years. What is it going to be like in 10 more years? What am I as a Christian supposed to do in this ever changing culture? I know that we can’t change the Gospel. It HAS to stay the same; it is unchanging and has surpassed many cultural changes. It will stay strong regardless, so what do we do? Just stand back and leave it? That would go against Jesus’ last words to His disciples. We are to go and make disciples. So how do you make disciples in an ever-changing land? In a land where “God” has become “god” and we elevate people to that position fairly often? The norm many years ago was that Christians would go to church and if they felt a calling to do something for God, they would begin a Vocational ministry. Vocation referred to doing God’s work. Go into the ministry. That is how you would make a difference. Now, in a culture where people don’t want to go to church because Christians are so unChristian, what do we do? I think that Vocation can be a slap in the face of many Christians. The notion that people who are in the ministry are somehow above the school teacher who shows their students to love of God or the Wal-Mart cashier who puts a little bit of Christ’s love in each of the sacks for the customers, is absurd. There are people in the “non-vocational” area of work that lead more people to Christ and disciple more people than many pastors out there. There are kids in the public school system that evangelize and lead more students to Christ than many youth pastors. You can’t tell me that they are not doing the work of God, not going into Christian service. That IS Christian service. The thought of Vocation needs some improvement, that form doesn’t work like it used to. Even John Newton knew that. He told William Wilberforce to not go into the ministry, but do the work of God in British parliament. The ever changing culture needs Christians willing to put on their name plate at their bank, to put on their apron at the restaurant, to put on their uniform and pick up the mop bucket at the public school. In a society where people who are aged 16-29 think that Christians are unChristian, we need to go into the unChristian areas to proclaim the Gospel. Don’t expect them to come to the church. God didn’t expect us to come to Him. He sent His Son to us.

Shiners

I have only had two black eyes in my life that I can remember. The first one happened when I was in Jr. High. My brother and I were wrestling around (my parents liked this form of entertainment). Who wouldn’t like to watch two bumbling idiots wrestle around? The rule was, when punches started flying, it would end. Well, a punch flew, my brother popped me in the face, and I got a black eye. But I got the last laugh. My brother fractured his hand on my head. So I guess I won! Then the second black eye came last week. We were at a boys retreat playing watermelon rugby. Need I say more? Well, I guess I should. My teammate thought it would be fun to fling someone around to tackle them. Fine and dandy, it is fun to see teenage boys be flung around like rag dolls. Well, the flinging stopped suddenly. I guess I should say I stopped it. His shoulder was flung into my face. This kid is like 7 feet tall and weighs like 120 pounds. (I am exaggerating a bit), His bony shoulder did a number on my face.
It is kind of weird walking around church and around town where people know you are a youth pastor and seeing that you have a black eye. They last a lot longer than I remembered and get uglier as time goes on. But you know what? A black eye is a small price to pay to have a fun game of watermelon rugby. We had a lot of good memories at this boys retreat. We learned that computer monitors, although they are made of really thick glass, are no match for a bullet. We also learned that you can start a fire with a .22 and an exploding target. We doused the wood with lighter fluid, stuck on the target, and shot it. Another thing we learned is that paintball guns don’t always work. The one time you want them to work is when you are ambushing unsuspecting teenagers. We learned that CO2 powered airsoft guns hurt a lot worse than the regular spring ones. We also found a good way to use up old panty hose: Put a cup of flour in them and start hitting people with it. Ultimately we learned how to be Warriors for Christ, to know our enemy and to defend ourselves from him. It made for a lot of good memories, and well, the black eye I can always blame on my wife.