Keep Running!

So it's been a while! Seems like every time I think about writing a new blog post that's the first thought I have. In fact it's been just about a year since the last time I wrote anything for this blog. It's not because I haven't had any good thoughts or anything worth writing down (well maybe that's some of it) but more than anything else, it's one of those things that when an idea hits me I think that would make a good blog post but then I just never get around to posting. So now I'm posting so I guess I should get onto the post!

So most of you who will read this, probably know me pretty well. You also know that in the last few years I've participated in extreme mud runs that get you electrocuted and other extreme obstacles. You can see some pictures here: http://www2.brightroom.com/98254/2637. This past April I ran my first mini marathon (13.1 miles) and now I've decided to run my first full marathon (26.2 miles). I know that sounds crazy right? Who signs up and pays to run 26.2 miles. Well, honestly not many, I read somewhere that less than 1% of the world's population will complete a marathon.

But one of the things that I really love about running is that it's a good time to think and reflect about things. I've been thinking a lot in the last few weeks about two men. Greg Bowen and Rick Adams. Both of these men have been fixtures in my home community for as long as I can remember. Both of these men have been mentors of mine. Both of these men I consider friends. One is a preacher, the other a school teacher. Both of these men are battling pancreatic cancer.

Greg has been preaching at my home church since before I was born. His kids were some of my best friends growing up. His sons Matthew and Daniel and I and several others played many pickup basketball games in the parking lot of the church. Rick has been a school teacher in Washington County for probably that long too. He was my P.E. teacher all the way through middle school. He was my grade school basketball coach, and one of my baseball coaches. In fact, I don't know many kids who have played any sort of sport in Washington County that he hasn't coached. Both of them have left lasting impressions on me and so many others that reach farther than they will ever know.

Rick has always been an avid runner, he is really the first long distance runner that I ever knew. It never really made sense to me why he would run all the time but now I get it. For me it's a chance to think, to think about my relationships with people, my relationship with God. It's where I can clear my head and in some sense re-charge my batteries so to speak.

A few nights ago during a run I was thinking about people that have had a large influence in my life and I thought about Greg and Rick. I also kept thinking about a verse in Luke 15. I was preparing for a sermon that I would be preaching a few days later about the prodigal son (you can listen to it here: glenviewchristian.podbean.com/e/sunday-morning-sermon-83114/). And I just kept thinking about the part of the story where the Father runs out to meet the son when he is returning home. The amazing part of that story to me is that the Father was waiting for the son and when he sees him he runs to him. I have this one mental thought about running the marathon that I keep coming back too and it's this, when I get to mile 20, i'm going to think that's a long way that I have run and I still have 6 more miles to go! But I keep reminding myself that the same Father that ran out to the prodigal son, is running alongside of me, so I'll keep running!

That same Father is also running next to Greg and Rick as they battle their cancer! So Greg and Rick keep running!!

Encounter

So before I tell this (imo) really cool story, I feel like it needs some background context, only because it will put into a proper frame of what's been going on in my head and how this encounter was a way of God pulling all these things together.

So first you need to know that I'm once again taking classes at Louisville Bible College. Hopefully sometime this decade (if not at least century) I'll finish my degree. I'm really close, I only need 23 hours prior to the start of this semester. In one of the classes I am taking my professor has continually used an illustration about helping the poor, the widowed, the orphan etc. We've talked about it a lot. Combined with that our Jr. and Sr. high students have been doing a series on Wednesday nights called "Encounter." The series is about some of the strange encounters and the unexpected results that some people had with Jesus.

On top of that, among some close ministry friends of mine, we've been discussing a lot recently about how most of us, even though we wouldn't want to admit it, are quite deficient in our personal evangelism. Deficient meaning, we are not very successful at it, and also missing many opportunities to tell our story and how Jesus is a part of our story.

So yesterday on my drive to Louisville, I was thinking about all these different things and where I am at with these things and my thought process was interrupted by my need to go to the bathroom. (Sorry TMI I know). I was in Elizabethtown so I pulled off at exit 94 off of I-65 and the plan was use the bathroom and get back on the road. As I was driving up the exit ramp I noticed a man sitting on the side of the road. He had a sign that read "Hungry no money anything helps." So I did what instinctively almost everyone of us do, tried to avoid making eye contact.

