Let wonder replace worry

Flight - Sherman Alexie

While I was at Princeton 2 weeks ago, I participated in a seminar titled "Young Adult Fiction for Pastoral Care." I've never really spent much time reading young adult fiction, but after a great discussion of the powerful stories contained in some of these novels, I decided to give it a shot.

I went to the library last weekend and picked up Sherman Alexie's Flight. It's a quick read - took me about 4 hours - but I was struck at the way the story gave language to the struggles of many teenagers.

The book is about a 15 year old kid named Zits. (Not his real name, but how he wants to be known at the beginning of the book.) He is an orphan who really does not trust or care about anyone. Through his journey we see him confront this inability to care, struggle with race and class, repress memories of child abuse, and cope with the faulty system many foster children find themselves caught in.

Through all of this, we see Zits' transition from a deeply troubled teenager to a young man full of hope and redemption.

I should warn you, this is by no means a "christian" novel. It will make you uncomfortable. More importantly though - it will remind you of to whom we are called. Troubled teenagers just like Zits - who still have a chance as long as someone is willing to take a chance on them.

If you check it out, let me know what you think.

Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry: From a Strategy of Influence to a Theology of Incarnation

I am excited to dive into this book over the next few days. I was able to meet Andrew Root when I was at Princeton in the spring of 2007 and hear him share his heart on relational youth ministry. The book was released sometime late last year.

My summer intern and I are going to be reading it together between now and the end of the month. (Not because it takes us that long to read, but our travel schedules- especially mine- get really crazy in the middle of the month.)

"Relationships" is a word that is thrown around a lot in youth ministry. More times than many of us would like to admit, that relationship comes with an agenda. Even if the agenda is as noble as wanting to see a student accept Christ. On the other hand, I think there are many times we (youth pastors) get bogged down in running programs and overseeing volunteers that relationships with teenagers becomes something we no longer have time for.

I am so ready to revisit relational youth ministry in this book. As my intern and I think and wrestle through this book, I plan to write here about what I am learning- and what I am unlearning.

Anyone interested in picking up a copy of the book and reading it along with me this month? Maybe we could chat on-line along the way. Send me an email if you are interested. justin@whidbeypres.org

Free Book!

I read this morning that Jim Seybert is giving away his new devotional book on leadership between now and August 31st. After that, it will go on sale.

The book is a 400 page PDF file and the link will be emailed to you.

You can get all of the information on his website.

Afternoon Reading

This got me excited:

It is useless for men to look for God in His majesty, because it is too remote and far for them: but Christ stretches out his hand to lead us to heaven, as was indeed foreshadowed earlier in the law. The high priest used to enter the holy of holies not only in his own name, but in that of the people, as one who in a way carried all the twelve tribes on his breast and on his shoulders, because twelve stones were woven into his breastplate and their names were engraved on the two onyx stones on his shoulders to be a reminder to them, so that they all went into the sanctuary together in the person of one man. The apostle is therefore right when he states that our high priest has entered heaven, because he has done so not only for Himself, but also for us. There is therefore no cause to fear that the door of heaven may be shut to our faith, since we are never disjointed from Christ.
John Calvin's Commentaries: The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews and the First and Second Epistles of St. Peter.

New Books

I just ordered a couple of books from Amazon.com that has me really excited:

  The Book of Common Prayer

  The Book of Uncommon Prayer 2

The first Book of Uncommon Prayer that came out a couple of years ago has forever changed the way I do youth ministry and I have been looking forward to the follow-up all year.  Also, I do not own my own copy of the Book of Common Prayer, so I thought this would be the prefect time.

Late Night Reading

Man can certainly flee from God... but he cannot escape him. He can certainly hate God and be hateful to God, but he cannot change into its opposite the eternal love of God which triumphs even in his hate.
--Karl Barth

technorati tags:Karl+Barth

Consent to Kill

Last weekend, I picked up the new Vince Flynn novel at the library.  He has a series of novels based around one character who single handily fights terrorism while dealing with the boundaries the government tries to put on him.

The main character is Mitch Rapp.  He is the kind of guy, like Jack Bauer, that you really hope the government has placed all over the world. 

Mitch Rapp is not the kind of guy you would want hunting you down, which is what this book is all about.

Books like this give me hope that situations are happening all over the world each day that I should be proud of my government for.  Lord knows, they give me little else to be proud of.

I was so wrapped up in this novel at one point that a plot twist made me close the book, get up and walk around the house.

If you like novels about government, the CIA, spies, and terrorism, these books will be right up your ally; but they will cause you to lose some sleep as they are really hard to put down once you get into them.

Monday Thoughts

I just finished 24.  The writers better have something good in mind; because the end of the show tonight makes no sense when compared to the things that have happened earlier in the day.  I am sure they will blow me away with the amazing storytelling that has blown me away every season.

