"The Talk"

You probably know by now about my love for working with middle school youth and how important they are to me, but one thing you may not know is what it actually is like to lead a group of these guys.  I put a little thought into it and tried to come up with a few jobs that I feel would be fairly comparable to leading my 8^th grade boy’s small group.  One of the first things that come to mind is Professional Bull Riding.  If you can imagine the fear and anticipation that is going through that riders mind as he waits for the gate to open (or door to the classroom).  Once that gate opens there is NO TELLING what will happen next, you could have prepared for this moment for most of your life, but you really don’t know what that bull/ student is going to do first. It could be a straight on attack or maybe they will wait till you are face down and put a horn in your back.  The entire time all of this is happening your goal is to hold on for 8 seconds, or until the parents come to pick up!

Another job I thought was comparable to being an 8^th grade mentor is the Drummer boy for the Continental Army.  If you could imagine all the soldiers lining up, making sure their muskets are ready to fire and checking to see that their bayonets are properly secured in case of hand to hand combat. Then you look down and realize you are about to go into battle against the largest army in the world and all you have is two sticks and a drum stained with the blood of the last guy who thought this volunteer position was a good idea!
Now that you hopefully have a little better perspective or confusion as to why I love doing what I do, I would like to share a recent story from my experiences which involves the two weeks a year that we are blessed with the opportunity to discuss “God’s Plan for Sex”.  Now with the younger grades this can be extremely painful, once you are done with your explanations, you feel like they just found out Santa Claus and the Easter bunny are not real and that their mom and dad did not pray for a stork to bring them and leave them on their parents doorstep! They are never able to look at their parents the same way again! The 8^th grade is a whole different ball game… these boys are ready for you, just like that bull and that lead bullet made by the British!  Weeks before the director even mentions we will be talking about sex, the 8^th grade boys have sensed it is coming and have begun plotting and scheming what inappropriate jokes they can tell, what weird questions they can ask, and what they can possibly say that will make Uncle Robbie’s face morph into multiple shades of red.
So, the Sex talk was coming to a close, and I was sure the boys had used every weapon in their arsenal; it was time to close us in prayer. It was finally over, we could close this book and put it back on the shelf for another year, even though I still was not convinced that any of our discussions ever got across to them. At this time I asked one of my guys to close us in prayer, which he had no problem doing.  He stood up, bowed his head, closed his eyes, and said “DEAR GOD, THANK YOU FOR SEX, EVEN THOUGH WE ARE NOT SUPPOSE TO HAVE IT YET!”

Wow, I guess they were listening…

Smelly work truck Jesus moment

So this does not actually involve any adventures in Jr high, but I still felt it was worth sharing.  As I have said before, Youth ministry is my passion and what I enjoy doing, electrical work is what I have to do.  It’s kind of like a public restroom, nobody likes to use them, but sometimes you just don’t have a choice!  About a year ago I was riding with my helper; I always made him drive so I could sleep and look at facebook on my phone. When traveling we usually listen to the satellite radio, and more specifically, since he is in his late 20’s and I won’t give up 29, we listen to 90’s grunge rock, also called the lithium channel.  I know the 90’s were not great but they did give us the introduction of overpriced coffee, the invention of the internet by our former vice president,( which would eventually lead to thirty something’s staying up all night blogging two decades later!) Thanks a lot Al! They also produced a band named Cake.  As delicious as they sound, Cake was a fairly obscure band with some weird music. I have always been a huge fan of red velvet cake, but I could never really get into the band.

On this particular day our grunge rock indulgence included the Cake song “Sheep go to heaven” which has a line in the song that says “sheep go to heaven and goats go to hell” (I can assure you this is not a Christian song, so I don’t recommend looking it up) As the song played my helper chuckled and said why are they singing about sheep and goats?  Wow, this gave me the opportunity to switch our normal tough man construction conversation (which usually consisted of: what are we eating for lunch, what time can we go home and a list of other things that probably are not appropriate for this blog) to a conversation about Jesus.  I had the chance to explain to him about Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25.  I know this moment was more than likely not enough for him to make a decision to follow Christ and unfortunately they don’t play “Just as I am “ on the Lithium channel, but I do hope and pray that I planted a small seed that day.

Payday!

