Social Distancing and The Echoes of Heaven

So there’s a popular Forrest Gump meme that says: “And just like that … all of the preachers were televangelists.”

That meme successfully wraps up the chaos most pastors have been facing since the advent of the coronavirus crisis. Over the period of a week, a dizzying variety of social distancing rules were dispensed, limiting social gatherings from 250 to 50 to 10 people … Then no gatherings at all. In our church office in Evansville, IN, we exited two staff meetings in a row to find that the quarantine standards changed while we were meeting. 

Due to the coronavirus crisis, the rapid and unexpected changes to the social landscape have forced lots of churches to think on the fly: How do we do church without gathering? I mean, the church is in the gathering business, for crying out loud. For the most part, larger churches (like ours) were somewhat prepared for church without gatherings, since most of them dabble in the field of online worship. To their credit, most smaller churches didn’t throw in the towel, and dipped their toes into the waters of online worship two Sundays ago. Our state Southern Baptist association (SCBI) did a great job of helping to train churches in the medium of online worship. Boxcast, which is the company our church using for streaming worship, announced that they’ve had a 10-fold increase in church demand for their services. I’m proud of how our churches adapted and changed in worship. 

Amidst the new reality of toilet paper hoarding and Germ-X shortages, our congregations have been fantastic in their level of understanding. In Christian love, I have heard the vast majority of our membership support decisions to run church virtually, knowing that social gatherings could easily spread the coronavirus. 

Even so, everyone in church life understands that something is missing. A strange phenomenon seems to be happening that is making local pastors smile from ear to ear: Our people actually miss other people. And trust me: Your pastors, who hear you routinely complain about not liking people, are very amused. People miss being hugged by their pastor … Warm embraces from people they’ve missed … Sitting next to a dear friend in a coffee shop … Joining voices with other Christians in worship … Even talking in person instead of Brady Bunch-esque Zoom app. For the stir-crazy quarantined mom, the thought of the church nursery brings tears to their tired eyes. 

This longing to gather with other believers found in the heart of the Christian is actually an echo of our longing for Heaven itself. Pastors love to say that our local church gatherings are simply a pale reflection of the worship of Heaven. I’ve heard pastors preach this point many times … And I believe this concept is Biblical and true. However, I don’t think that most local church members are buying what we’re selling. You see, many seasoned church-goers readily equate the word “church” with back-biting and interpersonal nastiness. If we tell the average congregation that Heaven is just like church, they’d say: “Is there a third option available for my final destination? … One without all the church folks? … Maybe a private island in the Caribbean minus a Fyre Festival?”

Nonetheless, the echo of Heaven exists. The worshipping church on Earth mirrors the activity of Heaven. As we see glimpses into Heaven in Revelation, we continually see the church gathered in worship:

11 Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” 13 And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”

– Revelation 4:11-13

9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

– Revelation 7:9-12

Thank God: Worship in Heaven is not virtual. When we get to worship in Heaven, we won’t be having a remote experience from a television or tablet. No, there will be a “great multitude” of people that “no one could number.” Myriads of myriads. Thousands of thousands. And that’s certainly larger than a gathering of 10 people.

When people in traditional Baptist circles talk Heaven, they often describe it as a tearful family reunion complete with barbecue and cole slaw. Golden streets and little houses on the hillside abound, but Christ is only mentioned in passing. John Piper ruminates: “The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?” Unfortunately, Heaven is often portrayed as a Fantasy Island for which the plane never arrives. The average passing fantasy of Heaven erases the centrality of Christ and inserts our own personal wants, desires and dreams. Listen: He holds all things together and is the center of all things – including Heaven (Colossians 1:15-17). A Christless Heaven is no Heaven whatsoever.

However, we should not be quick to commit the opposite error: A people-less Heaven is also no Heaven at all. In Heaven, man will certainly not be the center of attention … Not even remotely close. The honor of the Heavenly throne singularly belongs to the Lamb that was slain. But make no mistake: The bridegroom will have his bride … Our great Ransom will have the people He purchased by His blood. Hear the voice of God loudly proclaim in Revelation 21:3: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” Christ longs to dwell with man, and Christ will receive His foreknown and predestined prized possession (Ephesians 1).

In Christ, we consistently find a great gatherer of people. From the covenant of Abraham to the last pages of Revelation, we see God building up a people as His cherished possession. We would be blind if we miss all the gathering metaphors in Scripture: We are His holy Temple … We are His body … We are His treasured possession (1 Corinthians 12; 1 Peter 2:9). Scripture consistently speaks of Christ uniting and longing to bring people under His wings of protection. He is reconciling the world through His blood (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). Christ is already – and has always been – in the Great Gatherer.

Amidst our troubled little churches filled with petty fights and pastoral indiscretions, we’ll find the foundational activity of Heaven hidden in plain sight: Voices raised together in worship of a risen King … A gathering of people from every tribe, nation and tongue … Praise and glory shifting from our sad little lives to our glorious Savior. Right now in our moment of crisis, we miss the shadow of Heaven. We long to join hands to bless Christ. We miss weeping and rejoicing together. And we hate the division of our personal bubbles and self-quarantines. 

Even the most introverted person would admit now: We miss people. 

Dang it, we really do miss people. 

Even if we never gather again in our local churches on Earth (which I really doubt is true), we will always have the great gathering of Heaven to cling to. Find hope that there’s a Heavenly gathering assured. In Heaven, I doubt there’s barbecue but I’m sure there’ll be Jesus and other Christians bought by His blood, and that’s a whole lot better. And an even more hopeful note in this time: There’ll be no Heavenly quarantines … No self-isolations … No 6 feet of distance … We’ll never find tape marks on the floor to make us stand properly distanced apart. And we’ll certainly have a gathering of more than 10 people in Heaven … And it won’t be simulcasted. Praise God for that. 

We long for the time we can gather in our local churches again. But when we finally get back to shaking hands, raising voices and breathing on each other without face masks again, I hope that we remember that our eternal gathering in Heaven will be so much sweeter and boisterous than Earth. Eternity is written in our hearts … That’s what we really long for.

So come, Lord Jesus. 

Amen.

Photo by Frank Mckenna Courtesy of Unsplash

frank mckenna

Behind The Album: Fight Songs

I struggle with sin. I know the good things that I should do and I do not do them. I give in to the desires and passions of my own flesh. But I want to fight. I want to have victorious moments where I flee from temptation. I want to run the race for Christ without hinderance. I want to see the victorious moment of my Savior’s return. I want Christ to increase my faith in the midst of the fight.

Fight Songs is an album that I wrote in 2018 about the believer’s struggle against sin and temptation. The lyrics are dripping with spiritual warfare. I wanted to write some songs that would encourage myself and others in the daily fight against temptation. Not coincidentally, I pastor a youth group called “Fight Club,” whose theme is 1 Timothy 6:12: “Fight the good fight of the faith.” My goal is to show my church family that I’m human and I struggle with sin … But I also have the blessed hope of Christ in the midst of the fight. I want to fight well for the sake of His glory and His kingdom.

So without further ado, you can check out the album on Spotify, iTunes or wherever you consume music. And here are the lyrics to the songs as well as a glimpse into my thought process for each song:

Turn Your Tail and Run
Here is a moment where the Bible seems paradoxical: We fight sin by running from it. We are commanded to flee from sexual sin (1 Corinthians 6:18). We are commanded to run from our idols (1 John 5:21). The Bible repeatedly tells us to RUN. In the same token, we also promised in James 4:7: “Resist the devil and He will flee.” So run away from sin … And tell the Devil to run away from us. The big answer to temptation is RUN, RUN, RUN.

Verse One:
Every day there’s a war inside
In the depth of my heart and my mind
My heart is set against the things of God
And I want to be closer to His love
And so … It’s time to run

Chorus:
Resist the Devil and he will flee
That flesh no longer has a hold on me
Those youthful days are done
Lions want to sink their teeth in me
So when temptations wash over me
It’s all done … Turn your tail and run

Verse Two:
When my flesh rears its ugly head
Gotta duck out and head to the exit

Two Pigs
A song based on a wacky idea: What if the Prodigal Son (in Luke 15) had a conversation with the pig in the pen? He’d probably come to the conclusion they are both the same. They’re just two pigs in need of rescue.

Verse One:
We’re just two pigs rolling in the dirt
Eating filth as our dessert
Singing bar songs to dissident tunes
The black parade of anarchy
Pain is our biography
Decadence is the air we breathe

Chorus:
This wicked heart
Drags me in the mud
Can’t understand
Why I love the dust
So bleach my hands
And drape me now in white
Put to death this pig in me
Peel my flesh & I will be set free

Verse Two:
We’re just two pigs trapped in a pen
Hear the lies and cry amen
Laughing as we drink this bitter gall
Ignoring all the staring eyes
Voyeurs to our own demise
Unaware the ax is coming down

Lancelot
Lancelot was the knight of the round table who was hopelessly in love with the forbidden: A woman betrothed to another. And just like Lancelot, we all fall in love with forbidden fruit. We need the great King to come rescue us from ourselves. A song about how we’ve fallen in love with sin.

Verse One:
Over the hills and the valleys
Commanded to rescue the Queen
And now I’ve gazed in the dark eyes of the forbidden … that I covet
On the edge of the river
Black like the Devil’s stream
Are you healing my wounds or digging your claws in … to my heart

Bridge:
I’d cut off my hands and pluck out my eyes
To keep you away from me
The idle hands and the second glance are a cage

Chorus:
Don’t know what to do that forbidden fruit tastes so sweet
Run as fast as I can but my own two hands are killing me

Verse Two:
Am I the means of your rescue
Or have you abducted me?
Dragged away and enticed by own lust and my desires … once again

Days of Rain
A worship song for dark days. God, I praise the days of rain falling down on me.

