Jesus heard them and answered, “People who are well do not need a doctor, but only those who are sick. I have not come to call respectable people, but outcasts.”

Mark 2:15-17, Good News Translation

Here’s a fun excerpt:

Santa Christ?

Christ and Santa are not friends. They have wildly different worldviews, and not in the way that we commonly think. It is not only that Santa is all about presents, gifts, and flying reindeer. Even more concerning is that Santa is about evaluating the wrong goodness — ours.

One of their joint projects, which I know will greatly impact me and my ministry, is their theological journal, themelios. There are two articles in the most recent issue (Vol 33, Issue 3), which I can’t wait to read:

• The Gospel and the Poor by Tim Keller
• Shared Intentions? Reflections on Inspiration and Interpretation in Light of Scripture’s Dual Authorship by Jared M. Compton

Also interesting is their Christ on Campus Initiative, which produces apologetic articles for college students that are “intellectually rigorous, culturally relevant, persuasive in argument and faithful to historic, evangelical Christianity”.

But even more exciting than The Gospel Coalition is The Resurgence, which is primarily a blog, but also a network. From their website:

About the Resurgence

Resurgence is a movement that resources multiple generations to live for Jesus so that they can effectively reach their cities with the gospel by staying culturally accessible and Biblically faithful.

We are:

Resurgence means to rise again, or to surge back into vibrancy. We believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ must resurge in every generation to meet the needs of people and their continually changing cultures.

Missional means that we believe Jesus Christ is on a mission to seek and save people, change their lives, and transform their cultures. Because of this we believe that Christians, Christian organizations, and Christian churches exist to join Jesus on His mission by immersing themselves in whatever culture Jesus has placed them.

Theology means that we believe that personal and cultural transformation is only possible by meeting the living Jesus Christ of the Bible through His gospel. Because of this we believe that culturally accessible mission also requires biblically faithful theology.

Cooperative means that we believe a team of missional theologians working together as friends and peers, sharing ideas, and correcting errors is the best way for learning to occur. Because of this we are a network of various Christian leaders, ministries, churches, and networks seeking to work together in providing the most culturally effective and biblically faithful missional theology.

I resemble his remarks. Very busy, but very busy in an out-of-control way. Doing “just one more thing” on a project, being overly perfectionistic about things that do not call for it, procrastinating until last what should have been done first, then being consistently late with deadlines. Add to that a prideful over-confidence that bites off more than it can chew… yeah – you get the picture.

Before the Lord, I think the only thing in the swamp of my heart that raises an uglier head is Lack Of Love – an exceedingly ugly face and a fearful state in which to find myself.

I haven’t thought through some of his points, but others hit home really strong:

I find it instructive that the New Testament writers themselves seldom, if ever, pack all of the aspects of the gospel equally in any one gospel address. When studying Paul’s gospel speeches in the book of Acts, it is striking how much is always left out

Instead of going into, say, one of the epistles and speaking of the gospel in terms of God, sin, Christ, and faith, I point out the story-arc of the Bible and speak of the gospel in terms of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. We once had the world we all wanted-a world of peace and justice, without death, disease, or conflict. But by turning from God we lost that world. Our sin unleashed forces of evil and destruction so that now “things fall apart” and everything is characterized by physical, social, and personal disintegration.

Yes! I discovered a few years ago how much more sense the gospel makes to my generation when you start with a thorough treatment of our race, as a whole, explicitly rejecting God and plunging our planet into death, disease and degeneration. Realizing that they were born into the rebel camp helps teens understand why God is their enemy from the start and it does so in a way that is more compelling to someone who doesn’t understand how much their “personal” sin is actually against their creator.

I am the good shepherd; I’m willing to die for my sheep

When a hired man, who isn’t a shepherd & doesn’t own the sheep, sees a wolf, he abandons them and the wolf snatches and scatters them. The hired man ran away because he was hired — he didn’t care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and they know me — with the same intimacy I share with my Father — and I am willing to die for them.

(a portion of John 10, based off the GNT)

I spent two days preparing the teaching (basically 15 hours in a row, plus a 6 hour break for sleeping), when I like to have two weeks to prepare. I chose a passage that is unfamiliar to me, difficult to understand and containing only a sub-theme (not the overarching one) pertinent to the teens. I was so last-minute, trying to pull everything together, that I didn’t have time to practice presenting the material, so a lot of things came out jumbled and long-winded. I also missed most of dinner and showed up after most of the teens (a bad idea, when I’m the one unlocking the building because Jesse’s in Michigan). And then I spent the first part of the night (the game) upstairs, doing setup.

