Holy Spirit

Lately, I have been reading a book by Frances Chan called "Forgotten God." This book revolves around the Holy Spirit and how we often forget about this crucial part of our Triune God. While I have been touched about how often I do forget about the Spirit, last night two things stuck out to me while reading.

The first is this perception in Christianity that if I am not lead where I do not want to go then I am not really doing God's work. I found this often while on campus at Azusa Pacific. There was this feeling as though we were all being judged of if we gave up everything and went some place to serve. Not just this but it had to be a place we did not want to go.

This became a dominant Christian narrative on campus, just like having a single moment where you became a follower of Jesus, or you went on coffee dates. The feel began to be this have and have-nots of followers. I realize most of this is just perceived, but it became very frustrating.

I found myself torn as I wanted to do that also. I wanted to go abroad and give up time in my life just to serve and nothing else. The problem is that is not who God created me to be. Now I imagine people responding back, "How do you know that?" It has been confirmed to me again and again. I contract just about every illness I come into contact with. Every trip to a poverty stricken area I end up coming down with a serious illness. I had a 102 temperature from another mission to Mexico, where I also contracted Tuberculosis. And on another Mexico mission I ended up puking for days. Once, is just a chance, multiple times and I believe something is trying to be communicated.

In the end the perspective that we all MUST go aboard to serve God is just false. Some are called to go, and others to stay. The important part is serving with all your heart.

The second thing that we often forget that the Spirit is right there to walk with every day. Jesus told us the spirit would be better than having Him around. Personally, I do not act like that. I yearn to have Jesus with me. I forget about the gift that we have been given.

The saddest thing for me is to realize how little I include God, or more specifically in this life. I have tested God's promise of being given the Spirit when we ask. I have felt fully that I was no longer in control of myself and the Spirit had taken over. The things that came from that were beautiful and more fruitful that I could ever accomplish. So why do I now forget?

It is time for me to wake up and remember the Spirit. Allow the Spirit into me and to take over. I miss teachable moments. I say the wrong things, stumble on testimony, become tempted by things and sin, and fail to honor God with the things I do and fail to do. When I have included the Spirit in my life none of this has happened. I know that I often get in the way and I want to no longer do that. I want to let go and let the Holy Spirit take over.

By doing this I know that true Joy, true Beauty, and true Faith shall come. Enter Spirit, I am ready to be convicted, redeemed, and counseled.

Getting National Attention

There is an interesting dynamic that comes up with the internet. Previous voices that could not be heard are now able to travel to those known on a larger scale. Artists (producing tv shows, sports teams, paintings, ect) now get critical feedback from unknown sources. Often those sources are willing to be more harsh than the would in normal interactions, myself included.

That being the case I had an interesting discourse with a national writer the other day. I will get to the actual texts back and forth, but I figured some background first would help. While in college I was taught a lot about culture. In this class we were challenged to not just respond to culture, but to create culture. We saw how others did this like MTV and we read great classics like that of Niebuhr called "Christ and Culture." The result is I do not look at ministry as simply reacting to the trends or upsetting parts of the mainstream media. Instead I want to engage with my small ministry culture (as each group of youth, church, school, area, ect, has its own culture) and change that.

We were also challenged to research culture. I have taken this seriously and when there is a slow day in the office I search around to check out what is going on with youth today. As a result I stumbled across what I had hoped would be a decent resource for trends with a ministry eye. Instead what I found was a reactionary view of culture that was more, in my opinion, stirring up fear, anger, and frustration of youth workers. I blogged about this site a long time ago, but recently I wrote them a response in my frustration with their approach. What you read is a blog response to me, a comment from one of the writers and my comment back. Enjoy!

I guess we're "missing the mark"

I get all kinds of emails and feedback from people about the free resources and articles we provide. Here's an interesting one to ponder. I can't say I like this person's first sentence: "The youth culture window that you guys offer is missing the mark."

He's talking about our Youth Culture Window (YCW) articles, featured in the big magnifying glass on the front page of our web site each week.

Let me be the first to verbalize, "Don't worry David (David writes over 80% of our YCW articles), I think you're right on the mark! Critics are a dime a dozen. I appreciate your work!"

