Listening To The Alarms

I just read about that great tragedy in Russia where 62 elderly nursing home patients were killed in a fire. That is tragic, what is more tragic is that it may have been possible to avoid many tragic deaths. One of the people helping the elderly from the burning building said, "If only the firefighters had been here"

From the news article, "At the nursing home, a fire alarm system that had not been fully installed signaled three times, but a watchman, att he facility, but outside the building, ignored the first two alarms and reported the fire only after he saw the flames."

I would also mention the firestation was 30 miles away and took them an hour to arrive. This article is full of spiitual analogies.

1. People were looking for answers.

We have peolple dying slow spiritual deaths do not have ot perish. We certainly don't want their last words or their families to be "if only".

2. We have a watchmen ignoring the alarm.

Ther are many who wouild use this point to build their ministries and add people to their pews. They re alarmists. Alarmist run around with no plan and little substance. Why do fire fighters respond the way they do? Why don't they freak out when their alarm goers off? How many fires would get put out if they did nto have their response down to a science? We do not need to be alarmists about the conditon of America or about the souls of men but we cannot ignore the alarm. Rather, we should be aware, as spirtitual firefighters, that the alrm will ring, we will be called apon as pastors and laymen to repsond to a fire. We should have a plan to assist those in spiritual crises and to assist those who are lot without Christ. Ignoring thelarm is not an option.

3. We call the fireman only when we see the flames.

it was too late. oftne the chruch arrives to late. Teens are on drugs, girls are hainvg abortions, men and women are having affairs, wheere is the chruch when livesa re burning? Yes, we can respond but we may not be able to save the buiding or everyone inside. Instead of waiting for people to combust into flames we should be smelling for smoke and lovingly appoach the source of potential disasater and offer assistance.

4. The fire dept. was too far from the fire.

Why is the chruch afraid to get it's hands dirty? Why are we so far removed from the pain of peole? Why are we too far from the flames? Soul are at stake. When I speak of the church I speak of every person who names the name of Christ. We, the church, the people, not the orgaization out to be running into the buring lives of families and communities and and lovingly and graciously tell them that unles they leave, the fire will consume them. There is a way. We and the church are not the way. Only Jesus is the way and it is He we represent. Weare his hands and his feet.

One final word church. We should not build another "fire station" unlesswe intend to fight fires.

I'd say let the sparks fly but I fear they would cause a fire no one would put out.


Paul Turner

Apologies Are A Part of the Journey

I felt sorry for the CEO of the airline jet Blue. David Neeleman had been making the rounds from news channels to late night talk shows falling all over himslef because of the way they handled the Valentines Day storms and did not get it together until after Presidents Day. It reached an excrutiating point when David Letterman greeted him with a soft drink in a plastic cup and a bowl of peanuts and just pounded him with questions about why people were left on the plane on the tarmac for 10 hours. Neeleman squirmed, sweated and stammered his way though yet another apology. As hard as it was to watch it had ot be done. Blunders of that proportion require answers, apologies and plans that it will not happen again. Why doesn't the church get that?

I quickly drew some analogies from this incident and the church. We don't owe our congregations an apology as much as we owe the world and sinners an apology. Jet Blue published an apology in the New York Times recenlty and from that wrote my own apology:

Dear Sinners, Seekers, and Skeptics,

I, we, the church owe you an apology. We owe you an apology for many things like The Crusades, the Inquisition, and Televangelists.

What we are most sorry for is how the church interacts with you. You have often come to us looking for answers and we gave you rhetoric.

We’re sorry for giving you good rules instead of good news.
We’re sorry for giving you programs instead of relationships.

We’re sorry for giving you our four point shpeal instead of a listening ear.
We’re sorry for give you judgment when you were looking for mercy.

We’re sorry that we invited you to a building and to a service instead of inviting you into our lives to examine our faith in light our doubts, struggles, and fears.

We’re sorry that when you came looking for Jesus we gave you religion.
We’re sorry we made Jesus our candidate instead of our Savior and Lord.

