"Polishing the brass on the Titanic"

I was informed that I have not posted since Valentines Day. Well, that was good observation, Brad and Ron, thank you.

I'm sitting here in my office trying to think about how youth group should look in a church that is struggling. I made a commit to some people earlier that was a paraphrase from Fight Club (which I forgot to mention to them at the time). I asked them: "Do you ever feel like in your churches that you are polishing the brass on the Titanic?" This question got some laughs and got the answer yes.

I have had this basic conversation with a lot of people, and it is sad that we feel this way about our churches. Does this mean that the whole concept of the Church will be sinking to the deep with the Titanic? Has the church hit rock bottom? I mean there are still some churches that are doing well, but they seem like a minority.

In my church there has been a common question posed to me and just kind of in general a lot lately. How can we get young people in the church? The first answer I hear is a change of worship style. I guess that is way to go about it, and I think it might draw some more people in. I wonder though if style is less of an issue than actually worshiping when we come together. This isn't to say that every church is not worshiping, but I feel that most people don't really feel like anything has changed when they leave a worship service. I know I don't feel anything when I leave my church's worship.

I try to tell people that the young people in the world today value authenticity more than anything else. We want people to honestly say, I don't know. We want people to walk with us through questions without giving answers. You don't need to read Leonard Sweet or any other "post-modern" author to understand this. Just spend a few moments with a young person, and actually listen. We don't want answers. We don't want people to tell us what to do. We want people to walk with us and grow in an authentic relationship. We want to listen and talk, not just be talked to. Sermons don't work for most of us. We need time to discuss it or do something with it. We also want people to dress the way they always do, and not to be uptight when we show up in jeans to church. Authenticity works for dress as well as for relationships.

I know that changing things in a church is really hard to do, but it is also necessary. I also want everyone to realize that just because I'm saying that things should be different doesn't mean that I am comfortable with these changes. I grew up with worship looking a certain way. It is uncomfortable to change even for the young people. Those already in the church struggle with new things until they become more comfortable. This is how we work as humans. We are creatures of habit, and sometime we need to break those habits.

That's enough rambling for now!
Peace
mark

I read the news today, oh boy.

Alright, so today I opened my newspaper and there glaring at me on the front frickin' page is Roger Clemens. Why is this such a big deal? This is maybe front page of the sports section worthy. Yes, I think steroid use in baseball is bad, and that it sets a horrible example for the kids. But it seems ridicules that Roger Clemens is on the front page of the paper. Now, I didn't read the article because I'm sick of hearing about it. Who lied? Is Roger Clemens the greatest pitcher of this era? I don't care about either. Isn't there something more important for Congress to do than listening to two grown men fight over whether one of them cheated in a game or not? I mean the economy isn't great. We are at war. Poverty is still an issue in this country. People are struggling to eat in the US as well as all over the world. Many people are living on the streets. And the list goes on and on, but Congress is wasting time on a frickin' game. Congress is designed to move slowly in passing laws and stuff, so let's slow the system down further by worrying about baseball.

By the way, Roger Clemens was one of my favorite players growing up, and there is no denying that he was a good pitcher. And he looks wicked mean in the front page picture, which seems a little roid-rageish to me. But let's keep this in perspective, this is a man who got paid way too much money to throw a ball, then possibly cheated to continue to throw a ball for entirely too much money. Now, Congress is worried about a guy who threw a ball for a living when there are thousands of people who are doing some horrible things in our own country. Come on Congress there has to be something more important for you to do.

Notice that the title of this post is a line from "A Day in the Life" by the Beatles, if you don't know then go get Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and enjoy!

Peace, love and stay away from the Roids,

Mark

Hugging Homelessness

I know that I have really been slacking about blogging. It's not that I haven't had the time. I think that generally it's when I have the most time on my hands that I do the least. But as soon as I get busy again I try to cram as many things into my day as I can. Due to my lack of posting I'm sure that no body is going to read this, but nonetheless I'm going to write something here.