Verse One:
Lord it feels like rain today
Something wicked comes my way
Your words they echo in my head
Close to me in my brokenness

Chorus One:
In my darkest hour your hand still is covering me
Through the night when all is quiet your voice still speaks me
Even in the desert when I’m thirst overwhelms me … You are
Days of rain falling down on me
God I praise these days of rain falling down on me

Bridge:
When everything’s wrong
Everything hurts
You’re still working things for good
When everything’s black
Everything’s bitter
You’re still working things for good

Verse Two:
Lord I flinch when suffering will comes
Cause these traumas still will hurt
But these fractures in my skin
Give way to a Heavenly weight

Compel Me
So I actually wrote this song based on a Biblical counseling conference that I attended. The big idea is that we have only seen a teeny bit of the glory of God (Job 26:14). In order to fight sin, we need to see more and more of God … Until God become the compelling force in our lives. As I see God more, I pray that God would push me and compel me more.

Verse One:
You have saved the one who has no pow’r
And I am powerless to see
That You alone have stretched out the Heavens
And you have breathed the life inside me
You have saved the arms that have no strength
And I am so pitifully weak
And You hang the earth on nothing
And the dead they tremble in the deep

Bridge:
I’ve only seen the fringes of You
And the whispers of Your name

Chorus:
Captivate me with Your love
Set my mind on things above
I’ve got to be compelled by You … Push me with Your hands

Verse Two:
You have counseled those who are not wise
And I have this foolishness in me
Knowing You is the dawn of
This brilliant flame inside of me

Ending:
Captivate me
Resurrect me
Come and save me
Push me … push me
Captivate me
Resurrect me
Come and save me
Push me with your hands

The Sun Thief
A song about our struggle against the Devil and dark spiritual forces. This song is about those dark days where you start to listen to the evil being whispered in your ear … The depressing, cloudy days where the sun has been stolen from the sky. In the midst of the fight, hold onto the first Gospel: One day, our God will come and crush the crooked head of the Devil once and for all (Genesis 3:15).

Verse One:
Black umbrellas and work boots today
The sun has been stolen from the center of the sky
Feel like a demon is strapped on my back
Whispering dark lies that flicker through my mind

Chorus:
The enemy of my enemy has never been my friend
He chokes the life right out of me and beats me ’til I bend
And I know that you’re defeated so why do I give in
You’ve stolen the sun … Stolen the sun

Verse Two:
Come back to bed and hide from the light
This hungry lion stalks me outside
Feel like a thief has stolen my delight
Your cunning words would cost me my life

Ending:
You’re a thief … And a murderer … And a liar
You’re a charmer … And a stumbling block … And a siren
And I know one day will God will come a crush your crooked head
You’ve stolen the sun … Stolen the sun

Fox Hunting
While our sins hunt us down to shame and to destroy us, Christ always provides a way of escape (1 Corinthians 10:13). Sin is on the hunt … I’m the prey … And Christ is the way out.

Verse One:
Arrows whistling over my head
Running down the forest path
Dogs are nipping at my heels
Will they lose the scent?

Verse Two:
These demons I conceived
Blossom into the hands of death
Cornered back down in my den
Will I lose my life?

Chorus One:
Run away
To my escape
Need a cure for this disease
Caught unaware
In a snare
In the headlights I will freeze

Chorus Two:
Run with the hare
Escape the hounds
Through the exit I will flee
I’m the prey
And You’re the way
To escape from the fox hunting

Verse Three:
Cold rain makes my bones shiver
Praying for Your hand to deliver
Another round echoes through the forest
Am I done for?

Verse Four:
I’m a hypocrite and a blind guide
But the gate is open wide
Still I’m frozen in my tracks
Why can’t I run?

Grace Street
When you grow older in the faith, you have these false moments of nostalgia where you feel like you used to be more passionate about Christ. You have moments where you feel like you’ve fallen away from your first love. You remember how your faith burned bright and you ache for former times. Sometimes I feel like I’ve seen too many miles and too many faces … Sometimes I wish things were back to how they were on Grace Street …

Verse One:
Down on the Boulevard
Where chains and bars held storefronts shut tight
I ran the alleyways
Where we laughed well after the stroke of midnight
And when I go back now
It’s a place I no longer recognize
Polished and perfect … Symmetrical lines
It’s a place where joy and pain collide

Bridge:
We used to close down every record shop
And run with our hands held high
And now I just feel so tired and beat down
Where is the fire I had inside?

Chorus:
Too many miles and too many faces
Every monument square has changed
Running away as fast I can down Grace Street
Too many shadows – Too many fights
The scales are falling down from my eyes
Can we get back to what we had on Grace Street?
Down on Grace Street

Verse Two:
Under the overpass
Where locks and gates held back the dirty river
We’d go to every show
And sing out cause we knew we were delivered
And now there’s bitterness
A heart of stone where all my flesh should be
So many regrets when I clinch my hands
Fractured and hollow memories

Bridge 2:
The thorns of the world are ripping my flesh
And I just want to be set free
All of my fears and bitterness
You’ve drowned them in victory

The Beautiful Nothing
A song about the beauty of God’s grace lifting the weight of sin off our shoulders. In Christ alone, we have the amazing feeling of freedom, where nothing is weighing us down anymore. And “the old man” in this song refers to the old creation or the flesh living within me … Not my dad.

Verse One:
Dead weight hanging on my shoulders pulling me down
The old man’s yelling at me saying I’m no good
And I think that I’m missing out on something real
While I’m wasting time with so far to climb and I need a reprieve

Chorus:
So I lift up my hands and rejoice in defeat
Let this beautiful nothing wash down over me

Verse Two:
Pushing dead weight up the hill and it rolls back down
This yoke is built for two but my stubborn heart drowns
And I think that I’m holding on to something fake
Gotta bury the past … Be free at last … Drown these dreams

Verse Three:
Dead weight hanging on my shoulders pulling me down
And I’m wasting time with so far to climb and I need a reprieve

Simple
The whole point of this song was to write a simple song that wasn’t actually simple, so this one is kind of an exercise in self-indulgence. It’s a song about stumbling in the faith … While the actual music is stumbling in its time signatures.

Verse One:
Fumbling close to the edge
Tumbling down the mountainside
All my monuments hypnotize
Shut my eyes and drift away

Bridge:
And that mountain crumbles in my hands into dust
And my cape trips me up and start to strange me

Chorus:
It’s simple to stumble
Easy to fall
Slow to turn around and quick to lose it all
It’s simple to be blind
And easy to see
Why You are the only good in me

Verse Two:
Vict’ry of the mountaintop
Turns into an echo chamber
Snakes are slithering up my neck
I don’t seem to know the danger

You Bet Your Life
Life is short. Wager wisely.

Verse One:
You yelled I’ll never be like you
With fury in your face
Shook your head and walked away
Now and then I see you again
The silence in the hymns
I kick off the dust and I pray

Bridge:
In the blink of an eye, all will change

Chorus:
And suddenly you’re gone
Waving goodbye
Shooting like star into the eastern sky
Suddenly you’re old
Thought you’d never die
Wagered your soul
You bet your life

Verse Two:
Lying in the wreckage
Of a life moving too fast
Pick up speed and cruise away
Stubborn hearts … Unbending knees
And resistant ears
Never thinking the end will come

Whittingham
Whittingham is the name of a real, abandoned mental asylum in England, which folks now say is haunted. This song is about a bunch of inmates escaping the asylum. One day, we’ll leave the insanity of this life and reach the peaceful shores of Heaven. Let’s escape together.

Verse One:
Something seems brighter with the world today
The colors shining phosphorescently
Rolled up the bedsheets and I escaped
Soon the dogs will be out searching for me

Bridge:
Think I’m a fool
But I found the truth

Chorus:
Now I’ve escaped from Whittingham
White and sterile rooms
No one else seems happy there
They’re singing evil tunes
If you want to find me … I’ll be home soon
I’ll be sailing over the moon

Verse Two:
Something seems clearer with the world today
Seems I’ve come down from all the Novocain
Snuck past the guards … Stolen the key
Push past the double doors and now I am free

Everything Else Is Shifting Sand
If I were honest, my life really doesn’t look like the hymn: “On Christ the Solid Rock.” I place way too much trust in the shifting sand of my life. I’m blinded to my own devices and my own sins. But I long to be found on the solid rock and firm foundation of Christ. Lord, please plant me there on peaceful shores. Rescue me, God, from shifting sand.

Verse One:
If I were to be honest
My hope is built on something less
I trust in my own righteousness
To pull myself out of this mess

Verse Two:
I made this trap with my own hands
My evil convoluted plans
So now I sit drowning in dust
Comfortable in my own rust

Chorus:
Drowning under shifting sand
And blinded to the truth
Drowning under shifting sand
My only hope is You

Verse Three:
Each step I take marches to my grave
I’m broken and beaten as a slave
My righteousness is filthiness
So I call to You in my distress

Ending:
On Christ the solid rock I stand
I’m done with all the shifting sand

All songs written and copyright held by Matt Higgins (2018).

Rethinking Student Ministry: Responding to the Houston Chronicle Series on SBC Abuse

Twenty years ago, I was volunteering in a local church’s youth ministry. I got a call from one of our church staff telling me that our youth pastor was fired for misconduct with a student. I was absolutely floored. That youth minister was a close friend. We’d stayed up late and watched movies together. We’d bought ghost pepper chili salsa and wept as we ate it together. We’d done summer camp together and rejoiced as kids got saved. As close as we were, I didn’t even catch a whiff of an inappropriate relationship with the student in question. I felt confused and angry … But – more importantly – I just felt duped. 

