5 Things I Love About My Youth Leadership Team

Behind every youth pastor, there's a team of awesome volunteers (and sometimes co-coordinators!) who help make things even more amazing! Tonight's new post is a little reflection about the qualities I am thankful for in my youth ministry team! Consider it a bit of a shout-out, but also think of this post as a list of things I think are super important to have as a part of any successful youth ministry team!

My amazing 2011-2012 Emmaus Youth Group leadership team! (From left to right) Laura Glendenning, myself, Angela Henderson, Alicia Fortier, Simon Pelletier, Laura Griffin. Gaby Szabo in absentia. Photo courtesy of Jillian Agustin

I have been so blessed this year with an amazingly wonderful team! I get the infinite pleasure of working alongside some of the lovely people ever, who are all my best friends! We have really connected and work really well together, and everyone is super dedicated to our ministry. Couldn't do it without you guys!

That brings me to #1! A youth ministry team should be tight! If there's no chemistry between the leaders, not only will things flow less smoothly, but the teens will really be able to tell and there will be a disconnect. If the leaders don't love eachother, how can they really encourage the teens to love one another and effectively build community with them?

When our leaders get together, we have tons of amazing conversations, lots of ridiculous rabbit trails and things always diverge into an onslaught of raucous laughter. At the same time, when things get serious, we are able to have a really great discussion and, although we can get a little ridiculous and goofy at times, we always manage to say everything that needs to be said. And that's #2 for me! A leadership team needs to be able to communicate with eachother about serious things and come to helpful conclusions but also be able to enjoy eachother's company and laugh together.

#3- the better the individual leaders' relationships with God are, the greater overall quality during those discussions and in the teachings each week. If you have a team of leaders who at least pursue deeper relationships with God, regardless of where everyone is at, there is an attitude of commitment to that and that really shows.

On the topic of attitude, #4! Youth leaders should be committed and have a good attitude about that! They should *want* to come in on Friday nights. If your volunteers feel like they're being forced to show up to meetings, they clearly aren't volunteering and shouldn't bother coming. We don't want lukewarm people in ministry, we want people who are passionate and excited about doing God's work and being a part of the team!

And that's #5- a team should be just that- a team! I can't have volunteers on my team who are insubordinate and argue with myself and Angela. If we're completely off base with something, it's definitely respectable to call us out on that. It's a different story, however, when a volunteer feels the need to take charge of the lesson and lead it in a completely inappropriate direction, and won't listen when we ask them to back down. We have had issues with this kind of thing in the past, but I am thankful that our current team are all really lovely and able to feel like part of the team without overstepping boundaries.

My team has been so incredibly faithful, and it's really cool watching them all grow together! It's been such a blessing working with a group so dedicated and amazing, and I look forward to many Friday nights to come with my fantastic youth ministry team.

Touch the Leper

I've been thinking a lot recently about social justice- oppressed people groups, equality, and all that jazz. It occurs to me that, as a Christian, it's my duty to show love to people, especially people who are marginalized and really need it.

This post is inspired at least a little by conversations I've had over the last few days, and by Keith Ganzer's sermon preached this morning at Emmaus Anglican Church.

In Jesus' day, people with leprosy had it really rough. They were outcast from society because of their condition- not only because it was contagious, but also because they believed it was caused by their sins. If you had leprosy, you had to walk around shouting "Unclean! Unclean!" so that people would know to keep their distance. You were literally as far removed and ostracised as you possibly could be.

When I try to think about what the modern equivalent of a leper would be- that is, a people group that is marginalized and gets a lot of hate- the first groups that come to mind are the homeless and the gay community. Too many people in the world have negative attitudes toward homeless people, and homosexuals get treated poorly all over the world (granted, less in recent years than before, but still more than they should)

Speaking on a more confessional, personal level, I think I've definitely been guilty of not showing enough love to these two groups- and maybe that's why I'm focusing on them tonight. I've always claimed to have compassion for the homeless, and yet I never make any effort to make them feel loved. I've always claimed to love homosexuals (because their sin is really no worse than mine) but I've never made an effort to reach out to them or support them in any way. I've been pretty lousy at showing love to these two groups, and Christ's example shows us that we need to reach out to the world's pariahs.

