The Grove Is On Fire

Two Questions on Self Esteem

Regarding some of the comments below, two questions come to mind. Both these questions have the same root cause, but come from different emotional states and so don't often come up together..

The first question asked is this; "what special part of me is it that makes God loves me?" We desperately want God to love us because we're great, and wonderful, and we've done all this smart stuff. So it's a bit of a kick in the teeth for our pride when the Bible tells us that He loves us because He's God and He's called us because He's God. This seems to be the gist of Romans 9:14-15 "What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy." (ESV)

The second question asked is "but I'm so awful, how could God love me?" We wonder how God could love someone as bad and as terrible as us, and clearly he couldn't so therefore he mustn't. But again, the point is not that he loves you for what you do, not because of human will or exertion, but because He is God.

In short, the answer to both of these questions is the Gospel. God loved you that while you were still a wicked unregenerate depraved sinner Christ died for you and so brought you into a relationship with him that is spotless and clean and where He sees you as His beloved child. To doubt this, is to doubt the power and necessity of the Gospel. God had to send His son to die for you or you'd go to hell. His Son's death was so effective that you are completely free from all sin and God cannot judge you as wicked. And so if you were to say after all that "oh but God can't use me" then you'd be wrong. His son died for you, you're made clean and He can use you as mightily as anyone else.¹

We want to think "God has loved me because I'm special" but the old kids song has it right; "I'm special because God has loved me and He sent his own Son to die to save me".

¹ This seems to be what is going on when Saul hides among some bags to avoid being made King, He thinks he is so rubbish that God can't use Him, but underlying that is His lack of faith in God. David seems to be if anything less qualified than Saul, but trusts God and so just gets on with the Job.

Self-Esteem

The Grove Booklet Self-Esteem and Young People appeared on my desk the other day. I've a few things to say about self-esteem, but they're not all properly ordered in my head yet, so they'll have to wait. A couple of things on this booklet though; while it sees it necessary to acknowledge that human beings are sinful, it doesn't seem to know what to do with this perspective, and instead of trying to reconcile it with the idea that God has created humanity in His image, falls into the trap of saying "well, humans are generally alright aren't we? God sees us as pretty special. He affirms you." Which doesn't seem to quite fit with the biblical message that says "there is no one who does good, not even one" (Psalm 14:1-3) and "You hate all who do wrong" (Psalm 5:5 ). There is valid way about talking about how God loves the world, and where our confidence should lie, but I don't think it's in our innate self-worth and being so special and wonderful and God being so cuddly. A doctrine that makes much of humanity and much less of God is probably not a very good one.

6 Comments

Cannabis Law

Cannabis is now a class B drug. This means, uh, well, not much it turns out. If you're over 18 you're that much more likely to get properly cautioned or fined, and if you're caught dealing it you can get longer in jail. That's not that much different in the grand scheme of things. Also, if you're under 18, the law seems to make no difference. Police may now make a higher priority of it, possibly, depending on your area, but they probably won't.

What Rick Warren said at Obama's inauguration

This is the best copy of Rick Warren's prayer at Obama's inauguration. He prays to the Father in the name of the Son and finishes with the Lord's prayer. Go him. (Update: Predictably Between Two Worlds already has a better transcript up.)

BCYWC 2009 Day 1

Here are some brief scribbles about what's struck me so far, as written badly on my notepad at the time:

Ed Vaughan is doing the talks, apparently tonight he's wearing the same jumper as Pete Ward. Read into that what you will. He's doing 3 sessions on 1 Samuel looking at the life of Saul and "how to be a leader with a heart of God". Presuming he's not setting up Saul as exemplar in that.

Trevor Peace is speaking, he's lovely. His first point is "are you teaching God's message?" Money quote "If you're not taken up with Jesus, then stuff your Bible". Then something along the lines of "if people don't think what you're saying is foolishness then have you told them the gospel clearly?" (he's going through the second half of 1 Corinthians if yo haven't guessed). "If you teach your kids to hold fast to this message, they'll be like lambs to the slaughter, which is kinda what Jesus said". The Spirit holds on to us by telling us that we have to hold on.

John Tinball then is speaking this evening on Song of Songs of Songs. He wasn't going to speak on this, but then felt he should because he felt more led to do it. He didn't tell anyone before hand. I didn't take notes on this, but it was absolutely awesome, "is Jesus the lover of your soul?" is the gist, and it's experiential and wonderful and convicting.

And that's Monday. Well, the bar was cheap and the food was nice and the wifi is nippy, but yeah other than that.

Bible-Centred Youth Worker Conference 2009

I'm away at the BCYWC09 (or BCYAKWC2009 to give it it's full abbreviation) for part of this week, much blogging to follow, but a lighter amount during the week I imagine.

Why Is The Old Testament Shut Out Of Church?

Ralph Davis on problems churches have with the Old Testament. Ralph Davis for the record, is the author of the funniest commentary I've ever read (it's also one of the best).

National Charter for Youth Workers

Apparently we've evolved as a profession enough to deserve a national charter. I'm not quite sure what a national charter is exactly, but it has some pretty cartoons.

