Will You Fight For It?

I well remember them [my afflictions],
    and my soul is downcast within me.
²¹ Yet this I call to mind
    and therefore I have hope:

²² Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
    for his compassions never fail.
²³ They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:20-23

            If you read the first 19 verses of Lamentations chapter three you will find a laundry list of similes describing Jeremiah’s feelings of loss about the destruction of Jerusalem. They detail how he feels forsaken by God. He says, “…like a lion in hiding, he dragged me from the path and mangled me” (v. 10-11). And then there’s my personal favorite, “He has broken my teeth with gravel” (v. 16a). So how do we get from that utter sadness and despair to these verses talking about the love and faithfulness of God?

            Jeremiah says when he remembers all of his problems he is saddened to his very soul. (Let’s pause here to say that spending your time recounting to yourself all of your difficulties is a recipe for depression anyway.) Then he “calls to mind” three aspects of God that give him hope: Love, Mercy (compassion), and Faithfulness. It’s no accident that he had to intentionally call those qualities of God to mind. Sometimes you just have to fight for it.

            I challenge you today to take a quick mental examination of what your focus is drawn towards. If it is drawn towards your problems and difficulties, it’s time to fight to call to mind the Love, Mercy, and Faithfulness of God. Will you fight for it?

Steer Your Fear

     I'm not a parent, and for the near future plan to keep it that way, but I was someone's child and I work with students and parents on a daily basis. It puts me in a great place to make some observations and I've noticed some cool things over the years. For instance, there are many levels of cleanliness when it comes to parents. Some people will always rinse off a dropped pacifier before getting it back to the child, some don't care. I had a friend once who used to hold the business end of the pacifier in his mouth while getting his daughter dressed and then give it right back to her. This phenomena seems to vary by child. If the first born drops their pacifier it's incinerated like medical waste and a new, hermetically sealed one is installed. By the third child the, "just blow it off" method seems more prominent.

     An important job of parents is to steer the fear of your kids. You don't want them to be afraid of the dark, but you do want them to be afraid of running into traffic. That fear makes them careful until they are old enough to understand and avoid the peril without fear. My wife has an irrational fear of dragonflies that developed from childhood. I'll be honest, not super helpful. My sister was afraid to flush the toilet for a while as a youngster because one of those automatic toilets at the mall flushed with her on it and scared her to death. I guess she thought she was going down with the ship. It's an important to steer the fears of your kids away from things that cripple them and towards things that protect them. It affords them the opportunity to grow to maturity.

     "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
               wisdom;
          all who follow his precepts have good 
               understanding.
          To him belongs eternal praise."

-Psalm 111:10

     This thought is short and simple. We get caught up in that word "fear." We think, "That's only for the Old Testament God. The NT God is all about love man!" Never forget the OT God and the NT God are the same guy. 

     Also, ponder this. The God who created the universe, with all of it's nuanced greatness, had to squeeze the concept of our need to be awed, amazed, and a little afraid of the glory and power of his presence into our language. It's sort of like trying to play a Beethoven symphony on the triangle. There just aren't enough notes to describe it adequately.

     So when scripture talks about "fearing God." Think of it as the fear our parents steered into us. Just like a healthy fear of electricity helps you to mature from childhood to adulthood in a healthy way, a fear of the Lord allows you to mature from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity. 

Top Ten Reasons Students Should Go to Summer Camp

10. Outrageous Competitions
     The games we play at Summer Camp are just ridiculous. Epic on a scale that is impossible at home...therefore, you should go to camp!


9. Hone Your Paddling Skills...
     C'mon, who doesn't like canoeing! 


8. "Luxury" Dormitories
     We do summer camp in style in scenic Forsyth, GA. Seated in a former cow pasture, Camp Timberlake is resplendent with wildlife and nature and all the comforts of home. (If 40 people sleep in your bedroom that is.)


