So tomorrow marks my potential youth service. I’m laying here in bed thinking of the past twelve years in student ministry and all the heart aches and unspeakable joys. I’m remembering all the students who have come through our ministries; the ones who are still passionately chasing the Lord and those who are sadly still chasing the world. I remember waterpark trips, summer camps, mission trips, and disciple nows. I rememberelays I was ready to quit and days where I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I have no idea what this next chapter in following Jesus will look like, but if it’s half as amazing as youth ministry then it should be incredible. “Lord thank you for allowing me the privilege of being a youth pastor, I have been truly blessed!”

I’m sure most of you reading this are far more knowledgeable than I am and so this will be extremely shocking to you  that I didn’t know this but I didn’t know that the whole Bible wasn’t just about history and understanding facts but was rather one giant love story of redemption. I had no clue that you could see Christ in every story in the Old Testament. I had intentionally not taught some of my favorite OT stories and stayed strictly on the Gospels, so I could teach about Jesus, but as it turns out the whole Bible is story about us and Jesus.

The story opens with the greatness of God who’s words speak things into being and sweet intimate fellowship with the humans in the cool of the day. Then we tanked it. From Genesis three on it’s the story of God bringing about redemption through Jesus. I’ll give you an example; in Numbers 16 we see a group of leaders attempt to lead a rebellion and basically try and get Moses and Aaron fired. God distinguishes between His leaders and the dissenters by causing the ground to open up and swallow those who oppose His leaders. The following day this is what takes place:

“41 But on the next day all the congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and against Aaron, saying, “You have killed the people of the Lord.”42 And when the congregation had assembled against Moses and against Aaron, they turned toward the tent of meeting. And behold, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord appeared.43 And Moses and Aaron came to the front of the tent of meeting,44 and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,45 ”Get away from the midst of this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment.” And they fell on their faces.46 And Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer, and put fire on it from off the altar and lay incense on it and carry it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them, for wrath has gone out from the Lord; the plague has begun.”47 So Aaron took it as Moses said and ran into the midst of the assembly. And behold, the plague had already begun among the people. And he put on the incense and made atonement for the people.48 And he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped.49 Now those who died in the plague were 14,700, besides those who died in the affair of Korah.50 And Aaron returned to Moses at the entrance of the tent of meeting, when the plague was stopped.” – Numbers 16:41-50

So we see the people of Israel not learn the lesson from the previous day and return to gripe at Moses and Aaron (and by proxy God), and this time God has had enough and a  plague breaks out among the people. Moses recognizes it and tells Aaron to hurry and grab his censer and get some fire off the altar and then lay incense on and take it to the people to offer atonement for their sin and hopefully spare their lives. So Aaron runs into the middle of the crowd and literally stands in between those dying of the plague and those who are still alive. He’s standing there saying that in order to kill anyone else the plague will have to sweep through me. He’s waving his censer crying out for the forgiveness of their sin. What we see here is a beautiful Old Testament picture of the truth of our condition before a holy God we have challenged His leadership in our lives countless times as is evident by our sin. But because our God loves us with an unfathomable love He sent his Son to run into our midst and make atonement for us with His very life. He stood as our mediator, our rescuer and now stands between the living and the dead.

This is just one example of the great overarching story that our God has given us. It’s one of my five things that your students need to know before they graduate because these young people need to see that all of God’s Word is full of life and substance beyond so and so killed so and so. They need to realize that God has always and will always chase them with His love and He’s been telling us that from the very beginning.

What’s your favorite Old Testament story? Have you been able to relate the truth of God’s redeeming love through the Old Testament? Have any great stories to share?

This is part four of Five Things your students need to know before they graduate. You can find the previous ones here: Part 1 (The Gospel), Part 2 (Religion isn’t from God), and Part 3 (God doesn’t want your best).

Now for the record I grew up going to church. I grew up going to youth group, and college group and the BCM. I haven’t missed ten Sundays in the past twelve years and as committed as I am to attending worship, I can boldly tell you that God doesn’t care! I can practically see the hair standing up on the back of some of  your necks as you read this, hang with me and at least let me explain my point before you slam the computer shut muttering heretic, hear me out. The statement that God is worried about my worship attendance is a horrendously selfish statement. It puts all the importance on my behavior, it makes me the focal point not God. The actual major faulty thinking with that particular way of thinking is that we have anything to offer God, a “present” that we can give Him as a sign of our love. We don’t.

