:

The House of Healing

  In the Lord of the Rings there is a place after the final battle where the warriors go to get healed up from the battle. It is a place of rest and recovery. I have recently been meeting with two guys who were youth pastors who are on "breaks" right now just trying to get healed up after some pretty big battles in their ministry lives. These are guys who love Jesus but have been beaten up by ministry and the church. One of the guys, senior pastor was having an affair with the middle school secretary, go figure. Basically the senior pastor ran him out of the church because he thought that this youth pastor had figured out that he was having an affair. Why is it that youth ministers seem to have the hardest time in churches? Why is it such a volitale position? Why do churches burn people out, and use people up so easily? Maybe we are doing church wrong, maybe we are more like a corporation than the house of God? Mike Yaconelli wrote alot about this subject and wrote some great articles that are worth your reading if you are struggling with a situation in your church that is just not Godly. You can find them  (HERE). One of my favorite quotes by Him is..

"No wonder so many youth workers call it quits after 18 months. No wonder volunteers decide to un-volunteer. What's a wonder is how many youth workers decide to stick it out. You keep going even when your budgets are cut, your salaries lowered, and your integrity questioned. Your lives have been ruined by your callings. What can you do? You just hang on because…well…because Jesus hung on (if you know what I mean).I'm in awe of youth workers, and I think Jesus is, too. I just wish the Church felt the same."

Youth Ministry is hard and it's misunderstood. It is a lifestyle, a lifestyle that does not easily mesh into a church corporate environment. I have been fortunate enough to find a great place to do ministry here in Tampa at Van Dyke and my senior pastor gets it! Pretty Cool. So for all you out there who are in need of the house of healing may you find the love of Jesus and may you experience that love through the hands of his people! Don't give up!

chasing the mystery,

mark

P.S This is a copy of the e-mail Mike sent me when they hired me for the CORE

Mark!

Great to have you as a new member of the CORE.  I've been doing these darn seminars for 32 years and I am excited when a new team member arrives and can give new life, perspective and passion to our seminar team ... uh ... and it means I can do less cities.  So, welcome, I think you will find that this experience will bond you with the other seminar leaders for life.  Looking forward to meeting you. 

yaconelli

Thanks Mike, You were the best, I know your enjoying Jesus!

AHHH! I could stay here forever!

I am sitting in Starbucks in Sacramento California, the weather is sunny and 75 degrees and no humidity! Can you beat that? I am putting some final preperations on my three talks for this weekend. I am speaking on Bayside's High School Ministry Student Leadership Retreat! Pretty Cool. Bayside has about 10,000 people that attend on Sunday, so it is a huge church! As I sit here I have been thinking about the last 16 years of ministry and how good God has been to me in my ministry career many times when I wasn't worthy of His blessing He kept on giving to me, I don't know why my life has been so good. One thing I have so grown to love over the years is doing ministry with people that I really enjoy. God has surrounded me with awesome people so I thought I would just say thanks to some people that make ministry enjoyable for me and who I love.

1. Brock Morgan- It is great to be in CA with you this weekend and you have become a great friend! You rock!

2. Jason Nelson- Thanks for coming to Florida and keeping it real! No Complaining, I love it! Your the best!

3. Matthew Hartsfield- You are a good friend and you have restored my faith in Senior Pastors. I always have your back!

4. Tic Long & Marko- Thanks for giving me the opportunity of a lifetime, it has been a dream come true! YS is the best!

5. Jame Price- I still consider us partners, you are more than a friend you are a brother!

6. Jason Samuels- Your awesome, and I am so glad we have become friends! Looking forward to our Pittsburgh seminar!

7. The adult high school leaders @ Van Dyke- We are on an incredible Journey! Thanks for loving Becky and I.

8. Dave Morrison- You are a great right hand man and have such a great future in ministry. Love Ya!

9. Becky Helsel- My partner, best friend and awesome woman of God. Thanks for being so real and genuine and seeing through all the crap and speaking the truth!

