A Relevant Message in a Change Culture

Doesn’t it seem that we live in a culture that changes quickly?  Take fashion for instance – look back at pictures of yourself from five years ago.  Are you wearing the same type of outfits now as you were in those pictures?  Are you looking at your hairdo wondering what you were thinking?  Take music – what bands were popular a few years back – more than likely they’re not the same ones playing on the top 100 countdown today.
Change in our culture happens quickly.  And if we stay completely focused in our same track of doing ministry, never looking up to see if change is happening around us, we could easily find ourselves a few years dated and not effectively communicating or reaching the youth of today in a relevant way.  Webster defines “change” as the following:  to make different in some particular, to make radically different, to give a different position, course, or direction to. 

In your own youth ministry, I would encourage you to embrace change.  Change can sometimes be the key to truly connecting with your students in a relevant way.  Now, please hear my heart – there can be a ditch on either side of this topic – refusing to change and still using CDs from your high school years as the opening song or changing so much a student wouldn’t know the difference between an episode on MTV and your youth service last weekend.  There needs to be a balance. 

The best way to see how to connect with your church’s youth today is to observe your very own students.  Are your students communicating through Facebook, Twitter, or texting?  Are your students into playing sports, writing music, creating their own videos, longboarding?  Tune into your students to see how you can bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them in a relevant way.  And don’t be discouraged if change seems to happen more quickly than you’d expect.  Remember – only a few short years ago, you were sporting that ever-fashionable hairdo.

- Ruth

Pride Puts Influence on a Bad Ride

I don’t know about you, but pride seems to be one of those topics that the God always brings to the forefront.  One of the major reasons I believe this is the case is because He knows how destructive pride can be in our lives and the effect it will have on others. This Bible verse makes it very clear:

First pride, then the crash— the bigger the ego, the harder the fall

Proverbs 16:18 (Message)

If we are not careful pride can ruin some of the purest of hearts and create a huge mess.  It usually starts out small, but if undetected, can grow to take over our hearts and attitudes.  Pride effects how we view ourselves in light of others.  If we desire to influential pastors and volunteers, then the last thing we need is a bunch of pride in our hearts and thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought. There is nothing more of a turnoff than being around someone who is so stuck on themselves, so focused on what’s going on in their life, and carrying themselves like they are better than everyone else they come in contact with! When this happens, we lose our ability to influence others because we can’t even get past ourselves.  This is very dangerous and must be avoided at all costs.

 

Let me put it this way: Say for example that you own a sweet sports car like a Bentley or Porsche.  Some of you are like, “Alright! Now your talking!” Well you and I both know that the sports car is meant to be taken care of if it is to have its same WOW effect to others (everyone wants to ride around in a nice sports car). On the other hand, it would be an absolute shame if you never washed it, always threw your McDonald’s trash in the backseat, and parked it outside the garage close to a pine tree that would scratch it every time you pulled in or backed out. Even worse would be if you were driving it really fast down a curvy country road and lost control and crashed into a tree and totaled the car!  (Some of you are crying big salty tears right now, it’s ok, it didn’t really happen)  So your once amazing sports car that had so much influence and curb appeal is not so flashy now that it is shattered in a million pieces. No one wants to be around it, no one wants to take a ride in it, and no one is influenced by it like they once were.

Although a sad story, this same thing can happen to our own influence if we don’t guard our hearts from pride.  When we allow our egos, attitudes and actions to get puffed up and more highly exalted than they ought, what we are doing, in effect, is placing our influence in a nice sports car that is going to crash. We put our influence on a “bad ride” because it is bound to crash because pride always comes before the crash. 

So if we want to be effective pastors, leaders and volunteers and maintain our influence over the people God has called us to reach, then we must remove any ounce of pride that is in our lives. When we do this, we avoid the crash and keep our sports car nice and the influence it has on others intact.

-Eric