I Hate Programs

I hate programs. I don’t know why but I can’t think of too many church programs that I like. When I share this with people they often give me a weird look so I was thinking about this today and thought I would try to share with you my disdain towards these awful things.

1. The program becomes more important than the purpose.

Programs are usually started to meet a felt need. They are contemplated and refined and the developed and do a great job meeting the need. But at some point they often become dated and no longer serve their purpose, or they get off track, or the program may become a substitution for personal responsibility, or people refuse to tweak them to help them work.

Some years back I was talking with a group of leaders who all agreed a program was broke. It wasn’t meeting the purpose and what was great 30 years earlier wasn’t helping people accomplish it’s goal. Many suggestions were offered to help but all shot down. Some of the leaders were married to this program and refused to tweak it. They felt the program was untouchable and the real problem was people.

This is all to common. We fall in love with these beast and when it is time to change, revive, or kill it no one is willing to go through with it.

2. Programs encourage managers not leaders.

Leaders want to lead, personalize, tweak, and dream. They want to cast a vision of what can be done. Most churches want people to come in and manage the program. Leaders don’t want to manage they want to be bold and fresh not maintaining the status quo.

3. Programs stifle creativity.

Programs limit our ability to dream and think out of the box. Think about any program. Lets take the Bible Class program. 200 years ago innovators came up with this concept and over the years it was redesigned to meet needs. Then one day the innovation stopped and most bible classes look the same today as they did 60 years ago. Many things have changed but not the program. New ideas are shot down. Out of box thinking is denied over and over.

Imagine you started a new church and you could do anything. Would you do bible class differently? Most of us would. But this program is here to stay and new ideas are never asked for much less encouraged.

4. Programs Multiply

Many of us attend churches that have 20 programs and many of them try to accomplish the same goals. I believe the reason for this is because when leaders realize they can only manage a program they decide to launch a new one and it may be do accomplish what the old program is no longer accomplishing.

So you may wonder what I think we need instead of programs. Well I don’t know. Programs are necessary evils to accomplish goals many times. I have suggestions on how to make programs work and I will talk about that next week. Any thoughts on programs or on how to accomplish things without them or in spite of them?

Fasting

Fasting by Scot McKnight is the latest in the Ancient Practices Series. McKnight is a mega blogger and great theologian. This is the best work I have read on fasting. If you have an interest in the subject this is a must read. Most who write about fasting focus on the benefits one can gain from it. McKnight sees fasting as “the natural inevitable response of a person to a grievous sacred moment in life.” He walks you through the Bible and shows how when people fasted they did so not in order to gain something but because something happened that to eat would be sacrilegious or not appropriate.

When we read of people fasting in the Bible it was usually because someone died, they were anxious about an upcoming threat, they realized the severity of their sins, or they stood in awe of God. Fasting is a natural response to all of these. When we loose someone we often do not feel like eating. When we are anxious over something our appetite disappears. The fast is natural not forced.

There were those who fasted in order to get something. They appear on the pages of the New Testament and we know them as the Pharisees. Jesus reveals their motives in Luke 18 when one tells God how great of a person he is because he fast twice a week. He believed that fasting meant that he was more godly than others and that God owed him something because of his piety. In Matthew 6, Jesus condemned them for fasting so that everyone could see their piety and said the respect of people would be their only reward.

McKnight acknowledges that their are benefits to fasting and one can draw closer to God through the discipline but warns that must not be our motive. I have fasted in the past and rarely had an encounter with God. This always frustrated me because many have written and taught that if we fast God will respond to us in a way that he wouldn’t otherwise. I would often feel defeated after fasting. McKnight admits that this is normal because the purpose of fasting was never to compel God to listen to our prayers more than he would another. But the purpose is to respond to something that compels us to stop and morn the situation. It could be death, sin, hurt, pain, anxiety, injustice, or any number of things. Fasting helps us internalize the moment, grieve the consequences, and seek comfort from God.

This is the best read in a year for me. I would recommend it to everyone!

Free Wings for a Year

I woke up this morning at 5:50am, took a shower, checked the weather, watched a little Mike and Mike in the Morning, then headed to the opening of Buffalo Wild Wings in Spring Hill. Barry Throneberry and I arrived at 7am and became #95 and #98 of the first 100.  So as a result we have 52 coupons for 6 free wings. 6 wings cost 4.75 so I figured that for my 3 hours of standing in line I made $247 dollars of free food or $83 dollars and hour.

Now for some spiritual application. The first people in line arrived at 3pm on Sunday. Others arrived at 6pm, 9pm, midnight, etc. I arrived basically during the 11th hour but got the same payment as the people who were first. Couldn’t help but to think of Jesus’ story in Matthew 20:1-16. Now I will go and taste and see that the Lord is good. Today he tasted like Asian Zing.

