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 - Endorsed - Indifferent - Contested
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| The Nashville Statement
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Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
My complete profile...
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Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich
His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole
[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train
This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos
Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead
There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
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| 1071: Youth Ministry? |
The first ministry I was ever officially involved in was a youth ministry. I loved it, though at first it terrified me. Yet through that ministry I saw several young adults mature in both body and faith, and I will always have a paternal concern for those whom I had the profound privilege to minister to. I love those kids - even though most of them are married and have their own families now.
Notwithstanding, "Youth Ministry" is entirely bunk.
Let me qualify that a little. To start with I believe that when a child enters into puberty, he or she is entering into adulthood. I am not suggesting that the newly pubescent person is mature, or fully an adult. I only point out that such a person is no longer a child. Historically it was puberty, and not necessarily one's age that determined when, say, a young man entered into a trade. It was then that he began to have real, adult, responsibilities, and with these responsibilities real, adult consequences. I am convinced that one of the greatest social failures of our age is that we routinely and artificially postpone adulthood putting off adult responsibility until our young adults are fully mature.
Adults are designed to bear responsibility, yet we routinely deny our young adults adult responsibilities on the grounds that they are still "children". Thus in the formative years of adulthood these same are inundated with the message that they are not fit to be responsible until they reach a certain age. By the time society finally recognizes these adults as such, they will have already spent years being forced to remain perpetual children. The time when these ought to have been growing confident in their new maturity has been replaced with the psychologically shunting message that they are too immature to take responsibility for themselves. Couple this crippling mindset to the fact that our public schools are preaching self esteem to them from the cradle, and who will wonder that each generation is more immature and narcissistic than the last?
So the first reason I think youth ministry is bunk is because I don't recognize the notion of "youth" as valid. Post-pubescent people are adults (albeit young adults) who should be being ministered to no differently than we minister to any other adult. If there is no such thing as a youth, then there is no room for a youth specific ministry.
The second reason is more important and relevant than the first. If it is clear that the notion of a youth ministry is demographically invalid, how much more is the notion spiritually artificial?
The Holy Spirit did not lead anyone to write anything in scripture about separating the body of Christ into age groups, and ministering to these age groups individually and even differently than we would minister to any other group. In my home family worship is informal, when we break bread together as a family, I will often bring up some passage in scripture and discuss it with the family. I direct questions at my children: what does that passage mean? How are we to live in the light of this verse? We don't sit there for three hours pouring over the scriptures together every night, but we do discuss the reality of God in our lives and how scripture forms that reality. It isn't limited to the supper table either. I speak of these things when we rise up, when we sit down, when we walk about - whenver I can in fact. I am not perfect in it, but I am not ignoring this ministry either.
Imagine then the absurdity of trying to model the ministry I do in my home after the typical model employed by many churches. When I rise up in the morning I take one and only oen child aside and minister to him with puppets and pizza, and with the older twins, I can take them together to a show, because they are close enough in age, and minister to them over a soda after a show, perhaps the others I find some other novel, age-specific way to share the reality of God with the because, God forbid I speak to them all at once! That would be nuts, and we all know it. Why then do we do that in the church?
Stop and smell the roses for a second.
Did you not notice that God created the concept of family? We didn't have to have families you know. God could have created us so that we grew from trees, and lived alone our whole lives. He could have planted each of us on our own earth, living our lives entirely alone, or perhaps as the sole caretaker of that planet.
Consider that God has gone out of His way to not only create families, but to paint all things concerning Himself in the hues of family. God is the Father, Jesus is the Son - the church is the spouse, who themselves are adopted into God's family. Did not our Lord ask, "Who is My mother and who are My brothers?" We do well to take instruction from his answer: Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother. It is the Lord who said, "Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these." When Christ ministered, He ministered to crowds that included children. Did not our Lord feed the masses with bread and fish that a child had on hand?
It is clear froms scripture that our Lord in His ministry, ministered to whole families, and not just the men, or the women, or the elderly, or the young? Is God's way flawed? Can we improve on it? If we minister according to some other model, what does that say about our opinion of God's way?
