Robin and Me and You

He was Mork and Popeye. He was the professor Sean Maguire, the teacher John Keating, and the doctor Patch Adams. He was Jack, he was Nanny, he was Genie.

We can still hear his voice:

Good morning, Vietnam!

Ten-thousand years will give you such a crick in the neck!

Bangarang!

There was seemingly no role Robin Williams couldn't play. James Lipton, host of Inside the Actors Studio, claims to have counted the number of distinct characters Williams' Genie portrayed in only a three-minute segment of Aladdin. That number?

Fifty-two. Fifty-two!

The range of his work is remarkable. The amount of characters he played, staggering. But Robin Williams was also me. And he was you. There was darkness just beneath the surface of Williams' life. There was pain buried under the spot-on impressions and genius comedic riffs. And we are no different.

Some of us struggle with clinical depression. Some of us are inflicted with this sickness of the brain, which is just as real and harmful as sickness of the heart or the lungs or any other organ.

Some of us have substance abuse problems. Some of us use drugs and alcohol to numb the pain we feel. Some of us use other things.

Some of us have had the desire to take our own lives. Some of us have tried.

All of us live with darkness and pain lurking just below our well-manicured appearances. And yet the Deceiver whispers to us that we're the only ones with a problem. The question is whether we will listen to his outrageous lie, or be vulnerable enough to expose what's beneath our surface.

And how we answer that question is always a matter of life or death.

I Don't Want to Be a Radical Christian

"Ordinary people who faithfully, diligently, and consistently do simple things that are right before God will bring forth extraordinary results."  - David A. Bednar

Over the past few years, a chorus of prominent Christian voices has told me I need to amp up my discipleship. Shane Claiborne says I need to join an "irresistible revolution" and live as an "ordinary radical." Kyle Idleman tells me I need to quit being a fan of Jesus and decide to really be a follower. Francis Chan tells me I need to be in wild and "crazy love" with God and people. And David Platt says I need to cast off my comfortable lifestyle and become more "radical."

I think I'll pass.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not categorically throwing all these guys and their ministries and their books under the bus. The Holy Spirit has used their voices to challenge complacency--to shake us awake!--and call Christians toward bolder and more sacrificial and more committed discipleship. They are leading us to do BIG things in God's Kingdom.

But what about the small things? What about those everyday, ordinary, and mundane acts of obedience? Because let's face it. Most of us aren't going to do something BIG for the Kingdom. We're not going to start non-profits, move to impoverished neighborhoods, live in third-world countries, write books, or go on speaking tours. While the movers, shakers, and world-changers undertake these projects, the rest of us will go on living our normal, boring lives.

So who's going to talk about doing normal for the glory of God? Who wants to weigh in on being boring for the cause of Christ? There is probably not a big market for these messages. But it's what most of us need to hear. We don't need inspiration to go BIG. We need encouragement to do a lifetime's worth of small things faithfully and well.

Jesus was sometimes about big and radical. He fed thousands of people and preached to thousands more. But he was just as much about small. He spent only three short years in ministry. He poured much of that time into a tiny band of misfits we call apostles. He only wrote something once that we know about, and that was with his finger in the sand before an adulterous woman and an angry mob with stones in hand. (And we don't even know what it was he wrote.) Jesus changed the world, yes, but through smallness.

I'm talking about the Jesus who says, "She has put in more than everyone else" when he sees a woman giving a tiny amount of money out of her poverty (Mark 12:41-44).

This is the Jesus who tells the story of a neighbor who is good, not because he moves his family to a third-world country but because he stops and helps someone as he travels along (Luke 10:25-37).

This is the Jesus who allows a woman to anoint him with oil, a small private gesture of her love for him. Some sneered at this--the money she spent on the expensive oil should have been given to the poor, they said. But Jesus rebukes them: "Why do you trouble her? This woman has done a beautiful thing for me. She has done what she could" (Mark 14:3-9).