Here's this guy's entire email to us:

The youth culture window that you guys offer is missing the mark. Lets be honest, the majority of the posts deal with sex. This is what our culture as a church thinks is crucial to fight. Violence is also out there. Then comes what about the good stuff going on in culture? It is sad that all you can find in culture is things to complain about. Ultimately, what you are addressing is the symptoms of the larger issues within culture. Please, PLEASE, read Niebuhr's "Christ & Culture" and see if you can incorporate something more than the "Christ against Culture" attitude.

It's interesting that he observed that most of our posts have to do with sex. I agree. We simply report what's going on in today's youth culture and the media, and that's pretty sex driven. I wish it wasn't.

I also find it intriguing that he mentioned how much of this was "bad news." David and I talk about this frequently as we research current attitudes and trends. We constantly are asking, "Isn't there something mainstream that's good that we can report about" And that's the key-- we want to try to focus on attitudes and trends that are predominant across the board, not the exception.

Considering his criticism, I looked at the list of our last few articles released and the subjects they covered.:

The New Form of Phone Sex (1/2/2010)
Beyoncé’s Newest Song “Video Phone”
This article is about Beyonce's newest song and video which are filled with sexual imagery.

The #1 Hits of 2009 (12/11/2009)
A Review of 2009’s Top Songs and Their Message
This article reviews all the top songs of 2009, whatever their message.

Culture’s Confusion Over Sex (12/4/2009)
And The Impact It’s Making On Teens
Yes, this article is about sex, specifically new research about the confusing messages our students are being inundated with.

Fireflies from Owl City (11/28/2009)
Is That a Christian at the Top of the Charts?
This article is about a new song and artist that is not only popular... he's clean!

Twilight Goes ‘Emo’ (11/12/2009)
Bella’s Self Destructive Dependence on Edward
This article is about on of the biggest media youth culture phenomenons of the year, the newest film from the Twilight series. The article focuses most of its attention on self destructive behavior.

Do Threesomes Come in Threes? (11/4/2009)
Youth Media Ups the Ante with Sexy Trios
This article focuses on the abundance of recent threesomes in the media, as well as the onslaught of "bi-curious" attitudes and activity portrayed.

“I’m Trying to Talk to You!” (10/30/2009)
Getting the Attention of Teenagers
This article discusses the different communication technologies used for contacting students and their effectiveness.

So... are our YCW articles a misrepresentation?

Thoughts?

(By Jonathan)

The David writer he references:

First, I’d like to thank the reader of Jonathan’s blog for his comments. Seriously. It’s always good to get feedback, even if the feedback is critical. That being said, I will offer a brief response that I hope will be fair and not defensive.

Besides the first sentence, which Jonathan already addressed in his blog, this person says, “the majority of the posts deal with sex.” Let’s see about that. I went back and tabulated the percentage of articles that deal with the topic of sex, and found that it was less than 20%. That’s far short of the “majority” he found. Granted, it may be a bit arguable about which articles deal with the topic of sex directly and which ones don’t – some articles “mention” sex or use it to illustrate a point, but are about another topic altogether – but even if the percentage is DOUBLED, the total is still well below 40%.

But let’s forget the numbers for a moment. As one of the other readers commented, none of us like all that we see when we look out our window onto culture today because so much of it is saturated with sex. It’s a bit ironic, but I spent a good portion of my day writing a message…on sex…that I’ll give Saturday night to a group of middle schoolers when I speak in Pennsylvania this coming weekend. When I submitted the message outlines to the camp director a few weeks ago, I included the message on sex. (I actually thought he would ask me to substitute something else in place of the message on sex, but I didn’t hear that from him.) Later, I called him, just to make sure he had read over my notes and seen that I wanted to address sex…with middle schoolers. He told me that he had seen the message in my weekend lineup and welcomed it because of how many students he saw coming through his camp that were dealing with the woes associated with sexual mistakes.

The critique is that the Youth Culture Window articles talk about sex too much. Perhaps they don’t address it enough.

Moving on.

I’ll skip over the accusation of our articles being mere complaining; that’s too subjective to argue. However, one of the crucial purposes of the Youth Culture Window articles has always been to educate our readers about the facets of culture, both good and bad.

Finally, the individual appeals to Niebuhr’s work entitled Christ and Culture and asks us to read it so we can move beyond the “Christ against Culture” mentality that Niebuhr denounces. First, I’m already familiar with Niebuhr’s work. Second, there is nothing wrong with being “against culture” when culture is clearly wrong, wicked, or sinful. None of us (as believers) are in a position to condemn anyone else, yet all of us (as believers) are obligated to help the younger, or more immature among us. Third, what Niebuhr describes as the best stance on culture, the “reformational” or “transformational” attitude, is precisely the target we aim at in the articles. Almost all of the articles end with a few ideas, strategies, or resources that (hopefully) equip our readers with the ability to engage the elements of culture so that it too can be redeemed.

