Short Post Sunday- 4

Merry Christmas!

Guest Post- Brett S. Arnold IS BACK!

I know I said last week that there would be no more Guest Posts till New Year's Eve... I lied. Brett S. Arnold of Cat Facts fame has decided to drop off a little Christmas treat. Be warned this story is a little more adult than what you usually see on this blog so read with caution.

A Christmas Miracle -by Brett S. Arnold

For children, Christmas and the “holiday spirit” come as naturally as being born. It’s in them, chemically, somewhere deep in the marrow of their bones. Thanksgiving is a nuisance, something to be half-celebrated, only partially paid attention to, before the real season can begin. “We must celebrate this first, then we can listen to Christmas music and get a tree,” the parents will say. But the children can’t help but want it now.

I was in my twenties, and like so many others, I felt myself grasping for ways to get into the holiday mood. I genuinely wanted to be excited, but as to where Christmas was always just there before, now I had to make an effort. In my car, I had to seek out Christmas music, if that’s what I felt like listening to at all, and there were so many movies to watch—did I really want to see Jim Carrey masquerade around as the Grinch again?

One of the last mysteries provided for the holiday season was a door on the bottom floor of my parent’s house that my dad had taped shut with a note: “Do Not Enter, You’ll Ruin Christmas.” It wasn’t exactly an uplifting in its rhetoric, but alas, it did add back some of that mysterious holiday magic. What’s in there? Presents, no doubt, unwrapped and sitting, waiting, unprotected on the floor. I was watching my parent’s house, as they were suddenly out of state on business, though they would be back on the 20th.

I tried other things too, of course, to get in the spirit. My girlfriend, sister and I went so far as to drive 45 minutes south down to Laguna Hills. There was a house there that my sister found on the internet where the lights went off and on within 1/20th of a second of each other, set perfectly to the tempo of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and pretty much the entire Vince Guaraldi cannon. Apparently, in full-blown f*ck-all adult-hood, getting into the season includes buying thousands and thousands of colored LED lights on miles of strands, covering your entire house with it, and programming all of this in no less than one thousand hours, beginning all the way back in August. Every year.

I was feeling desperate. Yes, the house could be seen from space (probably). Yes, the neighbors outside passing out home-made apple cider was a nice touch. But was this where I was heading? Was this the amount of effort it would take for Christmas to feel completely, overwhelmingly and instinctually amazing as it did in childhood?

Back at my parents, I was in a panic. Everyone was asleep, and the only thing holiday-related on the DVR was this year’s Glee special (good lord, this will be part of some kids’ holiday tradition, won’t it?) I walked up slowly—tiptoed—to the mystery room. Do Not Enter, You’ll Ruin Christmas. I slowly peeled away the tape, and turned the door handle, all the while listening for any movement in the other rooms. Silence. I slowly pushed the door ajar, and though it was pitch black the stench hit me like biology class on dissection day. I swung aimlessly for the light switch. And there he was. My first thought, he’s real, was followed so closely by my second thought, within 1/20th of a second, that an omniscient 3rd party might not be able to distinguish the two, and he’s dead. The blood, red as his coat, congealed in the center of the bed—sunk low under his enormous body. His beard was yellowed from a sort of bile that had at one point secreted from his mouth, but was now dried and flaking from his bloated, now purple- toned flesh. I’m sure, looking back on all of this, that I must have screamed. But I can’t remember now.

Christmas was ruined.

Donald and the Dust Bunnies pt. 4- The Magic

Kyle sat up from his bed, starring out his window and into Donald’s room.  Kyle had lived across the street from Donald for all of their lives and he had never seen Donald act like this. Kyle was always getting in trouble and so he often got time out in his room where he would look through his window.

He knew that the mailman often came around 4 o’ clock. He knew that the babysitter from up the street would bicycle by at 5:30. He knew that Donald seldom got in trouble and so Donald seldom spent time in his room, but for the last few weeks that’s all Donald did. Something was wrong with Donald, Kyle thought.

