Category: church

Want to feel better about yourself? Let me help.

Years ago I was at a party. I drank too much, but as a realized I was about to throw up I simultaneously realized that my legs wouldn’t work. Puke was coming but I wasn’t going anywhere, so I did what any reasonable person would do; I pulled my collar out and puked down my shirt.

About that same time I was at another party. The party was over and it was time to go home. I was completely wasted when I got to my car so I decided to sleep right there in the driver’s seat. I woke up in the middle of the night covered in puke again. Oh, and I had crapped my pants.

Want one more?

I went out drinking with my brother one night (there seems to be a common theme here…). On our way home, my brother floored it through the neighborhood, getting a good laugh out of me. You know how some intersections have a dip in them? We hit one of those at about 60 mph and went airborne. We landed and immediately smashed through the back yard fence of someone’s house. There we were, two of society’s finest, in someone’s back yard at 2am. My brother threw it in reverse and we sped home.

Did I say home? I meant to my cousins’ house. I was staying there because I had been kicked evicted from my previous residence. They were a Christian couple with two small children, and the Guard boys were crashing at their place for a while.

We were locked out that night, so my brother went around to the back door. He got in, but forgot about me, and I think I forgot about him… I was woken up by my cousins and their kids as they were leaving for church. They opened the front door  and there I was, passed out on the Welcome mat.

How do you explain that to your 6-year-old?

A few years later I put my faith in Christ and he forgave me. When he forgave me, he forgave a LOT of sins.

I was a parasite, and everyone knew it, but I fell in love with Jesus.

How can you NOT love Jesus?

For example… Jesus is at a fancy party that was thrown by a Pharisee, a member of the “religious elite” in Jesus’ day (Luke 7:36-50).

Things get interesting when the party gets crashed by the town whore. She shows up uninvited, ignores everyone at the party, and falls at Jesus’ feet. She’s a wretched outcast, and she wears that reputation, but she’s heard about the grace of Jesus… and she worships him.

Right there on the spot he forgives her, then he tells the Pharisees that SHE loves God more than THEM! Bold move.

The whore loved him more.

Why?

She knew how bad she was and how bad she needed the grace and forgiveness of Jesus.

I was the whore in the story, but now Jesus calls me His.

Derek Webb explains it well:

I’m not usually a fan of youth ministry games, but this one was phenomenal last Wednesday night.

I brought two pre-selected spitters onto the stage, both pre-selected adult volunteers. They sat down knee-to-knee on their pre-positioned stools and their pre-fitted goggles on.

I then selected two student volunteers to play the game, one representing each of the spitters. Before any of this happened, I bought 18 different liquids that you would hate to have in your mouth OR spit on you. I poured each of them into a plastic cup and placed that cup inside of a numbered paper bag.

Here’s how the game works:

You rotate asking the students questions that you’ve prepared in advance, some difficult and some easy.

When a student gets a question right, they get to select a numbered liquid that their spitter will then spit on the other contestant. When a student gets a question wrong, the opposing team gets to select a numbered liquid that they will spit on the other contestant.

Someone is always getting spit on. You get the question right, your contestant spits. You get the question wrong, your contestant gets spit on.

Some of my favorite picks were vinegar, tabasco sauce, chunky salsa and of course… Pepto Bismol.

Heard this story by Robert Nordling, a professor at Calvin College.

A number of years ago our son was invited to his friend’s 4th birthday party. Bursting with anticipation, he was most excited about finding his friend a birthday present. Finally the great day arrived. We drove our son over to the little boy’s house, took him to the door, met the hosts and then said goodbye. We arrived back a few hours later and quickly saw a much less enthusiastic boy get into the car. We could tell right away that something was up. We asked,

“How was the party son?”

“Oh, alright… I guess.”

“Why? What’s the matter? Didn’t you have a good time?”

“Yes… but I didn’t get any presents!”

“But… um, son, it wasn’t your party.”

Unconvinced and unconsoled, he sat for the rest of the ride home generally depressed by the seeming injustice of it all.

