Worship, more than just music.

"In our life Lord, be lifted high".  Those are the words to the song blaring through my computer right now.  I am locked away and listening to some Hillsong United and feeling God fill me up.

How many of us take the time to allow God to work through us in worship?  In most churches, worship is limited to just the singing we do before preaching.  If you were to ask the average church attender, that is what you would hear.  This is a very limited few of worship.  If we think that only singing is worship, then some of us are missing the boat.  Worship is so much more.  Worship is allowing God to "be lifted high" in what we are doing.  Ultimately, the life we lead should be a continual worship of God.  

Luke 19:29-40 tells us  "Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!" “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”  If we don't worship God, then His creation will do it.  We are His crowning jewel but if we don't live up to our call then someone else will do it.  I am learning more and more to allow other forms of worship to fill my time.  I love music and I always will.  I have a vast collection of music that sits on my iPod.  Sometimes I just sit and blare the music so that my own thoughts are blocked out and try to allow God to speak through the music.  In spite of this, I am using other forms of worship to move me.

This past Sunday at Refuel we talked about worship and participated in many different forms of worship.  I wasn't sure how the students would take it.  I figured some of them would enjoy it while others might be confused but we moved forward anyways.  I was amazed at our turnout and of those students who took it seriously.  I am thankful for Ginger, our prayer pastor, who came in and helped us.

During our time together we participated in the following types of worship:

• Praise & Worship - Fliteline did a great job in leading us in musical worship.  They are doing a great job and the students are loving the new songs
• Your Art - We gave the students time to practice their art. We told them to express what God has done in their life by using crayons, markers, play dough, scissors, glue and paper. Each of us has our own art or way to express ourselves and we wanted each student to find theirs.
• Scripture Reading - Matt came on stage and read Psalm 23 to all of us.  I love his voice and he did a great job
• Prayer Stances - This was the big part of our evening.  We went through 5 different prayer stances and focused on different areas of the students lives with each one.  The students formed groups of 3.
• Kneeling - We confessed and committed ourselves to God so that we may be filled with him
• Standing - We stood in the gap for our Government, Church and Families
• Arms held high - Like Moses we lifted our arms to pray for the battles in our schools, our neighborhoods and our friends
• Sat down - Each student took turns prayer for each other.  Laying on hands and lifting them up to God.
• Circle Up, Hold Hands - We finished our prayer time by having Ginger pray for Flite Ministries. She prayed for all the leaders and students that we would continue to follow God and do His will.
• Communion - Ginger served us communion and reminded us of why we do what we do and of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us.

We ended the night with Fliteline leading us in "Take It All" by Hillsong United.  I love the energy in the song and the way the students get into it.  I know this isn't a complete list and each of us could think of several different ways to worship God.  One thing I want the students to know is that we should be worshiping God 24/7/365.  We cannot limit our worship to a couple hours each week that we are in church.  We need to find time to worship his as we live our lives, no matter where we are or what we are doing.

*** I want to thank Jana Sarti at Saddleback Church of giving me the service they used during the PDYM SLC.

If you are interested in what we did, here is a link to my outline (adapted from Jana's)

Evangelism, Are you a fan?

When you hear the word 'Evangelism' what do you think about? For most Christians, it is a word that was commanded to us by Jesus. For those outside the church, it is a word that causes fear, anxiety and anger. In my 30 years in the church, I have seen many different models of sharing your faith, from the very extreme to the very subtle. Over time we have caused the world outside the church to run in fear when they hear that a Christian is coming. No matter how the world sees it, Evangelism is a commandment that Jesus gave us in Matthew. We are to tell the world the good news of Jesus Christ and share with people how He has changed our life. Some of us have no problems striking up a conversation, others of us are scared to death to talk to anyone about our faith, but still we are commanded. Evangelism is the life blood of any church. If people aren't sharing their faith, if we aren't vocal about our beliefs, then we are failing. You can contrast sharing our faith with talking about our favorite sports team. It's amazing the things we do and say as "fans" vs things we do and say as Christians.

We can look at Matt 5:14-16 and see that we are called to be more than what most of us are. 

14“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

15Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.

16In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

We cannot be hidden.

I know for teenagers (and some adults) sharing your faith, really sharing your faith, is met with fear, confusion and anxiety.  Fear of being rejected or labeled.  Confused about what to say or how to say it.  Anxiety over making a fool of themselves.  I know it is easy to say we don't need to be worried about what other people think, but in reality it is very hard.

Doug Fields talks about (in his book PDYM) that sharing our faith is about living our lives so that Christ is shown and not us.  This way people will see us and wonder why we are different.  He also gave 5 easy steps to sharing  your faith.

• Step 1. Tell your friend that you are a Christian (not just go to church)
• Step 2. Invite your friend to an appropriate program (Refuel, FNF, Gross Night)
• Step 3. Tell you friend why you are a Christian (do you know why) (GOSPEL)
• Step 4. Tell your friend how you became a Christian (God story)
• Step 5. Ask your friend if he/she would like to become a Christian

Looking at these 5 steps, we can easily share our faith with our friends and those we meet.  We don't need to badger or pound people into believing.  If we are the light the God calls us, people will see us and what to be like us.

Scheduling for the Summer, Should I ramp up or slow down...

