Things Your Youth Pastor Always Wanted to say

So at what point did raising your kid become my responsibility? 

There’s gotta be an easier, and cheaper, method to get teens here then pizza or ice cream. 

So for pastor appreciation month the head guy gets a trip for 2 to Aruba and I get a signed card with a $20 in it? 

Is there a way to remove the word “youth” from my title so the 50+ crowd will stop looking at me as a paid babysitter? 

Ah… paycheck time (opens up envelope). There’s that $400 check that makes my 4 years in college, 1 year in seminary, and $65,000 in student loan payments worth it. Perhaps when I’m 70 I’ll have ‘em paid off. 

That was the greatest message I have ever given. Too bad I can’t do that on a Sunday anytime soon. Last time I did that head cheese looked at me like I was stealing his show. 

People keep asking me when the wife and I are gonna have kids. I already feel like the 30 in that room are my own. I think I spend more time with them in a week then they do with their parents in a day. 

I wish the elders would stop asking me to brainstorm new ideas to get a “younger crowd” here on Sundays. What do they think I do with my time? Envision ways to drive younger people away from the church? 

Oh great, another hymn from the 1800’s. Even George Beverly Shea requested something written within the last century. 

I’m glad the pastor listened to my idea about the church having a website; I just wish he wouldn’t have asked me to operate it. 

That’s the last time I come to a deacon and elders meeting. Every vision and dream I’ve drawn up over the last 6 months was just shot down because we don’t have “funding”. If half of those elders would actually tithe and give more then a $5 we’d have the funding. 

This Sunday would be a great time to reintroduce myself to the congregation and see if adults would like to sponsor a teen for camp… Pastor just told me he’d “pray about” letting me speak during announcements. Guess thats a no. 

The teens were so excited about having their own worship team. Were… The teens were too loud during sister Gert’s prayer request. 

“Miss Evelyn would you be willing to sit in on youth group? We need help watching the teens.” Real reason: deacons assume since I’m single I’m going to make out with every girl in this room during class. At the same time. 

I wish these parents would stop undermining everything I’m teaching their kids. I enjoy pouring hours into a message just so you’ll contradict what I teach them… and then later assume it’s my fault their so messed up. 

These 40 days

Over the next "forty" days of lent I will be writing as I journey through this holy season. I pray that you join me there as we look for the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ the Lord.

Marketing my Christian Owned & Operated Business

Owned, Operated, or just do your business? 

This morning, while on my way to work, a local pawn shop was running an advertisement on the radio. They made it known that they were a Christian owned and operated business, yet later told about how they had the lowest interest rates around. Now while I agree you can be a Christian and try to operate your business on Christian morals and principles; I have to wonder if charging interest fits that criteria. One of the very things God warned the Jews about when giving loans was about not charging interest because you could, in the end, take ownership of the one last thing the loan taker has. A contradiction of sorts...

This brings me to a bigger question; in the end is it better to just advertise yourself as Christian owned, operated, or just run your business without making it known either way? Does God bless your business more because you have a "Gods Ten Commandments" sign in your parking lot? Am I not spreading the gospel because I don't have an ICTHUS fish on my company van? Will one less person go to Heaven because I don't have some corny phrase on my marquee asking people rhetorically if they think it's hot here?

We all know that actions speak louder then words, and I believe that when you simply do the right thing without having to tell people you do so business operation will run better for having done so. Perhaps God is more pleased with us when companies are ran right instead of running ad time to tell potential customers of how  we do it.

Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God or Something Else?

Was this to satisfy God's anger or to rescue
us from the grasp of sin and death? 

God's wrath must be satisfied for the penalty of your sin...


When you grow up as a child hearing this from the myriads of deacons, elders, pastors, and evangelists that frequent your church, home, radio, and television it would be easy to envision God as a anger-bent, fire breathing dragon who waits at the slightest mistake to hurl lightning bolts our way. It's this picture of a scary higher power that causes people to question how this vengeful God and the meek and lowly lamb of a man named Jesus could be related at all. Without realizing it we form a theology where Jesus doesn't just save us from our sins; he saves us from the Father.

Are we just sinners in the hands of an angry God? According to most altar calls that will be held this Sunday we are. Just a big ugly clump of fallen humanity since the day we were born waiting for our guilty verdicts to be handed down. But, is looking at salvation as nothing more then a courtroom scene all there is or is there something else?

Is God just an angry judge or a Father calling back his lost son?

Did Jesus save us from a God bent on seeing us destroyed simply because we were born or a husband laying his life down for his future bride?