Not My Own

Growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, when I lived there I didn't think it was anything that special. It is known for being the second cloudiest city in the nation (#1 being Seattle), and it's nicknamed the "Furniture City" known for it's production of furniture. WOO HOO. It was and will always be where my home roots are but I never felt any special bond with the city while living there. It wasn't until I moved away that I truly appreciated my home town for what it was. After living in Nashville for almost three years now, I now understand what it means to have a sense of pride and value from where I come from. Moving form the North to the South is a bit of a cultural shift. There are elements that are similar, but I have learned to appreciate the differences. What helped me learn this was removing myself from the familiar and stepping into a place and culture a bit unfamiliar. Leaving my comfort zone helped me gain a whole new understanding. How can we ge

Visiting youth during their school lunch time can be difficult. First of all, some schools do not let in any visitors at all. Other schools make it tricky by first making you get a background check and your fingers printed. Other schools require notes from parents and identification. If they finally let a youth worker in, usually we are instructed to not talk about religion or invite youth to our church. After all this, then trying to find some of your youth in a wild sea of teenagers in an overcrowded lunch room is like looking for a certain type of fish in the ocean.   It can be a humiliating experience as some teens glare at you assuming you are someone’s parent or in my case when teachers yell at me to get back to class.   But once you get through that entire mess let me tell you a few reasons why it is worth it… 1. You get to know your youth outside of church and see who they really are. 2. You get to meet their friends and this is how I have seen the most growth in our you

I have had a lot on my plate lately and I am struggling with what it means to let go of my own burdens and other people's burdens. Most of these struggles are doubts and frustrations that come from being a youth minister.  How do I give my worries to God and truly be set free? That is one of my greatest struggles. I constantly wonder if I am doing a good job and how that is defined.Questions constantly haunt me like... Are student's spiritual needs being met? Do most of the students and volunteers feel reached out to? What does it mean to be a successful youth minister? Am I equipping parents enough? Are lessons deep enough? Are events fun enough? Are relationships meaningful enough? Am I doing enough? WHAT IS ENOUGH? The pressure of ministry can be overwhelming if you are constantly wondering.. "Am I doing good enough". The answer you are going to get from the enemy "NO. You are a fail." No wonder so many youth ministers quit after two years. On the edg

Life is full of frustrations, agony, and pain Life is confusing, distaining, full of failure with nothing to gain I strive, I yearn I fall, I learn So far from perfect, so far from pure On my own I search for some kind of cure The bitter agony of life churns inside Fear drives me to run, guilt causes me to hide Sick and screwed up indeed So deep in failure, I can’t fulfill my empty need What about the good things have I forgotten? Am I so distraught and rotten? What about all my accomplishments, joy, and love? What about these good things I have to be thankful of? I give to the needy! I try to help the poor! To feel better about who I am sometimes I give more These things make me feel good, I pat myself on the back But such things don’t sustain for long There is something  deeper I lack Helping to feed the hungry was a good start But I seemed to have forgotten about their empty heart I am so tainted, and so unclean None of these good things will ever be seen S

I walked around downtown San Diego not sure what to do. Andrew was at his neuro science conference and I decided to explore the city. I realized not much was open at 8am except maybe a coffee shop. After only finding an overly crowded Starbucks I changed my mind. What else should I do? I remembered it was Sunday! On vacation I tend to lose track of the day. Maybe I could go to church. However, I hadn't seen any church since I have been in the city. It's not like Nashville where there is a church on every corner. So I prayed, "God if you want me to go to church help me find one." I started walking again with no clue where I was going. I kept hearing in my head, "Go to the mall." I didn't want to go to the mall and HELLO... it was 8am on a Sunday surely it's not even open. I knew there was an outdoor mall downtown but wasn't sure where it was. Thinking I was crazy, I decided to find a local coffee shop and sit down to have my own church because God

"I finally get it Sam!" I heard a student say. "Get what?" I asked. "I finally get what it means to be a Christian because I heard it in a way that related to skateboarding." As a youth minister I have the blessed opportunity to work with a variety of students. Some are athletes, artists, dancers, singers, thespians, horseback riders, writers, readers, and some participate in band. The majority of these kids fit into church pretty well and are respected for using their gifts to help serve the church. But what about the skaters? How are they treated by the church? I think for the most part skaters are looked down upon. They are stereotyped as rebellious druggies who listen to evil music. Many people feel skaters turn to skating because they don't feel like they fit in anywhere else. But what would it look like if the church embraced skaters, admired their passion, and respected their talents? What would it look like if people stopped stereotyping

