Missional Living

For all of you locals:

This Sunday, May 11, we’ll have a couple of special guests at our 10:30 a.m. student ministry time: Glyn Milburn and Robert Jones.

Milburn is a two-time All American running back, wide receiver and kick returner. He graduated from the University of Stanford and spent 10 years in the NFL, playing with the Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears, and San Diego Chargers.

Jones spent 11 years in the NFL, playing for the Dallas Cowboys, St. Louis Rams, Miami Dolphins, and Washington Redskins. He was NFC Rookie of the Year in 1992 and won three Super Bowls with the Cowboys. 
 

They’ll be sharing their individual journeys of faith with our students and parents. It’ll be an exciting time.

Seating will be…um…packed. So be there on time!

Feral. Adj. Describing an animal that has left a domesticated state and returned to the wild. Alley cats and pigeons are examples feral animals.

A few years ago, we lived in a small central Texas town and had lots of problems with feral pigs. We lived close to the high school’s Ag barn where various animals were housed and raised before they were shown (for competition) and slaughtered. Many times, young domesticated pigs would escape and wander off in the spring…and return by fall (or the following spring), having become adapted to the wild. The problem is that they could not become redomesticated. They would live along the margin of civilization, stealing food from cattle and other farm animals, destroying fences and gardens, and even would become aggressive towards humans and livestock during the tough months of winter.

One salty, good ‘ol boy named Paul once told me, “Don’t try to keep them penned up, they’ll knock everything down trying to get out. You just have to shoot ‘em and move on.”

We have generations of hope-seeking students and adults who have left civilized church and religious life and wandered off in to the wild. Sometimes they may wander back along the margins of conventional religion, but they can never be redomesticated. They push over fences in search of hope, discovery, authentic intimacy, and significant God-experiences. They won’t fit back into the neat little boxes of ministry. (I’m not sure they ever did in the first place.)

IMO, more and more of us are wandering off and moving to the wilderness. We/they may wander close enough to feed off the traditional structures…but attempts to redomesticate them are pretty useless.

In search of the God-life, I turned feral a few years back. Funny, how I’m still on staff at a conventional, highly-organized (and marvelous!) local church. Although, as Dave Mustaine so aptly comiserated, ‘the system has failed’, God continues to change and shape me in and out of my ‘ferility’. I seem to be better suited for living in the wild than among the civilzed (though not as much as some), yet sometimes I feel like my job is to lead others to feral living. Not away from ‘church’, but away from a civilized religion…and towards a dangerous, radical, table-turning, whip-making, unpredictable, revolutionary and Feral Jesus.

A Feral Jesus that hasn’t turned his back on His Bride (the church), but calls her to a deeper experience of intimacy with Him. Pushing over civilized, religious fences. No longer living for the show (and the slaughter) to come.

Missional Living gone Feral.

I discovered a new blog this morning via Marko. The long and the short of it is that Once A Youth Pastor has some good thoughts on ministry–and asks some of the same tough questions we’re asking among ourselves. In his Indicators of Longevity post, I found the following:

"2/3 of the students active in our youth ministry walk away from their faith within a year of graduating high school…What became evident really quickly was the effect of parents on the faith-development process. I realize that this entire process is a bit subjective and nonscientific, but what I discovered was enough to indicate a real pattern.

We lose 25% of kids who have 2 Christian parents and Dad takes the spiritual lead.
We lose 50% of kids who have 2 Christian parents and Mom takes the spiritual lead.
We lose 66% of kids who have a Christian Dad only
We lose 75% of kids who have a Christian Mom only
We lose 90% of kids who have no Christian parents"

While those statistics are, well…statistics, and we all know what Mark Twain says about statistics, I’d venture to say that they’d be pretty accurate nationwide, in and of themselves. At least, that’s the trend we’re seeing in the college years.

But what author Tony Waal points out is the common denominator of kids who’ve ’stuck with it’…they all had a spiritual mentor. (And youth workers didn’t seem to count!) Without exception, each one had a spiritual father (or mother) that they walked with in their journey. Every Timothy had a Paul. Every Paul had a Silas. And each one was OUTSIDE the youth group. Parents. Young adults. Senior adults.