Regrettably, I’ve seen this youth ministry scenario cycle on repeat like the most horrifying and nausea inducing Phineas and Ferb episode ever: Young youth minister meets cute teenage girl … Said youth minister starts meeting with that student in private locales … The minister puts her in an awkward position and asks her to keep their embarrassing secret … Suddenly the secret gets discovered. It’s literally the story of a young student minister I knew in the last town where I served (at a non-SBC church). It’s the regrettable proof that Ecclesiastes is true: There really is nothing new under the sun. 

So when I read the recent Houston Chronicle article about sexual abuse in SBC student ministries, I was tremendously grieved but not totally surprised. If you hang around church circles enough, you’ll find that virtually every experienced pastor has a story of a fallen pastor … Often one that they trusted. As a family pastor and former student minister, I believe that many of our churches have unwittingly created a culture of student ministry that practically invites the types of temptations that lead to sexual abuse. Expeditiously, we’ve got to rethink our kids and student ministries to make them safe places for our kids. 

Here’s the first key issue: Many churches ask student ministers to engage in job duties that are virtually indistinguishable from “grooming” for sexual abuse. “Grooming” is the process that sexual abusers use to identify potential sexual abusers, earn their trust and break down their defenses. Once trust is established with a child, the abuser will initiate some form of sexual contact that the young person finds embarrassing, and the abuser will ask the young person to keep that activity secret. This sexual contact can range from voyeurism to sexting to oral sex to rape. Once secrecy is established, the abuser will hamstring the young person’s conscience with embarrassment and shame, which enables the abuser to commit more atrocities. 

Today’s popular model of “relational” youth ministry unintentionally mimics grooming, and often enables abusers hiding in plain sight amidst the ranks of our student ministers. In an effort to stem the loss of young people from the pews on Sunday, our church search teams often hire a minister that can identify with our kids’ issues and fit right into our children’s culture. This “relational” youth ministry paradigm believes that our student ministries need to earn the right to share the Gospel with teenagers by entering into their world and becoming their friends. It’s the model of ministry popularized by Young Life and other para-church movements. So our churches ask our student ministers to attend football games, to go to swim meets, to play Fortnite with teens, to have private text conversations and to have one-on-one interactions with our kids. As these ministers build bonds with students, they theoretically have an open door to share their faith.

One commonality of the third part of Houston Chronicle article (on student ministry) is that the abusers used “relational” youth ministry as the dynamic to perpetrate abuse. Pool parties and private meetings become opportunities for oral sex and sexting. “Popularity” became an open door for preying on teens. We want to believe that a married, godly minister wouldn’t send nude pictures over Snapchat or masturbate in front of our kids on Facetime. We want to believe that a mature Christian wouldn’t use an Overwatch game as a proposition for oral sex. But the problem is it happens … Probably more than we think. Folks, I have met a convicted ex-student minister that used video game sessions at his house as the medium to molest children. This crap is real, and it’s time to wake up. We’re unwittingly giving abusers too much unfettered access to our children. 

Churches who ask student ministers to spend one-on-one time alone with our kids in secluded places is simply a bad idea, because it invites situations that lead to sexual temptation and outright abuse. We’ve got to stop asking our adult pastors to hang out in their private time with sixteen year old girls. At minimum, we’re placing both ministers and students in positions of temptation, and shame on our churches for doing that. Our churches need to have policies in place that protect our ministers as they serve our students, and we need to enforce these rules well. Stop private meetings with students … Stop giving students rides home … Stop using disappearing content on social media (i.e. Snapchat) … Stop individually texting students and use group messaging apps instead (i.e. Remind) … Get more parents involved in ministry … Eliminate events without mature, adult chaperones … Demand your ministers have oversight and accountability. You know, we can disciple our students without potentially compromising our integrity. 

And if you’re a young youth minister and your church is asking you to do ANYTHING that could be either compromising or misconstrued as abuse, run away from that church as fast as you can. RUN. Do what the Bible says and flee from temptation. Your long-term impact for the kingdom of God is more important than your service at that church.

There’s a second dynamic at hand in our student ministries that invites abuse: Our churches generally don’t invest well in student ministry (or children’s ministry). The proof is in the pay grade for ministers that work with kids. A 2015 Group Magazine study found that the average student ministry salary was $32,300, which is a number that was actually less than their 2007 study. The most recent Lifeway compensation study shows that full-time youth and children’s ministers are generally the lowest paid of full-time church staff – behind executive pastors, sports / recreation pastors, worship pastors, missions pastors, senior adult pastors and even those nerdy media guys. (How do our kids ministers get paid less than the rec guy?!?) And if youth ministers are doing two jobs at once (i.e. youth / (something else) minister is your job title) then our churches actually pay less for that position!

It begs the question: Why are we paying the folks that work with our kids less? I would hesitate to give a sweeping, overgeneralized answer to that question, because there’s a variety of answers out there. Some churches treat youth ministry as “stepping stone” ministry, where working with students is considered a “starter job” for future pastors. The expectation is that student ministry leaders will one day “grow up,” and will finally have real skills to pastor real adults now that they’ve finished experimenting on the kids. There’s not a ton of statistical evidence out there regarding the age of student ministers, but I can tell you antidotally that you don’t see many 29 year old education ministers or executive pastors out there. Other churches are hiring younger people with less experience, so they generally garner less pay based on lack of experience. Still other churches treat youth and kids ministry as a virtual playtime replete with messy games and skiing outings, so it’s considered a less important ministry than “actual teaching ministries.” There’s different dynamics in different churches, but the result is the same: Children’s and youth ministry generally pay poorly. 

In light of the Houston Chronicle article, our churches must start to focus on hiring well-experienced, well-qualified workers, and we should be compensating them accordingly. When our churches don’t pay well, we attract a pool of workers with scant actual experience being responsible for an entire ministry to actual children. And based on the pay level, we’re not attracting ministers willing to stick it out over the long haul. I mean: Why put up with the non-stop drama and unrealistic expectations that come with student ministry service if you’re getting paid the lowest of any of our ministerial staff?!? I know there’s the statistic floating around the internet that the average student minister only lasts 18 months. While I’m extremely wary of that statistic, I would hesitate to guess that it’s not far from the truth. 

Please understand me here: The key issue is experience and not age. In part 3 of the Houston Chronicle series, Chad Foster, the serial abuser at Houston’s 2nd Baptist Church (who was hired at age 30), is quoted: “When I took the (youth ministry) job, I didn’t know anything about it.” Folks, that should be an absolutely frightening statement. Why would any church hire someone without any experience or notable track record and put them in charge of an entire ministry to children? Yet our churches do it all the time. (And – yes – our junior and high school students are still children.) We’d absolutely string up any secular organization, such as a daycare or private school, for having inexperienced and unqualified staff working with our kids, but we manage to give our church ministries a pass. Make no mistake: Inexperience is not a desirable job qualification for working with children. 

Of course, I do understand that experienced children’s and youth ministers do sexually sin, so I’m not recommending a silver bullet here. But we’ve also got to understand that hiring a question mark of a person and letting them “wing it” in ministry is not really a sound ministry strategy either.  

I think the big idea here is that our churches cannot treat children’s or student ministry as a lesser ministry. Ministry to children is not about crafts, messy game nights and summer camps. It’s about the Gospel. And the Gospel story shared on a Wednesday night in a kids classroom at church is as vitally important to the life of the church as the Sunday sermon. Our discipleship opportunities with students are just as important as the Wednesday night prayer meeting. We’re all sharing the same Christ story to sinful people who need the Gospel … The hearers just have slightly different ages. And the Gospel is important because it alone brings life to dead people. And if the Gospel truly is important, then our student and kids ministries demand excellence. 1 Corinthians 10:31 should be mantra of all of our ministries. Let’s set high expectations for our ministries to children and hold our ministers who work with children to higher standards. 

Discernment Is Not A Dirty Word

Back in 2003, I bought the first Evanescence album at a Lifeway Christian bookstore. “Bring Me to Life” was dominating the airwaves, and the band was quickly the next ambiguously Christian rock big thing. In young evangelical circles, the late 90’s / early 00’s were dominated by discussion board debates of whether the likes of Creed and 12 Stones were REALLY “Christian” bands. The lyrics of the songs were so ambiguous so you might be able to squeeze an ounce of Christ into them if you squint your eyes the right direction. A few months later, Evanescence guitarist Ben Moody raised eyebrows by dropping the f-bomb during an interview with Entertainment Weekly: “We’re actually high on the Christian charts, and I’m like, ‘What the f— are we even doing there?” Soon thereafter, Wind Up Records removed the Evanescence record from Christian bookstores, citing that the record label courted Christian markets within their expressed consent. Then rose the inevitable question: “Should I be listening to this record at all?”

Today, the frenetic pace of social media seems to stir up controversies regarding the efficacy of Christian art on weekly (if not daily) basis: The Shack; Jen Hatmaker; Reckless Love; the theology of Bethel Church; Heaven Is For Real; etc. This week’s case in point has been the recent Christian lifestyle book Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis, who is a popular Christian lifestyle blogger. Despite over having over six thousand 5 star reviews on Amazon.com, the book has been absolutely savaged by virtually every Christian book reviewer of note for its message of self-care and personal happiness being antithetical to the Gospel. Many of my friends and church members have asked me the question: “Should I be reading this book?”

