Did you know that today is Reformation Day? Until a few weeks ago I didn’t either.

If you’re like me you spent most of your life hearing about the Restoration and then getting confused when you heard about the Reformation.

Somebody: Luther started the Reformation.
Me: I think you mean the Restoration.
Somebody: Um, no. I said it correctly. The RE-FOR-MA-TION. Get with the program.
Me: But… nevermind.

Anyway, back to today. It’s Reformation Day.

Today is the day that in 1517 Martin Luthur walked up to the door of Whittenberg Church in Germany and nailed his 95 thesis there for the world to see.

Well, more than likely he sent a letter to Archbishop Albrecht with the thesis and then posted the letter on the door of the church. Maybe. (One book I have said that Luther sent a “polite letter”)

Regardless, that one act of defiance and passion has had a lasting effect on Christianity as we know it.

I love One Person stories. You know what I’m talking about. Stories where one person, despite all the odds, in spite of the people who threaten, regardless of the danger and mounting opposition stand up for what they believe in and in so doing change the course of history.

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures, or by evident reason (for I put my faith neither in popes nor councils alone, since it is established that they have erred again and again and contradicted one another), I am bound by the scriptural evidence adduced by me, and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot, I will not recant anything, for it is neither safe nor right to act against one’s conscience. God help me. Amen.- Luther, 17 April 1521

Regardless of how you come down on the Reformation or on Luther himself, take a little time today and celebrate that the seemingly small acts of one man made it so that you can read your own Bible, attend the church of your choosing, and pray to God on your own.

So eat a big fat burger (Papal Bull) and pass out some gummi worms (Diet of Worms) to trick or treaters tonight* in celebration of Reformation Day.

*Reformation Day celebration ideas via Tony at The Shepherd’s Scrapbook

At around 11:45pm on Saturday night, one exit from our house, I came car grill to face with a coyote. The animal gingerly walked out onto the highway (the darkest part of the highway btw) and I didn’t see him until it was too late. We were ok but more than a little shaken. I hit a bunny in my truck once but this coyote was big. I damaged the whole front of the driver’s side bumper. I called the claims service this morning and they will take care of everything. The bummer is that I could be spending my deductible on adding things to my super-cool, customizable, hip Scion tC. Instead I have to buy a boring old replacement bumper. No LED lights for Micheal.

Check out the damage. (WARNING: the last picture features a not too graphic shot of the coyote. It’s not gross but I’m not going to send it as a Christmas card either. Viewer discretion is advised.)

Check out the coyote hair stuck to the fiberglass:

I drove by yesterday and took a pic of the culprit:

We took 16 teenagers to the Switchfoot/RelientK concert tonight at Nokia. We had an absolute blast and were able to see, not one, but two top tier bands. RelientK had a good set but Switchfoot brought the house down.

I actually had a chance to hang out with Switchfoot prior to the concert for about 20-25 min. They invited 8-10 youth ministers for a backstage Q&A before tonight’s performance. We spent some time praying together and then the band explained why they chose to play “neutral” venues as opposed to churches. I walked into the meeting with a great respect for the path that Switchfoot has been traveling the last few years and I walked out of the meeting further convinced that this band has a heart for God and wants to reach as many people as possible with the Good News. They reach teens and young adults in the middle of culture. They meet them in between videos for T.I. and Kanye, Nickelback and Foo Fighters.

The band also made a special effort to encourage us as youth ministers. It was a real special time.

The concert was great. I can’t say enough about it.

Thanks for a great night guys!!!

I got inspired by Cheryl’s post on the results of her online personality test and decided to see what the test had to say about me. To my surprise the test described me pretty well.

According to the test I am an ENTP-The Originator.

The desription from the site says that “ENTPs are logical, innovative, curious and downright inventive. They see possibilities for improvement everywhere and possess the ability to understand complex concepts. ENTPs are introspective and carefree nonconformists. They often neglect the more common areas of life while pursuing new solutions. ENTPs can be good conversationalists and exciting company.” Some famous ENTP are George Carlin, Teddy Roosevelt, “Weird” Al, and the founder of my iBoard, Walt Disney.

So I could just tell you myself that I am an intellectual and creative and all the other stuff the test describes but I would feel a little pompous.

Here is what my wife had to say about the results:

As Micheal’s wife, all I can say is “Wow.” This description is my husband. If you know Micheal well, you know that he is constantly looking to improve his ministry, his writing, and his everyday life. He always has something to add to a conversation and life with Micheal is never boring… As for the music, he is a walking iPod who lives to the beat. He can name where he was the first time he heard a song and what he was going through at the time. At least now we know that there is a reason why Micheal is the way he is, and I love him for it.

