When I did the youth forum a few weeks ago, some people brought up the idea of pushing positive peer pressure instead of allowing negative peer pressure to exist.  For example, students push each other to drink underage, which is negative.  The opposite would be to flip the table and fight this form of peer pressure by getting students to push each other not to drink underage, which is positive.

I never thought about taking the concept of peer pressure and turning it around to make it a positive.  As a matter of fact, I’ll take it one step further and say we don’t push the positive of things of life like we do the negatives.  I think it’s our sin nature to focus on the negative.  We desire drama, it’s like we want life to get complicated, we want the negative.  If we don’t have problems, something must be wrong.  Look at popular media and television, if you don’t have drama in your life, you must be “different”.

Staying focused on the positive is something we have to work at.  It’s a skill that is only mastered when constantly worked on.  I don’t think we are able to take the negatives in life and turn them into positives without making a conscious effort to work at it.  It’s easy to focus on the negative day after day.  However, making the effort to stay positive reaps some amazing rewards.  A positive person is contagious.  After some work at staying positive it will come second nature but that will take some time and effort.  It’s something we have to work on, try at, and constantly strive to do.  Push positive peer pressure.  Push yourself to remove the negative out and see the good.

How are you working at seeing the positives in life?

-Jordan

Franklin Wood had some words for the school system in his post the other day.  Thought I would give it a shout to my readers.  Check out what he said…

Dear Public School System,

I am writing to you because of a crisis we are facing in our society. It is a crisis involving our teenagers, who you are trying to help us mold.  Unfortunately, I think you are creating the problem rather than helping it. Let me explain…

The public school system already complains (and rightly so) that our kids are “too tired” and that they “lack concentration.” There seems to be more apathy than ever towards schoolwork and school-related items.

But here’s the problem…
You complain that our kids are too tired, but then you make them stay after school for HOURS of extracurricular practice! They lack concentration, so you lengthen their school year. You make them work at camps from 9:00 to 5:00 IN THE SUMMERTIME!  I have teenagers in my church youth group who seem to be able to do NOTHING other than school! Does this produce well-rounded citizens? Why do we think that ALL their time needs to be occupied? Why can we not let them dream anymore? (They don’t have time to dream!) What ever happened to lazy summers?

First of all, it is COMPLETELY UNFAIR to take away their summer “vacation.” Teens in my church group are going to be BACK at Show Choir Camp just TWO WEEKS after they got out for summer vacation! EVERYONE needs time for rest and renewal, but you don’t seem to grasp this concept. Our children are overbooked and overworked. Please, let them have a vacation!

Secondly, this scheduling is detracting from family time…a much-needed (but quickly vanishing) pasttime. Even though many parents are working longer hours and some working through the summers, there are still parents who don’t see their kids til 9:00 PM because of schoolwork. Summers are decimated by camp schedules and other things. Families are passing each other by on their way to the next activity.

Third, overscheduling is unfair to other organizations. My youth ministry is trying to affect the same kind of results as you are. I would LOVE to work in conjunction with the schools, but the schools want ALL the time. While YOU are working on increasing the knowledge and athleticism of these kids, I would like to help work on their character, but my time to do so is increasingly taken away. It is very frustrating when schools tell kids (or give them the impression) that their GRADES depend on attendance of all ballgames, shows,etc. Even during the summer! I agree with the old saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.” I certainly do not wish to do away with schooling, but I wish kids could experience more help from church, work, and non-profit organizations.

Lastly, overscheduling is not necessary. It seems that the schedules have been left up to the competitive minds of the local coaches. While I admire their tenacity, I would also question their motives. Are they trying to teach the kids something, or just put another trophy on their shelf? Many kids are working their tails off for those coaches, but they have NO collegiate or professional careers in sight. While hard work is a desired trait, it can also be a boon. Many families are being ripped apart because of dads who never come home. Could it be that we are overworking kids just like we are overworking their parents?

