Attention Youth Ministers - Don't give up on the deep end!

I read an article today on "Out of Ur",the blog for Leadership Magazine. It was called, Evangelical Drop-Outs and it sounded pretty familiar. It seems that USA Today has caught wind of something that we've been noticing for a while in youth ministry. I'm pretty sure that most people who read this blog these days (both of you) also read it a couple years ago when I was writing (admittedly with more regularity) as a frustrated yet hopeful youth minister.

The message I felt strongly about in those days - one which I feel even more strongly about today - was that we needed a new approach - a new theology - for youth ministry. My contention has been that our fiefdom approach to specialized ministries like youth, children, singles, etc., often leads to disconnected consumer-driven Christians. Our individualized and completely age-segregated ministry packages communicate something to people. And while I think it is true statement that "its a sin to bore a kid with the gospel", it is at least equally sinful to communicate to a kid that the gospel exists for their personal entertainment.

Critics have said that what I'm suggesting doesn't have any real application - that focusing on age-specific ministry is the only way we can attract young people. (Of course there are not that many of us attracting many kids other than the close friends of our members' children anyway, but we don't like to talk about that...). But this doesn't really gel with what we see played out in EVERY youth ministry that is successful in the least bit.

If teens don't want to spend time with adults why do they seem so distraught when a youth minister/youth worker leaves? Teens respond to adults that care about them - be it paid/professional youth ministers and interns or youth deacons and volunteers. They respond, they connect and they depend on these adults. It doesn't really seem to matter if the youth minister is the young, cool, athletic guy - I've known some really great old farts in ministry. So why is it that we think teens want to be around this youth worker but they don't want to be around any other adults? It isn't because they're adults - its because they don't seem to want to have anything to do with teenagers! I still say that if the purpose of adolescence is to learn to be an adult, you can't accomplish that by only being around other adolescents.

Critics have also said that I'm trying to buck the only system that will work; teens need to be teens and that means pizza, movies and ski trips are the vital components for attracting young people to the Body of Christ. Maybe that's why the teens from Skillman in Dallas have chosen 3 years in a row to spend a week serving and praying with people in New Orleans. Wonder Voyage, the ministry which has led these trips and which is itself led by people I respect and love greatly, is very up front that their focus for these trips is on Pilgrimage rather than "mission trip". The pilgrimage aspect suggests that those who participate in this event are not swooping in to "save" these poor people. Instead they are seeking a journey that will push them, challenge them and encourage reflection on their continued seeking the face of the Lord - and we see God's face most clearly when we are serving.

I'm excited that there are youth ministers trying to lead their ministries into deeper waters. B.J McMichael teaches a class at ACU on Adolescent Spiritual Formation , Houston Heflin teaches a grad class on youth ministry that challenges ministers to look carefully at the why's of their ministry programs in addition to the how's. And there are a lot more blogs by youth ministers wanting to dialog about a new kind of youth ministry than there were when I started blogging several years ago.

I know - from personal experience - that it is often lonely, difficult and overwhelming to remain committed to this approach to deeper ministry. It is so tempting to just give in and keep the kids happy - which promises to keep the parents happy, which in turn keeps the elders happy...and we all sing Kumbaya.

But it doesn't work that way. If you don't lead the way to something deeper and more authentic than pepperoni and black diamond slopes then eventually your teens will begin looking around and asking, "Is this really it?" And all too often, and all too unfortunately, this questioning doesn't occur sitting in your living room. It happens freshman year in a dorm room, or somewhere else no longer connected to a church.

You've got to remain committed, but don't try to do it alone. Treading water alone and unaided will lead to exhaustion. Let others support you and encourage you - find those people who are also craving a new kind of youth ministry. I pray with everything in me that if you are currently in the deep end or are at least wading further out, that God himself will bring encouragers into your life today. If he doesn't, contact me and I will do everything in my power to be that person for you until reinforcements arrive.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

The Conversation

A few years ago I sat in a room with about 30 youth ministers/pastors/workers/whatevers that represented quite a few different denominations and faith traditions. We met about once a month and at this gathering we had a specific conversation topic in mind. The question was, "what does your faith tradition bring to the table that is of great value to the larger Christian conversation?" This could easily have been the start of the next holy war, but there was a decent level of trust in the room. This was the first time I'd really thought about what churches from the Stone-Campbell Restoration movement had to offer in an actual give-and-take with other Christian groups. What followed was a tremendously encouraging discussion.

