Even More Things I Never Want to Hear Again

I’m going to take a brief detour into other areas right now.  Some are church-related and some are not.  Mostly, this is just a vent.  Enjoy (if you can:)!

1. President Obama is not a citizen or President Obama is  Hitler or the Antichrist or any combination of the three.  Okay people (especially Christians), stop with the nonsense.  You sound as foolish as those who claim that President Bush planned the 9/11 attacks.  President Obama is our president.  Get over it.  Do the Biblical thing and submit to governing authorities.  Pray for them.  Do you realize that at the time the Apostle Paul wrote Romans 13 (the chapter that tells us to submit to our leaders), ROME was in charge – one of the cruelest, most ungodly and anti-Christian empires in the world?  Our current crop of elected leaders have nothing on Caesar.

2. Another Christian tell me I am a citizen of the world.  Um, no I’m not.  I’m a foreigner and an alien.  I am an ambassador of Christ in this world.

3. Another person who hasn’t read a Bible in 25 years (Christian or otherwise) tell me Jesus was a socialist.  Jesus wasn’t a socialist.  He was a Biblicist.  He taught that we should personally care for one another, not expect the government to do the caring for us.  For those who like this one, what are you doing?  If you did your job, the government wouldn’t feel compelled to do it for you.

4. Another person saying “poor people are poor by choice”.  Yeah, true, there are some people who choose, either by action or inaction, to live in poverty, but for the love of all things holy, stop painting all poor people with such a broad brush.  Stop using stereotypes to excuse your inaction.

5. One more Christian leader say poverty is a result of personal sin.  Yeah, I guess the 16,000 children who died of hunger yesterday were sinful to the core and deserved everything they had coming to them.  If only they had more faith then their distended bellies would have been full.  You know what is sinful?  You teaching people to go out and buy expensive cars and houses when they can’t afford them while 16,000 children starve each day.

6.  A government leader tell me what Jesus would do.  Look, don’t tell me Jesus would vote for cap and trade, universal health care, war in Iraq or tax breaks for small businesses.  Stop using the name of Christ to push your agenda.

7. Someone using the term “baby killer” in reference to those in the military. That’s a great way to win support for your position.  Use  nasty names to describe people who volunteered to protect you and I.  Yeah, I’m ready to join your cause.

8. A Christian using the term “baby killer” in reference to someone who has had an abortion.   That’s a great way to love people.  Maybe we should address you as “liar” or “adulterer” from now on?  After all, I’m sure you lied once or twice in your life and committed adultery as well (remember, Jesus said if we lust in our HEARTS, we have committed adultery).  Jesus died for you when you were those things and more and he died for the woman who has had an abortion as well.

9. Another actor telling me what candidate I should support. So you once had a television role as a senator or president and that makes you an expert on politics?  I once made a pillow in home economics.  We need to discuss your wardrobe.

10. Another sport’s figure telling me what candidate I should support.  You went right from High School to the NBA or you left college as a Sophomore to sign with the NFL or MLB.  What the heck makes you qualified to tell me who I should support?  You have an opinion?  Great.  You have money?  Awesome.  Those things qualify you as a political analyst?  Not so much.  I have a football and a pair of cleats.  We should get together and talk about your play execution.

10 More Things I Never Want to Hear Again

1. “Um, Pastor Brian, I know our Mission Trip is tomorrow and you’ve been planning it for over six months, but I just found out I have to be at __________ Camp and I can’t miss it.  Can I have a refund?”

2. “The Server is down.”

3. “Jesus is my homeboy.”

4. “Good Christians would never ________________ (fill in the blank).”

5. “Pastor Brian…we were throwing the football in the youth room and accidentally hit the video projector.”

6. “The elders want to know why you were doing doughnuts in the new church van after the last snow storm.”

7. “Why did you teach the senior high about purity?  I wanted to be the one to talk to my (16-year-old)  about that.”

8. “I think making the student leadership team memorize Bible verses is too strict.  They already have enough to do.”

9. “You don’t know me, and my son has never been to your youth group, but do you think you could call him?  He just got arrested for selling prescription drugs and I think you could help him.”

10. “I don’t want to come to youth group because ‘you-know-who’ is there.”

10 Things I Never Want to Hear Again

1. I never want to hear another complaint about inconsiderate teens who don’t pay attention, use their cell phones too much and are too concerned about sex by adults who fall asleep five minutes into a sermon, have to be reminded 10 times to turn their cell phones off (and still have them ringing during the service) and have been divorced 3 times because they cheated on their spouses.

2.  I never want to hear one more complaint about the “cliques” in our youth group by adults who sit in the same seat, shake the same hands and talk to the same people every Sunday.

3. I never want to hear another comment about my mission trip being a “vacation”.

4. I never want to hear another worship song with lyrics that make no sense because the writer was trying to sound more spiritual than they are.