It used to be that we had the WHOLE summer off. Soon, August became “Back-to-school-camps” month with band, choir, etc. Now, the schools have taken June as well. ONE MONTH for summer vacation is not enough! PLEASE leave them alone until August!! Let them have a solid eight weeks of vacation. Let them rest. Let them dream. Let them be gone long enough to actually “miss” school!
Thank you for your thoughtful consideration.

Sincerely,
Franklin Wood
Omaha, NE

What do you think about that?

-Jordan

• I took my last class yesterday for my Master’s degree work.  I will only have four papers to write and a masters thesis left.  It feels good to be done with the classes part but I know the papers are going to take awhile.  I’m hoping to finish by the end of the year, we’ll see.
• There is so many good bible programs out there I learned about this week.  Check out the PCbible and logos.  They are amazing.  Anyone have a few grand laying around that they want to give me to purchase the software?
• I’m worried about this summer.  Our numbers drop in the summer for some reason and it eats at me.  Everywhere else I have been or people I have talked to tell me numbers go up in the summer, not ours.  I’m praying for growth this summer!
• My computer is slow…
• I’m working on a new website idea for the running community.  I can’t wait to get it off the ground.  It looks to be promising if everything works right and I can get some people on board.  If you run let me know and I’ll share my ideas with you.
• Ice tea is amazing.  McDonald’s has the best sweet tea I have had in awhile.  You can get your hands on a huge glass of it for $.98.
• Steve Fee is on the new song cafe this month with his song “All Because of Jesus”.  You can check it out here.
• If it could warm up and stop raining, that would be awesome.  Is it bad to pray for a change in the weather, I don’t think so.  I have been doing it all month.

What’s new with you?

-Jordan

I got new shoes the other day to train with. My Adidas were getting pretty worn down (they were over five years old, not good). With a half marathon coming up I needed something with some cushion and stability. I had a small foot injury a few weeks back that made me have to give the old shoes the trash and the new shoes a must.

I went to Bipod and they had some of the best customer service. The lady who helped me took a look at my feet and watched me walk around. She pulled out almost every shoes on the shelf for me to try on. There’s even a treadmill in the store to run on so you can get the feel of the shoe, amazing.

In the end I landed on the new Puma Complete Tenos V. This shoe is an excellent everyday training and all around running or cross training. It has a great fit for people with moderate overpronation and normal arch (something bipod told me I suffer from). The Tenos gives great bounce of the back foot giving a smooth, natural ride. I also like how flexible the shoes it while still giving excellent cushioning and support. It’s fairly lightweight (11 oz.) and breathable which helps when your feet sweat. Plus, they look sweet! I give them an A.

Half Marathon is next weekend!

-Jordan

I’m getting really excited to start our “bound” series at GeNESIS this week. We are going to energizing our students by showing them simple ways they can work on their friendships to be bound together in Christ. Christ didn’t hid out in his house, he got out and grabbed twelve guys to walk with him. He was bound to helping them learn. He was bound to helping their spiritual life grow and their friendship was incredible. What happens when the people we thought were our friends fail us? How do we establish friendships that are going to last? Are friendships really that important? These are just a few questions we are going to tackle and more. This series will finish up perfectly by our giving our students the ability to go on our summer retreat. We will be teaming up with Countryside Bible Church’s youth group for this years retreat so it will give the students an opportunity to connect and establish other friendships. I’m super excited.

What are you doing in your ministry right now?

-Jordan

We recently got this years custom designed (thats right…) t-shirts in the mail for our youth group, GeNESIS, last week. Custom Print, LLC printed them out of Warsaw Indiana and did an amazing job. We absolutely love the Genesis design and can’t wait to see our young people start wearing them all over town (which a lot of them already are). If you would like to get a GeNESIS shirt come see me or my wife. We have size small to extra large but sizes are going fast. Students and parents buying shirts quickly so make sure to pick yours up today!

