Alexis Update: Day 2…

For those of you not familiar with what is going on with Alexis, please go read “Alexis update #1” and “Alexis update #2“

I still haven’t gotten any sleep since my last post. I haven’t seen Alexis and Ashley since 9 AM this morning but from what I have heard via text message updates, she is doing well. Today she underwent a bone marrow biopsy and spinal tap to confirm what the doctors believed to be Leukemia. There were two possibilities, A.L.M. (Acute Myeloid Leukemia) and A.L.L. (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia). The latter is the better of the two. Alexis has been diagnosed with A.L.L.

Alexis will begin Chemotherapy tomorrow for one full week. After that week, they will pull more bone marrow and do other tests to determine where to go from there.

They have a long road ahead of them, but as her Aunt says, “Lexi is a fighter with her Daddy’s bullheadedness…” Continue to pray for strength, understanding, and rest for all those involved.

I also would like to ask for prayer for myself. Due to Alexis’ immune system being week, they have her on a germ watch, meaning that anyone with even a runny nose can’t go near her. I have a slight cough; therefore I can’t go visit her or Ashley. I feel completely and utterly helpless and I can’t seem to calm down about it. I want more than anything to be able to be there by Ashley and Alexis’ side for as long as I can be, but I can’t be until I beat this sickness. So please pray that I can recover with supernatural speeds so I can be back by their side. Thank you so much for your incredible outpouring of cries, thoughts, and prayers to God.

- paulg

An Update on Alexis…

Hey Everyone,

I don’t even know where to begin with this. My mind is a wreck, I haven’t slept in over 24 hours, but I wanted to send out a quick update for everyone about Alexis. First, I would like to thank you all for taking this little girl to God in prayer. Her family appreciates it tremendously, she would too (if she could understand what was going on), and I am blown away by it. I did a quick calculation yesterday and if everyone on my twitter friend list, facebook friend list, family, friends, church prayer chains, and everyone’s friend lists who re-tweeted my initial post about the urgent prayer request about Alexis, and found that there was the potential of over 2,000 people who could see the need to pray for Alexis. This amazes me because I am under the impression that prayer changes things, and if that many people are praying, then it can only be a good thing!

I was at the hospital all night with Ashley, Alexis, and the rest of their family. Alexis was very upset each time the nurses came in to check on her (about every 45 minutes or so). It’s so extremely hard to see someone that young not knowing what is going on and being so afraid.

For those of you wanting to know how to further pray, here’s what you can pray for:

The doctors are fairly certain it is Leukemia. They did a blood transfusion, will most likely do another one, and will be doing a spinal tap to get a bone marrow sample sometime soon. I am waiting to hear from Ashley with an update!

Please pray for continued strength for Ashley and her family as they continue to be there to care for little Alexis. She has to stay in the hospital for 10 days and then will most likely be needing chemo for the next 2 1/2 to 3 years. The doctors (and Ashley) are pretty positive that Alexis WILL beat this. It will most certainly be a very draining process though, so pray hard!

The district superintendent of my church denomination prayed yesterday for Alexis and said that:

“we are praying to a God who knows what it is like to watch His child suffer!”

Although we don’t have all of the answers or can’t comprehend why this would happen, we know that God is watching over her and is in control.

I know I said this about a million times already in this post, but please please please please continue to pray! Pray that Ashley would be able to get some rest, pray that Alexis will get comfortable with being int he hospital, and pray whatever other way God leads you! Thank you all so very much!

- paulg

URGENT PRAYER REQUEST…

Hey Everyone,

I need to ask you all to please pray! My girlfriend (Ashley) took her daughter (Alexis) for a normal check up yesterday and they found that her iron levels were low. Normal levels should be between 11 and 15, but hers were at 4.9 yesterday. They scheduled her to come in for blood work today and found that her levels today were 4.5. Ashley’s family are rushing Alexis to Childrens Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA (2 hours away) now where they will do a blood transfusion today, bone marrow tests tomorrow, and lots of other testing. They’ll have to keep her there for a few days.

I talked to and prayed with Ashley before she left and she was so shaken up. She told me what the doctors think it might be, but please pray that they are wrong, and if not, that they can fix it! This is a very scary thing, and DEFINITELY something that a 2 1/2 year old should NOT have to go through, but we have a mighty and powerful God whom nothing is impossible for.

It’s not fair that a little girl should have to go through this. Please pray that Alexis will be ok, for Ashley, for the rest of her family! Pray for patience, peace, understanding, and a strengthening of their faith!

Thank you all!

