On Criticism in Ministry

"If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first.  The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world.  I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you." - John 15:18 & 19.

Generally when the topic of Criticism in ministry is addressed it is approached from one of two ways:
1) Find the validity among the criticism and grow from it.
2) Find the deeper issue impacting and fueling your attackers criticism and emphasize with them.

While it is certainly true that there is always some validity, my experience tells me that there is generally about an ounce of validity to every pound of criticism.  Yes, we should address the ounce...but we need to move on and ignore the rest of it.  I think sometimes we work so hard validating criticism that we go so far as to validate things that ought not be.  Likewise, it is true that deeper issues fuel the critical nature of our accusers but I personally don't find that contemplating this fact does much good.

In contrast to these two focuses, I am instead suggesting that we focus on a third possibility, that maybe our criticism is because we are on the right track.  It is with this in mind that I am actually starting to appreciate criticism, for as someone involved in a Western World, middle class suburban ministry, criticism is the closest I will ever get to joining Christ in persecution.  So instead of trying to validate our criticism, let us take joy in the fact that often it is not valid, for that might just mean that we are walking with Christ.   

Moving Away From Missions Trip and Towards Real Service and Justice

Heard a great story about a father who dealt with the spoiled materialism of his children by making breakfast burritos with them and their friends and distributing them to homeless people. They have done this weekly for the same "community of homeless" for a solid two years, building real relationships.

There has been a lot of re-examining and subsequent criticism concerning short term mission trips among youth ministry circles (For a well articulated summary of this check out what Fuller Youth Institute has to say about "Sticky Justice")  Here's the thing, I think our youth group (and church) has a scenario that addresses all of this and can be duplicated by any church anywhere.  There is a center on the southside of Grand Rapids.  It happens to be owned by our denomination, but that really is irrelevant.  The homes and the apartments around this place have a neighborhood type feel.  Our Church (a lovely inter-generational  blend of senior high youth and adults) puts on a monthly dinner there.  We also do a VBS annually and have done weekly soccer clinics there.  There is a service project run out of the center that our Middle School students participate in each summer.   Our youth director and students know many of the people in that community by first name and they trust our church and know we genuinely care for them.  

I think this is an example of where church missions is heading.  Virtually every church in the united states has the opportunity to partner with an urban ministry nearby.  Building real relationships is the key...and lack of that is at the forefront of the mission trip criticism.  So I am challenging everyone to think about they and their churches can do locally, consistently to serve  and build real relationships as they seek justice.  

The Gospel of Sin Management

Galatians 5:1-6

¹ So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.² Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you.³ I’ll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses.⁴ For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.⁵ But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith (trust) the righteousness God has promised to us.⁶ For when we place our faith (trust) in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith (trust) expressing itself in love.  Gal 5:1-6 (NLT)

Red Bull Gospel

I have in my hand a can of an absolutely terrible beverage known as Red Bull.  Now Red Bull consists of copious quantities of both caffeine and sugar.  If I were to drink a can of Red Bull first thing in the morning we all know what will inevitably happen don’t we?  It might take a couple of hours or maybe a little more but we all know what will happen long before the end of the day.  I am going to crash right?  That sugar and caffeine is going to leave me and I am going to be worse off than I was before.  A Red Bull is not going to give me the sustainable energy I need to make it through the day.  In order for that to happen I need to get a good nights’ sleep and consume the right nutrients throughout the day. 

Oftentimes we find ourselves following a version of the gospel that has a Red Bull effect on our faith.  This Gospel might be enough to sustain us for a period but eventually, usually during one of life’s trials, we find ourselves crashing.  This Red Bull gospel can’t get us through the whole day, with all its challenges. 

The Gospel of Sin Management

Author and Philosopher Dallas Willard described this Red Bull Gospel as The Gospel of Sin Management.  In his book The Divine Conspiracy Willard states:

History has brought us to the point where the Christian message is thought to be essentially concerned with only how to deal with sin: with wrongdoing or wrong-being and its effects.  Life, our actual existence, is not included in what is now presented as the heart of the Christian message, or it is included only marginally…The current gospel then becomes a “gospel of sin management.”

This Gospel of Sin Management reduces the Good News of Christ to a list of do’s and don’ts.  This is what the apostle Paul was fighting against in his letter to the church of Galatia, and it is a false gospel that we need to continue to fight against today.

The Problem with the Gospel of Sin Management

At the core of the Christian faith is the message that we cannot possibly live up to the expectations of God and…that’s okay because of what He did for us.  It’s what this Advent season is all about.  God has sent His son to save us, to make up for the reality that we are not good enough.  Christianity is the only world religion that is not based on humanity’s ability to do the right things and avoid the wrong ones.  The problem with the Gospel of Sin Management is that it reduces Christianity to just one of the many works-based religions in the world. 

