I was watching two days ago, and I was thinking to myself how beautiful it was.  You know, in Ringgold you wouldn’t think it would be all that amazing.  We have no beaches, no great overlooks to see several cities, but still on many nice evenings it seems like time just stands still and the sky turns brilliant shades of colors.  I’ve been thinking a lot about that sunset since, and really been thinking about what it means in light of this verse:
Romans 8:20-21- ” 20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay.”

That’s a mouthful, but that basically means that since the fall of mankind that creation has been stifled.  It was supposed to be much more glorious, but that sin has held it back as it’s messed up all of creation.  And that creation longs for the day when Christ will return to earth and remove death and decay and set it free to what it was really supposed to be.  Isn’t that amazing!!!!!!!  Think about it!

There’s a very popular idea today that God is just going to nuke all of the evil people, and suck the good people up into heaven, and like the cartoons that we used to watch we’ll float on clouds and play harps for the rest of eternity.  And as nice as that sounds, there’s only one problem with it … The Bible.  The bible just doesn’t teach that. 

Acts 3:20-21 - “Then times of refreshment will come from the presence of the Lord, and he will again send you Jesus, your appointed Messiah. 21 For he must remain in heaven until the time for the final restoration of all things, as God promised long ago through his holy prophets.”
Revelation 21:2-5 - “I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!…”

These are just a few of the verses that show that God’s Kingdom is here right now and it’s coming in full power one day to be fully established on the earth.  It’s verses showing that God makes all things new, not all new things.  It’s showing that He is going to restore all of creation (including us Christians) to what we were supposed to be at the start of time.  This is a glorious promise that we will live with God on earth, around his throne.  Every tongue, Every nation, Every tribe bringing their best before the Holy God.  Hallelujah!!!!

Now back to that sunset …. What all of this tells us is that even the most beautiful things that you can imagine now (for me that sunset) are completely wretched and will be restored.  Augustan said this, “if these are the beauties afforded to sinful man, what does God have in store for those who love him!”  Amazing.

It’s like, imagine the most beautiful piece of nature that you’ve ever seen … you see it and you just instantly feel so close to God and you’re humbled before such brilliant creation.  God’s response is “Eh, that’s not really what I had in mind, but it will do for a sinful, broken world”.  If you’ve ever looked up at a mountain, God’s response is, “yeah, I was going to make it even bigger, but sin got in the way..”  There are colors that we can’t imagine, sites that we can’t fathom … the restoration of all things, complete joy, complete peace, complete beauty.  The death of everything that separation from sin brought us … anger, shame, poverty, war, famine, violence, death.  A whole new world…. a world so brilliant that we will no more need for the sun because the Lord will be our light!

Kinda makes sunset a little less amazing, huh?

No .. this is not about the Southern Baptist Convention …. It’s about the type of person that you run into almost everyday… Old people with this completely disgruntled look on their face.  They’re bitter, they’re harsh, they never have anything positive to say, and they suck the life out of you.  I grew up in a church that had a lot of them (and some dear old people too!)  I don’t know what happens in someone’s life to make this happen.

Anyway … I say all of this to say that I’ve said all of my life that I didn’t want to be one of those people.  But I’ve always been scared.  For everyone dear old person who had a positive outlook, I’ve met 10 who hated the world.

But the other day, I saw the coolest old person ever.  We were doing our 2nd service when this old, fragile, and frail lady walked into our church.  My first though was, “this is going to be bad”.  If you’ve never been to our service, they’re freakin’ loud and full of Rock Music and media.  I’ve seen many people come and go, and was expecting the same thing.  Then I saw something crazy … during our first song, (loud and heavy) she was raising her hands.  Then I thought I heard the sound of a tambourine, but we didn’t have one on stage.  I looked around the crowd, and there she was on the front row dancing, hands raised, playing her tambourine (AND SHE WAS ON BEAT!)  I later learned that she had previously attended, but left to go to Florida, and is back now.

It was incredibly encouraging to me.   I guess by the time that you’re 70 and 80 you’ve had a lot of bad experiences.  You’ve probably lost a lot of people close to you.  You’re probably got a feeling that you have a right to be mad at the world.  I’m sure that there are a lot of reasons to be bitter.

Hebrews 12:15 - Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.

I’m sure there are a lot of reasons to hate the world, but everyone still has a choice.  And however old you are, I get pretty frustrated at people who constantly have something that they’re angry about, frustrated about, upset about.  Sure we all have things that we wish would go better, but we have a choice to let our situations surround us and take us captive or to worship through the bad experiences and praise God because He’s STILL GOOD!

