The Light

This morning, I was at a meeting with our University and Young Adults staff about a worship gathering they will be hosting this coming Sunday night. They were primarily discussing how to set up the space we have and organize the “flow” of the evening to help people experience God through the time together.

The lesson for the night will be on John 1:1-5, so a lot of emphasis on the planning was being placed on lighting: “In Him was life, and that life is the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” This discussion and the reflection on the passage got me thinking:

When Christ came into the world, He was the light of the world, and no matter how hard the darkness tried, it could not overcome Him. His light was too powerful. In fact, the darkness’s best attempt to overcome Him (the cross) led to His greatest victory (the resurrection). Light and darkness are not equal opposites, but rather darkness is a weaker foe that is easily overcome when the light enters into its presence.

This is good, but I then realized something else awesome: when Jesus left the earth, He promised to be with His people forever (“ even to the end of the age”). This means that if we’re Christians, wherever we go, Christ goes with us. And wherever Christ goes, the light goes, and wherever the light goes, the darkness cannot overcome it. As Christians, we are “children of the light” (1 Thess. 5:5). Just as the darkness cannot overcome Jesus’ light, it cannot ultimately overcome our light either. In fact, its best attempts to do so have historically been some of the greatest victories for the faith, which is why the saying exists that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”

Wherever we go, we bring the light. Darkness cannot stand in our presence, because the light of the world accompanies us. So let us live boldly.

Upward, Inward, Outward

Upward. Inward. Outward.

It may appear cryptic if you don’t know what it means, but for those of us at Watermark Community Church, it is the air we breathe. These three words summarize the process we long to see our people take in their relationship with God.

Upward—we want them to understand the gospel and have a relationship with God. This is the most fundamental step of the process, and without it, neither of the other steps is possible.

Inward—According to Jesus, the two greatest commands are to love God and love others. Once people have a relationship with God in place, our desire is for them to come into the family and engage in genuine community.

Outward—The goal of community is not that it would center solely on us, but rather that it would lead to mission (going out). As we learn to truly love each other within a community of faith, our desire and prayer is that we will learn to love our unsaved friends and neighbors as well, and that we, through proper understanding of the gospel and community, will be moved to live life on mission. In fact, our goal is for our community not to be merely a community, but rather a missional community, where we are living life on mission together.

Ultimately, the process is not meant to be linear, but cyclical. As we go throughout or Christian lives, we need to continually return to the gospel, both for forgiveness as we continue to sin, and as our motivation for our other steps in our walk with God (God’s love for us in the cross should motivate our love for God and our love for God should motivate our love for others). Also, as we live life on mission, our goal is to bring new people into this process, so just as the gospel (Upward) leads to community (Inward), and community leads to mission (Outward), mission always leads back to the gospel.

Everything we do at Watermark centers around the ideas of Upward, Inward, Outward (ie. gospel, community, and mission). This has been incredibly helpful for me as I have started my work there, since I am not responsible for starting the youth ministry from scratch on a philosophical level; instead, my job is to use these three steps as a skeleton and build a ministry where the youth will be encouraged to move through these steps. Obviously, maturity in Christ—not simply moving people through a process—is our goal, but this process is a great summary of how we want to see people mature in Christ and it has given me a great foundation as I have tried to figure out how to start the youth ministry here.

My New Flat

For those of you who haven't heard, I recently moved to a new apartment. Here's what my new place looks like.

This is my living room (with our awesome drying rack drying my clothes). We have a 2 and a half person couch, a chair, a fridge, and we will have a TV in here. That's about all there's room for in this room.

Our kitchen is even smaller than our living room. I have space to walk in, turn around, and walk out. Our fridge, as I already mentioned, is in our living room because it doesn't fitin our kitchen.

My bedroom has space for a bed. As you can see, even

my clothes get hung above where I sleep.

My bathroom is basically a toilet, a shower, and a sink.

The view from my apartment is pretty great, with

a view that lets me watch the full moon rise over one of the world's greatest cities. Overall, I really like the new apartment (despite its smallness). It is in a great location, I have a great roommate, and it is a pretty nice place.

Free Because I'm (Already) a Failure

"I already knew you were a sinner."

