A Bus, A Dream, A Mission.

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Few can argue with the need for transportation within youth ministry. It’s a staple of ministries large and small. Either a church car pools, rents vans, or if they have the means, takes their own bus or van. Many years ago a vision was birthed to reach the students of Wilmington at a church with a newly hired youth pastor. With lots of creative fundraising and looking, a bus was found at an auction site. The bus had a diesel engine, but the listing said gas and we walked away with TWO buses at great deals. These were prison buses, used to transport prisoners.

Imagine two beige prison buses, driving back to Wilmington, and pulling into the church parking lot. For one season the youth pastor (me) tortured the youth group with orange t-shirts—riding in a beige bus! Never saw too many wear those shirts. (!) We were able to give one bus away to a young youth ministry in the next county.

Even cooler, there happened to be a guy at our church that used to paint buses! We taped the bus up, and we painted it the beautiful Teal colors you see now, in honor of our local UNCW Seahawks. We placed custom seats in it. The old seats had scratched etchings I’m not sure how cuffed-up prisoners could manage to write on the backs of the seats. We put a custom sound system in it. It was a youth ministry’s dream bus, or so we thought. It was God’s bus. It was our bus.

The memories students created with that bus are amazing. Many can tell you stories of riding to assist families hit by Hurricane Katrina in Gulfport, MS, riding to snow covered mountains on treacherous winding mountain roads for unforgettable winter retreats, going to DNOW Conferences, Christian Music Concerts, Theme Parks, Caroling to Shut-Ins, or just a local trip to the beach to refresh tourists with a bottle of water and a conversation about Jesus.

All these memories were possible by God and by volunteers who gave of their blood, sweat and tears (and even a torn plantaris muscle) to get those crazy teenagers a little closer to Jesus (some quicker than others!) My drivers are the greatest in the world. They love Jesus, and they love students. All have contributed much to God’s purposes fulfilled in the lives of these students.

We are officially selling the bus. Going to miss this. In a way it’s transformational. This bus went from transporting captives as far as the law goes, to transporting those who were once captive to sin, and now set free in Jesus. Fittingly, the bus is being sold to an up and coming youth ministry a county away. Excited for them. They will rock that Bus for the kingdom! The legacy of the Green Bus will continue! I’m so glad such a resource was used and will continue to be used to point people to Jesus.

Middle School Forest for the Trees

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SunthroughtreesSometimes you have to see the Middle School Forest for the trees. Ministering to Middle School students is a thrill! I love to see the light bulb come on when they connect their lives to biblical truth or live out life in such a way that shows true discipleship is happening. Today was a glimpse into that crazy forest called Middle School Ministry and I definitely saw some trees poppin’ out in the distance! Okay, enough with the metaphor…but today in our middle school small group, I saw something amazing happen. i flipped the structure of the class to keep things hoppin’, and we did things in reverse. Prayer Requests first, bible study next. Over the next few minutes I saw middle schoolers who normally shy away at praying and even giving requests, give deep, passionate requests for their friends and family. The room was covered with a quiet hush (!) as they shared of their struggles and desires for others. Rather than me praying for them and the “list” of prayer requests, I asked each of them to pray (yes, out loud) for someone else in the room. As we prayed, it was exciting to see students connect with Jesus on their level, praying in whatever way they could, most fearlessly, to a God understood and cared. I”m so proud of these students for stepping up today, and I know God will continue to honor their efforts to seek Him authentically. The next part, the Bible Study, was also just as exciting. They were engaged in reading and pondering how God used Nehemiah under Artaxerxes (get a Middle Schooler to say that with a straight face!) to accomplish his will for the israelite people. I love these students!

What People Really Hear

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After a recent Wednesday night student service, I was approached by one of our students and they began telling me of how God used the message to speak to them. It was a moment for me to check my spirit, to make sure that the glory was God’s and not mine. It’s never about me. When a student grows in their faith as a result of some attempt by me to teach the Word of God, it is only because of the working of the Spirit of God moving in the lives of these students that accomplishes anything. Yes, I’m humbled for sure, that God would use me in such an awesome way to impact teens. And it’s such a joy to celebrate that in their lives. But I’m also aware of the warning James 3 has for teachers, “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.” It is by the grace of God that I have the joy and privilege of seeing students “get it”. Not from anything I do, but from a simple willingness by me to be moldable by what God is doing in me. If God isn’t doing anything in me, how then can he do anything through me? I know God has given every believer a story to tell. The question then is not can we tell of what God has done in our lives, but will we? To some degree, all of us are teaching others with our lives. People are either seeing Jesus in us or we are leading others away from Jesus based on what they don’t see in our lives. My continual prayer is not that students would hear words, but they would see the words of Jesus lived out in my life and those that live out Jesus in front of them.

