Today I spent a lot of time planning for and thinking about our middle school worship service next year. Things are really coming together, partly because people are writing and arranging such amazing songs for us to sing. If you want to get a head start, here's a DIY recipe for you.
DIY for HPNY Students:
Love God.
Buy the music.
SAY SAY (Stanfill)
LIKE A LION (DCB)
HOSANNA (Fraisure)
WITH EVERYTHING (Hillsong)
RISE & SING (Fee)
OUR GOD (Tomlin)
HEALING IS IN YOUR HANDS (Nockels)
HAPPY DAY (Fee)
YOU NEVER LET GO (Redman)
Listen to these songs repeatedly over the summer.
Join us for worship in August.
Sing your face off. <3
Continue to love God while adding equal measures of loving
and serving people.
Repeat.
Thursday
Sunday
HE i = Sanctify
I've been pouring it all out lately...writing a new preaching series that draws people see the need for God to become greater as we yield to His wisdom, strength, provision, and power. The thoughts came easily after stumbling upon HE>i, a term thought up by friends in Hawaii looking for a way to express their life's goal, that God would become greater and that they would become less (Matthew 3:30). As I prepare each sermon I see the theme: sanctification. It's a fuzzy word for many, translated easily by today's texting culture.
HE>i, you are definitely on to someting....
HE>i, you are definitely on to someting....
Thursday
Justice?
Written for Slant33
What if Christ had this same mindset—viewing setting things straight as a side job or something he needed to do as a part of his ministry plan? Love wouldn’t allow him to view it that way. It was who he was—a just man, a just God, and a just Spirit.
Embodying justice in our lives, ministries, and future plans often calls us to really believe the stuff we say about justice. Doing justice becomes a response to a God we are beginning to understand more fully because we’ve allowed the Spirit to teach us and show us how to live.
And how should we live? Micah throws us an answer by saying that we should seek justice and walk humbly with God.
Humility is something I’m familiar with but not something I’m comfortable with. I’m not great at admitting when I’m wrong or when I don’t have an answer. I would like to say that I’m a person who thinks about justice more than most, but I still struggle with getting so focused on me that I forget that God wants justice to be a part of the definition of who I am.
While attending seminary, I was immersed in a more diverse culture. There were students and professors who understood what it meant to be “the least of these.” Through their eyes, for the first time, I began to see what it meant to live justly. It would have to begin with the attitude of my heart, the content of my words, the way I viewed those affected by the just acts of others.
It was a defining moment for me, to learn about justice from a new perspective, and I began to think differently, view life through different lenses, and speak differently too. Justice couldn’t be the end goal anymore. It would have to be a way of life for me, even when life gets full and loud and demanding.
With that said, I hope to seek justice with my mind and heart. It’s important to find ways to understand what justice is and what it means to those who receive it. After all, we’ve received justice that we didn’t deserve.
I write standing up. There’s a movie playing for my daughter in the background to keep her from saying my name too many times as I write, and I realize that embodying justice is a journey on a path to the kingdom Christ has called us all to seek—even if that path lies in the simple and crazy life of a youth pastor’s house. Seek justice. Walk humbly. These are words not just to live by—but words to be defined by.
What if Christ had this same mindset—viewing setting things straight as a side job or something he needed to do as a part of his ministry plan? Love wouldn’t allow him to view it that way. It was who he was—a just man, a just God, and a just Spirit.
Embodying justice in our lives, ministries, and future plans often calls us to really believe the stuff we say about justice. Doing justice becomes a response to a God we are beginning to understand more fully because we’ve allowed the Spirit to teach us and show us how to live.
And how should we live? Micah throws us an answer by saying that we should seek justice and walk humbly with God.
Humility is something I’m familiar with but not something I’m comfortable with. I’m not great at admitting when I’m wrong or when I don’t have an answer. I would like to say that I’m a person who thinks about justice more than most, but I still struggle with getting so focused on me that I forget that God wants justice to be a part of the definition of who I am.
While attending seminary, I was immersed in a more diverse culture. There were students and professors who understood what it meant to be “the least of these.” Through their eyes, for the first time, I began to see what it meant to live justly. It would have to begin with the attitude of my heart, the content of my words, the way I viewed those affected by the just acts of others.
It was a defining moment for me, to learn about justice from a new perspective, and I began to think differently, view life through different lenses, and speak differently too. Justice couldn’t be the end goal anymore. It would have to be a way of life for me, even when life gets full and loud and demanding.