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be a person with a permanent frown on my face.  Not when I’m 30, 60 or 99.  I was to be the person who finds that there is a sovereign God who loves me no matter my circumstances.  I want to be a person who can find something to be thankful for in the midst of pain.  I want to be a person who can always find a reason to smile and worship. I want to be a person that people want to be around 50 years from now.

And I don’t think that all of this starts when I’m 50.  I think it starts right now.  I have to make sure not to let bitterness grow inside of me right now.  I need to stay away from people who are bitter.  I need to learn thankfulness even more.  And I need to believe that God is on this Throne, and trust Him.

I’ve started the journey with a group of about 15 people from my church to read the entire bible in 90 days.  one thing that’s stuck with me for a few days, is a small section of Genesis 24.  Thought I would share with you guys what God told me…

This is all about Abraham sending a servant to find a wife for Issac.  He gives me him very specific instructions as to who he should look for and how it should all go down.  Then the servant prays for even more specific things that God would do to make sure that he would know who the right person was.  This guy had a mission, he knew exactly what he was doing, he was seeking God and trusting him to provide.

He sees this girl named Rebekah … and she is everything that he had been looking for for Issac.  She fulfills everything that he had prayed about.  he has to be freakin out because this is totally going his way.  Long story short, he meets with the family … who says, “This is from the LORD; we can say nothing to you one way or the other”.  They realize that what is going on is God ordained.  That this servant came on a “mission from God” (said in best blues brother voice) and that God is working and doing big things.  They tell him to take Rebekah and then they party all night Israel style!

So far so good .. but then check out this next verse (54 and 55) “…when they got up the next morning, he said, “Send me on my way to my master” but her brother and mother replied, “Let the girl remain with us ten days or so; then you may go.”…   The servant realized he still had a part of a mission to meet.  But there were people who didn’t want to see Rebekah leave.  They knew that God had his hand in what was going on, but they were reluctant to let go still.

I think this is HUGE for all of us.  Whether you’re paid staff, volunteers, or doing something in your life personally we all have this vision from God.  We all have these things that he wants us to complete.  There are times in your life when it’s obvious that God has his hand in everything that is happening because it is going so well.  Then in the middle of everything, there is a well intentioned person (or maybe not so well intentioned) who tries to stop what God is doing ….  Maybe they don’t quite see it as much.  Maybe they’re scared of all the change.  Maybe they’re reluctant to do what it is that they would need to.  Maybe what they’re saying makes logical sense (I mean, 10 days .. what is 10 little days in the grand scheme of things)..

but I love the servant’s response in v56 .. “but he said to them, ‘do not detain me, now that the Lord has granted success to my journey”.  He realized that he wasn’t done .. things were going well, but he couldn’t stop because of someone who didn’t get it.

I think one of the greatest struggles of many leaders (especially in the church) … is that we allow people with no vision to steal ours.  Most of these people want things that make sense.  most of these people think they have an idea, a ministry, a change, a song, a style, you name it … that will benefit what you’re doing.  But it’s just not what God has told you to do at the time.  I think that the worst part, is that most leaders have a hard time saying no to these people.  They’re influential, they give money, they make a lot of noise when they don’t get their way. There would have been nothing wrong with that servant staying for an extra 10 days, aside from the fact that he knew what his mission was.  he had a vision and nothing on earth was going to stop it.

May God rise up a generation of leaders like this servant of Abraham.  May God give us a vision and mission that we unmistakably know is from Him.  And may we charge the gates of hell with that vision, not stopping for anything or anybody.  May your approval be the only thing that matters to us in our lives.  Amen!

posting this today, because I’ll be so busy tomorrow.  I’m going to try to write a letter to Cade every year until he’s 18 .. I’m starting now, and hopefully can keep it up.  When he turns 18, I’ll give him a book with all of them.  Wish I would have written him one before he was born, but hey first year isn’t bad .. here goes …

Cade,

It seems like every month you’ve hit a different stage, and I love every single one!  You were amazing to hold at the hospital and watch arena football with just a day old. At 6 months, it was the best to hear you start making some crazy fun sounds.  At 6ish months when you started crawling, it was the best.  At 10, 11, and now 12.  I keep on wondering when I will get to an age and think, “ yeah this stinks”.  But until we get there, you can’t even imagine how much fun you are (when you’re not crying because your mom isn’t holding you…).  You are growing more independent by the second and imitating everything you see.  I love how you clap when I clap, how we play games where you honk my nose or barely avoid me biting your finger off.  How you always make sure to call everyone, “buddy” just like I’ve taught you!

