11/30/09

Things I Wish Every Parent Knew (Part Two)

Your Student Did NOT Just Get That Project Assignment Yesterday
Many students fool their parents into thinking that large assignments and special projects were just dropped on them (like a bomb) the day or two before, but more than 95 percent of the time, your student has long known about the assigned work and has plenty of time to plan and complete the work. However, most students procrastinate and wait until the last possible day (or few days) to get started on their projects, and they convince their parents that it’s not “their fault” that they have SO MUCH work to do in SO LITTLE time.

Not only is this bad because it’s disingenuous (although clever students can actually get parents to believe their ploy without technically “lying” through their teeth about it), it also promotes the following situation – which I believe should be unacceptable: Parents allow (and sometimes even require) their students to miss church, youth events, and important family events in order to work on their projects, while the parents are left thinking inaccurate and negative things about teachers, as the “teachers” (rather than the student) are wrongly blamed for the massive work load. This not only fosters a lie, but it teaches students that school work and grades come BEFORE God and family. Later, when the students are adults, don’t be surprised if they put their careers and achievements before God and family – because that’s what you have helped train them to do, unfortunately. Whenever students are allowed and encouraged to drop their commitments to God and family in order to do school work (or anything else for that matter), they are embarking on a disastrous course that will deliver negative repercussions towards them and their loved ones for years to come!

What parents should do to counteract this: (1) Teach your student that God and family come first, and when a procrastinated assignment threatens commitments to God and family, require that the assignment (rather than God and family) be put on the back-burner, even if it means the assignment is not completed and your student’s grade suffers as a result. (2) Help your student to plan and complete their assignments in a timely manner by modeling a procrastination-free lifestyle yourself and by doing whatever it takes to make sure your students are not allowed to procrastinate while they live under your roof. For example, work out a system whereby you can know when assignments are given to your student without solely depending on your student to tell you, meaning you may have to contact teachers occasionally and/or check the school/class website (if one exists) with recent assignment postings. When assignments are known, require your student to set-aside specific amounts of time each day to work on the assignments, and then make sure that video games, trips to the mall with friends, Internet surfing (that is unrelated to the assignment), and ipods don’t interfere with this specific time. (3) Finally, if all else fails, be sure to punish your student when assignments are not completed or when they are completed poorly – due to procrastination. You can restrict computer, ipod, and cell phone usage. You can prohibit your students from going out with friends. You can assign more chores around the house. The list goes on and on (although you should NEVER use prohibition of church and youth events as a means of punishment; see the last post), but whatever you do, punish your student and stick to the punishment (without calling it off) in order that your student will know that procrastination is not acceptable in your home.

Parents, trust me when I say that students NEED your help when it comes to time management, thwarting procrastination, and completing assignments in a world where video games and ipods are readily available. Students approach me all of the time with prayer concerns centered on “time management” and “defeating procrastination,” and so if you (as the parent) can help your student with an area where there is much struggle, why wouldn’t you? But while you are helping your student, remember to help them the most by always showing them that GOD and his influence on them is more important than school, assignments, grades, and everything else! Encourage your student’s commitment to church and youth events, and don’t allow assignments to get in the way. Proverbs 21:30-31 says, “There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord. The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory rests with the Lord.” Help your student understand that while knowledge and planning and preparation (for life and careers) are appropriate and necessary, the real and true key to success is always keeping focused on God above everything else!

11/26/09

While this is a break from the kind of article I normally post, I want to use the next few posts to talk directly to parents, grandparents, and/or other guardians of students. For the majority of you readers who do not attend The Village Baptist Church, trust me when I say that your student’s Youth Pastor would probably LOVE for you to read and digest this!

Things I Wish Every Parent Knew (Part One)

Parents Should Not Cut off Their Nose to Spite Their Face:
I don’t know how many times over the past 12 years I’ve spent in youth ministry that a parent has kept their student from attending church and/or youth functions as a means of punishment for their student, but if it’s been 1000 times, that’s 1000 times too many! Hands down! There is absolutely no “good” reason to keep a student from events where he is compelled to draw closer to God, invited to fellowship with other believers his age, and challenged and led by the Holy Spirit to make big and positive changes that will affect the rest of his life. Oh, I’ve heard the retort from parents, and it always goes something like this: “My child (did poorly in school, got an attitude with me, lied to me, or any number of things …you fill in the blank) and the ONLY thing he LIKES to do is go to youth events … so I have no choice but to punish him in this way!” That’s absurd!

