Sunday Nap Ritual

Does anybody else treasure those Sundays when by some strange miracle you are able to get everyone fed and the stars align where both your three year old and your toddler take a nap at the same time? Then you and your spouse are able to crawl into bed and be comatose for a couple hours. Well, that's what I am doing right now! Be jealous. Look for the opportunity to do what God did after he looked upon all His work during days one through six of creation. Experience rest.

God modeled this wonderful concept of rest for us. We should be intentional to disengage and spend time resting as we follow after his example. What are the hurdles that prevent you from resting? My major hurdle is the sensation of obligation to get work done. I think this is precisely why God modeled rest for us. There is always more to do. God's creative work did not end on day six of creation. Even now God is creatively sustaining this environment that you and I dwell. His example reminds us that no matter how busy we are and how much is on our plate, we need to stop and rest. Take some time today and rest, even if it is for only fifteen minutes. The activity will refresh you, body and soul.

When Youth Pastors Serve Together...

When youth pastors in a given city work together as a team, God is bound to work gloriously through them. Often in youth ministry, youth pastors will see each other as a threat. Often times youth pastors will play the comparison game with one another. It is always interesting to observe the dynamic that takes place when you gather a group of youth pastors together for lunch.

I have recently started participating in a monthly youth pastor lunch. As the new guy to the group, there was much interest surrounding me. I welcomed all of their questions. The questions started as being rather broad, "So where's your church? How many students do you have? When do you guys meet? What do you do during the Summer? What events do you have going on this month and next? What's your background? How long have you been a youth pastor? Where were you educated?" Then the guys started zeroing in on the questions that struck their greatest interest. I thought they'd camp out on stuff about where I serve in youth ministry, but they were much more interested in talking about seminary, which spring-boarded into a discussion on preaching styles, which finally circled round to the discussion on satelite campuses and digital pastors.

I am not sure if we stayed away from questions about where I serve in youth ministry because we wanted to keep things fairly casual and emphasize that we are not all about youth ministry 24/7. Regardless, the camaraderie was refreshing. We did trade some ideas as a group and talked about what are some other things we can do in the future, but all and all, the gathering was pretty chill.

Since that first gathering that I have participated in, I have had multiple contacts with some of these other guys I met at the lunch. This is really exciting to me. I have only lived in Tulsa for two years and have been serving as a youth pastor there for the same amount of time. I have always felt like it is critical for youth pastors to work together, build one another up, and serve as an informal support network for each other. I really feel like I am starting to see those relationships take shape here in Tulsa, which is a huge blessing.

If you happen to be a youth pastor, pray about the time that you can carve out of your schedule to connect to other guys who are doing youth ministry in your area. Prioritizing this will not disappoint. Make some intentional effort to call a few guys and just offer to go to lunch with them. If you happen to be one of the seasoned veteran youth ministers who has been in town for a while, look out for when a new youth pastor is entering town. Call him up and offer to take him out to lunch.

I really believe that youth pastors should not be shy around one another nor should they see each other as a threat. God has gifted each of us with our distinct gifts and each of the youth ministries that we serve at is going to take shape around those gifts. It is of paramount importance that each of us should not compare ourselves and our ministry to one another, because each of our ministries is going to be very different from one another. I also think it is of no value for us to copy one another. In my years of experience I have seen one style, event or program work in one place and be entirely ineffective at another place. Likewise, I have seen one style, event, or program be fruitful one year and then bomb the very next year.

All that being said, serving in youth ministry is a treasure, but it is not a greater treasure then Jesus Christ himself. This is the foundation on which I appeal for youth ministers to engage in ministry as a team. If we are treasuring Christ before all else, including our ministries, then we will be driven to honor Him by working together.

This Week in Review

Better to Honor God than Win by Jim Hamilton. I love basketball and baseball. I love leaving it all on the court. I love the exhilaration of teamwork, the ball off the sweet spot, the basketball whispering through the net, the discipline to play defense, after-practice ground balls (or free throws), staying in the hitting cage until the hands bleed or the coach can’t throw anymore or the daylight is gone. And I love to win.