That got me thinking about the need for more dialogue. The need for more unity under the name of Jesus the Christ. We have become incredibly efficient at recognizing and exposing the flaws in someone else's theology - and incredibly efficient at ignoring our own.

Recently Matt Tapie (www.twocitiesblog.blogspot.com) and received a comment on his blog that got him to thinking about the interaction between the Church (and even more specifically Churches of Christ) and postmodern culture. He asked me if I would write a little about the interaction between Churches of Christ and Emergent/emerging churches. The following is the post that I wrote for Two Cities, I've reposted it here because...well, I haven't written anything in a while and my brother is sick of looking at the Sabbath logo...

I don’t claim to be an expert on Emergent or emerging church. About the only area I do consider myself somewhat of an expert in is cooking fajitas…and consuming them. However, this discussion is very near to my heart. For several years I have struggled with our identity in Churches of Christ and have desired very much to determine ways that we can add to the larger Christian conversation – and what we can take from it.

We live in a time unlike any other in history in that ideas and words can gain household usage with unbelievable speed. The downside of this is that these buzzwords become popular faster than their definitions – hence they develop a myriad of different definitions put forth by the different individuals and communities using them.

When you add to that the ability for rants, polemics, critiques and demonizations to be batted back and forth instantaneously via blogs, websites, chat rooms and bulletin boards it is becoming increasingly difficult to have a reasonable discussion on nearly any topic without somebody claiming that it supports terrorism.

Matt has asked me to discuss the relationship between Churches of Christ and Emergent/emerging church. I think, with all the hullabaloo surrounding this particular topic, that it might be helpful to make a distinction between Emergent and emerging church. Often when people speak of Emergent they are referring to Emergent Village (EV) – a network of Christians with a national director (Tony Jones) that owes some of its popularity to charismatic leaders such as Brian McLaren. EV and McLaren can be polarizing entities in that many of the theologies they espouse (or allow for) can be described as a bit radical.

On the other hand the emerging church conversation – in which EV and Brian McLaren definitely have a large voice – is much more diverse. While McLaren’s more liberal theology finds much agreement in the emerging conversation it is by no means the defining theological viewpoint – a point that I believe he himself would defend vehemently. There are many Christians and gatherings of disciples that would characterize themselves as emerging – who may even use EV as a networking tool – who would not espouse some of the radical theological positions found in the writings of McLaren and EV.

The emerging church conversation in general deals, in part, with issues surrounding the postmodern tendency to prefer narrative over proposition, ancient rather than Modern, unity rather division, conversation rather than debate. It is not a rejection of reason, truth or Biblical faith. The concept of emerging church is the belief that the Church is still in the process of maturing and growing – of emerging. We Christians are still in the process of working out our salvation with fear and trembling.

I generally use the terms Emergent and emerging church interchangeably, however I believe that it is important for those who are not familiar with the conversation to recognize the vast diversity of thought contained within those words. I realize that I have not really cited any sources in the stating of these differentiations – if you challenge these distinctions contact me and we can talk about it.

Emerging churches often focus on the unity of believers and desire to find common ground in Christ rather than drawing lines in the sand over countless points of doctrine. This is not to say that emerging churches don’t believe you can draw lines in the sand, make distinctions or hold people accountable for the implications of their belief. Some who oppose emerging church thinking have characterized it as simply New Age spirituality, theological liberalism leading to nihilism, or a wholesale rejection of orthodox Christianity.

I won’t say that there haven’t been people in the conversation with an agenda for these things – just as there have been people with the same agendas in all threads of Christian thought.

There are some serious dangers associated with emerging church with which those from the Stone-Campbell heritage can readily identify and regarding which can perhaps offer counsel to the conversation.

While at this time many emergent gatherings show an affinity for ancient practices, there is also an inherent desire to avoid doing things just because they were done in the past. This desire for relevancy to postmodern culture can lead to a-historical or even anti-historical ecclesiology.

We in the Churches of Christ are (hopefully) beginning to realize just how damaging that can be. A rejection of our past begins to erode the foundation of our theology because over time the collective consciousness of the community (how’s that for alliteration) begins to forget the dialogue and study that led to certain conclusions. This can set the stage for a later rejection of central tenets of faith and/or a cementing of practices that previously had been held as matters of opinion.

