Making It In Ministry

Are you afraid of the dark? That’s a question I’ve been asking myself repeatedly over the last couple days.  See, it’s VBS week here at St. Andrews, and I’ve worked a couple of late nights (by choice!) where I’ve been walking around the building by myself in the dark, and crossing from church to office (which is located next door) and back.  I can’t lie to you. I managed to totally freak myself out both nights.  When the building is empty, you hear all the sounds.  I don’t know what the sounds are, but they happen.  I can’t even tell you how many times I got scared by my own reflection in the glass of the doors and framed artwork.  I may have even asked aloud, “Is this whole building made out of glass?!” after about the tenth time I jumped. Embarrassing.

Am I afraid of the dark? I was doing a serious analysis of myself last night, as I made the walk from the church to the office take only 3 steps, instead of the usual 5 (Again, embarrassing.) I mean, I do just fine in my house.  I don’t need a princess nightlight in my bedroom.  I don’t need a light on in the kitchen overnight.  So if it’s not the dark, what is it that’s making my heart race and putting me on edge?  What makes me feel like I need to walk a little faster when it’s dark?  It could just be being alone in a huge building that’s making me uneasy, or it could be what darkness represents.  Either way, for the first time in probably forever, I actually stopped to think about my feelings about the dark.

Ironically enough, our week at VBS is all about how Jesus is the light of the world, and how he overcomes all the darkness in our lives. Each day, the kids will be learning a “Bible Point,” a short phrase that helps them remember the take away point of the day.  It’s phrased, “Jesus gives us ____________. Follow him!”  Hope, Courage, Direction, Love, and Power.  Those are the things we want the kids to remember from the week, that when life is tough or scary, Jesus is there to give them hope, to give them courage, to give them direction, to love them, and to give them the power they need to overcome.  That’s what VBS is for.  It doesn’t matter that our decorations don’t cover our whole building, or look like the pictures.  It doesn’t matter if it rains, and the games have to be adjusted to be played inside.  It doesn’t matter if the crafts end up lost or the songs are forgotten.  What matters is that the kids leave this place on Friday with a greater understanding of just how much Jesus loves them.

 

Am I afraid of the dark? Probably yes.  But do I know I have a savior that will guide me through it (both literal and figurative darkness)? Absolutely.

 

Happy VBS Week!

Back in January, I did battle with a nasty case of bronchitis that had me coughing so much and for so long that people started to be able to recognize that it was me walking down the street by the way I was covering my cough (lookin’ at you, boss). Since that time, I’ve had some pain in my upper chest that I can’t seem to get rid of.  After a scan to make sure that my lungs are healthy and in good shape (which they are), it’s been determined…by literally the BEST doctor ever…that I must’ve given myself some kind of musculoskeletal injury in all the coughing. Treatment plan: Lots of stretching for those muscles, and working on improving my posture. Improving my posture is going to be the hardest thing.  I’ve only spent 25 years working on the one I’ve got.  Now I have to start all over. It’s a fix that’s going to require a lot of self-awareness (Sit up straight, you lazy bum!), and it’s also going to require me to look up.

Look up.  Seems simple enough.  But you see, I’ve developed this bad habit of looking down at the ground, especially as I walk.  Maybe it’s because I trip enough just over my own feet, and I don’t really need uneven sidewalks and pinecones to help me.  But it doesn’t really matter why I look down. In order to fix my posture, it’s something I have to change.  I have to look up.  

Looking up can be a powerful thing.  In a literal sense, looking up better connects you with the world and the people in it.  It’s really easy to walk past a person without making eye contact, right? I mean, sure, you’re aware they’re coming, but you stay to the right and they stay to the right, and you don’t actually have to acknowledge each other once you’ve moved out of their way. Or you go into your favorite coffee shop and order your drink while staring at the menu the whole time. Or worse…staring at your phone the whole time. Looking down put the emphasis on self.  I look down while I walk to make sure I’M ok.  I look down at my phone in case someone is trying to talk to ME. What if, instead, we were looking up? We could give that person moving in the opposite direction a cheerful “Good morning!” We could read the nametag of the person behind the counter and address them by name.  Literally looking up shifts our focus off ourselves, and gives us the power to engage with the world around us.