Thanks babe!

Try the test out for yourself though. Maybe you too will learn what’s wrong with a little more about your true self.

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” (Matthew 5:13 TNIV)

The key to being salt of the earth is found in transformation.

A few weeks ago I heard Matt Chandler speak on Matthew 5:13-16 to a group of ministers. He argued that we become salt when we “allow the Holy Spirit to transform us into the likeness of Christ.” We spend a great deal of our time preaching, teaching, learning, grasping, and training others about the gospel but the real tragedy is that we spend very little time being transformed by the gospel.

When we spend time and effort on the information and nothing on the transformation we lose our saltiness. Christians who profess God with their lips but whose hearts are far from Him are seen as hypocrites, liars, and inconsistent. That’s why we are punch-lines on South Park, Morel Oral, and late night tv. Our inauthentic behavior has allowed for us to be trampled underfoot.

Discussion Questions
So how did we get here?

How did we grasp every theological nuance and yet remain untransformed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

What’s the solution?

Coming Soon: Salt pt. 3- Five Observations On How We Lost Our Saltiness

I was reading through some news reports this morning when I clicked on a story about how real campain finance laws might prevent Stephen Colbert from getting on the ballot in South Carolina. Here is the picture that accompanied the story:

Did you see that Doritos bag? When was that stock photo taken? I’m not sure of the date but I am certain that it pre-dates Cool Ranch. ABC is billion dollar company and I guess that they couldn’t hop over to 7-11 for a new bag of chips to take a more up-to-date photo for their news story on current events.

I think the “liberal” media is trying to paint this awesome, conservative, native son of South Carolina with the broad brush of out of touchness. I bet stories on Hillary are featured with the current Little Debbie logos. I would be willing to venture a guess that you wouldn’t see Obama with a can of “Crystal Pepsi” or Edwards making his millions chasing ambulances like he did back in the 80s and 90s. No way because those times have past and the media wants to portray these candidates as hip and modern. The liberal media watches out for their liberal friends. It’s the true conservatives that are regulated to bad photoshop and file photos.

Colbert, don’t let the “establishment” say you’re as fresh as a 1978 bag of nacho cheese tortilla chips. You sir are a spicy blend of Fiery Habanero and Cojones!

And that’s the Word!

Colbert ‘08

I apologize for the absence from the blog over the weekend. Thursday night I ate some pizza (I am a youth minister. What do you expect?) and then in the wee small hours on Friday I spent some more time with said pizza worshiping the porcelain god.

It was a rough weekend. I was extremely dehydrated and at times I wept like a little baby. I am not a very good patient. Have you every seen that episode of Seinfeld when Jerry eats the black and white cookie only to have a “race riot” break out in his stomach? He broke something like a decade long streak of not ralphing. That’s me. I hate being sick and I feel helpless when I am. I cry, I apologize, I bargain. It is not a pretty site.

I am starting to feel 100% so I’ll finish the salt post later today and post it tonight or early tomorrow.

Hope everyone’s week has started out well.

Peace.

For a comment on Heroes.

This season is a slow burn but each week gets progressively better. However, like many fans I’m growing a little impatient with the HRG/Claire storyline right now.

Let me sum it up for you real quick.

Claire: Dad I’m a teenager. I want to do teenager stuff.
HRG: No. I have to protect you and the family.
Claire: Dad, what about cheerleading?
HRG: No. I have to protect you and the family.
Claire: Dad, what about boys?
HRG: No. I have to protect you and the family.

It’s gone on like that for the last 4 weeks.

On top of all of this HRG has seen the Mendez painting from the future which shows Claire(?) kissing a mystery shadow man while standing over HRG bullet ridden body.

I love reading the forums whenever I get a chance and I loved what beapeams had to say about the whole HRG protecting Claire/keeping secrets storyline.

Secrets, Secrets, Secrets!! How long is HRG going to keep hiding things from Claire. How about this for a line: “ClaireBear Look at this painting. This was done by a guy that could see the future, who was special like you. If you join the cheerleading squad and go around dating boys right now, someone is going to put a bullet in daddies head.”

Classic.

I’m trying to be a little more honest and vulnerable here so I think that I need to confess something to everyone. This is something I’ve struggled with my entire life and I am sick of hiding. Here it goes (please don’t judge)…

I’m a picky eater.