It’s in these churches that we often hear the phrase “we give our best to God”. These statements are usually in reference to why we put on our suit and tie and nice shoes, tuck in our shirts, and iron our slacks before we step foot in “God’s House”. At the risk of sounding like a young rebellious pagan; God doesn’t care what your wearing! I hate to be the one to break it to you but your best, whatever it may be, is not good enough. Paul addresses this issue in the letter to the Phillipians:

“4 though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more:5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—”

Paul starts out listing his spiritual resume, he was of the Israelites, devout in their customs, a Pharisee (expert in Jewish law), he lists his passionate zeal for the law to the point of helping stone Stephen, and this list climaxes in his claim that he was blameless under the law.  He is basically saying, “Look, if anyone thinks they have a reason for God to be pleased with them based on who they are or what they have done. I’m better.” But then he goes on to say that he counts all those things as “rubbish” in light of knowing Jesus. The Greek word for “rubbish” is skybalon which is defined in the Strong’s concordance this way:

1) any refuse, as the excrement of animals, offscourings, rubbish, dregs

a) of things worthless and detestable

Poop. That’s what Paul says his best is in light of the righteousness that is found only in God. The point Paul is making is that you simply aren’t good enough to please God. He  goes on to straight up say that in Romans 8:8:

“Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

Your best is simply not sufficient to make God pleased with you. You have no presents to offer him, you have “rubbish”. No amount of Sunday attendance, Wednesday attendance, summer camps, disciple nows, quiet times, or church clothes will make God love you more.  All we have is grace that has been poured out by an infinitely compassionate God that displays his love for you every moment that he allows you to continue breathing. A God who by the way doesn’t want your gifts he demands your life.

Have you been guilty of trying to earn God’s approval? What’s the hardest thing to believe about this truth?

This is part three of the series Five Things that your students need to know before they graduate. You can find the previous ones here Part 1 (The Gospel), and Part 2 (Religion isn’t from God).

He entered Jericho and was passing through. And there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small of stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:1-10 ESV)

Number Two: Religion is not from God
Now obviously there’s a lot that we can pull out of here but what I want to focus on is right there in the middle of the story.

And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when theysaw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” (italics mine)

The “they” that are grumbling against Jesus’s decision to head over to Zac’s house are the religious Jews who believed that Jesus ought to not associate with sinners. Especially the kind lie Zac who made a living stealing from his fellow Israelites. It’s these people that we see Jesus struggle with throughout His earthly ministry, and it’s inevitably these people who eventually nail Him to a cross. The religious leaders especially seemed to cross ways with Jesus at every pass, Pharisees and Sadducees always scheming to discredit the Messiah they claimed to be waiting for. I Iove this insight from Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola:

If you examine Jesus’ exchanges with the Pharisees, you’ll discover a common thread. The Pharisees would ask a question on one level, and Jesus would answer it on a completely different level. The contrast was sometimes so stark that it would appear that Jesus was answering a different question. Why is this? It’s because the Pharisees’ questions were coming from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And Jesus’ response was coming from the tree of life—the life of God. -Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola (source)

Christian teenagers today have more information at their disposal then the rest of history of mankind put together did and in this world information overload they are being propositioned by a host of world views. That means you had better have the words of life and not ones grounded in traditional religious moralism if you expect them to stand out. This past week I asked my students what the biggest criticism of Christianity is at their school. Taking the gold medal is, of course, “hypocrites in the church”, and placing, I’m guessing, a close second was “it’s just a big list rules.” Unfortunately this is what our society has taught them. A.W. Tozer says it this way:

“Religion today is not transforming the people – it is being transformed by the people. It is not raising the moral level of society – it is descending to society’s own level and congratulating itself that it has scored a victory because society is smiling accepting its surrender.” -A.W. Tozer

The Christian religion has merged with post modern society and relegated many teens perceptions of following Jesus to simply trying to behave correctly. Sure their Facebook may say “it’s a relationship not a religion” but their lives scream “I can’t do this good enough!” or worse “I can do this better than you.” Either way they wind up empty and despairing. We have to teach students that “life” is found in Jesus not in religion. See going back to Zac’s story both Zacchaeus and the religious critics were lost. Both of them needed the life of Jesus to bring them to a place of life more abundant.

What about you, do you have a Zaccaeus type story? Have a different slant on religion? Leave a comment below and tell me what you got.