The Grump.

…

The Grump's plan had worked. It almost felt like they shouldn’t call him The Grump anymore. He confided in Donald that his real name was Harry. Donald thought that was still a grumpy name, but that thought made both of them laugh (a feeling that was new to Harry).

Donald and the dust bunnies spent most of their nights staying up and playing. One of their favorite games was pillow cannon. They would all sit at one end of the pillow and Donald would press his head against the other so to send them flying across the room. The dust bunnies would do tricks and Donald would give them trophies for the best ones.

Daisy was so light that she could reach all the way up to the fan and then come tumbling down. The first time she did that she realized that there were even more dust bunnies hiding on top of the fan and so Daisy got a very special trophy.

George didn’t enjoy games as much as the others did. He still liked them but he spent a lot of his time making things out of legos for the other dust bunnies to use. Even though George seemed a little dense sometimes, all the other dust bunnies knew him as the genius inventor. So, Donald starting bringing George more and more stuff to invent with. At first it was pennies and pencils that he found at school, but then Donald starting bringing him things leftover from his lunch.

You’d be amazed at all the great things George can do with a stale piece of American cheese.

For months Donald and the dust bunnies lived freely, enjoying every moment of every day. Until the day came, the day that Harry (The Grump) and Donald had talked about so many days ago.

“Donald, could you please come down for dinner,” his mom said with a hint of worry in her voice.

Donald had just finished seeing one of Daisy’s greatest tricks and he wasn’t really inclined to leave just yet.

Daisy.

“I’ve got to go guys, I’ll be back in a bit.”

“If she’s making fruit salad make sure to bring me some grape peels!” George said eagerly.

“Of course George!” Donald laughed.

When Donald came skipping down the stairs he saw his parents in the living room waiting for him. He didn’t smell any dinner cooking and suddenly he realized it wasn’t even close to dinner-time (which was usually around 6).

“Donald, come here, sit down for a bit,” his dad said.

Donald sat down quietly, scared of what his parents might say.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time in your room Donald.” His mom said, with the same worry in her voice. “Are you… okay?”

“Yeah! I’ve never been better mom!”

“Look Donald, your mom and I are just worried that you’re having trouble at school, ya know? Making friends and what not… we just want to know that you’re alright.”

“Dad, I’m fine, really. I’ve never been better.”

“Your room is a mess Donald.”

“It’s not that bad…”

“We found stale cheese in the sheets and there is dust everywhere!”

“We’ll it’s not as bad as Kyle’s room”

It was worse than Kyle’s room.

“I don’t care son, it needs to get cleaned.”

“Donald, what’s wrong…” his mom said, the worry was gone and now she was only caring. “You know you haven’t been outside in months, other than going to school?”

“I just, mom, I just don’t want to clean my room.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t wanna.”

“I understand, but we all have to clean our rooms sometimes.”

“I just… I wanna keep playing with… with my legos” Donald said, tears welling up in his eyes.

“Oh Donald! Why are you crying?” His mom asked.

“I’m not.” Donald wiped the tears away with his jacket sleeve. “I’m just, I’m not gonna clean it.”

“Honey, can you give me some time with Donald?” His dad asked. His mom nodded and walked out of the room.

“I think I know what’s wrong son.”

“No you don’t!”

“It’s magic isn’t it?” He said with a smile. “There’s magic in your room.”

Donald looked up at his father, amazed at the fact that he did understand.

“I had magic too when I was a kid. I still see it everyday.”

“You still have dust bunny friends?”

His dad laughed.

“No, no. You know I had dust bunny friends when I was your age? We played for days and days and I never cleaned up, but one day I woke up and my bed was a mess. My mom came bursting into my room with a vacuum and POOF! They were all gone. I never saw them again.”

Donald broke out into big sloppy tears.