Surprisingly, I think that was probably the most comforting line I could have heard at the time. The conversation was with my new pastor. I was sharing with him that I had some issues I had to deal with in my heart that I foresaw potentially hurting our relationship for a while. I went to him to make him aware of the situation and to ask him to hold me accountable as I dealt with the issues.

Going into his office in the first place was difficult for me. Confessing to my pastor (who also happens to be my new boss) that I had issues was not my idea of a good first impression. I tried everything to avoid having to go into his office, but eventually I realized I had too much stuff going on in my heart to not let him be aware of what was going on. So in I went. I told him about my current struggles in this certain area, asked him to hold me accountable, and apologized in advance for any strain that could put on our relationship. And when he opened his mouth to respond, out came: "I already knew you were a sinner."

It may seem weird, but knowing that fact has made a huge difference for me. I'm not sure why I thought I could convince my pastor that I was perfect. In fact, it's actually ironic that I would ever even think to try that, since my job is to help people live in the truth that all of us are sinners, but Jesus offers us free and unmerited salvation. I guess my pride was rearing its ugly head, thinking it was better to appear perfect than to appear broken but be truly perfected in Christ. And, just like the reality of the gospel that our salvation is not something we earn frees us to be real with God, confess our sins, and be healed, the reality of the fact that my pastor already knows I'm a sinner frees me to live a life of honesty with him. When I make a mistake, I don't need to hide it out of a fear that this will ruin his perception of me. He already knows I'm a sinner. And besides, if my failure were to ruin his perception of me, it was probably a perception that needed to be ruined anyway.

It's funny the freedom that comes from knowing that others know we're not perfect.

A Thankful Heart

I think often in our lives (or at least in my life), in the midst of a difficult or confusing situation, it is easy to overlook acts of kindness in our lives that should inspire thankfulness and to let our situations in life keep us from an attitude of gratefulness--toward others and toward God--that should mark us. Two situations in my life right now have caused me to realize this reality and have served to remind me how miserably I have failed to live with an attitude of thanksgiving regardless of my circumstances, especially over the course of the past year.

The first reminder of this comes due to the fact that I am finishing my current internship at International Baptist Church of Hong Kong this Sunday. Over the course of the year, I have received overwhelming support from the church in a number of different ways. People from the church have given me words of wisdom when I needed to hear them, they have bought me meals, they have invited me into their families (this one was especially nice on holidays), they have offered to help in various ways with the youth ministry, they have listened to my complaints (although my complaints often were often due more to my own immaturity than to anything which warranted complaining), and more. Throughout the course of the year, however, rather than rejoicing in the fact that I had such a loving and supportive church family, I have often found it much easier to complain that we didn't have more youth volunteers (a fact which is made even more ridiculous by my recent discovery that the method I most often employed of recruiting volunteers is probably the worst way to recruit volunteers possible), that our kids weren't more committed to our youth group, and that parents often place more priority on their children's academic life than on their spiritual life (this is a legitimate one, but it is part of Hong Kong culture that I need to learn to address properly rather than complain about if I want to be effective at reaching the youth here... But that's a whole different article). My lack of a proper attitude of thanksgiving became apparent to me this week when my pastor asked me to share a few words with my church this Sunday about my time at IBC, what I've learned over the past year, etc. As I sat down to prepare what I would say, I was reminded of the myriad things I had to be thankful for during my time at IBC and felt a deep conviction for the lack of thankfulness I have displayed compared with what I ought to have displayed.

The second reminder of my lack of thankfulness came due to the fact that I have a new friend who recently moved to Hong Kong. This friend's brother-in-law and sister were two of the people who helped make me feel welcome when I first arrived in Hong Kong, and since they are back in the States now, I figured I would do whatever possible to help make her transition to Hong Kong as smooth and comfortable as possible. I really haven't done too much, but for the small things I have done, she has been very thankful and appreciative. By seeing her thankfulness, I was reminded of the numerous times that her brother-in-law and sister went out of their way to make me feel welcome here. I know that I was very thankful for a lot of what they did for me, but I think that in the midst of the craziness of adjusting to a new job and a new city on the other side of the world, I often tended to think of their kindness as something I deserved rather than as a gift I didn't deserve (even if I did say "thank you" to them for the things they did). The way that this couple went out of their way to make me feel welcome in Hong Kong is way over and above what they had to do, and the level of thankfulness that I felt towards them was not anywhere near what it should have been.

