I do not want it to seem that I am somehow questioning their faith. I do not question these relationships at all. I am appreciative for their endless hours of service and sacrificial gifts of time and love. I suppose that I am actually questioning an emergent trend in the Church (western evangelical) today.

I have begun to read a book called “Looking for God”. I like much of what it says. I do not like the commitment to love however because, and I am begining to feel this is the problem with the emergent church culture, it so often comes at the expense of God’s holiness and our being bonded to service in Christ. Now before we get too far here, I admit that I have not finishd the book. I am in the process of writing a book myself, and I am often perturbed when someone reads and evaluates it based on the chapter that I am working on. I do not know where this book is leading.

Follow me on this tangent. I am witnessing a healthy commitment to small groups and to community in sub-urban churches. We have developed loving havens in the middle of our stormy lives. I have seen this development in our ministry. A person makes a commitment to the community because it meets their needs and it’s doing good stuff for God as well, right?

In our ministry we have noticed a trend toward mistaking love for tolerance. The result is that I have had too many volunteers and leaders minister while living their personal lives in the depths of rebellious sin. Sexual promiscuity, untruth, slander, gossip and the like. We have created a safe haven for sin. That was never Christ’s intention for HIs bride, “Come here and hide your filth undert the folds of my white wedding gown.”

Do not misundestand. I love each person. I am obligated to help them through their struggles. I just think that it may be due time for a little fear of God mixed in. Before I publish this however, I’m going to do a little self-evaluation. That will lead me to confession. From there I will through myself on God’s mercy in spite of my contentedness with living in a haven.

I think the harbour of God’s love is set very close to the open seas where the battles for my soul are waged.

I am hearing the whisper of a “spirit-wind” brush the leaves of the birches beside Piatt. It is working its way past the tiredness of about 12 months and into my soul. This week was the first half of a two week hiatus away from it all. I know that a little too soon the raging torrents of our chosen mission field will make this breath of solace difficult to recount. This is a time of respite. I am very aware that the reason God breaths on us like this is to give us what our gasping co-laborers will need. For now I am appropriating it all for myself.

I vowed that I would learn to play a song that rounded out my mental collection of campfire tunes. I am working on a passably adequate version of James Taylor’s “Copperline”. I have had a sketch on the canvas of our old pumphouse, a cupola taken from the top of a barn and placed over a well. I have spent ten hours “noodling” with brushes and colors and am, possibly, coming to a close on it. A biography on Wilberforce sits beside me and, like a leftover dish in the refrigerator, has weighed on my mind as a minor irresponsibility. I am progressing toward guiltlessness.

Strange how that works with me. I store up the things that I believe I should do, and my overworked conscience will not let me rest without completion. Please understand how ridiculous it is to feel remorse over an unstarted book. I have nearly twenty thousand books in my personal library. I will never get to them all. Actually, There are many that wouldn’t be worthy of the investment.

I believe that the concept of Sabbath rest was designed for falsely peccant souls. It is the antipodal concept to the western vacation. It may answer why American leaders are so doggone tired.

Vacation for me is a time to gather strength, restructure attack plans and go back at it. I never leave anything behind me. I simply put it down for a week or two, only to pick it up later. My problem is that now I have to remember where I put it. Sabbath rest was truly a restart: Seven years at it and then stop. Start somewhere else. Spiritually, I could use that. Each week.

Enough evaluating. I’m going to sit here in the northern Michigan breeze and listen to the hummingbirds buzz each other.

I wonder who skinned the goats for the curtains for the tabernacle?  I mean, it hardly seems like the job someone would enthusiastically volunteer for.  Maybe it would be a general, “Hey, who wants to build a place where we meet God?  Steve, you design the gold implements, Phil, can you do all the ornate woodwork, um, Bob, see all those dead goats over there…”  It seems to me that most of us have grandiose ideas as to how God should use us in the building of His Kingdom.  This weekend, away speaking, I met two goat skinners.  To talk to them, you would have assumed that they had done the ornate craft work.

“Todd” started to drive a bus for camp every weekend for the summer, 17 years ago.  That first year he drove, was also the year he met Jesus Christ.  He explained that his friends ask how he could do such a thing with gas prices so high.  His response,”If one kid who rode my bus gives his life to Jesus, that’s all the reward I need.”   But, that’s not the only reward he will get…

“Jim” was a big machinery excavator, who heard the call of God to serve in anyway he could. He assumed he would be digging holes and building things.  Instead, he directs a kitchen staff who prepare six hundred meals everyday.  To the thousands of kids he has fed over these many years, he is “Papa Jim.”