- paulg

Jumping Off of the Cliff…

“There’s a faculty built into the human brain that makes every cliff seem twice the height when you’re looking down from the top and everything in you says, ‘Don’t even think about it’. So you don’t think about it, you just hurl yourself off out into the middle of the canyon, and then you free-fall for what feels like enough time to recite the Gettysburg Address and all your senses are on maximum alert as you plunge into the cold water. When you come back up the crowd is cheering and something in you is also cheering because you did it.”

In his book, Wild at Heart, John Eldridge re-tells the story of a time when he and his family went on a cliff jumping adventure. The quoted paragraph above is from the 11^th chapter of this book. Eldridge goes on to say: “After that first jump you have to do it again, partly because you can’t believe you did it and partly because the fear has given way to the thrill of such freedom”

When I first read this book a few months ago, I was blown away by something that Eldridge said shortly after the quotes from above.

“I want to live my whole life like that. I want to love with much more abandon and stop waiting for others to love me first. I want to hurl myself in a creative work worthy of God. I want to charge the fields at Banockburn, follow Peter as he followed Christ out onto the sea, and pray from my hearts true desire.”

I think of youth ministry and can resonate with Eldridge’s words about wanting to live his whole life as if he were jumping off of a cliff. I, too, wish to live my life loving with abandon and without having to wait for others to show me love first. I, too, want to hurl myself in a creative work worthy of God. I, too, want to charge the fields in a major battle, follow Peter as he followed Christ out onto the raging sea, and pray from my hearts true desire.

As I have been thinking through this for the past few weeks, I have been attempting to ask myself how these things can apply to youth ministry. Here is what I came up with:

Loving with Abandon:

“I want to love with much more abandon and stop waiting for others to love me first.” Many times in my life, I would wait until someone showed me love before I would show them love. I have been hurt many times in the past by doing it the other way around and, in a sense, I was afraid and unwilling to do it anymore, so I closed myself off to this approach. However, I have changed my approach over the last few years. In youth ministry, it can’t be about waiting until a student will show you love. Your ministry will not be successful that way and you will not be able to show that student the love of Christ! We can’t sit around waiting for students to show up and start loving us; we need to go to them. We need to go to where they are, build relationships with them, love on them, and show them what it means to have a relationship with Jesus! In my experience thus far in youth ministry, I have found that students today are hurting much more than they were when I was their age. They have so many more influences and experiences that simply weren’t present 10 or 15 years ago. With that being said, it’s ridiculous for us to think that a student is going to magically come to us and start loving us on their own. Many students have no example of love in their lives; therefore we need to be that love!

Jumping In:

“I want to hurl myself in a creative work worthy of God.” To me, this quotation is saying that it is beneficial to dive in to something creative that will glorify God. This is why I attempt to always change and adapt my ministry in new, innovative, and creative ways. Ways that will take the attention off of me and my leaders, and place it where it needs to be…on God!

Charging, Following, and Praying:

“I want to charge the fields at Bannockburn, follow Peter as he followed Christ out onto the sea, and pray from my hearts true desire.” Although I don’t know much about the war of Scottish Independence known as the Battle of Bannockburn (I had to Google it to find out what it was so I can make myself sound intelligent on this blog), I can picture what it would be like to charge out onto a battlefield ready to fight for what I believe in. I’m ready to fight for the souls of my students (both current and future). I’m ready to meet the enemy head-on and make him aware that these students have been bought with a price…the Blood of Christ!

I want to know what it would be like to be right behind Peter as he took that first step out onto the raging sea towards Jesus! I want to know what it looks like in my ministry to step out of my boat (my comfort zones) and step into the unknown (the dangerous, unknown, and chaotic waves of ministering to teenagers). These things don’t scare me because I know that if I keep my eyes on Jesus, then I will not be shaken!

I want to know what it means to pray from my hearts true desire. I’m very real with God when I am talking to him. I want to be able to be real with him about my students (current and future) as well, but in order for this to happen; I need to continue to be there with and for them. I need to show them love. I need to do everything that I mentioned a few paragraphs ago in order to love with abandon. My prayer for youth ministry is that students would have the desire to open up and be real with their youth pastors and leaders, just as those same youth pastors and leaders are real with them!

In closing, I would like to find out what these things look like in your youth ministries, lives, and careers! Can you relate to these things? Are you the person who sits back and waits/hopes that people will come and start loving you? Or have you seen yourself as the person going all out and jumping off of the cliff?

-          paulg

Perry Noble’s Prayers for Youth Ministry…

By far, my favorite thing about the National Youth Workers Convention in Atlanta was Perry Noble’s message to youth workers. Perry spoke on Saturday morning and left most people in the room feeling encouraged, energized, and pumped up for youth ministry. Perry Noble is a 6’ 6” 230 lb. Senior Pastor from New Spring Church in South Carolina. He started off by making a joke about his southern drawl. He said that in heaven, everyone will have a southern drawl, if you don’t believe that, you may not be going to heaven!

