Catalyst 2010 - Session 1: Andy Stanley

The theme for Catalyst this year is "Tension is good."  Andy Stanley opened up the conference and in typical Andy Stanley fashion had incredible insight into the tensions that we must manage as leaders.

Appetite was a large focus of this session; as leaders we are constantly looking for more.  We are doing something and always looking to what's next, what's bigger, what else we can do.

3 Things You Need to Know about Appetites:

1. God created them, sin destroyed them.

2. Appetites are never fully and finally satisfied.

3. Your appetites always whisper NOW, never LATER.

As leaders the appetites we have and the things that we desire need to constantly be kept in check.  Because the danger for us is that we let the current desire to take so much focus that we aren't able to step back and look at what God wants for our lives.  Andy talked about the story of Jacob and Esau.  He told the story of Jacob and Esau and Esau trading his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew.  He asked the question what if the story of the Bible, the genealogy of Jesus spoke of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Esau instead of Jacob.  But instead Esau changed all that by trading his birthright for a bowl of stew!  What are the bowls of stew in our own lives?

Andy closed the session by challenging us to look into the future of our lives.  To look at the things we desire for our lives 10 years from now.  What do we hope our marriages are like?  What do we hope our ministries look like?  What do we hope our life looks like?  And when we start to clearly look at what we hope for our lives, we can reframe our appetites.  And the importance of doing this comes from the fact that it is easier for us to get so focused on what we want now and the reality of our hopes and God's hopes for our future get blurred out.  We often don't care how great our future should be and are more concerned with the fact that we are hungry now.

We have no idea what God wants for our lives, so when we reframe our appetites we help protect ourselves from trading something important, like our marriages, for a "bowl of stew."

Catalyst 2010 Pre-Labs

Today was the first day of our Catalyst activities.  Because of wanting to save on money, we actually opted out of going to all the labs and instead purchased just the pre-labs and during the afternoon spent some time as team around the hotel area.  It ended up being an incredible day for us to learn from the pre-labs and we got a chance to spend some quality time learning and talking with Chuck Bomar.  This was my first time meeting Chuck and not only did I get a ton of great tidbits of wisdom, but he just seems to be a person who really embraces the things he's talking about and there is no question that he is someone who should be speaking into the lives of leaders all over of the country.

John Ortberg - Spiritual Formation - Pre-Lab Session

This was my first time ever getting to hear John Ortberg speak and I really had no idea what to expect; he really had a lot great to say.  John had a lot to say about what he simply called "observations" about the process of spiritual formation.

Some of his big ideas, which were each filled with a ton of other great insights:

1. There is a God, it is not you.
2. Transformation requires at least as much grace as salvation does.
3. Living in grace is learned behavior.
4. Growth is hand-crafted not mass produced.
5. God's desire is to create the best version of you.

One of the things I loved about what John spoke on, was that he made it clear that spiritual formation is not something that we do, but it is something that God does.  He spoke of the gap between the person we are now and "Me 2.0" and how most of us see the gap as something that we need to close, but the reality is that it is something that God closes.  He also spent a bunch of time talking about how much spiritual formation varies from person to person - we all don't need to just spend time journaling, that may not be how God wired us.

Reggie Joiner - Slow Fade - Pre-Lab Session

Reggie spent a chunk of time talking about the Slow Fade and the importance of us as ministry leaders to be sure that we are not making graduation our finish line.  I appreciated Reggie's approach to the session; he essentially threw out some stats and some myths and gave it to us as some stuff to think about.  Throughout the myths that Reggie essentially debunked he really tried to shift our thinking about College-Age, and basically all of ministry, outside of the box of programs and processes  to relationships and mentoring.

The more and more I learn from some of the stuff being written about in College-Age Ministry the more I realize that even in my specific role as a Middle School Minister, it is critical for me to be intentional about my relationships with College-Age students and the relationships that I have with them.

Time for Catalyst 2010

For the next few days I am going to be spending a lot of time listening to some great leaders share a ton of wisdom about what it means to lead in ministry at the Catalyst Conference.  I've often listened and observed a variety of the occurences from a distance through Catalyst Backstage or ordering sessions from the Labs and Main Sessions, but this year I get to experience it all in person.

I'm planning on writing some of my thoughts from the conference and sessions here once I get a chance to organize some of the things I've learned.  I'm also looking forward to meet some cool people while I'm here.

A Couple Thoughts on Middle School Ministry

This past weekend during our youth staff meeting we spent some time talking about what it looks for us as a student ministry to love and care about students.  As an entire ministry, whether college-age, high school, or junior high, we all have a desire to love and care for students.  Everything thing we do is centered around relationships with students.  And we do this because we want students to be in a growing relationship with Jesus. During our meeting we spent some time talking specifically about what this looks like in the context of middle school ministry.  Junior high students are obviously a unique age group and there are a couple of things that we should remember as we spend time trying to love and care for them.

