the jester's pub

A Life Quote for Youth Pastors (and everyone else)

"Young men ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis

I somehow keep coming back to this quote in my life, it moves me every time I remember it, and for me it sums up a lot of my life. I like being childlike, I love fantasy, comic books and superheroes. I love the simplicity of my childhood filled with baseball cards, backyard football and building forts. Sometimes when I see action figures or army men I have a rush of excitement. Do you know what I am talking about? I have a boy so in many ways I get to do some of this all over again, thank you Jesus!

I'm also easily bored with most adults and often find them bitter, uninteresting, uninspired and unimaginative like life took them behind the shed and slapped the wonder out of them. I often think adulthood as we have lived it is a farce, like a high school play gone bad. Show some life! Laugh! Be Loud! Get a life purpose beyond the next big promotion, a new car, the next sale or this weekend's party. Remember what it felt like to be innocent and unconcerned with status and have the faith to be like that again.

In many ways I am a romantic, an idealist. I cry at movies and during the olympics. I'm moved by sacrifice, by small acts done with great love. I still believe love wins, that good does triumph and that people can do things(even in the church) out of pure motives. I believe Jesus is the hero of this drama we are in, that He shows us how foolish our adult games are, makes a mockery of them and frees us from the matrix of blahness! He was the court Jester and the King at the same time, laughing at our "maturity" and pointing out our pride for the cancer that it is.

If you feel the same way and if your frustrated because people don't seem to understand you, think your crazy and immature. Quit trying to explain yourself to them, they will never get "it" or you, unless God gets them. Unless they learn the ways of THE FOOL.

Jesus is the King of the Fools, and all who really join Him, who dare to follow, will be labeled as the same.

I say so be it.

Blue Like..................... a Democrat?

Donald Miller is one of my favorite authors and I got to meet him two weeks ago, very cool. Check out this post below from Mike Devries blog awakening

Just in case you missed it, Don Miller was invited to offer a benediction at the Democratic National Convention this evening. I was quite impressed with the substance of his prayer, which was for unity and the seeking to be an expression of the kingdom here on earth.

If you missed it, here's what Miller had to say about the invite and the text of his prayer, posted on Donald Miller Words

Here is Don's words and the prayer.

I was honored to deliver the closing prayer at the DNC on Monday night. Evangelical voices have been scarce within this party, perhaps since the Carter administration. But as strides are being made on key issues of sanctity of life and social justice, as well as peaceful solutions to world conflicts, more and more evangelicals are taking a closer look at options certain members of the Democratic Party are beginning to deliver. There is a long way to go, but sending a message to Washington that no single party has the Christian community in their pocket, thus causing each party to carefully consider the issues most important to us, is, in my opinion, a positive evolution. I am glad that, for the most part, the dialogue has been constructive and positive. Will you join me in keeping the conversation thoughtful and not reactionary?
That said, I was honored to speak to, and especially pray with and for, the DNC. Here is the full text of the prayer:

"Father God,

This week, as the world looks on, help the leaders in this room create a civil dialogue about our future.

We need you, God, as individuals and also as a nation.

We need you to protect us from our enemies, but also from ourselves, because we are easily tempted toward apathy.

Give us a passion to advance opportunities for the least of these, for widows and orphans, for single moms and children whose fathers have left.

Give us the eyes to see them, and the ears to hear them, and hands willing to serve them.

Help us serve people, not just causes. And stand up to specific injustices rather than vague notions.

Give those in this room who have power, along with those who will meet next week, the courage to work together to finally provide health care to those who don’t have any, and a living wage so families can thrive rather than struggle.

Help us figure out how to pay teachers what they deserve and give children an equal opportunity to get a college education.

Help us figure out the balance between economic opportunity and corporate gluttony.

We have tried to solve these problems ourselves but they are still there. We need your help.

Father, will you restore our moral standing in the world.

A lot of people don’t like us but that’s because they don’t know the heart of the average American.

Will you give us favor and forgiveness, along with our allies around the world.

Help us be an example of humility and strength once again.

Lastly, father, unify us.

