There are certainly other ways to read the Bible other than ‘in 90 days’, but here are the reasons why I’m doing it this way (and why I think it will be helpful to do this every year) : 

1. If God made sure his words were recorded for us, why wouldn’t I want to read all of them numerous times?

2. Reading large portions of Scripture regularly slows me down so I can think about life from an eternal perspective. Still within the first 20 days, and I’ve had tearful moments of revelation and times of seeing things with fresh eyes.

3. In my daily life, I am constantly bombarded with images, philosophies, thoughts, reasonings, and attractions from the world, my flesh, and the Enemy. I need large quantities of God’s thoughts, empowered by his Spirit, to resist them.

4. I trust my own thoughts too much at times and it’s good to be rebooted with God’s thoughts as much as possible. 

5. Each time I read through the Bible, I’m humbled as I realize how little I actually know and understand God’s Word.

6. Reading a lot of the Bible helps me more easily see how it all fits together, and gives a fresh perspective to the biblical narrative (which perhaps was never intended to be 'nibbled on' in the first place.)

7. As a worship leader and student pastor, I want people’s faith to rest on God’s Word, not my music or my opinions. I want Scripture to be the overflow of my heart, not something I occasionally use for a desired emotional effect or dig into because I have to teach a lesson.. 

8. As a husband, father of three, and resident of planet Earth, Scripture is my primary how-to manual to marriage, parenthood, and life. You and I should be able to recite it better than the USAmerican pledge of allegiance… if my allegiance is to Christ.

I know reading completely through the Bible sounds pretty ambitious or intimidating. But if I can do it, so can you. There are multiple plans out there from which to choose.

What are you currently doing that's challenging you spiritually? 

This year, students from our sister church, New Life Baptist, will be joining us as we explore the Scriptures and worship together. Pray for all of us over the next few days!

For those of you who may not know, Fight Club is not really about the physical act of pummeling another human being. It's built on the frustration against the system of a consumerist society, the disillusionment of a generation of men who have been raised by women to misunderstand what it means to be a man. Real manhood, according to the movie, begins with knowing yourself and authentically knowing others in a community of authentic living. The dream of stripping away everything we hide behind, and standing knuckle-to-knuckle with others who aspire to rebuilding ourselves from the bottom up. 

When the question rises in the movie, "if you could fight anyone, who would it be?', it's a step towards really knowing yourself ("How can you know yourself if you've never been in a fight?") and really knowing another person. 

When I tweeted my question, I got a multitude of answers: 

"The Pope (cuz he's old and I think I would win).

Ghandi.

Buddha.

Tammy Faye Bakker (she already looks like she's had the crap beat outta her).

Tim LaHaye. 

Sarah Pailn.

Joel Osteen.

Tom Cruise. 

Al Sharpton. 

Ann Coulter. 

And, of course, Jesus. 

Each answer was great in it's own right. I'd love to know each of those a little more, for different reasons. I never see eye to eye with anyone of those listed 100% of the time. (Yes, I even disagree with Jesus at times. I don't always like when He's right about everything..) 

Jacob wrestled with (the pre-incarnate) Jesus. He ended up being blessed, but he forever walked with a limp because of it. Was the limp worth the experience? I think Jacob would say it was. I have a hunch that the vast majority fight him regularly. I want to know him. I think I know him…but there's always more. And He always pushes me to let go of things, take up other things, and give still more things away. Quite honestly, I expected the winner to be chosen because he/she cited someone other than Jesus. I really wanted to send the box of goodies to someone who had good reasons for fighting and getting to know someone like Osteen or Buddha. Really I did. 

After tallying the votes in my super-scientific, quadruple-blind survey, the winning tweet goes to  Michael McMinn for suggesting we fight with Jesus. It sounds trite and all Sunday-Schooley, but I challenge you to ask yourself one question: "How would my life change if I stood toe-to-toe, knuckle-to-knuckle with Christ, fullly engaged, fully attentive, and let him chisel me into His image? To spend enough time with Him to be able to know when He would move? How he would move? And the manner in which I should react to his movements?"  Ok, that's actually 4 questions..but you get the idea. 

Maybe I've been drinking the Fight Club kool-aid too long. 

Or maybe I've been fighting with Jesus long enough. And yet not long enough. 

Maybe there's still more to come. 

This week’s edition of Our Story features James, a great student in our ministry, who shares his struggles and experiences of vandalism, suicide, and redemption.

Watch it in HD here on Vimeo. 

 "I love the fact that the ‘sinful woman’ in that story is unnamed. That means I can put my own name in there…"

-pregnant HS senior girl at our retreat last weekend,

commenting on the woman mentioned in Luke 7:36-50.

Gone are the days when good girls “don’t” and bad girls “do.” Now good girls might, sometimes, depending on their feelings for the guy and who the guy is. Good girls, according to current cultural norms, should be concerned with how they look and express interest in boys, and they probably shouldn’t be too uptight about sex. And aren’t girls supposed to want to get their needs met, at least a little, too? 

These rules, murky as they are, can also backfire. Girls can end up pregnant like Juno (or Bristol Palin), they can inadvertently cross the slippery boundary between “hot” and “slutty,” or they can be victimized and subsequently blamed for it.

And then, there are the teflon-coated guys… who are just as confused and clueless and misguided, but don’t pay the same price as young girls for their choices. Reputations and lables don’t stick to them as readily, so they continue to skate freely, still misguided. 

Each spring our ministry puts together a six-session study called Sex Camp. Aimed at our middle schoolers and high schoolers, we attempt to paint some foundational concrete about sexuality, purity, and relationships, as well as cover some practical, prescriptive ideas for dating and purity. We try to lay the foundation, not specifically for the act of sex, but for the act of being human, underscored with one single principle: pursing Jesus brings life, just as pursing sin brings death. The illustration we use is that of our solar system: Jesus is not at the top of our priority list, but at the center of our universe. Everything must revolve around him or the result is disastrous. He is the Son/Sun. (Yes, Jesus is the big ball of gas in the midst of our existence!) 

We typically cover the following topics:

• Jesus: The Big Ball of Gas
• Sex and the Supremacy of God
• STD’s
• What If I’ve Blown It? (Grace)
• Should I Date (and How to Date Well)
• How Far Is Too Far?  (which is a bad question, btw…) 
• Lost in the Wilderness (Pornography, Abortion, Homosexuality), including resources from XXXChurch and Abort73. 

Here’s where YOU come in. If you could write the curriculum, what topics would you want covered? What points would you make? What discussions would you want to make sure took place?  And what about PARENTS? Recognizing the fact that multitudes of parents have trouble talking to their kids about sex, what would be of aid for them? 

Any and every thought or idea you have is appreciated…

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.

Click here to view the embedded video.