Similarly a faith that is built on our own ability to perform becomes unappealing and worse irrelevant when (not if) we fail to live up to the expectations.  You see if we buy into the Gospel of Sin management than we can’t help but have a superficial view of the Christian Faith.  If my relationship with God is solely dependent on my ability to perform than it will be an external, part-time, powerless one.  This is a faith that doesn’t work for us so we shove it into the corner and forget about it, temporarily or perhaps for good.  

Paul’s Response

Paul was well aware of the damaging effect this Gospel of Sin Management has.  It was why he repeatedly challenged it and made it abundantly clear that trust in Christ and not our own efforts is the key to the Christian faith.  There are some who believe that the first verse of today’s second lesson is a summary of all of Paul’s writings:  “¹ So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.”  In the following verses Paul preaches freedom from circumcision, a religious practice that was a necessary act according to Jewish Law.  Paul is telling us that we are not only free from sin; we are also free from the need to “measure up.”

Bonhoeffer

In his final work, ironically called Ethics, German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer claims that Christian Ethics is an oxymoron, a giant contradiction.  He rightly points out that the in the Garden of Eden, humanity's first sin was to eat from the tree of what? The tree of The knowledge of good and evil. So the very fact that we are able to discern between right and wrong is a reminder of our sinfulness.  The Spoken word poet and Christian rapper Propaganda puts it this way “Even your good works are an extension of your selfishness.”  We were never supposed to be the judge of right and wrong. The Gospel of Sin Management takes God right out of the equation.  God has nothing to do with our faith, it’s all about us.

Galatians 5:2-4

It is with this in mind that Paul says “If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you.” You see, it is not anything that we do that makes us pure enough to please and come close to a holy God, but it’s what God has done and continues to do in and through us.  We have to choose what we are putting our trust in.  Is it in the work of Christ and Him crucified or are we putting our faith in our own ability to do the right thing. According to Paul we can only have faith in one thing.  Either we will put our trust in Christ as the Lord who saves us and makes us righteous by His spirit, or we will put our trust in ourselves, meaning our ability and our commitment to live in obedience to the law.

Galatians 5:5

Paul’s message of freedom from good works can seem somewhat counter intuitive to us.  We so easily fall into believing the gospel of sin management because we think that Jesus has done his part, and that our part is living up to God’s expectations. But this message doesn't really mean freedom, but rather switching from one form of bondage (sin) to another (sin management). 

In Galatians 5:5 Paul describes a completely different scenario when he writes “But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us.”  Paul is saying that it is God’s job to work in us to make us righteous, to make us a people who do the right things and it is our job to learn to trust God and to let Him make the changes in us.  According to Paul we need to stop focusing on how we can live righteous and holy lives and start focusing on how we can strengthen our trust in Jesus Christ.

Trust

The Greek word translated as faith in this verse, and throughout the New Testament, pisteuo (pis-TAY-u-o) can also be translated as trust.  So when we talk about faith we are talking about trust.  I think it is a lot easier to think concretely when we talk in terms of trust.  Having faith means that our actions are determined by our decision to trust God with a given issue, relationship, or circumstance.  So then the question we need to ask ourselves in any situation is “where do I place my trust?  Is it in my instincts, desires, and convictions, or do I trust Jesus Christ?”

Spiritual Practices

So, you see, EVERYTHING we do to grow in our faith is about trusting God .  In contrast with assuming that it is our work that gives us deeper faith, the process described by Paul in our second lesson shows that the way we deepen our trust in our savior is by putting ourselves in a position to be drawn close to God.  This is the real purpose of the spiritual disciplines.  They do not make us righteous because we do them; instead, they put us in a position to be drawn into trusting God more fully.  We attend worship every Sunday, read the bible and pray daily not out of obligation but because we trust that these practices will put us in a situation to better trust in God when the insanity of life comes our way.  If we do these things because we think they will make us more righteous then we are saying we don’t need God because we can and do change ourselves.  We are putting our trust in ourselves as we do these practices.

Conclusion

St. Augustine once said “Love God, then do what you please”.  In verse six of our lesson Paul said “For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love.”  I believe they are saying that when we put our trust in God we naturally learn to love Him more, and when we love God more and trust Him each step of the way, right behavior naturally comes next.  But when we put our trust in doing the right things, our relationship with God can only be sustained for so long, like the energy from a Red Bull.  Eventually, though failure, pain, insecurity or inner wrestling we will not have the power to keep the sin management treadmill going, we will crash.  In Disney’s version of Aladdin there is a great scene where Aladdin holds out his hand to the princess, Jasmine and asks “do you trust me?”  It is time for us to stop seeing God as a task master with a bull whip in His hand and to start seeing Him holding out an open hand, asking us “Do you trust me?”  We all have a choice to make, where does our faith truly lie, who do we really trust.  I don’t know about you, but I think it’s about time that I stop trusting myself and start trusting Him.  