Even in our diversity help us see how much we have in common.

And unify us not just in our ideas and in our sentiments—but in our actions, as we look around and figure out something we can do to help create an America even greater than the one we have come to cherish.

God we know that you are good.

Thank you for blessing us in so many ways as Americans.

I make these requests in the name of your son, Jesus, who gave his own life against the forces of injustice.

Let Him be our example.

Amen."

Thanks Don, for keeping it real!

Here is the video of the prayer

Just a person in need of Redemption

Don't know if you have seen this video or heard this song by Bebo Norman. I think it is a great Christian response to Britney Spears and her collapse and to the lies that we as a culture tell to our young women. Here are some words from Bebo's website followed by an unofficial video for the song. May we be slow to throw stones and quick to offer forgiveness and grace to Britney and to all. I hope this song finds it's way to her and to her heart and soul. Thanks, Bebo for the reminder.

"'Britney' is a song about what our culture says and does to young women these days," explains Norman. "It's about the lies we tell them about fame and money and what's beautiful and what will give them life. It's an apology for those lies. But more than that, it's an invitation to the truth about a God who is bigger than the pain this world so often leaves them in."

Radio stations are already being impacted by "Britney." Bob Sloane of KVMV shared this after listening to the single, "I wasn't sure what to expect, but by the end of the song, my wife and I were both moved to tears. (That happens to her all the time, but not me!) I told her that if that song wasn't God inspired, nothing is and she agreed. "Britney" is exactly what Christian radio needs...songs that compassionately peer into our culture, address problems, and offer a Christ-centered solution. Definitely the most powerful and moving song of the year!"

Pub Conversations: Tommy Shelton

Second in the series of Pub Conversations you get to meet a good friend of mine Tommy Shelton. Tommy is the youth pastor at Harborside Church in Clearwater, FL. He has been serving in youth ministry for 7 years. He is a graduate of Full Sail University, one of the top filmaking, recording, game design and media schools in the USA. He once dreamed of being an actor/director in Hollywood but finally found out that youth ministry was his Ninevah. He can now not imagine doing anything else. His dream is to someday earn a living by traveling, teaching and creating. He has a beautiful wife Mara, and three amazing children Adelyn, Ella and Fisher. He has been recovering from a recent water-skiing accident so hopefully his answers are coherent.

Tommy is going to share with us about Creativity in Ministry. So Tommy pull up a stool, pour yourself a pint and let's talk...

JP: What is your definition of creativity?

Tommy: The ability to create a new or unique perspective on a problem that nobody knew existed. Wow, I'm pretty sure that statement means what I want it to mean, at least it sounds cool.

JP: What kind of role does creativity play in your youth ministry?

Tommy: Creativity, for me doesn’t mean that I constantly have to have crazy ideas or new and wacky ways of doing everything. It simply means being open to the fresh, unproven, unexplored means to a timeless end.

JP: What are some creative ideas you have used as a Youth Pastor?

Tommy: Being a filmmaker (doesn’t that just reek of pomposity?) means that my brain is constantly spinning with ideas for videos for everything. Some ideas are better than others. Every Problem? Make a video. Every announcement? Make a video. Gotta explain the rules of camp? Make a video. Have to lead a class for senior citizens on the complex parallels between Daniel's vision of the Abomination of desolation and life in the Garden of Eden? Make a video. Teaching middle schoolers about the dangers of going to the mall naked? Make a video. My favorite video is a short film that Mark Helsel and I made with some students to help teach a series entitled, “24”( You can find them HERE). We showed it in 4 installments and it ended up being an honest to goodness 30 minute short film. The students got really plugged into the making of the film - and were honestly excited about each episode as we rolled them out.

But, creativity is obviously not just videos - that just happens to be my favorite way to roll. I’ve done events like the “Guys Only Game-Over” all night video game tournament. We had barrels of all you can drink IBC Rootskies, peanuts, trophies, the whole deal. I also enjoy giving even the dullest of events long elaborate names to spice things up. Why call it the youth group bake sale, when you can call it “The-Ridiculously-Over-Priced-Catalog-of-Tasty-Christmas-Goodness-for-Student-Ministry-Missions”. Last spring my associate Tim Miller and I did a “Ping-Pong-A-Thon” fund raiser.The students found sponsors for us to play ping-pong for 12 hours straight. See it HERE.

