Thursday's Thoughts 2

Well, minutes after beginning my new weekly post this week, I had the realization that this coming Thursday, I will be in mainland China, where I will not have my computer, and even if I did I’m not sure they would allow me to access my blog from there. Because of that realization, I have decided to post this week’s “Thursday’s Thought” on Sunday so that I will not have to completely skip it in its second week of existence.

The inspiration for this week’s thought comes from A) The fact that, for the first time in my life, I am going into mainland China (which is very different than Hong Kong) this week, so I have been thinking a lot about the state of the church within its borders and B) The fact that I have been reading a book called The Heavenly Man this week. It is the story of one believer, Brother Yun, and his almost unbelievable story of living life as a Christian in China starting in the 1970s.

At one point in the book, Brother Yun says, “For many centuries the gospel struggled to gain a foothold in the stubborn land of China. Our soil was too rocky to accept the root of the gospel, but in time God accomplished His purposes and established His church. Suffering, persecution, and imprisonment made His gospel rapidly spread throughout China. If our lives had been more comfortable we’d probably have stayed in our home villages. But because we were always fleeing to new places the gospel spread to many areas that had never heard it.”

This Thursday’s Thought: So many Americans wonder why the gospel is stagnant in so many areas in the States. Maybe it’s because we’re driving to church in our BMWs (Not that I’m judging you if that’s what you drive to church. It’s just a random example.), sitting in comfortably cushioned seats, drinking our Mint Mochas from Starbucks (which really do taste so good…), and enjoying a top quality AV production in our churches while Christians in other parts of the world must walk many miles so they can gather quietly, in secret, often at night so the police won’t raid their meetings and beat, imprison, or kill them. Maybe it’s because we have replaced the God of the Bible with comfort and commercialism. Maybe it’s because we’ve redefined persecution to mean a couple of friends not sitting with us at lunch because they think we’re weird for being Christians. Maybe, if we took that gospel at its word, it would start a revolution. Maybe if the church as a whole in America were to make significant (dare I say lifestyle-altering?) sacrifices for the sake of the gospel, the church in America would be freed from its stagnation. But that’s just what I think…

The Start of Something New

I’ve decided that in order to keep myself accountable to updating my blog, I should start a weekly segment that I will have to update every week. I figured I would use this post to share thoughts and ideas that I have found impactful/moving/interesting/thought provoking/you get the picture over the past week. Some will be original lines (although they will usually get their inspiration from some outside source), and others will be direct quotations that I thought were important enough to post directly as-is. In order to do this and stick with an alliterative theme, I am calling the new weekly update “Thursday’s Thoughts.”

My first Thought comes from a book I read last week called The Power of Words and the Wonder of God. It is an excellent book that really challenged the way I think about words. This list is inspired by Justin Taylor’s writing on the first few chapters of Genesis in the book’s introduction, but it is not the exact same list. I have compiled this one after reading Genesis 1-3 on my own. So here is this Thursday’s Thought:

In the first 3 chapters of Genesis, words are used to:
-Create
-Give order
-Bless
-Give life
-Lead
-Command
-Express love
-Rejoice
-Thank
-Deceive
-Tempt
-Curse
-Protect
-Ask questions
-Give Answers
-Show God's glory
-Cast doubt on God's goodness
-Cause division
-Bring restoration
-Make Excuses
-Give hope
WORDS ARE IMPORTANT! USE THEM WISELY!

