I’d guess you probably read the title of this one and think, “Ugh. Do I really want to read this?” It’s like a drag before it even gets out of the gate. I understand. And thanks for reading anyway.

We began a new series today in our student ministry and its simply entitled “Life Stinks.” I’m not crazy about the title, but I’ve got to admit–it rings true for so many teens today. Under the fascade of a carefree teenage existence, many teens today are stuck in private pain. Pain that is medicated with a wide variety of elixirs–seeking for acceptance, grades, popularity, sports, delinquency, sexual promiscuity, criminal activity, drinking, drugs, and even suicide. All these things (and more) are the medications of choice to try and dull the pain they feel. The pain that to them, is all too real.

As an adult, the temptation is to be dismissive; call it a phase we all have to go through, give them the proverbial pat on the head, and the oft belittling, “It’ll be okay.”

But will it? Fortunately for most, it indeed will all work out. But getting past the pain isn’t nearly as valuable in the long run as getting through the pain.

When pain of any kind arises in our lives, a very common response is to look for something/someone to blame. To so many, since God is the biggest thing they can think of, He’s the easiest target to hit. A very often asked question is something to the tune of “If God is so loving and powerful, why is there such suffering in the world?” I’d be kidding myself if I didn’t admit that I’ve thought the same question. But blaming God doesn’t make the most sense and it’s certainly not the most constructive route to take.

Do you know what the most repeated question in the Bible is? It’s “How long, O Lord?” It’s question that cries out to God from anguish and pain, asking the Almighty how long He is going to inflict whatever dire circumstance we are in. It’s a question that aches when asked. It’s a question that puts God on the receiving end of a pointed finger of blame.

Now, I’m going to slip into what I consider personally to be a “gray area” of God; that is, one of those things about God that I just don’t get. I don’t understand it. But I’ll be quick to point out that “getting” God isn’t possible anyway. In fact, not “getting” God is at the core of genuine, heart-felt worship of God, if you really consider it.

And the part (or one of them) about God that I don’t understand is found in the book of Job. Job was a man who loved God dearly and did what was right. The Bible calls Job “righteous”. And it seems to me that God not only noticed Job’s righteousness, but even had an occasion to show him off during a conversation with the devil. Read the whole conversation in Job chapter 1. It’s fascinating, troubling, confounding, and utterly intriguing.

The short version of it is that the devil came before God along with some other angels. God asked “where have you been?” The devil said, “Roaming back and forth through the earth.” God said, “Have you considered my servant Job?”

Now, hold on a minute there God! Why are you throwing Job under the bus like that? What gives?!? God goes on to tout Job’s character when He calls Job “upright and blameless” (1:8). Apparently Satan was looking for someone to test and mess with, and it seems that God sold Job right up the river. But don’t be fooled. God has a plan here. It’s subtle and slight at this point in the story, but if you read it through you’ll see some key truths.

In the interest of brevity, here are some tidbits of application from the story of Job:
1. God remains in ultimate control, even when things seem out of control. (1:12)
2. Terrible, unspeakable things DO happen to Godly, wonderful, “upright” people. (1:13-19) (Re-read #1)
3. The choice of response to terrible things happening remains ours. While #1 will always be true, and #2 will be true until the return of Christ, #3 will likewise always be true. (1:20-21)

If you go on to read the following chapters of this incredible story, you’ll follow Job through the pains and triumphs of his wrestle with the good and bad of his own life. He had those who encouraged and supported him, and then there was his wife who’s advice was to “curse God and die.” What a sweetie.

And if you want to get a glimpse into Job’s pain, read chapter 3. And then 4. And then 5. And 6. And 7. In fact, read all the way through chapter 37 and you will begin to understand the tormenting pain Job was in. Here he begins, continues, and ends spilling out his anguished heart to God.

But in chapter 38, it’s God’s turn to speak. And I challenge you that if you ever have a life pain that you don’t know what to do with or don’t know how to address, go read Job chapters 38-41. God gives Job a blasting reminder of his place before a holy God.

We’re surrounded by pain in our world today. Most of it is glossed over with a thin smile and a hurried pace. But make no mistake about it; as humans we are a people in pain.

But the fact remains that from God comes both that which we welcome eagerly and that which if given the choice, we would pass on. The choice remains: Do we shake our fist at God because He’s the easiest to blame, or do we praise God in the pain, allowing us to praise Him through it?

I’ve been living exciting days. My oldest just entered the teens (and rocked a “100” score on her big Amelia Earhart presentation last week), my #2 starts football this weekend, my #3 is hysterically funny, hard-headed and tender-hearted, and my youngest is coming along. If you know him, you know what I mean.

