Lately kids have been kicking my butt.

TJ has 40 pages left in book 3 of the Harry Potter series. Dude reads me under the table.

I’ve also been reading this book:

While reading this morning Peterson recalls going to Israel to a synaogogue to watch and listen as children read the Torah early in the morning. He says it was actually children pretending to read, because they had all 5 books of the Torah memorized. Genesis through Deuteronomy. I’ve read before that this was a tradition of the first century jews…. but I just didn’t realize it still continued on. I’ve been trying for weeks to memorize Psalm 1. Today… I was told by a child in another country through the pages of an American Author to get my butt in gear.

These kids these days are taking me to school. I gotta get a move on.

Last April I passed up my 13th year as a youth pastor. I’ve blogged here several times about my feelings of inadequacy and insignificance…. which is a voice I have to beat down a lot to keep from quiting on a bad weekend. I have a friend who recently posted this article on the subject. I guess it goes with the territory. Though I must admit, it had been a while since a student said to me the kinds of things in the notes given to him.

Today I got this e-mail. I removed the name, but other than that- here it is:

Dear Pastor Berry

It has been more than 10 years since the last time I saw you in Fremont and you probably do not remember me since it’s been so long. I wanted to take this time to thank you for being a great godly influence in my life the last year of high school and for making sure that I would be plugged into a great church/community when I went to college. I wanted to apologize for basically being an arrogant, ignorant, I think I know everything high schooler who didn’t know when to keep my mouth shut. Looking back I was a complete idiot and when I left for college I said some things that were uncalled for and hurtful. This has been on my mind on and off for the last decade and today at work my mind wandered off to the days of youth group and so I felt compelled to write you to ask for your forgiveness.

I am happily married to a wonderful God-fearing woman. We currently live in Sacramento and are expecting twins next spring. I an indebted to your presence in my life during my spiritual infancy for helping me to be the man I am today. You worked very hard as our youth pastor hosting early morning prayer, coordinating trips, and so on. I hope you can forgive me. Take care.

I remember the student. I don’t remember the stuff he said that he recalls as hurtful. Guess I must have gotten over it. But needless to say, it was an easy request for forgiveness to grant.

To all those who serve in student ministries… be encouraged. God is working. Sometimes we never hear about it. And sometimes it evidently just takes a decade or so before you hear about the fruit.

I think I’ve told all 12 of you that read this blog that I also follow or skim several other blogs from friends and ministry professionals and such. I have no idea how I ran across this one… but I read it occasionally.

I read it cuz he’s someone I might enjoy a cup of coffee with, but I think we would end up on opposite sides of the street on several issues. It makes me think sometimes. Sometimes it makes me rethink. Sometimes it makes me even more confident as to why he and I would disagree. Sometimes it just makes me jealous of his job description: Stay at home Dad and teaching pastor at his church!!!

Anyway- the blogging world I read can easily be a discussion of all those who simply agree with everything I think… and I’m trying to be intentional about not doing that.

But this post about pragmatism (placing value on what works over anything else) seems cliche to me. It seems to smell of those who think if you have a video or lights or whatever, then you somehow have bowed to the culture of all things pagan. It’s the stone everyone likes to throw at any growing church that happens to have a light board. It’s the “well they must be shallow, lame, and nothing but an entertaining dog and pony show”. It seems to very narrowly define what is spiritual or what tools God can or can’t use to accomplish a divine purpose. I agree with points 6 and 7… but it seems that there’s a lot of accusations or assumptions in the other points.

Then however…. as I kept reading, this post speaks of how his church has a staff member who is in charge of lighting. Oh.. and it’s his best friend who is leaving to go work at the epicenter of all things pragmatic tied to the spiritual (willow creek community church).

Then while I wrote this post today, he rants about a divided church that is a movement of the anti-christ and then he starts naming names of those he doesn’t like and evidently why they won’t be in heaven but are worthy of throwing stones at them… which seems to be divisive to me all over again.

This kind of stuff makes me go Hmmmmm? God doesn’t seem to like our boxes so much.

If you’re up for a good post to get you thinking…. read this post by Scot McKnight. If you have 3 days… you can read all like 100 “comments” it generated. Wow…. guess that’s a hot topic.

Those who do youth ministry are rare. Owners of the vision of youth ministry are even harder to find. Those who own it as their own life calling are an endangered species.

Last night I had the privilege of taking Sarah Merk- my partner in crime in high school- and 7 key students who all graduated this last year and truly, truly, truly owned our ministry out for a thank you dinner at BJ’s. It was fun to see then as they head off to college and see them making decisions to stay involved in ministry both locally and across the state. They are the “owners” that keep me going some days. Now I pray that their big shoes get filled fast.