Talkin' About My Generation

I LOVE infographics. An infographic communicates important statistical information in a visually appealing way for people with decreasing attention spans (which is anyone who grew up on television and uses social media). Here's a great one about my generation, 18-29 year-olds.


Created by: Online Graduate Programs

2012: A Book Odyssey

I am better at admiring books than reading them. If I loved reading books as much as browsing book stores, I would be very well-read. But alas, though my intentions are good, my practice is often lousy. So for the first time, I'm putting together a reading list for the coming year. The following list excludes the books I will be required to read for graduate courses and any "pleasure reading" (even though I think I will find pleasure in reading these). And most notably, I have each of these on my shelf already! No need to purchase more until I knock some of these out. So here they are, with categories and explanations:

Passing on the Faith by Merton P. Strommen and Richard A. Hardel

• Youth Ministry/ Family Ministry
• I'm currently reading Sticky Faith. Hopefully, Passing on the Faith will help me learn even more about how the family and the church can work together to create lasting faith in our children.

The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns

• Christian Living
• I'll let the back cover speak for itself: Stearns, president of World Vision U.S., "uses his journey to demonstrate how the gospel--the whole gospel--was always meant to be a world-changing social revolution, a revolution that begins with us."

The Nativity Story

On Wednesday nights, we are in the midst of a four-part series called "Christmas Playlist." The song for week one was "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" and we talked about how Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the hopes and expectations of Israel. Week two's song was "Silent Night" and we spent time simply digging into the birth narrative of Jesus. I briefly looked around on the web for a compilation of the Matthew and Luke versions but couldn't find one. So I combined them myself, complete with sub-headings that I thought might whet the appetite of my middle-school and high-school readers. Check it out and feel free to use it yourself:

Here’s the story of the birth of Jesus Christ:

To Bethlehem for the Census.

In those days, a decree went out from the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus that everyone in the empire should be registered. So each person went back to his hometown for this census. A man named Joseph went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee, to a town called Bethlehem in Judea, which is the city of King David. He went to Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage of David. And with him was his wife-to-be Mary, who was pregnant.

Prayer + Breakfast (3)

I have previously shared prayers adapted from Psalm 62 and Psalm 8 that we have used at our high school prayer breakfasts on Tuesday mornings. Here's one we recently prayed from Psalm 103:

Lord, we bless You.
With all that is within us, we bless You.
We bless You and we do not forget all your benefits:

You forgive our sins.
     We are thankful that You do not deal with us according to our sins.
     We are thankful that You do not repay us according to our sins.
     For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is your steadfast love for us.
     As far as the east is from the west, so far do You remove our sins from us.
You heal diseases.
You redeem lives from the pit.
You crown us with steadfast love and mercy.
You are good.

Lord, You are merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
Lord, we bless You.

Teaching the Transfiguration

Awe-inspiring.

Strange.

Magnificent.

Mysterious.

These are apt descriptions of the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ, recorded in Matthew 17 and Mark 9. Matthew simply tells us that Jesus is transfigured (from the Greek word metamorphao) in the presence of Peter, James, and John. His face becomes as bright as the sun. His clothes become white as light (17:2). And then, as quickly as the phenomenon begins, it is over. The three disciples lift up their awe-struck eyes from the earth and see the Jesus they recognize once again (17:6).

What some teenagers may be surprised to know is that the Transfiguration is not JUST an awe-inspiring, strange, magnificent, and mysterious story from the pages of the Gospels. It is also a story that has meaning for their lives in the here and now! Here's how I broke it down with my students on a recent Wednesday night...

Prayer + Breakfast (2)

At our most recent prayer breakfast, we began our prayer time with this prayer based on Psalm 8:

O LORD, our Lord;
     How majestic is Your Name in all the earth!

You have set Your Glory above the heavens.
When we see the work of Your hands,
     The moon and the stars, which You have set in place,
We remember our smallness.

And yet, You are mindful of us.
And yet, You care for us.
You have crowned us with glory and honor,
     Through the gift of Jesus Christ.
You have given us responsibility over the works of Your hands.
You have put all things under our feet--
     Animals that walk the earth,
     Birds that fly,
     Fish that swim.
We are humbled.
     Amazed.
     Awed.

O LORD, our Lord;
     How majestic is Your Name in all the earth!

Heart-Heavy: Settling for Lesser Gods (2)

When I read Galatians 4:8-20, it is easy for me to replace a pleading Paul with a youth worker and the struggling Galatians with students in a youth ministry. That comparison is what this series is all about.

Here's the section we'll tackle with this post:

“Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? (4:8-9)”

The plea Paul makes to the Galatian Christians becomes our plea to our students: “Remain with the One, True God! Resist the enticement of lesser gods!”

Prayer + Breakfast

Yesterday, we had our first high school prayer breakfast of the semester. This is one of my favorite activities during the school year. Here's a summary:

• I ask students who are interested to commit for an entire semester. Thirteen of our students literally "signed on" for the fall. This ensures that the same group will be gathering consistently and that the breakfast prepared won't go to waste.
• We meet every Tuesday at the building at 7 AM for a time of prayer followed by breakfast.
• Members of our congregation sign up to cook or bring breakfast for our students.

One of the statements I have been repeating to "market" our prayer breakfasts is, "There's no better way to begin your Tuesday." I think all the involved students would agree with that. And though we are together for only around 45 minutes, it makes a significant impact.

Heart-Heavy: Prologue (1)

Paul was not an impersonal church-planter; instead, he became extremely close to the Christians in the cities where he preached the gospel. This was true for Paul and the Christ-followers in Galatia--in his letter to them, he is nurturing and instructive, but also concerned because their faith was weak and they were prone to straying from the gospel. Galatians 4:8-20 shows us a Paul who is burdened and troubled by the meager devotion his brothers and sisters had to Christ. He experiences anguish over this because he shares a deeply personal connection with these Christians- he has a special place in his heart for them. And when they don't seem to be sold out on the gospel, he hurts.

Paul's relationship with the Galatians is a lot like our relationship with our students. We are personally invested in them. We not only share a message with them, we share our lives with them. We love them and we want to see them grow in Christ. And when they turn their backs on Him, it weighs heavily upon us. It pains us.

This is what my new (and first!) blog series is all about. I'm taking a look at how Paul's concern for the Galatians in 4:8-20 is a whole lot like our concern for our students. Just like Paul, we are (or should be) heart-heavy for our students when they struggle with faith. Here's the posting lineup:

Boiled Down

I like trying to condense the Christian life into a few, pithy statements--boiling our existence as Jesus-followers down to its central ideas and practices. Recently, I wrote down 4 statements that I think capture the essence of living Christian-ly:


1.   Love God.
2.   Love others.
3.   Follow Jesus.
4.   Make disciples.


Some quick observations about this list:

• The order is important. Not in a rigid, non-negotiable way, but there does seem to be a natural flow from 1 to 4.
• I didn't pull these out of the air. My primary inspiration is Scripture--the Great Commandment and the Great Commission, to be specific. Not to mention other stuff I have read and things I have heard and conversations I have had.
• This is not a definitive summary of Christian living. It's A way of condensing it, not THE way. Thus:

How would you boil down the Christian life into a few phrases? What is missing from my list?