We’re sorry we did not serve in more soup kitchens, aids wards, and relief efforts to the worlds poorest and desperate.

We’re sorry we thought the gospel was too pristine to get our hands dirty and too fragile that we could not dialogue over it.

The world cannot expect the church or any one organization to solve all the world problems. God has planted his church here to not only relieve suffering but as a light house for lost souls.

We’re sorry we have not lived up to the Great Commandments. To love God with all our might and show you what it means to have relationship with the heavenly Father.

We’re sorry that we did not love you as we loved ourselves and thereby deny you a physical offering of the spiritual truth we so adamantly believe in.

We’re sorry for not living up to the Great Commissions. We’re sorry we build more country clubs for the spiritually bloated and less hospitals for the spiritually starving.

We’re sorry that we beat around the bush about we truly believe.
We’re sorry we denied you access to the truth and your option to examine it.

We’re sorry our light burned too dimly for you to find your way out of that dark tunnel called sin.

You deserve better. You deserve a educated, passionate, and civil presentation of the best news in the whole world: God loves you and desires to have relationship with you through His Son Jesus Christ.

To paraphrase a recently apology given by the airline carrier Jet Blue: “Nothing is more important than gaining your trust, and all of us here hope you will give us the opportunity to once again welcome you onboard and provide you with the positive example of what it means to be a Christian and to show you what God has expected from us all along.”

When You Need To be Discipled

Hey Everyone,

Got alot on my mind today but wanted to stick with the topic above. What happens when the all knowing, never wrong, discipler needs discipling? I find myself in a quandry. After 20 years of ministering to young people I feel a strong need to get out of the picture so I can regain my own faith or as Scripture says, "examine yourself to see if you are still in the faith." I hate to make it life and death but it's bigger than that. It's spiritual life and death. For me I have to risk everything to regain something that used to be so precious to me. I used to cry for the lost, pray until I was hoarse, and serve/give until it hurt. Now I just hurt.

The "church" has taken it's toll on me. the religiosity has crept in like a cancer. It has eaten away at my once idealistic motives and turned them dark. I am reaching a point where all the years of adulation and compliments are coming to a pinnacle. I am not proud or arrogant. I am only going to admit that the destiny that Christ has held in his hand since before I was born is about to be realized. By faith I wil open my hand and heart to what is in THAT hand. It will only be released when I have taken that step. No more doubts or fears as to whether I am good enough. I believe that question has been answered. The next question is "what will you do with it?" This does not mean I will be the next big thing. Far from it. in fact my success may have alot to do with my anonymity. My abilty to fly below the radar. To slip into a room and watch God work through me and then slip out with students not remembering what was said or who I was as much as what God did among them.

Scary as all this may seem, it must be done. My need to feel alive (spiritually) again and be the father and husband I need to be are all interlinked. My love/hate with the church is but one story in a library filled with such stories. Mine is not special but it is my own. To embrace once again a strong work ethic and to work for change and not for money (all though need it.) is what I seek and somewhere along the way is some one who will disciple me the way Christ discipled his own.

Father God, protect me and my family from wrong and prideful choices. Make me an example of what it means to fly head long ino the storm to find peace at he center of it. I'm couning on your unfailing love and faithfulness. Lead me Lord.

Your Son,

Paul

Inside My Head

Hey All,

It's been a while since my last message. Discipleship is a long and tedious process. I have to let time pass and see what God is doing. I can't just jump on here and publish every do-dad my students or myself are doing otherwise it tuns into the equivalence of The Truman show. I read an article in Christianity Today with Dallas Willard. He says, and I paraphrase, "not many today are intersted in discipleship". This is coming from a pretty smart guy who has his hand on the pulse of American brand Christianity. I guess it's not an awefully new revelation considering that churches are indecline. We're quick to say, "oh, theirs revival over their" or "oooh look God is really doing something there!".