Whether it’s Evanescence or Rachel Hollis, the question is worthy: How do we know whether anything in “Christian” art and entertainment is good, true and worthy of consumption? On multiple levels, it would seem odd that this question even needs to be asked. Why can’t a Christian author determine what is Gospel affirming? Why can’t a Christian publisher discern the content of what it’s publishing? Why can’t a Christian bookseller better regulate what is sold on its shelves? And – ultimately – why can’t the Christian purchaser figure out what books are healthy to buy and consume?

The core theological problem is that sin has set us adrift from our moral compasses. Romans 1:21 summarizes the conundrum of mankind: “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” When God spoke his creation into existence, everything was good in character and quality. Then mankind sinned, unleashing the disease of evil into the very DNA of the formerly good existence. Unnervingly, our sin has blinded our innate sense of good and evil, leading us to see shades of grey where black and white once existed. Wrong is right. Down is up. Crooked is straight. Moral ambiguity reigns. Sin makes us blinded to truth. We tend to see and seek what our hearts desire. The Gospel seeks to bring us glasses to see the world according to God’s clarity of design, but, where sin exists, we are stuck in a morass of verisimilitude. Alas, our bodies of death set us adrift from moral clarity. 

And so the problem is twofold:

1. Everyone producing art has a broken moral compass. 
2. Everyone consuming art has a broken moral compass too. 

Simply, we are broken people consuming art produced by broken people. And this stain of the brokenness of sin leads to uncertainty and moral ambiguity in how we worship and what we seek. Our fractured flesh sneakily draws us towards deceptively untrustworthy messages that coddle our worst desires. We’d rather have our vices reinforced than challenged. We’d rather have books that reinforce our desire for personal happiness than sacrifice for the glory of God. We’d rather have books that reinforce our own skewed vision than help us see with the eyes of Christ. 

If the taint of sin mars everything that we produce and consume, then what’s the solution here? Romans 12:2 presents the key: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” First of all, the transformation of the Gospel initiates the divine process of the ongoing renewal of our minds. Over time in Christ, the blindfold over the moral compass of our minds slowly get removed. The thick fog over our sense of right and wrong gets lifted. As we grow in spiritual maturity, the divine activity of God restores our minds to be able to discern what is good and what is true.

In addition to the divine sanctification of our minds, Romans 12:2 also speaks of believers testing what is the will of God. Therefore, we should not blindly accept everything as good and true. Instead, Christ commends believers to be shrewd as snakes amidst of a world of ravenous wolves (Matthew 10:16). Believers should test ideas to determine if they’re good and true. We should be morally discriminating so that we don’t throw our pearls of the Gospel before swine (Matthew 7:6). 

So how do we test to see what is the will of God? I think that Philippians 4:8-9 helps us here: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” Simply, we must measure anything “Christian” against the Gospel that has been entrusted to us by the apostles (Jude 3-4). We practice what has been divinely passed down as recorded in the Word of God. We hold the Gospel tight to protect against deception. Without the light of the Gospel in our lives, we run the risk of dipping back into the quagmire of darkness. We need the Gospel to check the disruptive desires of our flesh. We need the Gospel to reveal the schemes of the Devil. Without the Gospel, we are fools drowning in our own torture traps.  

So here are two extremely broad thoughts on how to apply discernment to how Christians should intake “Christian” art and entertainment:

1. Just because we’re loving doesn’t mean we can’t be critical.

In the end, Girl Wash Your Face is a book sold by a publisher looking to make profit on behalf of an author attempting to impact the reader’s worldview. Books have ideas. Books have agendas. And ideas and agendas have consequences. Aside from maybe the thesaurus, books are generally not neutral in moral and ethical decision-making. Similarly, art, music and entertainment – even mindless drivel like The Real World and Cheaters – are typically not void of ideas and agenda. 

So our goal as believers is to match any ideas and agendas against the heart of Scripture. In 2 Corinthians 11:4, the apostle Paul scolds the easily swayed Corinthian church: “For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” So therein is the goal: Believers must be wary that a different Christ, Spirit or Gospel is being preached under the banner of the church. Ideas can be deceptively innocuous according to cultural standards but can be hazardous when measured according to the light of the Gospel. So when a book like Love Wins by Rob Bell comes along, we should contrast the book’s universalist claims against the Bible’s posture regarding sin and judgment. We must protect the Gospel that has been entrusted to us (Jude 3-4). 

Frankly, I love the song “Reckless Love” Cory Asbury, and I lead worship at my local church with the song often. However, I also think that the Internet debate on whether the term “reckless” should describe God’s love has been generally healthy and efficacious. Whatever you think of the song’s melody or arrangement, believers should evaluate whether the song’s description of a “reckless love” of God is a different Gospel than Scripture. Since I think that the song mirrors the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15:1-7 (“leaves the 99”), I think that the term is appropriate to sing. But the point is that I’ve personally evaluated the song’s themes against Scripture. And you should too. 

We should debate the efficacy of “sloppy wet kisses” versus “unforeseen kisses.”

We should wrestle with whether the maternal figure in The Shack should represent God. 

We should argue about whether that one kid really went to Heaven for real. 

We should have serious conversations whether the worship song Oceans actually makes a lick of comprehensible sense. 

We debate these things because the Gospel has been entrusted to us. And the Gospel is valuable, because the Gospel brings life. 

2. Just because we’re critical doesn’t mean we can’t be loving.

There is danger to the anonymity of the Internet. When folks disagree with us, we tend to get behind our screens and keyboards to clack out our opinions in lengthy blogs and scathingly hilarious memes. Facebook comment sections turn into war zones where family and lifetime friendships are lost. We wind up saying things online that we’d never say to someone’s face in a million years. In the process, we wind up being the clanging symbols that 1 Corinthians 13 warns us about. It’s entirely possible to be totally right, act like a sanctimonious butt and lose everything in the process … Just ask any married man. If we have lots of head knowledge, solid apologetic argumentation and literary eloquence but we don’t have love, then we really have nothing at all. Ask the question: “Do I really love the people I disagree with?” 

After all, we still look at creation through a mirror dimly (1 Corinthians 13:12). As the perfect has still not come yet, our knowledge is not complete. Our moral compass is still defective. Our hearts are still entranced by our flesh. Our eyes are still tempted by the Devil. In a spirit of humbleness, we must acknowledge that we probably don’t have all of our motivations right in our lacking spiritual conditions. We must be humble, imperfect servants pointing towards a perfect Gospel.

While we are protecting the Gospel, I think we would also do well to remember Galatians 6:1: “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.” In Christ, it is possible to be gentle with other believers that we disagree with. In fact, gentleness should be the fruit of our relationship with Christ. We are altogether too quick to speak and too quick to anger while we don’t understand the heart of the person behind the ideas. In the end, our hearts should be seeking reconciliation with Christ  over harshly pushing people out of the fellowship of our Christian clubhouses. Too often, the collective Christian sphere of the Internet tends to resemble the pitchfork wielding mob from the movie Frankenstein, seeking to quickly dispatch things that they don’t clearly understand. We love to jump on the pile after the tackle has already been made.  

In the end, I’ve begun reading Girl, Wash Your Face too (even though it’s a women’s ministry book). And I think that other Christians should read the book too. But we must read it through the proper lenses of the Gospel to make sure our moral compasses are aligned to what’s good and true. I’ve found some things in the books that I find extremely unhelpful and patently unbiblical – particularly its perspective on personal happiness, depression and anxiety. If you’re a Christian reading this blog, I think you will find unhelpful and unbiblical ideas too. So let’s take her ideas and debate them. Let’s ensure that Hollis isn’t preaching another Christ, Spirit or Gospel. Let’s see if her ideas are true, honorable, just, lovely, pure and commendable. And let’s find encouragement in the divine pages of Scripture before the fallible pages of any book.

And as we interact with and challenge these ideas, let’s be gentle, loving and kind – not only with one another – but also with Rachel Hollis as well.

My Mission Trip Horror Story

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about our church’s recently cancelled Ecuador mission trip, so I figured I’d try to blog about it once instead of having to tell the story multiple times. My goal here is twofold: (a) To briefly tell our mission team’s tale without throwing stones at bad actors while giving credit where credit is due; and (b) To attempt to give a Biblical response as to how you – particularly my church – should respond. 

Last year, our local church (NorthWoods Church in Evansville, Indiana) developed a strategic partnership with a local church in El Tambo (a neighborhood of Palileo), Ecuador. Our church’s goal is to send up to four mission teams per year to strengthen this local church by providing training in evangelism, discipleship and basic spiritual formation. To date, we’ve sent two teams out in March and June, and our July mission team would have been the third team we’ve sent out this year.

Our team of 13 people left our church parking lot on the afternoon of Thursday, July 12, 2018 to drive up to Indianapolis to catch an early morning flight on Friday, July 13, 2018. We had booked hotel rooms for our team at a LaQuinta near the Indianapolis airport, where the plan was to get half of a good night’s sleep then wake up way before sunrise to catch the hotel’s airport shuttle to the airport. We had tickets booked through a travel agency (that I will not name) and two different airlines (Delta and another airline that I will not name). 

My hotel room of men woke up around 4AM and headed down to the lobby to scavenge for a stray waffle or muffin prior to departure. The front desk employee informed we that the hotel staff had decided to book three cabs for our team instead of the shuttle. Seemed like no big deal at the time. Our 1st hotel room of ladies arrived down in the lobby and we rushed them into the 1st cab waiting to depart. Our 2nd hotel room of ladies (including my wife and daughter) arrived and then rushed into the 2nd cab. And then the remainder of the team waited for the 3rd cab. And waited. And waited. And waited. To her credit, the front desk employee kept calling the cab driver, who assured us he was on the way: “I’m on I-465 … I’m just around the corner … I’m almost there.”

Well … the 3rd cab never showed. Like, at all.