Remember to be ready for anything

This is probably one of the reasons that some people have a hard time with middle school students; for myself it is one of the things I love most about my job.  In middle school ministry we have to be ready for absolutely anything.  This past week during our bible study discussions with a group of guys, we literally went from making fart noises and giggling at the word naked, to asking deep, serious theological questions.  This is commonplace in middle school ministry; within moments a discussion can become serious or become something completely off-the-wall.  When we spend any significant amount of time with students in this age group, we need to be ready for anything.

Remember this is all new.

We all know adolescence brings about all kinds of new experiences in the life of a middle school student.  There are physical, emotional, spiritual, and relational changes.  For a lot of us, the experiences and environments that we create for middle school students are brand new things.  Students come on a trip and have never been away from home before.  Student enter the youth room and are intimidated because they don't know people.  Our ministries are another new thing and that's intimidating.  Add that to all the other new things going on and it could get overwhelming quickly.  We need to be aware of this in the lives of our students so that we can love and care about our students as they navigate through all this.  Middle school students need adults that love and care about them during this time where everything is a new experience.

Photo Credit: turbojoe

Do Denominations Still Have Value?

In the current ministry environment, I'd be willing to argue that the concept of denominations is not only under-valued by the majority of Christians and churches, but there it is also something that many places view negatively.  I'd like to challenge that idea because I believe that there is incredible value to denominations. I don't think denominations are without their flaws; in fact the fighting that happens within denominations is often the most brutal, unchristian behavior around.  But even with the flaws, denominations are filled with a rich history of practices that have proven valuable for the leaders and members of them.  Many of these things that I see as being valuable in denominations aren't unique to only churches that have "Lutheran" or "Baptist" or something of that sort in the name.  But I do believe that denominations have done many of these notably well.

Denominations Have a Built in Network of Churches

Imagine you have someone from your church moving to a new state for a new job.  Hopefully after being a part of your congregation, they have a desire to also be connected to a new home church as they make their move.  And finding a new church can be difficult - will be people be speaking in tongues? what do they believe about communion?  do they care when I was baptized?

The beauty of denominations is that it provides a great network of churches that fall in line when it comes to core theological beliefs.  Having a network of places that have the same view on the teachings of the Bible can be very beneficial when thinking about where to worship.  Now despite this network of churches that share beliefs, that doesn't guarantee that a church puts those beliefs into practice, that they have a good leader, or more simply that they are a healthy church.  Denominations don't eliminate these issues, but they absolute help.

What's interesting is many churches have taken this concept and have even expanded it beyond having the same beliefs; there are many organizations that have partner/network churches that share beliefs, vision, and strategy.  It's in a sense a modern take on the traditional approach to what denominations have long done.

Denominations Don't Hide Their Theological Leanings

One of my pet-peeves is when churches hide their theological leanings.

I really value when a church is clear about what they believe.  When I listen to messages by Mark Driscoll or Matt Chandler, I greatly respect when leaders are unapologetic about how they interpret the scriptures.  I don't necessarily agree with what they may teach about subjects like baptism, but I can appreciate that they are very clear about what they believe and why they believe it.  I think denominations do this well.  In the Lutheran world, I think our denomination (LCMS) specifically does a great job of saying clearly what we believe about the Bible.

Now on the other hand, we also have to be careful to not be like the Pharisees who seem to always have it all figured out and get caught up in legalism and miss out on following Jesus.  There is always a danger that we are only concerned with orthodoxy and have no concern of orthopraxy.  But to truly have an understanding of the scriptures, we can't have one without the other.

Denominations Have Systems of Training In Place

It seems like everyone these days gets ordained or is a pastor.  Now absolutely we are all called to be pastors to each other as Christians.  The biblical command to go and make disciples is not unique to church-workers and the idea of a full-time pastor isn't exactly found in the Acts 2 church.  But regardless of what the role of pastor looks like in a given day and age, the Bible always sets high standards for Pastors/Elders in churches.

The beauty of denominations is that they have built systems that hold their pastors accountable; they expect certain things to be learned and to be taught.  It is very dangerous when anybody can throw together a band and a motivational message and start a church.  This doesn't mean that this can't happen in contexts where there is no denominational structure; there are a lot of healthy churches that have set up systems of accountability for leaders.