“It was okay Donald. I realized that when I cleaned up, and I went outside again that there was a little bit of magic in everything. Not just in those little dust bunnies. You know if magic can be in little tiny dust bunnies, how much do you think is in those big giant trees?”

“I don’t know.”

“More than you could ever imagine. How much is in the sky, do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Even more than is in the trees, Donald. How much do you think is right here?” His dad asked while pointing at Donald’s heart.

“I don’t know.”

“Even more than the sky son.”

George.

…

The next day Donald went to school and he thought about all the magic. He spent all day looking out the window and thinking about how many great things were filled with magic around him. He thought about how much magic was in his heart, and he thought about how great God was for giving him all that magic.

When he got home his room was clean. The floors were sparkly and his bed was made. On the pillow there was a little note that read:

“Thank you for all the magic you gave us, Donald. Thank you for all the days and for showing me what it means to laugh. We will miss you. –Harry”

And Donald cried one last, big, sloppy tear.

MW- Christmas Midweek!

So here's my first holiday cop-out. I had to write a midweek article for PACC's bulletin and I decided to post it here. It applies to everyone who reads this anyway so here goes:


Christmas time is here! It no longer is appropriate to sing “it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” because in actuality it’s beginning to look a lot like the New Year and in only a few short days we’ll be looking back on the 2011 Christmas that was.

a good ol' fashioned... are those elves coming out of a fire?! What is this?!

There are so many things that surround the Christmas season that many of us don’t take the time to truly reflect on. We’re so busy running around getting presents and going to Christmas parties that it’s hard to really consider why in the world someone would have a tree in their house. I mean it’s normal to see a few flowers in a vase on the dining room table but a whole tree? When you take a moment to look at the pets in the house you realize just how perplexing this really is, but what really gets me is the gifts.

We were talking about this in youth group; why do we give gifts around Christmas time? And I don’t mean to brag but everyone of the kids had the perfect Christian answer, “because Jesus was the greatest gift of all!” It would be so simple to say that and then just write it off like “oh, I guess we all know the meaning of Christmas, let’s move on,” but if we truly believed Christ was such a great gift, shouldn’t it change our lives?

I think about when I opened my first Gameboy on Christmas day. 

I don't mess around with that 3DS BS.

For the next few months I had that Gameboy in my backpack and I would play it non-stop. All of my conversations at school would be about my Gameboy and how awesome it was. When I received that gift, as silly as it was, it changed my life. So why does it seem that every Christmas season I get super excited about Christ’s birth but the day after it feels so disappointing, like everything wondrous about it has simply dried up?

I don’t live everyday dedicated to the gift of Christ. I certainly try, but when I think of the students I teach I realize that for them being dedicated to Christ solely for an entire day seems impossible. They can't even stay dedicated to their girlfriends that long.

angst.

Now for me to get to my sales pitch: See, we’re getting ramped up for a trip up to Angeles Crest for Winter Camp 2012. It’s going to be in the very beginning of February and that gives us very little time to get the word out and to raise money. This will be my first attempt of many, but I want you to realize that for these kids going up to camp isn’t about snowballs and sledding, or playing games and staying up late, camp is one full day of being completely surrounded by Christ, away from the noise and the… well, the Gameboys. It’s a great gift to give someone because as the saying goes “give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a life time.” You can give a kid a gift and show them what it means to be generous and giving like Christ or you can send a kid to camp and teach them to be completely inundated with Christ, surrounded by Him and truly close to Him.

IQR- Die Hard

Finally! A Christmas movie on Instant Queue that I actually like!

It's like Christmas came early!

Actual Rating: 5 Stars. This film is so much more than just a typical action movie, there are all these layers to it that unfold in perfect timing. The best part is how John McClane’s vulnerability is subtly showcased in each scene. This film seems to have perfected the art of showing and not telling. IE it shows explosions rather than telling me about silly things like “feelings”.