After over a half an hour of waiting, the hotel’s shuttle driver arrived back at the hotel from her last run. Instead of waiting for the next scheduled shuttle time, she thankfully offered to drive our stranded portion of the team to the airport. As we pulled away from the hotel for our 11 minute drive to the airport, we wife texted: “Where are you? The airport line is already huge.” My heart sank. I already knew our team might be in trouble. And I had my wife and daughter’s passports, so they could not go ahead and check in. In addition, most of our adult leaders were on the shuttle with me. 

When we finally arrived, the scene at the Delta counter was chaotic and the lines were distressingly long. Thankfully, four of the team members on the 1st two cabs were totally checked in (including luggage dropped off). Unfortunately, that was our last stroke of providence … Our trip then suffered a death of a thousand paper cuts. Many of our team had never flown before, and needed lots of assistance with check-in into the flight. Two of our team members had extremely minor name misspellings on their tickets preventing them from checking into the flight. Since we were wearing matching church team t-shirts, some of our team got pulled out the line by Delta staff and were directed to a group ticketing line (where it turns out we didn’t need to be). Then we got stuck behind an irate family with a language barrier attempting to argue with Delta staff … For at least another 30 minutes. The hostile family refused step aside from the counter after numerous requests of staff and managers. Things got heated and ugly. After some firm but polite resolve of Delta staff with this family, we finally got up to the front of the line. I managed to check in another team member (including luggage). Then, a manager started a long discussion with our check-in desk staff member about the previous family who was still causing troubles to the staff. My stomach dropped and I turned to my team and said: “We are not going to make this flight.” To add insult to injury, we then learned that a schedule change had been made to our flight, and it was leaving 15 minutes earlier than our original schedules showed … And we received no notice of the schedule change.  

The Delta staff were extremely compassionate about our situation. The Delta manager offered to waive change fees and get us on a flight for the next day to Ecuador. A note was put into the Delta system showing the Delta manager’s flexibility. A Delta check-in desk person started to work on rescheduling our flight for the next day … Until everything abruptly ground to a halt. It turns out the tickets were actually owned by another airline. We were advised to call the other airline about our situation. So we huddled back at LaQuinta and started to make some calls. And the other airline was not compassionate whatsoever. And our travel agent had no pull with the airline. So we were labelled “no shows” for not boarding our scheduled flights, and were given one impossible option to proceed. So we bailed on the trip and journeyed back home.   

Let me give two important shout outs. Delta Airlines was awesome to us. They were perfectly willing to bend over backward to get us to our proposed destination. They also rush shipped our checked luggage back to Evansville at no additional cost. The word of the day for Delta was “compassion.” In addition, LaQuinta Hotel was absolutely fantastic. They offered our teams free rooms for another day if necessary, and let us hang out (and sleep) for a long time in their breakfast nook. They let us check back into rooms of which we previously checked out so our kids could sleep. They also waived some of their parking fees.  These two organizations were blessings to us, so kudos to them. 

So what should you do as a response to my mission trip nightmare?

Go. Tell others about Jesus.

What?!?

Yes. You read that correctly.

Go. Tell others about Jesus.

Serve.

And – most importantly – RISK.

Following Christ is going to have risks – including every mission opportunity. During our church’s March mission trip to Ecuador, one church member had a last-minute medical procedure and was unable to participate. During our church’s June mission trip, our entire team missed a connection by a matter of minutes, and was stranded in Atlanta for 2 days minus luggage. And our entire July team missed a flight altogether. 

In the grand scheme of life, these are all minor risks and inconveniences. No one’s life was placed in danger. No one faced actual persecution for their faith. Everyone eventually got their luggage back. Some people wore their underwear longer than usual and probably needed to reapply their deodorant. Someone probably needed to buy a toothbrush. Some people slept on couches and some slept on uncomfortable airport chairs. People got tired and grumpy. Everyone had to rush down a few meals, but no one went hungry. No one was ripped from the arms of their family. Everyone came home. Minor. Stuff. So. What.

In Matthew 13:45-46, Jesus tells a brief parable comparing the kingdom of heaven to a really expensive pearl. When a merchant happens upon this pearl, he sells everything that he has to acquire the pearl as his own. There is no equivocation or questioning of the merchant … The beauty of the pearl compels him to sell all. The message of this parable is remarkably simple: Christ is more valuable than anything else we can ever stumble upon. Offering the remission of sins and power over the grave, the hope of the cross is immeasurably valuable. And if we hold fast to anything as more valuable than Christ, we are fools worthy of shame. Don’t equivocate or question … Do whatever it takes for the sake of Christ.

Unfortunately, we do tend to hold our own comfort and convenience as more valuable than Christ. I’ve heard so many excuses about why they can’t go serve on mission. People who are afraid of starting conversations with others. People who are afraid of weird toilets. People who won’t push the boundaries of their diets. People who can’t detach from their smart phones. People who falsely prioritize sports, music and extracurricular activities. As C.S. Lewis prophesied, we truly have become a people who’d rather play in mud muddies instead of taking a all expense paid cruise. We’d rather we surrounded by iPhones, Netflix and Oreos instead of sacrificing a week of vacation to share Christ. Boo hiss. 

So here’s why I’m really writing this blog today: I don’t want anyone to hear our group’s travel horror story and think that Jesus is not worth it. 

He is worth it. 

He’s worth every nuisance and inconvenience. He’s worth losing sleep. He’s worth smelling bad. He’s worth skipping a meal or so. He’s worth losing your toothbrush. He’s worth a divorce with your smart phone and Netflix AND Hulu. He’s worth using a toilet without a seat. He’s worth microbes and stomach worms. He’s worth separation from your family. He’s worth people reviling you for the sake of His name. And he’s worth sacrificing your very life for the sake of the kingdom of God. 

So believers, pour out your life. Don’t hold anything back. Give up your puny little gods of convenience and comfort. Go. Risk it all – even if it costs your reputation, your security and even your very life. Don’t stop going of the sake of the kingdom. 

I know that I won’t stop. And neither should you. I’ll travel for His sake again. I’ll gladly and joyfully go again. He is so worth it. He is worth pouring out every drop of my life. I’d do it again and again. Oh, my Jesus is my treasure. And I love Him so. 

So my question to you is this: Is Jesus really worth it? 

Yes.

He is.

The Dirty Little Secret Your Youth Minister Is Afraid To Tell You

There’s a dirty little secret that your local youth minister probably isn’t telling you. But you really need to know about it.

No, it has nothing to do with the correlation of youth minister beard size to successful student ministry growth … Or finding the proper place to buy the perfect flannel shirt to match your skinny jeans … Or that youth ministers actually work more than one hour per week!

When youth ministers huddle in their hipster coffee bars, our discussions always seem to turn the issue of family busyness. And we’re not talking trash about busy families. To the contrary, our struggle is that we genuinely want to fulfill our calling to teach the next generation of believers how to follow Christ … But we’ve got less of a piece of the pie for teaching. Kids are involved in multiple extracurricular activities and sporting seasons. Marching band and show choir have turned into year long activities. Baseball season has now drifted into travel ball, summer league, all-star season and extra-super-special secret bonus season. The parking lots of kids sports parks are now overflowing with soccer mom vans on Wednesday nights and even Sunday mornings. While we once had three hours per week with kids and students, we now have about three hours a month. We genuinely care about your kids’ spiritual development, but there’s simply less time to impact your kids with the Gospel.

Research bears out this common frustration. In 2016, the Barna Group conducted a study of youth ministers on behalf of Youth Specialties and YouthWorks. The study simply asked youth ministers what was the most common struggle that they had with youth ministry. The resounding answer given was not difficult parents, lack of volunteers, lack of pizza money or selecting the right Starbucks drink. To the contrary, 86% of youth ministers said that busyness of students was their top struggle in youth ministry.

If you’re a pastor who’s following overall church trends, this finding really isn’t that shocking. The number one reason why overall church attendance is flagging is actually frequency of attendance. In layman’s terms, church attendance is generally down because families simply aren’t attending church as often as they used to. During my distant Generation X childhood, most families in Southern Baptist life attended church at least three times per week: Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday night. If you really wanted to earn brownie points with the pastor, you also showed up for Tuesday night visitation too. Today, the average family attends church several times per month.

Here’s the thing: Most of our ministerial families struggle with busyness too. We totally get it. As youth ministers with growing families, we’re not immune. This year, my daughter signed up for school soccer, and my wife and I became sports parents. When the schedule came out, we cringed. Half of the games were on Wednesdays. Coincidentally, our church’s family ministry program is on Wednesday nights. While my daughter wound up missing most of the Wednesday night games, we suddenly found our other evenings increasingly more complicated with practices, sports store shopping and a post-game pizza party. It was a new level of crazy for our family. Even on the average day outside of soccer season, I do feel slightly imbalanced trying to pick up my kid from school while juggling a visit with a sick church member, discipleship times with students or volunteers, and buying supplies for the next family ministry event. So many youth ministers feel quite uncomfortable – and possibly hypocritical – talking to parents about busyness, because a rat-race in which we’re currently mired.

But here’s why the issue of family busyness is really important: Statistics bear out that our kids’ faith in largely determined by their parents’ faith. In 2014, Lifeway Research found that four factors that were the most predictive in determining whether teenagers stayed in church (instead of dropping out):

• I wanted the church to help guide my decisions in everyday life (prior to 18).
• My parents were still married to each other and both attended church (prior to 18).
• The pastor’s sermons were relevant to my life (prior to 18).
• At least one adult from church made a significant investment in me personally and spiritually (between 15 and 18).