In Luke 5:13, Jesus "reaches out and touches" a man "full of leprosy" and heals him. Keith pointed out this morning that Jesus really didn't need to touch the leper to heal him. There's instances where He simply says the word and people are healed and get up and walk. Jesus touches the leper to show compassion and love to this poor outcast. He doesn't just heal the leper- he forgives him, and shows that by His actions! Similarly, we as Christians need to reach out and touch the marginalized people in our society!

In May and June, I will be living in community with a few other members of Emmaus Anglican Church- one of whom is currently homeless, and is super excited to be moving into an apartment with Christian roommates who can help support him in prayer and help him get back on track with things! This guy is super cool, and we've had a lot of good conversations, and yet I know that in my heart there's still some kind of barrier there, so I am excited to see how God uses this to grow me in my ability to feel compassion to people who are different from me, and to reach out to them in love!

All this being said, I'm pretty tired and have to be functional tomorrow- I am taking a three day trip to Ottawa this week, and have to cram 5 days of work into 2 days. Should be fun.

Blessings,

The Bible in a Year: Week 13

Whoo! Sorry this is a day late, I was fairly busy yesterday (and by that I mean I watched hours and hours of TV and completely forgot about my blog, gasp!)

So, my Bible readings have finally brought me into Deuteronomy, and I must say I am pretty stoked to get out of the Pentateuch sometime soon. Jokes aside, it has been a really interesting read, if a bit heavy.

One thing that kind of struck me this week while reading Deuteronomy was the whole idea of Moses not being allowed to enter the promised land. As a person involved in leading ministry, that hit me really hard. I thought about how much Moses must have connected with the people he was leading, the deep bonds and relationships he built along the way, and the love he must have felt for them. I thought about how intensely sorrowful it must have been for him and for all of them when he told them that he would not be with them forever. Then I thought about how painful it would be for me, if I was in a similar situation. I wept a little, reflecting on Moses' leadership and on the humility it must have taken to stop before reaching the place he had worked so hard to get people to, and to just let all the glory go to God as His people were brought into the land He had promised them.

I pray that I would keep that in perspective while doing His work, that I would be able to understand that sometimes we can't be there for the beautifully fulfilling moments, but that we have to trust His glory and mercy to see things through to the end when we can't.

Cheers,

Dangerous Prayers

I was having a really great conversation with a friend of mine last week about faith, love and discipleship, and there came a point in our long discussion when the idea of dangerous prayer came up.

Dangerous Prayers are the kind of prayers I think we all need to pray more often, but are too afraid to pray. They are prayers that, in reality, are not actually *dangerous* per se- we aren't going to get murdered or accidentally blow up a bridge because of them, usually- but they are risky, in that God's answer to them is going to challenge the heck out of us! The example I was using at the time was in reference to praying for one's future spouse. This is a discipline I took up about a year ago, that I will regularly pray that God is preparing for me a wife who is godly, passionate, fertile, healthy, and going to challenge me a lot in my faith. I would call this a dangerous prayer because I am literally asking God to put me into a difficult relationship, because I just don't think I want something easy. But that's a story for another day.

Since we're talking about Dangerous Prayers today, I thought I would list a few others, and challenge you guys to pray some of them from time to time! :)

Pray for God to convict you of your sin. I figure this is a good place to start. It sounds pretty straightforward, but for a lot of people, the idea of *asking* Him to point out sin in their life is a terrifying thing. It's akin to asking your boss or supervisor what you can improve on at work. You just know there's going to be some stuff in there that you hoped nobody would notice, or that you were putting off fixing because of how difficult it is. And that's why this is a dangerous prayer, because it is so challenging, but so so worth it!

Pray for humbling experiences. This is one that I need to do more often, because it scares the heck out of me. Asking God to humble us is like a branch manager asking the CEO to make him receptionist for awhile- humility comes out of situations where we are lower, where pride is hard to come by. It is a good feeling being exalted, acknowledged publicly for good works, given a position of high importance, it all makes you feel more worthwhile. But the experiences that grow our character most and bring us closer to God are often the ones that are humble, behind the scenes and go unnoticed. This prayer is dangerous, especially for leaders, because it challenges our pride and invites us to step out of the spotlight and into the bathrooms with a mop.

