Would you rather be BATMAN or IRONMAN ?

This post submits to you, the reader, a simple question.  Who would you rather be and why?

Batman and Ironman are DC and Marvel creations respectively that have had their run in the comic book industry for decades and, more recently,  in the movie industry as well.

Both are playboy billionaires who inherited family fortunes they now utilize in crime fighting endeavors.

Batman [Bruce Wayne]  is the detective genius whose playboy persona acts as cover for his war against the criminal element in Gotham City.

Ironman [Tony Stark] is the engineering genius whose playboy persona is NOT an act.

The question really comes down to which personality would appeal to you the most.

WOULD YOU RATHER BE BATMAN OR IRONMAN?

This video is from my message to Degree 180 last week. Degree 180 is the young adult ministry at Smyrna Assembly and I was very excited to speak to them.

I asked the room of people to text me their tough questions about the Bible and life in general and I would answer them during my message. The catch is I ONLY HAVE A MINUTE TO ANSWER EACH QUESTION.

Let’s see what happened…

…not your “Twinkle, twinkle little star”…

This video was shown at Degree 180 Young Adult Ministry last week. I had never seen this message by Lou Giglio before and it awakened a new sense of GOD for me.

I’ve only posted one of the video clips from the 2008 message where Lou uses scientific measurements of the known stars in our galaxy to describe the ferocious magnitude of our universe!

During the message Lou Giglio repeatedly refers to GOD as the Star Breather…that He literally breathed out the stars in all their fiery astronomically huge glory.

I’ve become fascinated with that title for God…Star Breather.

Take a look at the video and learn of the vast and volatile galaxies that GOD spoke (breathed) into existence.

Announcing the WINNERS of the FREE CD contest:

Rodney Boyd, Wayne Berry, and Scott Asher  all won copies of Jonny Diaz’s latest CD Stand For You from INO Records! Congrats guys!

INO Records artist, Jonny Diaz, recently released his newest CD called Stand For You.

My friend at INO Records asked me to give the CD a listen and blog my thoughts on the material.

The single “More Beautiful You” has already hit the Christian Radio airwaves and it definetly hooked me as a song I immediately wanted to share with every female in my student ministry at church. With the bombardment of sexy advertising and digitally air-brushed perfection, today’s youth are in dire need of a pop culture messenger discribing true beauty. Even adult women could benefit from listening to “More Beautiful You” to hear how God made them and fashioned them with a life-purpose.

Overall, Jonny’s music is mellow pop that swims in and out of several pop-music genres from track to track. Some of my favorite tunes express a fun story-telling quality that make me think of Brad Paisley…without the twang.

Though his lyrics are short on poetry, all the songs are very message driven. You can sense that each song, all of which were written or co-written by Diaz, was penned to express an intentional declaration or message from the artist.

It’s rare to see so much purpose behind a singer/songwriter in the pop genre.  Rare and refreshing.

Be sure and visit Jonny online at jonnydiaz.com and check out the video contest for his new single “Stand For You“.

Now for my contest: I’ve got 5 copies of the Stand For You CD to give away, courtesy of INO Records. You simply need to comment on this blog and tell me why you should receive a Jonny Diaz CD.

I’ve got 5 CDs and one can be yours.

“CREATE A CRISIS”

 

I’ve heard this statement repeated by a number of organizational leaders and church ministers. Last year, Pastor Ronnie Meek at Smyrna Assembly said this to me regarding some changes in our youth ministry at SA. I understood the idea of creating a problem in your organization that forces your team to rally around and create a solution. But, at the time, the idea of intentionally creating a problem for you and your team just seemed counter productive and laying an unnecessary burden on others.

Recently, Jenni Catron at Crosspoint Church blogged on the use of this very statement. She discussed how  ”create a crisis” was a mantra designed to unify a team, define goals, and energize people to action.

Sometimes a crisis is created by a leader to take the organization in a new direction, answer a real problem in the group, or to increase excellence in a plateaued program. But a crisis can also simply…happen. A set of circumstances can unintentionally gather to create a crisis that no one planned or sanctioned.

Currently, my wife and I are experiencing the effects of  “create a crisis” in our personal lives.  