Perry’s message was based out of Acts 20:7-12. I’ve spoken to a few different youth workers at the convention and have heard mixed reviews/feelings about this message. The reviews/feelings ranged from “he nailed it,” to “he took the passage and made it apply to his topic!” When someone takes a passage and make sit say what they want it to say, it is known as “eisegesis.” Eisegesis is when you put your own ideas into the text to make it mean whatever you want it to.

For the record, I do not know where I stand on this matter! I loved what Perry had to say but I am not a Bible scholar so I don’t know if it was eisegesis or not.

Anyway, regardless of how you interpret the passage and the message he gave us, it’s time to move on. Perry went on to tell us that he believes there is a breakdown in communication with youth pastors and the church in general. He and many others believe that youth pastors are viewed as glorified babysitters in that we are supposed to watch the kids, teach them a few things, and when they are old enough to attend big people church and tithe; then they matter to the church. This is not the case and it should never be viewed as such. Perry was not saying that this is the case in all churches, but it is definitely something that he has seen happen occasionally. But regardless of whether your church falls into either of these categories, an alarming statistic is that around 80% of students are walking out the door when they turn 18, and many of them are never going to come back!

Youth ministry is a hard and vital job. Most people will disagree with that, but that is because they have no idea what it means to be a youth pastor. They think we get paid to hang out and play video games all day, but that is 100% inaccurate. There are days when we go home from youth ministry and it isn’t “Thank you Jesus!” it’s “Help me Jesus!” Rest assured…there is hope! Perry said that we, as youth workers, are game changers. We work in the ripest harvest in the world and if we can get our minds (senior pastors, youth pastors, volunteers) around several of these soon to be mentioned concepts, we could see a revolution in youth ministry and the local church. When youth ministry catches on fire through the local church, nothing can stop it!!!!

Perry and many of the other speakers who were senior pastors were very much in support of youth workers. Perry has four prayers that he is praying for youth ministry. Those prayers are: For Attention, For Submission, For a Biblical Foundation, and For Stewardship.

For Attention:

In the Bible passage that Perry spoke from (Acts 20:7-12), Paul was speaking to a group of people late into the night (because he intended to leave the next day) and basically had a long message planned for them. There was a young man (a youth) sitting in a window seal in the back of the room who fell into a deep sleep as Paul was preaching. Eutychus fell to the ground from the third story and died. Yikes! Perry said that in this story, Eutychus fell out of the window because no one was paying attention to the youth ministry of that church. When a church refuses to pay attention to the youth ministry, kids fall out of the window and die (a.k.a. – leave the church and never look back) each and every day.

Youth ministry is important, not just for the teenagers but for also for the church as a whole. The youth aren’t the church of tomorrow, THEY MATTER TODAY! Perry said “The kids that we are called to ministry to matter today and the church better wake up and smell the Starbucks because if not, the kids will fall out of the back window and die.” Perry’s philosophy is that you can tell if a church is paying attention to the youth by looking at how much money they spend on them. He says that you can never spend too much on your youth and children. I understand the premise of what he was saying, but I don’t know if it applies to every circumstance. Some churches simply can’t afford to put a lot of money in the youth fund, and they could be the church that supports their youth way more than the church with the large youth fund. Money shouldn’t matter and shouldn’t be a deciding factor on whether or not a church is paying attention to their youth (my thoughts).

Perry does something cool in his church. I don’t think it would work at every church, but it is something to hope for I guess. Perry believes that a youth group should never be asked to do a fundraiser for anything. He doesn’t allow the youth group at his church to do fundraising because he believes that the church and the older people should support them to show that they care.

If we want attention in our youth ministries, we need to start reaching kids for Jesus and seeing lives change! If the adults come into the sanctuary and have no place to sit because of the youth, the older people will pay attention and take them seriously. The last thing that Perry said about this first prayer for youth is that we need to not bang the budget drum, but we need to bang the kids need Jesus drum and change their lives!

For Submission:

The way a youth group gets noticed in the church is when they are completely submitted and sold out to Jesus! Perry says that we need less strategy and more spirit in our youth ministries, and I couldn’t agree more! Not only do we need submitted and sold out youth, but we need leaders who are as well. When God asks us to do something unbelievable, we need to say “Yes Lord!” In the Bible passage, Paul was so submitted to Jesus that he was willing to declare the impossible (that Eutychus was alive). We need to have complete submission.

