KONY 2012


Jasper Speaks:


We can make a difference!

Top Student Ministry Books


Jasper Speaks:

Over the past several days I have seen many postings on Youth Ministry blogs about the best Youth Ministry books per the blog author. So, since some of my favorites didn't make the other lists, I thought I would jump on board.

                                             

1. The Holy Bible - New Living Translation
Seriously, start with the Bible. There are multiple instances of youth ministry done right from Moses to Paul. And of course the ultimate Youth Pastor --- Jesus. I like using the NLT in my lessons because of its clarity in today's language.

2. Purpose Driven Youth Ministry

Still a classic. This book helps to put it all in order for you. It addresses why we do what we do and also addresses your personal life in ministry.

3. The Seven Checkpoints
If PDYM answers the how questions, The Seven Checkpoints answers the what. I love the way it challenges me to program my messages around the seven essentials teens should know when they graduate from your ministry. I use this book every fall when I sit down to plan my teaching for the year. It is an invaluable resource.

4. Simple Student Ministry 

This book revolutionized my philosophy of ministry a few years back. It challenges the myth that student ministries must be filled with activities. It changed my heart from being a complex Youth Pastor. Click here to read my blog on that process. This article, in varying forms appeared at youthministry.com and in Group magazine.

5. Your First Two Years In Youth Ministry

Doug Fields makes a second appearance on the list with this great little book. I would recommend it to any new youth pastor but also to anyone starting in a new ministry. Even as a veteran it provided helpful transition hints and reminders that made transitioning to a new ministry less stressful.

Those are my top five. I realize my list is neither as long or as academic as some I have read but being in the trenches I know that as Youth Pastors we need the best bang for our buck that takes the least amount of our time. These books all are easy reads but can lead to amazing transformation. 

Four Years Later


Jasper Speaks:

Today is the fourth anniversary of my mother's death. My heart is heavy today. I just attended the funeral of a loving saint from our church as well. I kept thinking throughout the service that  death is a natural part of life. That doesn't make it better really. Still, I know my mother is in Heaven and that her years of pain are gone. The hole she left behind is deep and can never be filled.  Maybe some of this is harder because today is the day my dad is being moves to a new facility as his Alzheimer's gets worse. Hard times makes me miss Mom more. I  am just thankful for the 38 years of my life I got to share with her.She was an amazing woman and the influence she had on my life continues on.

His Way


Jasper Speaks:

As I sat in seminary class this morning and heard the prayer requests of my fellow students, a common theme emerged. Overwhelmingly the request that was most heard was, "I need to know God's Will". I think many people in the pews would think that those at this stage in theological education wouldn't struggle with something so base as just knowing what God wants for his or her life. The truth is we all struggle with this. How do we find out His will? Scripture addresses this on many occasions. One of the most quoted is Proverbs 3:5-6 :

   Trust in the LORD with all your heart, 
      And lean not on your own understanding; 
    In all your ways acknowledge Him, 
      And He shall direct your paths. (NKJV)


Sounds easy enough. But how do we do this? Trusting with all your heart doesn't mean not questioning God sometimes. It does mean that you trust with all your being that God has your best interest at heart. Sure there are times that this is harder than others but deep within you, you trust Him. 


I think the next step is a natural out pour of the first. We have to acknowledge Him. We need to acknowledge the trust we have in Him. I think that means we need to share with others the faith that we have. We have to acknowledge that God is trustworthy. We have to acknowledge that we are putting that trust in Him. 


We also have to acknowledge him by improving our relationship with him. We do this through a consistent time with him. We need to return to His Word every day. We also need to speak to Him. We need to converse with the Lord frequently. If we are those who believe in God's attribute of omnipresence, shouldn't we talk to him? Think about how we would seldom sit in a room with another person and not speak to him or her. We acknowledge his or her presence with us. The same is true with God. He is there with us always. So, isn't true that we need to acknowledge His presence often? 1 Thessalonians says that we should pray without ceasing. Acknowledging God means that you keep the conversation with Him going throughout the day. He longs for that conversation with us. I would go as far to say that it is difficult to ever know God's will if we are not frequently acknowledging Him.