This is the beginning of Spring Break in Oak Harbor.  I am taking on of my high school guys to the Mariners game tomorrow night and a bunch of other guys paint-balling later this week.  Spring Break means less time in the office and more time playing PlayStation with students.  How many reasons do I love my job?

I got a book in the mail today that I agreed to review here on the blog.  It is called 10 Lies of Student Ministry.  It is a really compact book at just over 100 pages, I am going to tackle it this weekend and post the review soon after.

Exodus

At the beginning of the year, Nicole and I began reading the One Year Bible Blog.  Every night we wrap up in a blanket and read the bible together.  This week, we finished Exodus and have now move into Leviticus. 

The past couple of weeks we have been working our way through the fascination that is building the tabernacle.  I have always loved this part of the bible, but I think any honest person would agree with me that there tends to be a little overkill.  Chapters and chapters of colors, measurements, and instructions.  Everything is precise and in order.  No detail is left out.

I understand that for this to be God's dwelling, it must be to His exact demands; I don't have a problem with that.  I just got to thinking; why do we need to know all of this?

I was at the High School just last Monday because a student was killed in a car accident over the weekend.  I was able to talk and minister to some hurting kids.  Yet, when I pull my bible out, there may be 5 verses I can point these kids to.  I had a student call me wanting to know some scripture on family to share with their unsaved parents.   I gave her 2 verses and searched around and found 2 more.  Another student I ran into at the coffee shop began telling me about a friend struggling with some moral issues.  Again, 2 or 3 verses.

Yet, here in Exodus, chapter after chapter we read:
There were twenty posts, each with its own bronze base, and there were silver hooks and rods to hold up the curtains. The north wall was also 150 feet long, with twenty bronze posts and bases and with silver hooks and rods. The west end was 75 feet wide. The walls were made from curtains supported by ten posts and bases and with silver hooks and rods. The east end was also 75 feet wide.

It goes on and on and on.  Why not cut out about half of this and give us some verses dealing with everyday problems that we can share with others?

Then I got to thinking.  The tabernacle was God's dwelling here on earth.  Today, through the Holy Spirit, God dwells inside of us.  So if He found it important enough to devote so much of the bible to His dwelling, how much time should we be devoting to His dwelling in our lives?

Problems, circumstances, and situations all change.  Jesus never does.  So, if we are dealing with situations, we need to understand they will change, the important thing is in spite of everything else, we continue building the temple. 

Maybe when we give Him as much attention as he demanded for His tabernacle; those issues, and our ability to minister to others dealing with them, is suddenly made much clearer and easier.

You know, I love Exodus.

Wasting time at the library

This afternoon, I wasted 10 minutes of my life and I am sad to know that I'll never get that time back.  There are many very productive things I could have done during that time.  Instead, I stood by and before I knew it, the time was gone.  It all started after lunch today when I stopped by the library.  I picked up a couple of books I have been really excited to read and I was just looking around.  Then I saw the book.  I knew this book was a load of crap, yet I was drawn to it.  It is a book by a moron named Kevin Trudeau.  When I saw the book, I just had to pick it up and flip through it.  It was like a car wreck, no matter how bad I did not want to look, I just had too.  So, if you have not heard about this book, I am sorry to be the one to tell you about this terrible waste of paper.  It was even worse than I imagined.  This guy, who is not a doctor, named this book; "Natural Cures THEY Don't Want You To Know About."  One would think this book would actually have cures to sickness in it, right.  Well, it does not.  I could go on and on about the things I could not believe I was reading in this book.  I'll just say that the book claims that the sun does not cause cancer; it is the sun screen that causes cancer.  I am sad to say that is not the most wacky thing I read.  This guy has to be a scientologist, because that is the only thought process I know of that could come up with this mess.  I'll just talk about the 2 things that drove me the most crazy during the 10 minutes of my life I wasted on this.   First,  on almost each page I looked at, there was a note after one of his suggestions telling you to find out what to do, you need to visit his website.  Take a wild guess and what's next- the website is not free.  It is quite expensive actually.  The other thing is that he is claiming cures to every disease, and he says this information must get in the hands of every human.  My question is if this info is so important, why is it for sale in a book.  Why not post it on-line, free for anyone to view?  It must not be that important to him that every human know this info.  Just think if he really did have a natural cure for cancer.  My life and your life would never be the same.  The world would stop for a time.  This guy is no better than a psychic who is messing with someones memories of deceased family members. He is doing nothing more than selling hope.  Hope for sick family members and hope that you will not have to face death.  As long as someone is offering hope, there are going to be people ready to buy.  Hope is a powerful thing.  People are searching everywhere for it and for whatever reason, they seem to never find it and always end up being let down.  If I were well known enough to get a book published, I would write one called "The Supernatural Cure HE (with an arrow pointed at Trudeau) does not want you to know about."  The cure is Jesus, His book can be found in practically every home in America, and He does not charge $400 to learn more about him on a website.  Definitely sounds like a better deal to me.