It’s funny how we think one task serving an omnipotent God is more important than another.  Let’s face it, a God who creates the earth in six days doesn’t need someone to drive bus anymore than He needs someone to bake cookies.  But, he uses both!   And both people are credited with righteousness for serving Him.

It makes me wonder how many people avoid skinning goats because they are waiting to be called to do the architectural design?  Paul said in his first gospel to the Corinthians, “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of is.” (12:27 NIV) I consider myself to be the head of my body, and I have never thought to give special accolade to my feet for carrying me or my eyelashes for protecting my eyeballs.  They just obey my mind, and we all do a million things a day for the same body.

If you would like to consider a life of giving your obedience to Christ, Crossroads Farm is always looking for someone like you.  We can’t promise that you will raise arches, but we know two people who would say driving a bus and fixing meals is more fulfilling that anything else in the world.  If you asked them to go back to what they were doing before they started skinning goats…they wouldn’t!

*side bar:  CRF is currently praying for positions of Farm Facility, Assoc. Director of Development and Youth Ministry Program Staff.  For  more info., contact the CRF office…bring your own knives!

Facebook has added an element of connection that I have not experienced before this last year. My friends list is somewhere around 200, which I find facinating given that I really have about ten true friends.

Yesterday I recieved a message from a young lady in Germany who asked how I’ve been. I vaguely recognized the name and began to think through all of the exchange students we have had through our programs for the last few years. Although I couldn’t place her I responded. “LLLLOOOOONNNNGGGG TTTTIIIMMMEEE” and asked how long it has been, really hoping for another clue as to her identity.

Her response to me was a bit embarrassing. I was responding to a thread. This is the one feature that i do not like about Facebook. She asked me who I was because she couldn’t quite place me.

Lesson learned.

If I run into you somewhere, and you say my name and I cannot quite place you. I’m asking. Okay!? See you soon… Ummm… buddy, uhhh… friend… What was your name again?

I am going to replace all descriptive words ending with “y”, with the suffix, “ful”. I believe it will make me appear trendful and wittful. I will begin to call my children funful and messful. My wife is prettful and lovelful. My job is busful and keeps me looking for sunful days. I am tired and that makes me sleepful and drowseful.  I am hungrful and thirstful. Ah yes. I believe that I’m getting the hang of this. In fact, I believe that in order to not overuse the suffix “ful”, I will replace those words with the “y” ending.

That may prove usey. It is a beautiy idea. My life has suddenly become more meaningy and I am feeling the call to write a book.

I need to leave it at this for the time being. It is getting snowful and I need to plow out our drive. Getting stuck would make my life stressy.

  I continue to sit in airports, which allows me to do a few things which normally require extra time. I have been current on all forms of electronic communication, (and just using the word “electronic” makes me feel old: kinda like “records”, “mimeograph” and “information super highway”.) called and arranged an imminent board of directors’ meeting, thought through many of the details for a huge outreach event called “Road Warriors” and blogged a bit.

This current delay, the result of a broken plane in Chicago which I needed in Springfield Missouri to bring me to Chicago, is one of five hours. I now am a shorter drive away from home than the wait alone. Of course, my car is in Lansing. It afforded me a segment of time to read a few magazines. I began with Rolling Stone.

I believe that this periodical is a touch on the pulse of non-churched America. My shell, the one with stained glass, most often allows me to only see conservative, christo-centric input. Rock’s journal is hardly that.

Page to page I read one expression of anger after another. The commentary on politics… steaming, insidious, and hostile. I found an interesting theme running through this edition. They wrote regarding the death of Heath Ledger as heroic. I was, as I read intention, coersed into the discussion of this as his last epic artistic struggle. Britney is discussed as an anomally to the industry rather than a standard. And The Psycho-funkodelic neo-punk band, Mars Volta, waxes prosaic on their drug experiences, friends’ suicide and a cross-country trip to bury a possessed Ouijah board (of the demon Goliath) as the source for their music.  Now please do not misinterpret my desire here. I simply am pointing out an emotion.

Rock, is riddled with angst and upheaval. The tone here however was victimization. The concept from the torked-off political commentary all the way to a description of the Kid Rock tour, held a dazed stare at the sense of being trapped by decisions, demons and the weight of fame.

As I worked my way through this installment of The National Geographic I happened onto a journal by a man retracing the 17^th century tour of the famed Japanese Poet, Basho. The writings left during this artists’ trek around and through Japan wrestled with, and finally embraced futility.  A similar journal was written in the 10^th century B.C. by a king in the middle east, echoes this journey through life.