Again, I sincerely thank the person who submitted the thoughts, and welcome others to do so, as well. Even though I ultimately disagree with him, his critique showed a high level of thought that is uncharacteristic in most youth ministry circles today. It’s good to see someone thinking so theologically about our students and the culture they wade through each and every day.

David R. Smith





Finally, my response to them both:
As the emailer, I figure I should help clarify my statements as I honestly did not expect a reply, as the site is free :). The majority of this response is to David as he was who I was originally addressing, but hopefully this will help clarify my hope and challenge as it was briefly stated in my previous comments.

1) Sex needs to be addressed. I agree with that as students are bombarded with images and cultures thoughts on this daily (could say hourly or every minute). My point was more than there are other very important issues that youth workers deal with daily such as drugs, depression, cutting, gossip, ect. I would argue that the issues that are more pertinent to be "against" are the ones that our culture (and more importantly the church) have already accepted as acceptable- materialism (and to a much lesser degree violence).

Really, none of these matter if you can get at the heart of the issues facing teens (which these are all a symptoms of): where we find our value, what is our identity, and what it really means to be created in the image and likeness of God.

2) I am glad you are familiar with Niebuhr. What makes the work a classic is how Niebuhr does not really give us his view in it of which one is the best. After each he explains positives and negatives with each. This is why I brought this up. In the posts I have read they have primarily used the "Christ against Culture" by presenting a trend and then telling why this is alarming or we should be afraid. They have always ended with suggestions, but if we are only RESPONDING to culture then there is a problem. We need to be creating culture. This might be small, such as in our own circles fostering an environment of safety, or lame jokes, ect. that makes a new culture instead of simply playing off the old.

How would you do that in your articles? I don't know, but I wanted to present the challenge. You already have an established audience that could use this help.

3) I mentioned the negativity. It is great to hear that you guys look for trends that are positive. There are many other neutral trends that maybe we can use to create something new and change the culture like Paul did with the unknown God. Here are a few I have seen in ministry over the last couple years:

Schools increasingly requiring service work (and non religious service trips to other countries)

Groups trying to break away from media. In Britain there has been a large rise in Knitting, Cloud watching groups, ect. How great would it be to help ministers capitalize on the growing need for human interaction and slowing down that students are missing.

Rising age of adulthood and the lack of a "rite of passage"

Time had an article on the growing groups going to more liturgical churches because of the feel of deep reverence

These are just a few suggestions. There are hundreds of things out there to write about that might help leaders with students and their culture.

Ultimately, We do need to know what is going on in culture. Honestly though, the best source is simply developing a relationships with our students and digging into it ourselves as each one of our "Youth cultures" will be different. Mine right now has an eclectic group with varying needs. None of them pay attention to the mainstream media because they are not accepted by the mainstream media.

What I hoped to do was to challenge you to more than just simple reporting. Anyone can do that. Find the trends, dig to the deeper issue, and help the youth leaders address that. Hopefully, now you understand that while it looked like harsh criticism it was really challenge from another brother to take it to the next level.

Christ and Culture

Today I was reminded of a class I had at APU. In this class we read Christ and Culture by Niebuhr. This book goes through many different ways to view culture and engage with it. In another post I will go through these varying ways to think about culture, but today I want to focus on the view of Christ against Culture.

One thing I picked up in youth ministry is that I need to be a student of culture and know what is going on for the youth, families, parents, and children. To do this I will talk with parents and kids, ask questions, watch media, and read about things that are impacting these groups online. Today I looked into what youth workers were saying about culture. I was a little shocked with what I saw.

I went on to a youth ministry site (youth specialties I believe) and started reading some posts about what is going on in culture. I quickly noticed a theme. They were constantly condemning, complaining, and chastising. Everything was an outrage. Everything was too sexual. Everything demanded a talk with "your" students in the youth group.