Yep, besides that episode of Cops that played out in the middle of night last night in my neighborhood, I’d say that life is pretty flippin’ sweet.

Let me backtrack. My #2 is starting football this weekend. He’s never played on a team before. He’s never played a sport before. Any sport. He has zero experience in football. And I’m not too ashamed to say that even as a grown man, when other guys are talking about games, players, trades, stats, and other sporty guy stuff, I’m probably silently thinking about how I don’t know what they’re talking about and how I think the wall color would really look nice in MY living room.

And about football: I know that the team is supposed to get the ball into the endzone. I know that the quarterback throws, the receivers receive, and the kickers kick. I know that a team gets 4 downs to get a first down. I know that the “center” goes in the center. I think. I don’t know what a “free safety” is or what he does or if I just made up that name by mistake.

And believe it or not, I shared much the same sentiments when I recently spoke on the phone to the director of the league my son will be playing in. The funny thing is, he called back a few days later and asked me to consider being an Assistant Coach. I don’t remember what I said exactly, but the words “underqualified”, “ignorant” and “joke” were peppered throughout my response. But I wrapped it up with a nice bow and said, “It’s not a matter of desire–its a matter of know-how.” Quite honestly, being the Assistant Coach means that if the Coach gets assassinated, guess who takes the reins? And for someone who doesn’t know a hash line from a punch line, the thought of coaching a football team just made me throw up a little bit.

But I couldn’t help but catch a teeny-weeny compliment squeezed into our exchange on the phone, me and this man I’ve yet to meet. I think I heard him say, “I really like your heart.” This particular league is focused on all kids having fun, learning the game, sportsmanship, and everyone getting a chance to be a star. So to him, my blatant ignorance of the game of football takes a back seat to my desire for my own son and all kids to have a good time playing a game.

–Here comes the part when I flip it and connect it to a spiritual application. If you’ve had fun so far, but aren’t interested in the next part…well, thanks for stopping by. Don’t let that “X” in the corner of the screen hit you on the way out.—

As a man who knows, loves, and follows Jesus, and as a man who loves those who do the same, and as a man who loves those who don’t; I think we (Jesus’ followers) would be very wise to take a lesson from the heartbeat of this football league my son and I are about to totally wreck. If ministry were more about filling the field with players than the stands with spectators, and if discipleship were less about one quarterback and more about ___ receivers, and if loving God were less about doing it right and more about doing it at all….I’m fairly certain we’d have and we’d be the kind of people that the world needs instead of the kind of people the world looks sideways at; thinking we’re all about numbers, or money, or being right, or pointing out sin, or any other number of things associated with the religion of Christianity.

Suppose that as Jesus’ followers we could recognize in each other “I really like your heart” and let other lesser things play “c-string”, if at all. What if we focused on the powerful positive poised to pounce out of my life and into yours and out of your life into mine and out of our lives into His. What if instead of a safe “button-hook” play, we just decided to “go long”. Okay, enough football catch phrases.

I can guarantee that this weekend, while I’m cheering on my son in his very first practice followed immediately by his very first game (*gulp*), I’m going to be thinking in the back of my mind about how I might also cheer others on as they play hard on the field of faith.

I’m not an idiot. But when it comes to student ministry, I started out as one.

When I entered my very first fulltime student ministry position, I was dripping with naivete’ and the proverbial cape on my back and a huge “S” on the chest of my blue unitard. As it turned out, the “S” stood for “Stupid Young Youth Pastor So Gonna Burn Out If He Doesn’t Learn Stuff Quick!”

I started in fulltime ministry at a church in Winchester, VA. While I left that particular ministry nearly 13 years ago, they’re probably still recovering. I arrived in town a week after graduating from college and that new college grad smell was still fresh.

And my first flash of idiotness was summed up in these four simple words: “You bring the ice.”

My very first volunteer youth leader was an incredible man named Jerry Mounts. I’ll never forget Jerry as long as I live. Without a word, he taught me so much about effectively loving and leading students. Unfortunately most of what I learned from him wouldn’t be absorbed until years later. Don’t forget, I was the one with the answers to the questions. And when you’re fresh from college, you’re less than teachable. After all, you had just been taught everything and now it was time to execute, right?!? Or so I thought.

Jerry Mounts owned a refrigeration business. So you can guess that he owned his own ice machine. Not the kind in your fridge, but the industrial size ice maker you see in places where a lot of ice is needed.

Once I knew that Jerry had an ice machine, this became his standing assignment for all youth events: “Jerry, you bring the ice. Thanks.”

I never asked Jerry his age at that time. But if I had to guess, I’d say early to mid 40’s. He had a son in college and a daughter in high school. And here I was swooping in at the ripe old age of 21, essentially saying, “Step aside, Jerry. I’m here.”

