I can’t sleep.

I keep running the night through my mind, going over the events in youth group and what happened afterwards. One event sticks out in my mind. I ended up spending the rest of the night after youth group with one of my boys (his key broke off in a frozen door lock and he was stranded until his mother got home). He came with me to Pierced, an emergent generation service that I attend at a church here in town. It was neat having him see my world outside of the church I work at.

After Pierced we went to Panda Express for dinner. I have been thinking a lot lately about being intentional in my conversations with students, so I asked him this question, and the following dialogue ensued.

I asked, “Why do you come to youth group?”

“I think it’s important to be involved with a religious group - I don’t go to church anymore, so that is what youth group is to me now.”

“Why do you think it’s important to be involved with a religious group?”

“It helps me attain my religious goals.”

“What are your religious goals?”

After a period of thought, he responded, “To be in the 20%.”

All I could say was, “Good answer.”

A couple of weeks ago I challenged the students with the statistic that 80% of high school students who claim to be Christians walk away from their faith by the end of college. We talked about the why’s, how’s, what to do’s, and all that good stuff. My goal? To encourage the students in a personal desire to be in that 20% - in everything that it entails.

What a perfect answer. What an encouragement! Youth ministry is often a thankless job. I can spend ten hours in preparation for a message, deliver it perfectly, and get zero response from the students. You never have any idea what they’re thinking. You never get the, “Great sermon, pastor Bryan” at the end of youth group. When my vision of success is being faithful with what God has called me to, and that right now being the discipleship of a handful of students on the westside of Colorado Springs, I can never tell how successful or un-successful I am. I can point to a positive growth trend in numbers, but so can the art department at the local high school. There is no correlation between numbers of students in attendance and spiritual growth. I can see the depth of my relationships with the various students in my life, but so can a big brother from the boys and girls club. Again, no correlation. There is really no way to measure the spiritual growth of the students until years down the road. And even then the kicker is that it is the Spirit of God that actually induces the spiritual growth! All I can do is be faithful to get God’s word to their ears. He has to get it to their hearts.

“I want to be in the 20%.” Beautiful, encouraging words.

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Do you ever notice how theology is found in the strangest of places? I watched the movie Elf tonight (great movie - Will Farrell cracks me up) and couldn’t help but noticing how much it resembled today’s culture.

Towards the end of the movie Santa ends up in NYC flying the sleigh and takes a crash landing. The jet turbine engine beneath the sleigh broke down. In the old days (pre-60’s the movie says) the sleigh flew merely by “Christmas Spirit”, people believing in Santa. So the sleigh breaks down, Buddy (Will Farrell) the elf who is trapped in New York sees Santa crash and goes to help. Santa explains the situation about a lack of Christmas spirit and buddy says, “Why don’t you just go show yourself to everybody so they will believe?” Santa chuckles and says, “No, it’s not by seeing that they will believe.”

Interesting. Jesus said the same thing.

We are living in a postmodern society where “truth is relative”. The idea of a religion or faith that is exclusive is repulsive to many people in today’s culture. We as Christians have transplanted this exclusivity to anything that carries a label of “Christian.” We often refuse to recognize truth in Buddhism, Mormonism, Existentialism, or any other -ism that we can come up with. But truth is truth regardless of the label. Before you scream, “Heretic!” let me explain.

Some of these thoughts are stolen from Rob Bell and hearing him speak this weekend. This is me citing him.

All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future-all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God - 1Cor3:21b-23. Cool. If this is God’s world (he made it), then it is full of elements that are reflective of God. CS Lewis uses this argument in Mere Christianity to show the existence of a god. Elements such as a common morality within people, a common desire to explain where we came from, a common search for divinity, etc. Jesus claimed that “I am the truth…” (John 14:6). If the world is God’s, and Jesus is God, and Jesus is the truth, and Jesus is in God, then anything that is truth is of God. We don’t have to be afraid of truth found outside the tenets of our faith. Rather we need to rise up and claim what is ours - because everything is ours! All things! Rather than saying, “Don’t watch Harry Potter,” let’s use Harry Potter to draw connections to the truth that is in Christ! Let’s sift the God born truth that exists in this world from the lies and deception of Satan and claim what is rightfully ours!