The Indignation Industry or the Art of Blogging Controversy by Timothy Dalrymple. I think we bloggers and writers of online content generally need to confess to something.  We often have mixed motives — or we face a complex set of competing incentives — when it comes to potentially controversial material.


Give Up the Gimmicks, Youth Pastors by Brian H. Cosby. All too often, youth programs have turned to entertainment-driven models of ministry in order to bring in youth. Success has become the name of the church-growth game. The devastating effects, however, are not only seen in the number of youth leaving the church after high school, but also in a spiritually and theologically shallow worldview among many American teenagers.


Grace for Today and Not a Drop More by Stephen Altrogge. I’ve always been prone to worry and fear. When I was little, my brother and I would pray every night that we would have “no fires, no fear, and no bad dreams”. As I’ve gotten older, my fears haven’t gone away, they’ve just gotten more sophisticated. Now I fear things like cancer, and miscarriages, my children getting seriously hurt.

Are We Trying to Turn Our Children Into a Different Kind of Robot?

In Trip Lee's song Robot, Lee explains that from birth we are but robots meant to live one way. Just listen to the first verse:

Hey, I was born less human
I know it sounds crazy
But I was really born a robot as a baby
No real life in me, I just played my role
No self control, I just did what I told
I got my first order, I was just a day old
But I didn't have a chance, my heart was cold
My heart took the order, I couldn't break the mold
Sold under bondage and I couldn't take control
So I was just chillin in my robot clothes
With my robot friends, and my robot flows
Living robot ways, cause that's all I know
Till I heard I could be free from my robot soul

Lee emphasizes our lack of control and bondage to sin. We never had a chance. We take our orders from our natural self from birth. As adults we understand this perfectly fine. We account for our sin nature and are thankful for divine rescue.

However, how much of this theological truth are we sharing with our children? How is our sympathy and compassion for our children's disobedience grounded in our knowledge of their total depravity? In the past, I have often gotten frustrated with my daughters lack of ability to listen and obey, because well, there is no other way. Yet, when I listened to this song yesterday on my morning run, the truth of this song struck me so hard. The next time I saw Chloe assert her will against her daddy's will and act out in disobedience, I felt a softening in my heart. In reality, she know no other way.

We need to communicate to our children how we understand that they are in bondage to sin. We need to stop trying to turn them into a different kind of robot. A morally compliant robot, because this deceives them into thinking that they are naturally good and directs them away from their true need of a savior. When we recognize our child's depravity and talk with them about it, the conversation becomes a natural springboard to talking about our need for Christ and the story of redemption.

Let's stop making our kids into a different kind of robot then the one that they already are. They cannot live up to the law, but we can use their shortfall to the law as an opportunity to point them to the lawmaker.

Let's start letting our children be human and direct their humanity to their God-need. Let's start having intentional conversations with them filled with sympathy and understanding for their inability to follow our lead. Let us continue to discipline appropriately, so they see consequence for disobedience. Yet, we must point them to the One who acted in total obedience and can break us free from our bondage to sin.

Install Evernote Web-Clipper on iOS Safari

I don't know about you, but I love using my iPad for all sorts of reading. I've almost given up on purchasing hardback or paperback books, and prefer using the Kindle app. Much of the time I do not even bother to use our in home laptop. I mostly use my iPad for web-browsing and web-reading.

As a byproduct, for the past couple months anytime I come across a blog article of great interest to me, I have to get onto my laptop in order to use my Evernote Web Clipper Extension and clip the full blog article to my Evernote account for future use. Well, today I spent a minute and googled to find an Evernote web-clipper for iOS Safari.

Lorenzo Caum came through for me. Read this blog post of his. Follow the direction, and you will have a nice little evernote bookmarklet web-clipper to use on iOS Safari.