"She has done what she could." Not a very exciting book title, is it? "Do what you can for Jesus" is not a line a rock-star Christian speaker uses to fire up a crowd at a conference. Yet we must hear, loudly and clearly, what Jesus is saying:

Don't devalue the small and ordinary things that my followers do for Me.

This is a timely message for a Christian culture that prefers the big, public act of discipleship over the small, private gesture of love and devotion to Jesus. This is a reminder that the little things we do out of faith are not done in vain. This is encouragement to carry on with the ordinary--being kind and patient with our spouses and children, checking on our neighbors, speaking an encouraging word to a struggling friend, giving to the local church quietly and regularly.

As a youth minister, I want to exalt the small and ordinary in the minds of young people. It's more important for me to prepare my students for a lifetime of ordinary obedience rather than prime them for doing something BIG for God. Jim Rayburn, the founder of Young Life, famously said, "It's a sin to bore a kid with the gospel." But Laura Larsen provides a vital critique to this: "while it's a sin to bore a kid with the gospel, it's equally devastating to teach students that the Christian life is always exciting." Living for Jesus is less about doing the most radical and exciting thing we can think of and more about constant faithfulness in the small, everyday stuff of life.

And do you know what's ironic? Embracing the least radical parts of the Christian life is sometimes the most radical thing you can do. Listen to this stirring account from Tish Harrison Warren:  "I’m a thirty-something with two kids living a more or less ordinary life. And what I’m slowly realizing is that, for me, being in the house all day with a baby and a two-year-old is a lot more scary and a lot harder than being in a war-torn African village. What I need courage for is the ordinary, the daily every-dayness of life. Caring for a homeless kid is a lot more thrilling to me than listening well to the people in my home. Giving away clothes and seeking out edgy Christian communities requires less of me than being kind to my husband on an average Wednesday morning or calling my mother back when I don’t feel like it."

I don't doubt that God has gifted some of his children to do BIG stuff. But he's gifted most of us for smallness. For us, living for Jesus is not about changing the world in one grand, beautiful act. It's about seeing the beauty in the ordinary and obeying God in the mundane-ness of life. It's about smallness. And it's about believing that our small acts of faith combined with the power of a mighty God and the ordinary contributions of fellow believers can bring forth extraordinary results.

While some people want to hear from Jesus, "You have served me in big and bold ways," I'd be satisfied with, "My son, you have done what you could. And it is enough." In a Christian culture where bigger is better, going small truly is radical. And if this is what the idea means, I guess on second thought, I would like to be a radical Christian.

(For more on this theme, read this.)

The Church of Macklemore and Madonna

After spending much of yesterday gathered with my church family, I was surprised to find myself in another church when I came home and turned on the Grammy awards. And this time, it was for the wedding ceremony of thirty-three couples, some straight and some gay. (You can watch it here.)

I know it was a church because there were stained-glass windows, a choir singing and swaying in the background, and multiple individuals leading the service. The rapper Macklemore performed his hit "Same Love" during the ceremony, Queen Latifah served as the spirited officiating minister, and Madonna (bearing a striking resemblance to KFC's Colonel Sanders) serenaded the guests during the reception. It was a touching ceremony for many. The cameras cut to Keith Urban wiping away tears as the newly-married couples happily danced to "Open Your Heart" before the in-house audience and nearly 30 million viewers at home.

There was something different about this church, though. I knew it from some of the first few lines of Macklemore's song, which seeks to debunk the long-held Christian conviction that homosexuality is a sin. Speaking about the source of this conviction, Macklemore says, "We paraphrase a book written 3500 years ago." Carmen Fowler Laberge sums up the importance of his lyric: "In this one simple line, he dismisses the entire corpus of Christian teaching on sexuality."

