Brian Berry

I HATE THIS PART OF ME

March 18, 2008 by Brian Berry Leave a Comment

I hate it.
I hate it because it can control me.
I hate it because it can ruin my day when I fail at it.
I hate it because it is inevitable that I can’t do it.
I hate it because when I don’t, sometimes it means I screwed up.
I hate it because when I do it, it is a temporary fix.
I hate it because it feels like I’m living in a fishbowl.
I hate it like hollywood hates the paparazzi.
I hate it because it makes it hard to rest.
I hate it because it is always undone.
I hate it because it is both Godly and ungodly and therefore must always be inspected.
I hate it.

I hate it because it is a double edged sword. Even when I do achieve it with someone, it by default it means I did not achieve it with someone else.

I hate it because my job and my faith requires me to both care about it and not care about it. Constantly. Every day. It’s like this healthy and unhealthy tension at all times.

I hate it because it makes it hard to say no to anyone. My family. My teachers. My boss. My friends. Homeless people. Pretty much anyone. Sometimes even those who hate me.

I hate it because it makes anything I do for myself sometimes feel selfish.

I hate THE PEOPLE PLEASER part of me. Sadly, it appears to be stuck inside and might never leave.

Here’s some verses I’ve been wrestling with on the subject the last few months:

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.

Matthew 22:16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. (Side note: even though the speakers are being sarcastic in this verse, I wonder if it’s not like all sarcasm, holding a bitting piece of truth to it. Jesus both cared for people and didn’t care what they thought.)

Acts 5:29 Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings!”

1Corinthians 10:32-11:1 Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God—even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

2Corinthians 5:9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.

1 Thessalonians 2:4 On the contrary, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts.

Romans 12:18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

One day. Maybe. Maybe I’ll figure out how to care about people without caring about pleasing them. Then maybe I won’t hate it. Maybe.

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DATING SERIES OVERVIEW

March 14, 2008 by Brian Berry Leave a Comment

This weekend we finish our dating/sexuality series entitled “Hooking up” in Encounter. Instead of take the time that I’ve been taking each week to review our series up to this point, I decided to write a one page overview of the topics and themes we covered and put it in the high school program this weekend.

I always love what God does in this series and I love the challenge of trying to think and re-think of new ways to deal with a topic I’ve now given something like 50 different messages on over the years. It’s interesting to review them and see how even my own theological perspectives have changed over the years too. For what it’s worth, here’s the summary of what we talked about this year:

For those of you who have been in this series the past 5 weeks, then you know that we have been talking about how knowing “what to do” and knowing “why we behave as we do” are two very different things. When it comes to dating and sexuality, most people want to know the answer to the what type questions: “What can I do? How far can I go? Who can I date? What is God’s plan for my dating life? What is sexually moral behavior?”,etc. All of these are common questions. However we believe, especially in regards to this issue, it is rather childish to merely do what we are told without knowing why. Having a list of taboo sex acts or dating principles in your back pocket or a promise ring around your finger representing a purity pledge you gave in youth group one Sunday will NOT be what it takes to live a God-honoring dating life when the real temptations come. Those things only have value when you know, own, and understand clearly why those decisions are valuable and wise in the first place. The more we own the why’s of a Godly theology, the more the “what to do and not to do” makes sense. Therefore this series has not focused on the what of dating, sexuality, and gender differences. Instead it has focused on the why’s of the faith. Why did God create us different? Why should we get married or stay single? Why should we make the choices we make with our body? Now we pray that these things we understand and truly own on a deep conviction level will therefore lead to a more powerful, more theological, and more intentional “what” in our behavior.

Here’s the PDF you can download if you want to see the breakdown week by week and the main Bible Texts we used.

Another thing we did this year too was add an ability for students to “text in questions” using their cell phone at various points in my messages or during the service. It’s something we stole as an idea from our main service. They call it a “chat room”. We stole texting shorthand and called it “IDK” (or I Don’t Know for you non-texting types) This year, we got some great questions and this weekend we will tackle on big question that came up on the issue of homosexuality. I’m team teaching with a guy on our staff who has a god-honoring perspective on this subject but would still describe himself as a “homosexual man” by way of desire or temptation. Should be an awesome weekend. I can’t wait to watch God work in students lives, several of which I know feel this same struggle themselves.

Oh, and for the first time, I used the woman at the well as a teaching text on this subject. It was amazing and I had never looked at that text through those eyes before. But this girl’s video is off the hook. I wish I had found it before I taught. So worth using.

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IT’S OFFICIAL, BIBLE STUDIES ARE ONLINE.