Trusting God at 80mph

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Understanding the title before you begin to read the rest of this post is most important. Picture me, frozen in time, gripping the handle tightly as my driver friend (insert favorite NASCAR joke here) races through the rainy, very slick roads of a small town in an Eastern European country, with a determined look on his face which speaks to his desire to make it to his intended destination—a church he pastors, or otherwise scrape the paint off the next vehicle ahead. I’m convinced this guy is passionate about seeing souls coming into the kingdom of God, based not on the attention he gives to the road, but rather the passion in his heart for the people of Hirbovat, Moldova.

Faithfully serving and teaching those gathered on a cold Sunday morning, where there are no padded pews or ladies who persist on having the thermostat adjusted (there is no thermostat here). The temperature is just fine, thank you. A warm 45 degrees Fahrenheit. The sermon comes with a dose of bundled up worshippers who sing with breath-you-can-see joy after walking fifteen minutes over mud, bumps, potholes; enduring splashes from passing vehicles and nosey loose pets. Such people are grateful for a space to call their own, although this is the second time they have moved, and are moving for a third very soon.

What is behind the passion of this pastor and the commitment of such people as these? It is, simply and profoundly put, trust. A trust in a faithful God who asks for reckless abandon to all who would come and follow him, no matter the cost. God will see us through. Through the sanctifying work of Christ, God will see us through. Trust that shows faith and courage when the power from a single power cord stretched to the limit goes out and the worshippers continue, not missing a beat. Trust that points to the power of prayer as family members come to Christ, and needs are met, proving God cares for his children.

Trust that even at speeds that feel like 80mph to me, are echoed by laughter and proclamation of a pastor who says, “I LOVE working for God”! To the God who owns the silver and the gold, everything is His, He proves himself faithful to this young pastor.

The same can be said of others who have come before this pastor, fervently working to plant a church that plants churches. Having moved multiple times and to multiple locations, there are many in Filadelfia Church who desire to see everyone in Aneni Noi come to faith and repentance in Christ Jesus. From young women being discipled, the widow’s needs being met, the student’s questions being patiently answered, orphans being rescued, to passionate missions teams eager to lock arms from across the ocean, this church stands on the front lines in the spread of the gospel.

The Challenge of Being In The World and Not of It

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The recent shootings on the campuses of Seattle Pacific University and Reynolds High School are indeed a tragedy and a reminder to us all that life is precious and also temporary on this earth. We hug our children a little tighter, thank God for their safety and presence with us, and continue about our lives.

As I heard the news reports come in bit by bit, the media began a typical play by play of tragedies that we are becoming all too familiar with. Finding out incoming new details quicker than the next guy can become a pursuit with an easy search on social media. But at the heart of the tragedy are lost lives, broken hearts and communities reeling with grief and questions that often go unanswered or are given answers unsuitable to the ones asking. The armchair philosophers chime in quickly (and oftentimes should) on the ills of such things as gun violence, lack of safety in the schools, or the nature of broken families impacted by divorce, mental illness, lack of a moral compass, or any number of fill in the blank crises that many students shoulder daily.

If you want to go down the gun violence path, blaming the guns isn’t going to help. You can find research that points to an increase in gun ownership and a decrease in gun violence if you like. But that’s not the point of this post. My point is simply this: The world we live in is the world that Jesus called us to be in, as his followers. We are to not shrink back and go hide in a hole until Jesus comes back. Tragedies will happen. Our students and people in general need the light of Christ in their lives. We are the light of the world, a city on a hill.

I love the public school system because in large measure it’s where the greatest mission field of students is. You can make the argument for homeschooling and private schooling and I’ll sit down with you and agree with you whole-heartedly over a cup of coffee. I’ve chosen to send my child (who is a believer) to public school because I believe that I should practice what I preach, and teach him the same. I volunteer at the public school; I visit the lunches at public school. I go to students’ events and games. I’ve volunteered at the private school and visited lunches there also, simply to be amongst the students God has placed in our community. My wife and I have even attempted homeschooling with our son, going to the homeschool convention, with an armload of curriculum to boot. It’s the call of Jesus on my life to be in the world and not of it that beckons me to be among those who need Jesus, no matter where that takes me.