I also believe that when we are trusting and acknowledging Him, He gives us the power in our souls to say, "Let's do it your way, Lord." With full trust of God comes a movement in our spirit that says, "God, I want you to have your way in my life". That's what God was telling me as we were praying together in class this morning. As our prayers were being lifted up a hymn from my childhood became my prayer and I want to share that song with you:


Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
      Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will,
     While I am waiting, yielded and still.


Here is the story behind that song:


In 1902, Adelaide A. Pollard, a Bible teacher and hymn writer, was hoping to go to Africa as a missionary but found herself unable to raise the needed funds to make the journey. Greatly discouraged, she attended a prayer service one evening and as she sat there, she overheard an elderly woman say "It really doesn't matter what you do with us, Lord, just have your own way with our lives." The elderly woman inspired Pollard and she contemplated the story of the potter from Jeremiah 18:3 and, upon her return home that evening, wrote all four stanzas before retiring for the night


As you trust in the Lord today, acknowledge Him. Let Him have His way in your life today.

The Devil Made Me Do It!

Jasper Speaks

The other night I was reading our evening Bible devotion to Jackson. It was the story of Adam and Eve’s fall in the Garden of Eden. Jackson had of course heard this story before so when we got to the part where the serpent was tempting Eve, he got worked up as he knew where this was going. I didn’t have to tell him who the bad guy was. He knew what the serpent was doing was going to end in a bad way. When we were done he asked, “Daddy, why did they eat the fruit?” That question is one that has haunted humanity. Why? Why did they fall? Why with all the beauty of the garden did they choose to do the one thing God told them they couldn’t do? Why give up everything that was in front of them, to see what more there might be?

Temptation is a powerful thing. Satan has been using it from the very beginning. It is what he does. He is very good at it. I often tell the students that it is like someone who spends their lives working at an M&M factory. Their job is to put the Ms on the candy. If that is the only thing they did for 40 years you have got to think they would be pretty good at it. Satan has been tempting humans since the dawn of our existence. It is what he does. He is very good at it. He knows the words to say. He knows the moments to strike. He is the expert tempter.

Temptation is not where sin lies. Sin is in action. We are all tempted. Jesus was even tempted by Satan and as we know he was without sin, temptation alone cannot be sinful. It is where temptation leads us that is where our concern lies.

Temptation is opportunity. A choice lies before us. Will we fail or will we triumph? Temptation is not something we necessarily need to dread. Resisting temptation and overcoming Satan can be a great growth moment in our spiritual lives. Easier said than done? Yes. But God makes a promise to us in our temptation in 1 Corinthians. He says:

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. 1 Corinthians 10:13

What Satan wants you to believe is that the place where you are tempted is yours alone. He wants you to believe that no one else has ever been where you are. That quite simply is a lie and nothing more. The things with which you struggle are not new. They are things that are common to us all. Maybe they manifest themselves in different ways but the temptation is the same. In the end, we are tempted to be selfish. We are tempted to find what pleases us most. Satan is so good at tempting because his fall came from the same temptation he gives us. He was selfish and wanted more for himself. He longs for you and me to be just as 

selfish as he was when he fell from Heaven.

Jesus came and told us that we need to be living for others. We need to focus on other people’s needs above our own. This message is the exact opposite of the message Satan tempts us with. For me the most promising part of 1 Corinthians 10:13 is that God is faithful and won’t tempt us more than we can bear. He will make a way of escape every time. That is so reassuring to me. When I am tempted, God has already made a way for me to escape it. I simply have to choose that way of escape. For Adam and Eve it was to walk away and eat from any other tree in the Garden. It comes to us in many different ways. That is the power in the promise.

Temptation will come. Sometimes it will seem to be more than you can take. God’s Word tells us that is a lie. Temptation is an opportunity to grow. The next time you are tempted remember that God has promised a way of escape for you. Look for it. Take the opportunity to allow the temptation to be a time of growth rather than failure. God is faithful. Let Him be in your life by fleeing temptation through His loving way of escape.

Resolutions

Jasper Speaks:

As we enter into a New Year we will soon be hearing people ask the familiar question, “What is your New Year Resolution?” That question always make me cringe a bit. There are so many things I can think I need to resolve to do or not do. If I sat down and wrote out each of these things I could probably fill a notebook. It would certainly take a long time to list out all the ways I could be different.

In the past, like many of you I am sure, I have resolved to eat less, exercise more, watch less television, and have a day of rest each week, among a plethora of other good intentions. I may start strong on January 1 but by February 1, most of my good intentions have remained just that --- intentions.