I want to make sure then, that you won't misunderstand my second reason for rejecting the notion of youth ministry: It isn't only that I find no support for it in scripture, rather it is that I find an abundance of support against the idea.
The notion isn't merely unbiblical - it is contra-biblical. If it isn't in scripture, and scripture gives us a better way, why do we do it? Well, to answer that, we shoud ask where the notion of segregated teaching comes from.
That that introduces the third reason why I reject the notion of youth ministries in particular, and all age segregation in general: Age segregation was invented by people, not God. To be sure, it finds its origin in recent times (the past 100 years) where the public school system used it to solve problems that do not exist in the church.
In recent decades, the aping of this practice has become not only vogue, but almost univerally accepted in the church. Somewhere, someone with a pragmatic mindset decided to apply what seemed to be working in the secular world to the church, and voila! Churches adopted age segregation en masse. Sure, the invention of Sunday school helped that along - but you get the idea.
Do you not know this?: Youth ministry is failing.
Oh I don't doubt that there are pockets of success here and there, but the latest statistics I hear quoted are that between 70% - 88% young Christians fall away from their faith in the first year of college. These numbers are not shrinking, by the way, they are growing. By and large, targeting youth for segregated ministry isn't helping the problem - it may even be part of the problem. If God designed us to learn one way (in the family setting), and we insist on setting that aside in favor of our own inventions - can we really be surprised when our invention isn't as effective as God's design?
I propose, reader, that if you are farming out the godly instruction of those young adults (who are presently maturing under your paternal care) to some youth group, that you are failing your son(s) and/or daughter(s). I contend that time spent socializing and eating pizza with other young adults does absolutely nothing to encourage young adults to draw near to God, and if God is injected into such a social program, He becomes the excuse, rather than the reason for getting together.
That isn't to say that people who are ministering in "youth" groups are all bent on corrupting the young adults you relinquish to their care. When I was running a "youth" group it was all bible and worship - no pizza, no "events" no flimshaw. The studies were deep, biblical, and purposeful. Yet for all that, I think these young adults would have spent their time better in a study where they were not a demographic peer group. We did things like travel to other churches to attend their prayer meetings, and pray with their congregation. We took our bible studies on the road, so that these young adults were being instructed in the presence and company of other families in our congregation - and this because I was already certain that youth groups were flawed in their artificiality. Whatever things I implemented to try and reign in the beast, I still feel it was too little, too late.
So while this post necessarily poo-poohs youth groups in general, my goal is not to point at your youth group and say that you are bad because you have one, or because you send your own "youth" to one. It is to give you pause, wherever you happen to be in the spectrum. Is this something that we are doing because we have always done this, or is this something God really intends us to do. Is this just the standard bovine-headed, checkbox mentality, that amounts to empty busy work because we believe that we should be doing something for our "youth" (just like the other five churches on our street), or this something God has told us to do?
My concern is not that there is some ministry that targets young adults in the world. It is that such a targeting is goes beyond the concept of "unnecessary" and into the realm of "counter-productive". God's way is good and perfect. It cannot be improved upon. If Christ did not segregate the church into groups, then guess what? Doing so is worse than doing it Christ's way. The question then is, if we know this doesn't work (look at the statistics), and we know this isn't biblical, and we know that the biblical model is that whole families be ministered to together - why oh why do we try to "improve" on that, if we know that we cannot improve on God's way?
Think about it. I dare you.Labels: family, youth groups |
posted by Daniel @
9:36 AM
5 comment(s)
 
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| Taking A Week Off! |
| Yay! I may post, I may not - I dunno. What I do know is I am going to be spending some time with my little ones, and I look forward to it. See y'all in the funny pages. Labels: family |
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posted by Daniel @
4:00 PM
1 comment(s)
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| Walking With My Son |
I forgot to renew the insurance on my van last week. Guess when I noticed? That's right, on Sunday morning. We live about three and a half kilometers from church (that's about two miles), so it isn't a very long walk, unless you have four children under the age of twelve, and snow everywhere.
I had already decided to walk with my eldest to church, and leave the remainder at home, when our Pastor called and offered to give our family a ride. I was quite grateful for that, but also a little disappointed, as I was looking forward to the walk with my son.