As I looked away I remembered something I read and had even told our students one night. It was this, that what a homeless person says hurts them the most is not that people won't help them but that people won't look at them and will not make eye contact. At that moment I knew I had to at least make eye contact with him. So I did. When I did this overwhelming sense of you need to do something came over me. All I could hear in my mind was the scripture of Jesus speaking "whatever you have done to the least of these, you've also done to me. (paraphrase.)

So I pulled into the gas station, went to the bathroom and decided I would buy the guy a ham sandwich. Here though my motivation wasn't necessarily inspirational. It was more of for $2.50 I won't feel guilty for the rest of the day. So I bought the sandwich. My problem though was how would I get the sandwich to him. Traffic was to busy for me to walk across and there just wasn't a good way to get to him. So my best option became to get back on I-65 going south, take the exit 91 ramp and circle back around to I-65 and get off again at the 94 exit. So that's what I did. As I approached the man in my truck I rolled down the window and handed him the sandwich.

Now that's a nice story but it's not the end of the story. In fact it's only really the beginning of this encounter that was about to take a very unexpected turn.

As I got off of the ramp I now needed to pull into a parking lot so I could turn around and get back on the interstate and head to school. While I was waiting to turn left to pull into Shoney's parking lot I saw what every driver fears, blue lights. These blue lights belong to a Kentucky State Trooper's cruiser. I had noticed him behind me even when I got off the interstate but as I wasn't breaking any laws I didn't really give it a second thought.

I pulled into Shoney's and so did the trooper. I rolled down my window and waited for him to approach. As he did he asked to see my license so I gave it to him. He looked it over and I asked him very politely if I had done something wrong? I asked politely because I've learned my lesson about being rude to troopers. It gets you a ticket every time!! He told me that I hadn't done anything illegal but what I had done he did not want to encourage me to do so anymore. He had seen me hand the man on the ramp a sandwich and he said it was because that encourages them to stay on the sides of roads and then it becomes a safety concern. I certainly understood that.

But I had felt to convicted about helping that man to let a cop now just tell me "don't do that anymore" so I told him I understood what he was saying but this particular time I just felt like it was the right thing to do. That God had really just been pressing me about being kinder to those less fortunate and so I saw an opportunity to show kindness and I took it.

This is where it gets even a little stranger. The trooper begins to ask me if I really believe any of that stuff about God and Jesus and heaven and all that religious stuff. So I told him if I didn't I wouldn't have bought that guy a sandwich and that I needed to show love to that guy because Jesus has shown love to me. And then he asked, "do you think Jesus loves me?" It was as if God was saying, "here's this great big ole open door, now just walk through it!!"

In the next few moments I got to share with this state trooper that not only does Jesus love him but that just as he puts his life on the line everyday willing to sacrifice his life for others, Jesus had already done the same. We kept talking and the trooper began to tell me about a lot of the problems that he was facing in his relationships and in his personal life and each time it came back to telling him that the only permanent solution to any of his problems is Jesus.

After about 15 minutes of talking he needed to get back to work and I needed to get moving to not be late for class, so I prayed with the man, gave him the names of a couple of churches I knew in the area and encouraged him to be in one of them this Sunday.

So why tell this story? Well it's not so people will say Adam is such a good person. I tell the story because it really illustrates that God opens doors to minister to people when we are obedient to His leading. God used the man on the side of the ramp to convict me of my need to be kinder to the poor, but He opened the door to minister to a man who needed someone to minister to him.

So the moral of the story is, when you look for the opportunities to minister to people God will present them, you just have to go through the door! #encounters!