There is also the old danger of throwing the baby of reason out with the bathwater of Enlightenment. I do not think that this a necessary part of what it means to be in this conversation as some opponents have suggested. But there is always the tendency to develop extreme positions in response to perceived abuses. Emerging churches must realize that while it is indeed vital to reclaim the importance of narrative, relationship and patient journeying, it is also true that some people have been wrestling with the desire to follow Christ and they really just want someone to shoot straight and tell them “what they must do to be saved.”

However, with all this said, I think there are some similarities between emergent church and our roots in the Restoration heritage. The desire to see Christians set aside denominational loyalties and instead unite under the banner of Christ was an issue of primacy for the early Restorationist leaders. Our movement tended to speak of this in terms of reclaiming the ideal of the first century, whereas in calling for the same thing, emergent churches speak in terms of moving forward into a more fully developed expression of Church.

Emerging churches emphasize community and relationship. There is a great emphasis put on each gathering of Christians to be accountable to one another and to the Lord rather than to what some organizational or denominational board somewhere else has dictated. For emergents this is often driven by the desire to be able to speak authentically into the culture where they live rather than conform to a mold cast in some other place or at some other time. I believe that this is very similar to our own treatment of congregational autonomy.

There is increasing evidence that baptism and the Lord’s supper are taking a central role in the worship life of emerging churches – while I see this as an obvious similarity to our own practice, I think that even more so it is an opportunity for us to reclaim the vitality and benefit of these practices (as opposed to treating them as battlegrounds over which we’ve fought or as simply requirements for proper worship.)

I have no delusions that I’ve done justice to this topic. I think that the relationship between emergent and the restoration movement will continue to be not only an interesting, but an important topic for discussion. For now, I’ll end these thoughts with a quote from Doug Foster and Gary Holloway’s book Renewing God’s People (ACU Press, 2006). I think that this statement – directed specifically at Churches of Christ – would resonate with amazing strength and clarity in the emerging conversation.

[We] stand at a crossroads. We can be a church that is very much at home in our culture, a church of powerful and successful people who seek to please other powerful and successful people. We can be a church that refuses to change because we have a corner on the truth, believing we are the fully restored church. Or we can be a movement of refugees. We can flee our success and materialism for refuge in the Prince of Peace. Refugees travel lightly. They are willing to change. They are on the journey of restoration, knowing that the church will never completely be what it should be, the spotless bride of Christ, until that day when Christ presents her to the Father. pg 137.

Amen and amen.

When the Wilderness Looks Good

There are few things in our lives that are more terrifying the “wandering in the wilderness.” The feeling of being lost…out of control…unsure of absolutely everything…

This wandering is often referred to wistfully by those who’ve never truly experienced it and those who’ve been home safe for many years. Have you ever been truly lost? I have. At first you’re calm enough, “surely if I just keep going this way I’ll get out of here.” Then you start wondering if you’ve seen that tree before. Soon the panic is clawing at you and you’re struggling to keep your breathing even – especially if there is someone “not lost” with you. Every imaginable worst case scenario is now running through your head and hope is beginning to seem like a quaint relic of another time and place.

Rachel has been drawn to the story of Abraham over and over recently. We often talk about Abraham’s calling…which was a call to go and was the beginning of his difficulty rather than the result of and blessed release from struggles.

What is wilderness wandering like? Fear, insecurity, rummaging and foraging for food; trying to appreciate the potentials benefits and dangers of this alien flora and fauna; learning to find shelter in new ways.

There are indeed few things more terrifying and difficult than wandering in the wilderness…except for wandering in the desert. When you find yourself in a barren and desolate wasteland you begin to think longingly of the underbrush, poison ivy, torrential rains and mosquitoes…well, maybe not mosquitoes. You think about the lush and wonderful environment that allowed for foraging, shelter, and of course water. The desert makes the wilderness seem like civilization.

I watched Lucky Number Slevin recently and really loved one scene in particular. Slevin is “visiting” the Rabbi (why is he called the “Rabbi”? …Because he’s a Rabbi.) and mentions his bad luck. The Rabbi wisely points out that luck is a matter of perspective. Yesterday Slevin did not owe someone a large sum of money, yesterday his life wasn’t in danger. But did Slevin appreciate his good fortune? Nope. Well, not until his fortune took a turn for the worse. “People always want what they had” the Rabbi points out.

What do we do when the wilderness looks good? What do we do when the desert sun is blinding us? I’m not sure. I do know that while being lost in the wilderness may have seemed bleak, the desert quickly teaches us to appreciate it…which begs the question, what will we find ourselves learning to appreciate tomorrow?