7. Sanctioned Stupidity
     Let's be honest, some of the things we do at camp are stupid. Mud Fights, Grits Wrestling, Bobbing For Apples in Baked Beans, Fishing Baby Ruth's out of Mountain Dew, etc. The great part about summer camp is that it's supervised by competent leaders at all times who know just when to call it off. (BONUS FOR PARENTS, your students don't have to do crazy messy things on your property!)


6. "Gourmet Food"
     The discerning palate will be treated to a culinary master class that features a light dough topped with a tomato based sauce and a sausage-like meat topping (pizza) as well as French classics such as chien de maïs. (Copy and Paste that into freetranslation.com to get the answer)


5. Disconnection from the Outside World
     The world of kids and students is packed with distractions: media and entertainment that are constantly begging for our attention. One of the greatest parts of Summer Camp is pulling the plug on those things for a week and resetting your brain.


4. (Non-Romantic) Relationships that Last a Lifetime
     I know that some of my most meaningful friendships were forged at Summer Camp. And the advent of social media like Twitter and Facebook only makes it easier to stay connected and keep up with your new buddies!


3. Awesome Worship!
     The worship is excellent at camp every year and this year will be no different. The great thing about worship at camp is that there is no schedule or agenda. If service gets over at 11, 12, or 1 doesn't matter as long as we've had as much time as we need to seek the face of God.


2. Intense Encounters With God
     I can't quantify it, but there is something special about that patch of red dirt we go to every year for camp. Maybe it's the disconnection from concerns and distractions at home, maybe it's the camaraderie, maybe it's the atmosphere of worship over the whole campus, but God shows up at summer camp. I can tell you the names of numerous ministers and missionaries (myself included) who were called into ministry at the altar in summer camp. The numbers of those who have received salvation and have been filled with the Holy Spirit are off the charts. It will change your life.


1. What Happens at Camp DOESN'T Stay at Camp
     The change that the Holy Spirit stirs in your life at summer camp doesn't (or at least shouldn't) evaporate when you catch the bus ride home. It lingers. It stays with you. It empowers you to continue to reach lost people in your local community and around the world.




Like I said, you should go to camp!


     If you're part of UpRising at Evangel Community Church we're going to camp the week of June 11th-15th. You can get an application at the information center or on Wednesday nights. The cost is $145 and is due on May 28th. If you're reading this and you aren't part of our ministry in Georgia, check here for info on GA Summer Camps! Can't wait to see you there!

The Energizer

     I am a youth pastor. One of the privileges and dubious honors of youth ministry is over-nighters and lock-ins. A “more seasoned” minister than myself once told me that each lock-in takes one year of a youth pastor’s life. I’m beginning to come around to his point of view. Last weekend my students, some of my leaders, and myself played laser tag from 11:30pm to 7:00am with maybe 2 minute breaks between rounds. It was exhausting, but it was tons of fun and probably one of the best lock-ins ever.

Who do you depend on to give you more life?

     Over the course of the night we played a variety of games like Elimination, Capture the Flag, and Royal Rumble. The variety kept it fun and made the night go by super fast. One game we played was particularly interesting. It was called “Energizer.”

Here are the rules: 

1. Each player starts with 25 lives and 100 shots.

2. One player is the “Energizer.” This player shoots his own team
mates. Each time he hits a team mate they get +25 lives and +100
shots.

3. OBJECT: Stay alive, defend your energizer, and destroy the enemy’s energizer.

     I was the energizer. Let me just go ahead and say…it was stressful. “Pastor Justin I need more lives!” PJ, help I’m out of shots!” “Pastor, I need help!” It was like that scene from Bruce Almighty where a divine Jim Carey is overwhelmed by prayers and pleas for help. (Maybe I didn’t have the weight of the world on me, but at 3:00am it was certainly stressful).