The New Year always seems to bring renewed hope. It is like we get a fresh start as the calendar changes from December to January. With the full rotation of the Earth, comes a chance to begin again. Unfortunately, what we often find is that the same things that plagued us on December 30^th are still plaguing us on January 2^nd. Our struggles are still there hounding us. Our bills are not suddenly reduced back to zero. Our illnesses do not magically go away. The New Year brings hope but it does not always bring change.

As Christians, however, we have a greater hope. We can embrace the hope of second chances and new beginnings. The best part is we do not have to wait for a New Year to experience them. Lamentations 3:22-24 tells us that we receive new beginnings more than just once a year. It says:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
   his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
The LORD is my portion," says my soul,
    "therefore I will hope in him."

We don’t need to wait to make a resolution at the changing of a calendar. Our new beginnings come with each day. Every day provides an opportunity to allow the Lord to show himself in our lives in a new way. Even when our lives seem darkest, he remains the only light we need. He comes in many ways, offering a new mercy to us every day.

This year I challenge you to only resolve one thing --- seek out God’s new mercies every morning. Test Him and see that if you truly put you hope in His mercies, they are endless. Make your resolution for 2012 to become someone who changes your heart by holding strong to the steadfast love and mercy of our Heavenly Father and appreciating it every day.

Resolutions are not all bad but the hope we can have in the Lord to be our portion, provider and Father is not something that will cease when we are not faithful. His new and glorious mercies will follow you through this year and for the years to come.

Therefore, I ask, “What is your New Year’s Resolution?”

Hard or Impossible?

Jasper Speaks:

Do you ever feel like living the Christian life is just plain hard? I would say that if you have never felt that way, you are not really living out your faith.

The truth is living the Christian life isn’t hard ---it is IMPOSSIBLE! We can’t do it on our own. We have to stop working and striving to do things and let Jesus live the life for us. A verse that sticks out to me when I think about this is Galatians 2:20. It says: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me”. Not only do I think that this verse tells us to live a life that is surrendered to God’s plan and not our own, I think it tells us to let God take care of everything in our lives. I think it tells us to lean on God during times that are hard.

How do we do that? Everyday you face challenges and you have to react to them. Maybe your friends or family don’t understand your faith. Maybe you are going through a time of loneliness. Maybe you feel like there is so much going on in your life that you can not keep up. Maybe you just feel like the day to day struggles in your life are too much to bear. Let Christ do the living then.

I think the first thing you need to do in order to let Christ do the living is give yourself a relationship check up. Think about your relationship with Christ. How vital is it? Are you really taking time to spend in His word? Are you communicating with Him about your life regularly? Are you living out the life that the Bible requires of you?

Spending time with God is essential to letting Him live for you. Reading His word (the Bible) is a daily reminder of all He has done for us and the promises He makes to us. I love the passage in The Message version of the Bible in Lamentations 3 that says:

 “I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness, the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed. I remember it all—oh, how well I remember— the feeling of hitting the bottom. But there's one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope: God's loyal love couldn't have run out, his merciful love couldn't have dried up. They're created new every morning. How great your faithfulness!”

So, each day you can sit down with God’s Word and find new things that will remind you that God is in control and wants to live the life for you! I talked a little about that last month when we were reminded that the New Year isn’t a magic change. If you live your life believing that God is going to do something new every day, and get excited about that, then it will become easier to let Christ do the living. His plan is real and it is for your best and dying to our own wants gives way to allowing Him to work in us.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 says simply, “Pray continually”. Being in communication with God throughout your day will greatly increase your ability to let Him do the living for you. If you are approaching a difficult time, pray. Sounds simple but it is amazing the way God can change your attitude or give you courage if you just take a moment and ask Him to help. Prayer is vital in the struggle to let go and let God live for you.

Finally, how you live out your life everyday is essential in the battle to let God live for you. In short --- practice what you preach. St. Francis of Assisi may have stated this best when he said, “Preach the gospel everywhere. Use words when necessary”. Put action to what you believe. Stand firm in your commitments. It may not always be easy but step three is made more simple when you have step one (Spending time with God) and Step Two (prayer) down.

Hard times will come and for many of us, they are here everyday. Still, God says, “Don’t sweat it. Let me take control”. I am praying that you would let God do that in your life!