Volunteering to work with youth may be one of the bravest things a person can do. You will spend many hours at awkward times of day trying to connect with teenagers, often not sure if you are succeeding or not. You will fade into the background at so many functions, and miss many adult gatherings. You will become intimately aware of the pain and hurt in student's lives, and be heartbroken at your inability to make it better.
As a youth minister, please hear me say, I couldn't do this job without volunteers. They make so much happen, and offer more strength and support than I can describe. Their sacrifices of time, money, and ideas are the building blocks of this community. I may be the one that gets paid, but they are the ones who drive this whole thing anywhere.
My heart is breaking knowing that one of our strong volunteers, and my dear dear friend Trish will not be here to do any of that. No one will replace her wit, her strength, her encouragement, and her expectations for all of us.

You have served well, you have blessed many, and you are loved more that words can say, Trish.

In the midst of so much disagreement in so many places, I find myself wondering if we forgot who we're looking at.
Please understand, I'm all for a good argument. I subscribe to the belief you cannot have a healthy relationship of any kind without a fairly brutal fight occasionally. I wish it wasn't that way, but it happens. Part of loving people is not only seeking peace, but honestly and openly disagreeing and finding someway to continue on when the disagreeing part doesn't turn into agreeing.
My concern over the past few months, especially in the church, is that we get so caught up in being right, we forget why we cared to fight in the first place.  I think the main reason we get so heated and determined comes from a sincere desire to honor this Jesus person we are trying to follow. And that's not a bad thing. We should be committed to that. We have to strive to honor and respect that.
Here's the catch. Check James 3.

9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.

Too often our defense of whatever turns into an attack on someone else. And that someone else bears the image of God. How can we possibly praise God and curse Him? Simply put, we can't. So we have to choose, and that hopefully means no attacks on any image bearer.
This is a great lesson we've heard before, but I think we need to take it step further. We need to learn to recognize the Holy Spirit in each other. Not only should we never attack someone else, but if we recognize the same Spirit in them that we ourselves love enough to defend, how can we dismiss them? How can we write them off?
No, we may never agree. And that is OK. But when we see the Spirit we love, we should love it, no matter who we recognize it in.

Stupid foxes and such

So it turns out I'm really flaky about blogging.  Sorry.
Now, onward.
I recently (39 hours ago) downloaded Angry Farm, the Blackberry equivalent of Angry Birds. I know, I'm way behind. Instead of birds attacking pigs who stole eggs, all of the farm animals attack the foxes who have taken over the farm. Let me tell you, I HATE those foxes. I mean, I really flippin' HHHHAAAAATTTTEEEE those foxes. It took less than 2 days for me to realize that everything wrong with the world is because of those stupid foxes and not only should they apologize, give that fictional farm back, and admit defeat, they should also be miserable and then destroyed.

Why?

What do you mean why?

Look at them? Don't they just look like they are wrong personified....uh....foxified...wait...you know what I mean!

I'm not even joking here. It took less than 24 hours of being pitted against these foxes to develope a stronger hatred than I've ever known. All I want to do is DESTROY them.

Which is really weird. I have no idea what their motivation behind moving is was, I didn't bother to ask. I have no idea what the back story is. Maybe the farm took over their natural habitat, and had the foxes had better programmers and agents we'd all (Blackberry users that is) be destroying some cows and chickens with reckless abandon. I just started playing a game, and at the first level that was difficult, I bought into what the farm animals told me, and joined in on the hating the foxes.

Which got me to thinking, how often do we jump on a bandwagon against one person or group or another just because? I think sometimes it is really easy to get caught up in the lobbing of hurt and retribution and justice without pausing to question if it is warranted, necessary, or right. Whenever we think we may have slighted, or maybe picked on, or possibly hurt, we declare sides, try to get people to join us against the great enemy, and start the war march.
Maybe, instead, we should pause. Maybe battle lines don't have to be drawn. Just maybe, it doesn't always have to be us vs them, but could instead be us trying to figure out how to live together without smothering each other with a pillow.
Maybe we don't have to join every cause to march against someone. Maybe, when a friend comes to us looking for an army, we can instead show them love and respect and try to find a way to build a bridge to rebuild a relationship.