After wandering out of the wilderness and into the desert it doesn’t do much good to think about bounty of the forest nor the barren nature of the present locale. It doesn’t do much good to long for the security of slavery in Egypt, to long for Ur, or to remember the Alamo. All that matters is finding shelter; what’s important is finding an oasis where you can get nourishment. Philosophy and reminiscing are best suited for Trinity Hall over a pint of Murphy’s Red…

But look at what life has come from the desert – prophets and patriarchs learned to depend on God; often this deadly and harsh landscape was refuge and sanctuary for faithful people whose lives were in danger. Life coming from the desert seems paradoxical at best. But it fits. There is only one who has the power to bring about life from death, bounty from barrenness, blessing from curse.

Perhaps there is room for hope in the desert. Maybe there’s reason for rejoicing when the wilderness looks good…

More Cause for Community

I recently read Donald Miller’s Searching for God Knows What. I had been told that this book was not on the same level as Blue Like Jazz, though I didn’t find this to be true at all. There are some aspects of the book which I felt were lacking, but we must remember that books, like movies, songs, and even people, communicate to us in context. In many ways, our interaction with what we read is a form of relationship, and relationships do not happen in a vacuum. For my context right now, I can think of very few books outside of the Bible that communicate more clearly the power of being in relationship with God.

One metaphor that pops up throughout the book is that of the lifeboat. Miller comments on the state of mankind being like individuals in a lifeboat that has limited supplies. Eventually someone is going overboard so we had better do a good job of convincing the others of our worth! The metaphor addresses a mentality that is so undeniably prevalent in all of our social interactions.

Personally, this struggle to receive affirmation of my worth has been the driving force behind many of my actions in life – both good and bad. We usually address this by telling people that their self-image shouldn’t come from external factors, that we must become self-actualized and look for the value that is within. But Miller points out that God created us to receive our identity rather than to create, build or find it on our own – he gave man a name and Adam was tasked with giving names to the wildlife. We are not created to exist in isolation. Our relationships help to shape us and define us, though this is only possible after we have received the core of our identity from God.

We see in creation that God's design included an interactive exchange in naming and giving identity. God created humanity in his image, Adam named the wildlife and even Eve. This was a part of holy creation, and it was designed to take place in the presence of God. But then sin entered the picture.

We are still very much consumed with giving and receiving identity. Sadly we are now consumed with a giving and receiving that is meant to elevate our own standing in the community; to give validity to our own existence often by denying the validity of someone else’s.

I met with a woman today who is one of countless people down here trying to put life back together after Katrina. Since the storm her family has been through countless hurricanes. Family members have died only to have the remaining family scramble to fight over inheritance. Children and grandchildren have been sick and have needed surgery, she has developed and had surgery for skin cancer, she and her husband both lost their jobs and they’ve been working non-stop just to keep the family afloat. Of course all of this has put a strain on their marriage and has been difficult for their 5 children (ranging in age from 5 to 24 years old…the 24 year-old with 3 kids of her own).

We listened for a couple hours to her story and what struck me most were the things that seemed the most difficult. With all of the financial and logistical frustrations going on, most often it was the relational stresses that seemed to bring the tears. People taking advantage of other people seemed more devastating than the 6 pine trees that were removed from her house. And the story that really struck me was the pain she felt recently when her father told her she was worthless because she didn’t call him one evening. It was obvious that she knew this accusation was not only unfounded, but that her father must be damaged to say or think such a thing. She told me how ridiculous this was, but her eyes were telling a different story.

I knew the story in her eyes, and so do you. I know the pain of being made to feel worthless. It doesn’t have to be debated logically or convincingly, a simple sentence or even a look can communicate it straight to our core. I don’t even have to know who is reading these words to know that you’ve experienced this. Maybe it was in junior high and the popular kids made sure you knew you were not one of them. Maybe it was late at night in the “safety” of your house. Maybe it was in a college classroom or the office break room. Maybe it was in the cutting comment of a parent or the thoughtless comment of someone you hardly knew. But we’ve all felt that feeling. We’ve all feared for our position in the lifeboat.

Enter Jesus.

Jesus had a way of speaking worth into people’s lives. Think about what it would have meant to the woman in John 8 who was caught in the act of adultery to have Jesus speak to her the way he did. Imagine how it would’ve felt to be drug naked through the streets. I wonder if she knew that she meant nothing to the men who had caught her. I wonder if she could tell that they didn’t even really care so much about God’s law but rather that she was simply a pawn to trap Jesus. Did she know how little she mattered to these men?

