11 months ago in Feb of 2013 I sent this brief Facebook message to a student who I hadn’t seen in a while.

I tried to contact you a grip of times and was stoked to see you on our facebook page today. How are you? Where are you these days? You’re dearly missed.

She never responded.  That is until out of the blue, last friday when I got this short but cutting response:

Sorry it’s taken so long for me to respond I had a lot of anger to work through….if I had to write a review of your high school ministry this would be it…..

Superficial, clique-y, not at all welcoming, got abandoned by one of my small group “leaders”, wish I hadn’t wasted four years of my life trying to fit in and voice my opinions…..hopefully they’ve changed since then.

I’d love to tell you that the next 3 messages in the conversation with her went better, that she agreed to meet with me, and that we are on our way towards a healthy friendship restoration.  But that’s not the truth.   I’d also love to tell you that this is the first letter like this I’ve ever received as a youth pastor.  However, that’s not true either.  In the last 20 years of doing this job full-time, there have been days when e-mails, hurtful comments (regardless of their validity), or just that critical voice in my head that won’t shut up made me wonder if what I was doing was even making any positive difference in the world.  Some days are just like that.

I’d also love to tell you that this kinda stuff is unique to me.  But it’s not. Every pastor I’ve ever met has had this kinda stuff come across their desk and thanks to the invention of e-mail… sending them is quick, cheap, and evidently pretty easy too.   It’s not even unique to me in my own church.  Just in the last 30 days, several unhappy people left scathing comments on “comment cards” in our church to express their discontent with everything from leadership decisions to preaching illustrations to how finances are handled.  Really, if you let it, this kind of stuff will ruin you and has run many a soul straight out of ministry.

In fact, this kinda stuff has run people off leadership boards, out of churches, off of teams, out of businesses, out of neighborhoods, out of friendships and I’m sure hundreds of other scenarios.  Criticism can be just plain brutal and the strong desire/need I had to personally process and navigate this stuff is what led me to write “Criticism Bites” in the first place.

While it is also true that not every e-mail is negative and that I could post a couple of really cool things students said about our youth ministry in beautiful Facebook status updates, there is this stupid reality that we tend to weight the negative 1000x worse.  Jon Acuff calls it “critics math.”  It’s where 1,000 compliments plus 1 critical comment = 1 critical comment.

So if you can relate to this, and this junk is part of your own reality, I can tell you two things I’m personally doing to push back:

#1. I’m intentionally and regularly doing things to connect my own heart and soul with God.  The truth is, the more my identity and peace is wrapped up and tied to people’s happy opinions of me, the less able I will be to navigate their words.  When I’m good with God, then I can take the bomb of a critical e-mail to God and invite Him to examine it with me.  We can then decide together to head it or chuck it. I don’t have to hide it or let shame cause it to run me into a corner.  I can bring it out in the open and invite God and others to examine it.  But if on the other had, I’m disconnected from God and counting on affirmation from people to fill my soul, then crap like this is a death blow.  It’s the antithesis of critics math.  Maybe we could call it “peaceful math”:  1 person at peace with God + 1000 people unhappy with them = 1 person at peace with God.    The Apostle Paul said it like this in Galatians 1:10- “Am I now trying to win human approval, or God’s approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”  So, the more I serve God, the less I am slave to the comments of my critics.

#2. I’m committed to writing encouragement notes. lots of them.  My goal this year is 2 per week or about 100 this year.  I got no where near that in 2013, but this reminder on January 3 caused me to re-up this value and say “enough is enough”.  I’m not going to fight this reality with defensive posturing or e-mail bantering back and forth.  I’m going on the offensive.  I’m making it my goal to fill inboxes and mail boxes and ears with words of affirmation and encouragement.  Maybe, just maybe, one will providentially land on someone’s desk on a day when it can call out the lie of scathing criticism they received that day too.

Well 2013 kicked my blogging butt.  Between my final year of seminary entrenched in Hebrew, my house falling apart, and the growing demands of family and ministry, something had to give.   So, it was blogging that got the axe.  Truth be told, the reason I cut it was because of all the things I was doing, the fruit from it was the hardest to find.  It was unclear to me the kind of impact it was having or not and I was getting a bit discouraged.  In the end, I could justify spending time on projects that paid money against bills, met the demands of my family, or filled a ministry role I was expected to do.  But blogging just to blog was no longer an option.

But this year, I’m going to try and make 3x a week happen again.  I’ll post on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday starting today.

Why? Because 2014 is the year of healthy me and blogging makes me happy.   I turn 42 on the 100th day of 2014, so I’m focusing the first 100 days on getting my own heart, soul, body and mind healthy.

• So, for my heart I’m going to say yes to things like camping, dating the wife, and anything else that makes me smile.
• For my soul, I’m giving the first 30 minutes of my day to reading and prayer.
• For my body, I’m doing p90x3 immediately after my soul care time.  I’m following their plan for 30 minutes of exercise, 7 hrs of sleep a night, and a whole foods only diet.
• For my mind, I’m writing, blogging, and working my way through an intentional reading list.

