They don’t prepare you for everything in bible college. As a youth ministry major, I had taken classes on youth culture, read about some of the more ugly things that were happening in the lives of teens and learned what advice experts had to give on a wide variety of issues.

Nothing could prepare me for what I would see with my own eyes.

In 2006, as a full of myself-first year-fresh out of college youth pastor, I found myself working with a few students who were cutting. I had read about it, I had prepared for it, I knew my legal responsibility and our church position on how to handle this kind of situation but I wasn’t prepared. The first day one of these kids came into my office, handed me their sharp object and asked for prayer, I couldn’t be ready for that. The day one student pulled back her armband so a few of us could put our hands on her scars and pray for them, I couldn’t be ready for that. At one point, I found myself working with multiple students and their families to overcome cutting and the list of other issues that go along with it like depression, alcoholism, and drug use. In each family, I found myself banding together with parents who were crushed, students who were hurting and friends who were powerless to help. Through the power of Jesus Christ and with methods like prayer, accountability and professional therapy, each of those students in the long haul has recovered.

There were some dark days during those times, moments were I never thought we would see recovery:

Picking up drunk family members to take them to the E.R. at 3am and spending the entire night at a hospital after a suidicde attempt.

Coming home from a retreat and finding that the behavior had spread to a younger student looking for some attention.

Times when I felt like our church, our volunteers, the families and my wife and I were making no impact in the lives of these students.

Days when I would consult with another youth pastor dealing with the same situation for longer than us who had seen no recovery for their students.

It was during those days that I set out to be an expert for our students and families. I got together lists of counselors who could deal with this issue, I trained all of our volunteers on how to respond when a student told you something like this, I put together articles and reading lists for parents whose students were dealing with the issue, I put together sets of parents dealing with the same issue for prayer and support. I scoured the internet for resources.

In that scouring, I came across a myspace page with a story on it. A group of people were selling tshirts to raise money for a friend to get treatment, the shirts had a strange statement that read “To Write Love On Her Arms”. I read the story, no more than a few pages about a group of people dealing with some of the same issues as we were. A few people who came together to help a friend detox so she could get into a facility to be treated. As I read the story, I weeped. It was just a post on myspace but I read the story and I sobbed in my office for over an hour.

I’m not sure I had processed everything until I heard someone else’s story. it’s funny how we fail to process our pain sometimes, it can often be the story of another person that moves me to tears. I have learned in my life to pay attention to tears, they point me in a direction that meets a deep longing in my heart.

Upon stumbling on this page, I knew I was not alone in trying to fight this darkness. TWLOHA wasn’t providing anything specific, they weren’t resourcing my situation, they were doing what i was doing: helping a friend in a tough spot who needed Jesus and some community to overcome a terrible situation. I was instantly a raving fan, I ordered a shirt, it was all I could do to support their cause. This was literally a movment birthed from a story that needed a place to be shared.

Since those early days, TWLOHA has not stopped telling that story, they have created a platform and now provide resources to anyone dealing with depression, suicide, self injury and substance abuse. They have found the places that the story resonates and told it live, in videos and through the web. Currently they are one of the most infulential non-profit users of social media in the world. They have 336,000 friends on myspace, 1.1 million friends on facebook, and 144,000 followers on twitter. When USAtoday came up with a promotion to give away a full page add(189,000 value) to the non profit who could get the most people to use a certain hashtag, TWLOHA acted and won the contest because of their social media community.

This is the ad that ran in the USAtoday:

I am a proud supporter of this organization and I am fascinated at how they were able to take a story and turn it into an organization that connects millions of people and results in positive change in their lives. The church might learn a lot from an organization like this. Let’s see: a powerful story, boldness to share it, using social media as one platform to do so, seems easy enough. But we do not always get it right and I will comment next on how we misuse social media and do an injustice to our story. There are also limitations to social media and I’ll comment on that as well. Stay tuned.