JP: How important is creativity in ministry?

Tommy: A few years ago I had the experience of working with someone who was an incredibly difficult and hurtful person, but also INCREDIBLY creative. She taught me something I’ll never forget. She said, “Why do we assume that God stopped creating after the original act of creation was finished? God continually creates, every day." At first I thought it was a bit trite - but I have come to see the truth of the statement. Only a creative God that is continually creating can turn my stupid choices into something redemptive. God is creative, we should be also.

JP: Do you ever get tired of ALWAYS having to be creative?

Tommy: Yes. Been there done that and at times my perspective has been wrong. As youth ministers we can become paranoid. We fear that if we don’t "JAZZ IT UP" God’s timeless truth will fall on dull closed ears. We become convinced that our students will run out the door and spread the word that, this guy’s youth group is BORING!! KAHN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No! Boring! Please... not that! Anything but that!

You know what the most creative thing I have ever done in youth ministry is? It was when I gave myself permission NOT to always be the spoon full of sugar that makes the medicine go down. About a year ago I had a revelation. My students have (just like great Cuba Gooding Jr. said in Jerry Maguire) been to the puppet show and seen all the strings. They know when they are being pitched, gift-wrapped, sold, or zung. I realized that I don’t have to wrap every single sermon, event, announcement, or expectation in some flashy funny crazy newfangled package. I creatively stripped the forced creativity out of a lot of what I do. That, my friends, was a new and fresh approach.

Creative ideas can sometimes be a drug. Being couch ridden for the last couple of weeks was difficult and painful. My pain meds where my little personal taxis to easy land. But after a while they became a crutch. I had to get off the couch, grit through some of the pain and start my therapy and get better. Let’s not use creativity as a crutch or delude ourselves into thinking that God NEEDS our creativity to be relevant. Do I still have crazy names for junk? Do I still make videos? Do I still try and come up with new and different outreach events? Do I search for interesting ways to teach and share? Yes! But I have given myself the freedom to just let it happen. Don’t force it. Sometimes the best way to teach the Scriptures is to simply read them.

Thanks for your words Tommy and for all you do for the Kingdom of the greatest artist ever. Sure you don't want to move to Pittsburgh?

Check out Tommy's YouTube PAGE. for a lot of his video work.

Here is a video Tommy did to encourage the volunteers in his church. Funny!

The Crazy Ones

Oh, for the church of Jesus Christ to be full of people like this. Come Lord Jesus make us part of the gang of crazy ones just like you!

Pub Conversations: Tic Long

I am excited about a new feature here on the Jester's Pub called Pub Conversations. This will be a regular segment where I interview people in youth ministry either on the front lines with students or supporting youth pastors in their ministries. Who better to start this series off than Tic Long, the President of Events for Youth Specialties, where he has served for over 31 years. He is a YM guru, and has touched the lives of youth workers all over the world, yet remains humble and approachable. He is a mentor to me, a friend and a man with a great love for Jesus. I have been privileged to work with him for almost 6 years now and He has a lot of wisdom to share with youth workers and anyone in ministry. So Tic, pull up a stool, pour yourself a pint, let's talk brother...

JP: What is a big change you see going on in youth ministry right now?

Tic: Let me respond to one thing I am seeing and that is almost a split in the youth ministry community on the way people are responding to culture. There is a lot of fear and uncertainty out there and lets face it, times are crazy. That is causing a lot of church youth ministries to go into a kind of circle the wagons mentality that is a lot stronger than it has been. They are feeling an overwhelming need to protect their kids, to make sure they are not being overwhelmed “by the world” so they are “setting themselves apart”. The other group is taking a posture more on engaging culture, tying to influence culture, To be “salt & light”. Using cultural icons and “trappings” for ministry purposes. The chasm between these two is becoming greater with a growing amount of distrust towards the other

JP: What are you most excited about that YS is doing?