Advent Lesson Three: The Messiah is here

Game Idea: If You Love Jesus Please Smile:

Students will sit in a circle.  One student is "it" and must go around the circle and say to each student "if you love Jesus, please smile."  They can do anything to a student to smile as long as he or she does not touch the student.  The other player must resist smiling and say, "I really love Jesus, but I just can't smile."  If a smile is cracked the smiling prayer is now "it."

Bible Passage 1: Luke 2:21-33

Video: Advent-Hope - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c6qfU_QCXc

Bible Passage 2: Luke 2:36-38

Discussion

1. Why do think people use advent calendars or paper chains during the Christmas season?
2. Could you imagine waiting years to celebrate Christmas? If you knew that it was coming but didn’t know exactly when, how would you feel about waiting?
3. Why do you think Simeon and Anna were willing to wait so long for the promised Messiah?
4. How do you think they handled the moments when they got discouraged?

5.      Do you feel like you are waiting for something from God? Explain.

6.      Does our ability to wait for things, people, or promises say something about our hearts? Why or why not?

Wrap Up

Say: Waiting for Christmas is fairly easy for us because we know exactly when it is and how long until the day arrives. Imagine that you have been waiting years for the birth of the promised Messiah. Anna and Simeon waited years to see the Messiah; they never lost hope and they never stopped devoting themselves to God. They likely faced discouragement and frustration, but they continued to listen for God’s leading and God’s comfort and God’s direction. When we listen for God’s voice and God’s leading, we discover amazing truths and witness God doing incredible things.  The Christmas Season is not just about looking back on what God has done by sending His Son, it is also a time to recognize what God is doing in our world and in our lives today as well as a time to hope and wait for what God will ultimately do when Jesus returns a second time. 

Prayer

Give the students time to share prayer requests AND praises (strongly encourage students to contemplate their blessings).  Close by thanking God for sending His son and asking Him to help us remember what that really means and to trust in Jesus.   

IS YOUR YOUTH GROUP PREDICTABLE? MAYBE IT SHOULD BE.

While it’s true that creativity is an important part of student ministry, so is predictability. Young people crave consistency and an effective youth ministry will provide it.  This is especially vital when it comes to the discipline policies and basic structure of a youth meeting.  One of the easiest improvements any youth group can make is increased consistency.  Here are 10 “predictability check” ideas on what I mean:

1)    Make sure all parties involved know the process for misbehavior and make sure that all leaders follow it to the rule.  This will minimize distractions and you might find that it brings out the best in your students.

2)    Create a basic outline for youth meetings and follow it every week.  I would suggest opening with some fellowship time and a fun activity/game.

3)    If you have snacks at your youth group, build in specific times for munching and limit students to this time.

4)    As you move into the content, have a specific flow that you stick to.  I suggest opening with the scripture.  Here’s a hint, use the scripture that your pastor is preaching on.  You can choose to prep (the lesson before) or reinforce (the lesson after) the sermon with your youth meeting.

5)    Next, reinforce the sermon with some sort of media.  You can find clips for every situation on Youtube or Vimeo (even if it is from a cheesy bible movie).

6)    If you have a second text, sandwich the media piece with the two readings.

7)    Now create four or five open-ended discussion questions for the group to explore.  Yes/no answers should be treated as if they are the black plague.  Don’t try to steer things too much; you will be able to take things in the right direction with a wrap up (5 minutes or less) at the end of the night.

8)    You may pray at other times during the night but always close the night with prayer.

9)    Give students a few minutes to share praises and requests.

10) Challenge students to pray but don’t push them to hard.

Advent Series: Weeks 1 and 2

Advent Lesson One: The Word Became Flesh

Game Idea:  Four Square – see rules at: http://www.thatyouththing.com/resources/crowdbreakers.htm

Bible Verse 1: John 1:1-14

Video: 8 lb 6 oz Baby Jesus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6AlEYreD6k. Make sure to stop right at 2:20 (to avoid language).  If you can’t project a computer you can play this segment from the movie Talladega Nights.  If you decide to skip the

Discussion

1)      When we think of Jesus at Christmas what do we think of? (Baby, human, etc)

2)      How does this compare with Ricky Bobby’s Jesus? (Similar in a lot of ways)

3)      What does John 1 have to say about Jesus? (Existed from the beginning of time,

4)      Why is it important to remember what John has to say about Jesus during the Christmas season? (Jesus is not just a baby, He is our savior and He is the son of God.)