We, as believers have a different take on life.  We are freed from those things. Our steps are given purpose and our circumstances are controlled by a God of love. Our lives are reflections of God in the pool of history. We see through a dark window, but someday…

This sentiment was expressed by my somewhat less than verbose, Father-in-law. He stated that the entirety of life is spent waiting for “that big thing”. What he has discovered is that life is found in the waiting. It is an extremely profound way of saying that life IS the journey. How post-modern of a sixty years old.   What I will contend is this; Christ allows us to find serenity in this reality. The lack of Christ forces us to become victims of the moment. As that “Builder” era philosopher Curly Howard used to say, “I’m a victim of Coicumstance.”

Now, I’ll go back to watch other people in their journeys. I’ll try to discover if they are victims or sojourners based on their facial expressions. Oh, wait.  There’s a Starbucks. I people watch with a venti vanilla mocha and piece of lemon loaf.

So.  Here I sit in the concourse at Chicago O’Hare. I have not written recently, and I’m a bit overwhelmed at the multitude of information that I have processed over that month.  The most important thing would be that life does not stand still.

I have never been more confident of this thought than right now. I have been teaching students in the area of their spiritual integrity. My “jump off” point has been the discussion between the Modern’s commitment to knowing God and the Post-modern’s near obsession with experiencing Him. In a nutshell, I am driven to pursue both. I just don’t know if there is a first step.

I have been speaking over the years in regards to the believer’s confusion of two seemingly integrated issues: Those of romance and intimacy. To show how little we understand these words, I was speaking Wednesday night at a college in Missouri and used the word intimacy. A student gave that third grade, “I’m embarrassed by the word” snicker. There is yet another line between these words and my recent studies. Let me explain my process.

The blind man in John chapter nine experienced Christ long before He knew him. He had almost no answer for those who questioned him. In fact, all he infers is from his one experience. That is, that he was blind but he sees now. There are many believers who base their faith on their experiencing Christ in worship, healing, sense or prayer. I have encountered many who have no more depth than exactly that of the blind man. The problem is if we find contentment in that first experience. The first experience becomes all there is to our God. Some never get beyond the first experience. They have not grown farther than the door to faith. They never see past the first hill of the kingdom. I never have gotten over my first experience with Christ, but I did have to get past it in a sense. There is another danger that comes when we have become addicted to these experiences.

The second danger is whenever we expect new experiences to sustain our faith. In essence we have forced God to prove himself to us in a series of “feel the power” displays. Frankly, I am not priviledged with this kind of say in God’s affairs. I am saddened by those who serve a God they feel the need to control. My God is not a circus animal. He comes and goes as He wills. I wait for those moments, but I do not demand or even rely on them to sustain faith. Post-modern “storm-chasing” will leave us with a self serving and shallow dependence on God.

The flip side of the issue is what moderns have done with God. We have taken the desire to know God and have turned it into a lecture. We have studied God for the purpose of knowledge instead of love. Let me explain this concept briefly.

I look at my wife and study her. I memorize the sun dancing off of her hair. I fix my thoughts on her lips. I focus on her shoulders. It is because of, and in support of love.

I look at a dead frog in a tray. I prod it. Cut it open and examine it. I want to dissect it in order to understand function. I study both. I am close to only one. Without love their can be no intimacy.

God has searched me and known me. (Ps. 139:1) we used to know God by the sound of his footsteps. I believe that whereas moderns have studied the footprints like trackers, in order to ascertain where God is bound to go, post-moderns have stood at the place of God’s last footprint in their lives and ask him to step there again.

I have a challenge as a tweener to merge both aspect of spirituality into a cohesive faith. How  cool is that? Knowledge proven by experience. Experience made deeper by knowledge. Intimacy and romance bound up in the pursuit of God.

Today, I only have a brief moment to update all of you. It has been an unusual month which is repleet with 3 retreats, many commitments, much snow,
20 sermons and one burnt down cabin.

In all of my days as a youth leader I have never actually had a fire! We had a guy (not from our group) commit suicide in NYC which landed him on a ledge outside our female students room. We’ve lost kids, left kids, had kids throw up in every conceivable situation,  wrecked buses, driven through snow storms, camped during a monsoon and been chased by an alligator, but I have never, until this month, had a cabin burn down.

Here are the few quick observations about cabin fires.

1. Middle school boys will selet this moment to be polite, wait in line without interupting before alerting you to this fact.

2. From spark, to gone, takes about 2 hours total.

3. Metal bunks go Dali at about hour one and a half.

4. News crews will always come to a fire and interview anyone willing. Including people who say, “I didn’t see it at all. Which cabin?”

