The Path to Righteousness is Debauchary?

Many, many years ago the Catholic church did what it has done with so many holidays- they took a very pagan festival and adapted it to be a “Christian” holiday. They took mardis gras (though that is not what it was called at the time) and made it a time of “Christian” celebration and abandonment prior to the somber time of fasting that is Lent. Now I wasn’t there during the earliest days of these festivities, it is possible they had truly very Christian purposes and were righteous activities. However, what it has lead to is a pretty obvious juxtaposition that so many nominal “Christians” embrace today- that what we do one day can be made up for the following.

Mardis Gras has often been viewed as one of the most wicked festivals in America today- and not without cause. But what so many “good” Catholics and others do on this last day before Lent is not much better if you ask me. Prior to their time of fasting, they have a day full of the celebrations of carnal things: over-eating, dancing, large amounts of alcohol consumption, frequent times of immodesty, and more. And they seem to think this is okay, perhaps even good, to get them through Lent, or something.

I’m bothered by this entire attitude, that though not so much overly expressed by mardis gras, is still incredibly prevelant in our church today- that because grace is free, because Jesus already died for my sin, because I am going to do “penance” or good tomorrow I can do what is not okay today. In “Mere Christianity” C.S. Lewis makes the claim that Jesus doesn’t want part of us- a piece of me isn’t enough. He wants all of me, and he won’t settle for less. I cannot cut off my arm and give it to him, I have to be willing to completely die. I think this practice of sin today, forgiveness tomorrow, is like cutting off the arm- we have decided that we cannot be perfect so we won’t even try, we’ll just try to make sure to do the right thing to make up for it. We need to give up every part of who we are in order to truly be Christ-followers, we cannot settle for one day of debauchary and 40 days of piety. We must strive for piety every day, failure is certain, but “bargaining” is not Christ-like.

If you are giving up chocolate for Lent- enjoy a piece of chocolate today, if you are giving up Facebook for Lent, enjoy a last day of “stalking”, but do not justify sin today by the righteousness you intend tomorrow.

Frustration

We sat in a circle for a 10 minute discussion about Prayer. 30 minutes later we were finally ready to start praying. 45 minutes after sitting down we finally wrapped up a 10 minute discussion and prayer time. This unfortunately is a typical night in our junior high ministry. I’m at a loss about what to do. I want to make it interactive, but I can’t because the kids don’t focus and wind up running around if not forced to sit in a circle. Even then, it takes forever to get through a very simple lesson on prayer which arouse from my realization that half the kids in attendance don’t even think it necessary to show respect while praying. I am so tired of being the bad guy- I don’t want to keep telling kids over and over again to pay attention. It’s exhausting having to constantly be the “bad guy”. What frustrated me most last night was after taking 30 minutes to go through a three question, 3 verse, 2 minutes of listening lesson on what prayer is and how we should pray we went to actually pray and 3 kids started throwing stuff at one another in the middle of the prayer! These are kids who with the exception of one kid have all been part of the church for many years and they are behaving terribly while praying! Now, I’ll be one of the first to admit my strength is not in teaching, so to some extent I can understand not being well focused during the lesson, and I anticipate some distractions- some tangents. But this is out of control. What’s worse is we were playing a super size game of pool using bowling balls, and tables laid on the floor to make the perimiter of the pool table. The first problem was kids felt walking on the tables was a great idea, and then jumping on them and I felt like I was continually telling them to get off the tables. The second problem was in large part due to one of the leaders, but I had said the balls were to remain on the floor and not in the air at any time, but some kids got the idea to start dropping the balls and trying to dribble them like basketballs. I ended up ending the game with 20 minutes left of youth group because they were just tearing things apart and kicking balls toward walls. And I hate this. I want it to be a place where they come to have fun, but there needs to be more respect and less going crazy. I feel like I have to stifle the fun because when I don’t they act like 5 year olds set free in a candy store with no limitations. My first year of leading any youth was leading a group of 7th and 8th graders in Iowa. Yes, they had trouble listening, but they were for the most part respectful and at least during game times followed the rules and had fun. Is it this group? Is it simply the difference between 5 years ago and now? Have I gotten worse at leading youth the longer I do it? I don’t know, but I’m sure I can’t take much more of this insanity.

