This may be the dumbest thing that a youth minister has ever done. Rev. Melody Taylor of the Germantown Unite Methodist Church has been running a 44 hour lock in. For years. For an article see here:
http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/faith_and_values/article/0,2845,M
CA_25342_5483156,00.html
I can't imagine. I've done about 12 hours before, and I was ready to die. This is like 4 of those in a row. I worked with a guy who had a tee-shirt that adequately sum up my feelings: "Lock Ins are of the Devil."
I guess it has been working well for Melody, but I've never seen much out of a lock in. Sure, the teens like them, but they are murder. The planning is difficult. The lack of sleep kills you for the next several days. Then there are all of the safety concerns and the need to make sure that couples are leaving room for the Holy Spirit in whatever dark crevice of the church building they find for making out. I may sound a little over cynical, but teens have actually died in these things. Well, at least that is what Stockstill told us at HU when suggesting that we really need to be "locked in" and not capable in getting out, jumping in a car, and getting in a fatal car accident.
I just can't help but wonder how much spiritual growth can happen when everyone is in hour 36 of a lock in. I also can't help but wonder how much spiritual growth happens in youth ministry at all. The cynic in me is rather strong this morning, so read on only if you can handle it.
Listening to the responses of the teens in the articles I couldn't help but feel like this was a press release. One of the really phony ones. It seemed just too happy and ideal. The teens experienced "wacky games, rockin' Christian music, yummy food, hilarious skits, creative worship, and a party on Saturday night." One teen responded "It's great to be able to fellowship with church members in an exciting environment." I'm sorry, but that sounds like some of the college recruitment stuff that I used to receive where the college looked like a place where students hugged each other and broke out in devotional songs at an given moment in a field of freshly popped flowers. I can't help but feel like I'm being sold something, and that something is not being sold honestly. What teen, that hasn't been taught "church speak," actually says something like that?
If I were a teen that didn't go to church, I can't help but think, "No thanks." It just seems to fake. It stinks of brain washing.
Right below that article was a short interview with a Church of Christ preacher. I couldn't help but think that he might be one who regularly attends "Firm Foundation" lectureships and went to school at the Memphis School of Preaching. I'll let you decide what that means. His answers just seemed really canned. It was like he was on a 60's game show explaining who life as a minister is "really keen."
Randy Harris has suggested that we have a "disgustingly wholesome church." (That was in the title of a sermon I once heard him give, though the wording may be a little off.) I think that it is true. People don't see human beings when they think of church. By reading the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, they get an image of people who like preachers that live in the last 50 years and have kids that can't get enough "fellowship."
Not only do we look fake, but how real is what we give people? The kids this lock in have learned that "God is love" and "I can do all things through Christ." If that is so, why doesn't a woman dying of breast cancer just get rid of it. Somehow when that faithful woman dies God doesn't seem very loving or omnipotent. Surely these teens will learn this, and there is a place for teaching basic Christian ideals. But can't teens understand loss and death by 14 or 15? Why do we feed them truth melted down into sayings that will fit on bracelets and key chains?
The front page of the paper had Mary Winkler's trial and a big headline "My Ugly Came Out." Surely, the death of a minister, his wife's guilt, and the apparent family issues involved give the church (particularly churches of Christ) a black eye. That is ugly and hurts the kingdom. But I'm not sure that we aren't also hurting the kingdom with the Faith and Family section of the newspaper. To the world we look like robots. I am always amazed at the people that get a shocked look when a seminary student tells a sex joke or a preacher describes something as "Hell." We want our preachers to be inhuman. I don't think that is what the world wants.
Most people don't want to be what they imagine Christians as. At the very least they feel that they can't. They don't have a three piece suit, 2.5 children, a minivan, and a Jesus fish on their AIM profile. They certainly don't look forward to "fellowship," whatever that is. They want someone to be incarnate with them. I fear all that they see is a church of androids.