Enjoyment Rating: 5 Stars. As much as I shouldn’t enjoy all the foul-mouthed one liners I just can’t help myself. They’re perfect. The bad hair-cuts, also perfect. It’s one of the few 80’s movies that can be unashamedly 80’s and still be… dare I say, perfect. Not to mention it’s a Christmas movie, really only to the same degree that Golden Christmas 1 and 2 were but still! Christmas! It’s like adding special little awesome sprinkles onto a perfect awesome sundae… of explosions!

Kate’s Cryometer: 0 tears. Kate did weep tears of joys for how good the film was but as they fell they were replaced with explosions. Die Hard exploded Kate’s tears, hence the 5 stars in the enjoyment rating.

Blasphemy Rating: 0 or 5 explosions, depending. At first it gets 5 explosions because I love this movie so much it is almost blasphemous. When I watch it I find myself thinking things like “this is the best Christmas movie of all time” even though it goes against everything I love about Christmas: puppies, cookies, Christmas miracles, etc. My love for this film flies in the face of my love for the season of Christ’s birth so, yeah, 5 blasphemy explosions. But as I really think about it I realize that what I love about this film is how much it shows our vulnerability in the face of adversity and the way that people can rise above that weakness. For that I give it 0 blasphemy explosions. It ends up being somewhere in the middle because as much as I love the story of man overcoming weakness in the face of impossible odds there is that one big thing missing that makes it possible…

Jesus. That’s what’s missing.

I love stealing other peoples photoshop jokes!

Overall rating: 4.5 stars. Don’t ask me why it’s not 5, because I can’t tell you, it’s just a gut feeling.

So let’s get back to this vulnerability because I think that is what makes this film such a success. For those who haven’t seen it you should stop reading cause **SPOILER ALERT**… Every scene with John McClane, from the first one where his plane is landing to the very last one where he is walking away from the wreckage of Nakatomi tower, he is juxtaposed by his weakness. Think about the airplane scene, the first time we see our hero, and he’s noticeable shaken by a simple plane landing. The nerdy guy next to him even gives him tips on what to do when he’s done flying. John McClane isn’t a perfect hero, in fact every step of the way he seems more and more imperfect. His failing marriage just illustrates this even more. John McClane doesn’t have his life together.

So when John McClane gets put into a crappy situation you don’t really expect him to succeed. When he first leaps into action he’s got no outer shirt and no shoes and he’s in one of the most vulnerable places I can imagine: a public restroom.

later he gets into much more vulnerable places.

And that’s just the beginning. He hasn’t even gotten shot at yet and he’s already down on his luck. Not to mention he’s 1 guy against 13! And Throughout the movie they go out of their way to cement the fact that these terrorists are smart and well trained. When they first walk into the building it’s like clockwork. They go around shooting everyone that needs to be shot and the whole thing moves so smoothly and emotionless that you can’t help but think that these terrorists are an unstoppable killing machine. That’s why it’s so odd that John McClane, of all people, is the wrench in that machine.

You would think at some point McClane would get some help but it goes in exactly the other direction. He’s finally able to contact the police and they don’t believe him (resulting in one of the best one-liners of all time). He is hanging from a rope trying to reach an air duct and the rope breaks. He is standing in a room full of windows with no shoes on and the terrorists shoot the glass. The craziest part is when he actually, full on, gets SHOT in the right shoulder and still manages to keep fighting. When the FBI arrive in what is supposed to be rescue helicopters they’re actually gunships that shoot at him! He jumps off a freaking building, being held only by a fire hose, and the fire hose breaks! There is absolutely no reason why this movie should have a happy ending, and that’s what makes the happy ending so much more satisfying.

look how suave these terrorists are!
they look like they deserve to win.

oh but no! They got John McClain'd!

All movies end up being caricatures to some extent. They are these exaggerations of reality that help to magnify reality so that we don’t have to look as hard to find all the nuggets of entertainment, humor, and action. Most of the times these caricatures blow up the picture and in the process they lose a lot of it. Take a movie like Nutty Professor 2 for instance (just pulling a movie off the top of my head). It’s supposed to be magnifying the humor but in the process it loses all concept of humanity or relatability. A fat man acting ridiculous is funny. One man playing a bunch of fat people telling fart jokes just doesn’t make sense.