This is part two of the series Five things your students need to know before graduation. You can find part one The Gospel here

Number one: The Gospel

I remember the days where we sang all the hokey worship songs in our junior high youth group, you know, Pharaoh Pharaoh, River of Life, I’ve got joy, etc. but that was in the late eighties early nineties and then everyone realized that, “Hey, I think maybe junior high students possess the ability to actually worship.” and from there “normal” worship songs began to filter into the services and culture of junior high ministry. I bring that moment up because whether we like it or not youth ministry has become much more legitimate in not only importance but also in its approach and depth of teaching. Hopefully, gone are the days of pizza parties and shallow cheesy lessons that stress the importance of being good. As we’ve grown in our understanding of youth and moved into more “mature” topics we have to fight the temptation to do war with the behaviors of our students and dig into the root of their lives.

I can speak first hand on this topic since I would ashamedly admit that the better part of my ministry consisted of these types of urges during my invitation times. I would give an opportunity for those who did not know Christ to give their lives to Him, and then for those who already had Jesus in their life I’d offer up some try harder, don’t have sex, stay away from parties kind of challenge and close. What I’ve found is that not only is each succeeding class more Biblically illiterate than the one before but they are equally Gospel illiterate. Sure they know that Jesus died on a cross and they think that belief in that can keep them out of hell (it can’t, James 2:19) but that’s where it stops, and unfortunately, whether we assume they know it or we just don’t clearly present it, we aren’t communicating the amazing truths of the Gospel.
There are far to many truths in the Gospel to be summed up by my feeble minded self, and so let me share one of the best definitions of the Gospel I’ve heard;

“The just and loving Creator of the universe has looked upon hopelessly sinful people and sent his Son, God in the flesh, to bear his wrath against sin on the cross and to show his power over sin in the Resurrection so that all who trust in him will be reconciled to God forever. – Dr. David Platt

It’s a bit more than Admit Believe Confess isn’t it? This Gospel will not leave you the same, this Gospel provokes a response either for or against it. It requires repentance, it demands surrender to the Lord of Lords, and it is imperative that to partake of it will cost you your very life. This is what our teens need desperately to have proclaimed to them, that from cover to cover God is calling them to come and die, so that they may truly live. Matt Chandler in his book “The Explicit Gospel” writes concerning the Gospel in the individual:

Above all things make sure your students graduate knowing the magnitude of the Gospel.
What do you think? What would be your one thing you’d make sure students hear before graduation?

“35 And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.37 Then he said to his disciples, ”The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few;38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:35-38 ESV)

There are two huge things I want to point out. First, It says that Jesus had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless. So Jesus sees the crowds and is moved with compassion. This is such a rich word; it’s used throughout the New Testament nine different times, but what is interesting is every single time that it is used, it is used to talk about the compassion of Christ. It is never used, not once, used to describe the compassion of anybody else but Christ. What’s important to understand is that this is the Jesus that if you are a believer dwells in you. So this unique compassion that is exclusive to Jesus is now exclusive to believers. Which means that we should be moved with compassion by those who don’t know Jesus.

The second thing is notice who Jesus instructs the disciples to pray for. It’s not the lost. It’s the church! Jesus is not worried that people won’t come to Him, He’s worried that His people won’t invite anyone to Him. He’s basically saying the lost will come and follow me if the found will go and tell them. This is a staggering revelation to me, in a time where Christians gripe and groan about the declining state of the church and the continual decline of our society people will still come to Jesus if we will go. I think the apostle Paul says it best:

“14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?t And how are they to hear without someone preaching?15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent?” (Romans 10:14-15)

It’s time church for us to open our eyes and feel the compassion of Christ for the masses who will spend eternity with Him and open our mouths and watch the Lord bring in the harvest. It’s harvest time. All hands on deck!

I have failed as a parent. My children are heretics. I can hear your disbelief from here, I imagine our conversation would go similar to this:
“Your over reacting, after all Matt your oldest child isn’t even four yet.”
“I know, which is why it’s so terrible that I’ve created this bad theology so quickly.”
“Ok, I’ll give,” you’ll respond, “why are your children heretics?”
“I’m glad you asked. They say ‘we’re going to church.’ I have trained them that the big brick building with the steeple and their Sunday school classrooms is ‘the church’.”

You by this point are thinking that I have listened to too many statistics about kids leaving the faith and are over reacting, or you are a heretic like I was and have taught my kids to be. Either way let me explain my point.