So how did it feel when Jesus looked up and spoke words of forgiveness and mercy? How did it feel that he spoke directly to her?

Or what about the woman in Mark 5 who had wrestled with the humiliation and social stigma of bleeding for over a decade? After risking everything, coming into the city and touching the hem of Jesus’ garment, it says she was afraid. Of course she was, for 12 years she’d been taught that she was worthless as long as she was unclean. “But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.’”

The Bible is filled with story after story of God communicating to his children that they are valuable. These stories need to be repeated. In the wake of a hurricane or the wake of junior high, we need to be reminded that we are valuable. You are valuable. It doesn’t matter what you do or how much you have. You have great worth. No tribal counsel; no lifeboat popularity contest will ever be able to cast you out. Jesus came to teach us that we should get out of the lifeboat anyway. Listen to him. His message isn’t about systematic theology, it isn’t about politics. The story that Jesus is telling is the majesty of God and value of His children.

Just Me and Jesus

I remember as a young Christian hearing people say things such as, “Me and God make a majority,” or “you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.” There were always plenty of references to a “personal relationship with Jesus.” (And then there’s “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” But that is a whole other blog post.) I learned pretty quickly that Christianity was about me and my relationship with God – everything else was simply a tool to help me grow closer to Him. The purpose of camp was to achieve a “mountain-top experience” and we commonly discussed whether or not we “got anything” out of the worship service.

In fairness, the emotional aspect of relationship with God is not a bad thing. It is a gift from God, an aspect of our creation that reminds us that we were made to want closeness with God and other people. I don’t believe that these things, in and of themselves, are a development of selfish materialism. There are sub-cultures of Christianity which have lost contact with the truth that God did come near. There are those who have forgotten the truth spoken by Paul in Acts 17, that He is the God “in whom we live and move and have our being.” Some of these people have fallen into traps of seeing God as a distant, non-personal being who lacks interest in His creation, other than to smite folks from time to time.

However, I do believe that the greedy materialistic culture that we’re surrounded by has had maintained some level of creative control. When Christianity is seen as only a personal relationship with Jesus; when the community of believers is an afterthought, an elective, a tool for personal gain or a hindrance to my personal monopoly on God’s time then we’ve messed something up terribly.

I don’t have to go to Church to be a Christian

There was a time when I believed this statement. Eventually it began to seem “off” somehow. I began to nuance it by saying that you can be a Christian without going to church, but why would you want to? But this logic had holes in it as well.

Soon I became convinced that you don’t have to go to Church to be a Christian, but it’s hard to be healthy that way. Then I decided that perhaps it was better to say that you don’t have to go to Church to be a Christian, but something will be missing from your life. And the more I’ve wrestled and tried to allow that statement to make sense, the more ridiculous it has become.

Christianity is not meant to be lived in isolation. It is communal because God is a community. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are a community – and we are created in God’s image. 1 Corinthians 3:16 says, “don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” Notice that the plural “you yourselves” are the singular “God’s temple.”

This does not take away from the truth that God is a personal God, interested in you specifically – later in 1 Corinthians, Paul will refer to our individual bodies as “a temple of the Holy Spirit” (6:19). We rejoice in knowing that God knows our names and we should also rejoice that God has called us and given us access to a community which is larger than ourselves and designed to bring glory to God. It goes against everything in our American upbringing to admit that there is value in community which goes beyond the individual. I do not want to admit that there is a body of which I am a part and don’t really have the right to separate myself from. How ridiculous would it be for my left leg to decide that it could just leave and be a leg without the rest of me? Or, to use an analogy that Nate applied to another issue recently, what about a laptop which is not plugged in to an outlet? For a while it will operate with little to no difficulty. My laptop automatically begins functioning at a less intense level when I unplug it. The software designers realized that operating on “all cylinders” drains the battery life too quickly – so when I unplug my computer slows down and its light dims slightly. This allows it to function autonomously for a little while longer, but sooner or later I have to either turn it off or plug it in.

We were created for times of aloneness with God – Jesus set a strong example of that – but this was never intended to be long term. Even if the church seems dysfunctional we are called by God to return. Consider the absolute lack of “get it” exhibited by the disciples of Jesus, yet he kept returning to them.