The book Macklemore references is, of course, the Bible. And he quickly and haphazardly shoves it aside. But there are a few problems here. First, not all of the Bible is as old as he believes. The New Testament is around 2,000 years old, and it also speaks strongly against homosexuality. Second, Macklemore is the latest culprit of believing that just because something is old means it's outdated and irrelevant. He regards himself to be a more reliable source for knowledge than the Bible because he exists in the present day. And third, for many Christians, including me, the Bible is not just an old book. It is the access-point for God's revelation in many times and places throughout human history. It shows us who God is, how He interacts with humanity, and what His will is. And specifically, it shows us what His will is regarding sexuality: He designed sex to be enjoyed within the bonds of monogamous heterosexual marriage. This is the decision of a Holy God, and it is not my place (or Queen Latifah's or Madonna's or Macklemore's) to challenge it. But in their "church," the authority of the Bible is obviously not a foundational belief.

Macklemore's rejection of the God of Scripture continues later in his song: "Whatever god you believe in, We come from the same one, Strip away the fear, Underneath it's all the same love." The concept of "love" to Macklemore seems to mean accepting and surrendering to any desires I have. But once again, this doesn't jive with the God I've come to know through the Bible. My God tells me I am more than what I feel, I am more than what I desire, and what I feel and desire is not always good for me.

Scripture reveals a love that is infinitely better than Macklemore's version. The Bible tells me that I am "God's chosen one, holy and beloved" (Colossians 3:12). Because of God's love for me, He felt compelled to send His Son to the earth to die, bearing my sins in his body on a tree (1 Peter 2:24), so that I don't have to be controlled by my feelings and desires any longer. Now that's love. Because of this love, I can embrace the guidance of God's Spirit which dwells within me and leads me out of unhealthy ways of living and into wholeness and peace and joy.

I'm thankful I don't regularly attend the church of Macklemore and Madonna and Queen Latifah. Because I believe the Bible is more than an old book. Because I believe "God loves all his children" so much that he refuses to leave us stuck in our sinful state. I like what the Bible tells me I am a whole lot more than what Macklemore tells me I am. I may not be able to change on my own, "even if I tried, even if I wanted to," but nothing is impossible for God and his Spirit, who is the great Transformer. The gospel of Macklemore tells me I'm stuck where I am. "Even if I tried," I'm stuck in homosexuality or porn-addiction or adultery or lust or sex before marriage. But the Gospel of Jesus tells me that despite my own inability to change, the Spirit can change me into who I am meant to be.

That's a love worth celebrating.

The Story, Then the Choice

1.
"I want you to stop partying," a father says to his 21 year-old son. The two are speaking over the phone because the son is many miles away from home at college. The father caught wind of his son’s reckless behavior through friends, and he'd seen a few pictures of it on Facebook too.

"Ok." The son's reply is disinterested at best.

"It’s not a good idea to do that, son!"

"Dad, I’m just having some fun. I'm just having a good time."

"Well...you need to make a choice. You know the rules. You need to do what’s right."

The conversation goes on like this for a while--the father telling his son to make better decisions, and the son downplaying his behavior. And then the call ends. It’s a Friday afternoon when they speak. A little later that night, the son goes to a party at a friend’s house. He drinks a lot of alcohol. He smokes some weed. And he hooks up with a girl he barely knows.

The father tells the son to make a choice, and the son chooses poorly.

2.
The set-up of this story is not unlike the final chapter of Joshua. The legendary leader of Israel tells the people, "You need to make a choice. You need to do what's right." As a young man, Joshua was a strong and fierce leader of God's chosen nation as he battled for the land the Lord had promised to them. By and large, Israel has conquered and is now dwelling in this land. And now, old and stooped and wrinkled, Joshua motions with crooked fingers for the Israelites to come near and listen.

He says, "Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."

The old man declares, "Make a choice! Do it today! And if you care to know, me and my house are serving the LORD!"

3.
But this is not all there is to the text. Granted, this is our favorite part. This is the most well-known part. We love to rip out Joshua's call for a decision and his own declaration of faith and place those words in frames for our walls. But there's more here. Before Joshua gives the ultimatum, he tells a story. And not just any story. This story has been imparted to him by God. In essence, he says to the people, "Gather around here. Let me tell you a story."