In order to be completely submitted to God, according to Perry, “you have to be you!” We shouldn’t have the desire to be someone else or do ministry as they do it because you think they’re better than you. When you do this, it is known as ministry envy. You can read a post of mine about ministry envy by clicking here. Perry says that the problem with churches today is that there is too much imitation and no more revelation. He also said that youth pastors have a disease that he invented called “destination disease.” Destination disease is when people in ministry want to be over there (at the other church/ministry) because they think it’ll be better there. This is not true though because you take you with you and it will be exactly the same. You are you!

When we get to the point where we get it all figured out in our ministry, God will say “you don’t need me? Fine…go ahead!” We need to be in complete submission to God. When we do this, it is unbelievable. Leadership is as easy as listening to God and doing what He says! Perry’s prayer is to have a generation of youth pastors and workers completely sold out for Jesus. We are the ones who set the pace for what youth ministry will look like in 10-20 years!

For a Biblical Foundation:

After Paul (with God’s help) brought Eutychus back to life, they went upstairs again and broke bread. Paul got carried away preaching, the youth died, Paul declared something supernatural and brings the kid to life, and then comes back up to keep the focus on Jesus. Paul never stopped focusing on Jesus or teaching about him. This is an example to us. We need to never quite proclaiming who Jesus is to students. They need to know who He is and it is our job to tell them. Some people think that if we focus on only Jesus, then we won’t be relevant. Perry says that we won’t be irrelevant, we will be impotent! We’ve watered our youth ministries down with these next three things and the kids don’t even know who Jesus is when they graduate from or leave our youth groups. 1. Morality – we teach our kids to be good…problem is, if we teach our kids not to watch rated R movies or listen to “bad” music, they can become morally superior to everyone and no one likes them…we can’t teach them to be moral without Jesus. 2. Compromise – Everyone gets caught up in this game. We think that if a lot of kids come to our group and we do all kinds of fun things, we have a great ministry. But in reality, we are compromising who Jesus is to have a great crowd show up. Sometimes, youth ministries let kids show up and say it’s ok to do what you are doing and not repent. When they do this, they are leaving Jesus out of the picture…allowing compromise to creep into that ministry. 3. Personal Agendas – Don’t ever let your personal agenda trump the Gospel! We make our own personal agendas the agenda of the youth group. If we put anything in front of the cross, it becomes an idol in our ministry. Let’s worship God in splendor and majesty rather than trying to boil him down to fit into our social agendas.

For stewardship:

Perry’s prayer is that our prayer would be that we look at God and say “give me the ball…I’ll be hurt and play hurt, but I’ll do whatever it takes to push the ball down the field…I want the ball!” Perry said that in Acts 20:12, the youth ministry got brought back up and the church embraced stewardship…they said they want the ball.

We can do it, no matter how small our budget is. But if our attitude is that we want the ball, money doesn’t matter. It doesn’t happen because of lights, sound systems, looks, but because there is a sold out man and team saying give us the ball…and they are sold out for Jesus. Perry says that the senior pastor needs to make sure the youth ministry has everything they need and the youth pastor needs to sit down with his senior pastor and find out what his vision is…and then line up with that.

God’s plan is that youth ministry will thrive in the context of the local church to make a difference. When the church gets that right, it is on fire and is an unstoppable force!

Perry closed with the following comments:

“It’s always hard when we do what Jesus calls us to do. When we think it’s hard, may we think of Jesus hanging on the cross and bleeding! If no one else tells you this, I (Perry Noble) believe that you are the difference makers. Out of your ministries will be the next Billy Graham and other amazing church leaders! We will not fall…we want the ball!”

-          paulg

YouthWorks takes over Youth Specialties…

For the last month or so, there has been much uncertainty in the youth ministry world as to what would happen to the youth ministry giant Youth Specialties after 7-year president Mark Oestreicher was released from the company. Marko was released and all the info that was given to the youth ministry world was found at this link: Statement by Moe Girkins, President and CEO of Zondervan.

This is my third convention and because of the uncertainty of what was going on with Youth Specialties, I had mixed feelings about coming to the National Youth Workers Convention this year. I didn’t know how it would be without Marko and Tic Long and I honestly wasn’t sure if I wanted to find out. But I came (obviously) and I was very glad that I did. After Andy Stanley’s message to us about uncertainty, the announcer for the convention (who I think was Mark Matlock) called a youth worker named Paul Bertelson up onto the stage for what appeared to be one of their normal interviews where they ask long time youth workers questions and give them a huge round of applause and a thank you! But this was different. After we found out that Paul was a 38-year youth ministry veteran who started his own company (YouthWorks) to help youth workers get the resources they needed. After we found out a little info about who he was, the announcer then called out another special guest, Moe Girkins, the President and CEO of Zondervan.

