Chase the Setting Sun...

A lot of us have been in a church worship service and recited the Lord's prayer in unison with the congregation. I grew up my entire life reciting this prayer in church, most of the time in a monotone, uninterested manner. I always made fun of it because we all sounded like a bunch of mindless zombies as we recited, "Our Father, who art in heaven...".

Our father, in heaven

Hallowed be your name

Your kingdom come

your will be done

On earth as it is in heaven

Give us this day our daily bread

and forgive us our debts

as we also have forgiven our debtors

And lead us not into temptation

but deliver us from evil.

As I was studying this prayer the line "your will be done" struck me particularly hard. As I thought about Jesus' example of prayer for my life I realized how often I bark orders at God and completely ignore His will.

For a while now I have had an aversion to the word "radical" when used about the Christian faith. Yet, it seems to be the 'buzz word' for Christians these days when we talk about living out a faith that resembles Jesus and the Apostles.

The short list of you that read my blog know that I 'dabble' in student ministry, contemporary worship, and young adult ministry. Inevitably within these three areas of ministry I will get requests to try new things and branch out into new directions. Sometimes I'm the one pushing to do new things.

I am constantly asking myself what makes something worth trying or continuing. I recently read through the book of Galatians. In Galatians Paul questions the relation between faith rooted in Christ and faith rooted in culture or tradition. Specifically he talks about circumcision. The Jewish Christians were expected to be circumcised as a cultural sign that they were indeed a practicing Jew and Christian. Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles (non Jews), did not believe that circumcision was necessary and that it had little value if the person's heart was not rooted in Christ.

Often in a church setting we are faced with decisions on whether to start a new ministry, continue existing ministries, or adapt the culture of our local church in order to continue to be relevant to the times and our community.

So what should be our criteria for determining what ministries should continue, be started, or be adapted. Often we want to look at things like money, numbers, new attendees vs old members and on and on.

After I finished reading Galatians I decided to listen through a sermon series from Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle Washington, on the book of Galatians. In the third sermon of the series Driscoll covers chapter two of Galatians and gets into the argument of culture, tradition, and what makes a ministry worth having. He suggests two things that I think fit what Paul is saying in Galatians.

1. Does it help the Gospel?
How does it advance the Gospel by getting the message to new people and deepening the Gospel in the hearts of those that already believe?

2. Are People Worshiping Jesus?
Does this ministry succeed in helping people to worship Jesus in a real way?

The more I think about it, and pray about it, the more I feel that if these two things are being done, God will take care of the rest. Of course, churches still have to pay staff, mortgages, utility bills etc. So money and numbers are unavoidable things to consider. Unfortunately, church is also a business that has to have a certain amount of money to keep the doors open.

Maybe if we focus on Christ and the advancement of the Gospel even more than we already are, God will take care of the rest. Maybe I'm too idealistic and don't have enough church ministry experience to decide what is worth continuing/starting/adapting.

What do you think? What criteria do you and your church use to decide what ministries, worship services or styles, are worth starting/continuing etc?

OK, I love this song by Leonard Cohen. I've posted a different video of the Myles Kennedy version before but Corey Willoughby turned me on to the Phil Wickham version yesterday and it's pretty amazing too! They both take a different approach and I enjoy both. Hope you do too!

Phil Wickham - Hallelujah


Myles Kennedy (Alter Bridge) - Hallelujah

Every Wednesday I have a group of students that come over to the church after school to hang out and play video games. Most of the time they play Madden 2010 or Halo.

I am not your typical youth pastor. I almost never play video games. Seems that most youth ministries have a huge focus on video games; having multiple game consoles and TVs to play them on. I'm just not that interested.

I've been thinking about different Holiday traditions as Christmas quickly approaches. I decided to put up a list of my top 10 favorite holiday traditions (in no particular order)

1. Peanut Butter Balls

• Those of you from Ohio might call these "Buckeyes". We were always forbidden to call them that because most of my family attended Indiana University for college. They are basically a mix of peanut butter, butter, and powdered sugar rolled into a ball and covered in chocolate. Pretty phenomenal!

2. Christmas Vacation

• This is by far the greatest Christmas Movie of all time! No matter how many times I watch it I think I pull a muscle laughing every time. Just watched it last night with my parents and Grandmother for the second time this season (their first time ever!) and it was amazing. After the movie my 89 yr old grandmother said "Well Joe, I think that is the first movie I've seen since Hoosiers. (in the theater)". At that rate, unless she lives to be 120 it might be the last movie she sees. What a great last movie! (I'm not sure she'd agree with that statement).
  