      Students, one of the real blessings of life as a youth pastor is being there for students who have hit a spiritual stall or roadblock. We YP’s work very hard to cultivate real relationships with our students so that you will come to us in your times of spiritual need. People, parents and students, often say thank you after they have navigated through a difficult time and my frequent response is, “It’s what I do.” I promise I don’t say that flippantly! That is not my Schwarzenegger one liner; it’s my view on what God created me to do. So to the students who are reading this, from my church or not: Talk to your Youth Pastor. He or She wants to help you, to pray with you, and love you through the tough times of life. That said we have a second job as well.

     Colossians is a book of the Bible that is really a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Colosse. He wrote them many things about how to live and he gave them many words of encouragement. Then he finishes his letter with this statement:

Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. (Col. 4:12)
     You see Epaphras was the man who had founded the Colossian church. He planted it and watched it grow and his prayer wasn’t that his church would grow, but that the believers created by it would be mature and fully assured. Another important task of the Youth Pastor is to get you ready to spiritually take care of yourself. Students, there is going to come a day when your Youth Pastor can’t be your Energizer for your dwindling faith. You will reach a point of no return where you can’t fall back on that person anymore or it won’t be enough. Ask yourself if you treat your Wednesday night youth service like life support for your faith. You come in dead and expect the worship band and your pastor to rub the paddles together, yell “Clear!”, and shock you back into faith in Jesus. That only works for so long before you flatline.

     Students, I want you to know that today, I’m pledging to renew my efforts for you in prayer. I will “wrestle” for you in prayer. I will pray that you will not need to fall back on someone else to give you a spiritual booster shot so that you can keep on living, but will, “stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. I hope you will renew your efforts to grow up big and strong…in Jesus.

Troy: The Battle Makes the Story

            I love action movies. The cheesy ones, the ridiculous concepts, and the “that could never happen!” movies are just awesome. But the ones I love the most are the ones that are made on an epic scale. I loved the Lord of the Rings movies, not for all of their nerdy goodness, but for the massive scale of the battle scenes. Everything just seemed larger. That’s what I loved about the movie Troy.

            For me, the film Troy was perfect for a number of reasons. I’m a big fan of both The Iliad and The Odyssey. Epic poems are awesome. I’ve always loved Greek mythology. So when I found out Troy was coming I was super pumped. I saw it the weekend it debuted and it is a great film. I’ve got to tell you though; the opening sequence kind of let me down…

            Let’s set the scene here. Barren dessert battlefield. Two armies facing off. The leaders decide to have their champions fight instead of killing hundreds of men. I’m thinking, “Finally! Achilles gets to whoop some tail! This is what I’ve been waiting for!” The scene is drawn out perfectly. Slowly acceleration as Achilles runs, obvious bad guy, escalating music, huge evil guy vs. small good guy…and then it happens. Achilles jumps and appears to lightly poke the pad guy with his sword and he falls down dead. I remember audibly, in the theatre saying, “That’s it!” I wanted a battle! I wanted shields to crash and blows to be exchanged! The battle is what makes it good right? The battle is what tells the story. If the movie had ended right there I might have walked out. Troy stinks if it ends in the first ten minutes! Sometimes the conflict really makes the story.

            Think about all of your favorite Bible stories. Would you want to read, “Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and the Hot Tub at Nebuchadnezzar’s  Palace Because Everyone Resolved Their Differences?” or “Daniel and the Cuddly Puppies’ Den?” Would kids in Children’s Church want to sing: 

            Joshua, didn't fight Jericho, Jericho, Jericho.

            Joshua, didn’t fight Jericho, Jericho, Jericho.
            Because they decided to walk around, around, around.

          Sometimes the conflict really makes the story and without it there wouldn’t BE a story.

            If you’re in a conflict right now ask yourself, “What kind of story does God want to tell through me and this situation?” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I love conflict or that you should seek out hard times to give God a chance to prove himself. He doesn’t need our help to prove his greatness. What I am saying is that if you’re in the middle of a conflict you can take solace in the fact that God is the one who’s writing your story. In fact he’s the “author and perfecter” of our story (Heb. 12:2). Trust him to write a good ending.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
James 1:2-4