“God is raising up a generation of tour guides - who will claim truth wherever they find it - and will show others, helping them to experience the big God. If we keep asking questions we will end up at Jesus! All things are ours! It is time for the Church to leave the intellectual ghetto and claim the world that is ours. We have the freedom to claim the truth no matter who or what it comes from!” - Rob Bell

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Flying home. My mind is flooded with emotions and information permeating every inch of my being. My body cannot help but be exhausted from the strain of the past five days - but my mind is alive with the wonderment of what comes next. What will change in my ministry paradigms? What will change in my living relationship with a living Christ?

“Always preach the gospel; if necessary, use words.” On the subway trip to the airport this afternoon I and three other youth ministers from Minnesota engaged in various conversations with the people on the train. We laughed. We talked about the weather. We talked about youth pastoring. And I know that those people noticed a difference in our personalities. We had been rained on (a lot) also, yet there was still a joy that transcended the frustrations that we shared with sucky weather. Then while waiting for a delayed plane, in small talk with the woman sitting next to me she said, “well we’ll pray that you make your connecting flight.” A few moments later she asked me what I do, and I told her that I was a youth pastor. She was very excited at this and said something that will stick with me the rest of my life. “Really?? I normally don’t talk about praying with strangers, but for some reason I felt like I could with you. Now I understand why.” How cool.

That is my prayer. That something is exuberated from my being that screams difference - something that speaks of spiritual change. I don’t want what defines me to be as surface level and legalistic as my actions (although those are important). I believe that the culture we are living in wants to see something authentic. Something real. Real, broken, human people attempting to live a life of holiness, motivated to joy by the overwhelming grace that has been given us. I want my difference to be seen in my smile. In the shimmer of life radiated on my eyes. In the conversations that go beyond weather and sports teams. I want to be real. Vulnerable. Authentic. Holy. Who I am: Disobiedient, but ultimately a child of God, loved by a father who is unfailing, and struggling daily to attain the holiness that I desire. The best part of all this is that I can’t do it. I simply can’t. With every pure and noble desire of my heart driving me I simply do not have the ability… by myself that is. But I do have God on my side! How sweet the sound of that is.

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I am trying to distract myself from the painful noises of “Lost and Found”… have I ever mentioned how much I hate sucky Christian productions? Anyways - I thought of a sweet image. I bawled my eyes out Sunday night. However, much of what brought me back to a smiling point was the community that surrounded me.

I had not known anybody in this community before Friday. I was sitting amongst three people who knew each other well, Todd, Harlan, and Shannon, all from Kansas City. Also there was John from Ottawa, Canada, and Joe from somewhere else that I don’t remember. But the point is this… I was sitting between Todd and Shannon - and when I watched the video that shook me up, they knew enough of my story and were observant enough to notice how I was being affected. A supporting hand and hug was offered, and a Wendy’s napkin was given.

How cool. Since the core of our beings is identical - Christ - then we can be unified to such a deep and intimate level within 36 hours of meeting. What a lesson - especially with all the trust issues that I have had.

However, the message that evening shook everybody else up. I found myself between two crying individuals, arms wrapped around each other, standing together seeking God in the desert - rather than seeking to evacuate the desert. When I saw Shannon’s tears dripping onto her notes I sought a tissue - yet all I found was my used napkin from earlier. And she took it, used it, and I almost lost it again as I thought about how beautiful that image is. How God must have smiled at that moment! How He must have wept with us. Shared tears, mixed in a Wendy’s napkin. Shared moments within a paradoxical community. Unity within the body. It was beautiful.

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Howdy from Atlanta! Of course most of y’all won’t see this ‘til sometime Wednesday or later, it is officially 3:13 eastern time for me on Monday afternoon. For the first time I have had a somewhat free moment to sit down and try to synthesize some thoughts into text.

I must say that I am overwhelmed. To pack this much information into 4 days and also the element of spiritual challenge, I’m pretty drained. Program goes ‘til 11:30pm; I am of course still on mountain time and also a social butterfly wanting to meet as many people as I possibly can, so thus I get to bed around 1:30, and then I’m back up at 7 to make it to the 8am seminar on time.

However, all whining aside, I have met some incredible people. I have been running with a community of loners - several of us who came here with nobody and have bonded together in the common need of fellowship. I have gotten excited about changing students lives - I feel like returning to Gateway proclaiming, here I come kids!!!