And something else I never asked Jerry: to do anything but “bring the ice.” I completely dismissed and discounted every other aspect of Jerry’s enormous, infectious, and totally beloved personality and completely failed to leverage that for an even more fruitful ministry to teens.

Why? Because I didn’t need Jerry to do anything but bring the ice for the drinks.

There’s an insane part of Jesus’ earthly ministry that just blows me away everytime I read it. It’s found in Luke 10. Jesus is well into his 3 years of public ministry. He has spent the majority of His time developing His disciples. In essence, He was cloning Himself in those around Him. There were 70 sent out–35 pairs of little Jesuses going out and doing what Jesus did: healing, touching, teaching, raising, casting out demons, and all the things that Jesus Himself was doing. Jesus didn’t tell the 70, “Just get out there and kill time til I get there to help these people.” He didn’t say, “You can’t do what I know how to do. So just entertain the crowd until I show up.” And He definitely didn’t tell anybody, “You bring the ice.”

As a ministry leader and influencer, one of my greatest successes is realized when I see the ministry I lead happen without me. And I’ve long since given up the egotistical notion that nobody can do it like I can. The funny thing is, that’s true. Nobody can do it like me. The egotistical part comes in when I actually think that’s a bad thing.

So, my ministry these days is primarily wrapped up in my interaction with adult leaders and student leaders. It’s not that I don’t care about every student. It’s that I care about every student so much, I’m willing to admit (not hard anymore) that I can’t possibly effectively minister to that many students.

Tonight as I was tucking my two boys in bed, we prayed together. After prayer my oldest son asked me, “Dad, why do we have to say amen at the end of our prayers?”

I paused at the simplicity of the question. Then I said, “Well, we don’t have to say amen at all. You can definitely pray without saying amen. Amen is just kind of a closing to a talk with God.”

I can tell by his look that my answer wasn’t satisfactory. So I went over to him and kneeled next to his bed and continued, “The word ‘amen’ means ‘its true’ or ‘I mean it’ and things like that. It’s actually from the Hebrew word pronounced hah-main. And that word means “so be it.” Its a way to conclude your prayer.

With honest confusion in his eyes he said to me, “So, why would we tell God ‘so beat it’?”

I quickly corrected my enunciation and assured him that it means “so be it” not “so beat it”. And then, as so routinely happens to me, God used the words of my kids to teach me and remind me of a spiritual truth.

I suppose its most easily summed up in a question: do I live my prayers? Do I live in such a way that reflects the participation in bringing about God’s answers to my prayers? I don’t mean to make us dizzy with the question; I only mean to say do our prayers to God align with our lives?

One of the most well-known prayers in history was Jesus’ “high priestly prayer” recorded in the book of Matthew. And the coolest part about that particular prayer is that I am the answer to it. And if you love Him, you are too. Think about it. Jesus’ two predominant requests in that prayer were for the Father’s glory and for the unity of His disciples (his followers, of which I am one). And I shutter every time I think that the life I live is an answer to the high priestly prayer of Jesus. Can you receive that? Can you fathom that? Can you absorb that deep within your soul? When I live a life unified with God’s Kingdom and those who follow Him, I am literally answering Jesus’ prayer. That’s mind-blowing to me.

But what can also happen is that I can live a life that negates my own prayers. I can request God for something and yet show no outward or inward sign that I trust Him for the outcome. I can take the weight of my day onto my shoulders in practice while uttering my desire for the weight to be His in prayer. If my prayer doesn’t get practical, then in essence I am closing each talk with Him with “so beat it.”

I’ll be the first to admit that some of the blogs I’ve posted have been “undercooked” perhaps. And it is highly likely that this one might still be a tad pink in the middle. But I think I will continue to let it roll around and think more about this: What part am I playing in seeing God’s answers to my prayers played out practically in me?

I’m a pastor. But way before I was a pastor, I decided to follow Jesus.

I was 16 years old when I made that decision. And while I’ve certainly looked around, up, and even looked down over the past 20 years since, I’ve never looked back. Not once have I ever entertained a thought of what my life would be like had I not made that decision. I don’t need to.

And while that decision was the life-altering one, it was one that came with a stark combination of lightness of spirit and severity of heart. It was, is and always will be what I’d like to refer to as the “glorious burden”. And believe me, as I write this I’m in the thick of it. I’m no achiever. I’m no “got it figured out” kind of guy. I’m not even sure you should read this because the one writing it routinely has more questions than answers.

