Balance and Ohio State Football?

Ok. Confession time. It drives me crazy when coaches and/or athletes upon retiring say they are doing it to spend more time with their family only a year later to return to said profession. So what happened? Was it just the love of the game that brought them back? Too much family time? You got to wonder how the person's family would receive this news. "So um, yeah, I retired to spend more time with you all, but after a year, umm..., it might be too much time together."

Enter Urban Meyer. He left a highly successful Florida football program for health reasons and to spend more time with his family. Now he has taken the head coaching gig at Ohio State. Hmmm. Sounds fishy, right? Then I stumbled upon this article in the NYtimes. http://tinyurl.com/84non33. The article is focused on how Urban Meyer is determined to do things differently this time. One particulair aspect of the article caught my attention. It was the involvement of his family. I simply love the contract that his daughter drew up for him to sign before he signed on the dotted line with Ohio State.

I got to thinking, ministry can be awfully demanding and often we minister types struggle with balance as well. I wonder what things our kids/wives might put into a contract for us. I know one would definitely revolve around the cell phone. I definitely need to "unplug" more. It may be small, but sitting down to watch a movie with the kids, but constantly checking twitter, facebook, etc. communicates something. I loved the blog post by Jon Acuff (http://tinyurl.com/7scpbhk) that simply reminds us to hang up the phone before walking through the door. Be excited to see your family and engage with them. Don't rob that moment by walking in talking on the phone. Hang up first. Simple, right? My second thought is I simply want to be more playful. I want to seize every opportunity to laugh and enjoy each other. As I approach 40 here in a couple of months, I've noticed a tendency through the years to simply back off on the playful side, often just from being spent or tired. So I want to be the yes Dad. "Hey dad, you want to play catch?", "You want to play hide and seek with us?", "Raise you to the car?" You betcha. When we say yes to those moments it communicates to our family more than just I love you. It says I actually like you too. Our children and our families are to be enjoyed, not just cared for. God is a great teacher on this one. He didn't just create us and care for us. He delights in His creation.

So...What guidelines do you think your family might add to help you be the Father and Dad God desires?

Gator Huntin' Part 3 (The Big One)

Every once in a while, gator hunters will stumble across signs that a big gator is in the vicinity. It may come in the form of popped lines, or broken tree branches. When this happens, the gator hunter becomes determined to track down the biggin'... no matter what. They usually assign a nickname to the wanted gator, names like T-rex, Tree Breaker, or Godzilla, and the hunt begins. Once the hunt is started, the gator hunter may spend days in order to track down the big one.

I was reminded of the youth ministry parallel today when it comes to recruiting. There are a few potential youth workers on my list that I have been talking to for years about coming on board. For whatever reason, God keeps bringing them to mind. Most of the time it is because I am convinced that youth ministry would be good for them. So right now I am huntin some big gators, ones I have been pursuing for a long time. Looks like finally a couple of them are gonna join us. Good reminder that God's timing is best and not to give up on the "big one". Pray. Trust. Ask. Pray. Repeat.

Gator Huntin' Part 2- (Follow Up)

Next its on to the checking of the lines. Gator hunters will pull up to each of their lines to see if they have anything on the other end. Sometimes they can tell from afar if they have anything on the line due to the stirring of the waters or the shaking of a branch. In recruiting volunteers, the follow-up is crucial. It is important to go back to each of the lines and to see what is actually occurring. Don't assume that no response is a negative thing. I've definitely made this mistake before. They may simply be praying and thinking about the opportunity. The follow-up is a "win" either way as a youth pastor, as it almost always leads to a deep conversation about what is occurring in the life of the person we are recruiting. So don't be scared of rejection. Trust God in the process. If its a no, for whatever reason, its not the right timing or right fit. Gator hunters pass by many empty lines before they get to the big one. Same here. It's worth the rejection to wait for the right ones to come along.

So who do you need to follow-up with today and find a time to sit down and really talk about the possibility of serving? I've got a few people on my heart today that I've floated the idea of getting involved and I need to follow-up. Looking forward to seeing if anything is on the line.

Gator Huntin' and Recruiting Volunteers

I freely admit my new found love of all things swamp people. I can't quite explain it other than it's a show about a bunch of people who live in the swamps of Louisiana and Florida who hunt gators for a living. Awesome, right? It cracks me up that they have to run subtitles in order to understand what they are saying. These people are straight fearless and somewhat crazy. The show has so captured my attention I recently had a dream that I was hunting gators and woke up in the middle of the night in a panic from an imminent gator attack only to realize it was just a dream, totally freaking my wife out.

So all this gator huntin' has gotten me thinking to the similarities to recruiting youth ministry volunteers (I told you I have gators on the brain).

