Teens in Crisis & a Boston Bomber

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“Crisis” seems like a strong word, doesn’t it?  When we youth specialists urge others to reckon with the evidence that adolescents are in crisis, aren’t we over-reaching a bit?  Certainly there must be plenty of young people whose normal journey through their teen years doesn’t warrant such a label.

It depends on what domain we’re talking about.

Not every kid needs to think carefully every day about when and which route they will take to school because their own safety is at risk.  Only one in five live in poverty, after all.  Though drug and alcohol use is high, those who are dangerously dependent on them comprise just 8% of teens between 14 and 17 years old.

If we reserve the label “crisis” for headline-grabbing statistics it is probably true that it shouldn’t be applied to most kids.  But headlines are not written by dads and moms in anguish.  When most families simply don’t work like they were made to…when teens are floundering and flailing as they try to figure out who they are and what they will do with their lives…when spirituality is a preference rather than a quest for life-centering truth…the word “crisis” fits.

Last week’s events in Boston has had me thinking about the trajectory of a 19 year old bomber. His high school friends and teachers cannot imagine that he committed the atrocities he is being accused of.  When did his “crisis” begin?  

Here’s what I know.  When YFC adults come alongside kids we love them and listen deeply to them.  YFC student leaders do the same.  We discover where they’re coming from and engage them in conversations about Jesus.  Something amazing happens when our relationships are safe enough for such an exchange.  We hear about their crises, the life-disrupting challenges that they can’t seem to overcome.  And we stand with them, urging them to trust Jesus whose triumph over death through the agony of the cross proves HIS GREAT LOVE for them.

There will be plenty of pundit-talking in the days ahead about solutions that work.  We who live under the Lordship of Jesus Christ have something to offer at this moment in time: ourselves.  We can jump into authentic relationships with kids while others are commissioning task forces to study the problem.  Christ’s love urges us on.  His hope is as certain as his resurrection from the dead.  “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person.  The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NLT)

When Ministry Feeds My Soul

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I just spent 2+ hours sitting with a friend who is in gut-wrenching pain. He’s adrift in the consequences of his own poor choices, fearful that his marriage is over. Everything is up for grabs in his life right now as he claws through the wreckage to grab hold of Jesus in a way he’s never had to in the past.

I cried with him and did my best to help him move through the rubble. I listened intently to him while running a simultaneous dialogue with the Holy Spirit, begging the Lord for discernment and wisdom. This posture of ministry consumed me during our time together. Now I’m a bit numb and certainly exhausted.

But something else is true about how I spent these early morning hours. I’m invigorated by new vitality in my own walk with Jesus. Somehow, in the midst of fighting for my friend’s faith my own heart got a boost. I could not ‘preach’ to my brother without preaching to myself.

This is not rare for me; quite the contrary. We often imagine that we should gain our nourishment to serve others during sweet private devotional times with the Lord or as a result of some turbo-fellowship experience with burden-bearing brothers and sisters. Mine is a different storyline.

I have, without a doubt, surged forward in my own faith most often during moments when God uses me to minister to someone else. My personal growth is a collateral benefit experienced while I serve. And it’s consistently resulted in the most penetrating and pervasive invasion of the Holy Spirit into all areas of my life.

Maybe it’s because the moment requires my fully abandoned attention such that I ‘lose myself’ in the work Christ wants to do, only to find new life in the process. Can anybody relate?

Follow the Glory

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I have spent my entire adult life in not-for-profit Christian ministry. I’m still a student of the socio-organizational side of what we try to do.

Organizations like Youth for Christ (nearly 70 years old) and Huntington University (over 100 years old) were formed to leverage the gifts and calling of some of God’s people for some of God’s work. It has always made sense to me that like-missioned people should band together to accomplish great things. But I wonder if the tail is so huge that wagging is impossible for the dog.  According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics, more than 93,000 Protestant charities were registered in August of 2012. They represent $3.78 billion in assets as reported on their 990 forms.

The question on the table is ‘what organizational forms help God’s people to live faithfully into the mission he has called us to?’ For purposes of this reflection I want to include local churches in the conversation. If something had a birth-date it will presumably have a death-date.

Here’s my working assumption.  Temporal structures of God’s people for God’s work should always be fair game for scrutiny. 