Yes, I would agree that there are issues out there right now. Many that the teens that youth workers engage with on a daily basis are facing; from cheating, sexting, to music lyrics, and movie messages. If that is all we focus on this generation we are just creating an us v.s. them. Instead, I think all of us need to be asking the questions of why are these things important to teens. Why are these becoming their values? Address the deeper issues instead of the surface symptoms. Now the problem here is that we have to get to know the teens better and actually practice this thing called relational ministry. It takes more time, energy, and effort, but can actually change students lives. One condemning group talk is going to achieve nothing. Instead we must get involved and change the culture.

How do we do that? That will have to wait for another part 2 :)

Snow days

The entire area has been hit hard by snow. Redmond has around a foot of snow. While Seattle has gotten off far easier the city has basically shut down because of ice on the hills. I have spent the last two days in my home and playing outside in the snow. It has brought out a few things that I have been working through on the blog recently that I want to dig deeper into now. 

The first is how little things, or big depending on your view, can change our routines and get us uncomfortable. The big snow day Kessia and I got up and watched the snow fall down. We sat in silence and just enjoyed God's creation and the beauty of it. We enjoyed the simplicity and the way that the snow would dance in the air. The wind would knock the snow hard one direction and then the other. I could see different air currents in the snow patterns. It was fascinating and mesmerizing. 

Once up and found ourselves again watching as people tried to get up the hill right outside. They scrapped off their cars. Piled in and attempted the hill. You could hear the revving of the engines as people pushed harder hoping to take advantage of any traction. A few people seemed to be out helping by pushing cars up and doing what they can to help people get out. It is this theme that I saw repeated several times throughout the day. When our plans became dashed we no longer hinder ourselves to talk to neighbors, help out strangers, and support others in their lives. 

I took part in the pushing of cars later on when a resident of Radford became stuck on the hill. I had been building a Igloo, but that could wait when someone needed me. How often do we feel that on other days? Our downstairs neighbors were flying out that day and needed some assistance to make their trip possible. This opened up conversation and let us get to know them a little better. 

Why can't we do these things normally? What hinders us? We claim to be busy, or that it is none of our business. We seem to think that it will harm someone to ask if they need help or request help ourselves. I imagine how the day would have gone without the snow. Our downstairs neighbors would have stopped at a library when their printer wouldn't work. I would not have been able to help someone stuck in their car. 

These seem like simple things. Is this not what our possessions do to us? Is this not what our grand plans inhibit us from doing?  The verse that stuck out to me is how we are to go out a preach the good news and take nothing with us (Matthew 10: 5-10). What am I carrying that stops me from talking with people that I run into? 

I have to be honest. I can see in my minds eye many people that I encountered in the supermarket the other day that looked like they were struggling. What did I do? I got my food and got out so I could save time, and money. These unexpected opportunities, whether snow storm or unexpected encounter, can bring us face to face with Jesus. How will we respond? 

I love days like this that break up everyones plans. Many see it as disaster. I see it as a beautifully simple. As a snowflake dancing in the wind. Lord guide me. Blow away my plans and guide me to rest in your peace where you need me, each and every day. 

Today I make my first steps to REALLY following Jesus

There has been a thought racing through my mind over the last couple of weeks. How do I live out the gospel? I can teach about Jesus, but am I really doing what Jesus instructed? 

I was starting to feel this as I did some classic youth minister things of upgrade a room and implement a few new program things. I am trying to create a new culture in this church and ministry but what is the goal of that ministry? This started to bubble up in my and was only made worse by starting the book "Irresistible Revolution".  This book put words to what I was feeling and frankly messed me up. 

The book points out how we have this culture of what Christianity is, especially in the States. There is singing songs, going to church, flannel graphs, Sunday School, ect. These things are all nice, but is that really what Jesus wanted? The more I contemplated this the more I settled into the answer of no. Jesus wants us to study what he has to say, know it, but if we do not practice it then what good is our faith. By practice I do not mean sitting in church and being "active" that way. I mean going out and shaking up the world! 

It is great that we have pastors and churches to connect with, but what do we do with that? Instead of filling up our lives with serving others and taking care of the poor and "least of these" we sign our youth up for soccer, band, and buy video games and DVDs to entertain them. We entertain, subdue and focus on good behavior. Our church does not need good behavior but rebels and radicals like the one on the cross. We need to not sit back and allow our lives to be filled up so we are "too busy to help". I fully believe that the hardest place to ACTUALLY follow Jesus is in the United States. Not because of government, but because of the church itself and the culture that we have all bought into. 