So perhaps you feel that you’ve exhausted your resources looking for a “good church.” No doubt you have! It has been said that if you do find a perfect Church you better not join because you’ll mess it up!

But that does not mean that you should give up and stay home on Sunday. Maybe you live in an area where there is not a church where you can belong – I’m sorry to hear that. Find someone who feels the same way, find a few others who are longing for community, and meet together with them at Denny’s, or McDonald’s, or the Lake, or their house. Pray together, encourage one another, break bread and remember the Lord Jesus who conquered death. Ask about each other’s children; weep over the years of inability to have children or the recent loss of a beloved son and laugh about the 2 year-old grandkid’s most recent one-liner. Find people with whom you can rejoice in job promotions or degrees completed. Look for people who ask you what you’ve been looking at on the internet. Meet with people who want to look and think and act like Jesus…even if they have no idea how to do it.

Can’t find anyone like this? Then ask yourself why that is. Have you shared with your friends the joy of looking and thinking and acting like Jesus? Have you ever asked them about their relationship with God? Have you considered the state of your own?

I once complained to a good friend about a lack of adult leadership and support for youth ministry. He looked me in the eye and said, “This is not a congregation problem, this is a Bret problem.” It was time for me to stop waiting for these individuals to reveal themselves and to instead go find them or raise them up.

If you’ve been using the excuse of not needing a church because you're just fine with your personal relationship with Jesus, I challenge you to spend time in prayer asking God if you were really created to do this alone. There aren’t many things that I really know the answer to, but I’m confident that the answer to this is one is “No, you weren’t.” If you discern that such is the case, I challenge you to pray that God will open your eyes to the community that he has been preparing for you.

The Unseen Destruction: A Shawshankian Culture of Victims

I heard recently that at least one poll lists The Shawshank Redemption as the second best movie of all times – behind (of course) The Godfather. I’m not sure whether I agree with that or not, though I will say that I didn’t immediately reject the notion.

I’ve seen some crazy things in Southern Louisiana. Doing insurance claims in Chalmette and the Lower 9th revealed the ridiculously destructive power of water. I’ve seen things that are indescribable – no special effects could do it justice. The cars on top of houses were not nearly as wild as seeing the house on top of a car in the middle of a street.

One of my roles here at Tammany Oaks is to help the volunteers process through what they’ve experienced. Even now, 10 months later, the destruction can be quite overwhelming. One person who was in New Orleans last week on a mission trip said, “Speaking as a follower of Christ, I found the whole thing nauseating and completely preventable. When I say nauseating, I mean it. Many people cry and weep when they see the destruction of the city. I got nauseous and pissed off.”

The truth is, and this is going to sound very strange, the destruction we are physically cleaning up is one of the easier types of disasters to address. Katrina ensured that no one in the Gulf Coast area would be able to deny that they had experienced a hurricane. That does not mean that it is easy to actually get the job done, if for no other reason than the sheer magnitude of destruction. Again, 10 months down the road does not really look like 10 months down the road here. However, people come from all over the country to help people reclaim their lives. There are the hippies who’ve set up the “Hippie Kitchen” in order to feed relief workers and residents. There are countless churches and volunteer groups giving up weekends and taking off work to come down and gut houses, clean parks, and listen to the stories of Katrina…stories which must be told and retold in order for healing to be a possibility. Still, I remind the volunteers that people in their hometowns are often hit with hurricanes which don’t leave such obvious destruction. These hurricanes do not attract national headlines nor do they bring in volunteers, funds or assistance of any kind. They just rot.

One reason it is important to help gut houses, even the ones that are going to be bulldozed, is that we have what is being called “bayou muck”, which as you can imagine is mixture of mud, water, mold and 100% Grade A, decaying nastiness. I’ve heard that we may have even bred a whole new strand of toxic mold here in New Orleans! The destruction is more than just debris, because this wreckage happens to be poisonous. But at least we can see where the wreckage is.

So many people live in homes infested with a bayou muck that is not visible. Anger, alcoholism, greed, divorce, abuse – these things may or may not sweep away all of your earthly possessions overnight. But there is real danger found in the decay. These toxic environments are made even more dangerous because they can often be hidden for months, years or even generations. All the while the inhabitants are being consistently poisoned.

While this is true wherever you may live – Thousand Oaks California, Dallas Texas or Omaha Nebraska – the high levels of “unseen” destruction here along the Gulf Coast are of epic proportions. I’m sure that I am not the first person to point this out, but the events of the last year have created a culture of victims, many of whom have little expectation, hope or intention of reclaiming “control” of their lives.