"Break my heart for what breaks Yours" I couldn't come up with a way to phrase this one, so I'm just giving it to you as is. Asking God to help us see things the way He sees them is a dangerous prayer, but an amazing one. Often we see people who are so compassionate that we are blown away, and we wonder how they do it. It's because God has given them the gift of compassion, and they are able to see people and situations in a different, more holy light. This prayer is dangerous because it first takes acknowledging that we have built up so many expectations and biases that we are, in that sense, very disconnected from God; and also because having such compassion can move people in incredibly unexpected ways. Ready to do a lot more crying? If you're not, pray for humility first, then pray this one ;)

These are just a few examples of the dangerous prayers we can pray, but I'd like to challenge you to think of a few more, and start praying them from time to time! :) I read a book awhile back and am blanking on the title and author, but they listed quite a few and I just loved it. So if I find that, I'll come back and edit this post, but until then, that is all I've got! :)

Blessings,

Hardcore Brokenness: The Examined Life

Warning: I am probably going to get a little philosophical today. You've been warned. Completely.

For the past month, I have been doing a lot of reflecting on my own flaws and brokenness, in an effort to better understand the things that keep me from growing in my relationship with God. It's been an interesting process, and definitely rewarding and insightful, but I'm beginning to wonder if it's actually a healthy way to go about things.

Don't get me wrong- it's definitely a good idea to be aware of the areas where you're struggling, so that you can bring them to God and lay them before Him in full submission to His grace and glory, and ask Him to be at work in you to change them. What I'm not sure about is whether or not it is a good idea to carefully examine one's own life on such a regular basis, with the goal of being critical and trying to improve.

Plato gives this analogy about life in a cave- you spend your whole life living in said cave, understanding it on a purely physical level, then one day you somehow come out of that cave, and are given incredible insights into the 'real world' outside. Then you're sucked back into the cave, and you're forced to go back into your regular life while simultaneously being made aware and conscious of the world outside, only nobody believes you because "that's too meta bro"

This raises the question about whether or not ignorance is truly bliss- would you be happier to keep living your simple, monotonously cave-life, or to have your eyes opened to the truth and the things beyond but to have them unattainable because you're thrown back into the cave again?

All this to say, I've been reading philosophy textbooks recently and they got me thinking (as they are wont to do) about whether or not this series is actually good for me, and if I'm going about it the right way or not. I think if I continue to live 'the examined life' and *intentionally* reflect on things like this, all I'm really doing is being overly critical of myself and not letting God just call me out on things, which makes it feel all too artificial.

That being said, I'm going to discontinue this series as a regular, weekly thing. I may come back to it from time to time, but only when it flows naturally and comes from legitimate places. I will still continue the trend of having a new post up every Wednesday, however, so do keep checking back for more!

Yours in Christ,

Hardcore Brokenness: Slow to Anger

I don't know about you, but there are a lot of things in my life that are clearly only there to test my patience. Traffic, the public transport system, broken escalators, slow waiters, my mother, the list goes on!

I find over the years I have grown a lot in my patience. I almost never outwardly react to the things that bother me, which is a lot better than exploding or freaking out when I lose my patience. But I know that's not really enough, because, while I might not show it on the outside, I'm still very quick to get angry about these things on the inside. A lot of people would argue that it's better to let it out than to bottle it up, but I would say it's best to not even get to that point to begin with.

But how can we do that?


We are told in Corinthians that Love is a number of things. The first of these things is patient! I think there's a significance to the fact that it is the first one listed in that passage. I think that's because it's so essential to the rest of them- if you lose your patience, it's impossible to be loving, kind and so on because your heart is in the wrong place for that.

When it comes to matters of the heart like this, there's really no *practical* advice I can give you. This is partly because it's all stuff I'm dealing with as well, and partly because I believe that the only really good way to deal with these things is by giving them to God and asking Him to change your heart to be more like His.

So if you're like me and regularly find yourself struggling to keep a cool head (or heart!) in the midst of such trials, I want to challenge you to bring those feelings to God and ask Him to change your heart! Ask Him to help you be quick in love and slow to anger.