I know students like I know the back of my own hand, and I know that they would HATE to lose their ipods, computer privileges, video games, television shows, and time with spent with friends at the mall, the movies, and elsewhere. “Oh, but my child is different,” some say. “She doesn’t do any of those things. She lives and breaths CHURCH and YOUTH activities!” Seriously, there must be SOMETHING that she does that you could manipulate in your efforts to train, reward, and punish. Does she like to read books? – Take them away. Does she HATE doing chores? – Assign double! Would she abhor the idea of you getting her teachers to sign daily forms concerning her completion of homework assignments? – Make it happen! You see, there is ALWAYS a list of things that could be done, but to keep a student away from church and youth events is like cutting off your nose to spite your face! While your intentions may be good, the detrimental affect this has on your student is far worse than you would ever want it to be! Not only does it send the wrong message to students (that you value some things more than you value God’s influence in their lives), but you play right into Satan’s hands, who would like nothing more than to get your student OUT of the church environment for good! There are some things that should be off limits when it comes to punishment: withholding your love, withholding basic necessities needed for life, and withholding spiritual influences that come from church, youth meetings, and the likes.

Moreover, because Satan is a master at what he does, I’ve often discovered that Satan has manipulated the timing of events to occur at precisely the wrong moments – where parents have kept their students from attending the very event that was most needed in that student’s life. For example, a few months ago, I was teaching a heartfelt and God-sent message at a Friday Tonic that was all about “respecting your parents” even when you vehemently disagree with them or don’t understand them. Many students came up to me afterwards and admitted that they had been challenged to give their parents respect and obedience (even if they felt it was undeserved), and some students asked me to pray personally with them, as they sought God’s forgiveness for the way they had been treating their parents. But wouldn’t you know there were a couple of student who missed the event because their parents refused to let them attend – as a means of punishment ….(brace yourself) for none other than “being disrespectful to the parents!”

Likewise, shortly after the school year began, I focused several lessons on time management, staying focused on your studies, drawing from God’s strength, and remembering to do ALL things (including boring school work) for the glory of the Lord. But of course a handful of students were unable to reap the benefits of any of these lessons, because they were already being punished for their early attempts to slack-off at the beginning of the school year. Chalk up the score: Satan – ONE, Parents and students – ZERO!

I’m not at all trying to say that students will always get that one particular message they need to hear the most if you opt to let them attend the youth meeting, but what I’m trying to get across to you (in general) is that God values your students more than you do (which is hard to believe, but very true), and he loves it when you give him the opportunity to minister to your students in a corporate setting and on a weekly basis without any form of punishment standing in the way. Incredibly dynamite things happen in the lives of students when this is the case! When God is given the utmost respect and focus, and when church and youth participation is not only allowed but encouraged, then students have every opportunity to devote their lives to God and follow him! Don’t you want that? – Then do away with punishments that put God in a box!

Hebrews 10:25 “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.” Notice that the verse doesn’t go on to say, “But parents, you can keep your students from meeting together at church and youth meetings when they disobey you. This is a great way to start a very healthy habit of missing church when other, more important things come up!”

11/24/09

Dying Churches Have Misdiagnosed the World
A man who was thought to be in a vegetative state for the last 23 years was actually able to hear everything around him, but he had no way of responding or crying out. Rom Houben, who had been in a car wreck in 1983 and then wrongly diagnosed, has actually been “conscious the whole time”, say doctors. The news of Houben’s conscious brain was discovered (three years ago) by an expert using a special type of brain scan that was not available in the 1980s, and Houben’s story has recently begun to spread after a recent publication of a study on the misdiagnosis of people with consciousness disorders.

The 46-year-old man has a mind that has since been “unlocked,” as he now communicates with a special one-finger touch screen. As it turns out, he has heard a lot of things over the past 23 years, including the news of his father’s death, but unfortunately (until now) he has never been able to express himself to others. After suffering so long with no means to communicate, Houben is now writing a book.

While Houben’s story is truly shocking and tragic, the same can be said of the “misdiagnosis” that has been wrongly placed on members of the world by some of us in the church. For example, some in the church are adamant believers that the world is full of people who don’t want to have anything to do with God, his church, or anything “spiritual” – but this couldn’t be further from the truth! In fact, studies show that worldly people ARE interested in spiritual things, and they WANT to know God and understand the meaning of life, but sometimes our modes of diagnosis and our means of communication are so archaic that we (the church) wrongly misdiagnose the world’s failure to respond as “uninterested.”

Like the doctors who used new methods to transform the situation for Houben, the church should be willing to use new methods to survey and reach the world for Christ. In the fashion of the Bible’s Paul, who became all things in order to reach as many as possible (1 Corinthians 9:22), today’s Christ followers (who make up the church) should be willing to do likewise. This means that we should be willing to take the message of Christ, which never changes, and present it in new and fresh ways that are relevant and appealing to the world. We should speak in the world’s language and allow it to respond in its own language, meaning we utilize modern styles of music, performing arts (such as dance, drama, and more), and down-to-earth, straight-forward teaching and preaching right from God’s word. This is what the world is ready to respond to, but like the one-finger touch screen made available to Houben, the church need only to present these new techniques to the world and then watch the Holy Spirit do his work!