Denominations Have an Ability to Support Church Planters

One of the things I've recently heard about our denomination is the desire to support church planters.  Church planting is an incredibly important job today, but it's extremely difficult.  Imagine going out with no money, no building, no people, and trying to make something happen.  And then couple that with the need to provide for your family, have a vision for what the church should look like, and work a full-time job to provide for your family.

In a denominational context, denominations have money to support church planters.  A pastor can decide to plant a church and give his full time and attention to the reality of making it successful because his denomination is able to help financially.  When denominations support church planters, the reality of being able to start new churches all over the world becomes just a little bit easier.

Photo Credit: Mindgraph

What Do You Do When People Complain

Have you ever experienced something great happen and it leads to somebody else complaining about the very same thing that you are excited about?  It's interesting to think that something from one vantage point can appear to be such a blessing and from another it seems like misery.  This is actually not a new phenomena, we can see at as early as the book of Exodus when Moses leads his people and God is providing for them in the desert.

"Then the LORD said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days." - Exodus 16:11-12

God works.  People complain.  The Israelites had no food and God provides it for them and they get upset because they want meat.  Doesn't this happen all the time?  It's like all of us fall into the trap that we believe that if God isn't working according to the method we have in our minds than it's not acceptable.  God's blessing us with manna, but we just want meat.  Fill in the blank; God's pouring out his blessing through __________________, but we complain about ______________________.

How Does God Respond?

Moses takes the issue to God and for whatever reason God listens.  It seems a bit odd; why even consider a complaint that the blessing you have isn't good enough?  But God listens anyways.  How often do we immediately put up barriers when people start complaining?  When someone complains to you, it may not be a correct accusation but it may be helpful to listen.  God provides some meat and Moses gives instructions and of course even in the midst of even more blessing and provision, people still don't learn.

"Howver, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell.  So Moses was angry with them." - Exodus 16:20

God responds in such a great way to these complaining people by listening and then even giving them what they want.  We can learn a thing or two by simply listening even when we don't want to.  And we can also be sure that sometimes people just kept doing the same thing over and over.

Photo Credit: SteveWall

Youth Ministry Doesn't Need Rethinking

Every now and then I'll come across people talking about the need to re-think the way youth ministry works.  Whenever I see or read something coming from this angle I typically get annoyed quickly.  I've heard in a variety of settings things like, "This method just doesn't work anymore."  Or, "We're trying a totally different approach to our ministry."

The problem I have with this is that it assumes methods were the things that worked previously.  That for one generation or time a specific strategy worked and for another period of time a different method is most successful.  The idea is that if we figure out which method works - perhaps switching from a loud band and jumping around to being all contemplative with candles set up - then our ministry will start "working".  But youth ministry at it's core is not about the stylistic nuances of youth culture, it's about loving students.  It's about people genuinely caring about a teenager's relationship with God, not whether or not our music is appropriately styled.

I'm not saying those things don't matter.  If we start playing Steven Curtis Chapman at our youth events, people are not going to be happy.  If we go on a trip and bore kids to death because I try to have them knitting, I won't have a job for long.  So i'm not saying being relevant doesn't matter, but the environments we create in our ministry, although important, is not youth ministry.  The environments we create just provides the context for youth ministry to happen.

Youth Ministry is and will always be about relationships.

Styles will change, cultures will change, and what is popular in youth ministry circles will change.  But some things will never change - the need for Jesus in the lives of students and the need for loving adults in the lives of students.  This isn't a new idea.  A genuine relationship is always more effective than a compelling sermon or an exciting event and that's because relationships is where ministry happens.

Photo: alliance1911

Take a Risk and Let Someone Else Lead

I'll never forget the first time I stepped on stage to teach.  I was a senior in high school, and I was asked to teach for our Wednesday night, Middle School Ministry program.  I had no idea what I was doing.  What's even more fun is that I actually still have a CD of my awful message.  I didn't have a clearly communicated message, I stuttered, and I wasn't very engaging.  But out of that was my first glimpse into one of the things that I love most about my job, preaching God's word.

If I didn't get a chance to teach poorly, I may have never found out how much I loved to teach.  Eventually I got much better, but it only happened because I learned by doing.  Every now and then those of us who lead people are hesitant to hand over tasks to other people.  And we may have lots of great reasons to be hesitant; we can do it better, the timing isn't right, or it is actually easier to do it ourselves than try to walk alongside someone else while they learn.

The problem with this is if we are always obsessed with doing it ourself or doing it perfectly, we may miss opportunities to give new leaders a chance to try it.  I would not be in my position today if it weren't for multiple people taking risks in letting me do things.  Excellence is absolutely something that we can and should strive for in our ministry programs, but if avoiding problems prevents us from building new leaders we have a much bigger issue.

Who took a risk and gave you the opportunity to lead?