Against this backdrop I don’t know how it came to pass that the lesser thing became more important than the greater thing. Why would anyone in Christian ministry ever insist that organizational job performance is more important than Kingdom faithfulness? If faithfulness to Jesus is not a sufficient standard for a Christian ministry’s operation it seems to me the ministry might be out of whack.

I know some ministries that claim the high ground by asserting their organizational supervision is a form of stewardship. If supervision’s sole purpose was to safeguard an employee’s faithfulness to Jesus I would agree. But if we don’t begin with this first obsession how are we not guilty of distracting those we hire from the work that God has called them to? I would call that organizational sabotage, not stewardship. The shelf-life of any enterprise that’s working against the plans and purposes of God can’t be very long.

I am grateful that the mission of my employer (Youth for Christ/USA) offers me the chance to be substantially aligned with my assignment from the Lord. If that ever changes we should part company.  They would sacrifice their own missional faithfulness by accommodating my divergent interests or I would abandon my first commitment for the sake of my employer’s interests.

For the glory of God every Christian ministry–especially the local church–should bend their organizational forms so that their highest priority is to fit people into the role God has assigned them in the Body of Christ.  This places all of us in the confessional posture of trusting Jesus’ Lordship expressed through his gifts to direct how we spend our time.  It elevates his plans and purposes, however yet unclear to us, above all else.

Without such a priority it’s hard to see how we seek first the Kingdom of God or trust the Lord with all our hearts.  When we follow the glory, carefully tracing who gets credit, the Holy Spirit may lead us to discover how much repentant re-alignment our ministries need.

Your Thing, My Thing…

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Efrem Smith recently noted that an ad in YouthWorker Journal offered a composite billboard of 20 youth ministry experts that readers might expect to find in the pages of YWJ. None of the 20 were persons of color. Efrem cried ‘foul’ and the ensuing comments are raging hot and heavy.

I agree with Efrem’s concerns. But I want to confess that this issue is not my highest priority and so I’m conflicted. With my 15 minutes in front of a crowd I agitate most often on behalf of the mission of Youth for Christ. Bringing the love and hope of Christ to broken, lost and clueless kids compels me to advocate any chance I can for this cause.

It’s my thing. To say it more clearly, youth evangelism is my chief cause and I’m reluctant to divert energy from it for other worthy causes.

God’s people can be fractured by how we handle the particular callings the Lord gives us. Stationed in specific locations within the Body of Christ we have customized assignments from the Father. Without our unique contributions, the Church is lessened. But in a world where best practices lead us to carve out market brand positions that are distinct how can we avoid competitive splintering over compelling issues?

If all I do is race to the front of the resource line with my cause I add to the chaos. I’m drawn to another solution, a higher cause that superintends all others. I simply want to be faithful to the Lord Jesus and invite others to the same.

A focus on faithfulness to Jesus will be good enough to address the evangelism needs of young people in our communities. There’s no need to ask for faithfulness PLUS my thing.  Faithfulness is enough.  Not insignificantly, this singular obsession will also guide me through the maze of every other challenge in my life, including how to be a good hubby, dad and grandpa while pursuing my quest to change the world by the end of the month.

Friends who help me to elevate faithfulness to Jesus above all else are ‘centered-set’ allies of mine, going where I want to go with all of my heart, mind and strength for the glory of God. Watch if other worthy causes don’t get carried along in the wake of faithful living.

The Mysterious Appeal of Christmas

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I’m drawn to mystery like a moth to light.  Long before I knew Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior I remember lingering in the upstairs hallway as I headed to bed in my little boy pjs so I could stare out the window at the stars.   On Christmas Eve, especially, I searched the sky for evidence of one star that sparkled dramatically brighter than all others.  Could I see the famous Star of Christmas?  If so, what could it mean?

Albert Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge.  CS Lewis has compellingly argued that one evidence of God is the longing we humans have for that which is transcendent.  I’m not the only mystery lover.

One of the great benefits of this posture is that I have never had any problem accepting the fact that I don’t–and won’t–know everything.  This isn’t a matter of my lack of intelligence or work ethic.  I simply believe that it makes total sense that there are unknowable realities in this world.  This breeds a fundamental humility that I value very much; it affirms that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Prov. 1:7).  Two days ago I was doing a slow clap for the Lord as I read how he interrogated the last morsel of pretense right out of Job’s miserable life (Job chapters 38-40).