There ya have it.  Blogging 2014 commences again today… for me and the 12 people who might read this thing 🙂

I meet weekly during the school year with each of my kids one-on-one.  Hands down I think it’s the single best parenting move I have ever done.

I wrote about it in “As for Me and My Crazy House” and a lot of people ask me, “What exactly do you do with your kids?”  My answer: “It depends on the kid and the day.”  All of them go with me to the same local coffee shop.  We call it “Joe’s place” cuz he’s the owner and he knows us all by name and our orders by heart.

But for the most part, after we grab something to drink, we find an table and then we do some silly stuff.  Like I ask a few “Would you Rather” questions from books, iphone apps, or just crazy junk I make up myself.  My go-to as of late is a series of books called “Weird but True” that also has an iphone app now too.  I just read a fact or tweak one slightly and then say, “Is that weird or true?”  Super easy to do and fun for all my kids, even my high schooler gets stumped.

Then, I love to ask this question:  “Is there anything we should be talking about that we’re not talking about?”  That one has launched some GREAT conversations with my kids.

We’ve also used the “one minute bible for students” and read those entries and talked about them.  That’s a great resource for this time with an entry for every day of the week that literally can be read in a minute.

But the thing that I’ve enjoyed the most lately is a thing I call “Pick a Numba”   Here’s how it works.  I have a series of books that have numbered entries that are each about a paragraph or two long.  I tell my kid to “pick a numba” and then I go to whatever number they pick.  Then I write their name and the date down on the entry (so I never discuss the same kid with the same number twice) and then one of us reads it.  We discuss it for maybe 5 minutes and then I pick up another book and we go again.  This goes on for about 30 minutes and then we go home or I drop them off at school or whatever.

If you want to play “Pick a Numba”, here’s some books I use.  They all can be found at simplyyouthministry.com   Oh.. and the only that doesn’t have a 99 in the title is also the one we almost never “read”.  It is the “Answers to Teenagers 50 Toughest Questions.”  For that one, I simply ask the toughest question and ask them how they would answer it.  That’s more valuable to me than the “answer” anyway.

Regardless of the resource you use. I’d encourage you to give this a try.  I think you, your kids, and your family will be beyond blessed by your investment. I sure have.

When was the last time you asked, “Will it ever stop?”

Maybe it was after a painful diagnosis?  Maybe it was during finals week. Maybe it was after a family fight or when another round of layoffs went through your work.  I don’t know when the last time you asked “Will it ever stop?” or “When is this going to end?”, but my guess is it was not on a good day.  It was not on a day when everything went ridiculously right.  On those days, we usually say things like, “Pinch me, I must be dreaming” or “I hope this day never ends“.  Instead, it’s the tough days, the difficult seasons, the moments when the pressure won’t stop and you just wonder if you can make it another day.  Those are the days we wonder, “Will it ever stop?”

To be honest with you, I’ve been asking myself that question a lot lately.  Mostly, due to the constant and perpetual breaking and stealing of my home and cars over the last 18 months.  In that time period, here’s a partial list of what has broken or been stolen:

• My house water main broke 3x
• The sprinkler system died and killed all our grass and lots of plants in the process
• 2 sidewalks have been removed to fix water damage
• Oven and stove
• Microwave
• Dishwasher
• Wash machine
• All the lower kitchen cabinets, sheetrock, and countertops due to undetected dishwasher leak that insurance denied coverage on
• AC blowers/fans in truck and yukon
• Power steering in my truck
• Water pump in my truck
• 10 other things on my truck that I don’t feel like typing- including a cracked engine block
• DSLR Camera lens straight up died and won’t work
• The yukon xl engine and transmission died and had to be replaced
• Our couch (just after the warranty ran out) started to self destruct.
• My house was broken into and they stole all our computers, tons of jewelry, some tools, money and my car

I wish that list was exhaustive for my lifetime or even that it had a period at the end so I could say, “I’m so glad that season is over”.  But, it doesn’t seem to be stopping.  My family vehicles are still breaking.  The drain from our AC unit in the house managed to clog itself over labor day weekend and is now spewing water all over the garage.  Yeah… it makes you want to scream. Truth is, some days I do.

Along the way, while my wife and I have had plenty of not-so-fun days dealing with this stupidity, we have also pretty much come to the conclusion that the answer to “Will it ever stop?” is this: “Nope.  It’s not going to stop. Not here anyway.”

Jesus warned us as much.  In John 16:33 he told us we’d have trouble and that peace comes from another realm.  In Matthew 6, in the sermon on the mount, he said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”   This call from Jesus has become somewhat of a motto of mine at this point.   I’ve been living in a home and driving in cars that are easily damaged by water, destroyed by rust, and taken by those who want to steal them and I can either try and fix that, or I can admit that “fixing it” only solves a temporary problem.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a nice car. I’d love it if my yard was not a desert wasteland and if my kitchen didn’t look like a water damage bomb went off in it.  And I’m working to do some of that, but evidently, that’s not how life is going to roll anytime soon in my world.   Even if I fixed it and put in a new kitchen, the truth is that in 20 years, the next home owner will be saying it’s old, outdated, and in desperate need of replacement.  My cars will wear out, my house is in a perpetual state of falling apart.  Everything in this world is that way.  It simply can’t hold my hopes for peace or value. It’s not designed to and money won’t truly fix anything of value.