Die Hard is great because it magnifies reality while also keeping it intact. I’m not trying to say that anything in Die Hard could really happen but I do think it’s realistic. Die Hard is realistic because on a daily basis there are people out there, which despite their glaring flaws and handicaps, overcome a world that is working against them in order to achieve a goal they never thought possible. Really we do that everyday just by waking up in the morning. That doesn’t mean you should give yourself a high five for anything but when you really consider how much works against you on a daily basis it’s amazing that I even make it to breakfast. And it’s not like the world is set up to make it easier for you to live. If you listen to the news on a regular basis you hear all the stories about different things that can kill, things as simple as your drive to work or even the foods you eat every morning. I just read that neti-pots can kill you. Neti-pots! Die Hard is realistic because it never wants gives McClane a hand, but instead chooses to consistently showcase his shortcomings and bad luck. McClane’s not the kind of guy who gets everything right, he’s the kind of guy who uses a neti-pot only to find out that there were terrorists inside all along!

they've already won!

Spiritual Eating Disorders pt.1- Anorexia

Let’s stop talking about politics for a little bit. Like for a few months. I’m sure we’ll get to it again by the time the election rolls around so if you REALLY like that sort of thing then have no fear, but personally I think politics are a symptom, and I don’t want to treat symptoms, I want to treat the illness.

When we think about sin, the comparison of illness is often used. We say sin is like a virus, a sickness that eats away at us, but I can’t help but think there are many people out there with this sickness who look perfectly well. When you see someone with a cold it is painfully obvious; they talk funny, their faces are all droopy, and their noses are red and drippy. But people who are fatally carrying the burden of sin often walk around with big smiles on their faces.

terrifying.

It reminds me of some people I knew in High School who had life-threatening illnesses and nobody noticed. They walk around all smile-y every day, they were well liked (popular if you will), and they seemed as healthy as everyone else, if not healthier. But they struggled day in and day out with anorexia, bulimia, over-dieting and emotional eating. They were these strange enigmas that wandered the halls, who seemed as if they were completely oblivious of the fact that they were bearing the weight of these terminal illnesses… but then again weren’t we all? In High School so many of us were oblivious to our sin and how badly it hurt us.

So maybe sin isn’t like a disease, it’s more like an eating disorder, laying just under the surface and controlling so much of our lives.

How many times have you heard people say “I just need to be fed” and they’re actually talking about going to church, reading the Bible, or listening to wise counsel.

Chicken Soup for the Soul? More like Hometown Buffet!
amIright?

We hear preachers talk about how much sin is in our churches and in our lives and we don’t see it, but we all have spiritual eating disorders.

So that’s the intro, it’s gonna be a four week series. This week we’re talking about spiritual anorexia, next week will be in the same vein, with spiritual bulimia. The following week, I’ll write about the other end of the spectrum, spiritual obesity, and the last week will be on spiritual dieting. If you guys are willing to stick with this for another 4 weeks then I am too! Go team!

Anorexia is probably the first thing you think of when it comes to eating disorders and it’s probably the most common spiritual eating disorder as well. Anorexia turns food into the enemy. Food is like this toxin that you take in that makes you fatter and uglier and all around not as good as the cool kids, so you just avoid it. In the mind of the anorexic it’s healthier to not eat than to eat anything at all. For those who aren’t anorexic this is almost impossible to understand. Food IS nutrition. I can’t wake up in the morning without a bowl of cereal to give me energy and if I skip lunch I feel my body getting angry and slowing down.

So many people cut out spirituality from their lives. They go out of their way to avoid it. They don’t walk into churches and they certainly don’t talk about religion at the dinner table or at work. It’s weird to me seeing as how my whole life seems to be dedicated to spirituality. I was talking with my students today about Christmas and all of the Christmas traditions we have, and ultimately the conversation got to the fact that spirituality runs through everything. The story of Christ and what he has called us to is like a blanket over everything else. That’s how I see spirituality. It’s coursing through each action we take and everything we see along the way.