Upcoming blog posts on this topic:

(Episode 3 – How we missuse social media)

(Episode 4 – Media and Ministry)

(Episode 5 – Wrap up)

Had a little fun with bitstrips, this is what I came up with.  This sketch in now way applies to a real rob or john, any similarities are purely coincidental.

I have been fascinated with the connection between social media and movements lately.

I think we all witnessed the power of social media in the Egypt situation a few months ago. It is clear that social media has a role to play in the life of any modern movement. Over the next few days, I am going to discuss how it is possible to leverage social media to champion a cause.  With my next few blog posts, I want to describe some things that most movements have in common before they become digitally represented. I am also going to look at a few “case studies” and then talk a bit about both what role social media can play in a movement and what the limitations are. Finally, I hope to comment about how the church can effectively use social media and why or when it becomes just noise.

Today, a short history lesson on the how the Egypt uprising came to be.

Powder Keg
By most accounts, opposition to the Egyptian government and the violent state of life it had installed had been growing for quite some time. The movement that we witnessed in America on the news and through Twitter and Facebook had roots that go as far back as the government regime. The situation was a 30-year-old powder keg, growing in intensity with each passing day. Citizens all over Egypt had been feeling the fear of living in a state of violence for a long time… but they were not connected. There was no power in the voices of the scattered few.

Lighting the Fuse
The spark that lit the fuse most definitely was something that happened last July. According to eye witnesses and later an autopsy report, a young man was brutally beaten to death by a couple of police officers. According to the reports, Khaled Said was dragged into the entranceway of a building then kicked, punched, and had his head slammed into stairs, walls and the ground until he was dead. There are pictures on the web that show a before and after of Khaled.  His before is a picture of a good-looking happy young man; the after picture moved me to tears.  It was so shocking that I literally gasped out loud, absolutely brutal and horrifying.  This act of aggression may have been swept under the rug in previous years.  How many times in years past did the story of a single act of violence like this disappear?  There may have been eye-witness accounts but no way to share this story with sympathizers.  Not today, not this year, someone found the pictures, told the story and incited a group laying in the weeds ready for a change.   If the spark that lit the fuse was the death of Khaled, the fuse that lit the powder keg was the story being told over and over online to anyone who would listen. This story united many people with a common problem.

Power of Story

The crisis already existed; now this crisis had a face, a story that needed to be told. There is incredible power in story and it is often the center of a real movement. Khaled’s story began to be told on the web and his story started to connect people with a common crisis. A Facebook group called We are all Khaled Said grouped together a collective of supporters desperate to not see this happen to one more person. They were ready to risk much to make sure this atrocity would not happen again. As they organized, Twitter hastags popped up as a way to communicate the social action that was taking place. Social media was being used to alert the press, organize the masses and allow for the collective desire for change to rule the day.

Shaping the Story

The media was also used to make sure the right story was being told. The people were shaping the narrative instead of the government. Instead of a story on CNN about how there was civil unrest and riots, the story was about how there was uprising and revolt against a violent government. Social media and traditional media were being used to tell the peoples side of the story and keep everyone honest. Acts of aggression were being shared immediately and, for maybe the first time in history, the rest of the world had real-time access to both sides of the story. The government became powerless outside of an extreme action to stop this cause. Eventually, this movement overcame incredible obstacles to see a regime change.

Social media did not create a problem that needed to be overcome, it did not motivate the people to act, nor did it solve this problem. What it did do was share an important and powerful story, connect and organize the loosely affiliated, empower and protect those who needed a mob to have a voice, and shape the way the world viewed this cause. What actually solved the problem were Egyptians putting themselves at risk, standing together and using their collective voice to oppose a grievous wrong, and they used social media as a tool to get there.

This blog post was written in 5 parts, Episode 2 is coming very soon.