Children’s Music

My mom has the job of leading the Sunday morning children’s program at their church. I was talking to her about the songs they use, she has to listen to CD’s and write down the lyrics because they aren’t printed anywhere, and she was looking for chords but couldn’t find them. So, trying to be helpful I offered to try and help. What I learned was that songs have changed a great deal. Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a surprise to me, but what I did find interesting was the children’s church songs have taken a similar to path to some of the more popular hymns- instead of just singing new songs they have “updated” the old ones by taking the same basic melody and lyrics and making slight changes to make it more “modern” or something. I’m not sure why this bothers me, but it does. I don’t think the old songs are any better or worse than the new songs, but I really want to know why we have to change something to make it more appealing, especially for kids. I mean, aren’t we just encouraging this expectation that everything be adapted for them? Does a 5 year old really care if he sings Jesus Loves Me the old way or the new?  Do we really need to be more “culturally relevant” for  kids this young? And if so, why on earth is culture seeping in that deeply at that young of an age? Or do we do it for the parents of the kids so they feel like their kid is having a good experience? And if it’s so important to have this new style of music, why do we still keep the old songs with theologically flimsy lyrics? Why not just create totally new songs with solid theology?

Clean Water

Lent starts in just over a week. In the Reformed church we don’t do a whole lot with Lent- the church colors change, sermons may focus more on the journey of Jesus and the like, but we don’t have an Ash Wednesday service, we don’t typically give anything up, and in my experience we don’t focus as much on the meaning of the Lentin season as we do the Advent season. I’ve been thinking about giving up something for Lent this year. It’s been a struggle for me trying to figure out what I could give up that would be a sacrifice/challenge but not virtually impossible for me to do. Today I stumbled upon a clean water initiative called the H2O project. The idea is that you give up drinking anything except water for 14 days and donate the money you save toward digging wells to provide healthy water for people who need it. I love the idea, and I think I will try this. It’ll be hard, because it means giving up coffee which I drink every day and rely on, but I think I can do it. Besides, I can’t think of a better way to maximize this time of “fasting”.

The “Real” World

I had an interesting conversation with one of my high school small group leaders (who also happens to be a father to two kids in the youth group) yesterday. We were talking about how they had upgraded their cell phone plan to have unlimited texting because with the amount over his daughter would go each month it was cheaper for her to just pay the monthly extra for unlimited. However, with this upgrade she now texts about 10 times as much as she did prior to getting unlimited texting…

While talking with another parent I heard this horrible story. Her daughter was in a fight with her friends and homecoming was coming up so they decided to all get together and try to work things out. They gathered at the house of this family around a fire in the back yard. When the mom went outside it was totally silent and she found that quite odd. Within a few minutes she noticed they were all sitting around the fire texting each other instead of talking.

A while ago I sent a text to a kid who I hadn’t texted before. I thought she had my number because we had all exchanged numbers, so I didn’t sign my name. She responded to the texts I sent and the next day I found out she had no idea who had sent them and was freaking out telling her friends about it. Everyone laughed when they realized it was me who had sent them- but I’m not sure what to think knowing she responded to my texts without knowing who they were from.

I have one girl- a senior whose family doesn’t go to our church- who told me her parents don’t worry about what she does on the internet figuring it’s “safe”, but they are super strict about what she can do for real (who she can hang out with, where she can go, etc).