Tic: Well, joining up with Mark Matlock is really exciting both for the Palnet Wisdomtours and the Real World parent stuff. Also we are finally getting our website and online community stuff at a place where we are doing some really cool things. During the time that we were talking about joining Zondervan and for a while after that we were kind of dead in the water. We are now cooking again with some awesome stuff still on the way. Lastly doing DCLA again is awesome, we are very excited about what we are creating for Students and their youth workers.

JP: How will the Natiional Youth Workers Convention be different this year?

Tic: I’m really jazzed about some of the new things we are trying this year, the open source seminars, the car pools, and one of our general sessions where we will have 3 speakers in one session and do some interactive things with it, just to name a couple things. Also I’m excited about the veteran “Cohort” experience and the “advanced youth ministry tract” we have created this year. I think we have struggled to really serve the youth worker vet at our conventions and hopefully this can really be something meaningful and really helpful for them.

JP: What books are you reading right now?

Tic: Just finished, “Same Kind of Different as Me” reading “Jesus for President” & “Simply Christian”

JP: What is one of your fondest memories of working with students?

Tic: Well it’s always relationships and experiences. I think one of my fondest memories was a time when I had a clear sense that the small group of students I was working with at a church where we were trying to start a youth ministry became a youth group, became a community. We were going to a big Denom event in Colorado from SoCal so it was a big road trip and on the front end of the event we did a day of river raftering up in the Rockies.

Anyway that night we were all sleeping in a big TeePee type of tent. There was about 15 of us in all. After everyone was in their sleeping bags we stayed awake talking, laughing, singing, praying, just kind of a classic youth ministry moment and it was the one that brought us together and we were off and running after that into a great season of seeing God do all kinds of cool things with that group and their friends, it really was the start of something special and it was clear to me it started there…… by “accident”

Tic, thanks for sharing and thanks for all you do for youth workers. I encourage everyone to attend the NYWC this year, it's gonna be awesome.

Final Echo

The last day of ECHO wasn't as thrilling but it didn't disappoint! First up was Brad Abare who to me was the guy I tracked with the least. One thing he has going for him is that he is connected to Church Marketing Sucks.

He had too much material and everything he did felt rushed and incomplete. All I am going to share from his talk is his thought that the world is having an identity crisis, people are having an identity crisis. People now are trying to find their identity in the products they buy and the organizations that they join. We are trying to use organizations and stuff as our SOUL PROVIDER! Again, liked what he said, just too rushed.

Phil Cooke was the leader of the breakout I attended called "Branding Faith" which is also a Book. His seminar was great with some very quotable stuff.

1. Brand Statement- Not used in your advertising but drives everything you do. Nike's is "The Spirit of the Athlete", Starbucks is "A great coffee experience".
2. In a media driven culture- Visibility is as important as Ability and be original and unique
3. Don't have a sucky name for your church
4. Speak language of design. Can churches please get rid of flags, doves, flames and globes in their logos!
5. Google is not just a search engine it is "Reputation Management". What comes up when you are googled?
6. You must control your perception or others will control it for you.
7. Branding is a compelling story about a product, person or organization. Are we telling compelling stories.

I loved the story that he closed with about Walt Disney. Walt Disney died just a short time before Disney World opened in Orlando. During the opening ceremonies a person turned to Walt's widow and said,"It is a shame Walt couldn't see this.", She turned to him and said,"Walt did see this. That is why it is here." WE MUST HAVE VISION!

Mark Steele closed everything out. He is the creator of Steelehouse Productions. He is also a an author, his latest book is Half/Life Die Already Couple of funny lines:

"I used to Twitter then I took some Vicodin and it stopped"

"Christians are about 8 years behind culture, kind of like a Carman song."

