Let’s be honest: connecting people of different generations is not the easiest thing to do.  We face obstacles like core values being different, older people being intimidated or frustrated by the younger generations, younger people not feeling the value of having an older person in their life…to either generation not knowing how to connect with the other.  There are ways we can help with these things (for more on that see chapters 7 and 8 of this book), but there is another issue that is just as obvious – if not more.  We just don’t talk about it as openly.

Younger people are desperate for an experience they know is Divine.  Of course not all desire this, but many just want to experience God, walk with Him daily, be a part of what He’s doing and be used by Him.  Sure, experience based pursuits can be incredibly dangerous if they are separated from truth.  But experiencing God can also be rooted in truth.  And this is what I find many college age people seeking.

And herein lies the problem.  It seems like there is a lack of older adults that authentically experience God – daily.  Many of them, if you ask them directly, have a hard time pointing out anything specific they feel like God is teaching them or working on in their life today.  Some can’t explain their own testimony of how and why they personally decided to follow Jesus – or why they do today.  Much of this is due to, and in some ways this will be an over simplification, older generations not being experience based.  They can know scripture, be grounded in doctrine, etc. but as I talk with more and more pastors working with older adults the lack of experiencing God in their lives is a huge issue.

Bridging these generational values together (a high value on experience with a high value on intellectual knowledge of Scripture) is what’s needed.  But if these tensions aren’t helped the differences actually hinder  sustainable mentor/disciple making relationships.  And, I’m not okay with that.  More to come…

One of the things I make a part of just about everything I write and seminar I give is that, universally, college age people reevaluate all the assumptions they grew up with.  For instance, I devoted a chapter to this in College Ministry 101 where I walked through how they process through these things and what impacts their processes – and I also included another chapter on how we ought to approach teaching in a way that guides these processes.  College age people, regardless of religious – or non religious – upbringing, begin to explore all sorts of new questions.

Two days ago an article in the LA Times titled, “Spirituality finds a home at college” was released.  The article begins with this statement, “Sandwiched between a time of squirming under parental control and the tethers of a career, college often means freedom for young people to begin a search for who they are and what they believe.”  This stems from a long term study we linked to about 2 1/2 years ago at CollegeLeader (for info on this study click here).  This article points out some of the following points:

• College is a time of mind opening opportunities leading to thought processes that have long term impact after the college.
• College is a time students struggle with and become less certain in their beliefs.
• Students that are more “spiritual” seem to do better academically and are generally more satisfied with their college experience.

The article defines spirituality as a time of “asking the big, existential questions; working to improve one’s community; and showing empathy toward other people.”  The use of the “spiritual” is very broad in our culture, but I’d suggest it ought to mean more than just intellectual processing (for more on this see an earlier post here).  Nevertheless, this is a great reminder that we are dealing with people who are reevaluating and asking some of the most important questions in all of life.  And these questions cannot be met with shallow, regurgitated answers.  It’s much deeper than that.

For some practical thoughts, here are a couple articles I’ve written on this: Indoctrinated or Educated / rethinking (true) discipleship

I just read an article in the Los Angeles Times about a pastor who is banning his leadership from using Facebook.  If they aren’t willing to delete it they will be forced to step down from their leadership role.  Apparently he has had a number of couples over the last year and a half face marital issues because of people from the past popping finding them through their account.  This has led to physical meet-ups and adulterous situations.  At the end of the article it’s clear that this pastor is not banning this from the whole congregation, but he is going to advise them to forgo their accounts.  In the past he has recommended for spouses to make sure they shared all their login information with one another, but apparently there is still ongoing issues with people in his church.

Facebook obviously has many pro’s to it, but have you found the people in your ministry falling into issues by their use of it?

Yesterday I was writing and began to expand a thought.  I boiled the thought down and tweeted it.  Here’s what the tweet said:

“How you live your days will become how you lived your life.  #2DayMatters”

With people (especially those college age) looking so much to the future to what God wants to do through them for their rest of their lives, I’d recommend pointing them to a principle in scripture (glad I didn’t come up with this idea myself!).  Use passages like Matthew 25:21-23 or Luke 16:10 where Jesus helps us understand that we need to be faithful with little before we are entrusted with much.  We all long to be used by God in much, but the more we look forward the more likely we miss being faithful today.  And that’s a problem.  This principle Jesus makes in these passages ought to completely transform our day.

What makes us think God would reveal what He wants to do with the rest of our lives when we’re not completely living for Him today?  How we live our days will become how we lived our life.  Let’s first make sure we are living for the right things today, being faithful with little.  Then, let’s be an example of that for people who desperately need this modeled!

Just came across this video. Thoughts?

A common stigma for college-age people is that they’re “flakey.”  I wanted to throw out a few quick thought’s on this:

(1) It’s true in some cases, but not all.  In fact, over the years I’ve ran into more college age people that wouldn’t be characterized as flakey than those who are.

(2) I’ve found that they’re only flakey in things they don’t find valuable.  So, if they’re flakey in our ministry we ought to be asking why they don’t find it valuable.

(3) If they are flakey, we shouldn’t be surprised.  Inconsistency of life and thought is the reason college age people are considered to be late-adolescents (from a sociological perspective).

(4) If we get excited about the teachable moments of this rather than frustrated with inconsistency we can have very meaningful and great disciple-shaping conversations.

(5) Patience and a willingness to pay the price of time is what we need.

