Youth Ministry and Me

Last Sunday I preached on Galatians 4:1-20 on Gospel Freedom.

You can listen to it here or download it here

It is a pretty complex passage.  But I think it's all about the Spirit.

Called to Youth Ministry looks like it will be a great resource for youth workers around the world.

It’s got a bunch of resources on their and if you’re American, it seems to offer much more like coaching and conferences (although I haven’t checked that out too much because I’m Australian).

So why not head over and check out Called to Youth Ministry.  Add them to your RSS reader so you’ll be kept up to date with their latest.

Note: These guys have asked me to contribute a few things to their site and I have happily agreed.

Part of my study at Ridley involves me being in the Missional Leadership Learning Community. As part of this Peter Corney (Vicar at St Hillary's for 23 years) came and spoke to us about 'Going the Distance'. It was a great talk and I took some notes, which I'm going to reproduce here for your benefit.

Peter Corney

• always build teams around you
• build prayer support for yourself
• get a mentor (but be honest, you won't be totally 100% open and honest with them so don't promise it! He then sidetracked to make an interesting point about how all humans crave intimacy, with others and ultimately with God. But the road to intimacy is vulnerability, and all people are afraid of vulnerability and therefore aren't good at intimacy. I thought this was an exceedingly interesting observation that I'll think and blog more about no doubt.)
• take regular time out (every day in prayer, every week with a day off, every month to go somewhere and be silent with God, and yearly by taking all your annual leave).
  
• plan your professional development
• structure your day/week/month - USE YOUR DIARY
• be prepared (poor preparation leads to pathetic performance)
• be well organised
• prioritise family time (it's not worth having an 'awesome' ministry but losing the love and respect of your children or wife for it).
• Make sure you structure your time because you have so much discretionary time in ministry

• Prayer (when where and how you pray will vary depending on your life stage, it doesn't have to be at 6am in the morning, if you have young kids for example, this is probably impossible)
• Read God's word (might be small bits everyday, might be longer times of personal devotion with God's word 2 or 3 times a weak). Start small and work up to it.
• Keep short accounts with God and with others (if you sin, sort it out straight away)
• Manage your finances (be careful and be well thought and and generous in your giving, model it for those you lead).
• Watch your appetite (if you're eating too much, drinking too much, watching too much tv, ask yourself what your trying to escape from, and deal with it).
• Make a list of things you will never do/you will always do (eg. I will never harbour resentments, I will always admit quickly when I'm wrong, I will always be honest, I will always remember I'm preaching for God, not the approval of man).

1. In your relationships with peopel do you notice that you are moving away from people rather than towards them, i.e. you don't want to be too near people much? (you'd rather stay home and watch tv than deal with people).
   
2. Are you becoming cynical?
3. Are you shifting responsibility for how you are feeling about life and your ministry onto someone/thing else? (eg. My boss sucks, my youth are so apathetic that's why I feel bummed)
   

For our boys club that meets on a Tuesday night I'm doing a series of short (5min talks on What a Godly Man is). This was the first one, it was all about the heart. That is it's what's in your heart that makes you Godly.

I'll post those talks which I have notes for on here when possible.

Godly Man Studies - It's All About Your Heart

To download, click here

Here is a resource I wrote today that you can use if you think it's any good.

Lunchtime small group bible study: The Tongue

To download click here

I'm preaching on Sunday night on Proverbs 4... I was given total free range to preach on whatever I wanted... That is a really daunting thing, I had no idea what to do.  So I liked the stuff we did on wisdom literature at Ridley this semester so I chose to preach on that so I could learn some more.

Here are the four studies we did on camp.  They are losely based around 1 Tim 4:12 and focus on the differences between the expectations the world has of teenagers and the expectation God has of all people, young and old.  God expects pefection and that can only be achieved through putting faith in Jesus, daily repenting of our sin and, and living a life in step with the power of the Holy Spirit.

