I didn’t watch the whole rally … in fact, this was the only part. The debate was a little weak, but I still loved that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert got in an argument about Star Trek and then had R2-D2 show up! Forget the politics, that made it a win!
Month: October 2010
People are awesome (video)
Whoa. Do you think God ever elbows an angel and whispers, ‘oh yeah, made in my image’?
1928 cell phone? I think not!
This is some footage from 1928 that’s been making waves on the internet; everyone thinks it’s a time traveler using a cell phone. But let’s be real for a moment. If it’s a cell phone, who are they calling? That would require another person with a cell phone! And more importantly, the cell phone network and satellites weren’t in place yet. Clearly not the answer.
I propose a different theory. Aliens in human disguise. Clearly this individual is using a communicator device of some sort to contact the space ship orbiting earth. Of course, whoever it was used poor wisdom in doing so out in the open like that and should probably not have been chosen for the mission.
Abuse at Missionary Kid schools
I’ve been processing my thoughts on this for the last couple weeks and will continue to do so in the days to come – it’s certainly brought up a lot of old emotions and reactions that I haven’t thought about in some time. My family lived in South America for three years, during my 10th-12th grade years of high school. They served with New Tribes Mission as teachers for missionary kids. During our brief tenure in Bolivia and Paraguay (my parents were short term missionaries, not career), three missionaries were removed from the organization in those countries (that I know of) for sexual abuse of minors. During that time other missionaries were confronted on other forms of abuse as well.
Some of God’s angriest words in the Bible are reserved for those that take advantage of children, hurt them, or cause them to stumble.
Recently I stumbled across a World Magazine article detailing an abuse scandals at an NTM boarding school in West Africa called Fanda, and the mishandling of it by the leadership. That pointed me to FandaEagles.com, a website created by missionary kids as a place for the abused missionary kids from around the world to have a voice. What has been heart breaking for me to realize is that the situations I saw where I lived were not unique to our school as I had always assumed, but far more widespread.
Why am I writing about this? It’s not to paint a horrible picture of New Tribes Mission. It breaks my heart to think in an organization with so many missionaries doing so many incredible things for God that such horrible sin has repeatedly reared its ugly head with the most vulnerable members, the missionary kids. What I do want to do is help spread the word that there is a place for hurt missionary kids to have a voice and find support. FandaEagles.com and it’s forums is a great place to start.
The youth ministry journey
Lately I’ve been remembering my first couple years as a full time youth pastor. Memories keep floating back, past successes and failures. This coming April will mark ten years in full time ministry as a youth pastor – for those of you wondering, as far as I can tell, this is my life calling. I don’t see myself doing anything else other than some form of student ministry in the decades to come.
It’s funny to me because in some ways I have changed drastically as a minister in the last decade, and in other ways I am the same. Philosophically, I haven’t changed much at all. When studying youth ministry at Gordon College and the different models of ministry, long before I knew Saddleback or Doug Fields was a big deal, his book Purpose Driven Youth Ministry jumped out at me as the model that fit my wiring the best. It just made sense to me and resonated with how I approach ministry and the church in general. I loved the idea of five basic purposes behind what we do (worship, evangelism, discipleship, fellowship and service) and using them as a checkpoint for evaluating the balance of our ministry. Ten years later, I’m still in that mode. Even more so in that it saturates our annual teaching plan and small group curriculum, and it’s the language I use in giving leaders the purpose behind each event or program. For example, small groups is all about discipleship and fellowship while an all nighter is all creating an opportunity for evangelism. If anything, the last decade has only confirmed that that approach is how God has shaped me for ministry.
On the other hand, there are areas I’ve changed tremendously. I think I’ve calmed down in a lot of ways; I used to get so frustrated when I would teach a lesson or challenge students with something only to see very little or no change in their lives at all. Somewhere along the journey I started to notice those passages where God would spend decades, or even centuries teaching His followers His truth and realized my expectation that teens would get it in hours or weeks was unrealistic at best, and potentially damaging in the worst situations when my unrealistic expectations left a student feeling like a failure. Spiritual maturity takes time, and while there is an urgency for getting the message out (evangelism), discipleship is a lifelong endeavor and my patience with that process has grown.