Disclaimer: This blog describes my gut feeling when reading the paper. I don't actually know Melody Taylor, her church, her lock in, the other guy in the paper, or the Winkler family. For all I know, everything that I have said above is totally wrong. I hope that this youth thing really is changing lives and I obviously have no right to judge the heart of any of the individuals involved. Similarly, I don't now where that preacher went to school, what he believes, or if he is an interesting person or not. For all I know he is a flaming liberal that likes to go ballroom dancing in shiny outfits. I do stand by the idea that no matter how much good and Godly things are occurring, the articles still make Christianity look like something very fake, hokey, and campy to those not in a Christian community and many within a Christian community.
Showing posts with label Restoration Movement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Restoration Movement. Show all posts
4.14.2007
3.11.2007
Bored At Work
Some thoughts as I sit here, bored out of my mind.
-TV networks have horrible names. Think about how often they are named incorrectly. For example:
American Movie Classics: They were playing Catwoman last night.
Fox News: How much is news and how much is tired discussions of decade old political ideology disagreement.
MTV, VH1, and CMT: No one plays music videos any more.
ABC Family: I am not kidding, they are releasing Fridays "Duke's of Hazard: The Early Years," an ABC family original, in an Unrated Version on DVD.
BET: I only have qualms with the E.
TLC: I don't know how much learning goes on in make over shows and home improvement shows.
-Found a fun website. Go to http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html. They can track the popularity of your name over the decades. For example, my name was almost non existent in the middle of the last century. Now, it is somewhere in the top 35 with about 2,800 Calebs per million babies in the US. I also looked up Fran. Less than 1 per million according to their statistics. That makes the two of us, given our ages, pretty unique.
-Another AMAZING site that I found last night. It is an index of hundereds of Restoration Movement texts digitized. Check it out at http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/subs/texts.html. There is a larger Restoration History site that this page is a part of. Pretty crazy.
-I started reading some of the Quran last night. So far I am in Surah 2, "The Cow." The title comes from an account of Moses telling the people to sacrifice a cow. What follows is an interesting bit of "I Spy." God tells them to get a cow. They ask "Which one."
"The Yellow One."
"Which yellow one?"
"The yellow one in that field."
"But there are several in that field."
And it goes on and on like that. Don't really understand, but when you have Leviticus in your Holy Book, I guess it is hard to throw stones. I'm not sure if mold laws are better or worse than a discussion of picking out sacrifice cows.
-Last night Portugal beat Uruguay in a play in game for the last spot in this year's rugby world cup. I know that no one else cares, but, like I said, I am bored.
-TV networks have horrible names. Think about how often they are named incorrectly. For example:
American Movie Classics: They were playing Catwoman last night.
Fox News: How much is news and how much is tired discussions of decade old political ideology disagreement.
MTV, VH1, and CMT: No one plays music videos any more.
ABC Family: I am not kidding, they are releasing Fridays "Duke's of Hazard: The Early Years," an ABC family original, in an Unrated Version on DVD.
BET: I only have qualms with the E.
TLC: I don't know how much learning goes on in make over shows and home improvement shows.
-Found a fun website. Go to http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html. They can track the popularity of your name over the decades. For example, my name was almost non existent in the middle of the last century. Now, it is somewhere in the top 35 with about 2,800 Calebs per million babies in the US. I also looked up Fran. Less than 1 per million according to their statistics. That makes the two of us, given our ages, pretty unique.
-Another AMAZING site that I found last night. It is an index of hundereds of Restoration Movement texts digitized. Check it out at http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/subs/texts.html. There is a larger Restoration History site that this page is a part of. Pretty crazy.
-I started reading some of the Quran last night. So far I am in Surah 2, "The Cow." The title comes from an account of Moses telling the people to sacrifice a cow. What follows is an interesting bit of "I Spy." God tells them to get a cow. They ask "Which one."
"The Yellow One."
"Which yellow one?"
"The yellow one in that field."
"But there are several in that field."