5)      How does the way we think of Jesus affect our personal relationship with Him?

Wrap Up

Say: The season of Advent (or Christmas – if students aren’t familiar with Advent) is all about trust.  If we trust that Jesus is our Messiah/Savior than we trust that baby Jesus was also the Son of God and the co-creator of the universe.

Prayer

Give the students time to share prayer requests AND praises (strongly encourage students to contemplate their blessings).  Close by thanking God for sending His son (in all his glory and power) to earth as a helpless baby to save us all.  If Jesus was just another baby than He cannot be the messiah.  

Advent Lesson Two: Crazy News

Game Idea:  The Clap Game – see rules at: http://www.thatyouththing.com/resources/crowdbreakers.htm. 

Bible Passage 1: Luke 1:26-28

Video: A Social Media Christmas - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sghwe4TYY18

Bible Passage 2: Matthew 1: 18-25

Discussion

1. Ladies, what would it be like to be in Mary’s situation?
2. Guys, what would it be like to be in Joseph’s situation?
3. How do you think your family and friends would react if you were in Mary or Joseph’s situation?
4. How did trust, or faith in God play into Mary and Joseph’s situation?
5. How do you think God’s past faithfulness played into Mary and Joseph’s trust in God?
6. How does trust play into our own situation as we prepare for Christmas and how does that trust effect the way we live our lives? 

Wrap Up

Say: It took a lot of trust in God for Mary and Joseph to go along with his plan.  We saw from the video that Mary and Joseph probably lost a lot of friends and family and respect because of God’s plan.  Mary and Joseph had to trust that God would do what He would and also trust that we would get them through their rough situation.  It takes a lot of trust for us to believe in Christmas message too.  If we do believe that Jesus is the savior than the trust should affect what we believe about many other things and how we live our lives too.

Prayer

Give the students time to share prayer requests AND praises (strongly encourage students to contemplate their blessings).  Close by thanking God for sending His son and asking for help to trust in Him the way Mary and Joseph did.    

The Shema Initiative: Engaging Parents

It’s a phone conversation that every veteran youth worker has had on multiple occasions.  The players change but the story always stays the same.  I had on the other line an upset parent who had some serious concerns about their soon to be teenage child.  It was not directly said, but there was an implied undertone, a hope that I would be able to step in and do something to remedy the situation.  Now, I have to confess that my normal course of action would have been to swoop in like superman and try to fix things in an hour or two…I bet you can guess what kind of success rate I’ve had with that approach…

But instead, in a moment of uncharacteristic Godly wisdom, I took a different approach.  I asked this parent about Christian practices in the home.  During this conversation I learned that though this parent, and their spouse were actively involved in the church's children's ministries, little or nothing was being done in their home throughout the week to reinforce their family's walk with God.  I couldn’t help but think that this fact played some role in the struggles they were having with their child, and I told them so.  I think that many parents would tell the same story if asked.

1.       By explaining that the current church staff driven model is not working. We can share that the surveys show that up to half of our students will “shelve their faith” in college. We can state that the average youth in our programs will only have roughly 2 hours a week with us and that is shared with all the other students present. We can tell parents that if they 15-30 minutes a day praying and doing devotions as a family then they have just matched that amount of time, not taking into account the many hours of possible informal faith sharing parents can have with their children.

2.       By giving them practical suggestions.  Encourage parents to consistently pray and have devotional time with your children. Make sure they don't beat themselves up if it doesn't work to do it every day but tell them to commit to do it when it does work by finding a pattern.  Inform parents that it is just as important to show their children how their faith is a part of their everyday life (even if it's in small ways). Sugguest letting students catch them reading the bible, and share with their children about how they experienced God during the day and ask them to do the same.

3.       Reassure parents that this idea about children's and youth discipleship does not diminish the role that that the church’s youth group has, it makes it more effective. Plead with parents that whenever it's feasibly possible BRING THEIR CHILD TO CHURCH ACTIVITIES!!! State that you are not saying that their child can't be involved in activities that conflict with youth group night activities, but be clear that the various church activities have to be a priority, and your children have to know it's a priority.  Challenge parents that their family priorities will impact what they do with their time.

4.       Finally, identify parents who already understand and live out “the Shema initiative” and task them with helping to spread the vision to others. 

Attempting to engage parents can be a frustrating process but it is well worth the effort.  If youth workers are serious about making life long disciples than they must be serious about engaging parents into the process of discipling their children.