Speaking of Custom Print, LLC, I just jumped on board with them as as a representative. Custom Print allows you to submit artwork, receive a quote and print your custom apparel using their simple, effortless sites; 18spots, MyClubShirt, MyHallShirt, ImPrintSite, and iblinkink. You’ll receive hassle-free service for your organization, business, band, clothing company, church, hall, or club, with no setup fees or unnecessary costs. (They sent us our shirts for free!) Their clothing is great quality and their customer service is even better. If your looking for a perfect opportunity to get some t-shirts or custom printed items to fit your needs check out Custom Print, LCC. Tell them Jordan sent you!

It’s too nice to be inside today. Go out and make the most of God’s creation.

-Jordan

One of the elders in our church lost their father this week to a long battle. He was getting older (early 80’s) and his sickness was increasing so the family knew he was going to go any day. The guy who is an elder at our church, who is also a doctor, has seen his fair share of people come and go. His dad (from what I have gathered) was an amazing man who was on fire for the Lord. He was a minister of several years and had a massive youth group at one time that reached a multitude for the Lord.

What amazes me about the whole situation was an e-mail I received from our elder the other day regarding his fathers passing. He said, “Dad went to Heaven @ 4:30 this morning. He went relatively quickly and very peacefully. Praise God! Again, thank you all for your visits and your notes. Our family is doing very well as we know that this is really a wonderful victory to a race well run. We have yet to make any funeral arrangements, but I will keep you posted.“

How will our life song speak when you have gone to heaven with the Savior? How will you be remembered?  How will you continue to get people to come to have a relationship with Christ after you have left this earth?

Think about it.

-Jordan

Last Monday night, I had the honor of sitting on the youth forum panel at the middle school. The panel included the following people; Andy Carmitchel - Former Highland CUSD superintendent, Sherry Thomas - Highland Middle School Counselor, Malinda Bernal - Science teacher at the Highland Middle School, Joe Michaelis - Mayor of Highland, Randy Riggs - Highland School Rescue Officer, Myself, Sarah Wright - Prevention Specialist at Chestnut Mental Health Center, and Donna Munie - Active Parent and Administrative Assistant to the Superintendent. The goal of the night was to discuss issues and give some solutions that are surrounding our youth at the middle school and high school. I wrote early about these events earlier here.

This was a great opportunity and I was honored to have the ability to sit with such great people to discuss such topics. I wanted to give a recap of the night and discuss my thoughts.

This is how the night went…

• 3:30-3:45 - Students came to sign in, got their nametags, and received their folders with information about the night.
• 3:45-4:05 - Students were given instructions about their expectations for the night and given their topics to present. (Each group had two or three high school students that were “mentors” for the night and helped the junior high groups present their topics to the panel and prepare a powerpoint.)
• 4:05-4:15 - Students made the transition to their groups to get started.
• 4:15-5:45 - Junior high students then met with their “mentors” to agree on recommendations to present to the panel about the group’s issue (issues included; cyber bullying, healthy relationships and dating violence, cliques, peer pressure, and accessibility to drugs and alcohol). The groups designated two junior high students to be speakers for their group to present the issue to the panelists.
• 5:45-6:00 - Student practiced their presentations and had a dry run of the evening while the panelists were briefed.
• 6:00-6:30 - Dinner was served to both the students and panel members.
• 6:30-7:45 - This is when the actual panel took place. They had a welcome to the evening (the community was invited) and had the students present to the panel their topic and their ideas to “fix” the problems. The panel then had about ten minutes to respond to each group. After the panel session the community had the opportunity to ask questions as well.
• 7:45-7:55 - Community discussion.
• 7:55-8:00 - Closing of the evening and everyone went home.

This is what I thought after the night was over and I had a few days to evaluate what happened.