And it goes on and on like that. Don't really understand, but when you have Leviticus in your Holy Book, I guess it is hard to throw stones. I'm not sure if mold laws are better or worse than a discussion of picking out sacrifice cows.
-Last night Portugal beat Uruguay in a play in game for the last spot in this year's rugby world cup. I know that no one else cares, but, like I said, I am bored.
4.14.2006
The Evening Sky on Good Friday
Looking up at the sky tonight, I couldn't help but think about what it must have been like on the actual good Friday. What did the apostles think as they looked into the sky at the darkness? Just a few days later they must have seen such hope in the sky. The stars were symbols of the heavenly host, watching, waiting for the Messiah to make himself known. And now, he was gone. The moon was no longer the loving eye of God staring at them in joy, but the sly smile of Satan gloating his victory. Jesus was dead. The dream was over.
When you think about it, God left them hanging for about 40 hours. Jesus had left hints, but they didn't get it. So for two nights they sat and stared at the sky. How did they react? Did some cry all three days, overcome by sorrow? Did some think about joining in Judas' fate? Maybe others were numb from the shock. Some may have prayerfully ask for God to carry them through. Maybe one or two shook their fists at the Heavens and vowed that they had had enough of God's empty promises. Maybe others just say and contemplated what had happen in the last few years.
Because we know about Sunday morning, we look over the anguish of Friday night. I had a friend that was headed to a Lutheran Good Friday Service tonight. As he talked about it, I could see that some of my more conservative Church of Christ friends were sort of snickering. Why would you go to a Lutheran church to celebrate Good Friday? They do all sorts of weird stuff this time of year.
What they try to do, from what I can tell, with thier liturgical calendar and services, is help people experience Christ. From what I see in other religious groups, there is a value in living out Christ's reality in our lives. Thus we have lent to remember his forty days in the desert. We cry at his death on Friday. We celebrate when he is raised on Sunday. Every worship experience tries to connect you to the life of Christ. Such an approach may lead to hyper-allegorization, but it does try to immerse the congregants in the life of Christ.
We could learn from that in the Restoration Movement. Jason Ashlock spoke in chapel today. He talked about how we too can stand and look at Christ and scream "Hossana! Save us now!" That cry for salvation is just as necessary in the church as it is in the world. We have lost our connection to what Christ did. Because we fear messing up dates we divorce Christ's death from a day on the calendar. We don't realize that in so doing, we are making him a little farther from reality.
In churches of Christ, we have a heritage of baptism. We talk about how immersion is so important because it is a symbol of the death, burial, and resurection of Christ. In that act, we become one with Christ and our story becomes his story. Similarly, we value the Lord's supper because we want to remember his death. Why don't we take those values further? Why do we divorce Christ's life from any sort of real life holiday, and thus miss out on an oppurtunity to imagine what it was like to live with him.
I suggest that we adopt religious holdiays. Let's celebrate Christmas, Easter, Passover, whatever. In doing so, maybe we will be able to make Christ less a historical figure, which we can debate, pick apart, and analyze, and more a living being in us. Let us realize that we live out his life symbolicaly in many things that we do. We are called to carry his cross. Let's do what ever we can to show that Christ's story is our story and is still being told. It is not some old volume that is stuck on the shelves of history. It is a story that we live out everyday.
When you think about it, God left them hanging for about 40 hours. Jesus had left hints, but they didn't get it. So for two nights they sat and stared at the sky. How did they react? Did some cry all three days, overcome by sorrow? Did some think about joining in Judas' fate? Maybe others were numb from the shock. Some may have prayerfully ask for God to carry them through. Maybe one or two shook their fists at the Heavens and vowed that they had had enough of God's empty promises. Maybe others just say and contemplated what had happen in the last few years.
Because we know about Sunday morning, we look over the anguish of Friday night. I had a friend that was headed to a Lutheran Good Friday Service tonight. As he talked about it, I could see that some of my more conservative Church of Christ friends were sort of snickering. Why would you go to a Lutheran church to celebrate Good Friday? They do all sorts of weird stuff this time of year.