Prayerfully,

Hardcore Brokenness: Mending Relationships

So, as promised, here is the post that was supposed to go up yesterday! Sorry that took so long, it's been a really crazy week.

Before starting, I'd like to establish that in this post, the word 'relationship' will be used in the general context of any type of social connection between two people, not in any way specifically referring to romance or dating or anything of the like, but also not excluding them.

I think it's safe to say that a lot of the things we perceive as negative in our lives come from the drama of damaged relationships. We all have them- those friends who things just never seem right with, the parents we blame for everything that's wrong, the loved ones we grow apart from- but what we don't seem to realize is that our relationships matter a lot!

I often find myself getting frustrated with people, or feeling disconnected from friends and family, and dismiss it until it becomes a real problem. If we do this and allow our problems to get bigger and bigger before dealing with them, they become unbearable and even more harm is done. We need to be able to identify when a relationship is failing and bring it up, as uncomfortable as that may be, so that measures can be taken to save it. I'm not even going to claim that this is a biblical principle- it just makes good sense. Humans are social creatures, we're hard-wired to care about each other (which is kind of beautiful, if you ask me), so it makes a lot of sense that we should strive to have right and functional relationships with as many people as possible.

But how can we do this?


One thing I've realized about my own approach to relationships is that I try to be intentional with them. If it's a relationship that I really feel the need to nurture and grow in, I will intentionally make time for that person as much as I'm able- but only if they are willing to do the same. I also tend to ignore small things that bother me, even if they get repeated on a regular basis, because we have to endure one another out of love, right?

If your enduring of someone begins to put a serious strain on your relationship with that person, it is okay to tell them that! You can be incredibly loving and unconditional with that love, but if you really care about the health of the relationship, you should be willing to risk it by bringing up the things that are harder to talk about. Sometimes people just don't realize they're driving you crazy until you tell them. Now, all that's to say it's not really okay to attack them with it- if you have an issue with someone it's very important to be tactful in the way that you deal with it, especially if you value the relationship at all.

But what if someone tries to do that with you, and fails to be tactful?


This is something that has come up for me a number of times. A really close friend of mine has always been really reliable when it comes to calling me out on things I'm doing that aren't Christlike. I appreciate that a lot because I would have made even more bad decisions without his guidance there. He always lacked tact though, and that put a bit of a strain on our relationship for a long time, because any time he would call me out on these things, I would feel hurt and attacked despite also knowing he was right and going to apply the changes. I think in these situations, it's important to do two things: First, to call them out on their tactlessness, and thank them for the advice; and Second, to keep short accounts with them.

This is a principle that Jesus taught, of turning the other cheek and being quick to forgive and whatnot. He at one point warns us that if we have a problem with our brother we should drop everything and go deal with it before making our sacrifices in worship to the Lord. I think this is a super important thing to apply to our lives, and is something I need to get a lot better at.

So, if you're reading this and you have a problem with me and want to mend our relationship- talk to me! :)

Tune in next Wednesday (for real this time) for the next post in this series! And don't forget to check back on Monday for an update about my New Year's Resolution ;)

Cheers,

Hardcore Brokenness: Foreword

So last Wednesday I announced that every Wednesday for the next little while I will be doing a post about the ways that God is at work in all of our hearts to deal with our brokenness and build our character, so that we can be better disciples and better witnesses to His glory and to the Gospel of His son, Jesus Christ. This week, I’m going to go a little deeper into exactly what this series is going to look like, and outline some of my goals and plans for the time to come. Starting next week, you can expect to have a sort of devotional-style post put up every Wednesday before 11PM ET (Montreal time). I wish I could be more specific about what time it will go up, but that will massively depend on how busy I am on a given Wednesday and on how many posts I back up in the queue for the weeks ahead. If you plan to read them every week as part of your devotionals, which I hope you will, then you should probably aim to read them on Thursdays, or late Wednesday night. Before I begin, I’d like to also state that I plan on doing another weekly update, probably on Sunday or Monday, about my New Year’s Resolution, reading through the Bible in a year with the ESV’s “Every Day in the Word” reading plan. This will look a little different from the Wednesday devotionals in that it will be more of a reflection on what in particular stood out for me that particular week, and will likely be less thematic.

