It's True ...

I've had a tough time lately with some "Life's Not Fair" moments that I'm much too coy to share. Really, the truth is that they aren't important - because the lesson I've been focusing on is this:

It's true, life isn't fair. Bad things happen to good people. Jerks are rich and famous and have easy lives. People we dislike are treated better than we are against (what we think) is all logic and sense. And the list goes on an on.

But in my own wallowing self-pity I've had this thought occur a few times this week: I'm lucky it isn't fair in so many ways. Not to be overly church-y or didactic - but it's like this: I am a punk kid from a crappy neighborhood that acted out in every way possible growing up. I treated people like dirt, insulted them, picked on them - stole, lied, cheated (mostly in math class, true story), etc, etc. I am still prone to great fits of moodiness, judging, anger, jealousy, back-biting, scheming, coniving - well, you get the picture. I'm perfectly imperfect.

But I have an amazing life by so many standards. Without even getting too deep into it - I live in a place where I drink clean water right from a tap in my home. I eat (at least) three times a day without worry, and a lot of other things along those lines. But also - today I was watching my kids play on the playground and I realized how lucky I really am - how smiled-upon my life really is. I have a wife that no one could've predicted - why someone so kind, loving, and beautiful would find love with a guy trying his hardest to push the boundaries of decency in humor for a cheap laugh is beyond me. But it happened.

I have two ridiculous kids. Soooo cute and so fun.

I have the job of my dreams (at least since I've known Jesus) and even the hardest parts are more than worth it. I get to talk about real life with teenager that can choose the path I couldn't find until much later. They don't always respond, but what an awesome specific redemption of the punk teenager I was!

I was raised by incredible, loving parents that equipped me well (and even bail me out now from time to time).

And a lot of other things that can fit in here are true, too.

It isn't fair that I should be set up so well. Even if there is a level of worldly "fair" that I am mad about missing out on, the real fair is right in front of me, and I'm missing it as I look past all of it to see what I could have in a hypothetical, never-going-to-be world. And that's the Jesus story in a practical way that I could probably never even work into a talk - he got me here by grace, not anything I earned or did.

The goal? Wake up tomorrow without reverting back to thinking the other way.

... and here's to hoping ...

Change

We church folk talk about change a lot. Weekly, we ask people to digest a message (or for my youth group kids 2 or 3) and apply it to their lives. To change the things that need to be fixed and to emerge a better person.

But I've noticed lately how very few people I interact with allow for people to change. We pigeonhole people, expecting the same things out of them even when they have stated a supernatural occurrence has taken place. Of course, this isn't everyone or even most people, but it's something I hear a lot, sometimes even from myself.

I'm taking a leadership class at the Air Force Academy. It's me and like A dozen high ranking military officials. It's still intimidating more than half way through the semester, but I am being challenged like crazy. In the past few weeks we've talked about a concept called "already always listening" which basically states that we think we know what people are going to say before they Say it, so we don't really listen to them. I think we do this with behaviors, too. We think we know how someone "is" so we ignore the work they are putting in.

The counter to this concept is called "standing on nothing." Basically, the pursuit of the idea to not come at a leadership opportunity with a pre-existing idea of what is going to happen, or even what it means to lead or be led. Instead, consider that all things are possible, including the first idea you have, but not at the exclusion of other possibilities.

This is really messing with my head and my leading already. I have been challenged in my own application that as a follower of Christ I should always be practicing these things order to best allow myself to be an empathetic, caring, sold out leader. I don't just want to run people through programs, I want to make a lasting impact on their lives.

As I look back one this weird thing called a blog, which is really a diary for strangers and friends to see, I laugh at how knee jerk some of my posts were. E funniest being when I wrote about my frustrations after a few badly attended weeks at youth group. The last year and months has brought a richness to what I'm doing, and in equal measures I feel ready to tackle it forever and to give a new ch.allege a try. But I know for sure that the last months of giving my character and internal motivations a good vetting, I am a better leader, pastor, Christian man, and probably most importantly right now, father and husband.

I love my family and my youth group kids more today than ever, and I love that God continues to refine me to make me better, and offers hints of greater things even yet to come.

If I wasn't allowed to change as the Holy Spirit breaks me down and those around me just assumed they knew what they were getting, I have no idea where I would be, the ministry I'm involved would be, or my family would be. Thanks to all who exhibit the grace to me to allow me to change. And may I learn to really do the same for you.

Getting Old(er) in Youth Ministry

After getting soundly beat down in yet another game of football today, I had a realization ... at some point I jumped the shark from it being "unfair" for me to play against 13 year-olds to nobody really wanting me on their team.