When tragedy happens, don’t make the mistake of throwing the baby out with the bath water. There are a lot of teachers and administrators and students in the public school system that needs the church to be salt and light with them.

Pray for the victims and families of these senseless tragedies. Pray for the perpetrators too. Thank a teacher, principal, or parent. Encourage them in their role in the public sector. Follow Jesus’ command to be in and not of in John 17:14-19 or as someone put it better, not of, but sent into.

 

Well This Is A First…An Unexpected Journey

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God has afforded me the incredible opportunity to work with amazing people and incredible students. I’ve laughed with students and celebrated with them on the mountain top experiences, and I’ve cried with families and students in the depths of darkness and despair.  I have gone from admiring the student who was confidently aware of God’s plan for their life and well on their way to fleshing out that plan in the strength of Christ, to seeing confused, often dazed glances of students who asked “why” during life’s tragedies and wondered whether the next minute of life would bring heartache or doubt.

In all these times, God’s sovereign hand has been at work. His guiding hand, his greatness, his providential expanse of working out that which He has set out to accomplish. We have been able to share in such a journey. As the people who love God, we have, by the mercy and grace of God, been able to experience the awe and wonder of God in life’s joys and pains.

It’d be great if every youth ministry story had a happy ending; a crescendo to well laid out plans and prayed over experiences. Most stories that are shared in youth ministry circles do have such endings. But how many times do you hear of a story in which the goal wasn’t achieved? I’ve got one for you, and it’s taken awhile to sort through. Being in youth ministry awhile, a sort of familiarity sets in to otherwise new experiences for those who’ve never been. The calendaring, communicating of times, dates, costs, transportation, food, speakers, devotions, schedules, leaders,  –what’s needed for a youth event to become more than just a trip, but an experience for a teen to encounter Christ in a new and fresh way. Disclaimer: trips aren’t youth ministry, and youth ministry isn’t just trips, but you’ll find the two working in tandem quite often.

Plans were made for a staple event in student ministry – the Christian Music Concert. There are lots of options out there. The goals? To expose students to the positive message and example of Christian artists as an alternative to today’s cultural offerings in music, to expose students to moments of worship, to encourage the spiritual formation of student-mentor relationships with leaders ready to engage and love on students, and to have fun while doing it!

ImageIn short, our bus broke down. Bus break-downs just happen. Tires blow, engines over heat, a myriad of things can happen. In our case, a serpentine belt snapped. That’s simply the backdrop of a greater story.  A group of students and adults excited and ready to rock out for Jesus and set under some great teaching—suddenly plans were put on hold. No Plan B.  Calls were made to people who could help, but challenges arise quickly when you’re far away from home. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. The bus simply broke down. We moved everyone away from the highway, and then minutes later, a van just pulled over and offered to help us.

It was exactly what we needed. We climbed in the van, so thankful to God for these kind people, and drove to a pretty cool tourist spot along I-95, and regrouped our plans. Our bus driver stayed behind to attempt to make repairs, and as time went on, it was becoming more apparent that we might not make the concert. Social media confirmed our fears when a sellout crowd packed the arena we were headed to. So we became tourists. We hung out in the burger joint, played cards and waited. As the minutes turned into hours, we soon discovered the kindness of a patrol officer helping our driver get parts. Three trips to an auto parts store, and our bus was working again! Thanks to some mechanical prowess by our driver, we were able to go back home in about two hours after the breakdown.  In fifteen years of ministry, I had never cancelled an event due to a break down–maybe on the journey back home or even to a destination, but never before a destination. There were hopes of salvaging the last hour of the concert if the bus had been fixed at a certain time. But that didn’t happen.

The kindness of two men and a van at just the right time, the patience of some great adult leaders, the mechanical skill of our driver, the generosity of a patrol officer, and some wonderful time for bonding experiences playing cards and eating tacos and spicy ginger ale proved to be a movement of God’s grace upon a youth group wanting to go to a concert. And even the drummer from the Newsboys liked our photo of us hangin out in the burger joint on Instagram before they went on to play! The mood was happy on the way back home. We had missed a concert, but we had seen a greater concert put on by a God who cares about his creation deeply. Image

Spent Another Late Night Over Pancakes…

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Took the guys small group out to our favorite place to hang out—IHOP. Much can be said of just being dudes and hanging out for just a while. We did a brief Bible study where the guys read some and we talked and asked questions and just tried to take in what God was saying to us. We prayed for our waitress Samantha and left a tip Jesus would want us to leave.  No matter where we are in life, it’s moments like this that remind me why I’m doing life together with some of the greatest students in the world.