Payday can mean a lot of different things to different people.  For someone who sits behind a desk, payday is usually something that comes to them once a week or every other week which is usually just a piece of paper saying “hey we put this much in your bank account now don’t spend it all at once”.  To a child, it’s when dad finally decides to teach them about responsibility and begins their allowance; instead of responsibility what they usually learn is entitlement.  For the Time Bandit (my favorite crab fishing boat on Deadliest Catch) payday is when they pull back into port with a boat load of crab they have been praying are still alive. For me, as a small electrical contractor, payday only comes every so often.  It usually involves me having to threaten the plagues of Egypt on the customer before they hand over a portion of what I was asking for.

There is another type of payday called “Volunteer Youth Leader Payday”! I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but stay with me here.  I’m not talking about only having to pay half price for a weekend trip, chaperoning a group of middle school students, which always results in zero sleep and at least a year taken off of your lifespan!  “Volunteer Youth Leader Payday” can come in many different forms and the most recent one for me was today.  This Sunday was Confirmation Sunday at our church and it was an amazing day.  So why would I call Confirmation Sunday a payday? I can assure you there were no financial transactions that took place leaving me with anymore money! For me to explain why I consider this to be my payday I will have to start with September 2011 when the confirmation class began and 20+ middle school students turned out during our Sunday school hour because they wanted to learn more about our church, our faith and make their own commitment to Christ.  So for six months myself and two other volunteers and staff spent our Sunday mornings (when we could have been at the Waffle House) trying our best to teach these students about their church, the Bible and how much love Christ has for each of them.  Sounds easy enough, but during this time we spent every Sunday Morning constantly beating the books of the Bible into their heads, encouraging them to pray out loud, spent a sleepless night away on a confirmation retreat, checked tons of worship reviews, and did everything we could to help build their relationship with Christ.  Now we are at March 25, 2012, and I get the honor of watching these students profess their faith before our entire congregation and hand each one of them a Bible with their name embossed on the cover! It doesn’t get much better than that.  What an awesome payday!

Song and dance!

This past Sunday our Jr High service team took a trip to the local retirement home to visit with some of the residents there.  Now I set this trip up in January and confirmed we were still on the schedule to VISIT with the residents earlier in the week. Once we arrived with our convoy of mini vans and a diesel truck (b/c there was a complication with the bus… that’s another blog) we were directed to the activities room where we would VISIT with the residents.  As we were walking down the hall I glanced at a monitor with the daily events listed and stopped dead in my tracks.  This is what it said:

4:30-5:30 Dinner
5:30-6:30 Music time with SGPC Youth
6:30-7:30 Hot Toddies in activity room

What!? Music time! I know I didn’t tell them I was bringing the Jr. High choir, I said I was bringing the Jr. High youth group to VISIT.  If I knew we were supposed to entertain, I would have created some kinda interpretive dance to perform or something.  Why would I want to inflict anymore pain on a group of people who endured the great depression? My singing could be compared to Edward scissorhands running his fingernails down a chalkboard! (if you don’t know who Edward Scissorhands is, his name pretty much explains it.)  So once reality started setting in and I’m figuring the men and women of this home are expecting a remake of “Little Orphan Annie”… dinner time is over.  They begin to slowly creep from all directions into the activities room like the Colonial militia engaging the British in a sneak attack!  After our introductions and a moment of silence, it began….”What are you all going to sing for us?” Gulp!  This is how I know God loves me and has a sense of humor…. He always waits till I have at least 1 bead of sweat on my forehead before he steps in.  About that time I learn that one of our 8^th graders can play the piano… very well too! Thank you God, and thank you Elizabeth and everyone who stepped up to sing along.  We may not have produced a Broadway musical, but we put a few smiles on a few faces.

I do still have one thing bugging me…. From 6:30- 7:30 there were serving “hot toddies”(warm alcoholic drinks)  in the activity room….. Do they have happy hour every Sunday night or just after the Jr. High comes to visit?  J

Sorry you are old and can't come to Church anymore!

Once the holidays were over, we started back our Sunday night service projects.  On our first night back I did not plan an off campus project, I decided to spend some time discussing different ways we could serve with the students.  When I was planning the night I had a vision, I came up with the fantastic idea of having our students write personal notes to some of our members who are shut-ins or living in nursing homes that can no longer attend church.  It was going to be great, what could be better than our next generation eloquently scribing small notes of encouragement to some of our most respected senior members of the church. I just knew that I really struck gold with this idea. This would be the one that would take me over the top.  In the next few days I would be expecting a call from our youth director offering me a full time job, solely because of my Nobel Prize worthy idea.  Just think about it… with this I would be single handedly bridging the gap between a generation that lies about their homework so they can play Call of Duty with a generation who lied about their age so they could go fight for our country! I think I’ve got my point across about how amazing this idea became….in my head.