So, let’s get down to business! A quick disclaimer: This post will likely be full of Christianese. Most of my posts will be less so than this ;)

As stated above, this post is mostly going to outline the goals and plan for my series titled “Hardcore Brokenness” which will start for real next Wednesday, the 18th of January.

As Christians, we are called to make better disciples of ourselves through the studying of God’s word and through our interaction, be it service or otherwise, with the rest of His Body. We also know, however, that God wants us to change our hearts for Him. He wants us to constantly be renewed by the power of His Spirit, and to ask for His help in doing so. We acknowledge that we are imperfect beings, and that God does not expect us to change ourselves for Him, but THROUGH Him, specifically, through His son, Jesus Christ. If we forget, for even a moment, that Christ’s sacrifice is what gives us life and worth, and try to change ourselves apart from that, it will mean nothing. Therefore through this series I plan to constantly keep you turning your eyes back to the Lord in all things. In all matters of the heart, I pray that He would be our main focus and our guide to dealing with the brokenness within us.
My goal here will be to address the issues of character that are clear in my own life, and, through Scripture, to encourage readers (and myself, in the process) to bring such things to God and lay them down at His feet in full submission to Him. My hope is that lives will be touched through this, that hearts will be broken and that God will use this as a way to start dealing with the things that His people are too proud or broken to have started working through before.
Over the next couple of months (I say couple of months rather presumptuously; I have no idea how long this series will go on for) I will be posting one devotional-style post per week, and would love to have feedback and encouragement through prayers and comments. I will also have a few guest writers at some point, which promises to be an interesting addition to this series.

I think that’s about all I have to say as an introduction to the series. I am excited to think that the Lord will use this to change people, even if those people are just me and the four or five people who actually read this blog regularly. I wish I could post this right now, instead of having to wait until I find free Wifi somewhere, but alas, I am currently typing this in a word document because the Café I’m in has the gall to charge money for their Wifi. At least the muffin was tasty.

Yours in Christ,

Tom

Hardcore Brokenness: An Intro to 2012

What a cheerful way to start the new year!

Over the last couple of days, God has been convicting me hardcore of my own brokenness. I think I had gotten to a point in my walk where I was overconfident. I felt like I was doing so many things right that I could get away with not dealing with issues in my character. Over the last couple of days, I have made a couple of bad decisions, most small and unnoticeable, but all of them enough to make me think twice about them after.

I think over the last few years, I have always been aware that God was up to things in my life. I was always aware of what 'season' my life was in- be it a season of growth in leadership, or knowledge, or giftings- but I always just attributed that to 'what God is doing while I sit back and watch things happen.' It's always been about noticing the trends in the things that I'm learning about and trying to think about how to apply those things in my life. What I realized is that never have I felt like I had to really do anything for any of this to happen- it was just a matter of blindly trusting God to work through me. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that kind of faith.

But what was missing was intentionality on my part. It's always been about sitting back and letting things happen, and never about being the co-pilot. It was lazy. Lazy growth. It's like planting a flower in a spot that gets perfect sunlight and is conveniently placed right under a drop of water that falls like once or twice a week, just enough to give it the hydration and nourishment it needs to grow, then going inside and watching it happen. It's like buying those little cups of microwavable Kraft Dinner instead of getting a box and cooking it yourself (or, you know, making real mac 'n' cheese, but whatever).

Over the last few days, I've felt God really convicting me of my need to be more intentional about dealing with the issues in my character. 2012 is definitely going to be a season of growth in that area for me. I expect this year to break me. God's going to tear me in half, have me in tears, punch me in the kidney and break my heart at least once. I also expect this year to yield incredible results. I expect God to pull up all the things I've let harden my heart, to bring things out of the darkness and into the light, and to show me how to become a better servant in His Kingdom, starting with the way I am in my heart.

So I'm going to invite you to open up to Him this year: Ask him to break you. Take the chance. I'll be praying for this every day. I fully expect to be an emotional wreck within the next month or two. Exciting! Expect a post about this every Wednesday! There will also be other stuff at random times, but I am trying to be more regular about my posts, so you can check back every Wednesday for a new post about how God's changing my attitude this year, as well as at other, less planned times in the week for just general postings.

Prayerfully yours,

Tom