Weight Loss

I am overweight and have been for years. In 2005 I weighed 240 and lost 30lbs. It was a great start but not where I needed to be. Then I went on vacation and thought why not splurge I’m on holiday and so I did and have. Well after more pints of Ben and Jerry’s and Dove ice cream that you could ever imagine I am back to 230. I hate this and feel terrible. I know that I am a prime candidate for diabetes. All my fat rest around my stomach. So I am determined to loose the weight. I have no number goal but to loose the stomach. So I am dedicated to eating better and doing some exercise each day. My real goal is to get off the deserts and the fast food. Exercise can be anything from walking, riding my bike, or basically something I enjoy doing. Dana and I have started walking the two mile loop around our neighborhood. We are able to talk about our day and see our neighbors. So I hope to make a bi-weekly post to let you know how the weight loss is coming.

Alabama Basketball

I am a big Alabama fan and went to the UA to watch ball games. I made an A+ in sports and .. well I try not to think about my other grades. But you know to watch every football, basketball (men and women), baseball, and to catch an occasional tennis, track meet, gymnastics meet, and yes even one lacross game it was hard to fit studying for classes into my schedule.

Alabama basketball has always been close to my heart because football tickets were hard to come by so we went to basketball games. When I was in high school Alabama basketball was at its heights. Wimp Sanderson was the coach and yes I even had my own plaid jacket. Wimp was there for 12 seasons and we won 20+ games for 9 seasons. Made the sweet 16 six times. But after Wimp basketball has fallen on hard times outside one season where they made the elite eight (2004).

Anthony Grant is the new coach as of Friday. Grant was an assistant under Billy Donovan when Florida won a national championship. He lead VCU to three straight Colonial Athletic Association regular-season titles and two tournament appearances in three years.

I hope he will help rebuild Alabama basketball. I am nervous because Gotfried was the boy wonder who won 3 OVC titles in 3 seasons and made two tournament appearances at Maury State. He was 68-24 at MS. He lead Bama to five tournament apperances but just seemed to quit the last two seasons.

Blue Like Jazz

Blue Like Jazz has been out for a while and it seemed like everyone was reading it a few years ago. I think that this is why I have avoided it for so long. But while on vacation Dana and I listened to it on our drive. This has become a tradition of trips. On another subject any thing narrated by Jim Dale is a good listen.

Oh well Don Miller read his own book and it was great. His monotone style is quiet enjoyable.

The book was very enjoyable. It is basically a journey of his spiritual life and I could relate to it so much outside of the fact that I have never lived with hippies out in the woods for a month.

The basic theme is that we need to love God and his people. The more we love the less we sin. The more we love the more we live out the mission of God. Jesus loved people no matter who they were. His love really was unconditional. He didn’t care how they treated him, if they loved him backed, if they could do anything for him, or any even if they would mistreat him.  I want to love like that but wonder if I can. How do you love people that don’t love you back or are just indifferent to you?

Taken

Taken is a guys movie about a father who used to be some type of a special forces. His daughter goes on a trip to Paris and is abducted by human traffickers. He has 96 hours to save her or will likely never see her again.

Then you have 70 minutes of a dad kicking butt to save his 17 year old daughter. Dana and I love this movie. It also highlights they very real problem of human trafficking.

The movie has some language at the beginning. Full of violence as he hunts down the people who took his daughter.

Generation Me

Generation Me is by Jean Twenge. This is a research based sociological commentary on those of us born from 1970 till now.

If you like books that deal with sociology you will like this book but if you don’t you will hate it. Twenge does a great job proving that America has raised up a self centered generation that has lead the most blessed, affluent, entitled, depressed, and unhappy generation ever.

Twenge blames much of this on  the self esteem movement. She asserts that we have gone overboard in teaching kids to love themselves. We have told them that they can be anything they want to be and to be proud of themselves no matter what. This sounds good and we all teach this in school, music, media, church, and home. The problem is that we have done this too well. Many in GenMe have believed this to the point that we don’t care about others. Basically we went from self esteem to narcissism. We have become consumed with ourselves and we don’t care about others. Our healthy self esteem turned into esteeming ourselves above everyone else. Twenge gives data to back this up from studies, to interviews with teachers, employers, and GenMe’ers.

