As a minister, sometimes I get really down. It seems that for a while, everything is just going awesome. The kids seem to be getting somewhere and they start taking steps in the right direction. Then you find out that some kid is not who they say they are. They are doing things behind my back like smoking, or they are hanging out with kids that are a very bad influence. They know what's right, but they just don't do it. I guess it's just hard to let go and let God. It's hard to let go of my pride, and do my work, not expecting rewards and just let God make my work meaningful.
Yestereday, Wednesday, I decided to do a class on music. I looked up MTV's Bilboard top 20. I recognized and had heard many of them from some of our teens and my own radio and MTV and VH1 experiences. Then I decided to look up the lyrics on lyrics.com. It was eyeopening and very sad. Those top 20 songs were about such unholy things that it made me sick. And it made me sicker to know that I had listened to some of them and enjoyed it. God put a great burden on my heart yesterday and I really let our kids and myself have it for listening to that crud. I saw the sour looks on their faces which said, "I'm not giving up my music!" It broke my heart. Sometimes I really don't know how to get across the idea of giving up everything for Christ. I got really hard on myself, questioning whether I am doing a good job or not. Am I showing them a good example? I started examining the way I live my life. There are many inconsistencies. I looked at my music and movies and my TV shows. Are they what a Christ himself would be listening to and watching? I think not. Do I take every chance I have to spread Christ? I think not. I need to let go. Lord God, Father, make me let go.
The other question I have about being a youth minister is something I heard in one of my graduate classes. If adolescence is all about finding out who you are and Christianity is about denying self, how can I ask these kids to deny the self that they haven't even found? I think that is why I disagree with baptizing kids early. I believe that my job is to equip them for the time when they realize what they want and they have to choose between that and Christ. Lord God help them to make the right choice when the time comes.
Josh
2 comments:
I'm glad that you and others like you minister to the young. I doubt Cordell has this problem, but make certain your youthgroup understands the dangers of corporate churches that pervert our religion. thanks and god bless.
I apologize for the length of this reply. I would have replied via e-mail, but I could not locate your address on the blog. Anyway, I thank you for interest in this subject of great concern, and I will attempt to explain the most troubling issues as I perceive them:
Corporate Churches are growing by leaps and bound and thereaten to usurp the legitimacy and very tradition of Christianity by making a commerical enterprise. By turning their places of worship into theatres and virtual retail outlets, they convert God's house into a "den of theives."
Basic principles of the Bible are revised, overlooked, or discarded simply because it serves their own avarice and greed. It is the young who are the targets because they are most succeptible to the "hyper-media" and "power-point" propaganda. A most troubling fact is that Corporate churches are devoid of elders, and therefore openly reject and disdain the experience, wisdom, and traditions passed down though the aged generations.
Many of these corporate churches take to selling merchandise in addition to collecting member donations. Larger franchise locations whose growth and expansion I have witnessed over the past four years have phased in the retail operation very gradually.
Eventually, they will have constructed a larger facility from which they will operate stores and cafes. Is it a church or a shopping mall? Jesus explicitly forbids profiteers from this hijacking of religion.--The Bible shows it as His one and only cause for outrage. And yet corporate chuches overlook this?
Journey Church of Norman is just the microcosm of this greater (corporate) driven impulse toward material culture. They did not of course openly advertise the greatness or scope of their ambition, but I have obtained a copy of their blueprints and plans for expansion which include retail stores and cafes. . . I fear this will inevitably, and disasterously lead the people toward materialism and away from genuine spirituality.
John 2: 13 - 22
Matthew 21: 12 - 13
Mark 11: 15 - 17
Luke 19: 45 - 46
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