I love technology. I can imagine life without ever having had the computer and cell phone like we do, but having had it I cannot imagine going back to not having it. I think these modern conventions have allowed us to do a great number of things that we otherwise probably wouldn’t be able to do. But, I think that they are costing us a great deal more than they are giving. When I hear about teenagers and their relationships it worries me. It seems for the overwhelming majority of teens if you are not friends “online” (facebook, texting, myspace, im, etc) you are not friends in real life. But more of a concern is that I think while these new means of connecting allow us to connect with a great deal more people, they also prevent us from gaining the depth and intimacy and genuineness of real-life relationships. We can hide behind our phones and computer screens, and that allows us to be more real in a totally false way.

I wonder how to work within this circle without becoming part of it. I wonder how these things are going to alter our world 20 years from now, and it really does scare me some to think about. I know I’m different online than in person, what happens when the online becomes the “real”?

Benchmarks of Success

I have felt quite guilty and somewhat like a failure because I never had definite ideas of what a successful ministry would look like. I always knew it involved all youth having an active relationship w/ God, but it was hard for me to define it more than that. I’m honestly not sure why that was, but it was something I thought about and prayed about and studied about a lot, and still I felt like so much of what I was looking at was too immeasurable to count as a way to measure success. But recently I have come up with some marks that I believe are measurable, of course we can never truly know success, but I think it is important to have a specific ideal we are striving for. So…here are my benchmarks of success, the things I believe show we are succeeding at ministry to the best of our knowledge.

1. Graduates remain actively involved in a church through college and after.

2. All youth leave our ministry with a genuine relationship with God, and the needed tools to continue this relationship outside the church walls.

3. All youth from the church have leadership roles in the ministries of the church and community.

I believe all these are measurable things- although #1 certainly will require years after youth leave our ministry to see the result. In these three things I feel we can have specific goals and visions that will help as we plan the ministry specifics. I really wanted to add that all youth will be disciples of Christ, but I felt that was too vague and broad to be able to truly measure and instead took these three things that I think indicate a person is truly a disciple of Christ. Now to get there.

Instant Gratification

On Tuesday I wrote a long post about my struggle with “want” or more precisely my lack there of. I spent about 30 minutes writing and went to publish it only to discover that our internet died in the midst of my writing- to be precise on paragraph in was the last auto save. I haven’t felt like taking the time to rewrite it all, so here is a condensed/vague recounting- which most of you will prefer anyway.

I have recently become increasingly aware of my lack of want. Many people probably would look at this as a good thing, and for the most part it is. However, there are some problems I am having with this. First of all the realization that by not being in want I am not ever having to truly rely on God for anything. Second that I have no basis for understanding those who are dealing with overwhelming want and need beyond their ability to satisfy. I mean, if I want to eat, I eat- and I eat what and how much I want. If I want to see a movie, I see it. If I want a new song, I get it. If I want to read a book, I get the book.  If I want to be warmer I turn up the heat. When I feel a need for new clothes I buy them. True, I often must choose between wants to fulfill first- do I buy the book or the cd, do I go out to eat or out to a movie? But never do I really have to go without- whenever I choose one over another I know it is only for a short while- until the next month or the next week even.

It has become rather taboo I think, or at least overlooked, in protestant circles. But I think this is really a bad thing. Fasting is one of the spiritual disciplines- just like worship, sabbath keeping, Bible reading, and prayer. But it is never talked about, never taught about, and never encouraged. At least not in the churches I’ve been a part of. But it is so essential. It is through the discipline of fasting that we learn two important things relating to our spiritual development- a reliance on God to satisfy our needs, and the desire/ability to say no to desires that are clamboring for fulfillment.

I want to postpone my own practice of fasting until Lent- it seems the only time a “fast” of any kind is undertaken by people today. But I know I cannot. Fasting needs to be a regular part- not an annual thing, but a regular constant reminder to trust God and suppress our human desires. I fear we have made it too much of a super-spiritual practice one does to connect on a higher plane with God, but that is not the primary reason to fast.

So I will add fasting to my regular spiritual practices. Not because I think it will make me more spiritual. Not because I want to encounter God on a new level (of course I welcome that, it is just not my intent). I will fast because it is as much a part of spiritual growth and living as worship and prayer and Bible study.