[youtube= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCbYrdxNUwU] A friend emailed this to me the other day and it’s spurred some interesting conversation about the nature of ministry.  I’m always amazed how easily we lose sight of journeying with Christ.

There’s nothing wrong with praying a prayer or engaging in any ritual or tradition, but when it becomes something that we lean back on and quit journeying - then we have a problem. Ritual or tradition (communion, meditation, contemplation, etc.)  is meant to remind us of God. It give us a chance to ponder and spend time with Him. When it becomes easier to make them an exercise in goodness or holiness - then they lose all meaning.

In the church or even in my ministry, I see us focused on getting kids (or people) to ‘pray a prayer‘ because it makes us feel good, like we’ve secured them. We also like to take count of conversions as some sort of litmus test of spiritual health/success. If we forget that being a Christian is about a walk, a journey with Christ - then we have nothing more than hollow ritual and tradition. When Jesus called his followers, he simply said, “Come, follow me.” We try and make it so complicated. Being a Christian is quite simple: follow Jesus. It simply starts with an offer to take a walk.

Once every year, students from around the world get up early in the morning to stand around the flag pole of their schools to pray. It’s an amazing symbolic event. It encourages and binds together the Christians. It leaves to revival. I wish.

I’m going to go ahead and say it. I think that See You at the Pole is really STUPID!

I’m sorry, call me the youth ministry cynic, but I’ve never really seen the point of this event. I’m glad students can nominally stand for their faith once a year for ten minutes. It shows nothing. It proves nothing. It just makes us feel warm and fuzzy as Christians. “They can pray and stand for my faith on this day,” some may say. “Do they pray any other day?” I say.

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men… Matthew 6:5

Did the other students know these youth were a Christian before they stood praying in the morning? If not, then they are not living for Christ and a showy morning of prayer won’t change that. “But God can use this event,” you may say. Yes, but God can use anything. He’s God, that’s why. I could fart and lead someone to Christ. That’s not the point.

We’re teaching our kids to have a shallow and hollow faith. A once a year show means nothing. It takes real courage to live out your faith daily, not on an annual basis. In youth ministry, I’m afraid, we teach our youth that their faith comes in emotional, event size bites, not a step by step journey. I don’t care if they can stand for a morning. I want to see them walk it out for the rest of their lives.

Tell me I wrong…

I had mentioned earlier in the week that I was really feeling down about things. My critical eye had been gazing at myself rather harshly lately. I’m my own worst critic. It’s amazing how when you’re down, God really knows how to pick you back up. This time it happened through people writing me letters. I received three of them this week.

The first one came from someone I know, but didn’t really realize they keep an eye on our ministry here. It simply said:

“Thank you for being willing to be tired often, but still keep going, going, going.”

Then about midweek, one of my best friends, who knows I’ve been struggling lately, sent me this email.

“Hey, tell Stuart to lighten up on Stuart… We never really know what God is doing with out lives and what it is he is showing us, giving us, or taking away for our own good, but we trust that He is God and that He loves us, and today that is more than enough. He loves you Stuart and wants good things for you, your family, and YD. Continue as you always do to keep Him first, the family second, and YD third and He will do much of the work for you. Let Him work out the hard stuff and you just follow His lead…”

Then later that day, I received this letter from a friend that read:

“You are a warrior in the battle for the souls of young men and women. Remember that the battle is the Lords. He will make you victorious and brave and stout hearted…”

I had prayed for encouragement this week and it came pouring in. It’s amazing how God uses other people in your life to accomplish His will.

Prayer does work, so I had an idea. I’m setting up another page on my blog for prayer. I’ll post weekly my prayer requests. You post your prayer requests. I’ll pray for you. You pray for me. It will be amazing to see what God will do.

So look for the “PRAYER CORNER” page that appears at the top of this page.

Ever have roadblocks in your life?

I sure do. My struggle right now is support raising. My roadblocks are both mental (discouragement) and physical (the “no” word). Being missionary I have to raise my own support (funding) to stay in the missions field. My field is rural Washington State (8% churched) and I reach out to unchurched youth in our town of Arlington. Recently I’ve been promoted to director of our outpost and I’m now in charge of raising more funding.

Support raising has always been a faith thing for me. I do what I can, pray and watch God do the rest. And I can’t complain, I’ve seen God provide in so many ways for my family.

It’s just lately, I have a hard time remembering that. I’ve been out beating the pavement and been getting good responses from people I’m requesting for support, but they’re mainly “Yes, I want to support you, just not now.” People want to be apart of supporting our organization and believe in what we are doing. It’s just a matter of economics and people struggling right now. I had someone tell me last week, “I feel like the enemy is hitting [financially] people to prevent them from blessing the Kingdom through giving.”

My first response is “Oh great!”

Then I take a breath and look at my situation. What are the roadblocks telling me? I know I’m called to be here. I know this is where my family is supposed to be. My heart is so vested in this mission field. So what then? Right now for me, it’s relying on the Lord for provision. It’s praying and waiting. I just have such a hard time with that - the waiting part.

I have to remember that when I’m alone the roadblocks look much bigger. I lack the perspective to see past where I’m at. Especially when I’m walking down this road and I stumble upon this huge boulder impeding my path. All I can see is this boulder. I get frustrated when I realize that there’s nothing more I can do to move it. And as long at it’s there, I can’t continue forward. When I stare at it long enough I lose all perspective and hope. Then once I’ve run the gambit of frustration I realize that this burden isn’t mine and I need to hand it over to the Lord.

Thanks to all of you who were praying over yesterday’s banquet. It was an amazingly encouraging event.

When all was said and done we raised over $33,000! Praise God for his goodness.

I’m not just excited about the funds (which go towards scholarships, operating budgets, getting a van and more), I was also so impressed with the people that attended. It was great to fellowship with such fine folks.

And that’s not all. Many people that attended are still interested in giving, it just takes time to pray and think it over, so our goal of raising$36,000 is very much attainable over the next few weeks.

I am very thankful for all those who helped, attended, and prayed over this event. Thank you all!