• For once I felt like what we were doing at the church was a step ahead of what the world was doing. For example, we are already in the process of trying to get the high school students to mentor the junior high students. The solutions that the junior high students came up with were great ideas but we have such a good relationship with our young people that we have already discussed solutions for these problems presented individually and in groups. We listen to our students when they talk and do something about problems when they come up. We strive to put programs, events, and teachings in place to help them with life’s problems. I felt like my students who were there already had a firm grasp on how to overcome the problems presented instead of just talking about them. I was proud our students are have bite and not just bark.
• The community was represented poorly. I wish more parents, people from the church, and towns people would have showed up.
• Somewhere along the line of life parents and educators “talk down” to young people. I don’t know if they do it on purpose or by accident but it bothers me. If I ever get to the point in my life where a student looks at me and says I’m fake I need to question what I’m doing. Students can smell insincerity a mile away. You could tell the people who were having an impact on the students and those who were just “there”. If you don’t love what you do 100% get out now, especially in youth work.
• The church and the school are completely different.
• Sometimes I think people talk just to hear the sound of their own voice. Not only is this immature and annoying but junior high students hate standing up while someone can’t stop talking.
• The church was represented in a secular setting properly and was well received. Amen, praise the Lord, Hallelujah!
• My students are amazing. Not only did they represented the church well but they showed pride in their church and group.

The evening went well and I hope I have the privilege of participating again next year. If I could change one thing I think the panelists should get together later and discuss the topics further. I don’t feel there was enough time to talk about the issues and provide ways of ironing out details presented by the students.  We need more events like this!

How is your community embracing the youth?

-Jordan

The current issue of Relevant has a feature article with the 7 burning issues of our generation, and they have some of the leading voices in the Church today respond to them. I thought I’d answer the questions myself in a couple of posts and open the floor to let people respond. Here’s part three to finish this “series” up.

Burning Question Number Three: Faith: What is the biggest problem facing the Church today?

The biggest problem in the church today is that everyone knows the biggest problem in the church.  I have been reading Leadership, Relevant, and other big Christian magazines and hearing people discuss this topic for some time now.  I a lot of talk and a little talk about individuals actually doing something regarding the problems the church faces.  Everyone talks like they know the answer but in reality it looks like we are just grasping at straws.

I fear that we, as a church, have become people of little action in life.  Don’t get me wrong, there are people and churches around the world that are doing a great job actually doing something to help the church and putting into practice solutions to problems they see happening.  I that action is exactly what God wants us to do.  However, I fear to much time is spent barking and not enough biting.  We need to stop saying, “This is the problem with the church…” and start saying, “This is a problem we see with the church and this is what we are doing to fix the problem.”  How awesome would that be?

Burning Question Number Four: Politics: Is either party right?

I hope not.  I think every side has their flaws.  As a young man, I still have yet to “subscribe” to a political party.  I don’t think I could could ever say, “What you believe as a republican/democrat/independent is exactly what I believe.”  I fear there is a lot of corruption in politics and we as the public hear little regarding the actual truth.

I also think that we get many promises that are often unfulfilled which is depressing.  With this being a voting season I hear candidates talking about all the changes they are going to make to our county, how the war will end, and how taxes are going to go down.  I’m not sure those things will ever happen until Christ returns.  I just want gas to go back to under 2 bucks a gallon.

Burning Question Number Five: Culture: How do we influence it without being consumed by it?

My father always taught me the key to life in in the word “balance”.  Almost every time I got to consumed by something as a child, my dad would sit me down and talk about the importance of balancing everything out in my life.  I can still hear him to this day walking across my room while I was playing Nintendo whispering “balance” to me as he studied for his message for Sunday at the kitchen counter.

Dad would always tell me that I need to make sure I am not one sided or heavy in anything I do. The same goes for culture.  Jesus told us to be in the world and not of it, the importance of balance.  Jesus would go into town and spend time in culture listening to the people and being around them at their events.  However, He retreated all the time to spend time alone with God.  I think we need to do this in our own lives as well.  We need to listen and ask questions of our culture to understand where its coming from but at the same time we need to spend time with God to make sure we are not becoming consumed by it.  It’s all about “balance”.

Burning Question Number Six: How do escape the excess of culture?