Look at Acts 13

“Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a member of the court of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. ” (Acts 13:1 ESV)

This is the first mention or the term “church” in the book of Acts. And
the word for “church” here is translated from the Greek word ‘ekklesia’ which comes from two words ‘ek’ meaning ‘out’ and ‘kaleo’ meaning to ‘call.’
Thereby rendering the definition of “the church” as “the called out ones” . So according to the Bible my children are heretics because they’ve been taught “the church” is a building or a campus and in reality we are the church! We are the ones called out of sin and into life and we are the ones to whom the mission has been given. Which makes sense when we really look at the mission that Jesus gave us;

“And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20 ESV)
and
“And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” (Mark 16:15 ESV)

It begins to make more sense. We clearly can’t get the job done if we never get out. We have to stop being content to sit inside our buildings and hope everything works out. We are the church, and it’s time we get out and get after completing the mission before us, and trust me my family is working on correcting the heresy.

What about you? Have you been a heretic too? Do you say let’s go to church, or it’s time for church? Do you have any creative ways to shift the focus back to being the church? Please share them here.

You ever read passage of scripture and something jumps out at you? You know your reading a story and some part of the narrative causes your curiosity to go crazy; well Acts 17 does that for me. Check it out:

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, (Acts 17:22-27 ESV)

So Paul is addressing the who’s who of philosophical circles at Mars Hill (Aeropagus) and he starts out by pointing out that throughout their city he saw many altars to “the unknown god” you ever wonder why there was so many altars to an unknown God? It’s on account of sheep. That’s right sheep.

So imagine its 600 B.C. and there is a dreadful plague wreaking havoc on the entire nation of Greece, everyone is at a loss as to what to do to bring it to an end. The Greeks thought that they must have offended one of their gods, so they began offering sacrifices on altars to all their various false gods. When nothing worked they figured there must be a God who they didn’t know about whom they must somehow apease. Then this Cretean poet (Epimenides) poet has an idea and constructs a plan. He released hungry sheep into the countryside and instructed men to follow the sheep to see where they would lie down. He believed that since hungry sheep would not naturally lie down but continue to graze, if the sheep were to lie down it would be a sign from God that this place was sacred. At each spot, where the sheep tired and layed down, the Athenians built an altar and sacrificed the sheep on it. Afterward it is believed the plague stopped which they attributed to this “unknown god” accepting the sacrifice.

Talk about the sovereignity of God! 650 years or so before Paul stands in Mars Hill God honored the pagans sacrifcie to Him even though they didnt know Him, so that on the day Paul addresses them they will hear His name and havechi opportunity to receive Him.

For the record Epimenides is who Paul quotes during his address,

he’s also who Paul quotes in Titus 1:12 (which is what he is most known for)

“One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.’”

Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. Or at least that’s what G.I. Joe told me.
What about you, any fun Bible background to share? Or stories involving sheep those are also worth hearing!

“If you build it, they will come.”

We would say that line all the time in a variety of scenarios, mostly for comic relief. Unfortunately what I want to talk about today doesn’t have quite the push to insight us to laughter…

When it comes to the strategy of making disciples in our churches throughout America and Europe what we see more than not is that the church in the West can unfortunately be described best by the famous line “If you build it, they will come.” We build big buildings, offer insane amounts of programs, have large budgets we devote to hiring the right staff and advertising our programs and then we wait for the people to come. There’s a scene at the end of movie after Ray builds where Terry (James Earl Jones) tells Ray how “people will come” to his baseball field that I believe sums up our approach…

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We’ve become comfortable inside our churches and expect our staff to “bring in the harvest” all the while consuming more and more spiritual food.

We have rewritten the Great Commission to “Stay and let others make disciples.”

Evangelism has become synonyms with invitation and at best we may mention to someone “you should come to my church”. The problem with our model is that it doesn’t work that way anymore.
To use the “Field of Dreams” analogy; no one cares that you have a nice ballpark in the middle of your corn field. They could care less Shoeless Joe Jackson is playing third base, they don’t like baseball and they aren’t coming.
We a have to realize that the days of come and see actually working effectively are in the past. The people that need Jesus are waiting for you to come to them. Jesus knew that that’s why He told us at the end of the book of Mark;

And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. (Mark 16:15 ESV)

Have you noticed this trend in your church? How are you striving to make disciples? Let me know in the comments.

The 3rd largest mission field in the world? It’s not where you think

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