Francis Chan on the Wierdness of Our Generation

Catalyst East 2010: Francis Chan from Catalyst on Vimeo.

The Evolution of the Geek

The original geek is the "Glee Geek"?  That sounds about right; I think every boy-band in history started in a glee club somewhere.  And I thought Urkel was the pinnacle of all things geek.  Shows what I know. One important thing to note: we're all geeks!! Embrace your geekiness!!

HT: Joe Thorn

Make Room at the Leadership Table for Young Leaders

Larry Osborne, pastor of North Coast Church and author of Sticky Teams and Sticky Church, has posted some very helpful thoughts for church leaders seeking to make sure that the younger generation has a place at the leadership table in their church.  He writes:

... most churches are started by young eagles. But soon after getting their nest built, nicely appointed, and fully furnished, they start to marginalize the next batch of young eagles, asking them to sit at the kid’s table and wait for their turn at middle-aged leadership.


To counteract that natural tendency, I’ve made it a personal priority to make sure that our young eagles have a place at our leadership table. I see it as my role to enhance their influence within our church, making sure that they are supported, protected, and listened to.

But I have to admit, it’s not always appreciated, especially by middle-aged eagles who think that tenure should be the primary determiner of influence.  Read more. 


I think what he's saying makes a lot of sense.  It takes real leaders to go against the grain and make sure that everyone is represented at the leadership table, but it's an absolute must if you want to keep growing as a church and remain relevant.  But this is just a snapshot of what Larry has to say, so read more here.

HT: Larry Osborne

Ty Cobb: What I Would Do If I Could Do Life Over Again

In honor of the baseball playoffs, which are currently underway and have been exciting to watch, I thought it would be interesting to look at one of the greatest baseball players of all time, particularly his comments about what he would do if he could do life over - his comments are something we all can learn from today. He said:

"I was aggressive, perhaps too aggressive. Maybe I went too far. I always had to be right in any argument I was in. I always had to be first in everything. I do indeed think I would have done some things different. And if I had I believe I would have had more friends.”

Ty Cobb ended his career with the highest batting average in the history of Major League Baseball, a record he still holds, but it's rumored and his rivals and teammates alike despised him as a person.  Perhaps Cobb would have lowered his batting average a few percentage points in exchange for a more community?  I think we all might feel similar at the end of our lives.  Let's learn from Ty Cobb and pursue what matters - Christ above all else, family, friends, and living a life that leads others to worship Christ!!

What Does It Mean to Live by Faith in the Service of the Fatherless?

HT: Desiring God

Most and Least Unchurched Cities

Many people wonder what U.S. city is least churched. Areas with the largest share of unchurched adults included San Francisco (44% of whom had not been to a religious worship service in the last six months), Portland, Maine (43%), Portland, Oregon (42%), Albany (42%), Boston (40%), Sacramento (40%), Seattle (40%), Spokane (39%), New York (38%), Phoenix (38%), Tucson (37%), and West Palm Beach (37%),  among 85 major cities studied by Barna Research Group based on 40,000 interviews conducted over the last 7 years.

By contrast weekly church attendance was highest among residents of Birmingham (67%), followed by Baton Rouge (62%), Salt Lake City (62%), and Huntsville (60%). In another approach to the same questions, cities with lowest share of self-identified Christians inhabited the following markets: San Francisco (68%), Portland, Oregon (71%), Portland, Maine (72%), Seattle (73%), Sacramento (73%), New York (73%), San Diego (75%), Los Angeles (75%), Boston (76%), Phoenix (78%), Miami (78%), Las Vegas (78%), and Denver (78%). Even in these cities, however, roughly three out of every four residents align with Christianity.

The cities with the highest proportion of residents who describe themselves as Christian are typically in the South, including: Shreveport (98%), Birmingham (96%), Charlotte (96%), Nashville (95%), Greenville, SC / Asheville, NC (94%), New Orleans (94%), Indianapolis (93%), Lexington (93%), Roanoke-Lynchburg (93%), Little Rock (92%), and Memphis (92%).

The research also pointed out some other interesting church engagement patterns.  Read more here.

The Sins of a Backbiter

A backbiter is a person with back trouble—not his own, but someone else’s. He is a pain in another person’s back. The word “backbite,” according to Webster, means “to say mean or spiteful things about (one absent): slander.” The word in the Hebrew from which backbite comes suggests the idea of “to play the spy.” That is, the backbiter attempts to spy out the faults and defects of another person’s life or to circulate reports unfavorable to others by low and petty remarks as well as those which may be malicious and slanderous. It is conveyed in the New Testament by the word “evil speaking” (James 4:11; 1 Peter 3:16). How is your neighbor’s back today?

What is the Gospel?

Between Two Worlds revisits the question, "What is the Gospel?" by looking at a section of D.A. Carson's chapter in the new book For the Fame of God's Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper, in which Carson builds on the ideas presented in Greg Gilbert's book, What is the Gospel?

Justin writes: Don Carson’s lengthy chapter in For the Fame of God’s Name is entitled, “What Is the Gospel?—Revisited.” I’m reprinting below a substantial section where he interacts with and builds upon a Greg’s analysis.  Click here for more.  Really great stuff.  Thanks for sharing Justin!!

HT: Between Two Worlds

How Old Were the Disciples?

I mentioned in my previous post that there are no examples of "youth ministry," in the traditional sense of games with Twinkies and shallow Bible messages, to be found in the Bible.  And that's true.  But, depending on the age that you attribute to the disciples, you could say that the entire ministry of Jesus is an example of ministry with youth.