After the service, I asked my son if he would prefer to walk back with me, and that was his preference. So we walked. The snow was (thankfully) melting, the sun was quite bright in a blue sky - it was like a spring day. In Manitoba, these sorts of days don't happen till May, but we enjoyed this meteorological hiccup nonetheless.
Along the way back home we talked about something I would like to share.
My son's Sunday school teacher, Peter, is one of the fellows in my congregation I most respect and admire. He loves the Lord, and lives the love with such consistency and grace, I am glad that he is teaching my son. Peter wanted to take the whole class out to a local restaurant as sort of a celebration together, but my son didn't want to go.
My son has a job that pays about $12 a month. On this meagre income, He saved up and bought himself a $140 PSP, bought our family perhaps $45 dollars in gifts this last Christmas - buys birthday presents for his siblings on their birthday - and gives generously to charities such as world vision, etc. Unlike my other children, who typically spend their money on candy as fast as they get it, my son regards such things as frivolous, and not the greatest use of a limited commodity.
So when Peter made the offer to take my son and his classmates out for lunch, my son was concerned that Peter would be spending his money on him frivolously, and honestly didn't want Peter to use that money on him in that way. I say this without even a hint of exaggeration - my son was near tears at the thought that dear Mr. Peter might suffer want later on by this generous act, and in my son's thinking, the most loving thing he could do would be to reduce the financial burden he imagined he was placing Peter under.
That's gotta be my fault. Seriously, I have gone to great pains to teach my son the value of a dollar, to explain stewardship, and impress upon him the notion that saving money is better than spending it frivolously.
So on our walk home I wanted to explain to him why it is wrong to refuse another persons act of charity.
I began by asking my son, where does his money come from. He explained that he worked around the house, and had responsibilities for which he was remunerated each week. When I pressed him however, he said that it was I who paid him. I then asked where I got the money from, and he replied, "from your job."
"But who provided this job for me?", I asked. God did. My son knows that.
"What about your teacher, where does his money come from?"
God.
"When I feed you, who is feeding you?"
God.
"If your teach feeds you... who is feeding you?"
...God?
Do you see it son? Do you understand that I am just one of many vessels the Lord is using to bless you? If you accept the Lord's blessing from my hand, but refuse it from the hand of another, are you being wise or foolish?
Foolish.
What about if we invite a family over for supper. Do they owe us supper after that? Should they feel guilty because they are eating "our" food? Has God provided for our family and not theirs also? If I have two loaves and my brother has none, does God really intend for me to have two loaves, or does he intend to minister to my brother through me?
When scripture describes the early church as having all things in common - it wasn't describing communal living, it was describing this attitude that recognizes every good gift as coming to us from the Father of lights - and not necessarily for our own benefit - but for the benefit of those with which we are brought into fellowship.
It was a fruitful discussion, and I think my son has a better understanding of who provides for him. One of the duties of any father, is to wean his children off seeing him as their provider, and recognizing who has really been their provider all along. I take great joy as my little ones begin to see what I have known already - that we truly are brothers and sisters in Christ. We have our roles and responsibilities - but God alone deserves the glory. Anytime we lose sight of that, we feed the notion that men are actually beholden to this world and the things in it for their life.Labels: family, joy, parenting |
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posted by Daniel @
2:26 PM
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| An Interview With My Daughter... |
Me: Okay, I am going to ask you some questions, and you can answer them if you want to, and I will type what we say to each other. People on the Internet will read our conversation, and learn a little bit about us. How's that sound?
Her: I would still be on the second line if I was typing...
Me: Umm, yes, but you are supposed to answer my questions not kinda free-associate like that...
Her: What's your question?
Me: I said, How's that sound - referring back to people on the Internet reading our conversation...
Her: oh. Wow, you wrote that quickly daddy.
Me: Yep. Now, Why did you want to learn Biblical Greek?
Her: Because - I found it fun!
Me: How so?
Her: what does that mean?
Me: It means, what did you find fun about Greek?
Her: You mean BIBLICAL Greek?