What do you think about when you hear those words? A family dinner or annual reunion? Grandpa or grandma or a great-uncle telling another yarn about the good old days? Children's eyes rolling back into their heads and someone whispering to another, "Here we go again--another story"? Or maybe you're thankful for the times when grandpa or grandma said, "Let me tell you story." Maybe you realize that all those stories you heard not only provide a glimpse into who they are, but into who you are--into your story.

The great preacher Fred Craddock tells the story of Scott Momaday, an American Indian writer. When he was a small boy, Momaday's father woke him early in the morning and said, "I want you to get up and go with me." His father took him by the hand and led him, sleepily, to the house of an old squaw, and left him saying, "I'll get you this afternoon." All day long the old squaw of the Kiowa tribe told stories to the boy, sang songs, described rituals, told the history of the Kiowa. She told the boy how the tribe began out of a hollow log in the Yellowstone river, of the migration southward, the wars with other tribes, the great blizzards, the buffalo hunt, the coming of the white man, the starvation, the diminished tribe, and finally, reservation, confinement. About dark his father came and said, "Son, it's time to go." Reflecting on this experience, Momaday later said, "I left her house that day a Kiowa."

4.
Joshua says, "Gather around. Let me tell you a story." And the LORD through Joshua reminds the people of their masterful story:

"A long, long time ago, your ancestors lived beyond the Euphrates River. Terah was among them, and his sons Nahor and Abraham. In those days, they worshipped other gods. But I, the LORD, took Abraham and led him beyond the river and all through Canaan’s land. And I gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac. And to Isaac, I gave Jacob and Esau. I gave Esau the mountains of Seir to be his home, but Jacob and his children followed Joseph down to Egypt. Things got extraordinarily bad there, so I sent Moses and Aaron. I hit Egypt hard with plagues for what they had done to you, my people. And then, I led you out. I brought your ancestors up out of Egypt. And you came to the Red Sea. The Egyptians were in hot pursuit with their chariots and horsemen. The people were pushed to the very edge of the sea, and they cried out to me. And I put a cloud between you and the Egyptians and I let the sea loose on them and it covered them. You saw what I did in Egypt! You watched the whole thing! Then, you lived in the wilderness for a long time; longer than you had to because of your lack of faith. And I brought you to the country of the Amorites. They lived east of the Jordan. They fought against you, but I fought for you, and we won. I gave them into your hand and you took possession of their land, and I destroyed them for you. And then Balak the king of Moab made his appearance. He prepared to fight Israel by sending Balaam to curse you. But I would not listen to Balaam, so instead, he ended up blessing you. I saved you from him. And then you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho. The Jericho leaders ganged up on you. And so did the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. You had many enemies! But I gave them into your hand. I sent the hornet before you and it drove out the two kings of the Amorites. You didn’t have to do a thing, not so much as raise a finger. I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that you had not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant."

"So now. Now. Therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness. Put away the gods that your father served, and serve the LORD. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."

The story comes before the choice. Yes, the choice is vital, and it's a choice between right and wrong, good and bad, and ultimately, the LORD God and other gods. But the choice is not made arbitrarily. These categories are not floating around in the air, disconnected from the way things are. They're rooted in a story, The Story. And when we know The Story, and when The Story becomes our story, our children's story, my story, it becomes easier to choose to serve the LORD. Israel was presented with their story, and then asked to choose whom they will serve. The story comes before the choice.

5.
So I'm wondering.

I'm wondering how this matter between the father and his partying son might have turned out if the son knew his story. If the son knew that "the rules" were not just an arbitrary set of regulations thought up by dad, but rooted in The Story itself. What if the son had been told his story growing up? What if he had heard The Story when he got up in the morning, put his head back on the pillow at night, gathered around the dinner table, and rode along in the family car?

