Often times, as Christians, we get this mentality that it’s our job to fix people. That mentality is fueled by two ideas: 1) that we can see a person’s life objectively and 2) that we can judge sin.  Most time we don’t process it this way, but if we were to dissect our motives – then we’d know it to be true. But never once in scriptures are we called to fix people. Share the Good News? Yes. Show love and compassion? Yep. Fix people? Not once. If this is true then why we defaultly fall back on lecturing and preaching at people. It doesn’t work, so why do we do it?

What am I getting at? Well, in my latest clash with Pharisees, one of our students was being shackled by judgment – a harsh hand for something they did. Were they wrong? Sure. Do they know it? Yes. And in watching two people react to this student my eyes were really opened. One adult decided to lecture the young man pointing out the many ways his life has gone wrong. They wanted to convince him of their own rightness. This adult had not earned the right to speak into this student’s life.

The second person approached the young man very differently. This adult had been journeying with the student for quite some time. The first adult had not. The second adult had a conversation with the student; not lecturing or shaming them, but pursuing their heart. Through their conversation life change happened. The lecture just resulted in hardness of heart.

If journeying with a person works. If Christ’s example says that journey is the way… then why do we do it any other way? So many times we use the Bible or tradition or our own self-righteousness to separate us from others. It is used to fuel this air of judgmentalism (‘you’re sinful and I’m not’) which births this lecturing mentality. This way keeps us clean. It keeps us pious. And it keeps our hands from getting dirty. We ultimately remain in control.

To journey with people, we simply walk humbly with the Lord and invest our lives into others. With journey we are forced to be on God’s time table. It takes time and we have no control over situations or people that we encounter. Journey facilitates openness, authenticity, fragility, brokenness and a deeper love that we can experience alone. The lecture keeps an ‘us and them’ mentality that will always keeps us apart and we were never meant to be apart.

If we don’t journey with others in Christ, living loving, investing, then Gospel you live out is no longer the good news to those around you. It becomes a wall when it was meant to be an open hand. An open hand reaches out to others. An open hand accepts help. An open hand joins with someone else’s hand because the gospel was mean to be that way.

A fool lectures thinking they have it all figured out. A wise man knows he isn’t wise and has compassion for the one who has stumbled knowing they have stumbled too. Life is a journey that is out of our hands, out of our control, and beyond our understanding. So let us journey together, humbly together reaching out to the one who is in control and wants to journey with us.

We can tell people the right answers, but if we are unwilling to journey with them our words are meaningless… and so are our intentions.

Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death.
- James F. Byrnes

How many of us live that way?  Come on be honest. I know I fight it. That need to feel secure juxtaposed with the call of the Lord to let go…

In youth ministry, you find yourself investing in kids, but don’t usually see the the direct impact on their lives. We just work, love, invest, teach and walk alongside young people praying that the Lord will take hold of their lives.  But every once in a while, you get a glimpse into heart of a student. I got this note myspaced to me last night from one of our students. It was totally unexpected and it brought tears to my eyes.

If you knew this student, you’d realize that it’s totally out of character for them to be so honest, heartfelt, thankful and real. But I’ve also seen the Lord really begin to this student’s heart in the last few weeks (after what seemed like 3 years of a cold heart towards anything pertaining toward the Lord). Here’s what they wrote:

Lately, I have been going through some hard times. And some in a more direct way than others, have helped me. You guys make me laugh until i almost pee my pants. Sometimes make me want to stick a cork down the barrel of a paint ball gun and shoot you close range, but most importantly, make me feel accepted. In my family i am perceived as very different, and kind of an embarrassment. All of you make me feel like I can be myself and don’t have to worry about being judged or rejected. No matter what i say, no matter how dumb it comes out as, you make me feel like I’m important, that what i say matters. Even if you don’t know it, you all have helped me in your own way, and as a group. So i just wanted to say Thank You. You have no idea how much i appreciate it. So THANK YOU!!!!

So this is my encouragement (because the Lord encouraged me with this) to you youth workers out there. Keep investing. Keep spending time with kids. You may not see the direct impact today, but it’s not our job to see the result this side of heaven. It’s our job to minister, encourage, love, inspire and journey. So don’t give up. The work you are doing is much more impactful than you will ever realize.

I saw this over on Aaron Ivey’s blog.

It’s a blog cloud that takes the most used words in your blog and puts them together in collage.

http://wordle.net/

Here’s a terriffic spoof of the band Journey and the new movie Journey to the Center of the Earth. My favortie line…”Journey is melting the earth!”

This one’s for you Kevin…