I know I have left many off and I will get to you in the future, there have been so many that I have been blessed to work with that it would take me all day to list them! To all you I say thanks for making my life so cool!

see you all soon,

mark

Cool new Media

Lots of new suggestions for books and ipod stuff for you to consider just added to this site. Check them out along the sides.

peace!

A hodge podge of stuff

Sorry it has been awhile between posts, I have been busy and doing a little traveling. I have avoided writing anything much about my personal life on this blog but I thought I would violate that rule today and just give you a slight personal update. If you don't already know my wife and I are expecting our first child on November 11 and it is a boy that we have already named Parker Adler Helsel. I like the name alot, it has a surfer feel to it! Basically I am scared to death about being a dad yet strangely excited about what that will be like! So please pray for us!By the way this picture is my wife and I @ a 50's dinner theatre.

This weekend I am headed to Bayside Church in Sacramento to speak on a student leader reatreat for my good buddy Brock Morgan. I am so looking forward to this trip becasue it is a houseboat trip and I have never done that before and I get to hang with Brock.

This past weekend I was in Pittsburgh to speak for the CORE I am part of the Core Team that travels around the country speaking for YS. It is really a joy to help youth workers reach kids better. I also got to go to the first Pittsburgh Youth Network meeting of the year. It was awesome to see a lot of old friends and to be a part of the network again. I am looking forward to returning next month for the convention! Kudos to Brad Henderson who runs the PYN!

As far as ministry stuff there is a great article on a recent event held with Rob Bell and Brian McLaren. You can find their thoughts HERE. Great stuff! I have been doing a lot of reading lately and the stuff I am reading is affecting my Christianity more than I believe it has ever before in my life. I feel like I am in a new phase of my faith and it is exciting to be crossing into some new thresholds! I preached last wednesday night for our wednesday night service called Deeper Life and alot of what I am reading is coming out in my preaching and the cool thing is more than a few people really resonated with what I was saying and that was exciting becuase I feel like the church in America is on the verge of rediscovering itself and I believe it is going to be around the stuff I talked about Wednesday. I think there are alot of people yearning for more than the Christianity they have grown bored with. It was a message about losing things, letting them go and I talked about letting go of four things in order to find other things. Here they are.

1. Letting go of BELIEF.............to find faith

2. Letting go of HEAVEN...........to find The Kingdom of God

3. Letting go of a PERSONAL JESUS........to find a BIGGER JESUS

4. Letting go of the "GOSPEL"......to find God's heart

If you are intrigued just comment and I will expalin further. Have a great day everybody and notice my Steelers ar 2-0! Yeah Baby!

chasing mystery,

mark

Elvis Is in the Building!

Oh Rob, what you have stirred up now! Not that that is a bad thing! Maybe we need to be stirred to think deeply about how we view our Christian faith and how we explain it to others and what is at the heart of Jesus's message. What am I talking about, well none other than Rob's first book Velvet Elvis. Click on the link and then scroll down and read the debate about the book going on in the reviews section. There are almost 100 reviews posted. Warning, some of them will make you sorry that you are part of the Christian community because of the name-calling and hatred spewed towards and by fellow believers. Great witness everybody. I personally loved the book, did I agree with everything? No,but do I really have to? We are so closed to listening to anybody else's ideas in Christianity these days. We have our own little belief kingdoms and we protect them with verbal force. I'm sorry, I don't have room in my life for such nonsense. Maybe we need to realize that Christianity isn't first and foremost about right theology but about loving Jesus and each other. When did being "right" out way love?

If you want to check out other Rob Bell stuff check out the August 11th,2005 post Discovering Nooma found right here at the Jester's Pub!

See ya,

mark

No More Preaching?

I finished Preaching Re-Imagined by Doug pagitt in one day, Doug is the lead pastor @ Solomon's Porch and emerging church in Minneapolis,MN. The book is one that I think every pastor should read at least for the critical look @ what Doug calls "Speaching", we call preaching. I don't necessarily agree with Doug on alot of things but he does make some great points in the book, things that should make us take a look at how we design our services and churches and also the role of a pastor in a church. I would love if some of the people who read this blog would read the book and share your thoughts. Here are a few quotes from the book:

Doug talks about how the church is addicted to application and "applying" the scripture to their lives instead of "implication" which is how does the scripture totally rearrange and redefine my life. Yes to me that sounds like a lot of semantics but here is a great bit from the book..