For youth ministers, this data means we need to make sure that our programs aren’t just a “holding tank with pizza,” and we need to actively seek to form discipleship relationships between kids and adults in the church. For parents, this data affirms the old youth ministry adage: Committed Christian families are far more likely to produce (but not guaranteed to produce) committed Christian kids. Time in a local church with our kids is the wisest spiritual investment that a family can make.

Unfortunately, many youth ministers and parents treat the family busyness problem as an attractional issue. In other words, the solution often proposed is that churches need to do bigger and shinier programs – especially in comparison to the other church on the block – to attract more young people to church: Hold a lock-in at the local Skyzone trampoline park … Have an twinkie chugging competition … Give away a Xbox One X … Hire a new younger, “relatable” and handsome youth minister. Gimmicks. If we can just “wow” families with our delightful programs, maybe they’ll pay more attention to Jesus. Don’t me wrong: I thoroughly believe student ministry should be fun, relevant, interactive and engaging to be successful … But if we’re struggling to make Christ more attractive than peewee flag football then we’ve already lost.

Instead of an attractional issue, the problem is a treasure issue. In Matthew 13:44, Jesus tells an extremely short – but critically important – parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Simply put, our times and our schedules are driven by what Christ is really worth to us. Is Christ really worth more than a $6 plastic participation trophy? I know that most vaguely church-going Christians would confess: “Of course Jesus is worth more!” But what happens when the choices that we make with our time and our money don’t match that confession? And if we’re really honest, what if the “other stuff” actually makes us happier and more content than Christ? Is Christ really worth more?

Yes … I’m really asking. Is Christ really worth more? Honestly, I struggle here too.

This semester, I had a middle schooler talk to me about a conflict that he had between our Wednesday night church activities and football practice. He had been struggling with what to do. His coach told him that he couldn’t miss practices to be on the team … But he felt that God was calling him to attend church more faithfully. His parents encouraged him to pray about the situation, make the godly decision and talk with the coach. Nervously, he told his coach that he’d decided to attend church on Wednesday instead of practice. Surprisingly, the coach didn’t have a negative reaction. It turns out the coach was a believer and supported his decision to skip Wednesday evening practices. I’m proud of the decision that this young man made. But I also recognize that solid Christian parents have taught and encouraged him, too.

Think about it this way: If there are 168 hours in a week, we simply aren’t going to produce lifelong faith in our kids with 1 hour a week (optimistically) sitting in a worship service. In comparison to the 20.1 hours per week that the average teenager spends in front of a screen, 1 hour per week is laughable. Compared to the the 5.3 hours per week that the average teenager spends in sports, 1 hour per week is negligible. More importantly, does one hour out of 168 really demonstrate that Christ is our treasure?

So am I saying that your family should attend church more? Absolutely yes. A million times over. Please attend church more. Make Sundays sacrosanct. Start regularly attending Sunday School. Join a small group. Participate and lead in your church’s family ministry program. Engage in one-on-one discipleship. Volunteer and serve as a family in service project or missions opportunity.

Drop some activity from your life that has no eternal significance. Limit your kids to one or two extracurricular activities. Don’t do exhausting, never-ending sports seasons. Don’t let programs dictate your calendar. Push back on pushy, picky or punitive band leaders, coaches and choir directors. Remember it’s just a hobby and not a career.

Bring your faith into the home too. Do a family devotion time. Talk to your kids about your faith. Ask follow up questions about Sunday sermons and youth group teaching. Volunteer and serve as a family in your community on behalf of Christ.

Just use your time to genuinely demonstrate that Christ is really your treasure. If our kids’ faith hinges on the commitment of our faith, then we owe it to our kids to make our faith a priority.

And that’s a great resolution to ring in 2018.

The Most Dangerous Lie Christian Parents Tell Their Kids

The biggest lie that I ever told my daughter was the cover-up of her pet fish’s death.

When my daughter started asking about having her first pet, we really weren’t interested in something high maintenance. I’m allergic to most pet dander anyway, so that (mercifully) ruled out most cats and dogs. And – no – I’m not buying one of those expensive, inbred and ridiculously named hypoallergenic dogs either. So when my daughter begged for a pet, a fish tank seemed like a safe, low-maintenance angle. Upon the seemingly expert advice of the teenage, acne-faced Petsmart worker, we went all in for the best tank, filter and variety of fish available. We proudly set up our tank in the front window of the living room, and our daughter proceeded to name her fish after her beloved Teen Titans Go characters: Starfire … Trigon … Raven … Cyborg.

So you probably already see where this story is going.

Raven died. My daughter’s favorite. A bloated corpse bobbing lifelessly.

Providentially, I discovered Raven’s floating corpse while coming home from work on lunch break. Immediately, an unwholesome thought came across my mind: Gwen’s not home from school yet … Replace the fish. So easy I’d seen it done on TV over a million times. I checked my watch … Barely enough time to run to PetSmart. Fortunately, Petsmart had a reasonable facsimile of the deceased, so I was able to get Raven 2.0 in place before my unsuspecting kid came home.

Now my lie began as a lie of omission. I never told her about the fate of O.G. Raven. However, my daughter started to remark that Raven somehow looked “different.” And then I assured her that – yes – Raven did magically develop a hunchback, bigger eyes and red colored gills. It’s puberty or something like that.

Alas, our fish story doesn’t have a happy ending. After the miraculous, Lazarus-like recovery of Raven, we wound up committing fish genocide. Never seeking to be upstaged or outdone, I bought an “even better” filter for the tank … And the sheer power of that filter sucked all of our poor sickly fish into its deadly rotating gears. As I scraped out the shredded pieces of my daughter’s pets from the filter gears, I felt like the living incarnation of the Jigsaw killer from the Saw movies.

We now have a guinea pig, who mercifully seems harder to accidentally murder while we’re away at work.

Parents, we often tell seemingly “harmless” lies to protect our kids. I’m not advocating lying (*ahem* … it’s a sin) … I’m just saying it’s unfortunately commonplace in our parental play book. We tell our kids that Santa is watching when they’re beating the snot out of each other around the Thanksgiving table. We tell our kids that the TV is broken when that annoying Caillou cartoon is about to come on. We tell our kids that Chuck E Cheese is only for birthday parties and not daily dining. We tell our kids that the dead dog moved to a farm in California. To borrow from the Millennial jargon, there are just times when “I can’t even” with these kids.

So why do we lie to our kids? In a true Machiavellian manner, we believe that the ends justify the means when “white lies” are involved … That there is a greater good to be served by leaving our kids in an alternate reality … That keeping our last frayed ends of sanity together is more valuable than our kids desires … That we’re protecting our kids by keeping hard truths out of their reach … That our kids are more well-behaved and compliant amidst the fiction. White lies are the parental “easy button.” And we largely lie because we’re selfish.

Amidst the white lies about chicken nuggets, nose picking and kids cartoons, I believe the biggest lie that Christian parents tell their kids is this: “You are saved by works.”

Allow me to explain.

Over the past twenty years of student and family ministry, I have met a litany of well-meaning, Gospel-believing parents who taught their kids to believe they’re saved by some form of good works. This fractured view of salvation stems from a lifetime of poor Biblical interpretation, whereby we distill virtually every Bible story into legalistic anecdotes about well-behaved children. We inform our kids that we shouldn’t sin like Adam and Eve did. We tell our kids that God rescues good people like Noah. We tell our kids to obey the 10 Commandments. We tell our kids that we should model our lives after King David.

Of course, we know these overly-simplified interpretations of Scripture are wrong. All have sinned like Adam and Eve (Romans 3:23) … Noah was actually saved by grace … No one can obey the Law (Romans 3:10) … King David was an adulterer and cold-blooded murderer.

So why do we perpetuate these hermeneutical nightmares amongst our kids?!? Here’s the thing for many parents: We’d much rather have compliant kids than Gospel-centered kids. We’d much rather tell the kid throwing a fit over Goldfish crackers that God desires moral, compliant children. We’d rather tell the hostile child who just clocked another kid that God hates bad people. It’s often to our advantage to tell our kids this “white lie”: We want our kids to behave. And the fear of God often produces compliance. A little fear of Hell produces a lot of hustle. And thus we distill our version of God into a “cosmic Santa Claus”: God gives good gifts to good people … And God consigns the really bad people to Hell … So you’d better act like a good person because God’s see you when you’re sleeping. Shamefully, most parents even realize their teaching contradicts the Gospel, but their immediate need for well-mannered children overshadows the eternal consequences.

All too often, I’ve seen the long-term damage done from this reductionistic philosophy in the hearts of teenagers. I’ve met way too many church-going kids that believe that “good people” who attend church regularly, come from Norman Rockwell-esque “good homes” and serve faithfully in church go to Heaven. Other kids believe that a defining life moment, such as a baptism, a “magic prayer,” a church camp, a mission trip or a date written in their gift Bible, is the ultimate evidence of their salvation. And many church-raised Millennials simply believe in some relativistic form of universalism (“all roads lead to Heaven”). These kids are often incredulous when I try to burst their bubble and tell them they’re not saved by their “inherent goodness” … Because you don’t have any inherent goodness.

During my first season in youth ministry, I remember leading a Bible study that included Jesus’ words in Matthew 10:37: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” As we probed deeper into the meaning of that passage, one high school senior seemed shocked at Jesus’ words: “Are you telling me that I have to love Jesus more than my parents?” As she stood up from her chair, she was visibly exasperated at the words of Jesus and demanding my attention. As I affirmed Jesus’ words and began to share the Gospel, she became more agitated, giving an unsolicited overview of her unorthodox beliefs about Christianity: “I believe that the real Jesus really wouldn’t tell us to do that. Jesus loves good people from good families. Jesus would never ask me to do that.” She walked out. As I interacted with her later, I began to realize this senior had been sold the Gospel of “being a good person from a good family.” And if the Gospel was based on God’s grace instead of our goodness, then a recently deceased family member might not be in Heaven after all. Tough stuff.

