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.

Don't Blink

So the title of my blog is "Don't Blink" so I felt like I should probably explain the title.  Does the number 940 mean anything to you?  Unless you have to fill out a 940 IRS form or you live in Texas (it's an area code there) it probably doesn't.  There is one other group of people though that the number 940 means something to.  To the people at Glenview Christian especially parents of youth and youth workers, the number 940 is very significant.

Did you know that from the time a child is born until the time a child turn 18 there are 940 weeks in their lives.  If you multiply 18x52 you get 936 but there are 4 leap years in there so that gives you 940 weeks.  So at GCC we have used that as our theme for our youth wing.  In fact it's called the GCC 940 youth wing.  Outside of each class room is a jar of gems.  Outside of the nursery the jar has 940 gems, but the toddler room only has 836 because that's how many weeks remain when a child typically enters that age group.  When a student is ready to move into the high school group there are only 209 weeks left.  Throughout the hallway you can see a huge difference in the jars so the whole idea is that we have a limited amount of time to disciple these kids and to help them to form a Christian worldview.  940 sounds like a lot but really it is just a very limited time so "don't blink" because it will be over before you know it.

In the last month or so that phrase has taken on some extra meaning for me as well.  God is really pouring out His blessings right now and it seems like things are happening at breakneck speed and God is moving and doing something everyday (of course He does, sometimes we just seem to be able to see it better at certain times) and I don't want to blink because I don't want to miss anything. 

First Blog

So I've been thinking for sometime about starting my own blog.  I mean everyone else seems to have one so why not me???  So let me introduce myself.  My name is Adam Hale and I am the youth minister of Glenview Christian Church.  I'm sure at some point I'll explain how all of that came to pass too, but for now it's sufficient to just say that I am their youth minister.  I am married to the wonderful and beautiful Kristy Hale and we have 2 kids, Noah and Eli.

This blog will be a hodgepodge of sorts.  I'll use it to update parents on what's going on in the youth ministry at GCC, I'll use it share something thoughtful or inspirational that I've recently read and I'll probably use it the most to just share random thoughts of mine and what God is doing in my life right now.  I'm not sure how often I'll post but I'll try to at least a couple of times each week and we'll see how long that goes.  So for now I hope that you'll check back often and feel free to leave a comment, although I will just go ahead and say this, as for me and my blog we will serve the Lord so if I feel like your comment is abrasive or offensive and does not edify others or glorify God I will delete it.  So stay tuned...