The announcer then proceeded to ask Moe some questions. He started off by saying that there are a lot of youth workers out there who have written nasty blogs and said some harsh things about her and her company after they released Marko. After that, his main question was: “Does it suck to be Moe Girkins right now?” She answered that yes it does suck to be her right now, but not always. She then said a few nice things about Tic and Marko and thanked them for how much they meant to the company and the youth workers all over the world. She announced the opportunity to write Marko and Tic a note to say thank you. Now (the day after), there are boxes set up for both of those guys and they are filling up pretty quickly. After that, Moe began to announce the shift that is going to take place where youth specialties will be sold to YouthWorks. The link to this acquisition can be found here: – - – -> YS gets sold to YouthWorks

When I first heard this, I was a bit skeptical. And now that I’ve had a few days to think about it, I realize that it was for selfish reasons. I love YS the way it is and the way it has been since I have started coming to their conventions. I did not want to see change, and I honestly (along with other youth workers) thought that it was going to be a change for the worse. But after doing some searching around on the internet and reading some of my youth ministry friends’ blogs, I found a very encouraging note about the deal between YS and YouthWorks. It comes from YS’s Online Marketing and eCommerce guy, Adam McLane. Adam said this:

“So the news is out. I am very happy the news is out. When I saw the presidents of Z and YW together yesterday I really hoped that the news would come out. It was a very exciting/somber (and a bunch more adjectives/adverbs) moment to be a part of. For me, the bottom line was that the news was getting out and that is good.

The people at YouthWorks are good people. (That’s been clear in the blogs/twitter/Facebook) The people at Zondervan are good people. (That hasn’t been clear, but trust me when I say that they are good people, too.)

Now… this weekend isn’t about Youth Specialties, YouthWorks, Zondervan, or even me. It’s about serving and encouraging youth workers!”

To see someone on the inside of Youth Specialties say such encouraging words is a great thing. It certainly changed my outlook on the whole deal and now I am hopeful for the future of the company and conventions that I learn from, grow during/from, and love so much!

It backed up Andy Stanley’s message that uncertainty is always going to be a part of ministry. My post about that message can be found here.I don’t know what the future will hold for these two companies, for the conventions, and for the thousands upon thousands of youth workers who attend the conventions each year. But I do know that it is a necessity for us to pray for them. So regardless of our negative thoughts/opinions on the whole ordeal, let’s leave it up to God and start/continue to pray for it and all the people that are involved!

-          paulg

Uncertainty, Clarity, and Flexibility…

This is part two of my day one blog. Later on in the day, at the Big Room event (the main session where everyone is together), Andy Stanley brought an excellent message about uncertainty that I will not soon forget! Now I know that Andy usually preaches pretty fast, but what he brought was like a machine gun with the trigger held in. It was non-stop goodness. I typed over four pages of notes on my computer and my fingers were aching afterwards.

Andy started off by giving us the following statements: “I may be in charge but I don’t always know what to do. I may be in charge but I don’t have all the answers. If I knew what was going to happen, then I’d know what to do. Every leader to some extent is clueless (we just don’t want the people following us to figure that out). When it comes to leadership, there is so much uncertainty and it never ever ever goes away!” He went on to say that we will always have limited information and we will never know what the future holds. And then he had us repeat the following statement: “I will always be uncertain, I’m certain of it!”

One of Andy’s main points was that we will always face uncertainty as leaders. It is a normal and permanent part of leadership. If everything was predictable then there would be absolutely no need for pastors (leadership). God always got the best mileage out of uncertainty. When God does amazing things, it usually isn’t during a day when nothings is going wrong…it’s usually when there is some degree of uncertainty.

In the midst of uncertainty, Andy said that there are two things we should turn to: clarity and flexibility. In times of uncertainty there is a need for leadership to retreat back to being clear and flexible. Clarity trumps uncertainty in an organization every single time. When times are uncertain in our local church, family, organization, etc…that is the time for the leaders to step up and be absolutely crystal clear about what God has called us to do. Clarity in the time of uncertainty is what positions and surfaces leaders in an organization. An illustration of this comes from the scriptures in the transition between Moses and Joshua. Joshua was good at wondering because his mentor was (Moses). And then God wanted him to lead an army into battle. Talk about uncertainty!