"Son, God loves you with a fierce love. He sent his Son to the earth and his name was Jesus. Son, I know this is confusing, but Jesus is not only God's Son, He actually is God. And so Jesus shows us who God is and He also shows us what a perfect human life looks like. When we follow Jesus, we are becoming more like God, and more like the humans God made us to be. But when Jesus was a young man, He was arrested on trumped up charges and put on trial. He was sentenced to death, and executed on a cross."

"A cross, dad? A cross?"

 

"Yes, a cross. It was horrific. They nailed his hands and feet to that coarse wood, and they lifted him up on a hill outside Jerusalem for all the people to see. Son, I know this is confusing too, but this horrific event is actually good news for us. In fact, it's the best news. You see, we were separated from God because of sin. You'll come to understand what sin is more as you get older. But the Bible tells us that through the blood that Jesus shed on the cross, we can be in relationship with God again (Col. 1:20). And what’s more, Jesus didn’t stay dead. On the third day after he died, he came back to life! He was raised from the dead and He’s alive today! And through baptism--and son, I hope and pray that someday you will be baptized--we can enter into this new life too. We can become a member of God’s family, the church--you know, those people we love that we get together with on Sundays and Wednesdays? And everyday, we get to live to bring Him glory so that He knows how grateful we are. And we no longer have to fear death. Son, someday I'm going to die. And your mom's going to die. And someday, a long time from now I hope, you'll die. But because of Jesus, we don't have to fear death since the life He gives us extends into eternity. You see, son, you have a Father who adopted you. You’re part of a family you were not born into. You have forgiveness of sins that you didn’t earn. And you have a future that you don’t deserve."

 

6.

"Son, I want you to stop partying. You know The Story. You know it's not just my story, it's not just your mom's story, and it's not just the story of all the Christians who have long since died. It's your story. You're a part of it, a character in it. And your behavior doesn't match up with The Story you're a part of. It doesn't match up with the story I know you want to tell with your life. So I want you to stop. You know who you are. Now, make your choice."

 

Maybe, just maybe, the son decides not to go the party that night.

How To Teach a Parents + Students Combined Series

At our church last spring, I taught a nine-week series to both our middle & high school students AND their parents. A parents + students combined series was an idea I heard about at a Sticky Faith learning lab at the 2011 National Youth Workers' Convention. Since that time, the idea seems to have caught fire as I've heard about more and more youth workers doing these. And for good reason--there's a slew of blessings that are in store for the church that connects parents with their kids in an environment where faith can be openly discussed. With this in mind, I want to offer some practical tips on how to pull one of these off.*

1. Choose what you teach wisely. I taught on Sticky Faith. (All my lessons can be found here, and you're more than welcome to use them.) My friend Barry Throneberry has taught on the book The DNA of Parent-Teen Relationships by Gary & Greg Smalley. Ask your students and parents what topics they would like to talk about. But be sure that the material you choose speaks to and is relevant to both parents and students. Also, you may want to provide take-home discussion sheets or devotionals based on the lessons for families to use during the week.

2. Choose how you teach wisely. Don't speak to one group excessively more than the other: the neglected ones might tune you out completely. If you're a younger youth minister like me, approach the situation humbly. Remind your parents that you can't speak with authority on raising teenagers because you've never been in their shoes. But also remember that you are probably your church's resident expert on building faith in young people. This gives you enough credibility to speak confidently. If you want an extra boost to your credibility, consider asking an older church member--an elder or youth deacon who has teenage children--to co-teach with you.

3. Host the class in a neutral zone. Avoid the adult classroom, but don't have it in your youth room either. You don't want one group feeling like they're impinging on the other's territory. Whether we like it or not, space and place are big deals for us humans. So locate the class in a neutral zone, like a fellowship hall or church gym.

4. Emphasize that the series is temporary. Inevitably, many of your students will not be excited about being in class with their parents (and in some settings, vice-versa). Say things like, "It's only nine weeks, and then we'll go back to how it was." Be sure you have a stated end to the series, and sell it as a temporary arrangement.

