Joel DeMott

Hello again friends!

I’ve obviously taken a little down time during the holidays, but things are now back up and running.

As we enter the new year with our many resolutions, I would love for you to take a couple of minutes to read this blog entry by my friend and colleague, Aaron Meares.  His challenge for the new year comes with some practical help to further our relationship with God as we enter 2011.  So head over to the blog Diligent Soul and enjoy!

Dr. Ben Witherington in part 2 of 4 conversations that will be posted here.  Your feedback is welcomed.

Waiting.  Waiting.  Waiting.  Waiting.  Waiting.  Waiting.  No one likes….Waiting.  I dare say that we like waiting even less now days because everything around us says we have a right to have what we want when we want it.  This cultural truth does not square nicely, however, with the narrative of scripture which seems awfully content to introduce something to us the way we some times speak of one friend to another. It is a  sort of literary, “I can’t wait for you to meet so and so.”  Except in the narrative of scripture, meeting “so and so” can be a long time in coming.

As we turn our attention to the weeks leading up to the celebration of Christs birth, I’m wondering what value is to be found in waiting?  As we approach an anticipated date, what can be learned in the mean time?  I encourage you to consider this as we encounter this week’s Advent readings.  As always your thoughts are welcomed here, so comment away my friends.

Readings:

Isaiah 35:1-10

Psalm 146:5-10 or Luke 1:47-55

James 5:7-10

Matthew 11:2-11

Dr. Ben Witherington is one of my scholarly heros.  I thought I would share this video clip which is part of a series of  that I will make available in the coming days. I will also continue my weekly Reflections on Advent so be sure to check back here for that as well.

Please take a moment to watch this clip and then post some feedback.  As always, I love to hear your thoughts!

Ben Witherington is a sort of hero to me and so I thought I would share this clip which is part of a series that I will make available in the coming days.  My Reflections on Advent will still be posted on a weekly basis.

enjoy!

Jesus and Wisdom.

Over the past five years or so, I have grown to love the Christian Calendar, that is, the calendar that takes us through the various seasons of the Christian Church and its celebrations.  We are now in the season of Advent which marks a time when we begin to anticipate and look forward to Christmas day with its celebration of the birth of Christ Jesus.  Advent literally means “coming” or “arrival” , and it is because of the miracle of Jesus’ coming or arrival that we celebrate this time of year.

Despite the significance of Christmas in its relation to changing the course of  world history,  I have to admit that what I find myself really anticipating, is not the celebration of Christ’s birth. Instead, getting that sweet thingamabob that the TV told me I’ve always wanted is at the front of my mind.  This year promises to offer up a Christmas morning at grandma’s house filled full of sweet yuletide loot, so I know what I’m in for.   But the celebration is just so much bigger than that.  We Christians have continually found ways to make partying less of a party and no, I’m not talking about taking the rum out of the egg nog!  What I am concerned about is the low ball way we approach this wonderful season of celebration.  The beginning of Advent is overshadowed by “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” (which sounds way too…x rated),   and then there’s the office parties (ours made for a good time), the extended family parties (I didn’t even know I had a great-uncle so and so), and then BAM…Christmas day.  This sounds more like a bad holiday pub crawl than a worshipful celebration of the days leading up to something amazing and earth shaking.  And so my friends I will set this before us.  Here are the prescribed Advent readings for this week.  I hope that as we read about the blessed hope that is anticipated in the scriptures, we also can find hope in celebrating our Lord’s birth.

Readings:

I have traveled to the Boundary Waters in Minnesota five times over the last eleven years.  I was fourteen years old when I took my first trip with a couple of my teachers and five of my classmates.  We spent an entire week before the trip in a hands-on classroom setting learning about the different elements of traveling and camping in the North Woods. We learned about everything from portaging a canoe to securing fishing line to a hook.  We even had to go over to the high school pool so we could practice flipping a canoe and then getting back in when the water was well over our heads.

As a young teenage boy, I found some of the lesson times to be enjoyable, but other parts of the training process were simply put-boring.  These teachers of mine had made several of these trips before and they knew what would be required of us and so their training reflected that knowledge, but I only say that now as I look back on the experience. I didn’t fully understand why I had to take all of this time to experience and learn about all this stuff that I probably would even need to know about.  Why so much preparation?

Preparation is a neglected practice in our churches.  We talk a lot about “equipping” people, but most of the time that just means that our brothers and sisters are given only what they think they need and only when they think they need it.  I think this is because we are determined to be efficient in our spiritual growth, “give me only the tools I need right this moment” seems to be the request.  To be given tools that are not perceived as being necessary, is to be weighted down with spiritual inefficiency.  One example might be dealing with the loss of a loved one, we certainly are called to care for and mourn with those who have suffered loss, but might we do more?  What if we encouraged one another to prepare for grief and loss before hand and in so doing encouraged them to grow before circumstances absolutely demanded it of them?

When I flip my canoe in 90 feet of water in the middle of a lake that is not the ideal time to seek out instruction on how to right the canoe.  When in the midst of difficult circumstances we have an opportunity to grow and overcome that can be furthered to God’s glory, if we are to some degree prepared.

In 2Timothy 4:2 we read: “…be prepared in season and out of season..” Some of us may be “out of season” for the moment, but there’s a lot of “in season” ahead.