It’s true. I eat the most boring foods and I always special order at restaurants. I eat only cheese pizza and I don’t stray too far away from vanilla ice cream. I don’t eat candy bars. I don’t use condiments. I avoid fish at all costs. I don’t put syrup on my pancakes and I don’t butter my bread. I am convinced that this condition goes beyond pickyness and into something more like a psychological condition.

I have a video of me when I was about a year old. My grandmother is feeding me tiny pieces of a biscuit. As she gives me a piece she says (in a great grandmother voice), “Oh, Micheal. We’ll put some jelly on that and it will be so so good!” My mom tells her that she has tried to put jelly and butter on biscuits for me before but that I wouldn’t eat them. To this day, I cannot tell you the last time I ate a biscuit with jelly on it.

You can also add salt to the list of things I don’t put on food. Obviously, I eat food that has salt in it. I just don’t reach across the table for the salt shaker. I just never add salt to anything.

Maybe that’s is why I have always found Jesus call to be “salt of the earth” a bit confusing and disconcerting.

Like Alan’s comment from the last post, I too have always been taught the old “salt is a preservative schpeel”. However, that explanation has always left me wanting.

A key tenet of hermeneutics is that an interpretation should match up with the whole of scripture. I just cannot find a commandment or a teaching that calls Christ-followers to preserve the world around them. Let’s be honest, I would be out of a job and there would be no youth ministry if I were to challenge students to stay where they are in their faith.

I think we can do better than that. I think we owe it to the world to do better than that.

Salt does more than act as a preservative. It adds more than flavor.

Salt transforms whatever it touches.

Tomorrow: Moving from Checklist to Transformation

I spent most of my study living in the Sermon on the Mount last week and I want to share what I’ve been reading, listening to, and pondering this week in Wrestling With Scripture. I’ll be out of pocket today but I want to post Matthew 5:13-16 so that we can begin the conversation bright and early this morning.

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:13-16 TNIV)

Discussion Questions:
How have you been taught what this passage means? How would you teach the meaning of this passage?

Describe how you have been salt to those around you.

Describe your thoughts on this passage.

From the Hillsong Conference in Austrailia. It’s 12 minutes of Bittersweet Symphony/Amazing Grace goodness for your weekend enjoyment.

Via

The situation in Burma has captured my heart over the last few weeks but I have been saddened and confused by the lack of media attention and the refusal of many within the Christian community to discuss the deteriorating conditions of the Burmese people. Tim Neufeld maintains a great Christ in Culture/U2 resource site called Occasio. Here is an excerpt from his article entitled “Can Christians Support Buddhist Monks?” The article was a great challenge to me and it helped reframe the way I think about and approach the situation and the monks. If you get a chance, click over to Tim’s blog and download the entire article.

“There is not only a need but a biblical mandate for such interaction. The parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 is often used to teach that we should help our neighbors. While this is true, such a trite moralism falls short of the story’s intended impact. The surprise of this parable is that the abused Jewish man is helped by his enemy, the Samaritan—a man of different social status, different ethnicity and different religion. A vile Samaritan helping a pious Jew would have been incomprehensible to the religious scholar Jesus was speaking with. Even so, “Go and do likewise” was the teacher’s instruction to his pupil.

Christians are called to help the poor, speak for justice and stand against tyrants regardless of whether the people suffering from oppression are Christian or non-Christian. This is a critical time for Christians to support the monks and Aung San Suu Kyi and her followers. Theirs is a way of peace and non-violent protest. Can Buddhist worshipers share the same values as followers of Christ? It appears so. Should Christians pray for and support Buddhist monks in Burma? Indeed.

Pray for the monks. Pray for Aung San Suu Kyi. Pray for peace in Burma.”

link

“Disturb me, Lord, when my dreams come true, only because I dreamed too small. Disturb me when I arrive safely, only because I sailed too close to the shore. Disturb me when the things I have gained cause me to lose my thirst for more of You. Disturb me when I have acquired success, only to lose my desire for excellence. Disturb me when I give up too soon and settle too far short of the goals You have set for my life. Amen.” -Sir Francis Drake, 1577

The Catalyst Conference completely rocked my face off this year. I walked away from the arena with a great sense of purpose and mission.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one.

On Friday night I hooked up with some buddies from college who had also been a part of the conference. After an hour or so of small talk we began to open up more about our hopes, fears, and struggles. We kept finding ourselves driven to our knees in prayer.

In fact, we spent the entire night in prayer for the future of our ministries.