I’m quicker to speak up, I’ve learned from some of my mistakes and recognize the warning flags a little better than I used to, I still love to learn and grow, and I still find some of my greatest joys and excitements in student ministry. Having kids has changed my perspective in many ways; I was never reckless, but I am more sensitive to parents than I was a decade ago. I get it now – it’s a huge trust to let someone else take my kids on events, teach them, mentor them. In just a few years I’ll be my son’s youth pastor – I still haven’t totally wrapped my mind around that concept yet. I’m sure it will change my attitude even more.
Star Trek cited by Texas Supreme Court
Patrick emailed me a link to this article that totally made my day! Although I do have to admit, there is a part of me that finds it slightly disturbing that a supreme court would cite Star Trek II in their explanation – granted, it is the greatest of the eleven (soon to be twelve!) Star Trek movies. Anyway, here’s the article:
Star Trek cited by Texas Supreme Court
The Texas Supreme Court when writing their opinion in Robinson v. Crown Cork and Seal cited Mr. Spock, effectively making him a legal authority for interpreting the Texas Constitution.
Appropriately weighty principles guide our course. First, we recognize that police power draws from the credo that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Second, while this maxim rings utilitarian and Dickensian (not to mention Vulcan21), it is cabined by something contrarian and Texan: distrust of intrusive government and a belief that police power is justified only by urgency, not expediency.
See STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (Paramount Pictures 1982). The film references several works of classic literature, none more prominently than A Tale of Two Cities. Spock gives Admiral Kirk an antique copy as a birthday present, and the film itself is bookended with the book’s opening and closing passages. Most memorable, of course, is Spock’s famous line from his moment of sacrifice: “Don’t grieve, Admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many outweigh . . .” to which Kirk replies, “the needs of the few.”
Caleb won an award!
At a school assembly today, Caleb won the ‘Mathematician of the Month’ award (there is one awarded per classroom)! We’re very proud of him; both he and Micah have been regularly winning awards at the school for different topics … but the one they both seem to get the most often is math! He’s pretty proud of it!
Tron Awesomeness
Whoa.
When did worship become expendable?
So, for the sake of debate, I will preface this with my opinion that everything we do in worship services and in our student hour on Sunday mornings is worship; we worship in our giving, in our listening and studying the Word, in our singing, our prayers, even in our fellowship. All of those represent different parts of our worship. But it does alarm me in some ways just how expendable the most obvious demonstration of corporate worship, our lifting our voices together in song, has become.
This isn’t a critique of other leaders; I’m frustrated with myself on this one as well. There are three main components to our student hour on Sunday mornings; singing, announcements and offering, and teaching. Sometimes other things factor into the mix, but those three are there every week. Here’s the problem, though: our hour goes from 9:45-10:45am, and as much as half of our group isn’t even in the building until 10am. So here’s the reality of what I have to decide – what is the least essential for the highest number of people to experience? I can’t just change the time to 10am; then everyone would start showing up at 10:15am and I would only have a half hour long ‘student hour.’ Obviously the teaching time has to be protected so that’s saved for last (and the bulk of the hour). What’s the point of having announcements if we make them at 9:45am to only half the people? So we save those for just before the lesson so we get the highest number of ears possible.
Which leaves us treating worship as the expendable element in our Sunday morning student hour.
But this is true across the board. During our large church worship hours the same thing is true; announcements and offerings are absolutely delayed until the highest number of people are in the room. If you show up 15 minutes late, you will have ‘only’ missed the singing.
I’m not sure what makes me more uncomfortable; that as leaders we are using worship as a time filler while we wait for people to show up, or that people see it as so unimportant that week after week they miss it so they can run into Dunkin’ Donuts, talk in the foyer, sleep in a few more minutes, whatever. I don’t think blame goes in any one direction; more of a general church culture of putting all the focus on the message and not enough on expressing our love and worship to God.
All that to say, I’m uncomfortable. I hadn’t thought of it in this way before, but it does trouble me to realize that I have, however unintentionally, communicated the idea that our worship music is the least important part of our hour.
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Matthew McNutt 