I could rant again about the failures of a me-centered gospel or an isolationist Christianity which doesn’t embrace real community with the larger church. But until I can find a way out, I won’t.

I’ll just put it in my pipe and smoke it.

I’m still recuperating and playing catch up from our iGro weekend….good times.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK-dFRQ56So[/youtube]

Remember, ministry (and life) will kill you. It’s supposed to. It’s designed to reveal God’s strength through your weakness. His success in the midst of your failure. His greatness among your feebleness. And mine.

The story goes that Mother Teresa was approached by a young man who wanted to know God’s will for his life. As he pleaded with her to pray for him, she asked why he needed her prayers.

“So I can do something great for God.”, the man replied.

“I will not pray that you will do something great for God”, she answered, “but I will pray for you.”

She did pray. And years later, artist Kendall Payne put her prayer to a beautiful, haunting song called ‘Pray’, which cries out:

May your heart break enough that compassion enters in.
May your strength all be spent upon the weak.
All the castles and crowns you build and place upon your head,
May they all fall, crashing down around your feet.

May you find every step to be harder than the last,
So your character grows greater every stride.
May your company be of human insignificance.
May your weakness be your only source of pride.

The most beautiful thing I love about Wayne is his weakness. His insignificant balance. He is at once full of passion and life and fire…and yet weak and feeble and wounded.

Being a disciple of Christ requires the balance of both. Not the tension of both, but the balance. We must pursue our calling with everything in us. We must pour out unfailing love on our spouses and children. We must cultivate our character and integrity with diligence. And we must constantly be a genuine friend of sinners and those who would despise us.

It’s a pretty exhausting job description.

Rest assured it will drag all of your insecurities and weaknesses into the light of day.

It will expose the Imposter within you.

It will ensure that your failures and feeble attempts at success will be broadcast unsparingly.

It it will demand that your weakness reveal God’s strength (2 Cor 12:9). After all, that’s the plan, remember? In his second letter to the church in Corinth, Paul reminds them that he would not boast in himself. In fact, God Himself told Paul, “My grace is enough for you. My power is made perfect (complete) in your weakness.” Paul goes on to add that he will gladly boast…but about his weakness, so that the power of Christ will show up in him. So, for Christ’s sake, he is content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecution, and disaster. “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Wayne’s weakness, as well as my own, reminds me of the immortal words of Tyler Durden: “Congratulations. You’re one step closer to hitting bottom…[and] it’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”
 

I recently met up with a long-time ministry friend who just got out of rehab. Let’s call him Wayne.

I first met Wayne while I was serving at my first church. He was one of ‘those guys’: the ones with an amazing journey of finding Jesus. His life-story included being raised by a cocaine-using father, being left by the untimely death of his mother, and the religious and social tension of a sister involved in lesbianism. Wayne’s conversion story was a Damascus Road of walking away from heavy drug and alcohol usage and traveling the US as the youth ministry sidekick of a famous evangelist. Since 1993, he’s been a close friend, brother, and unfiltered confidant. The Focker’s ‘circle of trust’ wouldn’t be complete without Wayne in my life. We spent summers together leading camps, training for his Ironman competitions, and learning how to minister to students while dodging paintball fire.

For years, he struggled with alcoholic relapses. Binge weekends turned into binge weeks. He started a new campus ministry that began to reach thousands of middle and high school students. Being on the road to insure it’s success and growth meant leaving the wife and kids alone in the daily grind of living. While the ministry accolades grew, the weariness of it grew as well. Without support, encouragement, and accountability, temptation and relapse were soon a part of his daily life. Nearly two years later, his wife and some friends convinced him to commit to an 8-week treatment program.

When he got out, I called to check on him. We joked around. Laughed together. Cried a little bit. When the conversation turned serious, I told him I loved him and that I was glad he was in recovery. I didn’t expect the response I got.

“In those 8 weeks, I didn’t find God. I looked…hard. I prayed and fasted. I cried. I read Scripture. I did everything I’ve told others to do, but I didn’t find Him there.”

There was a very awkward silence (as you can imagine). I struggled for a response.