Spiritual anorexia doesn't just deny that fact, but vilifies it. You hear the term “militant atheist” or “evangelical atheist” used a lot, and maybe you even think about Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens who are authors that advocate atheism. There was a time in college when I really wanted to logically argue with those types of people. I wanted to convince them they were wrong, but then I realized they have this disorder. They see spirituality as unhealthy for the soul, or they don’t believe there is a soul at all. What ground is there to stand on to have that argument? Can you sit across from an anorexic and explain to them that food is good? You can, but that won’t stop them from vilifying it.

unless you're Russel Crowe.

But the trick is that it’s not just atheists. I can think of a number of people I went to Bible College with that got to this same point with spirituality. They explained away the miraculous, which isn’t to say they didn’t believe it, but they simply thought of it as common things happening in an uncommon way. They stop seeing the glory of God all around us and started seeing the glory of God as the unattainable goal somewhere off in the distance, certainly not found in our churches and maybe hidden somewhere deep  in the word of God. They weren’t taking it in. At first it was just not eating a good meal and then it became vilifying spirituality. They laughed at those who still found God in contemporary Christian culture; they thought it was weird when people actually bowed their heads in prayer. It ate away at them because every form of spirituality they saw wasn’t good enough or perfect so they never took it in.

serious picture.

One of the saddest images is someone who is less than 100 lbs because of anorexia. They look like walking skeletons, with sunken eyes and thinning hair. They’ve deprived themselves of the things they need to live and now are just barely surviving. It kills me to see the people who are like that spiritually. They can be surrounded by things that will nourish them and restore life and yet they turn away from it disgusted. An abundance of nourishment wasted on those sick with vanity, sick with self-deprecation. We sit at the father’s table; let us celebrate with a joyous feast.

Short Post Sunday- 3

Look down below, there is no guest post. I gave all of my friends the weekend off for Christmas (ie, no guest post next week either guys). See ya tomorrow for a whole new "Food for Thought" series on Spiritual Eating Disorders!

VF- Jesus Campaign

I would LOVE to make original videos instead of just posting random stuff I've found but sadly making movies takes a lot of time so here's another random youtube video to tide some of you guys over:

RT- Donald and the Dust Bunnies pt 3 (of 4)- Saying Goodbye

The plan was well underway.

Daisy rested herself on Donald’s shoulder, softly telling him her ideas of what to do next. The Grump stood on the top of the bed looking down at a legion of dust bunny workers, all pulling along socks from the dresser. George helped to hold a sock in place as the others supported it with legos, and slowly but surely a wall was being made.

“Great job guys!” Donald said with excitement, “but we only have a few more minutes before my mom’s going to come in.” He reached under the bed to put a pair of his best underwear in place.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door.

“Just a second!” Donald shouted out of instinct. He quietly motioned to the dust bunnies to go under the bed and brace themselves for an attack. He scooted across the floor and placed his dresser drawer back in it’s place, aligned his bed skirt so to hide the dust bunnies from sight, and then opened the door to find his mother tapping her foot with impatience.

“It better be clean Donald”

“Just finished the last little bit,” he said with a smile.

She walked around the room examining everything carefully. She wiped her finger across the windowsill and examined it for dust. As she expected, her finger was a dark black. She showed it to Donald.

“hmmm,” she said as if to suggest she was on to him.

She walked closer to the bed.

Every step Donald grew more tense. He was in this more than he ever thought possible. He wasn’t just lying to his mom but he was actively participating in a well-organized deception. He felt just like Kyle.

This was totally a Kyle thing to do.

 She adjusted the pillows on the bed.

“hmmm,” she said again.

hmmm what? He thought. Does she know? How could she? What will he say? Truly he couldn’t tell her that the dust bunnies could talk and that they were his only friends! He would look mad.