Me: Yes, Biblical Greek, what did you find fun about it?
Her: I just thought it would be cool to learn a different language so I could talk a different language. Whoa - that was a big sentence.
Me: Yep, that it was. I think I would like to speak in biblical Greek with you kids - I think it would help all of us to understand the language better - I think there are some nuances that you don't really notice until you actually speak a language.
Her: What does "Her" mean?
Me: Well, it is you. I am not using your name on purpose.
Her: Why?
Me: Because the Internet is full of crazy people as well as nice people, and we don't want the crazy people bothering you. I should ask you another question.
Her: Yeah, another question. Which question?
Me: Ah, let's see... How about, what is your favorite television program?
Her: Does that mean what is my favorite movie?
Me: Nope, it means what television show do you like to watch the most?
Her: That sounds like which movie though?
Me: It's kind of a trick question because we don't watch television. Hehe.. Okay, seriously, what was your favorite part of our morning devotion today?
Her: What does that mean?
Me: It means that when we opened the bible together this morning, and prayed and read some - what was your favorite part of all that.
Her: ooooh. heheh..
Me: Well?
Her: .... I am trying to think of what my favorite part was...
Me: Do you remember what we read or did?
Her: I remember what we did, but I am trying to think... were we in Samuel? Did David become that king guy?
Me: No, Saul was anointed king, then appointed king...
Her: I know that guy isn't going to stay the king.
Me: Okay, yeah, that is what we read, sort of... but what was your favorite part about that?
Her: Oooohh. hahahee. (farting followed by lots of giggling)
Me: phew. Cabbage... okay, enough of that. What were your jobs today?
Her: errr, brush my teeth, put on my medicine, make my bed, ...tidy up.
Me: did you do all that?
Her: I don't know.
Me: How could you not know? Who would know if you don't know what you did today?
Her: I don't know...
Me: okay, now you are just being silly.
Her: this is a weird conversation.
Me: well, that has pretty much eaten up ten minutes. I think our interview is over. Is there anything you want to say to the people who read my blog? It would be nice to wish them well, or perhaps even pray for them.
Her: okay, can you write that?
Me: Yup, you pray, I will type...
Her: Dear God, please help the people on Daddy's blog to know you ... amen.
Me: Amen... okay off you go.Labels: family, interviews |
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posted by Daniel @
7:08 PM
9 comment(s)
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| Monday Weigh-In IV |
Yeah, I know it's Wednesday, but as previously stated, I am somewhat indisposed of late lately. Never the less, two days late, and really I only checked yesterday - the fourth week numbers are in, and they are (drum roll please), One Hundred and Eighty-two and a half pounds. To be fair, the scale actually said 181.5 three times, and 182.5 twice, but I am going with the higher numbers this week, because I went with the lower numbers a while back.
Anyway, I was reading in Numbers today how the Lord arrayed His army - by families. Think that through. The "First World" system eats families for breakfast, and I think that is by design - it is far too effective a destroying agent to be a matter of chance. Television allows a family to sit in the same room and be perfectly isolated from one another. The school system, for all its benefits, still separates children from their families for most of their waking childhood days - and in that time a peer driven (rather than family driven) focus is instilled - while individualism is exalted. Think about your family and ask yourself whether you are as a family are standing together in every fray, or whether you are some here and some there.
That's all for now.Labels: family, Monday weigh in |
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posted by Daniel @
7:17 AM
2 comment(s)
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| Settlers of Catan... |
 The last couple of times that our congregation's "Christian Education Committee" met, we did so over a meal. We each brought our spouses and our kids and made an evening of it, and after the meal we sat down while our spouses and kids were off visiting. Our meeting doesn't last too long, so while the families are visiting we conduct our meeting - it is a formula I highly recommend for we have all found the meal/visit format more friendly to family and more conducive to fellowship than the "let's get together in the vacant church basement on a Saturday over a card table and hash out things" approach.
The last couple of times we met thus, after the meeting, our host brought out a board game to play: "Settlers of Catan" (see the picture!)