Anyway, you are still sleeping in me and your mommy’s bed almost every night and I have entirely given up on regaining my part of the bed anytime before you’re in kindergarten.  No matter how we try to keep you in your bed, on most nights,  it never works.  Your mom says that you’re so nice to have in bed, all cuddly and warm.  But more recently, I feel that you are getting too comfortable.  You are the biggest bed hog I have ever known (aside from your mom of course .. don’t think  I don’t know where you get it from!).  Seriously, there are nights when I am literally falling out of our full size bed because you are stretched out parallel across the whole thing.  And I’m not too big on waking up on your crawling over my head to get to my cell phone, either.  But, the good part about you sleeping in my bed are the mornings.  You’re always in such a great mood (it’s the only thing that keeps you from getting in trouble when you wake me up early!).  We lay around, laughing, until I have to go to work.  It is my favorite time of day.

You absolutely LOATHE getting your diaper changed.  It is the worst possible baby torture that you can think of.  Actually, you don’t like having any clothes changed on you.  You have certainly got your fake crying down.  It is beginning to make me think it’s about time to start potty training you.  I guess 12 months is a little early .. but you need to quit carrying diapers to us when you’ve messed one up unless you want to stop wearing them.

I was watching you run around the house the other night simply admiring how amazing you are.  I really don’t have enough adjectives to describe you.  You bring so much light to all of the people around you.  Sometimes I wonder if me and your mom are the only ones who see it but the way people gravitate to you I don’t think it’s just us anymore.  You are this magnet.  This really funny magnet too.  You’ll try to play drums and share the stick, dance like you’re crazy,  and do anything you can to find some trouble to get into.  You crack me up, quickly brighten my day, and cheer up any bad mood.

I can’t wait to see what this next year brings for us all.  I can’t wait to see you running all over our new backyard,  and know that you’re going to start talking very soon as well (who knows where that will lead!).  I hope this year will be even more fun that the last for me, your momma, and you.  Who knows, maybe you’ll even be able to teach me some of your awesome dance moves.

I love you!

Daddy

So I’ve been absent on here for a while because of the fact that we’ve been in the process of moving.  The house we’ve moved into is great, but we still have a lot of work to do to get it ready before Cade’s  bday party on Saturday.  We’ll have pictures for everyone pretty soon…

Last night I was out on, by far my favorite spot in the house, the back deck.  It’s really nice … now.  It is spotless and covered with shade .. the perfect evening spot for a BBQ.  But, when we first rented the house, the deck wasn’t in the “best” condition.  I mean, it was still totally structurally sound, but the trees overhead had caused some TERRIBLE mildew problems.  The whole porch was black with mildew and it was seriously dirty (I wish I would have taken before and after photos).  So as soon as we get into the house, I borrowed a pressure washer and went to work with my good friend Matt.  12 hours, a bottle of outdoor bleach, and 3 washes later that day, we had most of the black mildew off of the porch.  I let it sit for a few more days, bought some deck wash, and pressure washed the entire thing again.  THEN, last night I got some waterproofing stuff that has some deck stain coloring and treated the entire porch for another 4 or 5 hours.  Well, it started getting really dark, so I pulled a vehicle to the back yard and turned it’s lights on and turned the outside lights on .. grabbed a paintbrush and started to get the railing to where it was perfect.

Then it happened … God called me out.  He said, “When is the last time that you were as passionate about me as you are this porch?”  “when is the last time that you spent 25 hours in just a week devouring my word, and praying to me, seeking my will for your life and my ministry through you?”  “when is the last time that you were so desperate to find me, that you found a spot in the dark and turned a light on and chased after me, like you’re so trying to finish this porch in the dark?”  “when is the last time you cared this much about reaching someone else for me?” … ouch.

We get caught up in a lot of stuff that doesn’t matter.  I’m sure that God wants me to take care of this house that he has blessed Cassie and I with.  But in the grand scheme of the universe, having a beautiful deck isn’t that big of a deal.  Here’s what is … that I live my life as a “living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God”..that my life would be an “act of worship” in everything that I do.

Why do we struggle with giving God the priority that he deserves?  Why do we think that a prayer at the beginning of the day, a little bit of bible reading, and a prayer at the end of the day will suffice when we waste so much more time on other things that aren’t half as important?  Why do we put more time into everything else than our relationship with the only thing that will last eternally?  My porch isn’t eternal .. my neighbor’s soul is.