1. The unreached artists of the world are the only unreached people group in the world who have the ability to reach every other unreached people group of the world. And the artists in the church are the only ones who have the possibility to reach the unreached artists of the world
2. Why do people think Christians are irrelevant--because the church has been putting out sub-par garbage. It's because we are putting non-gifted people into roles they aren't skilled for. When we do that, it hurts our evangelism potential.
3. The path of reaching people is changing quickly. We keep trying to get better at doing the same things, not realizing that we need to change what we are doing...not how we are doing it.
4. We are called to be "parable makers."
5. Your life is not broken. Your life is a piece in a broken puzzle.

Echo was the first non-youth ministry conference I have attended in a long time and it was refreshing to hear about stuff going on in the church on a bigger scale, yet all of it was applicable to youth ministry. It was a great trip even though I got back a day later than I was supposed to thanks to Airtran, but that is another story for another day.

Mark

Dude, maybe you should like move!

I love this. It is one of my personal favorites and if I need to laugh I simply click on this. The guy is a trooper because he finishes his report even though he is in considerable pain. I wonder if this guy has a depth perception problem or is just stupid. Enjoy.

Life as Narrative

Day 2 at Echo has been awesome, out of the box, challenging and even had a little profanity. It's been a great day.

First keynote speaker of the day was Matthew Paul Turner who is an author of 15 books in the last four years, and he has a new book coming out called Churched. His blog is Jesus Needs New PR . Matthew is not really a speaker and he lets us know that up front. He spent much of his time reading out of a book he couldn't get published because it was too controversial and some from his new book. He speaks about his past growing up in an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist background and how that screwed him up. He was funny, lots of one liners but hard to take notes.

Here are a couple:

1. In Sunday School he once colored Jesus orange and green like Aqua Man much to the horror of his teacher. He called him Aqua Jesus.
2. Fundamentalism makes you weird. His church believed that "blessed were the weird"!
3. Ben Hur, the movie, has a "bad" part with boobs.
4. His family once had a b-day party for Jesus. They waited for Him to blow out the candles.
5. He had a sunday school teacher that asked his class, "How hot is Hell?". One kid answered 666 degrees! (That there is funny!) Then the teacher lit a barbie doll on fire in the class and talked about burning in hell.
6. Girls from church kept breaking up with him because they were dating Jesus now or they had Kissed Dating Goodbye. Matthew said he wanted to kick Joshua Harris' ASS! It was hilarious.
7. His high school had a God-Prom not a regular prom. The highlight was scrabble.
8. Scored after the prom because he held a girl's hand. If anyone can make hand-holding a sin it's Christians!

Funny guy, read his books.

The closing session was with Donald Miller (pic above) and it was excellent, all about the power of narrative and story. Donald is one of my favorite authors and I met him tonight and even got a free signed copy of Through Painted Deserts. He is hard to take notes on but here are some of his thoughts. (Thanks to Tim Stevens for many of these points)

1.Story in its most basic form: A character who wants something and is willing to overcome conflict in order to get it.
2.Narrative is the most powerful transformational tool there is. Story has the power to change peoples ideas.
3.There is a difference between random events and story. The mind engages stories, not random information. A story is music. Random information is noise.
4.My friend said, "Life is meaningless." I said, "No, life is fine. Your life is meaningless." It's the story my friend was writing with his life that was worthless.
5.A character is what they do, not what they feel or think or want to be.
6.In a good story, a hero can't think more of himself than he does of others. If he does, then he ceases being the hero. There is a fine line between being a hero or a villain.
7.In a good story, the character always wants something. But a movie is not very satisfying if what he/she wants isn't very honorable (like a car). The same is true of your life. If it's not interesting in a movie, it also won't be very interesting in your life. The best stories are when the character wants something, and if he doesn't get it, people might die.
8.A good test for your story is this: If you were to die, what would die with you?
9. The beauty of the story is the sacrifice, not in the victory.
10. Narrative can adjust our moral compass

He relied heavily on a book by a legendary screenwriter and teacher Robert McKee called Story. It is the Bible for screenwriters and I would highly recommend it for anyone who wants to tell great stories.

So there you have it, so use it, tell good stories in ministry and with your life!

Random Humor at the Grocery Store

Thanks to my friend Blakely from my Fuller Class for introducing me to a video that two of her friends did, enjoy.