Sadly, this experience is commonplace instead of an aberration. Recently, I took a young person to camp whose entire definition of salvation was based on “doing better” and “trying harder” to please God. When this person was confronted with passages in the Bible about salvation by grace, their response was essentially: “I’m sorry that I don’t understand the Bible well … I’ll try to do better to please God.” (*face palm*) Speaking the Gospel to this young person was like speaking pig Latin … The Gospel was both familiar and shockingly unrecognizable. And that’s the unfortunate truth for many kids: They’re spent some much time and been so affirmed doing the “good kid” routine in church that they’re inoculated to the genuine Gospel of grace. They have a hard time distinguishing the facsimile from the truth.

Kids who trust in good families.

Kids who trust in being in church every time the doors are open.

Kids who trust in magic water in the baptismal.

Kids who trust in the abra-kadabra magic words of front-altar prayers.

Kids who trust the scales of good / bad behavior will tip in their favor.

Kids who mistakenly don’t trust in Christ alone.

So here’s my simple encouragement to parents: Have the spiritual guts to ask your kids one crucial question: “Why did Jesus save you?” If your kids give an answer that reeks of the foul smell of good works or legalism, then you need to lovingly confront your kids with the Gospel. No greater Biblical lesson can be taught to our kids than Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” You may wind up having to undo some spiritual damage that you’ve unwittingly done to your kids’ theology, but the long-term benefits are critical to your child’s salvation.

Because we are saved by grace. We are not saved by good behavior, church attendance, baptisms, magic prayers, service in church or names on church rolls. We are saved because Jesus mercifully loved evil wretches like us. That’s why His grace is amazing.

Tell your kids the truth: Following Christ is all about grace.

A Straightjacket of Darkness: On the Pastor, Depression & Loneliness

So let me tell you about the first time I considered quitting pastoral ministry.

Fresh out of Seminary, I was pastoring a small church south of Indianapolis, and the weatherman was predicting an ice-storm on Sunday afternoon. I mean, the slogan of the TV network was the “most trusted name in news,” right? So slick roads and downed power lines was a rock-solid, 100% certain prediction. Take it to the bank. So I did any rational pastor who was raised in the winter-averse climate of central Virginia would do: I cancelled Sunday evening services. You might already see where my story is going: Go figure, the weatherman turned out to be completely wrong … No ice … In fact, no precipitation at all! That was the day I learned that weathermen actually consult magic 8 balls as their primary source.

Over the next few hours, I was inundated with angry and hostile phone calls from church members regarding the cancellation of our Sunday evening services. Keep in mind, my cell phone number was not published in any church directory or bulletin … It was just circulating amongst the angry mob of pot stirrers. The comments were surprisingly terse and abusive:

• “Who gave you authority to cancel services?!?”
• “Our last pastor never cancelled services.”
• “Are you enjoying your evening off?”
• “I’m going to bring this up at the next business meeting.”
• And my personal favorite: “What am I supposed to do this evening now that services are cancelled?!?”

That following week, a representative of the peanut gallery of angry people strolled into my office, plopped down on my brown futon and impertinently shut the door. I knew by reputation that this gentleman considered himself the unofficial church spokesman, but he served in no official capacity in the church. Of course, I already knew how the “elder statesman” felt about me … At the end of each Sunday service, he would simultaneously gruffly shake my hand and grade my sermons from an incredibly generous scale of “not good” to “needs some work.”

So the spokesman opened up our impromptu meeting by asking if he could pray. I appreciated the move until I actually heard the prayer: “Father, please give me the right words to say, and please show Pastor Matt how wrong he is.” He then negotiated with the tactfulness of Tony Soprano: “Well, Matt … You’ve taken a good shot at this whole pastoring thing, but it’s probably time for you to pack up and leave.”

Honestly, I was too stunned to remember how that conversation ended, but I do remember a bleak sadness overtaking me. Of course, I wasn’t going to quit because one well-known church bully was rude, but the whole interaction still really hurt. I mean, I’d just moved my family half-way across to the country to be abused about the cancellation of one Sunday evening service?!? And the attacks seemed so personal … So non-sensical … So petty. Instantly, I become neurotic about my standing with the congregation: Did the people of this church really want me gone? … Was I making any difference for the kingdom of God? … Was any of this pastoring thing really worth the stress to my family and my personal health?

Over the course of my ministry as a lead pastor, this incident was not the last time that I felt like throwing in the towel:

• When I was criticized for buying a “luxury vehicle” (a 2012 Kia Soul).
• When church members told me I made too much money.
• When a church member dropped by my house on Sunday afternoon to gift a 1956 Baptist Hymnal to me with the suggestion that I learn about “real worship music.”
• When I returned from vacation to find an anonymous note was left in my office door giving me a letter grade for every aspect of my ministry. (Worship music was apparently an “F”.)
• When friends quietly quit the church and refused to tell me why.
• When people write thinly veiled complaints about you on social media.
• When my wife was angrily confronted for not attending a sunrise service.
• When I heard the words: “I’m just not being fed by you, pastor.”

Please know I’m not dredging up my dirty laundry for the sake of having a personal pity party. I bring up my background to make a point: Pastoring can be hazardous to pastors and their families. The life of the pastor is the ultimate glass house, where people feel strangely compelled to unnervingly leer inside and make judgmental comments about everything from your vacation time to your Sunday morning ties. And if you can ignore the running commentary, there’s also the pressure of an ever-expanding litany of time-consuming job responsibilities ranging from home visitation to janitorial services. In moments of temporary insanity, the pressure of the success/failure of the church seems to weigh on your shoulders, and you wind up working 70-80 hours per week to the point of completely ignoring your spouse and family.

I don’t want to spend a ton of time regurgitating statistics on burnout and depression in pastoral ministry. Those statistics are readily out there on the good old interwebs here and here. Of course, Ed Stetzer rightfully cautions in his 2015 Christianity Today article that many of the over-blown statistics are overblown, outdated and exaggerated. Fortunately, I know many pastors that have fantastic relationships with encouraging churches. On the other hand, I’ve also heard way too many horror stories from discouraged pastors about nightmare churches and soul-crushing heartbreaks. Case in point: Most of the folks that I started Seminary with ten years ago are no longer in ministry. Let that sink in. Every year, I seem to witness more friends or acquaintances drop off the map of ministry.

However, I do want to talk about how the experience impacted me: I sank into a stubborn depression that constricted me like a straightjacket. Depression is not simply an emotion of sadness easily cured by “getting happy” or “cheering up.” Depression is a tenacious, unrelenting black cloud of hopelessness that cripples you with waves of fear, bitterness and melancholy. I obsessed about my failures, and pushed myself to work longer hours to please more people. In utter paranoia, I began to worry about trivial minutiae and to parse every conversation to the point where I couldn’t sleep at night. I felt hopeless to change my situation. I turned to food and worldly pleasures in an attempt to try to feel happy. I felt like I had no one to trust. No one possibly understood how I felt. I wanted nothing more than to hide behind the thick curtains of my house and forget the outside world. Life seemed impossible. Withdrawal from the world seemed far more palatable.

The secret language of depression is loneliness. Depression is an estrangement from the world. The pain of depression drives us to avoidance and escapism from suffering. Perpetual, unrelenting bleakness and lack of hope motivates us to wall ourselves off from any potential enemies – including those that care for and love us. We believe that if we simply hide from pain then future pain won’t come. While we may desire friendship, we’re also extraordinarily cautious about the downsides of opening up: Rejection … Ridicule … Inauthenticity. I worried that sharing my troubles would simply lead to a multiplication of my trouble … And I just wanted the trouble to end. So I kept the numbness to myself and found solace in simply being alone.

In the midst of my hopelessness, an odd Bible verse was my rescue: “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24-25). Pastors tend to use Hebrews 10:24-25 as a legalistic paddle to spank wayward church members, but that perspective tends to blunt the overall meaning of the passage: God has given us each other for our mutual encouragement. While my sinfulness drove me to wallow in inexhaustible alienation, God brought other believers into my life that repeatedly lifted me out of the mire.

God brought other pastors who shared similar experiences into my life. If you think you’re the only pastor shot by friendly fire, you’re sadly wrong.

God brought associational leaders into my life that offering a shoulder to lean on, sage advice and offers of respite and retreat.

God eventually gave me real sustainable friendships within my local church – particularly the retired pastor of my church. (By the way, those friendships eventually included the same “elder statesman” that asked me to quit … He’d offer me a cigar every time I dropped by his house.)

God gave me a spouse that talked me off the ledge every time I felt like quitting.

But the real turning point for me is when I sought out the help of a good Biblical counselor. I discovered the root of my depression rested in a deep-seeded fear of what people thought instead of a focus on God’s inexhaustible grace for me. While it did not happen with the snap of my fingers, the fog of depression eventually lifted. The numbness deep in my bones subsided and I could finally feel again.

I prayed for God to relieve me from depression. God’s answer was putting people in my life to encourage me and to stir me up to good works. 

So here’s the point of this entire blog: If you are a pastor and you feel hopeless, depressed or even suicidal, please talk to someone. Loneliness is not God’s design for you. God has also put people in your life to encourage you too. You part of an ever-expanding family of God with the giftedness to care for you and simply listen to you.

Reach out to another pastor.

Talk with denominational leaders.

Get honest with a church member that you trust.

Be vulnerable with your spouse.

Find a solid Biblical counselor here.

Contact me at matt@northwoodschurch.org

Know that the same God who called you out of darkness and into His glorious light wants to lead you out of this darkness too.