5. I never want to hear “incarnate the love of Jesus” by people who say it only to sound post-modern and “relevant”.

6. I never want to hear “relevant” again.

7. I never want to hear “I Could Sing of your Love Forever” again because we’re still singing it from the last time.

8. I never want to hear “if you love Jesus you’ll…”.  I do love Jesus and since I love him, I’m going to ignore your attempt at manipulating me into supporting your cause, ministry or chain email.

9. I never want to hear “hey, this would be a great event for the youth, but I can’t help lead it”.  If it’s such a great event, then you must be the perfect person to plan it, organize it, make the phone calls, send the emails, collect the money, buy the tickets, rent the vans, find drivers for the vans, make reminder phone calls, send reminder emails and then show up for the event only to discover that half of those who signed up didn’t show up and then call you to request a refund.

10. I never want to hear another person complain that the youth pastor isn’t doing enough about the growing teen “dropout rate” in church.  Divorce rates are growing too.  Could they be related?

10 Things I Never Want to See Again

1. Another youth group name, book or curriculum that starts with Xtreme. Liquid, Jolt, etc.

2. Another book about postmodern anything.

3. Another song with lyrics like “this generation seeks you” or the like.

4. One more 5 dollar pencil, bookmark or breath mint with “Jesus” stamped on the side.

5. Another allusion to making war or rioting for Jesus.

6.  Another Christmas CD by an artist whose secular career is in the crapper and realizes that Christians are suckers for once-famous people who appear to have had a life-changing experience when in reality, the only life-changing experience they’ve had is realizing they can make some money off of gullible Christians looking for someone “cool” to validate their faith.

7. Another speaker who says, “I didn’t prepare anything because I just want to let the spirit lead”.

8. Another youth retreat where the speaker does 14 alter calls because no one responds to the first five and he needs to feel good about himself by getting someone…ANYONE up on the stage to make it look like his message was effective.

9. Another Christian music festival.

10. Another lesson, curriculum or book designed to make student feel guilty for not being “green”.

Top 10 Misconceptions about Student Ministry #2

Student Ministries must be fun and entertaining because students have a short attention span and need lots of stimulus in order to keep them engaged.

I was surfing the net the other day and came across an AMAZING youth building.  I won’t tell you where it was or what it was called, but suffice it to say, it was incredible.  Indoor basketball courts.  Giant video game arcade.  Coffee Shop/snack bar.  Giant meeting room with multiple video screens.  Rockin’ youth worship band.  It had it all.

As I alternated between looking at the pictures and confessing my sins of envy, I had several thoughts.  What if I had all those things?  What could I do with them?  What would I do with them?  Would my students be stronger in their faith?  Would they be better evangelists because they had a really cool basketball court?  Would they love mercy more, do justice more or walk more humbly with God because they could play all the latest arcade games?  I don’t think so.

After a little introspection, I asked myself two more questions.  Do we need those things to be more effective at student ministry?  Do I need any of those things to be a more effective student ministry pastor?  I don’t think so.

Now, I completely get the idea of being relevant and contextualizing the gospel in order to minister to a culture, but I don’t think we need the bells and whistles in order to accomplish that goal.  We already live in a very self-centered nation and when we leverage that self-centeredness in order to attract a larger crowd, the monster only gets bigger.

Student Ministry pastors and leaders are really good at a lot of things.  But, one thing we are especially adept at doing is using spiritual language to justify spending lots of money just to entertain students.  The end product is sometimes worse than the beginning.  Instead of having bored teens who are apathetic about their faith we have teens who have lots more options (but still complain about not having anything to do), who are still apathetic about their faith.

I’ll leave it at that.  I’d like to generate some discussion here, so if you have a comment please contribute.

New Series

I had a lot of fun writing the Myth of the Perfect Youth Pastor Series. It isn’t done I’m sure, but right now, I’m out of ideas. Thanks to all who commented, sent emails and talked to me on the phone.

I’m starting a new series. This one is called Top 10 Misconceptions about Student Ministry. It may resemble the Myths series in some regard, but I’m taking a macro look at things in this one. Hope you enjoy.

Download The Myth of the Perfect Youth Pastor (updated 4/16/09)

I have had many requests to have The Myth of the Perfect Youth Pastor series available for download.  I have tried to keep uodated PDF files for anyone who desires to do so.

Here is the latest updated PDF.

The Myth of the Perfect Youth Pastor PDF

If you like it, pass it on.  Give people the link or just email the file t o them.  I would ask one thing though…if any of you use this for any reason, I would love to know what it was used for and what the reaction was.  Thanks!

The Myth of the Perfect Youth Pastor by Brian Hennon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at pbdh.wordpress.com.

Cardboard Testimonies

I found this video yesterday and was struck by the diverse ways in which God works in his people.  God works through our addictions, our divorces, our inability to have children, our diseases, our selfish pride and our mediocrity.  He is the God who makes beauty from ashes and turns our sorry into joy.