"Our post enlightment ways of thinking move us to want answers rather than more questions, to seek instant take-away rather than long term processes, to seek out solutions rather than ponder the problem itself. We have, over the last century, become people who believe in answers and application. We have little patience for ambiguity or uncertainty. The success of a church is often measured by the pastor's ability to answer everybody's questions."

Doug responding to people who say that preaching the Word of God is the central role of the church and especially the pastor

"Know that our preaching matters, but it isn't our central contribution; more lives will be changed by the relationships created and lived out in communities than by what we say in some sermon"

finally, Doug's thoughts on church growth

"Many of us who have seen signifigant growth in our churches know a dirty little secret: Signifigant growth has it's own ill effect on helping communities develop deep faith. Numeric growth of Christianity doesn't indicate a more harmonious way of life with God. The metaphor of the body is a good one for churches. A body that's too big puts a strain on the systems of the body. At the same time communities who never embrace new people or new perspectives find themselves starving. Both obesity and starvation are pathways to death."

love for you to enter the dialogue...

mark

Katrina Reads

Some blogs that contain some interesting Katrina stuff are listed below:

Interdictor-This is an incredible blog live from downtown New Orleans by a guy on the 27th floor of a office building. He and some co-workers have been there since the begining and made a commitment to stay there the entire time. They have lots of pics, and even a live webcam. Cool stuff

_awakening-Mike Devries site that I love has some links to people's comments on the hurricane from Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis, etc.

Jason's jargon-My friend Jason Nelson has a great letter to Kanye West dealing with his racial statements about George Bush. I just know that the hurricane evacuation is going to become a racial firestorm and that is really sad. Jessie Jackson please shut up! You too Kanye!

After the Storm-A collection of blogged thoughts on the disaster

Try these, I hope they are helpful

holding onto hope,

mark

Lost in the Images

I have been glued to Fox News and CNN for the past three days trying to comprehend the devestation and destruction in New Orleans and in Mississippi. I have seen hurricane damage first hand last year when I was part of the clean-up in Port Charollette after hurricane Charley and I thought that was beyond recovery. This is something else, something beyond understanding. I have experienced so many emotions and feelings that I just had to write them down in any order and in any form so here I go?

-Despair, how do you recover when literally everything is gone? Would I just pack-up and leave and never come back?

-Why didn't people evacuate? Does it say something about our pride and stubborness?

-Why has it become so ugly in New Orleans, I can understand looting a grocery store but stealing sneakers, football jersey's, stereo equipment, etc. Doesn't that say something about our country? Our lack of priorities and morals. While these people were stealing sneakers were their neighbors dying in their attics because they were too busy trying on their new sneakers?

-Today, I felt angry because something small didn't go right, who am I to complain. Perspective Mark, perspective!

-God is still good! You might think I write that from an ivory, dry tower with food and cable TV but I have experienced pain, I have watched people die, I have hurt deeply and I have learned to say it is well with my soul. As one Biloxi church, which is almost destroyed, had on a sign out front today reading "Services tonight, bring a chair!". We will go on! We sing in the midst of destruction for He is the resurrection and the life and He turns to us, as He did to Lazarus's sisters and says to us "Do you Believe this?"

-Why do I feel so helpless? So unable to do anyhting but send money.

-As I watched this all unfold I guess I have thought many times "Do I want to really bring a child into this world?" Many of you know that on or near Nov.10 that will become a reality. I don't know where we are headed as a planet, it is kinda scary. Yes I know who wins in the end, but it doesn't make the journey there any easier. I long for the days of my childhood when all of this seemed like a nightmare that I would never have, a nightmare reserved for somewhere else, some other reality. Everything just seemed good. Now it just seems screwed up. Come Lord Jesus, Come to our hearts and to our land, help us to return to you. My heart aches for it and I am in need.

moving towards dawn,

mark