It is a shame they we do not celebrate the steady, the consistent and the perservering. No one says "look they have a small group of married couples who are trying to make their marriages stronger!" or "look, they just started a pantry ministry for those who are hungry!" I am Pentecostal to the core but I don't chase movements.

In fact it makes me consider the Scripture,

Matthew 24:24-27

For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect--if that were possible. 25 See, I have told you ahead of time. 26 "So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. 27 For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Now, I am not saying that every Pastor or leader who is drawing a crowd is a cult leader or false prophet. I am saying that we are too quick to put the stamp of God's approval on sporatic, spiritual encounters that are here today and gone tomorrow. The Scipture also says,

I John 4:1-3

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

We need to be to the Church what Consumer Reports is for flat screens and ipods. We must test those movements and and see the fruit it is bearing. I would also include that when supernatual power and filthy natural man collide you have a mess. The condition of the vessel should not discount the aroma of the wine. If so, we would always negate ourselves from sharing the gospel or doing any good work.

So, that's what is inside my head today. Have a great day!


Let the sparks fly!

Staff Meeting or 25 Things I Don't Care About

Not to long ago I shared how God uses staff meetings to disciple us. Often times it literally becomes the 25 things I don't care about. If this is true for us then it must be true for our students. To tell the truth I am sick of meetings. Meetings, for too long, became the measuring stick of our success in youth ministry. Who came to the meeting? How many were there at the meeting? How did the meetng go? Why do I rant? I recently had a terrible/wonderful youth staff meeting. It was terrible because only 3 others beside myself showed up. It gave us pause, after I complained, to discover the wonderful: Maybe we don't need planning/youth staff meetings at least in the sense that we knew them. Now if you are a bi-vocational youth pastor with 0 help; consider that not to be a bad thing. The large groups staff, which I was always envious of, is not the standard of measurement. I would become green with envy when I saw a team of 20 somethings laughng and marching through the hallways with their leader always wishing that was me. I'm over it. Meetings are too often about egos and control.

When it comes to discipleship and the impartation of Christ to others the meeting is the least effective way to do that. I don't care if it's your youth staff meeting, your student leadership team or your small group bible study. I have, like you, a wide range of kids I minister to. Some do not come to our church. If we make discipleship about the meeting we become legalistic. I understand that we have things to do and tasks to perform in the uber youth group of business. Ministry , drama group, etc. are all important and avenues of discipleship. I guess I question the whole deal. In the beginning of my ministry I wanted to create the super-Chrsitians. The Bible toting, scripture quoting, always there, never fails student. Consider that about 40 years ago another man with a tiny mustache tried and partially succeeded in doing just that. Not my role model.

Back to the students. I have two guys in my group who are not leadership or leash-ership quality. They don't want to be on the leash or in the stall of traditional leaders as we have seen them. They want to love God and serve God in their own way. "But, if they don't come to the meeting, how will you do that?" simple, not have a meeting. Not create walls, barriers or standards that keep them in a dated model of discipleship. I have lunch with them, they love me, they joke with me, they invite me out after service to eat. It's different and refreshing. They do come to small group Bible study and to service and they do want to serve. They recently started playing in a band. At first not a very good one. They play at their schools campus Bible study. Idea! I'll get them to play Halloween at our youth center, play Halloween Family fued, and just let them go. Give them parameters, but just let them go. I'll tell you how it goes. Anyway, that is just one example of many that shows me that the traditional once a month meeting of blah, blah, blah is out and I must continually change how I disciple students. I loved meetings, the energy, and one day God may change my mind or bring back the need for the meeting; but for now, I am enjoying the meeting free dscipleship freedom God has offered me.

Let the sparks fly!

Paul

And Now, For The Letting Go Part

Letting go of a student is a hard thing. Letting go is a partnership. Plenting of kids leave our groups or quit coming under bad or awkward circumstances. Letting go is more of a mutual agreement. I have felt disheartened when a student, especially a talented one leaves for various reasons. Sometimes it a church change, sometimes just busyness leads them away.