Jesus, please, despite my failings, use Your Words to penetrate these hearts. May the passion of a soul ardently trying to please You, though often misguided and sinful, be redeemed by Your spirit to make a lasting difference in their lives.

Despair is never the right option. Guilt and conviction need to drive me to the cross in faith, in full assurance, coming boldly to get “mercy and grace in my need”. Even confusion and a thousand question marks should not result in despair, but rather prayer: “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt…” (James 1).

Jesus, teach me to trust You – to believe Your presence, as You walk with me through my trials and the unstoppable river of Your love for me, which flows higher, deeper, wider than I can fathom, even “surpassing knowledge” (Ephesians 3). Please forgive me for my laziness, my procrastination fueled by overconfidence and my wrong priorities fueled by selfish interests. Please change me and make me a tool fit for use in Your hands. Please give me and my counselors the wisdom that we need right now.

I’m still open to doing semi-local missions to rural areas, like Immanuel Bible Church does to Albion or The Master’s College does to the inner city.

If we have teens who are genuinely thinking about long-term missions, I would do something like the TMC mission trip I led to Mexico City: take an extremely small team (2-4 teens), spend at least a month there, require a minimum of a year’s study of the destination language and work for (and alongside) long-term missionaries.

However, I believe that the single best preparation for long-term missions (and most neglected one) is learning how to be a missionary to America, which is already post-Christian and where a vibrant Christian witness has long-since vacated (or never been present in) many secular circles (meaning actual communities, usually based on a common interest). But more on that later.

Perhaps the most effective strategy would be to hold a “virtual mission trip”, much like TFC’s Night of the Persecuted Church last year, where we did a fairly enveloping reenactment of life as a Christian in muslim-controlled Ethiopia. Or perhaps something like a our church does for the forgotten country of Burkina Faso in Africa, raising money to send much-needed study Bibles and training to the pastors there.

Update: The Night of the Persecuted Church that focused on Ethiopia was actually two years ago. We will do another one this March, probably focused on what’s going on in India.

Update 2: I wrote more about the single best preparation for long-term missions, living missionally, in a follow-up post Lost the Plot.

God owns all the cattle in the world — or to use the modern equivalent, all the crude oil. He’s got all the resources He needs. And we know He loves these teens far more than we do — in the words of Hosea (11:8), my heart is turned over within me, all my compassions are kindled. So the dilemma is this: if He wants so badly to minister to teens and He’s got all the resources and power to do so, why isn’t this crazy-awesome ministry happening? What’s standing in His way?

We are.

God is waiting for us to obey His call. You see, God likes to call and send humans to partner with Him. Even when He saves Paul miraculously, He still sends a human to cure his blindness and baptize him. But when God sends, sometimes we’re like Jonah — disgusted by the people we’re sent to. Or, more likely, we’re like the Christians in Jerusalem — ignoring the Great Commission because we’re just too comfortable where we are. God had to resort to persecution to push them out of Jerusalem to spread the good news.

God is waiting for us to humble ourselves. He opposes the proud; He doesn’t bless their ministry. When we trust in ourselves and our brilliant ministry strategy, He will have nothing to do with us. It’s only when we rely on Him — walking in His Spirit — that He will reward our efforts. As our Master said, whoever lives in Me will have much fruit; apart from Me you can’t do anything (John 15:5).

And most importantly, God is waiting for us to have faith. In the absence of faith, He refuses to work. So much so that He says He cannot do miracles in Nazareth because of their lack of faith and says that it is people’s faith that heals them. When we believe in God’s immense power, it will drive us to plead with Him for real heart-change instead of trusting in our own efforts.

God wants to work in these teens — far more intensely than we give Him credit for. Let’s let Him work by obeying His call to get involved in their lives, humbling ourselves by walking in the Spirit and believing so ardently that it drives us to prayer. In the end, may He get all the credit, since He’s the One who’s really behind everything.

Do you agree that God wants to minister to teens? Are there other reasons He refuses to work in our ministry?