True Servanthood: 1 Corinthians 3.18-4.21

1 Corinthians 3.18-4.7 can be examined with a enveloping structure where 4.1-5 makes the chief point concerning servanthood. True servanthood begins with having a proper estimation of oneself. In 1 Corinthians 3.18-19 and 4.7 Paul directs the Corinthians to properly examine themselves and recognize what other see, people who are boastful and puffed up. He reminds them from the authority of scripture in 3.19b-30 and 4.6b that they are but men who's wisdom and craftiness is no match for the wisdom of God, which is grounded in truth rather than deceit. The Corinthians should recognize that all people, great teachers and common bond-servants, have the same standing because the entirety of their favor rests in Christ. This standing is sufficient for confidence on matters as significant as life and death or concerns about the present and future. If we can trust in Christ on these critical matters then we can trust Christ with the status and significance of our teachers. At the center of this text, we see that Paul wants to drive home the point of the chief value of servanthood. If the Corinthians truly value and are influenced by the examples of Paul and Apollos, then Paul wants the Corinthians to see him and his co-laborer with an accurate perspective. Paul rightly portrays Apollos, his fellow apostles, and himself as servants.

In 1 Corinthians 4.8-13 Paul continues the servanthood portrayal by building a comparison between himself and his co-laborers with the character of the Corinthians. If I were a Corinthian reading this letter, I would have been greatly embarrassed by my current perspective. Having the contrast so clearly placed before the Corinthians was meant to jar their thinking into compliance with God's desire for their perspective. God wants them to think and act radically just like Paul and his co-laborers. Paul described himself as being a spectacle, in other words, he was willing to be publicly paraded towards a shameful experience of persecution and martyrdom in gladiatorial fashion. Not only this, but he welcomes the experience with joy!

The passaged closes with a charge for the Corinthians to go beyond beholding the example of Paul and to emulate his example (1 Corinthians 4.14-21). They are to fully embrace Timothy, one of Paul's co-laborers, and learn from his seasoned skill as an imitator of Paul.

This passage embodies the concept of true servanthood. Paul wants the Corinthians to embrace true servanthood and emulate the discipline of servanthood that he and his co-laborers exemplify. After having seen Paul's example, where do you measure on Paul's plumb line of servanthood? Is your estimation of yourself an estimation independent of God's favor found in Christ's perfection? The beauty of this passage is that God's glory is proclaimed when we embrace and emulate lowliness rather than boastfulness.

Rescuing Ambition: Dave Harvey

Rescuing Ambition by Dave Harvey has been one of the most creative books I have read in the past year. This book is written on a topic that is often misunderstood. Harvey introduces the reader to the concept of ambition by first recognizing that this trait is a natural impulse that needs to be managed. "Recognizing this impulse isn’t a big deal. The trick is getting a handle on how deep it runs and how much it determines what we do. This impulse is so big, it can determine how we respond to Jesus himself."

Harvey brings attention to the fact that we all have love for pursuits that we value. "We’re pursuers—we go after things we value. What is it for you? Think about what you value." Ultimately the pursuit for what we value leads to brining glory, either to ourselves or a concept, cause, or person greater than ourselves. "We love glory. We were created to look for it and to love it when we find it." Harvey recognizes that everyone in the world is in on the glory hunt, especially Jesus. "Everyone in this scene, including Jesus himself, is pursuing something—and that something is glory." Yet, he later explains that the glory Jesus seeks is the glory of His father.

Harvey futher explains the purpose of glory seeking and the heart behind our drive to seek glory. "Glory is about radiance and splendor. But glory isn’t just an attribute; it exists to be seen and recognized. It’s about reputation, esteem, standing, honor. At its core, glory is about inherent value that’s recognizable to others. It draws attention. Like a magnet, the value of glory attracts us." When our work and efforts are properly channeled to the right purpose, bringing glory to our savior and His father, we tap into our design purpose.