I have to go now. I have thrown a few meager morsels to the pet. I’ll be back for a more insightful entry tomorrow.

NO Prior Experience
Many of our students have never attended a winter retreat before, and so have no idea as to why they might want to attend. One kid asked me if we were just going to have church services all weekend long. Although my true goal is to place kids in a position where they might possibly hear God’s voice above the din of their lives, most kids will not come to something for this reason. That is why, we as a professional staff at CRF spend two months playing the part of salespersons.

I once had a friend, a very successful youth worker, tell me that the day you tire of the hype is the day you are through ministering to kids. It sounds unspiritual. I happen to agree with that statement though. Teenagers are still teenagers. A ministry that seeks to show kids Christ, who up until that moment have little desire to know him, have to work hard in order to put them in the right place.

Been There… Done That
There is a fine line that a ministry has to reach, and then walk on in order to keep kids returning. It is about developing a tradition which creates excitement. If a student feels as if they have done all that there is to do at a retreat, then they will stop being interested.

Each year we mix it up a bit. Kids know that they can expect something unique at each retreat. One year we had a well known band… the next we had caged, wild animals… then the riding bull… a comedy improv troupe… ETC! It is hard to keep on coming up with these twists. Don Cousins, who was at Willow Creek for a long time, told me about a year that they actually had kick boxers fight for their teams! As a matter of fact, This is the componenet that we still don’t quite have yet for this year.

Excuses, Excuses!
Kids are funny. They all use the same lines every year. Not one of the students that will eventually go to the winter Retreat, have any money. None of their parents will let them go. They all have a major school activity planned and it is all of their special birthdays. They all need rides to get to the departure point. They don’t like going outside. They are all planning on being sick. Every Kid. Every year.

I spoke to a youth leader who told me that it would be easy if he had a huge group but he didn’t. Therefore, getting kids to go to a winter retreat was really hard. Uhhh Huhhh, That is why, over the next two days we will call 200 kids at home and personally invite them to come. We will send a reminder postcard for last minute registrations. We will provide a late bus for athletes and cheerleaders from 7 different schools. We will remind them that they can, and even should bring their friends. We will talk to 200 sets of parents. We will work out payment plans, arrange rides, and tell kids what to pack. EASY.

Once this last year, a girl got mad at one of our staff guys for pushing her too hard to come to an event. She had already said that she DID NOT WANT TO GO! She brought her mother in to yell at the whole staff. We apologized. two days later she brought in her registration. She had decided to go.

Easier is not more effective.
Kids still believe in critical mass. They will ask the question, “Who is going?” We have found that kids go places where other kids are going. Acquire The Fire, National Youth Workers’ Convention, High School Football games etc… This fact will have us arranging dorms, getting 4-6 busses and drivers, arranging for the dinner stop (which must not take more than 50 minutes in total) placing, organizing, arranging and unloading 400 bags, sleeping bags, toiletry bags, sound equipment, competition supplies and follow up material bins (with forms, booklets, bibles and prayer guides.) It’s easier to take the 30 kids to Camp Igotanitchi for whatever they have planned.

Each student we take will cost the ministry a minimum of $50 toward their registration. For those less financially well off, $120. We will raise it all.

Our speaker is hand selected, prepped and prayed for. (and not as cheap as some) The band has been in contact with our techies. Sound check, Media shout check, Lighting Check!

It is about Effect not Events!
All of this because kids need to hear about Jesus, See Jesus, Know Jesus. We are committed to letting as many kids as possible get close to Him this retreat. That’s why each student, each program person, every volunteer and bus driver will have a Christian praying for them all weekend. We make sure of that. Without the miraculous intervention of a Holy God, this is just an activity.

Satan Hates Us
and he will prove it by fighting for each kid that gives us an excuse. He will threaten snow storms and scare parents. He will bring the noise for the next two weeks.

Why do we do all this? Because Jesus did it for me.

I am painfully aware that I now watch too much television. I will extend grace to myself. I was wrapping Christmas presents… and needed a diversion. A few nights ago The biggest looser finale’ was on, and I watched. I applauded the accomplishments of the contestants and then had to ask the basically obvious question. How do these reality competition hosts get those gigs? They are awful. I actually felt badly for Maria on the Clash of the Choirs as she interviewed ordinary people about their 15 minutes of fame… for hours. Allison had to make witty comments about the contestants who all had lost a gagillion pounds each. I heard her say “Wow! You look just incredible.” about 400 times in one hour.

Cue cards did not save. Nor did physical attractiveness. Oh well. I suppose it gives me one thing to believe I could do better than someone else.