Joshua had no clue what to do so he told the people that there is stuff that he doesn’t know, but in three days they would be crossing the Jordan and taking the land that God has promised them. That’s leadership in uncertain times! It’s the definition of pure leadership! Next, Andy gave us a quote/philosophy/vision from Steve Jobs (former owner of Apple) that said: “We’ve got to focus on what we can be good at and stop everything else…we are going to build easy to use computers.”  Steve Jobs did what every leader has to do in times of uncertainty. He stepped back into what he knew for sure…stepped back from the numbers and chaos of a hurting/dying company and reinvigorated them!

What has God called us to do in our ministries? What has God called our student ministries to do in our communities? What has God called our church to do in our community or our world?

Andy said that clarity in times of uncertainty will move your organization forward. You don’t have to have a cute phrase for your vision, but you also shouldn’t have a huge paragraph. We need to figure out what the one thing that God has called us to do is. For Steve Jobs, it was to build computers that are easy to use! Certainty around the calling of God is extraordinarily powerful, and that’s where we have to retreat. It has to be crystal clear what God has called us to do, in our mind and on our lips!

Next, Andy talked about flexibility. In times of uncertainty, there needs to be incredible flexibility. Plans change, but vision should stay the same. What Andy said next was great. He said: “Fall in love with your vision, but date your plans. Marry your vision and just fool around with your plans. You’ve got to stay extraordinarily committed…plans are going to change!” If we ever confuse our vision with our mission, we are sunk…because plans WILL fail!

Another quote that jumped out at me was: “Fundraising is a plan; church planting is a mission and a vision…if you get them confused, you’re in trouble!” We can’t abandon the mission and vision because of a failed plan.

We must help our leaders, elders, and deacons to understand the difference between vision and approach. Approach may change numerous times…plans change…but vision always remains the same! Andy says we need to be stubborn with our vision and flexible in our plans.

There was so much good content in Andy Stanley’s message to youth workers but one of the most important things that I snagged up from it was what he said about leadership. He said that leadership is not about making decisions on your own, but standing up and owning the decisions as a team. He went on to tell us about the wisest man in the world (Solomon) who had the most to say about seeking counsel from others. Even though he knew the most out of anyone ever, he still saw it wise to seek the teams’ advice on things. Leadership is about owning decisions once you made them with a multitude of wise counselors, not alone!

-          paulg

Story, Experience, and Collaboration…

Wow, what a day! I won’t be writing about everything in this one post. That would be way too lengthy. So I have decided to break it up into a few separate posts.

Today was the official first day of the youth specialties convention in Atlanta. I have been here since Wednesday night though. I planned to arrive early so I could attend the pre-convention intensive training seminar that was offered. The one that I chose to attend was taught by Mike Novelli, Mark Novelli, and Kelly Dolan and was called “Story, Experience, and Collaboration.” It was a six hour course (split up in to two three hour courses), thus the term “intensive” before the training seminar! I chose this one because one of the presenters was the guy that wrote the book (Shaped by the Story) that I recently bought and started reading. This new method of teaching has intrigued me for some time now and I was continually told by many of my youth pastor friends to get the above-mentioned book. Whenever I found out the author of the book was leading the seminar, I knew that it was the one for me.

Mike and Mark are twins so half of the time I never knew which one was speaking, which is why I liked when Kelly spoke; it was easy to distinguish who he was! The seminar started off with Mike showing a clip of Louis CK from Conan O’Brien called “Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy.” The clip was a comedic one that basically stated that we live in a world where everything is amazing (we have everything at our fingertips/disposal) but no one is happy. He showed this to illustrate that this emergent generation are not idiots, but their expectations have changed. How we learn things, how we view the world, and how we interact with each other have all changed. Typical forms of worship, engagement, faith formation, and spiritual community do not work well with these students. As a result, this should change the way that we do ministry.

Mike told us a story of how he noticed that most of his students were very busy, but not very deep. To try to solve this, he tried his favorite method of inductive Bible study (an analytical method of looking at a specific text). In this method, you ask specific questions to learn. Mike then told us a story of one of his students that when asked what he thought about the new method of learning, said: “I like that we are learning the Bible, and I think that it is important that we do, but I don’t think that this is the way that I learn!” This blew Mike away and got him to start thinking: “Is the Bible intimidating, boring, or irrelevant?” and “when do they begin to experience, interact with, and enjoy this story (of the Bible) for themselves?”

At Mike’s next church, he tried a new form of teaching with them that he learned form a missionary in Uganda. He tried a method of teaching known as “storying.” In storying, learning is now the hearer’s responsibility. Storying is not about memorizing Bible stories, but it is about it becoming their own story! They can see themselves in the people in the story and how they should and shouldn’t live! One student’s comment about storying is as follows:

“It made me realize…I need to live for the author! God has a story for my life and I am excited to discover and I want to share it with others. God’s amazing story is what we’ve been waiting for our entire lives.” – Michelle (High School Junior)

Mike saw a breakthrough and that the story was really rooted in these students (like Michelle). The students knew where they fit in to the story and that they are a continuation of that story. Something changed in his students; something lasting…there was formation in it!