3. Edward Scissorhands on Thanksgiving Day with Courtney

• This tradition started our first Thanksgiving together when we were dating. The movie was on TV and I was (still am) a huge Johnny Depp fan so we watched it. We've seen it most Thanksgivings since (although we missed the last couple years until this year).

4. Christmas Morning Cinnamon Rolls

• Every year since I can remember we have had Pillsbury cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. We would awake to the smell of garlic and onions sauteing (Mom preparing her famous stuffing for Christmas dinner), open presents, then stuff our faces with cinnamon rolls. Courtney and I continue this tradition.

5. Putting up the Christmas Tree (Mexican Style)

• Every year growing up it was always fun to put up the Christmas Tree. When I was growing up that usually occurred either the 1st of December or sometime after Thanksgiving and before Dec 1st. Now, although Courtney likes to try and get me to put up the tree sometime closer to HALLOWEEN, it is still a lot of fun. We make queso dip with mexican seasoned ground turkey (a tradition her family started...I think without the meat though) and play Christmas music while decorating. Definitely more fun this year now that we have a house and don't have to move half of our furniture into another room to fit the tree.

6. Dinner Rolls

• See previous post "On a Roll...a Holiday Tradition"

7. Starbucks Peppermint Mochas

• Most of the year I can restrain from too many Starbucks runs...Christmas season kills me though with the Peppermint Mochas. I'm addicted (and drinking one as I write this).
  

8. Christmas Eve Service

• Last year I participated in the 6pm Contemporary service on Christmas Eve at Castleton United Methodist Church. This year, now that I work at the church, I was responsible for picking music and organizing the service. As much work as it is to organize a Christmas Eve service, it really is a lot of fun and I am looking forward to the actual service. I'm also looking forward to next year, hopefully I'll be able to take the service to the next level. This year I stuck closer to what is expected from the past as my first Christmas Eve.

9. Phao Student Ministries Family Christmas Dinner

• This year was our first annual Phao Student Ministries Family Christmas Dinner. Last Sunday we had about 100 people show up to Fellowship Hall in a snow storm to join us to celebrate the Christmas season and our ministry. We gave out thank you gifts to some of our great volunteer leaders, had a white elephant gift exchange with the students and gave out information for summer mission trips. Props to Steph for the idea and everyone that helped decorate and pull it together!

10. Snow!

• I've been loving the snow this year. I think having a house really adds to the enjoyment of the snow. I don't really even mind shoveling the snow. It's been a lot of fun watching it snow while in my living room drinking coffee and enjoying the warmth of our fireplace (even if I have already burnt through most of the wood we have).

Anyway, I am enjoying this time of year more and more as I get older I think. What are your favorite foods, movies or traditions during this Holiday Season?

**Our Contemporary Christmas Eve service this year will be at 6pm in the Castleton United Methodist Church Sanctuary of of 71st Street and Shadeland Avenue, Indianapolis. Join us!

Right now my Young Adult Discussion Group is reading through "Messy Spirituality" by Mike Yaconelli. This week we are on chapter 5, "Odd Discipleship."

Mike is talking in a part of this chapter about the church he pastors and how it is an odd group of people and how their service is "growing".

"I pastor the slowest growing church in America. We started twelve years ago with ninety members and have ungrown to thirty. We are about as far as you can get from a user-friendly church--not because our congregation is unfriendly but because our services are unpredictable, unpolished, and inconsistent. We are an "odd friendly" church, attracting unique and different followers of Christ who make every service a surprise."

We often try to justify what makes a good service by the quality of the "product" we produce, the quality of the music/sermon, the number of people in attendance, the amount (or lack) of awkward moments, blunders and other oddities.

Maybe what makes a good worship service are those oddities, blunders, awkward moments. Maybe it's as few as ten or fifteen weirdos coming together as the Body of Christ and worshiping together and enjoying fellowship with each other.

As we continue Renovate, our Saturday evening contemporary service, my thought on what makes a good worship service is changed and molded weekly. It is so easy for me to worry about the quality of the band, the sermon, the numbers in attendance...when really all that matters is that a few people that might not attend a church anywhere else are coming together and interacting with Jesus in some way, even if just for a few minutes.