God please make me more about Your Kingdom than mine! Amen!

My staff and I have spent the last two days learning from two great churches within driving distance of us.  (To learn more about the back-story for how things worked out to where we ended up where we did and more about our visit to 12stone - flowery branch click here.)

On Wednesday - We went to Newsprings main campus in Anderson, SC .. here are my thoughts from our second day:

• WOW - just wow - I absolutely will not be able to describe the experience that we all had yesterday.  I will not be able to find words for it.  So lets just start with the fact that the rest of this post is totally inadequate (I really know how to keep the readers….)
• Building - I will be the first person to say how totally against spending excessive money on a building I am.  I am not for wasting money when there is so much need in the community.
  BUT, I think that Newspring struck a pretty good balance.  It was simple excellence.  Nothing was flashy and in your face, but you walked in saying “this is amazing”.  They didn’t spend 40 million dollars (I’ve seen MANY churches do it for less people), but they came away with something that was GREAT!  That’s the way to build. 
• Their love of children and youth- it’s obvious.  They’ve built incredible environments for their children and students.  They each have their own buildings now.  In fact, the student building is so impressive that we want to have it as our main campus when we build.
• Their passion to build God’s kingdom- Newspring is not about Newspring Church they are about THE Church.  It is obvious.  I have never been to a church that has been more friendly and helpful to another church as I have this one.  Brad Cooper’s (student pastor) quote as we were leaving was, “my entire staff is staff is at your disposal.”  Freakin’ amazing.  We def. want to be a church like that.
• Student Ministry- Last year I spoke with Brad Cooper (their student pastor) and asked him several questions as I was trying to find God’s will for our student ministry … he wouldn’t tell me what they do at Newspring.  It wasn’t because he’s a jerk, it’s because he said that I needed to find what my SP wanted to see and make it happen.  Funny story, when I observed their ministry last night, it was pretty freakin’ close to what they’re doing.  You would think that Brad had given me specific steps on how to create what they have or something. 
  A few vocal critics inside of our church have let it be known that they wanted more of other things to be put into our student ministry, and we were looking at how to work some of that back into what we have.  After meeting with Brad and his staff, and seeing what they’re doing.  We found a few places that we can tweak but God really confirmed to us that we are on track for the student ministry last night.  Everything we do is about Jesus.  There is nothing more than that, if it doesn’t fit that, it doesn’t make it in.
• Student Worship Service- I thought I would observe and get some neat ideas, but it was for the students.  Man, I don’t know if I have ever been more wrong.  Nothing could have had me preparred for what I saw.  Students worshipping God recklessly.  1000 kids in that building.  So many of them worshipping without prompting.  Hands raised.  Student in tears, responding to prayer, finding each other and reconcling.  Heidi (our worship pastor), turned to me and said, “it’s like the last night of summer camp in here”.
  I didn’t think that a student service could break me like it did, but I was just in tears.  I’m in tears now as I talk about it.  I can’t explain how badly I want the passion that their students had last night to catch on with our students.  I’ve seen that it can be done, I’ve seen students to respond.
  I am coming back with a fresh passion to teach and urge and beg our students to chase hard after God, to leave everything they have for him, to bring their friends to Jesus, and to give everything you have at his feet in worship.
• Some practical things that we discussed on the way home:
  • There are places where our church has become about sustaining what we have, and places where our church has become about us.  No more of that, Jesus is it.  We are all about Jesus.  We are here to spread his fame and  his renown.  We are here to bring a lost and dying world to Jesus.  That is for our student ministry, and our entire church.
  • We’re going to tweak a few things in our student ministry to make the next big step.  I can’t really say anything more than that right now, but just know that this fall is going to be amazing.
  • We all walked away pumped back up to do a lot of the vision things that we talked about the day before.  God’s vision for our church is so great.  We don’t want to change it.  We want to enhance it and make it something that we cast in everything that we do.  We are going to be much more intentional in casting vision in everything that we do.
  • We got some very cool ideas for our new building that we’re about to start the process on.  But at the same time, we walked away saying, even if it takes longer we’re going to do it the right way.
  • I personally walked away challenged to have the passion for our God like what Brad Cooper has.  I think that Perry Noble (how awesome is it that this is the first time in this huge post about Newspring that I’ve mentioned the senior pastor, I think it shows his leadership in how much he’s empowered his staff)… I think that Perry Noble’s infectious attitude has spread over that entire staff, his passion and love for Jesus has spread over that entire staff, it’s went from the main staff to their staff, to the volunteers, to the people who attend.  I want to make sure I spread the same kind of thing.
  • we came away with a few more cool ideas for announcements and offering during the service to make it flow, and to help people not “turn off right then”