This idea of storying has really got me thinking and trying to find ways to incorporate it and use it in my youth ministry. One of the main reasons I want to try to implement this is because of the following statistics:

We retain:

• 10% of what we read
• 20% of what we hear
• 30% of what we see
• 50% of what we see and hear
• 70% of what is discussed with others
• 80% of what we experience personally
• 95% of what we teach someone else

If our students can experience God’s story personally and then teach it to others, imagine how drastically different our youth ministries, churches, and world would be!

- paulg

Prayer: Why Don’t We Do It?

Today, I had the privilege of speaking at one of the high schools near my church. The principal there called me months ago and asked me if I would be willing to speak at their chapel. I chose today because it fit best with my schedule. The purpose of my speaking there was two-fold. One reason was because I felt that God opened the door for me to speak, and the second was that it offered the possibility of helping my youth group to grow. I know that may sound selfish, but it’s one of the bargaining points that the principal used when presenting me with the opportunity. He said that he requires his students to be a member of a youth group and that some of them haven’t found a youth group to belong to yet. If you haven’t figured it out yet, the school I spoke at was a Christian school. There were about 50 students present, 3 of which are members of my youth group. It was nice to hear them get excited that their youth pastor was coming to their school to speak!

I spoke on “prayer” and entitled my message: “What’s a Christian to do?” In my initial talks with the principal of that school, he revealed to me that he is ashamed to see that most of the students there don’t pray. I don’t know if he meant that they don’t ever pray, and I also don’t think that he can determine that. But he did know that he rarely sees them pray before lunch each day. So I took what he told me, prayed about it, and ran with it. My main point was that often times; people don’t know what it means to be a Christian. I’ve run into too many people who think that in order to be a Christian, all they have to do is go to church once a week. Prayer is one of the most important aspects of the Christian life (along with the Word of God) and that was the message that I was trying to get across to them.

Another point I hit them with was that sometimes, people think they are too busy to pray. You’ve done it, the principal of the school has done it, I’ve done it (that’s for sure), and I’m sure that most Christians have done it. We live in a society and culture where busyness is the norm. More and more these days, kids are trained to go from one thing to the next. Wake up, eat breakfast, go to school, come home,  start homework, go to a sports practice or game, come home, eat dinner, do more homework, etc, etc, etc… Did you notice that church wasn’t involved in that list? Usually, at least from what I’ve seen so far, homework and sports come before youth group and church. It’s a sad but true reality! Because of this extreme busyness that we all have in our lives, we often leave little to no time to communicate with God through prayer. This should not be the case…at all!

In the Bible, an excellent example of someone who understood the importance of prayer was…you guessed it…Jesus! Jesus was a very busy man who had people to teach, sicknesses and diseases to heal, miracles to perform, an enemy to fight, and a life to live as an example to others. But even though Jesus was insanely busy and had a ton of good reasons not to pray, He still found time to communicate with His Father in Heaven!

Luke 5:15-16 says:

“Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”

This passage is just one example of Jesus’ extreme busyness. Word started to spread about the work and miracles that Jesus was doing and more and more people came to hear what He had to say and to be healed of their sicknesses and diseases. But as we see in the passage, Jesus often “withdrew” to lonely places (this means He went away…by Himself) to pray and spend time with His Father in Heaven! This passage should serve as a great example to us. Jesus displayed a very real sense of closeness with God that I believe we should all try to imitate. Jesus lived and prayed like He believed that prayer worked and it kept Him focused and in-touch with God. The great news is that it can do the same for us!

To illustrate the point that we need to talk to God on a regular basis, I included a poem that I found in one of my sermon illustration books.

“I woke up late, no time to pray, I hurried off to school.

I failed to take advantage of this important tool.

Throughout the day I ran about, I had no time to kneel.

When dinner came, I failed again, to thank God for my meal.

When day was done, I went to bed, to get the rest I needed.

But once again the Bible’s call for prayer was left unheeded.

One busy day my soul was called, to answer for my deeds;

And as I stood, I realized I had denied its needs.

My name was called, and I stepped up to hear my sentence quote;

Yet all I got, to my surprise, was a little paper note;

And on this note God had written a message, oh, so true.

“You always failed to talk to me, why should I speak to you?”