Even more challenging, I got busted up last night. For no apparent reason, they showed a video of a youth pastor from San Clemente, CA who has been through a challenging time of two deaths close together in time. I know exactly how she feels. The video brought many of the emotions that I am still dealing with to the surface, and the music following that video brought me to a point of sobbing tears. After twenty minutes of crying and an intense time of worship and emotional struggle and confusion, this is what I wrote. This happened Sunday night at the general session.

How hard it is for myself to sing words like “how good you are to me” immediately following the remembrance of all the crap and death that has come in my life. But then to sing a song like amazing grace and remember my life as an insignificant vapor who is defined as a child of the LIVING GOD, redeemed by the blood of Christ, prince in the kingdom of God, and loved dearly by the creator of the universe, I can’t help but be overwhelmed and remember how good He truly is to me.

Then the message came. A message about the deserts in our lives. The speaker brought up an interesting point - we so often fear the desert, but the desert is a place that God BRINGS US TO… so that we may be challenged and grounded in Him. There are many examples of biblical characters being brought into the desert - only to be planted and renewed in God. Wow.

I have had so much information thrown at me that I’ve forgotten most of everything that I haven’t heard today. Thank God for notes! I have taken pages and pages of them. Somebody did give some good advice though this week - that I take at least half a day within the week after I get home and process everything - the notes, the tapes - and journal about how to apply all the information to the ministry in general and my life.

Well, that’s all I have for you now. Thanks for reading and praying for me.

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I had a pretty sweet opportunity tonight… it included the opportunity to win $5,000.

Last week I qualified to play in a poker tournament at a club downtown with a prize pool of $10,000 paid out to the top four finishers. I did this by finishing in the top 4 of 30 in a satellite tournament. All this has been done as a promotion - nobody has had to put up a dime to play in these tournaments. Sponsorships and the like have made it all happen.

So at 6pm last night I sit down with 100 other players all playing for a first prize of $5,000 - free. To make a long story short, I got pretty unlucky… and finished 6th. 6th! I would’ve rather had finished 100th! I got a t-shirt and a deck of cards. Are you kidding me? 5th place was a set of chips (about a $130 value), and the top four paid out $5k, $3k, $1500, and $500 respectively. Talk about a disappointment. Well… at least I didn’t lose anything.

Except for some sleep that is. This post is coming in the middle of the night as you may have noticed. I didn’t get out of the club until 2am. At 9am this morning, I will be taking off from Colorado Springs airport and flying to Atlanta for the National Youth Workers Convention. I love these things. They pack 6,000 youth ministers into a convention center and downtown area. My favorite part of it all is looking around and thinking, hey, there’s a bunch of people just as weird as I am here! I am very much looking forward to the resources that I will acquire, the connections I will make, and the excitement and passion that I will be coming home with.

So, pray for me - and I’ll talk with you Wednesday and let you know how it went!

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For the first time Sunday I truly embraced the small church ministry that I am active in right now. It has been a challenge coming from the large ministry paradigm - Forest Home, Bel Air Pres, and Peak 3 - and shifting to a small group setting. Most of the skills that I have learned are no longer applicable. Instead of seventy kids and $12,000 in a budget, I now have seven kids and a $1200 budget. Program does not work. No more worship band, loud PA’s, or church vans. Instead I have been challenged with building a healthy ministry almost from scratch.

So I’ve been learning. I’ve made a transiton from administrator to small group leader. I have been more focused on building relationships with the students rather than developing solid programs. I have become a discussion facilitator rather than a teacher or preacher. And it has been challenging. Especially coming from a paradigm where the larger church wants nothing to do with your program except a weekly report on how numbers are doing.

This Sunday I truly embraced in my heart this style of ministry. I had always known the things that you can do with a small group that you can’t do with a large group and vice versa, but when the youth ministry world is filled with resources for “groups sized twenty to 200!”, it makes you feel very insignificant when you’re excited about having ten.

I challenged the students with this fact on Sunday: “80% of high school students who claim to be christians will no longer make that claim after college.” Pretty crazy. And instead of me talking about this and how crazy it is and how it happens, we discussed it as a group. The students explored the problem for themselves. But the coolest part was this: the students opened up. They were vulnerable. They didn’t give the classic Sunday School answers that they thought I wanted to hear. They shared their hearts, their struggles, doubts, and worries, things that I have never seen in a large group setting before. Yay God - it has been totally encouraging.

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