11 Years Later

    So 11 years later and I still see everything in my head like I saw it that day. September 11th, 2001 was a day that changed my life and the lives of everyone I knew. I was a high school senior, and I'll never forget sitting in my 2nd period English class waiting for class to start when one of the girls came running in to tell us to turn on the TV because the stock market crashed. I remember several of us making stupid comments about how that would never happen but she was adamant that something bad had happened. We turned on the TV and saw CNN's coverage of one of the World Trade Center's building on fire. CNN was reporting that a plane had crashed into the building but they weren't sure what kind of plane, if it was an accident or what really happened. We all watched but not really sure about what was going on. We poked a little more fun at the girl who had innocently repeated what she had heard someone else say about the stock market crashing. We listened for a few more moments as details began to emerge and then we saw an image that I'll never forget. We saw the 2nd plane fly into the 2nd tower. Right there on live t.v. I witnessed the murder of hundreds of people.
    It was then we all realized that this was no accident but that this was a terrorist attack, at that moment we were at war. I remember our principle Joe Payne coming on the intercom and telling everyone who may not have seen it what happened. We tried to go on with class but we kept the t.v. turned on and nobody really paid attention to anything but the t.v. 
    Once 2nd period was over we went to our next class. Mr. Payne had again come on the intercom and encouraged everyone to resume classes as normal. My next class however was journalism and we all realized that what was happening in our country was major news so our class was able to convince our teacher that it would o.k. for us to watch the news and so we watched. We all stood around the t.v. watching and trying to figure out why this was happening and what would happen next. I remember hearing an odd sound on the t.v. There were lots of noises in the background of the news but there this one noise that just sounded different than all the rest. There was a shot of someone in one of the towers who felt like they had no other choice but to jump and that's when I realized that noise I kept hearing was the sound of people falling to their death. I'll never forget that sound.
    11 years later and whenever I think about that day I hear that sound. A few months later I was able to visit NYC and was able to get within several blocks of what would become ground zero. There was a smell that was unmistakeably the smell of flesh that had burned. 11 years later when I think of that day that smell floods my nostrils.
    I could keep writing what I remember but for the sake of the length of this post I'll just say that like everyone else who witnessed and experienced that day I remember. Rick Englehardt, a friend of mine, said on Facebook today "I see so many posts of "Never Forget", but honestly, how could we ever forget? The terror and tragedy of 9/11/01 forever changed us. Those of us who witnessed the events live and then watched stunned during the events to follow can NEVER forget." I think that summarizes very well my feelings, I'll never forget because I can't forget. George W. Bush said, "that one day 9/11 will be a day on the calendar like Pearl Harbor is but for those who lived through it we'll never forget."
    But I also remember a country that came together for the common good of it's citizens. Who mourned with neighbors the loss of life, who stood proud side by side with those they didn't know with the only commonality being they were Americans. I remember all the Wal-Mart's being sold out of American flags. I remember men and women who selflessly gave of themselves to serve their fellow man. I am proud of those memories and 11 years later I cannot think of that day without also thinking of those things as well.
    One of the last things I remember is seeing the President give an impromptu speech at ground zero, I'll never forget what he said. He told the workers who were digging through rubble and the American people who were watching, "I hear you, and the whole world hears you and soon the people responsible for this will hear us." 
    It's events like 9/11 that remind me with great evidence that we live in a fallen world and that there truly is evil in this world, it's event's like 9/11 that remind me Satan is very real and has a very real presence in this world. But it also reminds me that Christ hears us, he hears us when we hurt, when we mourn, and when we are in need. He always hears us and there is a world full of people who need to hear about Him, and that those who oppose Christ will one day hear Him as well. So with all the remembering that I do on this day it reminds me that I need to be very intentional in my witness for Jesus. It reminds me that people die everyday not ready to meet there maker because they've not heard the good news of Jesus. So if I can offer any advice today it would be this: be intentional. 

Longevity

The word of the day is "Longevity." What does it mean? Well it has two definitions, the first means long life, but the second is the one that I'm most interested in right now and it means a long duration of service. Last night I attended the Men for Christ gathering, which is a men's fellowship meeting, where they recognized all of the Sr. Ministers who were present. You know what impressed me the most about that group of men? It wasn't there seminary degrees or the size of their congregations but it was their longevity in the ministry. Each minister was asked to tell how long they had been involved in full time ministry and with great consistency many of them said 15, 20, 25, 30, 40 even 50 or more. You know that's a long time to do anything!

It's especially lengthy when considering the following statistics according to the Schafer Institute: 70% of all ministers consider leaving the ministry. 35-40% actually do leave the ministry and most after only 5 years. Only 26% of ministers feel that they are adequately fed spiritually and only 23% of ministers said that they were happy or content in who they are in Christ, in their church and in their home.