This world cannot give what it does not possess.  The peace we all long for is not found in this world, so I refuse to find it there.  Instead, I’ll keep loving my wife, raising my kids, and fixing my junk with one priority in mind:  I’m putting my hope in the God of another realm.

Be careful what you store your treasure in.  Not all vaults are created equal.

(BTW: if you’d like to hear some of this story and a message I gave on re-engaging God in a series at our church, you can go here to give it a listen.)

If you’ve ever tried to have a discussion with high school students about sexuality then you probably have discovered a few things to be true:

1. First, teens care about the subject of sexuality as a default.  You don’t need to convince anyone that this is a worthy thing to discuss.
2. Secondly, they also are bombarded with images, ideas, thoughts, and ideologies from all angles- parents/friends/media/religion/etc.  They even have a perceived “right or wrong answer” they expect to get in church or from people in positions of authority around them- which has a collective tone deaf effect on them that is both easy and popular to ignore as irrelevant and ideologically unappealing.
3. Lastly, knowing what they want to do and actually doing it are 2 radically different things.  This is why simply having students sign a purity covenant or put on a ring rarely changes a students decisions in my experience.  They must have a much higher “get it factor” than a ceremony can provide in order to truly own their decisions and say yes & no on purpose.

So, knowing all that, here’s what we did tonight to get our students inside the real issues when it comes to dating and not just giving us a head knod or “Sunday School Answer”.

After a battle of the sexes trivia game just for fun, we then split all the guys in one room and all the girls in another.  Then we had them sit in their normal small groups around the room  (a couple of adult leaders and 8 students or so).  Then we pulled 3 students (1 from each of small group) and put them in chairs up front for a random panel discussion.  If you are instead going to do this with just one small group, you could do this same panel by selecting one or two people to respond first.

Then, I read the panel a series of “it could happen” scenarios and asked their responses before we invited the individual small groups to spend a few  minutes kicking it around.  It was so good and really got them talking. I loved the interaction and to see students verbally process their thinking on sexuality with authenticity and even vulnerability.

If you want to have a similar discussion with your own small group, here’s some “it could happen” situations I wrote and a few questions to follow.  Hope they’re helpful to you.

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IT COULD HAPPEN 1: You want to date, but it seems so complicated. You’ve been talking with your friends and you all agree there are all these pressures on you all over the place. Truthfully, you’re not sure which ones to give into and which ones to fight.

• QUESTIONS: What pressures do you feel are on you as a (man/woman) in America today. What are some healthy and not-so-healthy expectations we have placed on genders.

IT COULD HAPPEN 2: Your friend just went on a date and loved it. In fact they told you that they think they have “fallen in love”

• QUESTIONS: What do you think they mean and do you think someone can “fall in love”? Argue both for and against the truth of this idea in our culture.

IT COULD HAPPEN 3: You want to date. You’ve found someone who you like and who your friends approve of. But your parents have told you that you’re not allowed to date until you’re 16. Your friends think that’s lame and so do you.

• QUESTIONS: Should age be a factor in dating and to what degree?   Besides age, what else would you say should determine if you date or not?  When is it good to be single on purpose?

IT COULD HAPPEN 4: You’ve been dating for over a year and you’re headed to your senior prom. You’ll both be looking sweet and love will surely be in the air. Both of you are committed to each other and you’ve even talked about someday maybe getting married. However, you also know the night will pose lots of opportunities to push some of your boundaries.

• QUESTIONS: How will you decide what you do or don’t do on this date? What will guide your choices: both in terms of peer pressure and your sexuality? How far would you say is too far and how will you decide?

IT COULD HAPPEN 5: You’ve been dating for 2 years. You think you want to get married. You’ve both already “lost your virginity”.

• QUESTION: Should you live together to see if you want to spend the rest of your lives together before you officially get married? How would you make this decision?

IT COULD HAPPEN 6: You and your date have been going out for a while now. But all your friends keep saying that you fight too much. You think they’re being over-reactive and that you guys are fine together. Sure, you fight from time to time, but who doesn’t? Your friends insist that you’re not seeing things straight and that you’re being manipulated. They tell you that you should break up.

• QUESTION: What are some things that would cause you to break up with a date? What are some reasons that dating couples stay in a dating relationship too long and are afraid to break up, even when they should? Whose advice would you seek if you were trying to decide if your friends were right or wrong in their advice?

IT COULD HAPPEN 7: You just got baptized. You want to follow Jesus and you’re involved in youth group a lot. You’ve been friends for a while with someone who has recently showed interest in dating you, but they don’t share your same beliefs about God and life. You like them and the interest in dating is mutual.

• QUESTION: Is it ok to date someone whose faith is different from yours and how do you decide what you need to mutually agree on and what you can simply agree to disagree about?