This time of year there is always talk about whether or not to slow down during the summer.  My friend Tim Schmoyer even posted about the benefits of stopping your ministry (to a degree) during the summer.  You can read his blog at timschmoyer.com.  


I tend to disagree with Tim somewhat but do love some of his reasoning.  Personally, our ministry makes some changes but doesn't shut down.  The only thing we will completely stop is small groups.  The changes we make allow us to work with a smaller staff to give those adult leaders who want it a break.  I understand that reasoning that some ministries slow down.  I talked with a YP who has over 800 students a week during the school year but during the summer he is less than 200, that is a huge change.  Sports, camps, vacations and everything else cause students and adults to be gone for ministry programming.


Personally, I believe that it is too hard to ramp up once schools begins.  I know there is a natural transition for some students, but I believe consistency works to your advantage.  While I know that a bunch of students are unavailable during summer but in some small part we need to continue to reach out to the student who doesn't get to go on vacation or who can't attend a sports camp.  


I think each ministry needs to evaluate their own personal needs during the summer.  So rather than giving a do or don't list, here are some things to think about...


1. How much more time do students have during the summer?  Use this to your advantage.  Plan each day/week to spend some one-on-one time with students.  For us, we do a thing called summer lunches.  Each week students are invited to come to lunch with me and my assistant.  They decide where we eat.  We go, hang out and come back to the church.  This provides a great time with them and we have some fun doing it.


2. Rather than stopping a piece of your ministry, can you change it?  We are normally split with Jr & Sr High but during this summer, we are combining to help with adult volunteers and to give the students a sense that kids are still coming.  If your numbers are way low, consider moving away from the church.  Take field trips instead of having a service at the church.


3. Low on adults, look for new adult leaders to help fill in.  If you have a big whole in adult leaders during the summer, consider finding some temp help.  Maybe you had your eye on someone but they didn't want to commit.  Get them to help for the summer, letting them know that they can leave once the summer is over.  Summer is only an 8-12 week commitment, so it might be easier to get out.  Who knows, maybe they will stay on once the fall begins.


I know in my own program, I do everything I can to build consistency in the kids.  I think this helps them as they are navigating the busyness of the rest of their lives.  Because of this, stopping or even slowing down during the summer isn't a real option.  I think we sometimes forget the kids who are left behind when we stop doing the ministry.  I know it is nice to stop or slow down during the summer but I thoroughly enjoy spending more time with students and mixing things up during the summer.

Book Review: The Shack by William P. Young

I think I am going to start writing reviews of all the books I read.

I downloaded the Shack onto my iPhone through the Kindle software. The Shack is the first book I have read entirely in digital form. I actually like this format because I have the book with me wherever I go since it is on my phone. I hadn't planned on reading this book until I found out that Pastor Steve was doing a sermon series and then some of the parents in our group were talking about it, so I decided to read it.

I didn't know anything about this book when I started reading it. I have never heard of the author either but I am glad I read it. The author did a fantastic job at bringing the story to life. I felt like I was in the story the whole time. Let me give you a brief overview (without spoiling the story). The book is about the story of Mack and his journey through a major tragedy in his life. Mack is like most of us in that we know who God is, but we don't always know God. The meat of the story takes place in what would seem a dream, as Mack interacts with his ideals of who God really is. He is rocked to his core and his beliefs are stretched as far as they can go. He battles inside himself until he is able to reconcile his ideas to the realities.

As I read the Shack, my own thinking was rocked. My ideas of who God is, what God wants from me and how I can accomplish that have been changed. I even used some of the thinking from the book in a lesson I did with my students.

I look forward to re-reading this book in paper form within the next couple weeks. Hopefully, I can do it before Pastor Steve starts his series on it.

I give this book an A-.

Happy Mother's Day Elizabeth

Today, millions of people will call their mom.  Many of them will fake it, just to be the good son or daughter.  Others will be genuine because they haven't seen their mom in months or years.  Beth and I both live 10+ hours from our moms, so Beth called hers this morning and I just called my mom in the late afternoon.


We ended up skipping our own church this morning because I had no responsibilities.  We visited Restore Community Church that meets at Park Hill High School.  I am Twitter friends with a couple of their tech people, so I figured we would see how the services were.  It was good stuff.  Weird going to a school for a church service, but they do a good job making it not feel like a school.  I enjoyed the message the pastor brought.  He looked at Mary, the mother of Jesus and talked about how she must have felt.  Talked about how mothers all over the world have those same feelings.  They did something really cool though.  They gave everyone a blank envelope and piece of paper inside.  The pastor told all of us to write a note and the church would send it for us.  I thought that was very cool and the kids wrote letters to their grandmother.


Today we also spent some time looking at old pictures.  It is amazing how things are changed.  My wife cried in seeing the photos of our kids as babies again.  I love my wife.  I know she struggles sometimes spending most of her time at the church.  I bought her an iPhone for Mother's Day and she is loving it.  Now she can't make fun of me for spending so much time on mine.  I am glad she liked it and hopefully it will help keep her organized.


I am thankful for the woman that God brought into my life.  The last 15 years have been an incredible journey and I just see them as getting better and better.  I don't always treat her like I should but she stays with me anyways...


Thank you Lord for Little Bit...