Lord, give me a heart that sees that every good and perfect gift in my life has its ultimate root in You, and that each gift is the result of the great grace that You have shown me through Christ on the cross. Let me cultivate a spirit of thankfulness in my life, both toward You and toward those that You use as instruments to bring these gifts into my life. Amen.

Things I've Picked Up So Far

Well, I have begun my process of meetings and readings in researching for my new job. I still have a lot of preparation work left to do, but there are a few very important things I have picked up so far. Here are some of the highlights:

• Nobody has youth ministry entirely figured out. If they tell you they do, they are either lying or mistaken. There is no "one size fits all" plan for how to establish a ministry team, connect with youth, and disciple them in a lasting way. There are certain guidelines that often work as general rules, but in terms of a specific step-by-step process, each church has its own unique DNA that makes it impossible to impose a formula upon it.

• If you try to run the youth ministry by yourself and it has more than 12 kids, you will burn out. Volunteers are essential to a successful youth ministry.

• Volunteers are not babysitters. If you treat them like babysitters and don't let them be involved in helping with important parts of the ministry, you will 1) make them question whether what they are doing is important and whether their gifts would be better used somewhere else, and 2) end up running the ministry by yourself, which doesn't work.

• From talking with people in Hong Kong, it has been a general consensus that one on one time with kids is essential in order to connect with them, especially in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, many kids are raised in such a way that people are concerned about their grades, their athletic abilities, and their musical abilities, but very few people are concerned about them as individuals. One person told me his ministry philosophy for working with youth in Hong Kong is, "To be known is to be loved, and to be loved is to be known." Basically, unless you are able to form a deep relationship with the kids where they feel that you truly know and understand them, they will view you as just another adult in their life who is trying to make them more marketable without actually caring about them as a person. Another Hong Kong youth worker told me it has been his experience that a 15 minute one-on-one conversation with a student in Hong Kong can have the same effect on that student as a conversation that would take a few hours anywhere else.

• Youth workers reaching kids is great, parents reaching their own kids is essential. For all the work I do with kids, I will end up having less than 5 hours a week of influence on almost all of them on average. Depending on schedules, a parent can get that much time with a kid in a night, and more on weekends. If the truths I am teaching the youth aren't being reinforced at home, they are much less likely to stick long-term.

• Just as a good pastor has to do in order to be effective in his city, a good youth worker must correctly identify the idols of the youth he or she wants to reach. It is much easier to point kids to Christ if we know what the biggest hindrance is that is keeping them from Him in the first place.

• While having a lot of kids in a youth ministry is great, we must be sure that we are ultimately drawing them to Christ, and not something else (and there are a lot of other things that we can--consciously or subconsciously--draw them to). One of my former youth leaders reminded me that "what you draw them with is what you will draw them to." Crazy and fun youth events are great, but they must not get in the way of our kids seeing and loving Christ. A school teacher in Hong Kong added the wise advice, "Foster a love for God's Word among the youth, not just a love for fun and fellowship." Fun and fellowship are great, but if they come at the expense of the youth knowing Christ, then they are a fatal distraction.

Hopefully, I will learn more as these meetings continue, but I think this is a good and very useful starting point.

Thoughts on Youth Ministry

Sorry I've been so inconsistent with the posts lately. My summer has been crazy. Hopefully things will begin to settle down for a while now and I should be able to post more consistently (at least for a while).

For those of you who haven't heard yet, I have gotten a new job that will start September 1 as a youth director in a recently started church plant called "Watermark Community Church"... which is also in Hong Kong. Actually, Watermark is new enough that it doesn't have a youth ministry yet, and my job for now is to get a youth ministry in place.

In preparation for my new job, I have become a student again. I have been reading books on youth ministry and mentoring, having conversations about youth ministry with different people, and praying about what the new ministry will look like. I am basically trying to get as wide a variety of views on youth ministry as possible so I can be aware of as wide a range of options as possible and make the wisest decision about which directions to move with Watermark's youth ministry.

I know that many of my readers here are/have been involved in youth ministry at various times in the past. Are there any books or articles you would say I have to read before starting the new job? Is there anyone I have to talk to in order to be fully informed? (Yes, Mrs. Costine, I have sent a message to Tim...) Is there anything I have to know about the job before beginning it? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.