Watch this very brief video of Obama sharing about his desire to be financially transparent.  We can think what we want about him and his plans for our country, but if he upholds this promise it’s a GREAT thing.  A greater concern for me however is the fact that the Church is not financially transparent.  For instance, why don’t we know how much our pastors makes?  Why is it a secret?  Why is it awkward for us to talk about how much we make from the church? Maybe we’d say its not a “secret,” but why then don’t we publicize it?  In my opinion financial transparency in the church is crucial.  This, to me, would halt much of the skepticism and exemplify biblical principles much more effectively.  But the bottom line is I just wish we would be more open in the church with our finances…

An article entitled, “Supreme Court says religious group has no right to erect granite marker in public park” (AP) was just released this morning.  It’s an interesting article in that the religious group is one that I’ve not heard much about – The Summum.  It’s a Latin term meaning the sum total of all creation.  This group wants to erect its “Seven Aphorisms of Summum” monument in Utah’s Pioneer Park. The group, formed in 1975, says the Seven Aphorisms were given to Moses on Mount Sinai along with the Ten Commandments. Moses destroyed the tablet containing the aphorisms because he saw the people weren’t ready for them, the Summum say.

This, my friends, could be a great discussion at your small group this week!  Here are a couple things you could bring up with your college students/-age people:

1. You can get political with this if you want – could be dangerous though.  You could ask questions like: How much should gov’t get involved in religious proclamations, whether verbal or physical such as in this article?  As Christians we love the fact that the 10 Commandments are posted in a state park, but in our country every religious organization has equal rights…so where should gov’t draw the line with these things if any?
2. You can ask more open ended questions like: What would you say God thinks about a nation like ours where every religion has equal rights?  You could actually look at 1Kings 18:21 after the discussion.  This is where Elijah looks at the people and challenges them to make a decision on which God they’re going to worship.  A question you could throw out is, “Do you think maybe that’s what God would say to our country…?  Make sure you ask why or why not.
3. You can ask some foundational faith statements like: How do you think this group justifies this other tablet actually existing…versus someone just making it up?  What role should outside sources (extra-biblical) play in our faith development?  We have outside sources like, “Christian books,” so what role should those have in our faith development?  Are there similar dangers in this regard with us as the Summum have with the extra-biblical sources? (now that would be a fun question to ask…might ruffle some feathers, but would likely start great conversation)

Anyway, just some thoughts…fun to think through anyway.  Maybe print out the article, have them read it together, and then start discussing.  Make sure you have some specific Scriptures ready to go to challenge, encourage people in their thought processes.  This could get a bit messy, but I think the discussion could be very fun and healthy.

Today I’m working on powerpoint for this weekend’s seminars at the National Youth Ministry Conference in Columbus, OH. I’m teaching an 8 hour track with Kara Powell on preparing high school kids for life after youth group. We’ve been working together for the last couple months on our material – I’m very excited about it.

We have four 2 hour sessions we’re teaming up on. I’ll teach the bulk of two of them, and Kara will do the other two. The two I’m teaching on will cover the following topics:

1. Internal Confusion: Five Critical Issues We Must Prepare Kids to Face.  This will cover 5 areas of life college-age people think through differently than any other stage of life: identity, intimacy, meaning, pleasure and truth.  I will be discussing each topic in depth and then walking through what we need to do to prepare high school students for this time of their life.  Also my forthcoming book, College Ministry 101: a guide to working with 18-25 year olds (Zondervan), has 6 chapters devoted to these.  So, this weekend I will unpack that a bit – well, at a 30,000 ft. view.
2. The Slow Fade: Detachment From Christian Community Is a Process.  This time will talk through how the detachment after high school for youth today is rarely an overnight detachment – it’s much more of a slow fade out of Christian community.  I will be unpacking some of the ways in which we as leaders contribute to that (despite our best intentions) and how we might be able to bring lasting resolution to the issue.

In addition to this 8 hour track I’ll also be on a couple panels with Rick Lawrence, Kurt Johnson, and some others talking about the state of student ministry today.  I’ll also be leading an affinity group of college ministry leaders – where we sit around a circle of bean bags and talk life and ministry.  I’m looking forward to that time.  Plus, I get to have coffee and meals with some of great people!  I’ll try to update throughout the weekend on how things are going.