Individual churches that are incorporating modern music, dance, drama, and more into their worship experiences are seeing mad growth! (If you don’t believe me, take an hour and research the fastest growing churches in the United States on the internet, and notice what’s different about them! – They speak in “today’s” language!). Churches that have misdiagnosed the world and are determined to speak the language of the past are dying fast. What kind of church is your church? Better yet, what kind of church can your church be when it starts speaking in the right language to a very interested world that is waiting to hear the very relevant message of Jesus Christ?

11/10/09

Show Up at Your Own Funeral!
I recently read an article about a Brazilian man (Ademir Jorge Goncalves) who showed up at his own funeral. The Brazilian bricklayer was thought to have died in a car crash one Sunday evening, as some of his relatives falsely identified the victim’s body as Goncalves.

The funeral was held the next day, which is often the custom in Brazil, and Goncalves (who had spent the night with some friends) did not get word about his own funeral until the next morning, when the funeral was already in progress.

A police spokesman explained that Goncalves, after learning of what had happened, immediately rushed to the funeral to let family members know he was not dead.

The terrible mistake had been the result of a “badly disfigured corpse wearing similar clothing [to Goncalves]” (who was later correctly identified) coupled with a few family members who were “afraid to look for very long when [identifying the body].”

Perhaps there are some readers of this article who need to follow the example of Goncalves and show up at your own funeral! No, I’m not talking about showing up to a mortuary filled with folks who think you have really died, but I’m referring to funerals that sometimes take place when people around you have deemed you “dead” in another way.

For example, perhaps you’ve made a big mistake recently, and a group of people around you have therefore seized your latest shortcoming as their opportunity to announce the permanent “end” of your ministry, your calling, or your spiritual influence. Don’t let these false identifiers get away with it! – Show up at your own funeral! If you’ve taken your shortcomings to God (1 John 1:9), and if you’re determined to allow him to help you get back on the right track (Proverbs 3:6), you’re no where close to being “finished!” So you can show up at your own funeral, and you can proudly announce, “I’m still here, and God’s not done with me yet! So you best put away the casket of guilt and shame, because nobody’s getting buried today!”

Then again, maybe there are some people around you who (for whatever reason) have always been against you, as they’ve done everything they possibly could do to crush you and pull the rug of confidence out from under you and your ministry. And so maybe you’re going through a rough time and feeling defeated, as if Satan has finally gotten the best of you, while your enemies are currently planning a victory dance around your figurative gravestone. If this is the case, you need to remember what God’s word says to those of us who feel like the world is crashing down around us, and then you need to show up at your own funeral! The Bible says about those of us who have partnered with Christ, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). If those aren’t funeral-crashing declarations, then I don’t know what is! It’s high time we listen to the word of God and keep marching ever-forward, instead of listening to the words of the naysayers around us who would like nothing more than to bury us alive.

If there are people hosting a funeral in your honor (or, if in fact, “you” have been the culprit of throwing your own funeral with your ideas of shame and self-defeat), show up at your own funeral, and put an end to the false identification once and for all! Let God be the ONE who tells you when his mission for you on this earth has been completed, and (until that time) crash each and every premature funeral of yours with this shout, “I’m still here! And there’s nothing anybody can do about that!"

11/9/09

World’s Most Useless Facts
I recently read an article entitled, “World’s Most Useless Facts.” The CBS article showcased a handful of facts originally obtained from eBizarre.com. I have narrowed the list even further for my own article, as I cite only a portion of the useless facts (below), followed by my questions and comments. Enjoy!

Useless Fact: It takes between eight and nine minutes for light to get from the sun to the earth.
Question: How long does it take for the light of Christ to get from you to someone else? (Matthew 5:14-16)

Useless Fact: A jiffy is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
Question: What is the actual unit of time mentioned in the Bible regarding the speed you and I will be changed from mortal to immortal when the end has come? Answer: “Twinkling,” which is no doubt faster than a “jiffy!” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52)

Useless Fact: During his or her lifetime, the average person will grow 590 miles of hair.
Question: How many single strands of hair (per person) does this number represent? Only God knows! (Luke 12:6-7)

Useless Fact: An apple, potato, and onion all taste the same if you eat them with your nose plugged. They all taste sweet.
Question: Wouldn’t this be a great challenge for my students at the TONIC this Friday?!! …By the way, isn’t it odd how life’s onions can fool us into thinking they taste sweet when our spiritual senses are out of whack? When we’re not focused on Christ, it’s like our spiritual noses are plugged up, and Satan entices us with onions that we think are something else. Only later (when our breath smells horrible, our eyes are watering, and we feel sick to our stomachs) do we realize we’ve been snowed. (Ephesians 5:15-18)