My wife and I are excited to be expecting our first child. We’ve heard the heartbeat, decided on a name, and even bought a few onesies (who thought up that word?).  But, now we are over the initial parent-to-be giddiness and we’ve recently decided we need to move to a house that can accommodate the new addition to Team Shaver. So…we’re on the house hunt.

Added to stress of house hunting/baby arriving is this stage of transition in my ministry and not knowing what God has planned for us.  Faithfully we trust that He has a plan and provision for us right around the next turn. But we find ourselves questioning if full-time ministry is really the next step or if the house we are looking for is really out there and can we even afford to raise a baby.

In short, it feels like  a crisis.

Don’t get me wrong. This stress and “crisis” has  yielded a pretty positive effect on me and my wife. Our faith is bolder. Our ministry/career focus has a direction in front of it and momentum behind it. And, my sense of adventure is peaked.

Maybe God uses the principle of “create a crisis” too. 

Hey, he probably invented it.

Have you experienced  the effects of  “create a crisis”?

I hit a wall in youth ministry a few weeks ago.

During the Wednesday night worship service with our middle school students I found myself, as I had  several weeks in a row, very frustrated.

Why? I felt like the students didn’t GET worship. It seemed they didn’t care to focus on a great God who loves them. Or the middle schoolers didn’t appreciate what an amazing worship environment the leaders and I had created for them.

I found myself agonizing over the lights (dim or full-up) , the music (too loud/soft), …My mind wandered to every distraction that was present in the room that could steal away the attention of our middle school students during these few precious moments of worship. Why!?!  Why were they so distracted? Why, week after week, does it take so much effort for them to sing in adoration to our God.?

BAM! I hit the wall ….

After that night, I got honest and expressed my concern with my leadership team. It was in that meeting that we discovered together that our responsibility is NOT to make these middle schoolers GET worship …or make them fall in love with Jesus while we sing praise choruses. We don’t carry that responsibility because we, as humans, can’t change their hearts.

I do, however, have another responsibility to those students as their pastor:  TO CREATE AN ENVIRONMENT

What does this mean?

It is said among doctors and physicians that their skill and responsibility is not  to heal because they cannot heal; the body has to heal itself. A doctor’s responsibility is to create an enviroment for the body/within the body to allow it to heal itself.

My team and I discovered that we cannot change the hearts of these middle schoolers. We are ultimately responsible to create a consistently holy environment where they experience His holiness.  Our hope and prayer is that these teens will learn from the example set before them.

Since then, I felt a burden lifted. Truly, the burden to change the way these middle schoolers engaged in worship  - it was never my burden. Knowing that has allow my team to redirect our focus on what we are actually capable of changing.

 

Are you trying to change hearts or create a holy environment where He can change hearts?

The video is my message to the VANTEDGE middle schoolers last Wednesday night at Smyrna Assembly. The real treat here isn’t in listening to my amazing teaching  

Just watch the kid in the front row. His reaction when I don’t pick him to answer my trivia question is priceless!

At least I know they’re listening.  

Last week, my wife and I visited the doctor for another ultra-sound and discovered that we are having a boy!

A BOY!

Immediately, we became excited and something inside both of us “engaged” for the first time. I can’t fully describe what this internal change was but it was distinct and it definitely happened to both of us.

You see, we already had  a names picked out. So, as soon as the ultrasound tech said, “it’s a boy” we now had a name for the boy. With that name, we attached an identity. True, some of that attached identity is a warm illusion created by this soon-to-be mom and dad. Once we could  name the child, Elaina and I began to internally invest in this baby boy on a totally new and much greater level.

I would dare to say that the act of “naming” is almost magic.

Just read children’s fantasy author Madeleine L’Engle.

Or read C.S. Lewis

Or the Holy Bible; it lists numerous people whose names echoed significance through their lives. (Jacob/Israel, Esau, Jehu, Gideon, Jesus, Peter, Saul/Paul …etc)

Names can attach meaning, weight, and expectations. For example, a child named Sinbad living in America really has only two vocational prospects: comedian or pirate!

Consider this: the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Author of Time and Existence….knows your name. He knows everyone’s name….everyone that ever has or ever will exist. He knows their name too -EVERYONE! Every soul that lives in a multimillion dollar mansion and every soul residing in a shanty-town in a poverty-stricken village …has a name known by our Father.

There is no such thing as a “face in the crowd” to God. Everyone has a name that he knows. That name tells a story. That name carries expectations.