March 11, 2008 by Brian Berry 4 Comments

There have been some milestones in my role as a student ministries pastor over the years. My first job. My first hire. My first intern. My first office. My first “I’m gonna quit” day. My first day of seminary. My first seminary class I quit. My first ministry transition to another church. My first invitation to teach a seminar at a national youth pastors convention. My first wedding of a former student couple followed by various ones of those couples having kids. My first wedding that the marriage didn’t make it. My first funeral of a former student. Some highs. Some lows.

Well, today I just found out that my desire to write something that is published has officially come to pass. I’ve been waiting to say so for about 6 months now, but last week the Bible Studies I’ve been writing for Simply finally finished the editing and graphic design process and are now online. So, it’s another first. Kinda fun. Someday maybe I’ll write my first real book. I don’t get royalties from these studies and they don’t even say that I wrote them, but I told them I didn’t care about either one anyway. I just wanted to take my passion to write and put it into action in an environment where others could benefit from it. So, if you’re looking for some Bible Studies, I think they are good and you can grab the first two online. The sell for $3 a week. Can’t beat that.

The first one I wrote is called, “Minor Prophets, Major Messages” and is 6 weeks long.

The Second is creatively called “Ruth” and is 4 weeks long.

I have two more series in the hopper. One is in the editing process and one in the writing phase. I’ll let you know when they hit the online world.

Wooo hoooo.

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SABBATH RETHUNK

March 11, 2008 by Brian Berry 3 Comments

Several months ago I switched my day off from Friday to Monday. This was due to the fact that I have been at church 15 hours or more on most Sundays ever since we started a 6:30pm service for our students. So I have room prep and then service in the morning. Meetings almost all afternoon. Ending with service in the evening and some clean up and such. It all adds up to equal a very tired and spent Brian on Mondays.

Anyway- some Mondays have been fun days with my boys when they were off school. Some have been date days with my wife. Some have been sleep all day days- especially on Monday’s that Shannon has to work. But today was a little of a lot of stuff. But it was supposed to be a date the wife and hang out with my boys day. Shannon and I did go for a walk/jog with the dog. We went out to breakfast and ran some errands together and then got the boys from school. We all went as a family to Jake’s t-ball game followed by dinner with some friends. Then I helped Jake build his plan for a Lepricon trap for school (don’t ask). All sounds good. Except for the fact that my cell phone found it’s way in there a few too many times today. Here’s how:

An emergency call from a travel agent working on Uganda flights that ended up causing me to have to swing by the office and pick some stuff up to mail.
A phone call to a broker I’m trying to do some investing through to make my dollar go farther these days.
A phone call from an detective on a case involving someone from our church.
A conversation with a couple I’ve been meeting with for over a month whose marriage going through a rough time.
A call from a family who we borrowed their van and broke the headlight on a youth trip, setting up a time to get it fixed.
A text from a student wanting her new baby baptized.
Another student I’m mentoring telling me via text he was going to the movies.

All good/even important things. Just not a Sabbath from work.

This day came on the heals of a devotional thought by our Christina at the middle school adult volunteers meeting yesterday on taking a Sabbath day. It also came on the heals of a ministry article I wrote this week for Simply Youth Ministry on the subject of maximizing the ministry of moments. In it I recommended that one way to make the most of your time with others is to turn OFF your cell phone. I also confessed that the entire article is stuff I’m working on, not stuff I have mastered.

Well today was proof of that.

So as a result, here is my edict:

On a Sabbath day, which in most cases will be Monday for me, I will not be answering my cell phone, texting, or responding to e-mail.

It will all have to wait. I’m spending time with God, my family, and giving my soul a detox from these pieces of technology.

My cell phone bill tells me I spend about 1300 minutes a month using this piece of equipment- 95% of which is for ministry purposes. I almost never use my desk phone and rarely use our home phone. I also send hundreds of e-mails and another 150 text messages or so now that my iphone allows me to do a group text to my guys small group and leadership team and such.

But not on Mondays anymore. So that is my monday night edict. Wish me luck.

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PLAY BALL JAKE

March 9, 2008 by Brian Berry 3 Comments

Jake is the only kid playing baseball this year. This means we have 2- one hour a week games. This is a cake walk compared to the additional 4 games a week at 3 hours a piece, no life, a empty bucket of sunflower seeds, and a deep desire to stab myself in the eye with a pencil, that we would normally have occured if all 3 were playing and my wife and I ended up watching hours and hours of other kids play baseball.

But Jake is on cloud nine. He’s there during the game too, pretty much proving he has a solid case of A.D.D. But today he said he wants to practice more, so hopefully we can channel some of his energy.