I preached on James 3:1-12 last Sunday night at HTD. Click here to listen to it! (Right click and chose the 'save' option to save a copy to your hard disk!)

My notes/sermon text...

Tongue facts:

• Close to fifty percent of the bacteria in the mouth lives on the surface of our tongue.

  • when kissing, we tend to swap 256 colonies of bacteria with our partner

• 85% of the population can curl their tongue into a tube.

• Every person has a unique tongue print.

• Relative to size, the tongue is the strongest muscle in the body

• And not only is it the strongest muscle but, as we heard in the reading, the bible tells us that even though the tongue is small, it boasts of great exploits. And tonight we're going to unpack just what it is our tongues are capable of, and hopefully you will feel encouraged to tame the weapon of mass destruction that is your tongue.

1:19 – Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger

1:26 – If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but devieve their hearts, their religion is worthless.

Elsewhere in the NT we see that our speech is important. In Eph 5:4 Paul says:

Entirely out of place is obsecene, silly , and vulgar talk; but instead, let there be thanksgiving.

Jesus also has a bit to say about the potential destruction that the tongue can bring.

Matthew 12:34 – How can you speak good things, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

12:37 – for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned

In Proverbs in the OT we also see that the bible warns us about the tongue and our speech.

11:9 – With their mouths the godless would destroy their neighbours

11:11 – A city is overthrwon by the mouth of the wicked

18:6 – A fool's lips bring strife, and a fool's mouth invites a flogging

18:7 – The mouths of fools are their ruin and their lips a snare to themselves

18:21 – Death and life are in the power of the tongue

Finally, right back at the beginning of human life on this earth, in Gen 3:12, after the fall, one of the first sins humans are guilty of involved our tongue, as Adam tried to weazle his way out of his own responsibility.

So lets look more closely at what James says about the tongue. James 3:1

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters,* for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

James begins this passage, where he talks about the power of the tongue by warning people that they should think twice about becoming teachers, because those of us who teach will be judged with greater stirctness by God. Why does James start here? When he is going to talk mainly about the great and dangerous things the small tongue can do, why start with a warning about becoming a teacher?

Well teachers teach with their tongue. They use words to educate. They stand up, and with their tongue they teach people what to think, say, feel. They encourage people, and rebuke people. Because the tongue is so vital to the teacher, and because the tongue is so difficult to control, not many of us James says, should want to be teachers.

James continues:

2For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle.

We all make mistakes. We all do things we regret... If you've never done something you regret, you will have certainly said something you regret. I do this all the time. I can be quick to form an opinion and even quicker to express it. Over the last few years I've mastered the art of saying something and then going into back tracking damage control. I've been known to open my mouth without thinking, and to dig very large holes with my mouth and jump right into them!

Now thankfully, often this is superficial and ends up being funny. But not always. Sometimes my tongue gets the better of me. I say things that are mean. I say things to make people think more of me, or that I'm better than someone else. Towards the end of my high school years, I was part of a group that dished out some very mean and vicious speech towards another guy who was part of our youth group, who we found a bit annoying and frustrating. He was understandably devastated by our childish actions, and I think our speech probably damaged this guys relationship with Jesus as well as essentially destroying his relationship with his Christian brothers and sisters.

No one in this room has spoken without making a mistake. And what we say has power. James goes on to show this in the next verses:

3If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. 4Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.

I just want to take a moment to get our heads around these two analogies... According to Wikipedia,

“A bit used in equestrian activities is a piece of metal or similar synthetic material that is placed in the mouth of a horse... and allows a rider to control the animal”

A wild, running horse is a powerful thing. There's a reason when you talk about the power of your car you talk about horse power. But these big impressive animals, which can run in any direction can be relatively easily controlled... By placing a small bit into their mouth. This allows the rider to direct and control the horse.