Every time I read this poem, it makes me think back to all the times in my life where I was too “busy” to talk to God. I pray that it did that for all of those High School students today as well!

As I stated earlier, prayer and the Word of God are two of the most important aspects of the Christian life. If you take out the spark of prayer, and the gas of God’s Word, then you will never have a fire!

Now, as I am 37,000 feet in the air (on my way to the national youth workers convention) in Atlanta, Georgia, I was able to do some thinking and I realize that God had me prepare and deliver a message on prayer because I needed to hear it myself! I have allowed myself to become so “busy” that I rarely give God the time that He deserves. That will soon change though.

I want to end this post with some questions that I asked during my talk today. I’m not only asking you this; I’m asking myself as well!

Don’t we believe in prayer? Don’t we know what it could mean in our lives? Then why don’t we pray?

My question for you is this: Do you struggle with this as well? Are you too busy to spend time communicating with your Father in Heaven?

God wants to be our friends. He wants to be there for us through thick and thin. If we don’t talk to Him, our friendship will not grow. We know that prayer is important to our lives, so why don’t we do it?

-          paulg

Fear of God: The Wrong Kind…

Occasionally I will have an idea in my mind that I let percolate for quite some time before I put the words onto paper, or in this case, onto the internet. This particular story took place around three months ago and I have been meaning to write about it ever since.

As most of you know, I took my youth group to Texas to work at a camp for foster children back in August. It was a very challenging week, to say the least. You can read about some of the chaos in this post Texas Missions Trip – Day 6… ! It was a life-changing week for my students and I. We saw the hurt that is present in most of the kids at that camp. They came from a wide variety of backgrounds (financial, ethnic, religious, etc…) but they all had one thing in common: they came from broken families. Some of them came from a background of drugs, alcohol, and abuse, while others just came from a background of parents that didn’t want them.

Those kids were not foster kids; they are kids who are forced to live in the foster care system. It wasn’t anything they did, it wasn’t their choice, and they shouldn’t be looked down upon because of it. I developed a heart for those kids that week and I will never forget the relationships built and impact that was made in their lives. There was one thing that deeply moved me, and that is what I will be writing about today…

After the speaker finished his message during one of the final services of the week, each kid was to write down what they were thankful for as well as what they were afraid of on separate post-it-notes. After they were done, they were to take the post-it-note with their fears and stick it to a giant wooden cross that was in the front of the room. This signified that they were surrendering their fears to Jesus and leaving them at the Cross. Since all of these kids were between the ages of 9 and 12, they weren’t very tall, so I went up to help my campers stick their post-it-notes up high on the cross. After I got done helping some of my campers stick their fears on the cross, I went back to see the progress that one particular camper was making (I am not legally allowed to say his name) on his thankfulness and fears. The camp nurse was also helping him. He was saying things like, “I ain’t afraid of nothin’!” To this, to get him laughing, I said, “what about me? I’m way bigger than you are…and I have tattoo’s…you should be afraid of me!” He then leaned over to the nurse and said, “Yeah, that’s true…but I still ain’t afraid of him!” After this, I walked around to a few of my other campers to see their progress and when I came back, the nurse told me she needed to talk to me about something and pulled me into the kitchen…

As soon as we got out of sight of the campers, she started bawling and told me that she got that little boy to tell her what he was really afraid of. He told her that he was afraid of God and that God was punishing him! I saw her heart break right there in front of me for that little boy, and mine broke too. My heart broke because of the unfairness that these kids face everyday due to the poor decisions of their biological parents. As I mentioned earlier, it is not their (the kids) fault that they are in this living situation, but it is the cards that they have been dealt and they have no choice in the matter. It’s just sad to hear that they blame God and think that He is punishing them.

The nurse asked me to please talk to him and let him know that God is not punishing him and that He loves him! I gave her my word that I would and later that afternoon, I pulled the camper aside and did my best to talk to him. He wasn’t very willing to talk, but I know that Jesus’ words, spoken through me, got into his heart and his mind. I pray that they did and that he learns that God is the only person that can fill any void he has in his life!

The organization that we worked for (Arrow Child and Family Ministries) sent me a poster that contained some of the post-it-notes that the campers wrote. Some examples of what they wrote are as follows…

“Afraid of losing my brothers and sisters.”

“Hope to see you in next two months mom. I miss you! And hope you get better.”

“I want to go back home to my mom.”

“I want to go home with my real parents.”

“I want a new family who can love me more.”

“I want to be adopted.”

“My biological father abused my mom.”

These are just a few of the things that these kids wrote. Please pray for the camper I wrote about, as well as the millions of other children who have concerns like the ones listed above! Thank you!

-          paulg