(Episode 2 – TWLOHA and others who champion a cause using social media)

(Episode 3 – How we missuse social media)

(Episode 4 – Media and Ministry)

(Episode 5 – Wrap up)

Rob Bell is a brilliant at engaging this generation.

Its like he knows what itch to scratch or scratch to itch or whatever. Its like he knows exactly what question people are processing. More on this in a minute.

His marketing scheme is also impeccable: have a publisher release a vague description of his newest book along with a short beautiful video that only poses questions. It accomplishes two things: it engages the irreligious who think about those questions and inflames the reformed zealots who see it as their place to beat down anyone who steps outside of their(their, often not God’s or scriptures) box. It’s brilliant. The book will sell to those on the outside of Christianity who need to be engaged and it will sell to all the Christians who need to see if Rob has become a Universalist as some have claimed. Rob remains silent, probably just getting so much enjoyment watching all the hysteria over a book no one has even read.

The thing I appreciate as a youth pastor, is that Rob is talking about a question that I see a lot of people asking. I don’t know where he will land on the theology spectrum but it is clear to me that people aren’t finding the answers they need in our trite answers. Students can sniff if you are feeding them the company line or if you have come to understand this truth by working through it yourself.

In my mind, scripture and good theology doesn’t really change, the bible is available in its entirety and has been for thousands of years. If you find yourself with a new thought, one that no theologian has ever thought before you, you are most likely a heretic. Its the forms that change, its the tone that changes, its the way we engage with each generation that changes. What I find lacking in most reformed zealot theologians is a lack of depth of struggle. It’s a “know it all tone”, its a judgmental attitude, trust me, none of us know it all, no, not one. In all theological matters, we have to continue to press in, to knock, seek, to ask, to struggle, to refine what it is we believe. Anyone afraid of questions seems to have another agenda at hand, one that protects a man made set of boundaries.

Personally, the more I think I begin to understand, the more questions I have. God is like this, you will never have him completely figured out, you will never not be completely blown away and challenged to the core when you open his word.

I am not saying anything about Rob’s book or his alleged ties to world universalism organization or his plan to take over the world until I read his book. I’ll struggle with its message and see how it relates to what I read in scripture. I’ll see if it is asking and dealing with important questions and if it is useful to start conversations with friends dealing with those questions. If it isn’t useful, I won’t blog about how much I hate Rob Bell or start a campaign where I bring more attention to him while I tell people not to read his book. I certainly won’t jump to judgement until I read it.

I see a generation of students who have legitimate questions about how a loving just God could send his creation into eternal torment. This is a valid question in my mind. I see that generation asking if the devout, very religious God fearing Muslim friend would suffer the same fate as someone with no faith in anything. A vaild question. A generation who sees the possibility that maybe, just maybe, a God who operates so contrary to how we think may have possibly made a way into heaven for those who follow him and an escape scenario for those who didn’t in time. I see a generation asking did Jesus die for all sins or just the ones that are asked forgiveness for. These are great questions, they need to asked, we need to spend the same amount of time struggling with them as previous generations. We need to search the scriptures, we need to press into God and search for answers, not just give each other a trite company line and certainly not beat each other down over our disagreements.

God is not afraid of our questions, no matter how crazy they may seem if we lean into him and search his word. Let’s all calm down a bit.

As many of you now know and was officially announced in church on Sunday, Marty and I will be moving to Minnesota at the end of January.

Hows that for getting right down to it?

I have accepted a position as the Pastor of Student Ministries at Grace Church Roseville in Roseville, MN.

The church’s website is http://www.gracechurchroseville.org

I want to thank Pascack Bible Church for how supportive and loving they have been to Marty and I over the past two years. We have really loved our time here and are proud of the contribution we have made to the kingdom at PBC. We will truly miss all the amazing people we have been connected with. There were many factors in making this decision but more than anything, God overwhelmed us by opening doors and giving us a clear sense that Minnesota was going to be a great place to raise our new family(Marty’s pregnant) and for me to take another step as a Pastor, taking on a ministry that will challenge me and allow me to grow as a leader. I am so excited about teaming up with such a passionate talented staff and working with a Pastor focused on the leadership and development of the staff of Grace. It’s going to be quite a transition moving from the east coast to the upper mid west, from the land of sarcasm to the land of “Minnesota-nice”. Ultimately, we feel like God opened up this opportunity and called us to step into it and it will be a wonderful new adventure for us.