“Is it okay mother?”

She paused for a second, as if she knew she was leaving him there in agony.

“It’s…”

He couldn’t take another second.

“Perfect!”

She ran over and gave him the biggest hug.

“Son, you did wonderfully! I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if you had secret little helpers hiding under your bed!”

“What?! No!”

“I know you don’t really, I’m not crazy,” she laughed and tufted his hair a bit. “It’s wonderful,” she said as she left the room.

As the door shut the dust bunnies came bursting out with excitement, but Donald just lay on his bed, letting out a breath of relief.

“I can’t believe it worked!” said The Grump.

“And all thanks to Daisy!” said George.

“Oh, well thanks George,” she responded bashfully. “Donald, are you alright?!”

“I’m doing great,” he said with half of a smile, but Donald wasn’t doing great. Donald knew something that the dust bunnies hadn’t thought of. Sooner or later his mom would find out and they’d all get vacuumed up.

“Hey, Donald, I’ve got another idea that I think might be great,” Daisy interrupted his sad thoughts.

“Oh, and what’s that Daisy?”

“You could come party with us!”

“That does seem like a great idea.” Donald said, though his thoughts were still on how to keep them hidden.

He thought about Daisy’s idea for quite a long bit. So long that all the dust bunnies had stopped dancing and partying and had started to fall asleep. The moon was up and it came shinning in through the window. What to do? He thought, but nothing came to mind.

“You shouldn’t be looking like me kid.” The Grump said. He was the only dust bunny still up.

“And what does that mean?” Donald said with a laugh.

“You look like that moon is sittin’ right on your shoulders. Nothing should bring you down that much.”

“I’m not down, I’m just worried.”

“I don’t care what you call it kid, you got a case of the grumps and you got it bad.”

“I was just realizing that you guys… well… you guys can’t stay here forever.”

“Don’t you think I know that?”

“You do?”

“Of course I do, dust bunnies never stay one place for long. Haven’t you ever wondered why we don’t usually talk to people?”

“I guess I hadn’t ‘til now.”

“It’s easier to say goodbye when you never say hello.”

“Well, I’m glad you said hello.”

“I am too kid.”

They both sat for a moment, taking in the moonlight, realizing that the days they had were short.

“I don’t want you guys to leave,” Donald finally said with a sigh.

“Well I can’t promise I’ll stay, but I do have an idea…”

“You dust bunnies are always coming up with ideas.”

MW- Professional Ministry (what does that even mean?!)

Here’s the thing about Youth Ministry: It’s not a real job. I try and try to make it a real job, and to justify my work to my friends, but I’ve finally resigned to the fact that the energy I expend, and the reason why I get paid, will remain elusive to most of the people I’m close to. This isn’t to say I don’t put in a fair amount of hours, but there are days when it feels like I’m just not doing anything. I try to explain to people what I do with my office hours and usually the first thing is “I blog” and they’re like “so the church pays you to blog?” and this is kind of true, they do, but that’s not in my job description, that’s not really my job.

At the end of the month I’m going to be ordained, and it really got me thinking about what is the role of the “professional youth minister” what does it mean when I receive that title of minister (right now I’m technically a coordinator).  There’s already a great blog post about what it means to be professional so I’ll save you from that ranting (check it http://informalthumbsup.com/2011/youre-a-professional-youth-pastor-so-be-a-professional/), but I do want to talk about that idea of being a professional minister.

it's like normal ministry but with crazy ties!

You know when you come home at night after a hard day’s work and you think to yourself, “well it’s back to the grind in the morning, but for tonight I’ll just chill and watch some crappy reality television.” For some people when they’re sitting there they are calculating things in the back of their mind. There are overworked CFO’s who go through the economics of each show, examining each for it’s quality to cost ratios. There are electricians who see the flicker of the light in the background and can’t help but think of all the man hours that went in to that one thing that no one really noticed.