From this brief introduction, you can see that Harvey is onto a concept that is essential for you and I to study and understand. Harvey argues, "But there’s a condition. We must seek a certain type of glory. We’re to hunger, crave, earnestly desire—to be ambitious for—the glory that comes from God." Without understanding our God given ambition for glory, we will let the glory hunt center on ourselves rather than on God. If we do this, then the hunt masters us, not us mastering it so we catalyze the hunt for God's purpose. Harvey argues, "But there’s a condition. We must seek a certain type of glory. We’re to hunger, crave, earnestly desire—to be ambitious for—the glory that comes from God."

Harvey continues through his book to redemptively examine the concept of ambition. "To love glory is to pursue glory. If we love the glory that comes from God, it translates into a lifelong, passionate, zealous quest—in other words, godly ambition." Godly ambition is where we should place our energy. This can only be accomplished in one way. Harvey emphasizes that without the Gospel being at the center, we will not be able to rescue ambition. "But the good news of the gospel is that we aren’t trapped by the tragedy of misplaced glory. While our ambitious impulses led us to vain pursuits, the Lord of glory has come to rescue our ambition." With the gospel at the center of our lives, we can rest in the work of Christ and see that he changes us through reconciling our misplaced ambition by imputing His righteousness to us. In other words, by trusting in Christ we take the first step to letting that warped sense of ambition be redeemed so that Christ can be magnified in our lives.

This could be the heart of Lecrae's single "God is Enough." Pursuing God and recognizing that he is enough is part of God's plan for us to take our ambition and lay it at His feet and submit ourselves to His ambitions. All those other pursuits that never satisfied, whether they be treasures, status, appearance may be let go so that God would be enough, our whole and sole ambition.

Pick up Harvey's book and give it a good read. Reflect on the chapters. Reread them. This work will inspire you to rescue your ambitions by turning your ambition into a pursuit of God that brings attention to Him and His glory, not yours.

T-Rex Bone with Soft Tissue

Our teaching pastor for this past Sunday made a factual statement about a T-Rex bone that has been found with soft tissue in it. Without any time to cite a source for his information, he continued on in his message. The value of the information about a T-Rex bone with soft tissue in it was to validate a young earth perspective on creation. Our pastor argued that it seems entirely unlikely for soft bone tissue to be preserved for millions of years. Though the pastor did not make this following statement explicitly, his view would be that a more reasonable argument is that the fossilization process has only been going on within this bone since the catastrophic flood.

Here is a brief background on the discovery of this T-Rex bone. Mary Schweitzer is credited with the soft-tissue discovery that occured in Montanna. In 2000 the T-Rex called B-Rex was discovered. In 2001 when trying to air lift the excavation finds, the team had to break the block containing B-Rex in half in order for the helicopter to lift the excavation out of the field. When this break occurred  one of B-Rex's femur bones was broken in half. Schweitzer took this opportunity to do research on bone fragments from this break. The purpose initially was to see if their may have been evidence to determine if dinosaurs are truly warm-blooded or cold-blooded creatures. In January of 2004 Schweitzer's lab assistant Jennifer Wittmeyer made the tissue discovery in the lab after soaking part of the femur bone fragment in a weak acid. Based on the findings of the team, they have assessed the age of B-Rex to be around 68 million years. However, young earth creationists argue that the presence of soft-tissue and what appears to be red blood cells is incontrovertible proof of a young earth.

So the question is, does this find validate a young earth view or has it merely caused scientists to rethink fossilization and decay? You decide. Below are links to eight articles on this discovery. The articles are from National Geographic, the Smithsonian, Science Magazine, Answers in Genesis, The Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Creation. This is an unbiased selection of articles for your information and discernment.

Here are the links:
National Geographic
National Geographic 2
Smithsonian
Science Magazine
Answers in Genesis 1
Answers in Genesis 2
Answers in Genesis 3
Answers in Genesis 4
Institute for Creation Research
Answers in Creation