So Minnesota, here we come. We are so excited about joining this dynamic church and bringing some energy and passion to its youth program. We would love your prayers through this time, I will be updating my facebook information with new contact info as it becomes available.

Look, I must start this post by letting everyone know I am a hypocrite. I poke fun at people like Ted Haggard and other infamous Christian’s often, in fact, probably too often. When I saw that Youth Specialties was having Ted and Gayle as keynote speakers this year, I thought it might be a controversial topic to say the least. That is what I have come to expect with Youth Specialties, from Jay Bakker’s incredible talk about grace in a couple of years ago to Doug Pagit and Tony Jones’ roadshow in Pittsburgh 2008, Youth Specialties has never shied away from what might be considered controversial. I appreciate that about them.

I entered this morning’s session with an open attitude, sure I made a couple of cracks among friends about meth or massages but for the most part, I was ready to hear a story of redemption full of God’s mercy and grace. I was ready to re-accept Ted to the world of Christianity, I was ready to forgive and move on, to hear about transformation and second chances. I’m not sure why this was my job but I was ready to do it. What transpired has me very unsure of how to process things.

Tic Long, who handled this situation with more class than I am capable of, began the interview asking some questions of Gayle. Gayle has written a book called “Why I Stayed” and she spoke with poise and thoughtfulness, I can’t tell you how many times I amen’d her thoughts. She brought a message that chastised the church in a couple of areas of judgement and divisive behavior but it was so appropriate. I was tracking with her and impressed by her overall demeanor, it was strong with a soft touch. My judgement of her was that she is a graceful woman full of mercy and love, a great representative of Jesus.

Then Ted began to talk and the wheels began to fall off.

Ted’s message was that our country is a country of second chances and that he should be afforded one as well. His question for us was if our country could forgive Michael Vick, Bill Clinton and Martha Stewart then why couldn’t Christianity afford the same courtesy to him? He began to lose me. I leaned over to a friend and began to say those people were “forgiven” or “reinstated” because of the money that can be made off of them. Lets be honest, would anyone want to forgive Vick if he couldn’t still throw a football, would anyone have pity for Martha Stewart if she wasn’t moving towels at KMart? I’m not so sure. I wasn’t loving Ted’s defense of himself and the way he was almost demanding forgiveness because it was proper Christian etiquette. No apology for the effects of his decisions on Christianity. No advice to anyone stuggling with a deep dark secret sin. Nothing. Instead, I felt obligated to forgive and I was resenting it.

Then the train derailed.

(The following quotes are my best recolection, I will be getting a copy of the message and updating them to be direct quotations if possible, I am not trying to sensationalize or create any kind of hysteria. I am recounting to the best of my ability)

Only a few blocks from convention center, a Tennessee Titans football game was beginning, as part of the game, some serious jets were doing a flyby and they flew directly overhead. It shook the convention center and was disruptive to Ted who was speaking. He paused and said something to the effect of “I hope this building doesn’t get hit by a plane of angry muslims”, I think he even said something about “ohh, there is the second plane” as well. We kind of all did a collective gasp, at this point, it would have been wise to take a step back and apologize for a dumb comment, that is not even close to what happened. Ted then said “I’d be mad too if I had to wake up at 5am to pray.” Later on in his talk, he was talking about sharing your sins with counselors who are required by law to keep it secret and said: “If I tell this guy I like to blow up buildings and one day I am the governor of the state and he is homeless, he might share my secret of loving to blow up buldings with everyone as a means to hurt or extort from me. It’s always better to use a counselor.” (again, this is my imperfect recollection)

At some point, about a third of the room got up and left. Tic, sensing what was happening, began to turn back to Gayle and try to get the train back on the rails but it was too late. Every question he asked included Ted talking over Gayle, it went from bad to worse.