This has caused this generation to become very depressed. When we have been told all our life we can be anything we want to be and then we can’t the gulf between our dreams and reality is deeper than ever before. More and more people go to college, earn masters degree, and even Phd’s. We all believe we can do anything but in the end only so many of us really can. We believe we can sing and then Simon from American Idol has to tell us that our parents lied to us and we can’t do anything we want especially sing. Many contestants will insist they want give up their dreams because they know they can and believe in themselves even though all of America knows they can’t sing. Depression, disillusionment, anxiety, and heartache is on the rise because the generation who was told if they were special is slowly finding out they are not.

This generation is also very cynical. We believe in ourselves but not others. Past generations believed they could change the world but not this one. This generation is looking out for themselves and could care less about others and doesn’t believe that things will ever change. Look out for you is their motto.

The chapter on sex and equality are two of my favorite chapters. They show that views on sex have change with this narcissistic generation. So has views on homosexuality, race, and gender.

I enjoyed the read but the detail of studies and data seemed to be a bit of overkill at time. Her conclusion about what people dealing with GenMen and what GenMe’ers should do is great! Good read if you like books on social behavior and how it impacts our world.

Youth Ministry 3.0

Just finished Youth Ministry 3.0 by Mark Oestreicher. I think I have been reading this over the last 2 months. It is only a 116 pages long but Feb. was a busy month so while on vacation I am catching up on the many half read books.

Marko identifies 3 phases of youth ministry. Youth ministry 1.0 was from its conception to 1970. Its primary focus was evangelism and correction. They wanted to convert the masses and help correct them and become great Christians. Chances are if you are around older people for very long you will see this mentality. They see your number one job as correcting people. John is sitting in the parking lot during church you need to correct his behavior. Sally is wearing X so you need to correct her behavior. Do you know what is on Tom’s myspace page you need to correct him. I would add to this doctrine. There was a strong emphasis on what is right and what separates us from all the others. This was best seen as being accomplished by proclaiming the word of God. This was when youth rallies and the like began. Much of our teaching styles started and remain in this area.

Youth ministry 2.o  was from 1970 till now. It was about Discipleship and Creating a Positive Peer Group. Our focus left evangelism and focused on making disciples out of our students. If we could help them become sold out to Jesus then their behavior would change and their friends would see it and want to know more. We would create a safe place for them at church to help them grow. The downfall to this is that we began to place more emphasis on making church a safe place. This presents itself when people are more concerned with having students safe in our place than with people from the world. Parents are more concerned with their children being safe than reaching the lost. Safety is what I see more than anything else. This was accomplished by programs. Programs drive the church today. Go to your local church and you will see more programs than items on the Cheesecake Factory menu. The problem is that we focused on programs so much that they drive us. Even if they don’t accomplish our purpose we are in love with our programs. Success is determined by the number of events and number of people attending them.

Youth Ministry 3.0 is about communion and mission. Marko is encouraging us to begin this new model today. Communion is about building relationships with people and their friends. It isn’t about programs or events but people. The main goal is to love people. Mission is about living out the mission of God in our lives. Jesus was about loving his father and loving people. We accompish this not by proclomation or programs but by being present. And while we are there we build relationships, can model Jesus, and accomplish the rest. We engage in the mission of God and this builds relationships with others and help us love them and God.

Marko gives a condensed look at a movement that is already growing. I couldn’t help but to think that this was similar to Contemplative Youth Ministry. It is a quick and easy read with 116 pages and a third of the page comments from other people. So if you don’t read it them then it will go fast. I will say that this is a must read for youth ministers because it is written by Marko. Let’s face it he has a large platform so this book is going to change youth ministry.

Great Weekend

March 12-14 was our Youth Ministers Retreat at Graymere. This was our 6th year to host the event. We had about 50 people attend. There is something about being with other youth ministers that revives you. This year our speakers were Aubrey Johnson, Lonnie Jones, Jarrod Bailey, Gary Dodd, Barry Throneberry, Bill McDonald, and Nick Jones.

Saturday after we got home from the retreat I got a phone call from a friend who snagged 2 extra tickets to the Braid Paisley concert. It was amazing. Darius Rucker opened and did a great job. He has a great tone and songs. Dierks Bently did a 45 minute set next. He was amazing. His energy reminds me of a young Garth Brooks. When he begins to headline a show it will be a must see and I wouldn’t doubt it he will be entertainer of the year one day.

Brad Paisley is the best. He has great songs, amazing graphics, and can play the guitar like no one else. I loved his show. The best part was that we were in private suite and so no one stood up in front of us, we had a private bathroom, free drinks, and just a great time.

The weekend ended with Firesides. We had a great crowd and that always leads to a great time. I love being around everyone. We built a small fire in a fire pit and talked about how sex is a great thing when kept in the right context but is dangerous when it is not. Much like a fire, when it is kept in the pit it is wonderful but when taken out it can destroy things.