And, after that kindness, you can come help me kill these stupid foxes.

I don't know if I have shared this or not. I'm sharing it today. Just take it as not only a song I'm loving, but something that is stirring in my heart in a strong way.

Some thoughts on be truly inclusive and welcoming

This is going to be very brief today, as I've not slept and am reasonably cranky today.
I was just wondering (after a conversation with a fellow Braums lover) can being inclusive and welcoming be described most simply as being willing to give up my position and comfort to someone else? Basically, it is not so much about being nice to someone else, as it is about giving up my own position to someone else. 
We'll talk more about this soon.  Any thoughts?

Wanting when we don't want to

So, last night Lora was (as usual) very cute. It was after VBS, and therefore, very much after her bedtime. She was roaming around not sleeping while her mom tried to get dinner together. Josh Groban came up in conversation (again, as usual), and Lora came up to me and asked to see him. I picked up my phone, and showed her my background, which is of Josh. She immediately gave me the "are you kidding me look" and said, "make him sing." So, I pulled up "Awake" on youtube (it seemed appropriate since she was refusing sleep). And for 45 seconds, Lora was completely enamored and engaged. She stared at that little screen with joy and contentment. Then, at 46 seconds, she was done. There were other things in the room to play with before she finally lost the battle against sleep. She was off, and Josh was left singing alone.
I was thinking about that this morning. We have experiences were we so openly beg for God's presense and spirit. And for awhile, we cannot imagine anything but getting it. Then, life happens and we get distracted. Suddenly we remember all the other things in the world we want to fill our lives with, and we push the Spirit back down. This cycle seems fairly common, and I'm not sure how to break it. Maybe just being aware that we are all a bunch of toddlers when it comes to our relationship with the Father will be enough to lengthen our attentions on him and short our distractions elsewhere.

On Grace when you'd prefer Karma

Yoga wasn't all that great today. My instructor did a great job, and the room was comfy and more quiet than earlier in the week. I'm just in a little bit of a foul mood today. I won't go into great detail why, just know that my usual favorite pose (child's pose) was not all that comfortable today. I'm a stretched out, but not much more relaxed.
I've had a very weird day. I know that a fellow believer is taking advantage of my feeble attempts at going 2 miles when she only asks for one and all that. I was up most of the night crying and screaming in frustration. It doesn't seem to bother me much when non-Christ followers take advantage of grace, but I have about zero tolerance for the same from believers. Higher standards and all.
All that being said, at around 4:30 am this morning, I decided I was going to do everything in my power and at whatever cost to find a way to show grace to this person. And I wasn't to happy about that decision, I just felt like it was I needed to do.
Fast forward a few hours to being at the pool. I was walking laps, and felt the Spirit very calmly nudge me. This is a rare experience for me. I'm usually the one that needs the Gibb's smack upside the head. But this morning, there was  a very gentle voice that very comfortingly and sadly said, "Giving grace hurts when the recipient takes advantage. But that is what makes grace so rich. If everyone accepted grace the way they should, we would need a lot less grace because people would already be more just." I could easily, and in many people's eyes (mine and those of people I greatly respect) would be completely justified, in putting my foot down and saying no more. But, if I miss this opportunity to show grace when justice is fair, I miss the chance to experience a small taste of the Father's heart. We have the chance to look into His love, it's a small and blurry window, but it is a window all the same. I will probably fail at showing this person grace, I have before. But everytime I find a way to show just a little bit, I see His heart a little more.

I end today with a couple of quotes from one of my favorite bloggers from a recent post of his on grace. I'm including the link to that post, as it is excellent. So, from Richard Beck:

But it's hard not to get into a fight about grace. Grace has always been scandalous. It makes no sense, morally speaking. In fact, it can seem downright immoral. Why? Because grace violates our innate, deeply rooted sense of morality. Grace isn't natural. Grace is about the hardest thing you can do. It's damn near heroic.

Rather than retaliation, followers of Jesus are to love and forgive. We are to leave the moral debt outstanding. The debt isn't repaid. It is forgiven. Grace is a bomb that explodes our thirst for moral balance and proportionality.