Likewise big sailing ships are impressive things. I remember watching a Tall Ships race finish in Hobart one year, and I was suitably impressed with their size and the way such a big boat could be propelled by the wind. Likewise, when I've been sailing, I really love it when the engine of the boat gets turned off and we are just sailing under the power of the wind. But, in both cases, the rudder is vital. It determines direction. When you're sailing on a yacht, you need to turn the rudder to make sure you stay in the right line. It's the same on a big Tall Ship. Both these boat's direction is ultimately determined by the rudder.

And James is saying that our tongues are like the bit in a horses mouth, or the rudder on a ship. They determine our direction. You see if we keep using our tongue to say bad things about other people, to slag them off behind their backs, to stir up rumours and gossip, then we are not heading in a direction that is making us more like Jesus. But if we are building up each other, encouraging, not spreading rumours, not gossiping, praising Jesus, speaking up for our faith to our non-Christian friends, then we are heading in a good and Godly direction.

As both the horse bit, and ship rudder are small when compared to the thing they give direction to, so too the tongue, James says in verse 5a:

5aSo also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.

Our small tongue is capable of a lot. And it's not all good. James continues:

5bHow great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! 6And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature,* and is itself set on fire by hell.*

James again is saying that the tongue, even though it is small, can have a devestating and damaging effect. Like a spark that sets a massive forest on fire, so our tongues can cause us to sin, and if left unchecked can draw us away from Jesus.

We know that it is hard to control the tongue, to control what we say. James is saying in verse 6 that our tongues are so hard to control, because they are by nature, sinful.

The tongue, by virtue of being the most difficult of all parts of the body to control becomes the way that all the evil of the world around us comes to expression in us.

And it's so easy for the devil, to use our tongue to cause mass destruction to our lives, and the lives of our friends.

No other 'member' of the body, perhaps wreaks so much havoc on the godly life.

7For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, 8but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

Not only is the tongue the place where our sin comes to the fore. But the tongue is untamable. You can practice all you like at saying nice things, you can try really hard to be nice. But you won't be able to tame your tongue. When you get tired, or a bit annoyed at someone, your tongue will slip... you might be tempted to slag someone off behind their back, or swear at the ref when they make a terrible call. Even when you're in a great mood but you stumble and stub your toe... you will see that your human efforts to tame your tongue will have been worthless.

But as followers of Jesus, we believe that we are given the Holy Spirit. And it is by the power of the Spirit that we can tame the tongue. The Holy Spirit can start us on a process of transforming the tongue, into a vessle that praises God. But the fact that our tongues are being transformed doesn't mean it is ok to allow our tongue to be a weapon of mass destruction, a spark setting ourselves on fire. James continues:

9With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. 10From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters,* this ought not to be so. 11Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? 12Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters,* yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

In these verses James is warning us about the relaity of sinful humanity.

Last week we heard Jono talk about how our faith saves us, but that that faith is only genuine if it gives birth to acts of love, that is real faith changes us, and makes us behave in a different way. James says in 2:17:

“faith by itself, it it has no works, is dead”.

One of the works that faith will produce in us is changed speech. And this is what James is alluding to in these final verses of tonights passage. You say you have faith says James, well look at your speech. Do you praise God one moment, and then curse other people the next? Can the same spring produce both fresh and distasteful, salty, brackish water? Even if there was some fresh water being produced, it would be being polluted by the distateful water, making the spring useless.

James wants us to use our speech as a way to check how our faith is going. A fig must have at it's source a fig tree. A grapevine produces grapes. Loving speech which brings glory to God must have at its source God. A heart that is changed by the Holy Spirit is the source of speech that builds up, that encourages, that praises God. The flip side is that speech which tears down, which is deliberately harmful, full of bitterness, has at it's source an unchanged, sinful heart.

Questions to consider:

Have you done some major damage with your tongue that you need to fix?

What does your tongue say about you?

What does it say about the direction you are heading?

Are you allowing your speech to be changed by the Holy Spirit?

Are you relying on your own strength in your battle against the tongue?