Thanks to Allison (receptionist) who greeted us so nicely when we came in, thanks to Sherry Morehead (volunteers coordinator) who took so much time in giving us a tour of the entire campus, thanks to Matt Bailey who spent WAY more time than he had to with us answering questions.  Thanks to Whitney and Amanda (Brad’s Assistants) who are crazy great.  They showed us around and answered our questions about the student ministry (and they’re such knowlegeable assistants too!!!).  Thanks to Brad Cooper who took the time (time where we could have been connecting with almost 1000 students, to talk and encourage 4 people from a small church in the middle of nowhere.

I can’t say how amazing of an experience this was for the four of us.  We’re all humbled and broken from what we saw, yet so passionate about what is coming.  May God continue to bless Newspring and make them leaders in the Kingdom of God.  May God make The Springs the same kind of lights that they are!

A few weeks ago 4 of us staff members here at The Springs registered for a conference called “The Sticks” it was going to be a great lineup of speakers all set to speak about how to do church in the middle of nowhere.  We decided we hadn’t had time to grow together in a long time, and we would take this learning opportunity (as Rick Warren says, if you’re not learning, you’re not leading).  Long story short, last week the conference got cancelled.

But here’s why I love my staff … instead of just sitting and moaning about the fact that our conference got cancelled, we took things into our own hands.  We scheduled two visits to churches within driving distances over two days and we made our own mini-conference.  We had decided that we were going to grow these two days, and nothing was going to keep us from it, even the cancelled growing time.

Here are some notes that I took from the first day….

On Tuesday - We went to 12stone’s soon to be launched campus in Flowery Branch, GA .. here are my thoughts:

• Even though a lot has changed over this year, and they’re much more popular now .. 12stone is America’s best undiscovered church.  Their vision, leadership, and impact in the community can not be understated.  If you haven’t been to their main campus, it’s absolutely worth your time.
• Jason Berry - the campus pastor - was incredibly accommodating to us.  he’s a busy guy trying to get everything in place, but he sat down with us and took the time to share some of what they’re doing, the vision behind it, how we can communicate it better, etc

• I learned…
  • If I ever have to tell someone who doesn’t get the vision, “too bad, suck it up” … that I have failed at communicating values to that person
  • I learned how market a church in a way that builds God’s kingdom that isn’t built around hype, it’s built around service.
  • how to more effectively cast vision
  • more about how to build vision into the DNA of everything that we do.
  • some neat ideas for announcements that actually make them not so much of a bother
  • some cool ideas for creating buzz in the community
• After we had left, on our ride home we came up with some of practical things…
  • saying that we need to take God’s vision for our church and make it into a mantra that is even more catchable.
  • find ways to make service more of a part of who we are and build it into everything that we do.
  • we have our next marketing campaign (it’s in the very baby stages .. but we’ve had a “bang” talking about it….)
  • thinking that we need to look at every aspect of our ministries and make sure that they’re branded property to fit our DNA.
  • desperately wanting to make a church that is all about reaching people for Jesus vs wanting to be cool.
  • Having a plan for who we’re going to pull from, and how we’re going to transition that from where are to where we’re going to be in a few years. (wish I could share more, but I can’t)

Thanks to Jason Berry and 12stone so much for the time that they spent with us talking. This has to be the “mega-church” that knows the most about us.  They’ve visited with us where we are, spent time with us.  Some of our people sit on the same boards together with them.  They are always a huge help. It was such a great refresher to spend time with someone other than us and vision cast and brainstorm for the refocusing that’s started to gear us up for the next stage of growth this fall…

A few people have been asking me follow up questions about sin and guilt since last Friday’s “good Friday” service.  So here you go, this series of posts is for you…..  This is the second of three ….  Danny’s “Theology of sin and guilt”…..
To read the first post in this series click here…

Last time I talked about the fact that we all struggle with sin in our lives, and most of us feel really guilty.  I talked about the difference between worldly guilt/holy guilt.  Even when we understand the difference, we still have this pesky problem with temptation.  But I don’t think that temptation is a big of a problem as is the fact that most Christians don’t know how to handle temptation the right way.  Today, I want to talk about the wrong way to deal with temptation and sin in your life.  Next time I’ll get to the right way to handle it.