That God’s love for us resulted in his 33 year life among us is a mystery to me.  A vulnerable newborn baby squirmed in a dirty manger one night in human history…because God’s love for us demanded to be squeezed into the human experience.  Somehow–mysteriously–you and I can benefit from God’s love because of the unexplainable incarnation.  ‘Emmanuel’ means ‘God with us.’

Jason, my firstborn, was crying hard once at bedtime, screaming from his crib.  When it was clear that he would not wear down and fall asleep on his own I slipped into his bedroom to comfort him.  My young daddy heart wrenched as I realized how scared my little boy was.  His eyes darted around the room, lips quivered, tears flowed…and nothing I did caught his attention enough to comfort him.  I was creative and desperate in my attempts, but didn’t want to lift Jason from his crib–he needed to learn to stay in his bed and sleep.  Finally I did the ridiculous.  I heaved my 6’5″ frame into this crib with my son and lay down.  Within two minutes my little guy stopped crying, lay down next to me, and feel asleep.  My presence reassured and soothed him.  My love broke through to a baby without a vocabulary.

God delivered his love for us in person.  This is the Christmas story, and it’s a wondrous mystery.  My jaw is still dropped wide open in a silly smile.  I don’t get it…but I’m forever different because the inexplicable is true.

Relationships, Programs & Pizza Buffets

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I found myself on a roll last week as I was speaking to Youth for Christ national leaders. It became very clear to me that, as much as I have been critical of program-centered ministry approaches, I thoroughly trusted those gathered in front of me in Denver with all things program.  Why?

Because I knew that these folks have a ‘relationship first’ mentality when it comes to ministry.

Such a priority changes our entire approach to programming.  We use events and activities to further life-giving relationships. Programs create space for interaction about and with Jesus. Sharing stories…discovering stories…keeping it real, we dive in together.

Somehow this protects that which is most important. We safeguard loving God and loving others above all else. And we have a chance to avoid the pitfall of imagining that well-attended programs are forming people for faithful living in Christ.

When a pastor friend some years ago shared that his metaphor for ministry was a pizza lunch buffet, I was intrigued. He said that his job was to offer lots of opportunities to people so they could participate at whatever interest level they have. This sounded good enough that I thought a research visit to the local pizza parlor was warranted.

Sure enough, the pizza buffet was working. The place was packed and bustling. I was getting hungrier as I noted all the activity. In fact, I had a hankering for taco pizza, so I waited until I saw one being carried from the ovens to get in line. Unfortunately I was too slow out of my booth and the plate was stripped bare of taco pizza when I began filling my plate.

I didn’t go hungry. But I also wasn’t entirely satisfied. Of course, no one at the pizza place knew that. All they knew was that the pizzas were being consumed at a good rate. They were doing what they were trained to do: monitor pizza levels and keep ‘em coming.

Too bad. If a waiter had just swung by to ask me if everything was OK he would have learned that I was a bit disappointed and could have done something about it. As it was, the pizza place was clueless about my dissatisfaction, missing out on some key information that could help their business.

Like we do when we settle for program feedback when we should be learning from authentic Christ-sharing relationships.

Stealth Kids

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It was, by most any other measure, the kind of sermon I would have slow-clapped for. Our young pastor charged the congregation to think about more than congregating. Let’s be missional…co-missional with Jesus, even, in a GREAT way.  Matthew 28: 19-20 got plenty of airplay.

But yesterday I was haunted by the conviction that the majority of kids in our communities are lost in a stealthy way. They don’t show up on local church radar screens. And it’s nigh on impossible to love someone you don’t even notice.

That was, after all, the entire point of showing a video slide show about brothers and sisters who are struggling to eke out a living in Muldova, wasn’t it? Until or unless our awareness is raised we are not going to be inclined to act. Our default posture is that of the hurried religious, too preoccupied with other important matters to notice the beaten and bruised neighbor along the side of the road.

Thank God for the Good Samaritans who are especially dialed in to the movements of otherwise stealth kids in our communities. Their radar screens are beeping and crowded by the blipping activity of lost teens.  None of the critically-needed missional moves we might make on behalf of throngs of young people who don’t know Jesus can be launched until we notice them.

Once we see kids who are clueless without Christ we can take initiative to intersect with their lives. By God’s grace first connections can lead to relationships that are authentic and hopeful. Eventually the light and love of Jesus can change everything. Voilá! Missional magic, for the glory of God.

But nothing happens for lost teens until we notice them like God does. And then all things are possible.