It has been estimated here in the U.S. that 1500 ministers leave the ministry each month. The stats don't get any better for youth ministers (what I do) either. On average youth ministers leave the ministry after a little over 4 years in the ministry and on average they stay at one church for about 3.5 years (not 18 months).

Longevity in the ministry (all ministry) seems to be something that is hard to attain anymore even for the best ministers. In May of this year I began my 12th year of full time ministry (all in youth ministry). But there have been times when I strongly considered quitting the ministry. There have been times when I felt betrayed by the very people I was called to serve and there have been times when I felt like the only friends I had were either other ministers or people in the church who were only my friends because I was a minister at their church.  But here's what I have found to be true, that whenever I was in a time where I was ready to quit ministry it was because there was something going on with me. It has never really been that I thought the church was unfair to me, or that I was being a victim of some conspiracy to oust me from the church. When I look back it is clear to me now that every time I've been ready to leave the ministry I was in a spiritual valley, my relationship with God had become weaker and my time in His Word had become less. What I find most often is that the more consistent I am in the Word and in my relationship with God the stronger that my ministry is.

Many of those men whom I saw last night are men that I greatly admire and men of Godly character whose relationship with God I often try to imitate. So to many of you I say thank you for your longevity in ministry but also to two very special men who were not there last night but I also have the utmost respect for, one being my Grandfather Bob Jones who has faithfully preached for more than 50 years and the other being my home church minister Greg Bowen who has served the church in Willisburg for almost 30 years now. Thank You!

Is Kid's Church Really that Important??

The debate has raged on for the better part of 2 decades now, should kids be in worship with adults or should they be in kid's church?? Before I try to give any part of my opinion on this, I want to cover some of the arguments that I have heard for and against.  There are basically three ways that churches handle this dilemma if that's what you want to call it.

 First there is the argument that we are all one body so we should all be in worship as one body.  Those churches do not have any kid's programming outside of maybe Sunday School classes for there children.  Then there is the church who believes that most of what happens on Sunday mornings is probably over the head of their children, but it is important that the kids be in adult worship.  After all how will they ever learn to sit still in church if they don't learn that when they are kids.  So this church usually tries some sort of compromise.  All of their children sit in worship during the singing portion of worship and then they are dismissed to Jr. Church as it's typically called.

 The last approach is the one that I find myself currently involved with and I think it's the best. This is the church who believes that kids should be active in worship and not just sitting with the adults distracting (entertaining would be the more politically correct word) everyone around them.  This group believes that kids are absolutely capable of worship but that also means that their corporate worship may look different than the traditional adult Sunday morning worship. Their remedy is to have Kid's church for the entire time that the adults are in worship.  I believe that this is the best scenario but before I explain why, the reason why so many SR. Ministers or other church leadership people have balked at this is because for too long Youth Ministers have been a group of people that I would call all fun and games, and all they do during that time is play games and eat snacks.  If that's the case then the kids would be well enough in adult worship with everyone else.  But to those groups who prepare and every week create an environment for kids where they can come in and worship with other kids and have adults who have PREPARED actual lessons for them then this is the best route.  In this situation kids can learn Biblical truths that will help them in their lives right now!!  They are in an environment where they can learn and apply what they are taught and it's done on their level.  I say that with this in mind we shouldn't dumb down are kids, but what is pertinent to a middle aged adult is not the same as what a 8 year old boy or girl should be learning.  One of  our elders here at Glenview said it this way, "you wouldn't take your child to a college class and expect them to learn anything in that class right? So why do we take our kids to adult worship and expect them to learn anything in there?"  Fair question, so each week our great team of adult leaders create an environment for our kids to learn and apply and worship.  One of the other neat things that we do with our curriculum is that it's a comprehensive curriculum, so our Sunday School class begins the lesson, our Kid's Worship time builds on that and then our kid's programming on Wednesday night closes out that lesson.  If you are reading this and you attend Glenview then I would strongly urge if you don't already have your kids plugged into Kid's Worship that you get them plugged in, I don't think you will regret it.

Who Do I Root For??

So it's been a while since I posted.  Sorry.  Life has been busy!!  So let me get to my dilemna.  This Friday night the Kentucky High School Football playoffs begin.  I love this time of year, but this year brings me to a troubling scenario.  In the opening round of the playoffs the Glasgow Scotties take on the Washington County Commanders. 