But he continued. “Dude, for 8 weeks I worked in the cornfields and kitchens with alcoholics and crackheads. They became my friends and my support. Only a few of them were ‘christians’, but they are my brothers. Tom, I looked hard for God those two months and didn’t find Him. But He found me…” His voice trailed. “And for the first time ever, I feel like a friend of sinners. And I feel balanced.”

I didn’t quite know what to say.

We get so caught up in life. On the treadmill. So consumed by our calling to ministry, to teach, to fix, to do whatever we were born to do, that we become unbalanced and unstable. And in our instability and weariness, we get sucked into a devastating and destructive spiral. We mask pain, loneliness, and feelings of inadequacy with anything. Everything. Something that will get us through.

Remember, ministry (and life) will kill you. It’s supposed to. It’s designed to reveal God’s strength through your weakness. His success in the midst of your failure. His greatness among your feebleness. And mine.

One of our students, and my bff, JaNette.

Love tha’ kid.

Amazing young lady who makes me smile.

We’ve survived our annual winter retreat this last week. It’s one of the few times/events that we completely integrate our middle schoolers, high schoolers, college students, and adult volunteers. (we’ll be doing it more often in the coming year, though…) So our theme centered on community.

Last night we debriefed the retreat…a post mortem of sorts. you can guess how it went. Opinions varied: the speaker talked too long. and he didn’t talk long enough. the band was ‘too rockin’ and played too long. and they didn’t play long enough. but the sprititual things that our students came away with were things i need to remember and put into practice myself:

Don’t worry about what God has for you in the future. He has it under control–just focus on what He wants from us today.

remember we are called to make disciples, not churchgoers. or christian consumers.

remember the importance of stillness. quiet. hearing God.

live to please God, not people. But love them (people) madly.

check out the video one of our students put together.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=xci9E-LUAEI[/youtube]

It’s late in the day and I am at yet another conference hoping I didn’t waste my time and money to hang out with other youth pastors who desperately want God to show up among their students. After spending the afternoon/evening listening to their hearts, I am reminded how unreasonable they are. They expect the vast majority of their pastors, deacons, elders, leaders, and adults to get on board with their vision of student ministry. They expect parents to be excited about their teenagers becoming revolutionaries and counter culture martyrs. They are all under-compensated and over-worked, yet fervently believe that God will honor their faithfulness and act against human reasoning and do amazing things in spite of their best (or worst) efforts.

So, thank you to all of you who share the trenches with me. Workers. Parents. Teachers. Staff members. All of you who believe in the world-changing idealistic power of student ministry. We are an illogical bunch. In many ways, we are unreasonable. (Who would’ve thought that Jesus could have changed the world with a dozen young men?…) I am reminded of these words:

"A reasonable man tries to adapt himself to the world.

An unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to himself.

Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

-George Bernard Shaw

The first-ever tomcottar(dot)org online contest was a great success! Great creativity! After much consideration in a difficult situation I realized a few things.

1. I should have been more congnizant of Buffy (Spike Is My Personal Example) and Fight Club (Soap Inspires Mindless Pummeling of Enemies). Dang.

2. Personal emails sent to me asking "Is this right?….." followed by a ton of guesses, don’t count as official contest entries.

3. It’s gonna cost me a hefty sum to send this stuff to our winner.

4. Living is easier after rendering fat.

So…are you ready? Waiting with baited breath? Can you feel the anticipation? The winner is……..a great guy. He got closer than anyone and missed it by a hair. For that reason, I need to tell you that S.I.M.P.E. stands for Spiritual, Intellectual, Mental, Physical and Emotional. Congratulations, Jimmie! Your box of goodies will be packed up and mailed to you on Monday! 

UPDATE: Here is an updated pic of my process, though not yet complete, with sticky notes and reminders of goals and priorities for a fat-free life. Some of the stickys are scribbled with things such as the following:

• date night
• 1-on-1 time with the boys
• finish your book
• books to read
• leaders to mentor/develop (By Design and Student Ministry)
• get the ‘I’ out of worship (this one applies to SIMPE, BY DESIGN, and STUDENT MINISTRY…)
• Houston or Austin Marathon
• be faithful to accountability partners
• schedule a Sabbath
• UPALO (Unplug and Log Off)