It's a Great Big World...

I was reading one of the many ministry books I have currently collected and have yet to finish.  I was reading about high school seniors, thinking about the ones in my youth group, and thinking about their future plans.

None of the ones graduating this year are planning to go into ministry.  Sprinkled throughout are education plans, health care plans, and a couple others.

I've heard churches boast about the number of ministry leaders (including but not limited to pastors) that have come out of their churches - including my own.

I've heard the statistics about how many people are actually connected to a church, and even taking that a step further, how many 'church members' are actually regular attenders in the church they are connected with.

I hear people talk about relying on God to teach, heal, and guide us, some to the extreme that they prefer not to use medical professionals or rely on the help of churches who teach skewed theology.

But I read in the Bible that we have been given gifts of knowledge, teaching, healing, prophecy, miraculous powers, and speaking and interpreting tongues.

Those are humans who have been gifted by God.

To be doctors.

To be pastors.

To be teachers.

I believe gathering with other believers is needed.  I believe it is in community with others that we renew our purpose, find encouragement, realize we are not alone.  We can share burdens and hear stories of what God has done in the lives of others.

I believe there are times when God speaks to us directly, maybe even takes away our support systems so that we must rely only on God.

I believe (even as a youth pastor) that most of the ministry we do of spreading the gospel to those who don't believe or aren't sure of their faith happens outside of church building walls.

So, who is spreading the faith more?

Greater things...

I'm on my way through the book of John and stopped at a couple of verses I had underlined a previous time through the book.  Jesus is calling two of his disciples - Philip and Nathaniel.  Nathaniel, upon hearing about 'Jesus, son of Joseph,' says, 'Can anything good come out of Nazareth?'  Moments later, the same skeptical Nathaniel is gushing, because Jesus had seen him before Nathaniel even knew who Jesus was.  Jesus presses the question, 'Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?  You will see greater things than these.'

Greater things.  Makes me think of the song God of This City by Chris Tomlin.  He speaks of a God who is the light in the darkness, hope to the hopeless, peace to the restless.  Greater things are yet to come, the song echoes.

Sometimes, I wish they were here.  Now.  Evident powerfully amongst the pain.  There is so much I don't understand.  So much I wish I understood.  So much I wish I could do, and the knowledge that there is very little my own feeble power can do.

Two different conversations with two students in two weeks have broken my heart.  One is with a girl struggling to find her place in God's kingdom, another is with a boy who feels like he is falling apart, physically and mentally.  The girl lives in what seems like fear, in what seems like dependence on her own merit as she seeks her way into the will of God.  Her passion is fierce.  But something is missing.  The hope isn't there.  The boy is watching as parts of his body begin to fail, as doctors flounder to figure out what is happening to his body and mind.  His smile, when it peeks out, is dazzling.  But hope seems elusive as he struggles through the attempts of others to 'understand' what he knows they can't.

Greater things.  On Sunday morning as we prepped for leading worship, we sang the song 10,000 Reasons by Matt Redman.  I got to this verse, and I nearly broke down in tears.

And on that day when my strength is failing
The end draws near and my time has come
Still my soul will sing your praise unending
Ten thousand years and then forevermore.

I don't know where the tears came from - but they resonate so well with these thoughts.  On top of that, we have been studying Job through a sermon series - and the conviction of Job's faith is spelled out in that third line - through all he had been through - 'still my soul will sing your praise unending...'

I pray for strength.  I pray for Job's conviction.   I pray that I might invite others to see Jesus.  I pray that God will help my unbelief.  I pray for the lives of this young man and woman and so many others that are hurting and seeking and crying out for hope and truth.

May we all find it in Jesus.

Today as I drove through the drive up at McDonalds to grab lunch on my way back to work, it was the first time I think I've ever had one of the attendants start a conversation with me.  It was short, it was pointed.  She relayed to me that they may have found one of the suspects for the bombing at the Boston Marathon on Monday.

"I hope they hang them." She said.

I hesitated, not liking the words, and finally said, "We need to pray for them."

I looked at her, gathered my money, and went to collect my food.

The conversation wasn't initiated by me, but I think may have been by one of the other customers.  The sentiment is a common one it seems - and it saddens me.  I live over 1400 miles away, and I didn't know anyone hurt or killed.  So maybe it's not fair of me to say that.

I came across something posted by a friend yesterday on facebook that was basically a string of twitter posts with varying slurs to the Muslim community, Koreans, and a few other ethnic groups speaking to all number of ways that those people were going to meet their death.

My heart breaks for that kind of hatred.  What will it gain?  Blaming them won't bring the lost back.  Blaming them isn't going to change what happened.  As a runner myself, preparing to run a half-marathon, I wonder at what it would be like to experience something like that.  I feel a camaraderie with other runners.  I still don't know what hating the bombers will do.  Instead...I think we should be praying for them.

We should pray for their hearts, for the hatred they have.  For the lives that caused the hatred.  For them to feel the same kind of love that now pours out to the victims of the bombing.  I don't know who did it.  Even when we do know - we won't know the person or people responsible - we won't know their hearts or their lives - all we know of them is that something in them led to an action that caused unspeakable pain to another.

I'm not condoning what they did.  We are all called to preserve life, not to take it.  Murder is horrific.  Murder causes incredible pain.  Murder erases a life in the blink of an eye.

It is painful to see the photos of the three lives that no longer exist - fellow runners who were led by passion, desire, the thirst to achieve - and those that loved the runners.  Pray for their families.  But don't stop there.  Pray for those that did it.  Pray for their hearts to change.  Pray for peace.