My prayer:

Heavenly Father I thank you for the work that you do in our lives even when we are unaware and unintentional in our walk with you.  Stir within us a deep sense of greater obedience to your Word that we may become a people who are prepared in and out of season for the work that lies a head of us.  May we draw close to you and seek further instruction not only for the things we need today, but for the things that are yet to come.  In the mighty name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

As I shared last weekend at our baptism service, I’ve been paddling/roaming around the north woods.  I’ve come away with a few reflections that I thought I would share.

The prevailing challenge of my trip was the weather.  When you are in the wilderness without normal shelter, or a motorized vehicle, you are at the mercy of the wind and the rain.  There is a helpless feeling to all of that, realizing how certain circumstances cannot be changed and that you will simply have to adapt to them.  I found myself frustrated with my inability to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it.

Our first day in the winds where heavy (the ranger at our entry point looked a bit concerned for us) and I was in a one-man canoe.  Our plan was to canoe straight north through the bay we had entered which would eventually lead us to a river that is accentuated by a chain of waterfalls.  What should have taken us two hours took us over eight hours.  The wind out of the west was strong enough that I could not paddle into it, so instead I had to put the wind to my back and go to the far side of the bay and work around its shore moving northward (sometimes wading chest deep in water pulling my canoe in the choppy water).  I could literally see my destination as I paddled away from it…frustrated.

As I sat in my canoe, I considered how the life of a Christ follower in our current age can be similar to my experience in the large bay.  We live in a time when the journey from point A to point B doesn’t have to be a journey at all…just click and press enter and it’s done. To move toward our destination we at times must take the course less traveled, the way of less efficient effectiveness. On the water with the wind pushing against you, the power does not lie in your hands and so you must adjust your course. My destination never changed, my ultimate direction was never in question, but the journey would remain flexible to achieve the ultimate goal.

The way of the cross calls us to a way of life that is not always direct.  Direct journey can reduce us to programmatic thinking where the answers are calculated only in the mind of man.  God calls for a long obedience that proves itself on the journey rather than an obedience made possible only by the skillful calculation of man.

When we finally reached our campsite we were almost out of daylight and what a relief it was.  I found myself grateful that our efforts were not in vain and that  we had accomplished a task that seemed so uncertain in the beginning.

As many of you know, I’m passionate about young adult ministry.  I love what I get to do every week when it comes to engaging this emerging generation with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  As I’ve also mentioned, young adult ministry is difficult and no one has written an all encompassing manual on how to develop this specific kind of ministry.  To tell you the truth, I would be skeptical of such a “manual”, but there is value in more research and more study being put toward this group of people.  In the coming weeks I hope to set forth a manifesto of sorts dealing with my current perspective on young adult ministry.  I am by no means an expert on this subject, but I am one of the few young adult pastors out there who is trying to reach not just college students, but rather a whole decade’s worth of people.  It is with this meager experience and Christ-centered passion that I am branching out to help other churches think about young adult ministry in their specific contexts.

I’m currently consulting for a smaller main line church in my area that has acknowledged it’s continued loss of young people.  I walked into a meeting with these brothers and sisters the other night and was handed that evenings agenda.  What I saw in bold print on the top of the agenda told me I was in for a long meeting.

I saw the words Saturday Evening Contemporary Worship Service

To give you the cliff notes version, this group was considering the possibility of an alternative worship service for the purpose of bringing young people into the church.  The thought was that if you had the service early enough on Saturday evening, the young adults would be able to go out after the service and enjoy “other things” with their friends.

I love the people at this church.  I’ve personally witnessed how they have a heart for their local community and how they value serving one another.  I’m also deeply moved that they want to reach out to young people. Many churches five times their size are not even thinking about this generation group, and yet this small faith community has a desire to be counter-cultural by reaching those who are not presently part of their body.  I tell you this because I had to speak the truth in love to them.

I said to this committee, “I love that you want to offer young people an opportunity to worship in a way that speaks to them, but as things currently stand in this church no one with come to this alternative service.”  I had effectively killed the room.  A brief moment of silence was followed by a simple and yet profound question, “well then what do we do?”

The conversation continued, but I want to hear back from you readers.

Why do you think I came to the conclusion that young adults would not attend this alternative service?

And secondly, what might be a good starting place  for this small church when it comes to young adult ministry?  Remember, they have limited leadership and financial resources, but are warm and welcoming to all kinds of people.

I await your thoughts….

To quote the inspiration for this series of posts:

Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society. The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can’t articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

I want to be clear I where I stand in regard to the issues mentioned above.  I hold an orthodox-evangelical view of the value of human life and authentic human sexuality.  With that in mind, I’ll move on.

This past Monday we watched the documentary entitled Lord Save Us From Your Followers with is a play on a popular bumper sticker.  In the first part of the movie viewers are asked to consider how we as followers of Jesus Christ should go about engaging others who do not share our faith, morals, or ethical standards.  It is clear that evangelicalism has fractured into several factions, but the loudest faction seems to come from evangelicals who have associated themselves with the political sphere.  This in turn confuses some into thinking that if you don’t stand with a particular political group you are a godless heathen.  With such black and white distinctions made a “culture war” soon follows.  Some people believe that “taking America back for God” will be accomplished through the naturally divisive political process rather than the Body of Christ authentically loving people and peacefully articulating their position based upon Biblical truth.  Politics can easily cloud the greater vision of those following Jesus Christ.  Let us remember that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, bringing big things from small originally unnoticed, seemingly powerless places.  The kingdom of God is a kingdom that comes up from within people groups rather than powerfully asserting itself over people groups.  It is true that at the end Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess the Jesus Christ is Lord, but how that is accomplished is important where we as Christians are involved.  

Give me your thoughts…..