Anyway, fun stuff.  Oh, FYI, I will also be covering topic #1 (from a bit of a different angle) in one of the seminars at all of the CollegeLeader Regional Training events.

As American’s we love things to be black and white.  We may not want to admit it, but the phrase, “it’s just the way it is” can bring us a real sense of comfort.  When things are that simple there is a certain amount of satisfaction we have.

It’s the ambiguous that often rubs us wrong.  It’s the “gray” areas we don’t like.  If we can’t fully understand something we get frustrated.  Instead we like categories and systematics because it helps us feel like we understand.  Not that this is bad, but it is interesting when you think about it.

Yesterday I taught on a passage of Scripture that is clear, yet provokes questions.  It’s simple, yet serves as a catalyst for intellectual gymnastics.  I taught on Ecclesiastes 3:1-15.  Much of the passage can be summed up in verse 11b: “Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”

This passage articulates the fact that God has given us a certain amount of intellectual capacity to grasp the idea of “eternity.”  But this capacity has limits…and intentional limits.  The passage clearly states the purpose of our intellectual limitations: so that we will not fully understand.  hhhhmmmmm?

Interesting, is it not?

Working with college-age people – who just so happen to be in a stage of life where they are trying to figure everything out – this can be helpful.  College-age people often think they can solve debates that have been going on for thousands of years.  It can be healthy for some thought to be put into looking into these things, for sure.  But maybe we can also help them embrace the fact that they can never fully understand…because that’s the way God designed us.

 In addition, maybe we can help them better by not trying to make everything SO simple.  I’m all for understandable, but maybe we can also help them understand the fact that they won’t be able to understand EVERYTHING.  Man, talk about going against every cultural bone in our body…

But this is Scripture, is it not?  Scripture does give us insights into who God is, but this passage also let’s us know we’ll always fail to fully grasp how God works in our lives.  Personally, I think when we try to make God so simple and understandable that college-age people shy away from the Church.  When they grow up in the church learning everything as black and white and then enter the abstract world of the college-age years things change.  What they learned as black and white all the sudden become gray.  Maybe this passage can meet them where they are in that struggle to make sense of some of their thought processes…

A guy just sat down next to me.  He graduated from university of Portland in December of 2007.  Nice guy.  We got to talking a little about life.  He works part-time for Adidas, but is looking for something “full-time.”  Until then he works, hangs out with friends, and comes here to return emails and “surf the internet.”

I’m constantly reminded through these types of conversations that college grads, more than ever before, often are left lost when it comes to direction.  At 23 years old he still refers to himself as a “kid.”  His life revolves around social interaction with friends.  He is fully embracing this new found freedom he has.

30 years ago he would’ve been an anomaly.  Not today, that’s for sure.

Some get frustrated with no direction.  Some throw their hands in the air and just embrace every part of this free moment.  Working with people like this in ministry is fun, I think.  But watching people in midst of frustration is not at all.  This guy is enjoying life, but there is definitely parts of him that feels lost.  He even used that word.

People like him need us to be there, for encouragement and direction.  The conversation has started with this guy…he says he comes here a lot…I’ll make sure the conversation continues!

I’m sitting at my favorite coffee shop with Trent – 21 year old guy I introduced last week.  We’ve been talking about life, been good.  

Then, we saw a gentleman get out of his 4WD 2500 Ram Tough truck wearing a tie-dye Star Wars T-shirt with an epic Jedi battle scene on the front.  Unfortunately the glare off the door prevents you from seeing it, but OBI-WAN looked fierce.

So, I checked google and came across some others you might be interested in purchasing yourself.

It’s funny to think about the sub-culture of Star Wars or Star Trek…things of this sort.  When you see people wearing things like this, don’t you put them in some sort of category in your mind?  Maybe it’s a category you identify with, or maybe it’s a category you would title “weird,” possibly it’s a category you just don’t understand…or wait, maybe, it’s a category you don’t want anything to do with because you don’t understand…?

I wonder what people think when they see us get out of our car with a clearly Christian t-shirt…

Got back home late last night – around 10:30pm.  It was a long day of traveling.  Today I’ve met with three people from my church – all great guys.  Feels good to be back home in Portland.  I love traveling, but there’s no place like home (cliche, I know).  Nevertheless it’s the truth.