The “excess of culture” I’m sure is the amount of consumption by our society as individuals.  In other words, consumerism.  Some people would say we are to live with as little as we can and other would say there is nothing wrong with having nice things, God wants us to have nice things.  I think we see biblical examples of both sides.  Some people in the bible had a lot because God gave it to them and others had little because God gave it to them.  I think think issue ties in with social justice.  What are we doing with the “things” we have in this world?  How are we using what God has given us?

I would hope that our escape is found in the mercy and compassion for others.  I would hope we escape the excess of culture by thinking, “How can I help my neighbor?  What more can I give?”.  Instead of being people who desire the bigger, better, faster approach to life, I think we need to step back and differenciate our needs from our wants.

Burning Question Number Seven: War: How should we respond?

I think we must understand that we are always in a state of war.  Since Adam decided to sin, man has been going through wars for lifetimes.  It’s part of the fallen race.  However, I think we as a body need to respond with love and compassion.  Instead of taking the time to hate, make war, and promote violence, I think we need to seek each others best. Jesus found himself in war and turmoil all the time.  People rose up beside him at all angles trying to “fight” with him.  What was his response?

What are your burning questions?  How would you respond to these question if you were asked?

-Jordan

The current issue of Relevant has a feature article with the 7 burning issues of our generation, and they have some of the leading voices in the Church today respond to them. I thought I’d answer the questions myself in a couple of posts and open the floor to let people respond. Here’s part two.

Burning Question Number Two: Homosexuality: How Should we respond?

Response:  I never understood how homosexuality became “the big sin”.  Somewhere along the line we (Christians), have made a list of sins and ranked them in order from bad to worse.  You can take the Lord’s name in vain and get drunk on Friday night and still be in the fellowship but once your gay or kill someone your out.  I understand that society makes a list but in God’s eyes, a sin is a sin.  This means that we as a body have let habitual sinners cast stones at homosexuality while refusing to have them deal with their own constant sin.  It’s easy to point the finger at a sinner, but just remember that there are three fingers pointing back at you.  “He who is without sin, throw the first stone”.

With that said, I don’t think we should let people remain in their sinnful state.  This include homosexuals, compulsive liars, those addicted to pornography, people living with each other out of wedlock, and everyone who has a “thorn in the flesh”.  We must respond to homosexuality the same way we respond to dealing with other sin issues.  Jesus was king at showing mercy and grace but never missed the chance to teach people how to remove sin from their life by trusting in Him.  He preached to “follow Him” constantly.  When the woman who was caught in adultly was thrown at Jesus feet He didn’t push her away.  He handled the situation by teaching the people and the woman a lesson about love and compassion.  1 Peter 5:6-9 tells us to…

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.”

How much time do we spend responding to sexual immorality and sin issues by being humble or taking the chance to learn how we can help one another through mercy and grace?  Is it possible that I could help my homosexual brother get over his hurdle while he helps me get over my sin issues at the same time?  Is it possible to grow together in our faith and relationship with God? When was the last time we responded by teaching people to cast their cares on the Lord together? What does this type of loving spiritual community look like?

The devil prowls around all the time.  He hides in sin and finds joy when we as Christians fight over issues while refusing to grow.  We forget to resist him.  We forget to teach people to resist.  We forget that we must overcome him together.  We forget to let the Holy Spirit work our lives.  To grow spiritual, we must respond together to overcome sin.  One of my favorite worship songs by the Desperation band states, ” We will overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony, everyone overcome”.

How powerful and awesome would it be if we responded to the homosexual community by first admiting we have sin in our lives and have a desire to overcome it.   What if we refused to let sin take hold of our lives and removed it by standing firm in the faith so others would want to break out as well because we are overcoming sin issues?  The bible says that “brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of suffering”.  We need to respond by equipping brothers and sisters with Christ.  We need to show mercy, grace, compassion, and love.  A response of everyone overcoming!

How amazing would that be?

-Jordan