This probably works best as a series of posts, so let's kick the first one off... A gator hunter often sets out as many as 100 lines in a day with bait and hook in the hopes of catching some quality gators. I am in the midst of recruiting quality youth workers as we speak. I start by sending out lots of feelers, similar to gator hunters. I avoid cattle calls for any warm bodies to serve, but rather I start by asking around to our staff and other people I respect for names of people who might be a good fit for us. Once I have names, then I start setting feelers out via facebook messages, email, etc. I have found this to be a good way to go as it gives potential youth workers time to think about their response rather than just an off the cuff response. If we truly want Godly called people in our student ministry, don't underestimate this first step of setting out feelers. Giving perspective youth workers time to percolate on the idea before hand is both God honoring and wise. When they do sign on the dotted line, both the youth minister and volunteer have a clearer since that this is "of God".

I have to confess something here before I go any further. I go into the process of recruiting volunteers with a touch of fear. Probably similar to my gator hunting brethren when they set out to hunt. We have such an amazing team and our effectiveness as a student ministry is largely contingent on the quality of the adults serving. In the flesh, I am scared of screwing it up. That is why for me, recruiting volunteers is largely a prayer exercise. Praying for God to lead to the right people, praying through the process, praying for wisdom, praying for his intervention. It is only through prayer that we can build a healthy team.

Blogging

Alright. Here is the deal. I have a love/hate relationship with blogging. I know I need to write. It is a very therapeutic process for me personally. It forces me to reflect deeper and to work out the articulation of things I have been thinking about. So its definitely a good thing for me to blog, especially now being out of grad school for a year.

The hate part is simply the promotion of said thoughts. I don't want to be the guy schlepping his blog and always pointing others to look at my self proclaimed brilliance. It really comes down to this. I feel like some people out there, specifically youth workers, can relate to my struggles and random nuggets of goodness I happen to stumble across and therefore benefit from my ramblings. I can think of many blogs that do that for me. So I just got to suck it up and simply write. Mainly for me, and then if others benefit along the way, may God be glorified. I think I can live with that. So feel free to join me on the journey.

Band Member Changes

Question- When is a band no longer the band it started out as? When a band changes members at what point does it cease to be that band. Case in point- The newsboys or dare I say Newsboy. The newsboys have under gone several band member changes, to the point that there is only one original newsboy left. And guess what... he is leaving the band and they still want to call themselves the newsboys! Are you kidding me? It gets better. The new lead singer is ... wait for it, wait for it... Michael Tait of dctalk fame. Are you tracking with me? This Australian based band had replaced its aussie lead singer and chief song writer with soulful definitely not Australian michael tait. Lets be honest. This isnt the newsboys anymore. New name please. I would go so far as saying when a band changes lead singers, it should be mandatory for said band to change names.

It is not just lead singers either. I nominate Guns N roses for a name change. Its not guns n roses if all you have of the origianl band is axel rose. Guns N roses without slash is ridiculous. He is the one who crafted all of the original classic guitar riffs. Sweet Child of Mine without slash's contribution is just another hair band ballad.

What do you think. Other nominations of bands who need to change their names?

Self Evaluation

As I write this I am staring at a deadline for my self evaluation goals for the ministry year 2009. I have to confess I hate this process. To be completely honest, there are times when I feel like I am already operating at max capacity, one step away from the breaking point. My team of volunteers are busy loving on students, and I am consumed with trying to figure out night and day how best to minister to the students of this community. I do not say this pridefully, but rather trying to minster by completing goals doesn't seem as healthy as being driven by the calling God has placed on our lives. Trying to minister by meeting a certain set of self imposed external goals doesn't seem exactly healthy. The big question is ... Do i think Jesus set-out in year one of his ministry with a written set of evaluatable goals and then graded himself at the end of that year? Probably not. And then, year two did Jesus write a new set of goals on how to be a better Messiah in year two? I think you get the idea. Now before I rant and rave too far here, I do think there has to be some way to evaluate as a minster of the gospel our effectiveness, or better yet our faithfulness. The problem comes when we try to use the world's methods of evaluation and validation. And I think that is where the real tension is in my heart today. Since this about Kingodm things, shouldn't there be a kingdom way to grow and stretch toward Christlikeness?

Here's the deal. I think God did provide a way for us to "evaluate" and stretch to be more like him. It is found in the context of true chrisitan community. i'm not talking casual releationships here and an occasional pot luck dinner. I am talking about a smallish group of people living life together, pursuing Christ together, life on life stuff. In this context we have people who love us and see our blind spots that can gently and bluntly help us see where we need to grow, not just professionally, but also in the fruits of the spirit, in our family life, etc. The problem is that too many of us do not live in this kind of community where James 5:16 is possible; where we can confess our sins to each other and truly pray for each other. Those of us in ministry, tend to live even less in community. We see ourselves as ministers to the community and seldom have the depth of relationships required to expereience true community and the evaluation and spurring (Heb. 10:24) on that we need.

So...I think that my first goal for the year is that I am going to pursue true christian community with a few people God has placed in my path and allow God to begin shaping me INSIDE of community. Maybe this goal setting thing isn't so bad after all.