God loved you so much that He has not left you alone.

 

What Our Graduates Really Need To Hear

So my daughter graduated from elementary school the other day. And – yes – I understand that any graduation ceremony at 5th grade means about as much as the prize tickets at Chuck-E-Cheese. But it’s cute and Instagram worthy, so cut me some slack here.

What was easily the most fascinating part of the ceremony was the graduation speeches from the kids. As I listened to rambling words of advice from kids with little life experience, I noticed how closely their words mimicked the graduation speeches of higher education. Aside from a healthy slice of “we did it,” there was also a healthy slathering of “follow your dreams” and “be true to yourself.” And as I really processed what the kids were actually trying to say, I actually winced.

If we’re honest, most of the stuff spewed out in graduation speeches is self-help gobbledygook worthy of an episode of Dr. Phil. And it’s got very little grounding in Scripture. Instead, much of what passes for solid graduation advice actually resembles an instruction manual for prodigals to run away from home. As Christian parents, I think it’s important to parse for our kids the well-intentioned advice that they’ll hear around graduation to turn their nose up at narrow gates of the Christian life. Our job is to point our kids higher as they leave the nest.

So let’s examine some of the common cliches heard at graduation ceremonies around the country:

• “Follow your heart”: Ugh … For crying out loud, just don’t do this. If you follow Christ, you can’t follow your heart, your desires or your instincts. Jeremiah 17:9 says that the heart is “deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.” Proverbs 28:26 says that “whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool” (some translations say “heart” instead of “mind” (ESV)). Indulging in our own desires is a mark of a unbeliever (Ephesians 2:3). Once we know Christ, we crucify our old selves along with our passions and desires (2 Corinthians 5:17; Romans 6:6). Following Christ inherently involves admitting our desires and heart motivations are evil and submitting to a greater glory.
• “Follow your dreams”: Probably not what Jesus had in mind when he talks about taking up your cross and willingly dying (Matthew 16:24). In the very same verse, Jesus tells his disciples to “deny yourself.” Self-denial is virtuous … Self-indulgence not so much. Self-denial doesn’t mean that you’ll be miserable following Jesus. To the contrary, tremendous joy and true satisfaction are found when Christ is glorified (to butcher a John Piper-ism). Bonhoeffer states: “The cross is not the horrible end of a pious, happy life, but stands rather at the beginning of community with Jesus Christ.” In short, following Christ is where your small worldly dreams die and gigantic Christ-centered dreams are birthed.
• “Believe in yourself”: Pride is a wicked sense of self-importance that leads to certain destruction (Proverbs 16:18). Not only does Scripture say that pride is sinful, but also that God OPPOSES prideful people (Proverbs 3:34; James 4:6-8). C.S. Lewis states: “A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you’re looking down, you can’t see something that’s above you.” As believers, our goal is to clothe ourselves in the humility of Christ instead of becoming puffed up, selfie-obsessed blowhards (1 Peter 5:5).
• “Be true to yourself”: But what if you’re a dimwitted, nefarious jerkface?!? Who wants to be stuck like a statue devoted to selfishness? Christianity is change (2 Corinthians 5:17). Being conformed to the image of Christ is the essence of the Christian life (Romans 8:29).
• “Live life to the fullest”: The carpe diem philosophy is grounded in Roman poetry and Robin Williams movies instead of Biblical theology. If the resurrection were not true, we’d have good reason to eat, drink and be merry … Because #yolo (see 1 Corinthians 15:32). If we’re not just destined to be worm food (a/l/a The Dead Poets Society), then we have a far greater glory for which to live. We have purpose and meaning outside of selfishness. So live your life well to the glory of God, but understand that your fullest life, which is free from sin, death, pain and regret, is found in the next life.
• “You are the future”: I hate to break it to you guys, but the future does not revolve around you. No matter what OneRepublic and our fragile egos say. Quite literally, the future is centered around Jesus (Revelation 4). If you are a believer, YOU will be eternally focused on Jesus. Every tribe … Every nation … Every tongue will encircle the throne of Christ and worship Him forevermore. That’s pretty exciting.
• “Today is the first day of the rest of your life”: And then you die. And what happens then?
• “Dare to be different”: Turns out that being weird, strange and self-absorbed is pretty easy. Just ask Dr. Seuss: “I am weird, you are weird. Everyone in this world is weird. One day two people come together in mutual weirdness and fall in love.” But being different is as simple as a wardrobe change. Being weird is as easy as a peanut butter and pickle sandwich. On the other hand, being daily conformed to the image of Christ … THAT takes a huge miracle. Not everyone can follow Christ or imitate Christ … It takes the Word of God and the power of the Spirit. And that’s what the world really needs. Dare to be like Jesus.
• “Make a difference”: To a generation of slacktivists and hashtag warriors, changing the world behind a keyboard seems like the highest calling. However, we’d do well to remember Jesus’ words: “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). In Jesus’ extended metaphor about the vine and branches in John 15, Jesus makes one simple but powerful point: Dead branches don’t grow grapes. Similarly, people apart from Christ can’t accomplish anything … Nothing … Nada … Zip … Not even a teensy, little bit. Consequentiality comes from Christ. While we can’t accomplish anything on our own, Christ in us can accomplish great things. Surrender and let him work through you.

But let me address one more fallacy that Christian parents believe that’s not found in any graduation speech: “My kids will stay in church after they’ve graduated.” While I think that most Christian parents understand the abysmal dropout statistics regarding kids in the church, they don’t think that it’ll happen to their own kid. I think that Christian parents need to understand that their role as disciplers moves into an arguably more difficult (and frustrating) phase in the teenage years. Our kids that used to run to our arms at the slightest skinned knee now seem content to shoot down Biblical advice with the precision of Katniss Everdeen. As our teenage kids gain independence, freedom, attitude and – most importantly – car keys, this phase of parenting requires new parenting skills: Exhausting levels of patience … Self-control to not respond in anger … Wisdom to speak God’s truth … And an understanding ear when heartbreak occurs. While not every teenager will abandon Christ, every teenager is theologically a sinner at their core and will poke, prod, question and even doubt their faith during this phase of life. So always stand ready to explain the reason for your faith to the discerning young adults in your home, because you can’t force them to follow Christ.

Matt’s Music Update #2: Vanishing Point, Volume 2

So in my spare time, I work in my home studio.

Over last summer, I wrote a series of songs about life/death that I’ve called Vanishing Point, Vol. 1. Those songs are some of my favorite jams of all time … You can find out about that album (available for FREE) at my previous blog post.

Obviously, that means that there’s a Vanishing Point, Vol. 2.

So I wrote another group of songs last summer that don’t really fit into the life / death theme. These songs were more about the illusiveness of time. My world was shook a few ago when one of my students was killed by a drunk driver. Quickly thereafter, another one of my students unexpectedly died of a strange illness. I came to understand what James 4 meant about life being a mist: We might leave this world at any moment.

As a young Chuck Taylor wearing ’80s kid, you think you’ve got more than enough time to change the world (and ego to match). Almost instantaneously, 30 years pass. Kids are born. Relationships are forged and broken. Young people in their prime strangely die. Scenery changes for better and worse. Money comes and (mostly) goes. You begin to wonder why the kids you knew in high school looked so old on Facebook. Bodies break down. Joints start to creak. Full swing sets eventually stand empty and motionless. The person in the high school snapshot with the Chuck Taylors becomes unrecognizable.

And you realize “younger you” was so wrong. The barrels of time you once gripped vanishes into moments that feel like sand slipping through our fingers. We’re rapidly hurtling on rollercoaster towards the day when Christ returns. This life is an illusion and His kingdom is the new reality. We begin wearing the future-tense lenses of Scripture that change our present reality.

As I careen quickly to my grave, I have great hope and joy in knowing we’re one day closer to Christ’s final victory. No more sin. No more death. No more tears. Eternal rejoicing. Forever worship. I have so much hope in the future … Because the future is not about me at all. It’s about Christ.

So here’s some insight into the 2nd nine songs composing Volume 2 of Vanishing Point:

• “And All That Was Will Be Overcome”: The closest I’ve come to a worship song in recent memory. One day, the groaning and constant struggle of this world will cease. Our shack on earth will be torn down and we will be given a permanent home. Christ will overcome all that was. Hallelujah, that day is coming soon.
• “1988”: The year I was saved. It’s no longer I who lives but Christ in me (Galatians 2:20).
• “Low”: I’ve written on my blog before about my struggle with depression. This song is my reminder about what God says on the days I feel low.
• “You & Me (A Song For G)”: A song for my daughter about the rough days and the hope that can only be found in Christ.
• “Storm Clouds On A Windy Day”: Our lives are like a mist. Suddenly here and quickly gone. We dissipate at unforeseen hours (James 4:13-17). This song is about my students who’ve died suddenly and left loved ones behind. Let us remember to love the Lord with the time we have.
• “Who I Am In Christ”: Anchored. Loved. Safe and sound. Adopted. Redeemed. Found in Christ. That’s who I am. And a few bad days will never change my identity.
• “Burn The Porch Down”: I don’t recommend literally burning your porch down. But I do recommend letting go of the temptation of getting stuck in the past. Move on.
• “Reconstruction”: All of the Christian life is repentance. It’s past time to stop burning bridges and to start building for His kingdom.
• “Phantom Time”: When we realize this life is the illusion and His kingdom is the genuine reality, everything changes.

Again, you can download Volume 2 of Vanishing Point for FREE here: VANISHING POINT VOLUME 2. And you can still download Volume 1 too here: VANISHING POINT VOLUME 1.

Enjoy the tunes because I’m going to keep making them.