Of course no one knows for sure how old the disciples were at the end of Jesus' life, but there are some hints in the Bible.  For example:

In Matthew 17:24-27 Jesus and Peter are subjected to a tax that the other disciples are considered exempt from and in Exodus 30:11-16 that only those 20 years old and older are required to pay the tax.  These seems like pretty good evidence that the majority of the disciples were under 20 years old.

In addition, in Matthew 10:42, Jesus refers to his disciples as "little ones."  If the disciples were adults I don't think he would refer to them in this way.  The logical explanation is that the disciples were in fact "little ones," or children.

The new trend in conservative churches is to throw youth ministry out because they've deemed it ineffective (see previous post), but that's a mistake from my point of view.  In reality there's a good argument to be made that youth are actually doing much better in churches than adults in terms of growing in their faith and living it, and that's probably because there is at least one adult, i.e., youth pastor, in their churches who is completely devoted to walking with them in life and ministry. 

Rather than throw the baby out with that bath water, we should rather reconsider the elements of youth ministry that aren't working and seek to improve them.  We also need to get more adults involved in discipling young people.  And, in my opinion, we need to move toward a model of more characteristic of the model of ministry that Jesus demonstrated, i.e., ministry with youth, rather than traditional youth ministry.

Is Age Segregation Biblical?

I'm looking forward to Dr. Kara Powell coming to town in a few days and in preparation for her visit I decided to look for examples of age segregation in the Bible. Guess what? You can't find any (however, I'd also like to point out that you'll have a difficult time finding these other things in the scripture as well: pipe organs, choirs & choir directors, worship leaders, Children's Church, female elders, debt ... the list of things that the current church embraces that is not mentioned in the Bible is actually quiet long, but we'll leave those sacred cows alone for the moment).

The fact of the matter is that age segregation is NOT in the Bible and there's a good reason for that - the Bible is about discipleship and very little discipleship can take place when you separate the young and inexperienced from those who are older and wiser.  It really is that simple.  So I'm looking forward to the conference and hope to learn about how I, as a youth pastor, can work toward connecting youth with the rest of our congregation in more meaningful ways.

However, I also have some apprehensions:

1)  I fear that I'm going to hear something like: "Age segregation is the main reason why teens leave the church after they graduate from high school."  Anyone who has looked at any of the research on this matter knows that that claim is complete and utter bunk.  Do you want to know the #1 reason teens leave their (parents') church?  It's because their parents live like hypocrites (call me if you ever hear that in a sermon).  If the church wants to be serious about passing the faith on to teens, then they'll shine the light bright on adult hypocrisy.  Here's the deal, the church may think that the nice guy on the deacon board that prays neat prayers is a mature Christian, but his kids actually live with him and they know that Christ is way down on his list of priorities.  They know he doesn't help anyone in need.  They know he doesn't pray with them (or his wife).  They know he complains about tithing.  They know he curses like a sailor when working on the car or when balancing the check book.  They know his Bible sits on the bookshelf six days a week.  They know that when they mess up, they don't receive anything resembling the kind of grace that they learned about in Children's Church.  And since they know all of that, they also know that when they leave home, they're leaving fake religion behind too.  I don't care if you surround a teen with fifty mature Christians, if a kid has a dad like that, more often than not he's not coming back to church when he moves out of mommy and daddy's house.

2)  I fear that Kara will say "age segregation," but people will hear "youth ministry."  It's become trendy to drop youth ministry because it's not working (see fear #1 above), but Children's Church is working?  If so, why aren't fifth and sixth graders in the pew with parents during the sermon?  Shouldn't older children eventually grow beyond what Children's Church has to offer?  How about Senior Adult Ministry, that's working right?  If so, why then do so many seniors look at retirement as their time to spiritually coast into the finish line?  Few seem to know how to finish strong and even fewer demonstrate even the slightest interest in discipling the younger generation.  Does the Great Commission not apply to 55 year olds?

Maybe the truth is it's okay to segregate children because they make more noise than teens, i.e., they disrupt the giving customers (I chose that last word intentionally)?  But here's the deal, I don't see any kind of age segregation in the Bible.  Adults, young adults, children, and even nursing babies were all together, I assume disruptions and all, but I don't expect that arrangement is going fly in the suburban, we're here to serve you so just sit back and relax, church near you.  In most churches in America today children and youth are considered to be better seen and not heard.  They're welcome to join the adults if they can stay quiet and agree to worship according to the preferences of adults (more on this below) - otherwise it's back to the basement with the children and youths!!

3) I fear that the real reason that segregating teens from adults has become so popular in the church won't be addressed.  You may hear people say that this practice is done to help teens, but that's bunk too.  The real reason is because adults don't want teens messing with their church.  Adults don't to hear about what young people prefer (since their preferences clearly aren't as sophisticated and certainly not spiritually mature).  For example, some adults love organ music.  Why?  They'll tell you it's because the hymns are based on Scripture, to which I respond, "Great, I know a church that's reaching young people by belt out 'What Wondrous Love is This' with drums and electric guitars - let's do that and we'll all be happy."  The truth is organ music is their preferred style of worship music and teens are welcome to join in as long as they are willing to worship like everyone else.  I call that robot-discipleship, e.g., I'm sharing the gospel with you so you can be just like me.  By the way, those who think otherwise about organ music being just a preferred music style, you might want to read up on what John Calvin thought of your pipe organ.

So I'm looking forward to the conference, but I'm also apprehensive.  I pray that it's a good presentation of Biblical discipleship and is used to change churches into places that are about sharing the gospel with young people - even if they don't prefer to conform to adult preferences.