That story comes to life every week in some churches when people’s hopes aren’t met. Tens of thousands of people with thousands of different “worship preferences” attend church every Sunday all over the world. How many of them walk away with the same attitude as that little boy when they say things like, “I didn’t get anything out of it…”.

That story reminds me that worship isn’t an experience for me, it’s a gift for God, on Sundays or any other day. It’s not ultimately about me, it’s about Jesus. I’ve been invited to the party, but it’s not my party. My focus should be on God- not my feelings, likes, dislikes, preferences, emotions or opinions. God should be at the center, not me. I should adjust my preferences to accommodate his feelings, likes, dislikes, preferences, emotions and opinions. If anyone should receive anything on Sundays, it’s Jesus.

Preferences are fine, and it’s OK to like or dislike certain things. We’re human; that’s normal. But our worship should be God-centered, not man-centered. The difference is huge.

Love this.

In a recent sermon at Wine Before Breakfast, Joe AC, pastoral director of Parkdale Neighbourhood Church in Toronto concluded with these modern day Beatitudes from the perspective of our contemporary, self-satisfied church culture. by Joe Abbey-Colborne Blessed are the well off and those …with ready answers for every spiritual question; …they have it all. Blessed are the comfortable; …they shall avoid grief. Blessed are the self-sufficient; … Read More

Sorry, no giveaway here… but I have some good news if you were hoping for one!

There’s a giveaway happening somewhere right this minute. Thousands of them.

New cars, iPods, cash, guns, trinkets of all kinds!!!

If you do a search on Twitter for the phrase “RT to enter” you will find thousands and thousands of giveaways. All of them are giving something away in hopes that by entering their giveaway you will also visit their website, buy their stuff, talk about them, love them, join them, etc… I just went back to the Twitter page where I entered that phrase a few minutes ago and there and already 56 new “RT to enter” tweets ready to load.

Before I say anything else, I should confess that I’ve done my fair share of giveaways. iPods, clothes, money… and all as a youth pastor trying to get kids to come to my group. I always hated it, but I did it because I was told (and believed) that it worked.

It didn’t.

Well, maybe a few kids came hoping they’d win the prize. But for every winner, you’ve created dozens of losers. Was it really a good idea to make 1 kid happy and 99 disappointed?

I got fired a couple years ago for many reasons, but two main ones. I’ll spare you the first reason, but the second was that my attendance wasn’t high enough in my High School Ministry. I was expected to grow 30% every year, or else… I’d done the giveaways at the big events but we weren’t exploding numerically like the rest of the church.  I even did giveaways when my convictions objected, because I needed to fill seats.

I’ve since repented, and it has made all the difference.

Here’s what I suspect is at the subconscious root of most giveaways: Disbelief that what you have to offer is good enough on it’s own, so you sprinkle a giveaway on top. Or perhaps you do have something great to offer, but you have no idea how to get people interested without offering them something sparkly. If you’re a start-up business with tons of potential but no way to get the word out, that’s one thing. If you’re a church group, that’s another.

This thing we’re a part of called church started with a tribe. They were OK with slow. They preferred it. Every time Jesus was around big crowds he scared them away. The early church was a megachurch, but they did it the right way. No gimmicks. No tricks. Just the Good News and the Holy Spirit.

There were no giveaways this year in my youth ministry: Just the Good News and the Holy Spirit doing His thing. We’ve quadrupled in attendance this year. I hate to mention that. I don’t want to sound arrogant. I want to slap my old self in the face with my paltry gimmicks and cowardly approach to ministry. I want a “do over”, but that money is spent.

My advice to ministry leaders in particular, take it or leave it: Stop wasting God’s money on gimmicks. Jesus is enough. If your church or youth group is small, maybe it’s because God wants it small! If it’s huge, right on, but if it’s not… please don’t sell your soul to fill the seats. Please don’t add to the materialistic, consumer mentality by enticing people with junk when what they really need is free for all of us.

I should have aimed this one at youth pastors in particular. There are plenty of you doing giveaways that don’t fall into this category. My hope in writing this is that you’ll zoom out and see how sad giveaways are in a ministry context.

In my opinion 🙂