Your name carries weight (stop and relish that) because He knows it.

Psalm 147:4 He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name.

In Isaiah 43, the Lord tells Israel, “Do be afraid…I have called you by name, you are mine!”

Psalm 139

¹ O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.

² You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

And, yes, I’ll tell you the name.

We are calling him Caius William Shaver.

Some things can only be learned from experience. No amount of book work or advice can really teach you how to ride a bike. You just have to do it and do it again and again. And, eventually you learn from your successes but you learn so much more from failures (which aren’t really failures when you can build on them).

Ministry is the same way. I do not mean to deminish educating ministers. And if you know me, you know I highly value education among pastors and lay ministers. But there are somethings you can ONLY learn through experience.

Thus, I submit to you the following:

Three important things that only personal experience could teach me in youth ministry:

1. When a parent approaches you with a problem…it’s usually a good sign!

No, seriously! I realized this only by experience when a mother approached me years ago about the style of music we used during our Wednesday night teen services. We didn’t see eye to eye and I realized pretty quickly that we still were not going to agree even after the conversation was over. But in the middle of that confrontation, when I almost tuned her out, I realized how very valuable her opinion was to me.

We didn’t have to agree, this mother and I. And, I don’t think she entirely expected that. But, I did have to listen…and she certainly expected no less than that. I realized in the middle of that conversation that I did not know what was best for her child –that teen did not live under my roof and I did not carry the responsibility of raising said teen. Mother did. She knew what was best for her child –not me.

Also, the ”problem“ that mother brought to me really was a blessed opportunity for me to receive some very honest feed-back on the ministry program we had in place for the teens.  Think of it this way:  1) this parent cared enough about her child to face me with this issue and 2) this parent cared enough about me and how I lead the teen ministry to face me about this issue. I could have remained blissfully ignorant if either of those had not been the case. And, what a loss that would have been for the teen and for me.

2. You MUST lead by EXAMPLE. 

I can’t stress how absolutely necessary this is. In a ministry aimed at raising up pre-teens and teens to become disciples of Christ the last thing any of them need is another adult saying, “do as I say, not as I do.”

They may expect this kind of compromise from their parents, older siblings, even adult mentors; but not from their Christian pastors, youth pastor, and children’s pastors. They shouldn’t have to.

The truth is that the rule of leading by example is necessary to all aspects of church ministry and the Christian walk. Christ taught the disciples that way. Paul taught his team of fellow ministers that way. In matters of spirituality and Christian discipline: You can never lead anyone to a place you have not already gone yourself.  

3. Youth ministry is not simply a ministry to the youth.

When someone says, “youth ministry” you initially think of youth, lock-ins, pizzas and coke, dating drama, cheesy get-to-know-you-games, YOUTH …right? Well don’t forget the folks who bring those kids to church and, 70% of the time, the very people who introduced them to Christianity in the first place: THE PARENTS. If you plan to minister to children or teens you have to do it in conjunction with the parents.

Listen to them because they know their kids. Include them because they want to feel welcomed and be informed. And minister to them. That’s right; you are responsible to reach out to them with words of guidance & encouragement. When you as a minister reach out to the parents it may, overtime, allow them to support you and get behind you as you move forward. And, I’ve learned you’ll need that. You really will.  

So fellow ministers…what has ministry taught you (so far…)

"cake...for me?"

The VANTEDGE Middle School Ministry just indulged in our Christmas Party this week! Teens brought cake, cookies, and other homemade confections to be devoured in a matter of minutes leaving a disaster area of wrappers, icing, plates, smeared chocolate, spilled cider…you know, Christmas.

I the middle of all the sugary indulgence, I managed to get the room full of middle schoolers to stop for a moment and join me in a experiment. As we stood around the table of drinks and desserts with everyone’s attention captive, I began singing Happy Birthday. The room full of teens stopped everything else they were doing to join right in and we all sang, “happy birthday, dear Jesus…Happy birthday to You!”

Remember, this Christmas season is all about a birthday.

Not your birthday. 

Not my birthday.

Not your child’s birthday.

Christmas is to be celebrated as the day God chose to be BORN among us. Christmas is the day God began to live here among us…just as one of us.

What a miracle!

Happy birthday, Jesus.