The word burden gets a bad rap sometimes. And I suppose that’s natural and for obvious reasons. But still I think we can rethink the word burden and come away with a greater clarity to our call. For instance, being a parent is a burden. Ask anyone who is one. They’ll agree. Parenting is burdensome. Being responsible for one (or in my case, four) human beings is not a sunshiney barefoot stroll on cool moss. It’s tough. But ask any parent if they bear that burden gladly and without any hesitation they’ll assure you that the burden is indeed one they happily carry. Most parents will go on to extol the love they have for their kids; how they’d gladly lay down their life for any one of their children, no matter what their age or station in life.

So, the issue of burden is one that is unmistakably taught in the Bible. Jesus Himself said as plainly as can be that to follow Him necessitates some very key and non-negotiable ingredients; self-denial, sacrifice, and cross-carrying to name just a few. But I myself found the cross of Christ to be a burden that wasn’t so glorious at all before I understood the right He has to me, my life, and everything I know, have and am.

We make excuses sometimes for not following, don’t we? Jesus told a parable (short story with a Cracker Jack prize hidden inside) about a king who threw a banquet. He sent out his servant to tell his invited guests that the party was ready and that they should come and get down. But when the servant went to the invited guests, they had reasons why they couldn’t come. And if you look closely (or at all for that matter), you see that the reasons were nothing more than lame excuses.
Reason #1: “I just bought some land and I have to go and inspect it.” Are you kidding me? Who buys land without first checking it out? I’d like to sell that guy some prime Florida real estate!
Reason #2: “I just bought a yoke of oxen and I need to go and try them out.” Who goes to the dealership, walks up to a car and says, “I’ll take it.” without first kickin’ the tires, taking a test drive and running it through its paces? I’d like to get that guy on the phone and sell him my pristine ’92 Crown Vic. The Blue Book on it is about $5.57 but don’t tell him.
Reason #3: “I just got married, so I can’t come.” Okay, this one I can MAYBE understand. Being a married man, I can imagine what’s going on in this guy’s mind. But still, are you telling me your bride wouldn’t enjoy a nice time at a swanky party? C’mon man, live a little. Show your bride she married a partyer.
And here’s the part of the story that I love–the king says to his servant, “Then go to the streets, to the highways, to the underpasses, to the parks, to the malls, to the neighborhoods, to the bars, to the red light district, and to the shady part of town. Tell them “whosoever will” may come to my party!
So, yes Jesus calls us to self-denial. Yes He calls us to sacrifice. Yes He calls us to carry our cross. But the glory of it all is that it’s His party we’re invited to. It’s His guestlist we’re on. It’s His eternity we step into when we choose to accept the invitation to carry this Glorious Burden.

I ran into a couple men the other night. These guys are in my small group on Friday nights, and we’re a big part of each other’s lives. One guy who will remain unnamed, named Rob was mentioning my blog and how I’m (as he said) “on fire right now” as far as writing blogs on a more frequent level. He went on to say that he not only enjoys reading my blog, but recommends it to others every chance he gets. While I was absolutely gratified and humbled to hear those things, I was also challenged. I don’t think Rob (oops, I mean Mr. Unnamed) meant to challenge me, but nevertheless, he did.

I just looked at the clock in the bottom right hand corner of the computer screen….(you just looked at yours, didn’t you?)….and I saw that I have now about 15 minutes or so left before I have to head out the door. I’ve got some errands to run before heading into the city of Richmond to shoot a video where I will ask strangers on the street basically two questions:
1. What comes to your mind when you hear the word “Christian”?
2. What words do you think should be synonymous with the word “Christian”?

None of this will be scripted, so it’s going to be interesting no matter what. I’m looking forward to this little social/spiritual experiment. While I’ll try and remember to follow up on this with another blog soon, I’d like to take a stab at what I think people will say, generally speaking (including stereotypes which of course are stereotypes for a reason)…
Christians are…
–hypocritical/a bunch of hypocrites.
–“holier than thou”.
–all about rules and what you can’t do.
–people who don’t know how to have any fun.
–judgmental.
–narrow-minded and bigoted.
–intolerant of other people’s view besides their own.
–out-of-touch with reality.

Here’s what I HOPE I hear…
Christians are…
–people who love others unconditionally.
–agents of positive change in their communities.
–pictures of grace and humility.
–those who leap to the aid of the hurting and defenseless.
–more concerned with people than rules about people.
–willing to love the unloved.
–forgiving.
–an example of what a life is like when God is clearly present.
–obsessed with Jesus and devoutly living out His love.

These are just a few of my thoughts before I head out the door with 2 minutes left to grab my stuff and hit the bathroom one more time. I’d love to hear YOUR thoughts on “What is a Christian?” And if you are a Christian, is there someone who isn’t that you’d be willing to ask this question to?