So as a minister I imagine that I would go home and see all the amazing ways God is working through the show, and I do. I see God working through so much. I see God moving through not just the plot, or the actors, but the economics and the electrical work, it ends up becoming like this weird “A Beautiful Mind” style montage of all these facts and connections flying through my head, and I end up stuck on this one thought: “How can I get others to see what I see, how can I make the world more like what I know God sees it as?”

This task is impossible.

unless you're ok with being a paranoid schizophrenic.

The biggest difference between a pastor and most other jobs is that at the end of the day you won’t have completed much, especially in comparison to the task at hand. There is always more to do, and you don’t have certain things delegated to you that you can cross off a list, at least not in my case. I create my own lists.

At first it starts with something simple like “wake up” and then maybe “eat breakfast” and then this thought comes to mind, the same one that I asked before “How can I get others to see what I see?” What are you supposed to write on a list that helps complete that task? It’s such an abstract goal and as you examine it more you come to simple answers like “my role is just to honor God” but what does that really mean. You start to add things to the list like “read my Bible” or “listen to a sermon online” “read a blog” but there are many Christians who aren’t pastors who do that for fun. So you’ve now turned your Christianity into a delegated work task and if you read enough Youth Ministry blogs you’ll learn that is not the healthiest way to have a relationship with Christ.

Then if you did all of those things you still would be a crappy youth pastor. You can read your bible everyday and still not ever talk to a student about Christ. So you come to this realization that you need to be doing ministry. And the catch phrase for this blog is… but what does that really mean?

"and how is that working out for you?"

Do I just talk to any student about Christ, or do I try to talk to as many students as I can? Do I just talk to students, since after all I am a youth pastors? Most people would say you need to talk to parents and students. So now I just have to avoid people who are out of school and don’t have children, but there are a ton of people like that who are struggle and God is pretty clear that we should be helping the poor, right? So I should probably do that.

And now I’m here with this obligation to help every person everywhere try and understand the glory of Christ. But how does that even work?

What do I do? Am I supposed to sit them down and give the best sermon I possibly can? That’s not going to feed the homeless. So do I just go around feeding people and not telling them about the gospel, well then how am I really a minister? So there’s this healthy balance between the two that I’m supposed to be knowledgeable of and walk carefully.

But here’s the real issue.

that's right, in all it's glory!

I’m not good enough to constantly, with every part of my life, remain knowledgeable of this perfect balance while also trying my best to maintain a personal and public relationship with Christ, which is really weird cause so many people don’t even see him, so you end up doing all of these things that make people really uncomfortable, but your job is to make them feel comfortable and challenged in Christ.

And then you end up in the same place. This task is impossible. There’s no way I can do this.

I’m reminded of this when I talk to my friends who aren’t believers. I find myself reminded of who I was before I really knew Christ and I realize that person is still deep inside of me, searching for approval and acceptance in the world. I’m reminded of how easy it is for me to fall back into sin, and how broken I really am, and I can’t help but think that maybe Christ didn’t do anything spectacular in my life and now I’m trying to convince all of my friends of this lie that he did, and can in them.

See the real job of the minister, the real work they put in day after day, and the hours they log after office hours are done, is to look at how unexplainably small they are and how huge the world is, and how much they’ve already failed at and say “God is bigger, and he will work through me.” That means hunting down every little thing in your life and never being content with stagnancy while still knowing that Christ loves you for exactly who you are, and day after day when you see the friends who may not get it or you think you don’t get it either you get back up because you remind yourself that Christ did it first. Christ faced all of these struggles and worse.

You live with the questions.

You live with the doubt.

You live with the stress and the confusion and the disappointment because you’re reminded that Christ, even as a human, was still so infinitely bigger than the biggest thing that stands against you. My job, and the one I’m accepting on Dec. 23^rd, is to always remember that and always fight against my sin and my laziness.

Now why I get paid for that is a whole other story.

As always, thanks for reading.