Please pray for Mikey Lang. He and his wife Bonnie are amazing couple, friends, guides, missionaries, and fellow followers of Christ. This afternoon I found out that Mikey has a softball size tumor on his lung and will be going on May 25th for treatment in Canada. Lift Mikey and Bonnie in prayer during this time. Pray for healing, peace, and strength as they go through this time together.
“Not all those that wander are lost.” - J.R.R. Tolkien
“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” - Luke 19:10
Often times as Christians we like to toss around certain words or terminology. After a few tosses, these words tend to lose meaning to us, but we continue to use it. This term of calling people “lost” is one of them. Typically by lost, we mean those who have not chosen to follow Christ; those who do don’t share the faith.
My question is this, do we treat the “lost” like they are truly lost? I mean, if they are lost, and we find them, shouldn’t we be more excited? We run into lost folks ever day. Does the faith within us beg to get out? Do we see the lost not merely as people outside the walls of our faith, but merely brothers and sisters who should be inside with us?
So two thoughts to ponder:
1) if they’re lost, why do we tend to make them feel unwanted
2) just because they’re lost to the faith doesn’t mean they don’t have a clue where and why they’re where they are at.
As you walk through your day today, look around and notice the people you come in contact with. Really think about the way you look at them. Do you look at people the way that Christ did? I know I don’t always do that. I want to change. Anyone with me?
Behold, I give you the Maple Bacon Bar! It is amazing maple flavoring mixed with bacon all on one incredible pastry. I had some amazing friends bring this jewel back from Portland. It was made from an sketchy hole in the wall called “Voodoo Donuts” known for their exotic donut flair.
That’s pure artery clogging, double chinned joy in pastry form.
One of my more popular posts has been my review of Acquire the Fire. I continue to get feedback arguing with my opinion of the event. So instead of continuing to defend my stance that youth ministry should be more pursing Christ than a wicked-awesome (pronounce with thick Bostonian accent) entertainment extravaganza, I’ll let Mr. Mike Yaconelli speak for me:
“If I witness one more Jesus cheer, if I hear one more “let’s have a hand/round of applause/praise offering Jesus,” if I have to endure one more pep rally for Jesus, I’m returning my youth ministry I.D. card. Because as much as we criticize and complain about our media-ravaged society, as much as we rant about the evils of MTV and pop culture, we’ve imitated them by rushing to create the world’s biggest youth event.
At these events we parade around and glorify all things “beautiful” - the dazzling musicians, the laser shows, the foxes and studs for Jesus. At these events we mesmerize young people with how “cool” Jesus is. These pep rallies give teens the illusion that God is cool, that God is winning, that God is the majority - and that their ministries and youth leaders are cool, too. But what these don’t dare say that the even cool, dazzling, “beautiful” youth workers are screwed up, broken and consistently in need of God’s grace.
So rather than cheering our young people into the kingdom, maybe we should point them to the broken, inconsistent, uncool followers of Jesus found in the Bible. Maybe we need to stop pressuring our young people to cheer long enough to prepare them for a world in which the real heroes are powerless, tiny, and considered insignificant. - Mike Yaconelli
Ministry is always a series of ups and downs while following after the Lord. Recently, I’ll have to tell you that I’ve been riding up and down, wave after wave. For those of you who do not know this; I am a support based missionary. This means that amazing people, financially support me and my ministry to teens on a monthly basis. Without regular support, I can’t be here, doing what I do. But with life and the economy always in flux, some people support you for long periods of time and others just for a season. It’s that ebb and flow of support based ministry.
So every once in a while I like to extend the offer to you, dear blog readers, the opportunity to join my support team.
So what exactly do I do? My job is to reach out to unchurched teens in Washington, journey with them, and offer them a hope and life in Christ. I am the director of Arlington Youth Dynamics a ministry located in Arlington, WA (www.yd.org). We deal with mainly broken, at-risk kids. I love being apart of what the Lord is doing in the lives of these amazing kids.
If you’re interested, go here to join and all gifts/support is tax deductible. If you have more questions shoot me an email (sdelony@yd.org) and we can chat.
Here’s a testimony of what God is doing in the lives of students.
Entries (RSS)