With that said, I hope to seek justice with my mind and heart. It’s important to find ways to understand what justice is and what it means to those who receive it. After all, we’ve received justice that we didn’t deserve.
I write standing up. There’s a movie playing for my daughter in the background to keep her from saying my name too many times as I write, and I realize that embodying justice is a journey on a path to the kingdom Christ has called us all to seek—even if that path lies in the simple and crazy life of a youth pastor’s house. Seek justice. Walk humbly. These are words not just to live by—but words to be defined by.
What is hope?
Written for The Youth Ministry Academy
Therefore let all the faithful pray to you while you may be found; surely the rising of the mighty waters will not reach them. You are our hiding place; you will protect us from trouble and surround us with songs of deliverance. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. - Psalm 32:6-7
Most can look back over the course of their lives and identify moments of despair. These moments are painted with colors of hopelessness, dejection, anguish, and gloom. The events that cause these feelings can even seem small and trivial to onlookers but deeply painful and profound to the one who is openly vulnerable, in a field of sorts, unprotected by the harsh winds of this world.
We’ve all felt that moment of breathlessness when we are almost to despair…tears rush forth, bodies hunch in heaviness, minds slow to sadness…then there is that moment, just before we’ve given over to it, we are touched.
The psalmist describes it as his hiding place, the place where God protects us and surrounds us with songs of deliverance. From somewhere, God sends us a song.
Hope is the direction we need when we have no idea where to turn. Hope is the counsel we receive from the Word that tells us to not be afraid, and that God will lead us beside still waters.
I recently talked to a young girl in my office who experienced the despair of not feeling loved, of not feeling valuable, of not feeling beautiful. That despair led to some choices that will likely haunt her past for many years to come. As we prayed, I could hear the song of hope resounding over her emptiness. I could see her breathing, almost as if she had been holding her breath for months. When I drove her home I could see a visible weight lifted. Nothing had changed for her really, except she had allowed the truth of God’s protection and counsel to break into hear pain and let some light in.
Hope is God’s loving eye on us. Hope is knowing that his eye gives us rest and lifts us to a place where the mighty waters will not reach us.
Hope is the protection children feel as help comes to their rescue after an earthquake.
Hope is the direction of the Spirit which leads a young person to say “yes” to the call to ministry.
Hope is the counsel that gives us an ability to love those who grieve.
Hope is the song we sing after we experienced great rejection.
Hope is the verb that allows us to preach the Gospel, because we know that the Kingdom will come.
Hope is freedom and hope is ours, wherever we find ourselves today.
Therefore let all the faithful pray to you while you may be found; surely the rising of the mighty waters will not reach them. You are our hiding place; you will protect us from trouble and surround us with songs of deliverance. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. - Psalm 32:6-7
Most can look back over the course of their lives and identify moments of despair. These moments are painted with colors of hopelessness, dejection, anguish, and gloom. The events that cause these feelings can even seem small and trivial to onlookers but deeply painful and profound to the one who is openly vulnerable, in a field of sorts, unprotected by the harsh winds of this world.
We’ve all felt that moment of breathlessness when we are almost to despair…tears rush forth, bodies hunch in heaviness, minds slow to sadness…then there is that moment, just before we’ve given over to it, we are touched.
The psalmist describes it as his hiding place, the place where God protects us and surrounds us with songs of deliverance. From somewhere, God sends us a song.
Hope is the direction we need when we have no idea where to turn. Hope is the counsel we receive from the Word that tells us to not be afraid, and that God will lead us beside still waters.
I recently talked to a young girl in my office who experienced the despair of not feeling loved, of not feeling valuable, of not feeling beautiful. That despair led to some choices that will likely haunt her past for many years to come. As we prayed, I could hear the song of hope resounding over her emptiness. I could see her breathing, almost as if she had been holding her breath for months. When I drove her home I could see a visible weight lifted. Nothing had changed for her really, except she had allowed the truth of God’s protection and counsel to break into hear pain and let some light in.
Hope is God’s loving eye on us. Hope is knowing that his eye gives us rest and lifts us to a place where the mighty waters will not reach us.
Hope is the protection children feel as help comes to their rescue after an earthquake.
Hope is the direction of the Spirit which leads a young person to say “yes” to the call to ministry.
Hope is the counsel that gives us an ability to love those who grieve.
Hope is the song we sing after we experienced great rejection.
Hope is the verb that allows us to preach the Gospel, because we know that the Kingdom will come.
Hope is freedom and hope is ours, wherever we find ourselves today.
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