We all felt a little bit uncomfortable with where this left us. On the one hand, stood a man who by biblical standards deserving of forgiveness and had a wife asking for it. On the other hand, we had a man who wasn’t willing to give that same forgiveness to the muslim community.

I live in the shadow of NYC. My church was seriously affected by 9/11, I know a man at my church who lost 60 friends and colleagues on that horrible day. I know first responders who gave weeks and months of their lives to get the city back together after this act of terrorism. My area of the country was one of the most hard hit areas in all of the United States. I still get emotional and angry when I walk by ground zero and see nothing in that hole a decade later. Most of the people I know have forgiven and moved on. Most of them would never flippantly throw around comments about crashing things into buildings. Most of them wouldn’t use blowing up a building as an illustration. Most of them would not speak of muslims in that regard. I was pretty disappointed, it is the right of the NYC region to still hold a grudge, we have earned that through tragedy and yet most of us have moved on. I don’t need someone from Colorado(at the time) to speak flippantly and offensively about that tragedy.

The irony was that I started ready to forgive and was only looking for a spirit of contrition on Ted’s part. If Ted had gotten up there and said I messed up and I am sorry, I would have been happy with that. If he had gone on to warn pastors about the dangers of not dealing with festering secret sin, I would have been impressed.

What we saw was a trainwreck. I am left with the idea that I must forgive anyways. Forgiveness isn’t about the other persons actions, it is about my letting go. So that is what I choose to do. It was offensive and I am not sure of Ted Haggard’s contrition; either for his former lifestyle or his offensive comments today but I still forgive. I wouldn’t want such a great organization like Youth Specialties, a great interviewer like Tic Long or an amazingly gracelful woman named Gayle Haggard to be overshadowed by some stupid comments.

I find myself oddly sympathetic as well. I have often opened my mouth and inserted my foot into it and brought about a poor result for the ministry I am in and for the woman I love. I truly do not deserve to have such a grace filled merciful partner in life who knows exactly how to handle my mistakes. Maybe I have more in common with Ole’ Ted than I thought.

Here are a couple of my favorite sermons that I have given lately.  I have been working hard to develop my own voice as a preacher. I am trying to sound like me, not like the latest book I’m reading or speaker I’ve heard. That means your going to get some passion, frustration, cynicism, and authenticity when I speak. I really feel that only this past year have I begun to sound like me. As a result, 3 of my past 4 sermons have been my best, I can’t explain it but getting older(turned 30 this year) has helped me find my style and voice.  

Take a listen if you so desire.

Here is my most recent sermon, I had a chance to open up a sermon series on love, I preached out of 1 Corinthians 13. It was a bit of a rebuke and a call for repentance. Who knew love could be so tough?

Date: October 31, 2010
Passage 1 Cor 13
Title: Love Out Loud

I spoke on Labor Day to wrap up our sermon series on Genesis. I really wanted to focus on Judah. In our small group, we had been studying Genesis and Judah’s redemption story of selflessness repairing the broken relationships which really had an affect on me. This was my attempt to do that narrative story justice. When I preach these kind of sermons, I am taken back to lakeside and the teaching of Bob Switzer, he has influenced the way I tell stories. This is the tail end of Joseph’s story which was always one of Bob’s favorites.

Date: September 5, 2010
Passage End of Genesis
Title: Judah’s Redemption

I spoke the weekend before palm Sunday and was able to choose the passage for the day. I landed on one of Jesus’ healings that I have always been fascinated with. The faith of great friends can be so powerful.

Date: March 21, 2010
Passage: Luke 5:17-26
Title: Jesus is the Answer!!