One of the best things about traveling so much is that I can step back and look at ministry from a distance.  So often you get so close to things that you lose site of what you’re leading…know what I mean?  Taking these steps back and looking at the “bigger picture” really helps me stay focused on where we’re heading in our ministry.

Sunday night I had dinner with about 10 youth workers at the camp that wanted to talk about college ministry and preparing kids for their college-age years.  It was a great time.  The thing I loved about it was we talked big picture and developing a ministry structure that helps college-age people.  I tend to think bigger picture anyway, but stepping back this weekend once again clarified some things for me for my ministry here in Portland:

1. God has given us more insight into ministry philosophy than we often realize.  If we can just tune into those more and develop infrastructures that facilitate that effectively in our context we’d be far better off.  I’ll probably write more on this – in blogs or articles.
2. College-age people are vital for any church…and the Church is vital for them.  So many youth pastors give up on college ministry simply because they don’t understand how it works or what it’s role is within the church.  Pastors don’t concentrate on college-age people because there are typically higher priorities at any given time.  Stepping back this weekend completely re-affirmed how this works in our church…or, how it fits in the big picture of what we’re doing.  I will be covering some of this topic more in a couple weeks at the National Youth Ministry Conference and also at the CollegeLeader regional training days.
3. If we’re not careful in our ministries we can VERY easily do things that actually undermine what we say we want to accomplish – without even realizing it.  Stepping back and thinking more deeply is the only way we’d see it.  This often comes from experience.  We know in our head that things ought to be a certain way, but without realizing it we can too easily implement things the ways we’ve always seen it done – simply because that’s all we know.  Again, I’ll write more about some of these things.
4. What we’re doing in our church is extremely unique.  Sitting with pastors as often as I do it constantly reminds me that what we’re doing is very different than “traditional” approaches.  Much of this is tied into #3 above, but I’m trying really hard to create a culture that is truly focused on the right things.  Not that traditional approaches are necessarily wrong.  I’m just trying to avoid some of the same problems that these approaches have created.  However, I’m also aware that even if we do avoid some of these issues…we’re just creating different problems.  I have no idea what those are (yet), but we’ll see.

Ok, I know that’s probably really ambiguous, but maybe it gets your mind going a little.  Or, maybe, it would push you to take some time away and take a fresh look at what you’re doing in your ministry.  Either way I’ll likely elaborate on these things again sooner than later….

I’ve had a great day meeting with youth pastors.  Talked with some great guys today.  That’s one part of being in so many places that’s fun.  Last night was “decision night” here at Hume.  I always have mixed feelings when it comes to decision nights.  

I think it’s good to have this time at camp.  I like the fact that there’s a point where students have to actually make a decision.  But, I’m always a little cautious.

The truth is in years past I’ve been more concerned about having kids “accept the Lord” or “get saved” than I was about clearly articulating the gospel.  I’ve realized, and I told counselors this last night, that my role is simple: to articulate the gospel message.  It’s not my job to get kids to respond, and it’s certainly not my role to drag things on to the point of getting kids to make emotionally charged decisions.  My job is to proclaim the truth…that’s it.

I told all the counselors that if nobody stays behind when I’m done, but I did my job at clearly laying out the gospel message then I can lay my head on my pillow with a clear conscience.  That’s all I’m concerned about.

I’m thankful to the Lord for working through last night – kids did stay behind.  But I guess I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not the end, but rather it’s possible that God uses me as a means to bring forth His truth.  It’s freeing to know that it’s not up to me.  

Like every other talk I’ve given there’s always something you’d like to change, but I laid my head down last night with a clear conscience.  For that, I’m thankful.

Tonight I’m speaking on standing firm on Scripture and hearing God’s voice in midst of the noise of the world.  What does that look like?  How can we tell it’s God?  Should be fun.

Yesterday was a travel day.  I left home at 6am, flew down through SF to Fresno, then drove up to Hume Lake Christian Camp.  I’m teaching at a high school camp here.  I LOVE this place!  I can’t say enough about it. They have great hearts and truthfully nobody does camp better. It’s a pleasure and honor to speak here.  Oh, and they always seem to have the greatest themes for camps – “Hey Rube” is the them this summer.  It’s a clown/mime theme but designed to walk through what it means to be salt and light.  Should be fun, I’ll be up here doing a week this summer.

This winter the theme is “Decision ‘09″ – a politically charged theme designed to bring kids to decide what it they are going to live for.  The theme verse is 1Kings 18:21 where Elijah asks the people, “How long will you limp between two opinions?  If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.”  

