Do What You Did at First

I have written several times already about my quest toward promoting spiritual transformation and not just conforming to a Jesus standard.  It was the 10 transformation stops as presented by George Barna that first got me thinking this way, and God has continued to open my eyes and heart to new ways of doing youth ministry.

I encourage you to go back and read a few earlier posts if you missed them: Conform or Transform gives a scriptural basis and Conform or Transform 2 describes one my biggest program experiments with helping students toward transformation.

I talked today with a great friend and fellow youth worker about his weekend retreat.  Last weekend he “borrowed” my ideas, adapted them to his group, and took the same risk with his retreat as I did with mine.  God worked in similar ways, and just as awesome ways within his group as He did in mine. 

Last night at our regular mid-week youth program, we did something out of the norm for us, and once again trusted God to show up and do work only He could do.  Once again God showed up in amazing ways as students and adult leaders nailed stuff to a cross they needed to leave with Jesus so they could be healed.

As I see this new wind blowing within myself and within youth ministry there are a few things I have noticed about myself and the ministry God has asked me to lead.

1. It is hard for me to not program every minute

One of the things I have been challenged to do is to do my role and then get out of the way; if I am talking the whole time there is no chance for God to speak.  My friend and I both had the same struggle with our retreats–that we didn’t speak every time we could have.   But since we didn’t, God did.

2. I make things more complicated than they need to be

During a study series on the Holy Spirit Jim Cymbala talked about how we can hinder the Holy Spirit by doing too much within our programming.  He also mentioned how one of their most powerful programs they run at the Brooklyn Tabernacle is Tuesday night prayer meeting which involves nothing but gathering and praying.  I have thought about this concept a lot, and because of #1 I know I am guilty of this.

3. These ideas really aren’t new

Much of what I feel like are “program risks” today are things I did by accident when I was just starting out in youth ministry.  Yes, I am doing them a bit more on purpose and with stronger reasons now, but I have done many of these things before several years ago.  I would like to think my pride and ego had nothing to do with me complicating these simple ideas in the first place…but…yeah…

Revelation 2:3-5 (NIV) 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. 4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.5 Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first

As I continue to read and pray and grow as a leader my hope is you can continue to do the same right along with me.  I most definitely don’t have much of this figured out, but I hope we can learn together.  What is God showing you about Spiritual transformation and how we can help God do it?

Book Review: Maximum Faith: Live Like Jesus by George Barna

I have mentioned this book several times on my blog in the past, but I thought it was time to do an actual book review on it. 

There have been many books that have influenced my life and ministry, this one is in the top five for sure.

I am not  usually a fan of wide scale survey results, lots of statistics, and charts.  I will admit I have not read much of Barna’s stuff, but the reputation that precedes him is wide scale survey results, lots of statistics, and charts which made me almost not read this book at all.  But it was recommended by one of the other Pastors at my church so I decided to give it a chance.  I am very glad I did.

The book is split into 3 sections.  The first lays out the transformation journey and how George discovered it.  The second section is a personal story of a girl named Jennifer as she goes through the stops of the transformation journey.  And section 3 gives some practical ideas on how to travel the journey yourself as well as how churches can help people navigate down the road of transformation.

The book is pretty long, over 200 pages, so it definitely is one you will have to commit to reading.  However, the meat of the book is in sections one and three, if you skipped section two all together it cuts out half of the length.  You might enjoy the mix of journal excerpts, life stories, and personal conversations but I didn’t.

The last negative thing I have to say is there are several typos and obvious grammar mistakes in the book, which was disappointing.

This book really hit me on a personal level as well as a professional/ministry level.  I think the lack of spiritual transformation is at the core of many issues and problems in our churches today, mine included.  This book speaks to the problem and gives some good tips and ideas on how to better minister people toward true transformation.

He makes the point in the book, and I agree strongly, that most churches are pretty good at ministering to stops two through five.  But as soon as people hit stop six the modern church basically programs them back into stop five, which is where most of our Christian population is stuck.  In my current youth ministry context, I have realized I have a lot more student in stop six than I ever realized.  And as a student ministry we were not doing a lot to help them continue to grow.  Many of the changes we have made to our programs and structure are aimed directly at this issue.  I want to be about spiritual transformation, not behavior modification.  This book has helped me make some big strides toward that end.

I gave all ten stops of the transformation journey in a past post, click here if you want to read them.  But don’t let that deter you from buying this book and reading it for yourself.  Like I said, this is in my top five.  I think it will help you too.