(I think this is a terrible idea)

0 Comments

2009 - A Year of Youth Work In Preview

January: Heavy snow leads to a comeback of sledding, but the snow melts before all the risk assessments can be completed. Teenagers are sad, youth workers determine to really risk assess every possible eventuality next year.

February: You final persuade your young person that's it's maybe not such a great idea to enter his explosive diarrhoea impression to Britain's Got Talent.

March: Due to the current economic downturn youth workers are reduced to playing Chubby Bunnies with crumpled up pages from old copies of Mission Praise. It turns out it's nigh on impossible to get past Amazing Grace.

April: April fools pranks are delayed for a couple of days due to the hardship of getting parental consent for "pouring cold-water over a young person's head via a bucket balanced carefully on a door". However, it's soon realised that were the Friday April 3rd pranks gone ahead with the fool would technically be on the youth worker, not the young person so pranks are cancelled, instead replaced by cross-stitch lessons. Teenagers are sad, youth workers vow to make sure that all parents are contacted at least two months beforehand regarding every single event from now on in.

May: For the first time, time spent browsing Youtube for relevant clips overtakes all other time spent on sources of research for youth groups.

June: Due to your ineptness, you plan the summer residential for June, when everyone still is either in school or taking exams. Consequentially the week away in Devon is just you and the one child whose school is on bizarre terms time that you've never quite been able to work out. It's a bit awkward.

July: Britain's Got Talent is won by a young person with an amazing impression of explosive diarrhoea.

August: The economic downturn strikes again! Youth work is rocked by financial insecurity till someone comes up with the bright idea of making youth workers work for Starbucks rather than in Starbucks.

September: Giant space aliens come down to earth and build massive slides that end in huge piles of delicious jelly-beans specifically for teenagers, but they take them away when no-one uses them in the first day, little knowing that everyone wants to use them, but they can't because they need to have a valid set of learning outcomes worked out first. Teenagers sad, youth workers give up.

October: First youth worker to be sued over Mission Praise Bunnies.

November: It's the wettest Guy Fawkes night for 80 years, bonfires don't light, sparklers sizzle out, and fireworks don't. Indoor football is the order of the evening and things are going so well until someone realises that half the rockets have gone missing. After gathering all the youth group together to be lectured upon the dangers of fireworks, the sin of theft, and the general rudeness of it all, someone asks why the pizza is sitting next to the remaining fireworks and if the pizza is in there, what's in the oven? One fire brigade later and it turns out that in a hilarious series of mistakes, the fireworks are actually sitting in the youth leaders freezer at home and the oven contained everyone's gloves and mittens.

December: Christ returns. Wait, sorry, Christmas returns. We really regret the error

1 Comment

Panorama: Jailed For a Knife

The Panorama documentary about young people and knife crime is up on iPlayer (UK only) and it's fascinating viewing, not just to find out about knife crime. Five young people, all jailed for knife crime (either murdering or seriously injuring someone), all talking about why they carried a knife and all saying it was for defensive uses only. It's especially interesting though for what it shows about repentance and forgiveness. None of them seem to be able to articulate quite what they've done or how it's affected the family of their victim, or what they should do in response, and a lot of the remorse seems to be because it's destroyed their own lives, not that of others, but if people aren't taught how to repent, or why asking for forgiveness is important, or why their crime is not just between them and the victim but between them and God, then how will they know how to deal with that?

Update

I e-mailed a producer at Panorama (contact me or just check their website for the details) and was sent a copy of it on DVD a few days later.

Pulpit

"To me there is nothing more terrible for a preacher than to be in a pulpit alone, without the conscious smile of God"

Martyn Lloyd Jones - Revival

Give Money, Save the World (Probably)

Tim Schmoyer is setting up a youth ministry advice site and needs some money to do it. To be honest, I've got no idea what this entails, but the stuff he regularly does is awesome, so it's probably worth giving to if you've got the money. Here is his blurb below:

"I'm asking that if this is something you believe in, would you mind contributing toward this project of providing youth ministry advice online? My goal is to launch it in mid-January along side of the next YM Mentorship round. The cost of $700 is the bare-minimum to get it launched, so anything above and beyond that is greatly appreciated to compensate my time and server resources."

How To Run Grill A Christian Events

How to run a grill a Christian event. Sound advice, I've been on some badly run panels before, and they've been awful (so much so that I wrote down a list of things not to do next time we did one, which at some point I'll drag out of it's file, tidy up, and sling down here). The most important advice the website gives is the quote below:

"Chair the discussion strictly. The format is almost unique and some people are often concerned that it will become an undisciplined riot. But it is not the grillers that need reining in, but rather the grill-ees. To many questions are met with three of four answers as each panellist adds to each other's response. The chair should pick the questioner and the answerer and make sure that the answer meets the question and allow a chance to follow-up."

Panorama: Kids Behaving Badly

Panorama have their investigative report into sexual bullying in schools up on iPlayer (UK only). The accompanying blurb can be found online at the panorama website.