The wrong way to deal with temptation is to the do the same sin over, and over, and over, and over, until you just decide that this is “just who you are”.  The reason we finally come to a conclusion like this is because we’re so filled with guilt from our sin, that we’re tired of letting ourselves and the people around us down.

Romans 9:16 - It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.

The wrong way to handle your struggle with sin is to try to overcome it with your will power.  I know so many Christians who struggle with a particular sin and they keep trying harder and harder to get rid of it in their lives.  They fail miserably at it, and then they decide to try harder again.  This is the basis of every youth ministry camp I’ve ever seen.  The speaker says, “some of you guys were really bad this year” and “is there anyone who wants to do better”.  OF COURSE THERE IS!  Have you ever been to high school recently?  You’re lucky to make it out alive, there’s no way you come out perfectly clean.  So students will come up front, make some promise to God, and try to live that way for about 31 minutes, and then slip right back into everything until next year’s camp.  But it’s not just student ministry, this is evangelicalism altogether.  ”God is disappointed, try harder” …

The Apostle Paul talks about this a lot, he pokes fun at people who think like this .. look at Galatians 3:3, “Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?”

Here is the broken cycle that most Christians are stuck in .. We come to know Jesus, and there’s this sin that we can’t get rid of … we do it, we feel guilty, and we say, “I’m never going to do that again”.  Eventually, you screw up again and you run to go and fix yourself.  So now you’re doing whatever you can to stop, and you do well for about another 31 minutes and this time, you give up and give yourself into that sin totally.  Eventually, you’ll come back to church, come back to the altar, and say, I’ll never do that again .. and this cycle repeats itself over and over and over again till you die.

here’s the result that you get in a cycle like that… you will become one of two people:
1.  religious repentance - you’ll become self righteous and worthless .. you’ll have no grace for anyone who struggles because you were able to kinda “make yourself good enough”.

2.  worldly sorrow - you’ll never make yourself good enough, and you’ll end up hating yourself and being ashamed of yourself.  You’ll eventually just quit trying because it’s too much and live in shame for the rest of your life.

This is where 90% of Christians live .. struggling to quit sinning with everything inside of them … and they can never do it, or they do it and turn completely self righteous ..

This is the wrong way to deal with sin and temptation.  Temptation, sin in your life, is not a problem that you can control on your own.  Please know that this is a battle that you’ll never truly win, and even if you start to feel like you’re winning you’re really just become a self-righteous person unaware of how messed up your life really is.  Tomorrow I’ll explain the right way to struggle (notice, I didn’t say that it wouldn’t be a struggle .. more tomorrow)….

I absolutely loved what Joshua Griffin (the high school YP at Saddleback Church) posted yesterday.  I liked it so much I’m stealing it to put it on my blog in the circles that I run around in …

To see it where it started (and read a lot of other great stuff) visit: http://www.morethandodgeball.com/?p=5947 

“I was at Chipotle yesterday talking to a couple of seniors who are thinking about becoming youth pastors. It hit me as we were talking that youth ministry is a calling of extremes. The more I thought about it, the more the concept resonated with me. Then it came up during another discussion this afternoon. Here are some thoughts, and feel free to leave another youth ministry extreme in the comments, too.

• They’re aren’t really any typical weeks - every day is completely different from the last.
• Youth ministry is called on most at both ends of the spectrum - when things are good and when things are really bad.
• Youth ministry pays extreme. Extremely little.
• We minister in extremes - when marriage is at an extreme, and the kids are about to face their parents’ divorce. When a life is at an extreme, we’re at the emergency room or performing the funeral.
• Youth ministry is focused on essentially an extreme age group - when students are figuring themselves out and parents are at the most challenging point in relating to them.
• Youth ministry is about asking a student to give over total control of their life to Jesus - an absolute extreme.
• We ask students to be baptized, to demonstrate their faith to their friends, family and the world at the time when peer-pressure and image are the most crucial in their life.
• Extreme pressure and expectations - from senior pastors, staff, parents and from yourself.   (I’m very fortunate to have a supportive staff that looks at the big picture - Danny)

Extreme hours, extreme emotions, extreme work. Youth ministry seems to be about pushing everything to the limit.

So why would anyone want to do it? Seems like a nice, safe, well-paying nine-to-five is more what people look for in life.

Extreme fulfillment. Wouldn’t want to do anything else. You?”

But it made me laugh so I’m posting on here anyway…

Thanks to Nitesh for the link!