I have watched about five episodes of the T.V show Glee and I must admit that I am a fan. I have not officially called myself a "Gleek" yet but we will see after I watch a complete season. Glee is a musical comedy-drama television series that focuses on the high school Glee Club.Glee club participates in show choir competitions while its members deal high school drama and relationship issues. In the five episodes I watched, I have seen a variety of teen issues covered including teen pregnancy, homosexuality, divorce, drugs, sexting, and questions about musical appropriateness/lyrics. As a youth minister, I also enjoy watching a show that focuses on the lives of teenagers and what they are going through. Does this mean the show accurately describes every teen's life? Absolutely not! An episode I watched recently called "Grill Cheesus" brought God into the series. I thought this episode was just going to be another T.V show that mocks Jesus or depicts Chris

I have discovered that church drama is the worst kind of drama because everyone tends to think God is on their side and they are entitled to claim ownership to the church. Our humanness has left us with pretty horrible communicating tactics and poor listening skills served with an enormous amount of pride. No wonder people get so mad. Everyone has a different opinion of how church should be run and who should be in charge. Our consumer focused society is not helping our selfish mindset about what church is. I asked one of my new students the other day if she belonged to a church anywhere. Her response was, "Not exactly. My family is church shopping right now." I have heard the phrase before but this time it struck me differently. Currently, our church is going through some struggles. We are trying to embrace transition from what used to be a small town country church into a church that speaks to the growing suburb community. This transition comes at a difficult time sinc

Ephesians 6: 10-12 "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." This past weekend I saw student's lives changed, had open and honest conversation about sex and relationships, and watched three different generations bond together sharing wisdom and teaching one another. It was a beautiful picture of family ministry.  Adults and teenagers were together talking about subjects that I think most churches try to sweep under the rug causing people to learn about sex and relationships through media and other misleading sources. One parent put the weekend into her own words... "Mostly this weekend I was reminded that teens want adults to be real, truthful and to sh

I was sitting at a restaurant and over heard adults complaining about the current generation of teenagers. They complained about how this generation of teenagers is overly self focused and consumed way more with sex and poor choices more than any other generation. "Things are just not the way they used to be when I was a kid. Kids these days only care about getting high and getting it on. They don't take responsibility for their actions and they are giving into temptations without a care." I heard a man complain. I wish I could take this group of adults and all other adults who think and believe this and let them walk in my shoes for a week. If I had the ability to do that, perhaps they would see teenagers in a different light. As a youth minister, I get to see teenagers who are passionate and excited about their faith and serving others every week. Yes, they are tempted to follow the crowd and get caught up in moments of temptation; and yes sometimes I get frustrat

I was so thrilled to see one of my students coming back to bible study! I thought she left our youth group and started going to a different church, but she came back to us and I could hardly wait to talk to her. "We are so glad to have you back!" I said. "Well thanks, I went to another church with my friend and you wouldn't believe everything they had! They had huge video screens and multiple Wi game systems and everything! All the kids loved playing them." She explained. "That's really cool." (Secretly feeling bad because I knew we didn't have anything like that and probably wouldn't for a long time and I knew I just couldn't compete with that) "Not really. They spent half the time just playing games and not much time learning about God. I didn't like it." I was so impressed by this student's willingness and desire to learn about God. I decided that night I would  spend most of the time really focusing on th

A few nights ago I had a dream that there was a snake trying to bite Andrew and I. Chloe, our dog, was also running around in the background of my dream barking at the snake. This gets kind of weird but I was throwing acorns at the snake to distract it so it wouldn't bite us. I remember a big adrenaline rush followed by a huge feeling of fear somehow knowing this was a poisonous snake trying to cause us harm.  I woke up suddenly and could not get the dream out of my head for the rest of the day. Here's where it gets freaky like the Twilight Zone or something. After waking up the next day, I started of my normal routine by taking Chloe for a walk. I took her to the park so she could jump in the creek and cool off in case she was too warm from the scorching southern sun. Since living in Tennessee I was introduced to a little activity called "crick-stompin". Also known as... "creek stomping" basically to my understanding this means just walking

I was reading a book about adolescent development today and there was a section about sports. It caused me to heavily reflect upon my time as a high school and college athlete. I remember training harder than ever in high school so I could be a starter on the Varsity team. My defense skills as a catcher were very strong. My hitting was consistent, but I was not a power hitter. I was a decent single hitter and great a moving my team-mates around the bases. My greatest strength was bunting. Yet, every player longs to hit a home run. I had been trying to hit a home run ever since I could play ball. It was never accomplished. In high school I spent much of my time trying to make my swing more powerful. I remember after one of my best rounds of hitting in the cage every ball was a solid line drive to the back of the net. Hitting the ball like that felt so good! I hit almost an entire bucket of frozen ropes. When I was done I quickly ran over to pick up all the balls and I smi