I started out in youth ministry as an 18 year-old kid, and really I could beat just about any kid at any game (except for you Jon Meyer, you always could beat me but you're 12 feet tall, it's not fair). But time has set in, as well as my unhealthy diet, and it's just not the same. And I'm okay with it if I look at it the right way.

Soon, I'll surpass the equilibrium point, where more years will have been spent in youth ministry than years not. For instance, I'm 32 this year, and have now been driving as many years as I didn't, 16-16. In a few years my ministry experience will pass this point, too.

With the bad of becoming less athletic, fatter, and having less hair, there are goo things, too. I'm better at a lot of things I struggled with when I was younger. Here's some lists:

What I'm BETTER at as a 32 year-old:
Teaching
Vision and Initiative
Spiritual Maturity/Knowledge
Parent relations
self-awareness, including the humility to ask for help to change
planning
letting things roll off my back
doing ministry with other youth pastors
laughing at myself
multi-tasking
... maybe more?

What I'm WORSE at:
Fun ... I am less fun for sure, no doubt
Games, I have to make myself have them sometimes
Lecturing ... all of a sudden I want to give pep talks to kids, weird
Exercising and Eating well, only nominally ministry related, but still ...
assuming the best of other team members and giving slack. Almost as if I operate with a sense of urgency
giving myself slack and allowing myself to not do/be the best at everything, always
... probably more?

Some of this is related to my previous post, but I look at it differently. Not all of this is good, nor bad. The question to me is facing reality and embracing the opportunities in both sides. I know a lot of people older than me get offended when I talk about feeling "old", but let's face it: youth ministry is stereotyped as a young man's game. Not a lot us make it this many years or this age without either trying to move up, quitting, or being asked to move "up".

Are there others out there examining this?

Fixing My Dysfunction

I'm not perfect. Shocker, eh?

But in that room to be imperfect, I have been trying to come to grips with what exactly it looks like to change those imperfections. I have been obsessed with the concept of change lately. And I want to be able to change those things that I see and others have pointed out about me. We talk in the church a lot about change, but rarely allow people to do so with grace ... and I know at least for me, even more rarely do I actually take a hard look at myself. If you have the patience to listen to a sermon I gave on change, you can click here.

Recently, I've noticed weird moments of anger and borderline depression. I wasn't sure why or what they were until a chance meeting at Starbucks with a friend and a dad of some of my students. He's not the talk-y type, but he helped me in about 30 minutes realize a bunch of stuff. The chart I posted above is a result of that conversation (you can click on it to see it bigger and more readable).

I have a lot of work to do in order to figure out a natural flow of changing this in the everyday. The thing is, for my own sanity and the sanity of my family and loved ones, I need to make it happen. Even for my students, I suppose. In a weird way, I feel like this is the chance for me to really connect the changes I ask people to consider from the platform of my job to my own day-to-day.

Depending on how vulnerable I feel, expect follow-ups.

And join me in embracing the concept that real change is possible, and that it starts with the courage to first name the alternate reality we'd like to live in, and second make the necessary adjustments to do so. With God's help, these things are going to look very different for me soon.

More Important Than Politics

We lost a great friend and inspirational figure in my own life in the wee hours of this morning. Pat Heinz was a teacher, a mother, a wife, and a woman of unbelievable joy and character. She exhibited the traits of the woman described in Proverbs 31, the Wife of Noble Character, and then some: “Her children arise and call her blessed;her husband also, and he praises her: ‘Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.’ ... Give her the reward that she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.”

Cancer took her earthly body, but it will never, ever steal her soul. She died smiling, even in the middle of unbelievable pain, worrying about her family more than herself. She is already missed.

Walking Down a Dead-End Street and Looking for a Place to Turn

Do you have those days when the world closes in a little bit on you? When an event or a series of events makes you question everything? These can be good events or bad events, but for me they are usually negative.

I start to question everything, and I wonder what the heck I'm doing and where I want to go. Sometimes I process out loud, and that doesn't help anybody.

But this week's one of those times for me. It may lead to nothing, or it might change everything.

I've been battering Philippians 3 around in my head a lot ... all else is garbage compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ. I believe that it is true, and I want to know what it really means to live my life as if I do. I want to be bothered by the right things, torn by the right things, challenged and energized and devastated all by the right things.

I don't know if that is a challenging concept for others - I think if we were to truly grasp the enormity of that statement from Paul it would be. But, myself included, most of the time we just shrug off things and go about regular life.

Would you join me in being challenged by the idea that we must truly find a way to live as if knowing Jesus is really the only thing that matters. Everything else - even my car, my house, my jersey collection, is trash.