If you have the opportunity to let go it's a good thing. I recently had a student tell me that they felt led to another church/youth group. They had recently moved farther away from the church but I was still crushed. We had history, trips, camps, etc. After we spoke (to make sure there were no personal issues) my wife and I prayed with them and then allowed them to share the reasons why they were leaving. I did this for several reasons:

1. It's the right way to do things.

I can't count the number of times I've seen students or families just drop out of church without any reason later to find out they are going somewhere else. Or worse, they leave and you never notice they are gone. Partnering with the student whose leaving makes sure that things are done the right way.

2. It squelches rumors.

It doesn't matter what really happens truth becomes what is spread around. If you and the student partner to make a good exit it will set the record straight.

3. It give a chance to celebrate and mourn.

Closure is big with me. Maybe it's because so many Houdini pastors made me disappear with out warning. This is especially important if the student has been in the church along time. The Bible says we should rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. The church is all about relationships. It's our job to keep them as healthy as possible and closure facilitates that. Students get to say goodbye and we get to say thank you to those students for their years of service.

Jesus had to let go. He even gave Judas the out, "Go and do what you must do quickly". Jesus let him go. No argument, no complaining, no "please come, back we need you". Later on Judas' spot had been filled by Justus. We must be willing to let them go and let God take them to where they believe they are suppose to go. We cannot stand in their way to protect the youth group or the program, that would be selfish. Thank God for the blessing of letting go. You can sow a seed or you can squash the growth you had tried to hard to cultivate. The choice is yours.

Let the sparks fly!

PT

Eating Dirt and Letting Go

Eating Dirt and and letting go. Both are hard to swallow but is a necessary step in our spiritual growth and the growth of those we disciple. Recently a long time family of the church bought a house across town about 40 minutes from the church. If you've been around the church any you know that no matter what they tell you, they're gone.

They had bought the house and we had a youth night pm service that we were doing. Two of their girls were involved. I had just flew in from a funeral and had let one of their daughters and two other leaders coordinate the evening. Well, upon my arrival things seemed disorganized. It was a little and as leaders do we have to give "the talk". My talks are a bit more motivational and can come across as intense or that I am displeased. After the talk I had talked with the leaders and told them not to mistake my intensity for displeasure.

After "the talk" about a week later I heard that the young lady was mad at me because she had felt singled out. Well, as soon as I heard it my wife and I sat down with her and asked her to share her feelings. This is where the big, heaping, helping of dirt is served an appetizer. Upon hearing this I immediately had a fleshly reaction. I was mad, I had a so what attitude, I was wrong. I had to look deeper. My callousness hurt someone's feelings even though it was not directed to her. We talked for about 15 minutes and I just laid it out there. I apologized and could here the hammer hitting the nail with ever word I spoke. Following that she said that she would not be attending youth anymore but would be looking for somewhere else to go. She said it was not because of this and I believer her to some degree. It was not a "leave the church" offense. Her parents closed on the house and this was a natural step for her and I agreed. Who am I to argue when God is leading someone.

I offered her the opportunity to stand before our group and share what was going on. I don't believe you should sweep things under the rug. I had told her that I believe closure was important on both ends. She came that Wednesday and at the end of the service shared about two minutes of why she was leaving. It gave students a chance to say good bye and for her to say goodbye to them. It leaves a leadership void but I am not worried God will fill in the gaps.

Some things we can take away:

1. Don't have a diet of eating dirt. Keep it cool and think before you speak.

2. If you have to eat dirt eat it cooked the way you like it. Handle problems straight on with grace before they come looking for you.

3. Dirt tastes nasty at first but the after-taste isn't so bad. You are left with the knowing that you have done the right thing for the right reasons. Humility is a characteristic that should always challenge us and change us more into Jesus Christ. I think of the verse where Christ stood before Pilate "he opened not his mouth". Humility.

In my next session I want to talk about letting go of those you lead. See you next time.

PT