This is great.  There are too many kids in the church today that are wavering in life between two opinions.  Because they are (as I talked about last night) going back and forth they can’t stand firm in either – they limp in both.  The call this weekend is to decide what they’re going to live for.  If it’s for Baal, then do it.  If it’s for the LORD, then do it.  We all have to decide at some point…so why not right now…?  Fun theme.

Tonight is the gospel message.  I’m praying that I would be clear in articulating it and making sure they know what they are deciding on.  I don’t unfortunately have a camera with me, so no pics.  But I might have some people email them to me so I can post them this week.

The last two days I’ve met with almost a dozen different pastors/leaders in the Portland area to discuss approaches to higher education.  As a church we are going to be an extension campus for Eternity Bible College.  6 years ago, while I was on staff at Cornerstone a few of us were discussing our dream of starting a Bible college.  We ended up starting the college and it’s now completing its 5th year of education.  We had a few distinct reasons why we wanted to begin a new college:

1. Disconnection from local church.  All too often Christian college students go away to school and lose connection with the life and ministry of a local church.  We raise them in the church, but if someone desires a Christian education they have to leave and go away to a Christian college.  This is not a bad thing in itself, but it isn’t without some issues.  Essentially the college campus develops a system where they fulfill the role of the church: campus pastors, chapels, discipleship structures, mission trips, etc.  In some ways this is good because many local churches are still not ministering effectively to college-age people.  However, the separation from a local church during college is not healthy – no matter how you look at it.  Connection with a local church is vital for an individual to actually apply what they are learning – in their personal life as well as in ministry.  So, at the foundation of EBC, it’s connected to local churches in many different ways.  For example, EVERY student is required to serve in a local church 4-8 hrs a week.  Another thing that is unique is that the classes are taught by local pastors.  There is much more to it, but the gist is EBC is uniquely connected with local churches and intentionally makes sure students stay connected as well.
2. Indebtedness.   Far too many students desire a biblical education but end up accruing way too much debt to do so – especially those that desire to go into ministry or overseas missions.  This is a great disservice.  The reality is the university system (as a whole) has become a business and it’s costing the Church probably more than we realize.  At EBC you can complete your entire 4-year bachelor degree for about $13,000!  That’s about the same as one year at a typical Christian college.  This allows students to graduate with little if any debt.
3. Christian Bubble.  The reality is that many Christian colleges become a bubble.  And frankly many students get weird – some might even say “dis-functional.”  They are being filled with a bunch of head knowledge that can really cause a sense of arrogance.  Of course there are those that stay grounded, but I’ve found these are usually those that stay connected to local churches in some way – or are mentored by someone who is.   EBC requires certain classes to be taken at a secular university to keep Christian students engaged in the culture.  They sit through psychology, philosophy, social science, etc classes with people from completely different worldviews.  This is crucial and helps avoiding the bubble factor.  The truth is, in the Christian world, we are really good at building up straw man arguments about other worldviews and beliefs and then tearing them down.  Or, we just ignore other schools of thought all together.  Both can be damaging to students.  So, rather than exposing our students to other ways of thinking and then walking them through it, we ignore it all together or tear it down unfairly.  EBC also doesn’t have dorms, keeping the students living in the city in which they are going to school.

There is much more to the school and uniqueness (of course), but those are a few key aspects.  It has the academic rigor, but keeps students connected to the local church, does everything it can to keep them debt free, and forces them to stay engaged in culture while they’re being educated.

At EBC we’ve also defined “educated” differently.  I recently wrote an article on this for Journal of Student Ministries called, “Educated or Indoctrinated?.”  It’s designed for us to ask ourselves questions regarding how we define education.  The bottom line is at EBC, as Joshua Walker (President) so distinctly said today, “We are not trying to impart knowledge (information) to our students, but wisdom.”  He talks about wisdom being knowledge applied in life.  I like that.  In the article above I talk about how we too often define educated as someone who can regurgitate information – but this is not education, this is indoctrination.  There’s a big difference!

Anyway, much more on this subject to come.  But, I’m excited to have EBC as a part of my church here.  With my heart for college-age people, this is going to be a vital part of our church…

Oh, I forgot to mention…classes can be audited at NO COST.  Fun stuff to be a part of, for sure.