IN REALITY…… I could continue to tell you how great this project went, it would not be hard to do since you won’t be able to see my face as you read this, but my guilty conscious will not allow me to tell that big of a lie. Somewhere between my explanations of what we were going to do and why we were doing it, everyone stopped listening.  I’m sure they were stressing over homework or trying to recall there weekly memory verse….why else would they not be listening?  I can confidently say there are two things that stuck in their brains when I was giving instructions: they are old, and they can’t come to church anymore.

After I collected all the cards, I decided I should read over them before they were dropped in the mail.  So…………………………………………………………one of the first note cards I picked up had chocolate smudges all over it and it said “Sorry you are old and can’t come to Church anymore” another one said “I’m sorry you can’t come to church but you can still pray God at home”   

Don’t get me wrong, there were a few good notes that came straight from the heart.  Let’s just say the Nobel Prize is probably not within reach for this project, maybe the next one.  So there are two things I learned from this experience that I would like to share: 1) Always…..Always proofread anything that can be remotely linked back to you B) I really do love working with Junior High!

Jesus full of grace and mercy!

Two weeks ago I traveled to Louisville, KY with our Youth staff to the Simply Youth Ministry Conference.  God was with us on our 9 hour drive there, as we managed to avoid several devastating tornados.  During this conference I learned a whole lot! Besides the fact that I learned our youth director loves Cracker Barrel (who doesn't?), hates fried catfish and Chinese buffets, I also took home with me a whole new vast understanding of junior high ministry and junior high students. I also realized my brain has not developed much since my middle school years! Don’t get me wrong I do not actually understand junior high students completely, I’m not sure that anyone does.  We will probably find a solution to world hunger before we completely understand them!  There is one thing that I must share that I believed to be hilarious when I heard it.  Kurt Johnston, one of the speakers for the jr high workshop I attended, introduced the class by telling us:

"Jesus is so full of mercy and grace that he would NEVER call anyone into junior high ministry!"

I think that pretty much sums up why I have such a passion for junior high, kinda like how some people like to run into burning buildings, or fly straight into a hurricane.  As much as we try not to look at a bad car accident on the side of the interstate we always have that rubbernecking urge to at least take a peek!

Can Good Evangelism

At the beginning of the school year, I was given the opportunity to lead our junior highers on Sunday nights.  It is my job to teach the students what it means to serve in Jesus' name, and introduce them to the innumerable opportunities to serve in our community.  One of the challenges I gave them was to collect 1000 lbs of can goods and donate to a local food pantry. (May have set my goal a little high)
 It has been awesome working with these students on Sunday nights and I am very blessed to have been entrusted with this task. Once I had a few months under my belt I realized I was spending all my efforts finding ways to create a servants heart in each of my students.  But what was I doing to serve for Christ?  I know the time I was spending on Sunday nights word be considered serving, but what was I doing Monday thru Saturday?  What I have been trying to instill in my students (all the little ways you can serve throughout the week) I was not putting into practice myself! I spent a good amount of time pondering what I could do in my daily life, as an electrician :( , to be a servant of Christ.  Finally after cranking out a lot of weird fruitless ideas it hit me...FRIED PICKLES!!!......................................Huh?  Don't worry, I’m about to explain.  One night my wife, son and I met some friends for dinner at the best Burger joint in town, Pawley’s Front Porch!  We not only went on 1/2 price night, we also knew that if we donated 5 can goods we would receive a free FRIED PICKLE appetizer. It doesn't get much better than that!  A few days after this delectable feast, I figured out how to use a passionless job as an electrician to serve our Lord.  I created a discount program where I offer $1 off the price of my service call for every can good donated, up to 10 cans (I still have bills to pay too!) Now I’m sure you want to know where the evangelism part comes in. Well, once I tell the customer about my discount, they get excited because they are about to save $10.  Then they pause and ask me "Why would some roughneck, blue collar electrician want my can goods when he could easily buy these dented cans for half the price of the discount he is giving me" (may be slightly exaggerated) At this point, it opens the opportunity for me to explain to them about my project, my passion for junior high students, and most important that this is all being done for Jesus Christ! And that is how can good evangelism started!