5. Acclimate everyone to the new environment gradually. For instance, in our series we had parent tables and student tables for the first few weeks before mixing everyone together. We slowly waded into this new experience instead of immediately diving head-first into the deep end. If you want open communication in your class, then create a comfortable class environment for everyone. Additionally, I would never require family units to sit together since you run the risk of alienating students whose parents don't attend. Keep those students in mind as you plan.

What other suggestions or ideas do you have?


*My friend Barry Throneberry taught a class about this at a youth ministers' retreat I attended. Another friend, Luke Dockery, is gearing up to teach one of these. I am weaving some of their insights with my own here.

Summer Ministry Highlights 3

August is a month of transition. Our ministry (and my mind) is making a shift from the craziness and busy-ness of summer to the routine and rhythm of a new school year. But before the transition is complete, I want to take a little time to reflect on some memorable moments from this summer of ministry. (These are being posted in no particular order.)

Jonah's Testimony
"God said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses...For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

Jonah Deal shouldn't be able to walk. According to some doctors, he shouldn't even be alive. Jonah has muscular dystrophy, a debilitating disease that causes his muscles to become weaker with activity instead of stronger. There is no cure and it inevitably gets worse over time. Yet despite the odds, Jonah stood--yes stood!--before us one evening at camp and spoke about his life with this disease, and how it has affected his relationship with God. For years, Jonah felt like his muscular dystrophy was a curse. He blamed and hated God for giving it to him. But slowly, he began to see how God could use his disability for His glory and the good of others. Jonah's public testimony perfectly captured his personality--it was raw and honest, light-hearted and humorous, inspiring and hopeful. His life and friendship are a blessing to me, and so many others.

Will's Baptism
"See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?" (Acts 8:36)

On the last night of camp, Will Holder approached me in the dark kitchen of Camp Ney-a-ti during our lights-out singing. "I'd like to be baptized," he quietly said. "That's wonderful," I replied. "I've been praying for this." We went back to our cabins, changed our clothes, rallied the troops, and took that familiar late-night walk to the swimming pool. The act of baptism--in a traditional baptistery, a pool at camp, or a creek in a foreign country--always feels like a "thin place," a place where the distance between heaven and earth seems especially narrow and where God's presence can be sensed more readily. Anytime I have baptized someone, I have felt privileged and humbled to stand in a place where human meets divine in a tangible way. I'm so proud of Will for his decision to begin life with God through baptism.

Time With God
"He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6).

God had long since begun a good work in each of the members of our Dominican Republic mission trip team. But it was a blessing to see a glimpse of that ongoing work on its way to completion. During an evening devotional, all of our team members shared how they were spending their morning quiet time. Katie Bass told how she had read the letter to the Philippians, and had written a letter in response to Paul as if she was a Philippian. A few of our girls shared how they had written daily goals and prayers to God in their journals to help them reflect on their trip. And many others shared their favorite Bible verses or a passage they had been reading that week. I was wowed at their personal, enacted, real-life faith!

Summer Ministry Highlights 2

August is a month of transition. Our ministry (and my mind) is making a shift from the craziness and busy-ness of summer to the routine and rhythm of a new school year. But before the transition is complete, I want to take a little time to reflect on some memorable moments from this summer of ministry. (These are being posted in no particular order.)

Dru's Decision
"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:3-4).

Going in to our week in the Dominican Republic, one of my specific prayers was that we would take a trip down to the river or the ocean and baptize Dru Morris. Around a month ago, Dru's younger brother was baptized and on that occasion, I told Dru that if he ever wanted to talk about also taking that step, I would be happy to sit down with him. He didn't seem open to the idea at the time. But God had obviously been working on his heart since then. On the Monday of our trip, I found the opportunity to speak with Dru that I had been looking for--we took a walk down the dusty road beside our camp and talked about baptism.