I have resolved that I want to become a radical. I no longer want a faith that is easy, but one that puts me in tension with everything. I never want to be comfortable, but uneasy and struggling. 

This is not something that I am going to let slide by. Jesus sent out his disciples into the world and told them to take nothing with them. Why? I believe he did this because He wanted his followers to interact with the world and we do not do that when we cling to the things we know and possessions we have. Example- If I can pay for myself why would I talk to people and try and find food, shelter, and clothing. When we have nothing we are braver to trust in God and reach out to others. 

I wish I could go live in India and work at the home for the dying and the destitute. I wish I could work with Lepers and take nothing. This how ever will never be my way. I have always had a horrible immune system that has lead to me contracting Tuberculosis when I went on a mission to Mexico. In that light, Kessia and I have talked and decided some ways we are going to try and break the spell of the culture on us right here to inspire others to live differently. We will add and adapt when we become comfortable with these things.  

We are going to do no light summers. This means no light switch will ever be flipped on in our house from June to September. We waste so much electricity by staying in doors with the blinds drawn. This will also allow us to get up earlier and go to bed earlier. The heat will also go off completely.

I will not buy another video game for myself. I love video games, but I have wasted so much money on them. These games pull me away from people in the world and keep me from spreading the gospel. They keep me alone, isolated, and often angry. 

This is where we will start. We have thought of getting rid of TV, movies, and video games. We talked about giving up electricity. Making all of our clothes. Growing all of our own food. Giving up single occupant transportation. Giving up the grocery store during Lent to limit and simplify. We have also thought about where we can help and volunteer for the least of these. Some of these things we are not ready for, but want to consider. Maybe we will make it there. 

Here is where I start becoming the radical I believe Jesus wanted me to be. It is a small thing now. Hopefully we can grow and as we break the spell new more radical ideas will take the place. 

Today is the day Jesus, I am taking my first steps to living out what it is that you have asked of me. Break down my barriers. Form my mind. I will no longer try to lead you Lord, but instead truly break down and become your obedient servant. 

Blue Like Jazz

Right now I am going back through my papers from college and typing up notes. I am coming across many things that is helpful for me to look at again and get a feel for the thoughts and impressions that they made. Here is a paper that I wrote on Blue Like Jazz while taking a class about culture and evangelism. We were pushed really hard in the class, but as you will see in the paper I noticed something very powerful about evangelism in the book because of this:

This may not make sense, but as I started writing this I wanted to write about the ideas in the book and wrestle with them. Part of me although felt like I should look at this book through the lens of the process of contextualization. The more I started to write the more I found myself naturally drawn to analyzing the book in light of the process. So I deleted most my paper and now what I have is trying to think about how Miller is using the process and how that comes out. I could have ended up going through and using the many great quotes about being culturally relevant and how that is misguided, but ultimately I think the true value that I got from this book (only now) is how the process can allow us to grow and change our life.

            There are many parts with Miller’s ideas that I believe people would say he is compromising. One example that jumps out at me of this is when he and other Christians at Reed set up a confession booth. Instead of battling the students and the immorality in an attacking way they apologize and confess sins of Christianity. This amazed me and was not what I expected, but also could be seen as compromising. If your not condemning then are we encouraging that behavior? I think Miller shows how, especially at Reed, how he ended up going through the process with people. I would meet people like Laura and talk with her about the issues of the day and befriend her and gradually they ended up changing each other. There was a mesh of thought and out of the meeting of those two individual contexts a new one arose.

            I saw this theme repeated several, several times throughout this book. There were times he had with hippies living out in the woods. He immersed himself in that culture and learned from them and most likely shaped some of what they thought too. He had a group of fundamentalist guys one summer that he went through the process with. Then there was the community at his new house of Graceland. Here he lived with tons of other men and developed a community where he and the other men end up going through the process of contextualization. I did not notice that at first but as I write this paper all these different forms of community that he goes through and how these continue to shape him and develop him into a brand new context.

            So why is this important? I think that what I have learned from reading this book, aside from finding many concepts that challenged my thinking, is that I am going to go through this process a lot in my life. I see the great impact and revelations that can come out of continuing to engage in the process and not shutting down on a group. Some of the groups that Miller went into, such as the hippies or Reed, would have been very easy to disengage. Although if he would have done this and given up then I think he never would have realized many great things that he has. I hope too to always be able to see the process to the end and not hop off too soon.