On Saturday we put on a free clinic for under-insured people.   There were over 1000 people that showed up.  Appointments started at 8am, but the line began way before that!  When we opened the doors, the energy was amazing!  So fun to be able to bring a hot cup of coffee to these people and just hear why they came.  We had to completely transform a high school to make everything happen (picture of one of 3 dental rooms below), but by doing so we were able to offer:

• Medical examinations (including X-rays and free prescriptions)
• Dental Work (cleaning, extractions, fillings – also included X-rays)
• Vision Testing (including free eye glasses to anyone in need)
• Podiatry (foot care)
• Immunizations (gave out over 600 shots)
• Lunch (hamburgers, hot dogs, turkey sandwiches, pizza)

It really was amazing.  Our social service fair and all-day childcare proved to be a huge success too.  But it wasn’t just about the one day event.  We followed up with every person at the clinic to take careful note of any of their ongoing needs.  We met their urgent needs (Titus 3:14), but we knew there was much more.  So, we took all of those needs and placed them on a brand new website we developed for this type of thing.  Now there is a way for Christians to follow up and make more sustainable relational connections with the people that showed up to get served.  If you want to check out this site, it’s: www.iampeople.org.  We are in the very beginning stages of this and plan on continuing to develop the functionality and breadth of what we can do through this site.  But you might want to consider using it for your community as well….it’s also free to use.

Continuing our series this week on lessons from Titus, today will be about verses 1:10-16.  If you haven’t read yesterday’s blog, it was on leadership and you can read that here.  Paul ends 1:9 with the idea that the leader must protect truth – both intellectually as well as in the lives of people that claim to know the truth – they are to make sure those who believe are actually living like they do.  And this is where we pick up in verse 10.  Here are two quick points in light of this passage:

1. Deceived people deceive people. In contrast to the elder who exemplifies the characteristics of the gospel, there are those who are insubordinate to the truth, empty talkers and deceivers (v. 10).  He specifically mentions the Jewish people.  They have been negatively influenced by their culture and the thoughts of their own religious traditions (v. 14) – and have therefore been deceived.  Because they are deceived, they end up deceiving others (see verse 11 where they are upsetting whole families) and talking about ultimately empty things.  How are you protecting yourself and those under your leadership from this snowball of deception?
2. Culture impacts more than we realize. The tricky part of deception is that it denies it’s own existence – just like pride does.  Deceived people don’t know they’re deceived because, well, they’re deceived.  Deception led these people to say they believed in God, but in their very actions they denied that belief (v. 16).  But that doesn’t mean they saw this contradiction.  In fact they likely did not (see Matthew 23 where Jesus calls the leaders “blind”).  And in many of the same ways our culture has blinded us.  One example could be the issue of independence.  As an American we are taught to look out for our own best interest, but we just need to understand that this is in direct opposition to the gospel.  Our cultures says that if we don’t look out for ourselves then nobody will look out for us.  This feeds a self serving mindset that leads us rapidly toward a consumer mentality.  This affects our connection in churches or relationships, and even toward the gospel message itself.  Many have even accepted the “gospel” solely based on what they get out of it.  However, compared with passages like 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 we see that this cultural influence can easily cause us to fall into the same trap of having our lives violate what we proclaim with our mouth.  What ways has our cultural value system negatively affected your perspective of truth? (overcoming these begins with honestly recognizing them!)

I’ve been teaching through the book of Titus at Colossae.  As a church we are learning a ton so I thought I’d share a few things we’ve been looking at and learning here this week.  Today will be more of a personal reflection for you as a leader.  Titus 1:5-9 lists out qualities/characteristics of leaders.  These are requirements for elders, but are also something that every person (and especially leaders) ought to aspire to.  Here are a few thoughts for you to consider regarding this passage:

1. This is a list describing who the leader ought to be, not how a leader ought to lead. This is a very important distinction – and probably convicting for many of us.  We often focus more on what we’re doing than we do on who we’re becoming.  When we do this we prioritize wrongly.  How have you gotten off-track on this lately?
2. This is a list describing the qualities that exemplify the truth of the gospel. In 1:1 Paul talks about how a knowledge of truth “accords” or “leads to” godliness.  This simply means that the truth of the gospel, when embraced, is lived out in our lives.  We can say what we want, but our lives will prove what we really embrace as truth (see 1:16 for a negative example of this point).  As the gospel was going forth at this time there was a need for leaders who exemplified the qualities of the gospel.  Leaders will either further the mission and truth of Jesus or they will profane and shame the name of Jesus.  If we lose site of our priority of being who we ought to be we are in danger of doing the latter.  Are you exemplifying the qualities of the gospel?
3. This is a list describing a higher standard for leaders. The first thing Paul lists off is that the leader must be “above reproach.”  This simply means that leaders are to live in such a way that there could be NO legitimate accusation brought up against them that would negatively reflect on Christ.  What in your life might someone look at as a contradiction to Jesus and the truth of the gospel?
4. This is a list that ends with an important aspect of a leaders job description. The last requirement for the elder is to be able to give instruction in sound doctrine (the truth of God and Jesus).  This isn’t limited to teaching from the pulpit however.  It gets personal.  He ends this with the phrase, “and also to rebuke those who contradict it.”  This simply says that the elder must lovingly confront believers who are living in a way that contradicts the truth of the gospel. [...]

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