Not that our ministries would be big or be blessed but that God would be glorified and that Jesus would receive all power and honor and glory through our ministries.
We realized that if this were to happen through the people we minister to it must first happen through us.

We we humbled and broken that night.

At about 3am we remembered that Craig Groschel had kicked off his session by praying that God would disturb some of us so much that we wouldn’t be able to sleep.

There we were disturbed and unable to sleep.

I didn’t sleep the entire night I was so shaken and fired up and thirsty for God. You read about moments like this but I personally had never experienced something so tangible and so holy.

I have been rocked to the core. Not from a great session (although there were 9 of them) and not from a worship song (too many to count) but I have been rocked by the Almighty God, creator of the heavens and earth.

Lord, may this fire burn within me from today until the day you call me home. May you set a blaze in me a desire for the things that you desire. May my heart break for the things that break your heart. Forgive my pride. Forgive my arrogance. Forgive me when I am more concerned with the ways of the world than the ways of your Son. To you be all power and wisdom and strength and glory and honor. Amen.

When I posted my statement last week about taking risks for God and for my faith and for my ministry I had no clue that God was going to show up at the conference challenging me head on with this idea.

I feel a little like Neo tonight. I feel as though I’ve been offered a red or blue pill.

I can take the blue pill, enjoy the conference, sing the songs, jot some notes, board the plane home, and say “Well that was nice.” Of course, nothing will change. I’ll be just as effective as I am today. My faith will remain just as listless. My ministry be “good enough.”

or…

I can take the red pill and see how far the rabbit hole goes.

I think God is telling me something:

Yesterday Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village Church in Highland Village, TX, challenged me to take a risk by focusing on spiritual transformation and being honest with people that the Jesus way is a sloooooooow process. He likened spiritual growth to a baby taking its first steps. No parent watches as their child does the initial step, step, fall and then berates their baby for the poor job of running. No they celebrate because the child gets back up and keeps stepping. We go wild with joy when a baby tries and “fails” but we freak out (not in a good way) when a disciple takes two steps and falls. We write them off as hopeless. Shame on us. Transformation is life-long process. In ministry it is a risk to be that honest with people. People want transformation and growth instantly and too often we tell them that they can quickly “get right” by reading their Bible, praying, and reading their Bible. Risk challenging people to go deeper.

This morning Andy Stanley challenged me to risk my influence just as Jesus did by washing the disciples feet. All power was given to Jesus and he willingly laid that power down to serve. It is a risk to lead like Jesus.

Rick Warren challenged me to surrender my identity and my ministry to Him so that He can make it come alive. In essence, risk losing control. Rick also challenged me to pray the most dangerous prayer in the world, “Lord, Use me.”

Finally, Francis Chan challenged me to risk seeing my ministry as more than a job. It is a divine appointment. I need to risk seeing my life and ministry as the intentional way that God created me before I was born. I love my teens and their families. They are more than a job to me. I have been appointed to lead. Will I do it because of duty or out of a deep seated love? I know which one is a bigger risk.

I have so much to process right now but I keep seeing God’s hand holding out this red pill of risk to me.

Am I willing to risk it all for the sake of the Gospel? Am I willing to say “God, you are in control. I surrender it all to you. Success, failings, heart and soul. It’s yours.”? Am I risking it all to remain faithful to the things that God is calling me toward? Do I care more about my safety, my status, my reputation, my tradition than I do about seeking after the glory of God?

It all comes down to risk.

For the first time I attended the Catalyst Labs. Labs are basically breakout sessions with different teachers on different tracks to help supplement your time here at Catalyst. They are a little more informal and they are a little more intimate.

Due to a slight rain delay in Dallas I arrived later than I had planned but I was still able to take in 2 incredible sessions and the evening round table discussion on the new research book, unChristian.

I’ll try and unpack some of what I experienced tonight over the coming weeks but I wanted to say something about Catalyst tonight before I hit the hay.

I was reminded again tonight why I come to Catalyst over any other conference.

At Catalyst I am not told what to think but challenged just to think.

There is a huge difference. Most conferences or books or seminars give you the step by step, cookie cutter approach to leadership.

I don’t walk away from this conference with a new curriculum or a new game or even a new lesson to take back home. I leave here with more questions than when I arrived. I leave here with my heart full. I leave here empowered to go out and make a difference.

I ask that those of you who read this blog will sincerely pray for me this week. This week is my spiritual renewal retreat. Pray that I will hear what I need to hear, change what I need to change, and connect more fully with my Jesus.

Thanks.

peace,
micheal