This week, we’ll be listening to For King and Country’s “Fix My Eyes on You,” for a picture of what it may look like when our focus is in the right place.  In Colossians, Paul writes, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth,” (3:2) and in Philippians, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” (4:8-9) Our study this week will look at these verses as a clear explanation of where our focus should be. Together with the song, we hope to understand a little better how God can use us in the world, if we’re just willing to look up.

Side note: to read more about how we, as Christians, can engage culture and the world, check out www.cultureencounter.com to follow along with St. Andrews summer sermon series, fittingly titled “Culture Encounter.”

 

“You’ll never look at water the same way again.” That’s been the tagline in a series of Wisconsin Dells advertisements, in which the person featured has a “splashback” (a flashback moment after being splashed in the face with some water) that takes them back to their vacation in the Dells. For example, this mom in the car wash, doing what I’ve always wanted to try.

Obviously a memorable vacation for her…

Water is a powerful substance, yet it’s also one of the simplest.  You only need 2 atoms of hydrogen and 1 atom of oxygen in the same place.  Then chemistry happens, and you end up with water.  Pretty basic. How is something that simple so powerful? We’ve all seen, either in the news or firsthand, the power of water in large quantities.  You can find numerous videos of whole houses being carried off, or four lane roads being washed away in an instant.

But even in small amounts, water is still crazy powerful.  Water is the number one physical necessity to sustain life. According to my quick Google search (I promise just to double check my facts), you can survive for 72 hours without water.  Let me just go ahead and state the obvious for you. That’s not a long time. Water = life.

In addition to drinking it, you know, to stay alive, we also use water to wash.  To wash our clothes, our dishes, ourselves, our everything, and being clean is a pretty good feeling.  Everything is refreshed and renewed. Close your eyes and imagine you just got out of the shower, and now you’re drinking a cold glass of water. Niiiiiiice, right?

Basic H2O.  Not only does it do all of the above for us, but it’s also God’s tool of choice many times.  His whole creation has turned against Him? Put one family on a boat, and use WATER to refresh the Earth.  Time to bring His people to the promised land, on the OTHER side of the Red Sea? Can’t go over it, can’t go under it, have to go through it.  Time for Jesus to start his ministry? Change this WATER into wine.  What physical thing can be done to bring people into His family and remind them that they have been washed of their sins? Let’s baptize with WATER. In our baptism, God, along with scripture, uses water to “mark us as one redeemed by Christ.” In this, we’re promised DAILY washing of our sins, as well as life, sustained by Him.  

 

Our first “Music with THE Message” study looks at NEEDTOBREATHE’s “Washed by the Water.” Check out these lyrics.

Even when the rain falls

Even when the flood starts rising

Even when the storm comes

I am washed by the water

No matter what we’re facing in life, we are continually washed by the water.  When we understand this, we’ll never look at water the same way again.

What’s your music preference?  I don’t think there’s a word that can really summarize mine.  I’m fortunate to have satellite radio in my car (thanks, Mom and Dad!), and I have presets that include Country (new and old), one called “The Coffee House,” “The Blend”…whatever that really means, today’s “popular” music (think Justin Timberlake solo), the “popular” music of the early 2000’s (think JT as part of ‘N Sync), a Sinatra station, and two stations that play Christian music.  Don’t even get me started on my Pandora account…

So, my taste in music is all over the place.

From my observations, MOST of the youth I interact with prefer today’s top hits, and that’s really no surprise, considering that that’s what they see and hear all over the place.  Now, we could go into a LONG rant about the messages that secular music sends, but that’s not what this post is about.  I’ll be the first to admit that nothing makes you realize the inappropriateness of a song faster than listening to it in a car/room full of teens and preteens, but we’re kidding ourselves if we think that we can totally keep kids guarded from those things today (and we’d probably be doing them a disservice by doing so, honestly).

SOOOOOOOO, this summer, I’m on a mission. A mission to introduce the youth here to the idea that there is music with a message that you WANT to hear. Music with THE message, actually.  The message of God’s love and forgiveness, of his ability to help us in our every need, of how he can work through us.  Each week, we’ll be looking at a different song from Christian radio, and listening to the message it has for us.  You can hear the songs and get a recap of our study right here each week!