Useless Fact: Q-tip cotton swabs were originally called Baby Gays. (I’m guessing their business has improved as a result?)
Question: What are some radical changes (improvements) that have occurred in your life, since taking the name of Christ? (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Useless Fact: The music for the “Star Spangled Banner” comes from a British drinking song named “Anacreon.”
Question: Why do some people believe that adding Christian lyrics to today’s rap and hip-hop styles of music is wrong, while they nevertheless enjoy many well-known traditional hymns of old that were originally formed from popular bar tunes of that day? (How did the Bible’s Paul reach people of different cultures? – 1 Corinthians 9:19-23)

Useless Fact: Rapper LL Cool J’s name is short for “Ladies Love Cool James.”
Question: Why is it sometimes best to leave full names unspoken? ß(This would be my answer on Jeopardy)

Useless Fact: Maine is considered the toothpick capital of the world.
Question: Isn’t it sad how some states have absolutely NOTHING going for them, so they have to pride themselves in something as ridiculous and pathetic as being a “toothpick” capital?!! (This question goes out to STIRLING HASTINGS!! Haha!!)

11/3/09

Pastors are a Dime a Dozen; True Shepherds are Not!
As of late, I’ve read several articles and even watched reporting on television concerning the fact that President Obama has lost weight since he became president. Someone close to the president has said that in fact Obama occasionally skips meals because “he is working non-stop for the country.”

As the president, with “the weight of the world on his shoulders,” as some say, it’s certainly understandable that a physical toll would be paid; presidents have responsibilities that we can’t even fathom, so it’s no wonder that they may quickly lose some weight, gain a few wrinkles, and go grey sooner than normal. This has been the case with most presidents, as it simply goes with the territory. Presidents sometimes sacrifice their own well-being and put themselves through late nights, high stress situations, and out-of-the-norm eating schedules – all in order to focus their energies on those whom they are leading (and the issues at hand) more so than focusing on themselves.

The same can be said of many pastors, and this is how it should be actually. The Bible says that pastors are to be “shepherds,” who sometimes put themselves on the back-burner in order to better serve and protect the flock. You can see the perfect example of a true shepherd in the spiritual sense in the story of David, who (as a teenage shepherd in the physical sense) would put his own life in danger as he would bare-handedly run after lions and bears to rescue sheep that had been carried off. This is a beautiful symbol of what pastors are called to be – shepherds who forsake themselves for the benefit of the sheep!

Pastors are a dime a dozen, but true shepherds are not. Many pastors can speak well, raise lots of money, and baptize people with the utmost enthusiasm, but they aren’t shepherds; they aren’t willing to endure discomfort and make themselves second in order to do whatever it takes to serve the flock. For this reason, many pastors will watch a satanic bear or lion grab and carry off a member of the flock, and they won’t lift a finger to do anything about it – because they’re more concerned about themselves than anyone else.

The Bible’s Paul said to pastors, “Be shepherds of the church of God, which [Jesus Christ] bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard!” (Acts 20: 28B-31A). The Bible calls pastors to be shepherds (like David) who will fight off the wolves of this world in order to protect and defend the flock; this requires a pastor who is more concerned with the wellbeing of his flock than his own personal comfort.

The Bible’s Peter says to pastors, ““Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers – not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:2-3). In other words, pastors are called to be shepherds who oversee the flock with a servant mentality and who aren’t as interested in padding their own pockets as they are eager to serve others and set the right example to the rest of the flock.

If you’re a pastor, youth pastor, Bible study leader, or some other kind of “shepherd” who is charged with looking after a portion of God’s flock, survey yourself (as you look at your actions, thoughts, and intents) and see if you’ve been behaving as a true shepherd. If you discover that you’ve fallen short, ask God to help you put yourself aside in order to see his flock the way he sees it. Ask God to help you be the “shepherd” that he has called you to be, with the passion and selfless determination that it takes to look after his sheep. Ask God to give you the courage and the strength to run after and tackle the satanic lions, bears, and wolves that come after those God has placed under your care. Be more than just a pastor; be a “shepherd!”

Encouraged Reading for “Shepherds” of God’s Flock
“They Call Me Pastor – How to Love the Ones You Lead” – H.B London & Neil B. Wiseman
This is one of my favorite pastoral books, and I’ve read quite a few. London and Neil really capture the essence of what being a pastor/shepherd is all about. Check it out!

I would also suggest that pastors check out my list of blogs of fellow pastors (which you can find down the left side of my website) for some good reading. While everyone would love these blogs, pastors will especially appreciate the many posts that are directed solely to other pastors. The blogs are by Pastor Steven Furtick (NC), Perry Noble (SC), and Troy Gramling (FL).