Christmas Reflections

As with most things that will end up being posted on my blog, this is not an original idea. The preacher at my home church, Hillside, did his Christmas series on "The Tale of Two Trees." The majority of this devotion and reflection comes from that series and especially the Christmas Eve wrap-up.

In the story of Jesus, there are two family trees. The first, Jesus' ancestry, is recorded in Matthew 1 and is full of people has issues such as lying, conspiracy, adultery, murder, and many other sins. In spite of the sins and failures in their lives, God was still able use them and make them a part of his plan and the line of the Messiah.

The second tree is a line of descendants. Of course, this is a spiritual family (unless you want to go all Davinci Code). In John 1, we read that we have the ability to become a part of the family of God, if we believe in Christ. Every person since the time of the apostles that has submitted to Christ has become a part of this tree. Much like the first tree, this line of spiritual descendants is full of cases of sin and failure in people's lives, in both your life and mine.

These two trees are bridged by yet another tree. In 1 Peter 2, it says that Jesus Christ suffered under our sins on a tree, so that we could in fact become a part of his family, and proclaim His name to those that are around us, so that the family and the Kingdom of God could continue to grow and the cause of the Gospel of Jesus Christ be furthered around the World.

I realize that this a day late for Christmas celebrations, but many people will continue to have family gatherings throughout the rest of the week, so I hope that it will provide some encouragement throughout the rest of the holiday season.

Sacred or Secular

I've been reading a book for one of my classes, and it has been kicking my butt. Not only does it have about 5.3 billion pages in it, but the ideas presented in it are really tough to deal with. It's called Total Truth, and it's about finding and living with a Christian worldview. One of the chapters focused on leadership and fundraising. It basically asked the question "Why do we in the church take leadership and fundraising ideas from the business model (x number of support letters sent to y number of people will raise z amount of money) and applying it in the church.

The author claims that our dependence upon "secular" methods of leadership shows a lack of dependence upon God. Now, I believe that God rewards preparation and hard work. This is not to say that God cannot and does not intervene on a regular basis. I think that all of the above factor in to results. By the same token, we in America don't place enough emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

For my second rant, I would ask what has been done to create a truly "Christian" model of leadership? Or even, what Christian leadership model is on par with any secular model. For as long as I can remember, churches and Christians have been taking ideas from the business world in the area of leadership. Maybe I'm wrong. Please let me know if I am. As much as I wanted to argue with the author on this point (in my head of course), I have to agree. I'm in a course this semester called "Leadership in Ministry", and all of the books were "Christian" in their orientation. However, I felt that none of the assigned reading was truly revolutionary in the way that I thought about leadership. This summer, while I was on an internship at my home church, the entire staff read a secular leadership book. I felt that it was extremely well written, and while not groundbreaking, it was extremely practical and a better read than any of my books for the course.

So, what do you think? Should we rely upon outside fundraising and marketing techniques in the church, or should we pull back and let God do His thing?

Should we continue to adapt business leadership models for the church, or should we use a sub par Christian model only because it bears the label "Christian?" What can we do to construct a model of Christian leadership that exceeds the business model?

Is 50% Good Enough?

Today I had the opportunity to attend a Sunday Morning service at my home church in Texas, and the message topic was service. Our senior pastor was preaching, and he said that a lot of churches that are doing a really good job at whatever it is that churches do have about 25-30% of their members/attendees involved in somehow serving their in the congregation. He challenged us as a congregation to get to a point of 50% involvement.

I understand that some leaders definitely want to avoid unrealistic expectations, but I feel that we are selling ourselves short on this one. I think that to expect such a low turn out from a church sets the bar lower than it needs to be. If we had a church where 50% of the members were evangelistic, would we be satisfied? Yes, it would be higher than the average in most churches right now, but would we be satisfied? Would we call it good enough if half of our people decided to show up on any given Sunday? My guess is that we would not.

When we set a goal for ourselves and for the people that are involved in our ministries, we are, in a sense, responsible for the outcome of it. If we set the goal too low, people will not be challenged enough or have to be stretched to reach it. Is it then better to set a goal too high?

There is a good chance that this goal of 50% involvement will not be reached by Hillside. I then wonder, if the goal was set at 75 or even 90% if the challenge would be great enough to cause serious inspiration and call for a radical commitment to the cause of Christ and actually reach above the 50%? Would a church filled with people who would make a commitment like that cause the community around it to take note?

Here We Go!

For a while now, some of my friends have told me that I should start blogging. A few of them have their own blogs (Shout out to Charlie, Jim, and David!), and I thought that I would join the fray. No promises about what will be posted or how often i will post. With all of that said, let's jump in to what I actually wanted to talk about.

I had an 8 hour drive home from school today. That's a really long time to be in a car, driving from the Midwest to the Southwest. Needless to say, I had my iPod with me to keep me from drifting off. One of the albums that I listened to was Taylor Swift's newest (Yes, I listen to Taylor Swift. Don't judge me.) Several of the songs struck me as saddening and interesting. The big ones were Fifteen and White Horse (listen to the songs if you can), and I could even make a case for a couple of other tracks.

When I was listening to these songs, it felt as though I were listening to a very young girl just crying out to be loved. It seemed as if she had been hurt, injured by a previous experience. I have worked with students for far too long now (at my old age of 20!) to know that this is not an isolated incident. Over and over again, I have seen these same ideas played out in the lives of teenage guys and girls. And it's time it stopped.

Two points: First, If you are a student (high school or younger), I beg of you to stop trying to find your "completion" or "satisfaction" in a dating relationship. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the relationship probably will not last. The best and only loving relationship that you can find and take ahold of comes from Jesus.

Secondly: This one goes to adults. Students today only know relationships that are broken, and they accept the fact that life hurts. While they may have accepted those facts as merely a part of their lives, the side effects or aftershocks continue to sound in our culture. In fact, they are louder than ever, and there is not much chance of them going away anytime soon.

I think that sometimes we simply choose to ignore the cries of a younger generation because we ourselves have become used to the sound. Like I said earlier, they are becoming louder than ever, yet we have chosen to not do anything about it. We have chosen to drown them out because they are too loud (Hence, the title of my blog). Those of you that know me know that I feel called to work with students. My plea is that all of us would take just a few moments and notice the hurting that are walking among us, and do something about it.

Will you join us?

P.S. If you want to stay up to date on all my random thoughts throughout the day, you can follow me on Twitter by clicking here.