Warning: this is not a pretty sight. Too much fundamentalism for Stuart is much like too much Mountain Dew for middle school students - both end up caustic and cranky in the end. This grumbly rant is a cautionary tale. A week filled with Way of the Master ministries, Kirk Cameron and John MacArthur don’t mix well.

I’ve learned from this and it won’t happen again.

Ah, the Dove awards. Wow, let me congratulate you artists for winning awards in a genre so niche that you couldn’t compete in the mainstream against real, respected musicians. Aren’t there any artists who follow Christ and can be mainstream? Is that too hard to ask?

And don’t’ get me started. Best rock song: Everything Glorious by The David Crowder Band!?! I love Crowder, but rock he is not. What a joke. The Dove Awards only goes to show you that the Christian way to fight culture is to make a culture of your own, only just less original and less talented. And by being a bad carbon copy of culture, minus the swear words, doesn’t make us different. It makes us cheesy.

So we’ve achieved being more like Wayne Newton than Jesus. Bravo to those of you who spent your hard earned cash to buy a WWJD bracelet or anything by Jeremy Camp. Let me applaud you for running the baseball diamond with Rick Warren or giving Kirk Cameron more than his five minutes of fame (really who can I thank for this!).

Why can’t we just be about doing the work of Christ on this earth, to make it a better place, to love, and to save the lost. Why do we need our own bookstores piled with idiotically trite bumper stickers and crap paintings of anything by Thomas Kincaid? Is this Christian walk? Hardly. But is this what the world sees? Absolutely. So why would anyone who’s not a believer ever want to believe if this is the lifestyle that we show them. What do they have to believe in?

[Episode 1 here]

Here’s part two of Tony Jones’ weekly webepisodes on exploring the changing face of the American church.

[Episode 3 here]

Yesterday, I attended Youth Specialties’ the Core Conference. A bulk of the conference was about empowering your youth to be world changers. It was a great time (I’ll post a review this week) and what I took from it was that I can’t simply expect my youth to get involved in changing the world - my own children need to be involved as well. So when I got home, we had a family meeting and discussed several areas that they can participate. James and Aida voted on saving their allowance to buy mosquito nets for kids in Africa to prevent the spread of Malaria.

If you’re interested in knowing more go to http://biteback.net

Sometimes as Christians, we begin to believe that we can change the world by inviting people to church. - but we’ve forgotten how Christ calls us to help the hurting, feed the poor, and care for those who can’t care for themselves. If we offer Christ, but don’t offer help, we’ve misrepresented the gospel.

I received an “urgent” phone call from a student last night. He’s a senior in high school and out of town on a school trip. This trip entailed them sleeping in a hotel room. So this student had to call me and brag that they jacked the heat in the room up to 120 degrees. It was so hot, as he puts it, “the toilet seat was warm!” He called totally ecstatic and wanted to share his joy with me.

“The frickin’ toilet seat was toasty Stuart! Isn’t that awesome! I just thought you would want to know.”

Ah, this is on of the many reasons I love youth ministry. I get to share in the joy (no matter how trivial) of these students lives. And they remind me often to look for the joy in the simple things… like toasty toilet seats.