I had never played it before, much less heard of it, but I found it to me a perfectly delightful game. The game can be played with two players, but it best played with three or four. If you want to play more than four you need to buy an expansion pack which will allow you to play up to six players.
The game is played on a board that changes every time you play it. The board itself is actually a set of 19 "Land" hexagons ("L") and 18 "Water" hexagons ("W") that surround the land (see the cheesy diagram below).
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_/W\_
_/W\_/W\_
_/W\_/L\_/W\_
/W\_/L\_/L\_/W\
\_/L\_/L\_/L\_/
/W\_/L\_/L\_/W\
\_/L\_/L\_/L\_/
/W\_/L\_/L\_/W\
\_/L\_/L\_/L\_/
/W\_/L\_/L\_/W\
\_/W\_/L\_/W\_/
\_/W\_/W\_/
\_/W\_/
\_/
There are five different "types" of land hexes that each produce a different natural resource (grain, sheep, bricks, ore, and wood), which are used as a sort of currency in the game. Resources can be traded amongst the players and used to purchase such things as roads, cities, settlements, or community development cards (sort of a "community chest" card).
There are 18 "chits" as well numbered as follows: 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 11, 11, & 12 - the numbers correspond to the sum of a 2d6 roll (a pair of six sided dice added together). The circular little chits (similar to bingo chips) are randomly placed on the various land hexes at the start of the game, one chit per land hex (with the exception of a "desert" land mass which gives no resource and has no chit). The board is therefore set up so that the land layout changes every game, and the chit layout changes as well.
The game is won by being the first player to get 10 "victory points". A victory point is awarded for each settlement, two for each city, two for having the longest road, and another two for having the largest army - there are also incidental victory points that can be had by purchasing development cards along the way.
To purchase roads, settlements, cities, or development cards requires resources, and these resources are handed out each turn to all players when the dice are rolled - such that if you have a settlement or city that borders the land upon which the chit with the number just rolled resides - you get the resources of the land thus rolled, even when it isn't your turn.
The strength of the game is in the inevitable scarcity of resources - you will find yourself, say abundantly in possession of one type of resource, but woefully stripped of some other resource - and you will have to trade amongst the other players to get what you lack without throwing the game away - because everyone can trade, and because trade really the only way you can get all that you need in a timely fashion it makes for a very involved game - no matter whose turn it is, you are in the game - either to trade with your own resources directly, or to encourage (or discourage) others who would trade in a way that may increase or jeopardize your hope of victory.
Having played it a couple of times I decided to buy one last week, ordering it through a local retailer (rainydaygames.ca) because he seemed to have the best price I could find anywhere. I played it with my two older kids (6 and 9) the other day and it was instantly their favorite game of all time.
I mention this because while I love my children, I secretly loath playing games such as Monopoly Junior, Clue http://rainydaygames.ca/, <insert game name here> Junior, etc. I mean the games are either so simplified that your kids haven't got a hope of winning against you unless you make an effort to lose, or they are so pointless you don't really enjoy playing them. Now there are some of you I am sure who will blow the "but it is all for the kids" horn - that is, who will say you don't play games with your kids for your own enjoyment, you play games for their enjoyment - and I wouldn't disagree with that - but I wouldn't suggest that this be the goal for which we shoot.
This game has that one rare quality that I look for in a family game - can it be played and enjoyed equally by all players regardless of age - and in that category it wins hands down. This game has a second rare quality that I also look for in a family game - is is actually fun to play - and the answer here is yes. Now the amazing thing is that there are very few family games that score a "yes" on either of these questions and of those far fewer that score a yes on both. That sounds like high praise because it is. The game is good, clean, fun; new every time; and can be enjoyed by everyone (even our three year old played with us - though she was much helped through it and did lose interest after the first half hour).
I give it a five star rating. If you have a family and want a game for games night that you can all enjoy and not grow tired of - pick one up. If you are on a church committee that has to meet every so often - pack the game along, turn your meeting into a fellowship potluck, and after the meeting you can all play Settlers of Catan together - and laugh.Labels: family, fellowship, game reviews, passtimes, settlers of catan |
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posted by Daniel @
9:50 AM
4 comment(s)
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