Thursday was a strange day for me. I woke up not really feeling like moving too much, which isn't uncommon for me. I was hoping to go to school, work out and study (that's right I'm working out again). The problem was I wanted to get to school around 8:00am, but didn't get motivated to go until somewhere around ten o'clock. Wasted my whole morning reading the paper and drinking coffee (actually it was a nice morning).

Then, I get to school finally and I call Shane, who is working out with me. We started working out no big deal, when Shane asked me if I wanted to take some left-over sandwiches he had from a church fund raiser and take them to some homeless people who live down the street from the school. I was completely blown away that Shane, who is extremely uncomfortable with homelessness, would ask me to do this. This was exciting. This is a way better way to use these sandwiches than us eating them.

After we ate lunch that consisted of sandwiches, not the left-over fund raiser sandwiches, we, being Meg, Shane and I, packed up about seven bags. Each bag had two sandwiches, a small bag of chips and a bag of cookies. This is a nice little meal that we hoped would mostly bring some hope to these people who are making the street their home.

With anticipation and a little uncertainty we set off for the overpass to find our objects of benevolence. Once we got there we found actually exactly the same number of people under the overpass as bags we had. The best part was that one person, named Charlie, made us serve everyone else before he would take some food. We went over there and Shane seemed pretty excited about this part. He made his way up the steep slope to where the people where sitting to hand out our little bag of goodies. There was a lady sitting at the bottom of this slope with whom Meg and I conversed for a little while. She said to us that within a couple of weeks that she would be going to jail. I asked her way in a concerned voice, which honestly really was concerned, and she kind of nonchalantly says that she had too much whiskey and got behind the wheel of a car. She said, "I didn't hurt nobody, but the cops stopped me and gave me a what you call it." She eventually came up with the three letters DUI. Then, she asked us to pray for her, so the three seminarian students gathered around her and started to pray. I was kind of elected to lead the prayer, but I didn't really know what to say. I'm not really sure what I prayed, but I think peace and safety crept into it. Then, she hugged each of us a couple of times. I have to say that was the first time I have ever been hugged by a homeless person.

This of course was only the beginning of our adventure. We finally gave the man that was shepherding us to the other people a bag of good. At this point the object of benevolence had become real, living, breathing people with stories to tell and struggles to talk about. Charlie stood next to us and talked with us for the next hour or so, I'm not sure on this because I don't wear a watch. He told us his story which was a little disconnected, but revolved around being in Viet Nam and struggles with his family. At one point in his story he told us that he keeps safe on the street, and to illustrate this point he pulls out a pocket knife opens it while staggering back look ready to fight. This was a little unnerving, but then he smiled and put the knife away. It was a just a prop in his story. The real ministry in all of this came when he said something to the extent that we were letting him get all of this off of his chest. This made it all worthwhile. The really eerie part for me was that Charlie had the same eyes as my dad, and some of his mannerisms were similar to my dad's as well.

This got me thinking about how this can happen to anyone. My dad actually got out of the Navy right before Viet Nam, and after Korea. But I wonder what would have happened to my dad had been in this conflicted. I would like to believe that he would come back and function the same way as he always did, but there is no guarantees of that. So of course, now I'm thinking about all of the people who are in war now. Are they going to be living on the streets by the time they are fifty? How much will these people change as they come back? I know that we have great counseling programs set up for veterans today.

I am not going to go into my more political pacifist rant about the evils of war because we all know that war sucks whether it is justified or not, and in my opinion more often not. I think that we need to be mindful of all of the people fighting in wars, or innocently living where there is war. This is more than Iraq and Afghanistan, but Kenya and others in more Civil Conflict. I urge all of you to pray for peace of mind for those who have seen the horrors of war. Let's love our neighbors and also love our enemies. I believe that this is precisely how we love God.

Peace,

Mark