What they try to do, from what I can tell, with thier liturgical calendar and services, is help people experience Christ. From what I see in other religious groups, there is a value in living out Christ's reality in our lives. Thus we have lent to remember his forty days in the desert. We cry at his death on Friday. We celebrate when he is raised on Sunday. Every worship experience tries to connect you to the life of Christ. Such an approach may lead to hyper-allegorization, but it does try to immerse the congregants in the life of Christ.
We could learn from that in the Restoration Movement. Jason Ashlock spoke in chapel today. He talked about how we too can stand and look at Christ and scream "Hossana! Save us now!" That cry for salvation is just as necessary in the church as it is in the world. We have lost our connection to what Christ did. Because we fear messing up dates we divorce Christ's death from a day on the calendar. We don't realize that in so doing, we are making him a little farther from reality.
In churches of Christ, we have a heritage of baptism. We talk about how immersion is so important because it is a symbol of the death, burial, and resurection of Christ. In that act, we become one with Christ and our story becomes his story. Similarly, we value the Lord's supper because we want to remember his death. Why don't we take those values further? Why do we divorce Christ's life from any sort of real life holiday, and thus miss out on an oppurtunity to imagine what it was like to live with him.
I suggest that we adopt religious holdiays. Let's celebrate Christmas, Easter, Passover, whatever. In doing so, maybe we will be able to make Christ less a historical figure, which we can debate, pick apart, and analyze, and more a living being in us. Let us realize that we live out his life symbolicaly in many things that we do. We are called to carry his cross. Let's do what ever we can to show that Christ's story is our story and is still being told. It is not some old volume that is stuck on the shelves of history. It is a story that we live out everyday.
4.11.2006
The Internet: Advancing Disunity in Brand New Ways!
I enjoy getting under peoples' skin. Playing the prophet is something that I get a kick out of. When I get a chance to blow the whistle and expose some sort of Christian cover-up, I go for it. But there is a thin line to walk. When do we cease to be calling people back to God and start calling them to doing what we want them to do?
Let's talk about Michael Moore for a minute. I will not try to include (or necessarily exclude) Mr. Moore in/from the Kingdom of God. Instead, let's talk politics. When Moore jumps into an ice cream truck and drives around the Capitol Building reading the Patriot Act because he believes that most of our legislators have no clue as to what it says, that is funny. Similarly, when he walks up to Senators and tries to get them to sign their sons up to fight in the war they approved, that is humorous. In general, I love Moore, because he tends to never give the guys in control a free pass. He wants to help out the little guy at all costs. We need a fly in the ointment like Moore, especially as more and more media outlets jump in bed with the politicians. However, Moore can be abrasive. I think that he is funny, but many find him disrespectful and rude. Besides, you can only make so many movies attacking the president before you start to look a little self righteous.
Many of us in the church, particularly my restoration heritage folks, could learn a lot from the example of Moore. It seems that a lot of folks have a laundry list of what churches of Christ do wrong. Many of those list are full of really good things. However, when do we cease to prophesy against corruption for the good of the Kingdom, and start sitting on an ideological high horse ridiculing others because they aren't as enlightened us we are. We want respect, but we don't give it out.
I love some of the comments that Scott Adair has made on Romans 14. He suggests that Paul has two messages. Those who are weak should not judge those who are strong. Those who are strong, should not condescend those who are weak. Both must appreciate the views of the other. I feel like we stand up a lot and say, "Don't judge me!" and then we turn around and pat our grandparents on the head and say, "God bless your narrow minded, ridiculous, immature, pea picking heart."
Growing up I got sick when I saw the venom that came from newspapers like "Contending for the Faith" or "Firm Foundation." My grandfather is big into some of that stuff and I don't get it. My image of him and his heart for Christ seem incongruent to stuff like that. I have to realize that in his heart he thinks that he is doing what is best for God's people. That doesn't make him right, but it makes him fallible, just like me. We have a new brand of newspaper in the fellowship. A new place where individuals can unfairly rip on others and treat them like they are idiots and worldly. A new place to rip down the brotherhood instead of build them up. This time, the progressives are doing the mud slinging. These newspapers are called blogs!