My Job Description

The other day, I read a satirical article on how easy it must be to work in a church. For me, as someone who works in a church, the article was hilarious, because the presentation it gave of what it must be like to work in a church was so far from reality. The article did remind me, however, that most people (especially those who have never worked in a church) have no idea what it takes to work in a church. So, I have decided to compile a list of just a few of the key elements that fit under the broad umbrella title “Youth Intern.” A youth intern is a very unique person. He must:
• Be skilled with setting up and running sound equipment. This is especially handy when nobody else in the room knows how to do it or when you use your sound equipment somewhere besides your normal location then have to put it back where it belongs.
• Be a public speaker.
• Be an interior designer. More goes into arranging a youth room than meets the untrained eye.
• Be a friend.
• Be a Bible Scholar. Ok, probably not all youth interns are Bible scholars, but including this in my job description makes me feel even better about reading theology books/the Bible.
• Be a Facebook friend. Because there are friends. And then there are Facebook friends.
• Be a counselor. Wisdom must flow from the youth intern’s lips as water in a raging river. Or maybe it’s just my dream that the last sentence describes me someday.
• Be a camp counselor. This one definitely fits me. As everyone knows, every good youth ministry involves camps. And at the camps, the intern gets to live in the cabin with the kids. Reminds me of my 2 summers at T Bar M, except that when I’m in charge, there are no curfews, so I get much more exhausted than T Bar M would ever let me get.
• Be a janitor. Who cleans up the youth room when the kids leave? The Intern
• Be a financial planner. Planning next year’s youth budget… one part of the job I’m not looking forward to.
• Be an event coordinator. Because awesome youth events don’t just happen on their own (at least not every time).
• Be a mediator. Do kids go to parents for conflicts with friends? Why would they do that when there’s a youth intern in town!
• Be a mentor. One of the most awesome parts of the job. Getting to impart my wisdom (or whatever you call the thing I have that I hope someday qualifies as wisdom) to the youth, especially in a small group setting.
• Being a mentee. I think that’s what you call it when you learn from others.
• Being a discussion leader. If you’ve never led a small group discussion with a group of high school guys, there is no way on earth you can comprehend how challenging of a task this seemingly simple thing can be.
• Being a small group discussion material writer. As if it wasn’t hard enough just to lead the discussions, I also have to come up with material that will keep all 4 of the small groups in our Sunday School class talking for about 40 minutes.
• Being a high school music/sports fan. What better way to show the kids you really care about them than being there… for guys field hockey? (Austin, if you read this, I really enjoyed watching your game)
• Being a marketing genius. Because events can’t happen if kids don’t know abut them.
Like I said, there is much more that goes into being a youth intern than this short list, but if you ever want to consider applying for the job, make sure you have at least these bases covered first.

It's Been a While

Yes, I know. It’s been almost a month since my last post. Let’s just say it was a very busy, exciting month where I was more focused on living my life than writing about it.

That being said, I guess a new post is more than overdue. So much has happened in the past month, I hardly know where to start. I got to go home for Christmas (for the 2 people out there reading this who didn’t know that already) —actually I got home the day after Christmas, but that’s a minor detail. It was exciting to see my family and friends. It was also amazing to see the generosity of some anonymous donor in my HK church who bought me the ticket home and the way that God works in ways that we would never expect to take care of us.

The Wilsons left for Guatemala since my last post (for anyone who doesn’t know, my uncle, aunt, and 6 cousins are now full-time missionaries to Guatemala). Their departure was sad and exciting at the same time. It wasn’t as hard for me because I’ve been gone for 3 and a half years (and the realization that if I hadn’t gotten to go home for Christmas, I would have been informed through an email or facebook that they had left helped keep my emotions at bay too), but there were [almost] no dry eyes at the Knudsen’s house as the Wilson family departed for the airport.

I also got to see how Christmas is celebrated by a different family in another part of the world. The Beselts, a family from my church in Hong Kong, took me in as one of their own children (bringing the total to 5) for Christmas this year. The Beselts were actually celebrating their family’s Christmas Eve on Christmas Day, since Dean, the father, is a pilot, and his flight didn’t get in until the afternoon of Christmas Day. We celebrated by going to see their youngest daughter, Jane (who is 14), perform in a professional production of the Nutcracker. Believe it or not, this was my first time ever seeing the Nutcracker. After the ballet, we went to the mall (which was open on Christmas) to get some supplies for Christmas Eve dinner, which consisted of a variety of breads and crackers, a variety of cheeses to put on the bread and crackers, and some raw salmon (which was so good). We then watched the Flinstones Christmas show and White Christmas, a Beselt family Christmas Eve family tradition. Each of the kids got to open one gift (their own copy of the Flinstones Christmas show on DVD, so when they have families of their own they can continue the tradition). It was a fun night, and I am so thankful to this family for taking care of me while I am so far from home.

Speaking of traditions, I got to decorate gingerbread houses at the Roix’s house and play in the annual New Years Day football game while I was home. The Scott brother rivalry was heated at football, and a good time was had by all. At the Roix’s, a large portion of Ashley Bouraphael and Kelsey Rudolph’s house was eaten by yours truly in retaliation for Ashley feeding my gingerbread children to her brother last year. Despite all Ashley’s threats of retaliation and assurances that she could be mean if she wanted to, Kelsey ended up being the one who tried to take out revenge on my house, a move which left her with a bloody knuckle (and that’s why you don’t mess with my gingerbread house!).

Sorry for the obnoxiously long post and the fact that I haven’t posted in so long. I hope everyone is doing well. Bye.