You say so what's the dilemna??  Who and how do I choose to root for in this game.  On the one hand you've got Washington County, which is where I lived for the first 18 years of my life, it's where I went to high school, it's where a large chunk of my family still live.  Add to the fact that I have been a part of the radio broadcast team for Commander football and that several of the coaches are guys that I went to high school with, grew up with even played Little League baseball with.  On the other hand there is Glasgow, which is where I live now.  I live less than 1.5 miles from Glasgow High School, it's where I do ministry at.  Add to that several of the football players are a part of our student ministry. 

To most people this sounds like a really silly dilemna.  For most it's not even really a problem, the solution seems simple, root for both, right?  But to root for both shows no loyalty to either, to root for both seems like playing both sides of the fence, to root for both seems like putting your finger in the air and seeing which way the wind blows.  Was it not Jesus that said, "you cannot serve two masters."  That indicates to me that a person has to make a choice and be loyal to the choice he makes.  But he has to make a choice, one way or the other but a person has to make a choice. 

That seems to be the problem with our society today and our "church society" nobody wants to make a choice.  People want to be a saint on Sunday and a heathen Monday through Saturday.  People want to attend church A as long as everything suits them and then when it doesn't they go to church B.  There just doesn't seem to be any loyalty to anything or anyone left anymore.

Most people that know me, know that I am a huge baseball fan.  Most also know that I despise the St. Louis Cardinals, but the Cardinals have a great opportunity to reward loyalty this off-season.  After winning the World Series this year, their manager Tony LaRussa decided to retire.  Which means they now have one of the best jobs in baseball available.  To me it's a no-brainer decision because they have already on their staff a man who has been in their organization for the last 26 years.  Jose Oquendo was traded to the Cardinals in 1985 and he's been a Cardinal ever since.  He finished his playing career as a Card and then went into coaching.  The only organization that he has ever coached for is the Cardinals.  He's been a coach in the major leagues since 1999 again only with the Cardinals.  If their was ever a person that deserved to be rewarded for his loyalty it's Jose Oquendo.  Maybe we can all take a lesson from Oquendo in loyalty.  If that's not good enough maybe Joshua from the Old Testament, since afterall it was him that said to the Israelite people, "choose this day whom you will serve."  We can't be divided in our loyalty to Christ and His church.  We must choose who we will serve, who we will be loyal to.  Guess I have a decision to make about who to root for Friday night.

Back to Church Sunday???

I recently got an e-mail wanting me to add Glenview Christian Church to a list of churches who would be participating in National Back to Church Sunday.  You read that right, National Back to Church Sunday.  I have seen lots of creative ways to get people to attend church but until recently I had never heard of this approach.  Evidently this initiative started in 2009 as a day to get people to go to church.  Maybe it's just me but I have to think this may very well be one of the worst ideas that I've ever heard.  While I certainly couldn't argue with the logic that we need to encourage one another to go to church, afterall that is a biblical idea, there has got to be a better way than to set aside one Sunday and designate that day as the day all backsliding Christians return to church.  I really don't mean to sound critical of the organizers of this event, I am sure they are well intentioned people but it saddens me because of what this says about the culture that we live in.  This tells me a couple of things.  For one it says we are going to celebrate apathy.  We are going to make a special day for people who are apathetic and celebrate the fact that they only show up to church 2 Sunday's out of the year (of course those would be Christmas & Easter).  But it also says to me that people aren't living out their faith.  The fact that a group of people would get together and see that there is a need to put together such an event simply says to me that day in and day out Christians are not encouraging their brothers and sisters in Christ to be a functioning part of the body of Christ.  Remember this event is called Back to Church Sunday, this is not an evangelistic outreach, this is an event to get people who have already at some point in their life made a pledge to Christ.  So have we let our society overtake us so much to the point that we are no longer capable of individually encouraging each other to be functional in the body of Christ?  I certainly hope not but it seems to me that maybe our churches are full of "Christian atheists", people who profess Jesus with their lips in church but live their lives as though He doesn't exist.  And because of that people who have seen that from other "Christians" have decided that they'll just stay home on Sunday morning.  I don't think we need a National Back to Church Sunday, what I think we need is for Christians to get serious about their faith and their committment to follow Jesus Christ in all areas of their life not just on Sunday morning.