Jesus wanted his followers to understand that they should look at the log in their own eye before they start picking at others specks. It seems to me that we are all walking around with logs. I appreciate some of the folks that feel the need to expose balogna that happens in the brotherhood, particularly at Harding. On the other hand, when I read your blog, and I see you ripping everyone else, and there is not a singal confessing post or a post about the goodness of God, I wonder.
My nature leads me to be confrontational. You can scroll through my posts and see different groups, philosiphies, and maybe even people that I have attacked. I just pray that you also see a sinner broken by my own sin and redeemed by Christ. I claim nothing more. I don't get things right all the time, or even most of the time. I am just trying to do what I feel like is right. And as much as I don't understand them, I know that the church paper slanderers and the blogging slanderers are in the same boat. I just hope that we can all be more introspective and humble as we try to please our God.
Let's talk about Michael Moore for a minute. I will not try to include (or necessarily exclude) Mr. Moore in/from the Kingdom of God. Instead, let's talk politics. When Moore jumps into an ice cream truck and drives around the Capitol Building reading the Patriot Act because he believes that most of our legislators have no clue as to what it says, that is funny. Similarly, when he walks up to Senators and tries to get them to sign their sons up to fight in the war they approved, that is humorous. In general, I love Moore, because he tends to never give the guys in control a free pass. He wants to help out the little guy at all costs. We need a fly in the ointment like Moore, especially as more and more media outlets jump in bed with the politicians. However, Moore can be abrasive. I think that he is funny, but many find him disrespectful and rude. Besides, you can only make so many movies attacking the president before you start to look a little self righteous.
Many of us in the church, particularly my restoration heritage folks, could learn a lot from the example of Moore. It seems that a lot of folks have a laundry list of what churches of Christ do wrong. Many of those list are full of really good things. However, when do we cease to prophesy against corruption for the good of the Kingdom, and start sitting on an ideological high horse ridiculing others because they aren't as enlightened us we are. We want respect, but we don't give it out.
I love some of the comments that Scott Adair has made on Romans 14. He suggests that Paul has two messages. Those who are weak should not judge those who are strong. Those who are strong, should not condescend those who are weak. Both must appreciate the views of the other. I feel like we stand up a lot and say, "Don't judge me!" and then we turn around and pat our grandparents on the head and say, "God bless your narrow minded, ridiculous, immature, pea picking heart."
Growing up I got sick when I saw the venom that came from newspapers like "Contending for the Faith" or "Firm Foundation." My grandfather is big into some of that stuff and I don't get it. My image of him and his heart for Christ seem incongruent to stuff like that. I have to realize that in his heart he thinks that he is doing what is best for God's people. That doesn't make him right, but it makes him fallible, just like me. We have a new brand of newspaper in the fellowship. A new place where individuals can unfairly rip on others and treat them like they are idiots and worldly. A new place to rip down the brotherhood instead of build them up. This time, the progressives are doing the mud slinging. These newspapers are called blogs!
Jesus wanted his followers to understand that they should look at the log in their own eye before they start picking at others specks. It seems to me that we are all walking around with logs. I appreciate some of the folks that feel the need to expose balogna that happens in the brotherhood, particularly at Harding. On the other hand, when I read your blog, and I see you ripping everyone else, and there is not a singal confessing post or a post about the goodness of God, I wonder.
My nature leads me to be confrontational. You can scroll through my posts and see different groups, philosiphies, and maybe even people that I have attacked. I just pray that you also see a sinner broken by my own sin and redeemed by Christ. I claim nothing more. I don't get things right all the time, or even most of the time. I am just trying to do what I feel like is right. And as much as I don't understand them, I know that the church paper slanderers and the blogging slanderers are in the same boat. I just hope that we can all be more introspective and humble as we try to please our God.
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