This is completely and utterly fascinating. What a wonderful conversation - Krista Tippett is a wonderful host and opens up a wonderful dialogue.

I listened and watched completely enraptured.

I won’t spew out any of my opinions and muddy this beautiful and helpful dialogue about such a complex issue.

Check it out here.
(you can download an mp3 of the edited version - and you can view a video of the complete discussion - check out the page completely)

ht - Mike King

A couple of weekends ago I had the opportunity to spend some time in a quiet spiritual retreat. It was a much needed and great opportunity. I spent a good portion of my time watching birds and sitting on a porch (when I wasn’t facilitating a couple of sessions).

My awareness of God and my time listening was pretty keen - which shocked me!

I held on to four words from my time… they were:

ALL
Will
Be
Well

The four words heard at four separate times made a pretty cool phrase.

Pretty amazing.

I am/was encouraged.

May we join with the Christian community in praying for our brothers and sisters of The Little Portion Hermitage in Berryville, Arkansas. As you may or may not be aware fire destroyed their chapel and common building and offices in the very early morning hours on April 29, 2008 - everything was a loss. Fortunately, from what I can tell no one was seriously injured.

Join your hearts in praying that love, grace, beauty and hope will spring from this community in the midst of their great loss.

You can read John Michael Talbot’s reflections on the tragedy here.

It is such a beautiful and glorious thing when heaven touches earth. It is always an awe inspiring moment to glimpse some evidence of God’s Kingdom revealed here. It is what I sensed as I read the post written by Jeremy Bouma.

For two years I taught middle school in a rural Virginia school. It was a meaning-filled and life-changing experience - one I treasure to this day, with great memories, so many lessons learned and besides what I gained, I loved teaching. It also gave me a new perspective on what kids (and my child) endure at school - the stresses, the competitiveness, the social pressure and for many the cruelty of their peers. I also witnessed the special kind of rudeness that many kids reserved for the lunch room (often at the expense of those who served them).

So it was especially touching to read Jeremy’s post, here is how he begins,

So about a month ago a high school senior whom I mentor at the church I’ve begun interning at wrote me an email. Here is a piece of it:

Oh! And I have a question for Jon, but I’ll run it by you quick too. I want to organize a dinner for our lunch ladies at school. Do you think it’d be possible to use the kitchen and tables at Fellowship? Cam and I have been chatting about it a little bit, and thought it was a good location, if it all worked out.

I positively melted!

Two graduating seniors from a local public high school wanted to love on the ladies who have served them for four years by providing a dinner at our church!

How
cool
is
that?!

Continue reading Jeremy’s post entitled, This Is Why I Do What I Do here.

ht - light lady

The Association of Youth Ministry Educators published a study back in 2002 and I just stumbled across it. It would be terrific for someone to follow up and see if the findings are still true. They measured a ton of stuff among active and former youth workers - studying length of tenure in youth ministry locations; age when a person began the ministry; salary information; as well as satisfaction or “well-being” in a number of categories.

The issue that jumped out at me for obvious reasons was, most former youth workers (over 70%) reported that their relationship with God improved dramatically upon leaving full-time youth work.

That should tell us something.

It seems to me that the current or dominant models of “doing” youth ministry are not healthy for those who are carrying it out. Or the majority of those who are carrying out the dominant models of youth ministry are employing the current ministry models in a fashion that is detrimental to their spiritual health.

Something needs to change. This is unacceptable.

It is an older study - but I have a hunch based solely on my own anecdotal evidence gathered over many breakfasts and lunches with youth workers over the past few years - and I bet a new study would find very similar findings.

———————–
ADDENDUM - by the way my own experience reinforces the findings of this study.

Do you get those crazy questions or thoughts that won’t let you go? They just keep rolling around in your mind - hitting you when you least expect it or hounding you when all you want to do is “veg-out?” Those mosquitoes on the mind just keep buzzing and buzzing in a threatening kind of way. I have had one of those suckers poking about my mind and heart the past couple of days - don’t know where it came from or when it will leave cause the question gets too close to “what it’s all about.” It is a question that I think right now I can’t answer the way I “should.” The answer is too revealing and disappointing.