For those of you who preach regularly, has it been a journey to find your voice, do you have any suggestions on how to stay true to who God created you to be?

Here is what I’m listening to lately…

Mumford and Sons – Sigh No More

Amazing music, I understand I am late to the party but they are amazing.  I am especially fond of Sign No More, The Cave, Winter Winds and Little Lion Man.

Gungor – Beautiful Things

Loving this band, especially tracks Dry Bones and Beautiful Things.  It’s refreshing to find a band within the Christian genre that actually has meaningful lyrics.

The Glorious Unseen

Been a fan of these guys for years, lately I’ve been tearing up their moody worship music.

Jesus Culture

Currently challenging my walk with Jesus, these guys represent the great things to come from some current worship bands.  The music is modern and powerful.  Your Love Never Fails and You Won’t Relent are some of the best worship music I have ever listened to.

These guys are pretty incredible, they put a new spin on old hymns in with this album, I particularly love their rendition of How Great Thou Art.  Its a great album and its free from www.comeandlive.com, check it out.

Arcade Fire, The Suburbs

I especially love the song City with no Children and this lyric:

“You never trust a millionaire quoting the sermon on the mount
I used to think I was not like them but I’m beginning to have my doubts
My doubts about it”

So good.

Zach Williams, Story Time

I saw Zach play at Catalyst, he is incredible.  I especially love the song Hospital, about a personal tragedy that he went through, it is very moving.

Thats what I am spinning lately, I am gearing up for Christmas, about to put Christmas albums by Bing Crosby, Beach Boys, Relient k, Josh Groban, Sufjan, Shane and Shane, Trans Siberian Orchestra, and Mannheim Steamroller in the rotation!

What are you listening to lately?  I am always looking for new music, based on these albums, what recommendations of bands and new music can you make?

Rainn Wilson(Dwight from the office, who is actually a pretty spiritual guy from what I can tell) posted an interesting question the other day, I had already been thinking about it and thought I’d touch on it a little in light of what I was reading in a book called Leading with a Limp by Dan Allender.  Here is Rainn’s tweet:

I often wonder the same thing.

One thing that I think turns off all people, no matter where they are on the spectrum of Religion is arrogance.  I think the Christian/Atheist debate may be the most intense version of religious arrogance.  I have convictions, I just don’t want to argue people to the cross.  I am not sure this generation responds to reason or hostility.  There is a place to defend your convictions but the place for this is with humility in the confines of a relationship with another human being whose opinion you also respect and seek to understand.  Two people on opposite sides of the spectrum who are seeking to understand and serve each other have more in common than you would think.  On the flip side, the rigid dogmatist, either Christian or Atheist also share more in common than they would care to believe.  I like the way Dan Allender puts it in his book Leading with a Limp:

Dogmatism, after all, is not about what we believe but how we hold those beliefs.  After Wordl War II many studies were done in an attempt to understand the rise of authoritarian, despotic ideologies and governments.  It was discovered that a fascist despot and a communist demagogue are more alike than different.  Thier beliefs are contradictory, but their personalities and ways of leading are almost identical.

Likewise, a dogmatic religious fundamentalist is more similar to a domatic atheist than he is to the people who share his beliefs but who are still seeking greater clarity in thier beliefs.  The common link between contradictory ideologies is rigidity or the refulsal to remain open to new beliefs and new ways of understanding old convictions.

Rigidity is a refusal to reframe; it is a kind of thinking that limits the range of options and implications.  To clarify, it is not dogmatic to believe Jesus was raised bodily from the dead and that he ascended into heaven.  It is dogmatic, however, to think that you already know and can limit the range of meaning implied by these beliefs.

Let’s fall on the side of humility and truly seek to understand each other and our experiences instead of try and win arguments.  I think God will do so much more with this than we think.  What are your thoughts on this, should we change the way we engage the other end of the spectrum?