Red, Morgan Freeman’s character in The Shawshank Redemption, referred to this as becoming “institutionalized.” The walls of the Shawshank prison were initially despised, and then familiar and finally depended upon for the stability to survive. According the this theory of life, after years and years of oppression and bondage, a person loses the ability to live free.

I remember learning about something very similar in college. It seems that, as babies, circus elephants are shackled to a stake buried deep in the ground. The young elephant fights against its restraints but eventually realizes that there is no hope and gives up. Later, the full grown elephant is able to be restrained by a simple shackle attached to pretty much any stake – though it could drag a car down the road, it doesn’t even attempt to escape because it is convinced that there is no chance of freedom.

In Exodus we read of a people in a similar situation. Generations of Israelites had known nothing but slavery in Egypt. When delivered into freedom they immediately began longing for their former bondage. The Lord allowed an entire generation to die in the wilderness before the nation entered the Promised Land. Perhaps this was because the Victim Culture was simply too hardwired into their nature for these individuals to ever be able to function as members of a free society.

Fast forward to New Orleans in the year 2006. It seems that there are more and more people convinced that Katrina has destroyed all hope of freedom from bondage and oppression. It seems that many people are resigned to a new way of living. In Dallas we used to complain together that the plumber would tell you that he’d be there between 10 and 4 and he’d show up around 7. Yet here, people will make excuses for the plumber if he says he’ll be there between Monday and Friday and doesn’t show up until September. Don’t get me wrong, patience and understanding are good, but this is something else. It is the crippling belief that nothing good can happen anymore because of Katrina. You can see it in people’s eyes.

And then there are the Andy Dufresne’s of the world. There are people who don’t necessarily say much as they go about rebuilding – but if you talk to them you find out that hope is not something to avoid as dangerous. You find out that they are willing to take a beating or two in order to bring a glimpse of normal to their “co-workers”. You find out that there is, in fact, life after Shawshank.

The Victim Culture is growing like bayou mold, and I fear that it will prove to be much more difficult to get rid of. It has the ability to hide beneath the surface of a cleaned out residence. Accepting the role of victim is often a last ditch attempt at survival, and ironically it can be a death sentence in itself. If you are wondering what needs to be done for New Orleans as we approach the 1 year anniversary, it is this: pray against the Victim Culture, pray that the residents of the Gulf Coast region will not become institutionalized. Pray that hope will not be a word which is either scoffed at as a fairy tale or warned against as a danger.

Completing the Circle

Many of you know that in August I was blessed to be in just the right position to help start, from the ground up, a non-profit ministry serving the families staying at Reunion Arena who had been forced to leave their homes in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. We thought we understood how amazing an experience that was at the time.

Only a few days after the Reunion shelter closed its doors I received a call from my dad to go to New Orleans and work as an insurance adjuster. I know that many people think that the term "insurance" is inherently vile in those parts...and maybe now it is. However, because I had the benefit of working for an independent firm which paid me depending on what the insureds received, I was actually encouraged to find every single penny I could. When people learned that we were on the same side, walls and defenses came crashing down. This time was indescribable. I was able to minister in ways I'd never before experienced. The homeowners would often ask just the right questions which revealed that I was a "minister in disguise" (obviously proselytizing was discouraged by the adjusting firm who hired me!) and we would end up praying in their front yard...I saw unbelievable faith in the faces of these people who had nothing else left. We thought we understood how amazing an experience that was at the time.

And now I'm returning. I've accepted a job with the Tammany Oaks Church of Christ in Mandeville, LA - just north of New Orleans. God has used this small congregation to create a life-giving disaster relief ministry. (I recommend checking out the disaster relief blog, here and there is one article in particular that really gives a great synopsis, found here.

I've been asked by this congregation to work with the pastoral and relational aspects of the relief efforts as the Outreach Minister. Looking back over the last 8 months, I believe that God has not only been using me for his kingdom, he has been preparing me for this role...I'm not sure that I would have been ready to accept this position otherwise.

To those who have been praying for us during this wilderness experience, we thank you. We have truly discovered the blessing of community and hopefully will never again take this gift for granted. And to my friends in ministry, I think I know about some potential mission trip/service weekend experiences!

I look forward to seeing many of you as you make mission/service trips to southern Louisiana. Please keep praying for our family as we have no idea what this position will lead to for the long term.

Shalom