I wish I could just smack this mosquito and put an end to this buzzing in my head.

The question:
Am I living from a posture or position of willfulness or willingness?

[Willfulness being a posture of stiff-armed distance that projects, “I am in control here;” and willingness is the position of the Gethsemane prayer, “not my will, but Thine be done.”]

The statement above is one I actually recall asking. I have thought it more often than I’d like along the Way as well. It is what motivated me to post the pictures in the previous post.

When you have been walking after God for 20+ years or far less for that matter - we can begin to think that merely accumulating years accounts for the growth of our soul. We know cognitively that this is false, but we can still believe it on other levels. So when the Mystery of the Universe comes in with a cosmic pruning shear or a chain saw and begins to lop off years of accumulated “growth” - it seems a fair question…

Is God killing me? Or keeping me?

Pruning and reshaping can sound pastoral and even “pretty” but as we go through the process we begin to see it as the great spiritual writer and mystic and poet St. John of the Cross states it, “the dark night of the soul.” We see it in light of the pain and desperation of Elijah’s flight to the desert. We begin to emote with our Lord in Gethsemane. And we begin to see beyond the burning hearts to the desperation and hopelessness of the pilgrims who couldn’t even recognize their Messiah and Master before them on the Emmaus road.

And if you have ever spent a sleepless night tossing and turning you know how LONG a night can last.

In these times of pruning and shaping the Spring time offers some hope. My faith can stop shaping me into question marks and for a moment I can rest and take hope in the buds and new life emerging around me.

So today I choose to say, the Potter prunes and reforms that I might in time reflect the Glory of my Maker even more.

In the beginning O God
You shaped my soul and set its weave
You formed my body
and gave it breath.
Renew me this day
in the image of your love.
O great God, grant me your light
O great God, grant me your grace
O great God, grant me your joy this day.
And let me be made pure
in the well of your health.
(prayer by J. Philip Newell from Celtic Prayers from Iona)

“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15. 1-5 NLT)

happy earth day.

Ministry can be a deceptive thing. We can begin to do ministry as a big fish in a small pond mentality pretty quickly (starting to think ministry is about us - rather than the bigger picture of being a small part of God’s grand epic - the unfolding and revealing of God’s Kingdom). We can begin to have poor motives - ambition; success mentality and using people to forward our own agenda can all start to seep in and get mixed into our “ministry approach.”

So how do we avoid or at least attempt to keep our motives and ministry approaches fresh and pure? Regular time away with God and laying our motives before Him can be a great practice. Another simple practice is inviting a trusted friend who knows you and your ministry for feedback providing us another perspective on how we are doing. It takes rigorous discipline and some uncomfortable practices to serve God well and according to His will and way.

In that spirit here are 10 questions that could help in revealing and correcting our motives that can cloud and corrupt our best ministry.

Ten Questions: Ministry
By Craig Groeschel

1. Is our vision so big that we obviously can’t accomplish it without God?

2. Am I doing ministry from memory or from fresh direction from God?

3. What ministry (or program or meeting) has lost its effectiveness and should be stopped?

4. Is there a person who needs to be moved to another role (or removed), and I haven’t done it?

5. What faith risk is God calling me to take?

6. Have I repented to my team at least once in the last year for a failure in leadership?

7. Have I done everything in my power to make sure my team is living without unconfessed sin?

8. Am I expressing love and care for my team members’ families?

9. Am I living with delayed obedience toward God in any area of leadership?

10. Is Jesus my sole motivation for ministry or has my motivation become clouded?

69%How Addicted to Apple Are You?

ONLY 69 percent?! Unbelievable… what just cause I didn’t own a G-3?!

Doesn’t my 128 K first gen mac account for something?

I am powered by APPLE baby - and proud of it!!