Peter N Anderson: February 2010

This is a hard time for me right now, I am embarking on a media fast with 8 of our high school students and 3 of our leaders. Which means I can’t watch TV, go on the internet, text message, read anything other than Christian inspired non-fiction and the bible as well as no movies or music. For those of you who know me I pride myself on being a pseudo-techno nerd, so giving up all of these outlets is going to be difficult for me, as well as the students. But it is a good thing to unplug from the noise of the world. Jesus made a habit of this as we can see in Mark 1:35, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus withdrew to a solitary place to be alone with God and pray.”
So if the creator of the earth finds it necessary to draw away from people and be in silence isn’t that something we should be doing on a regular basis as well? We are inundated 1,000’s of images and noises every day and because of this when we turn off our radio in the car we feel a suffocating kind of silence. Why is silence so hard to deal with? I posed this questions to our eight high schoolers and they decided it was because once it is silent, you begin to do self-reflection, you begin to think and for a lot of us we turn on the noise in our lives so we don’t have to think about what is happening or going on.
This week take some time and sit, breathe deep and be silent. Don’t turn on the television or radio, don’t read a book, just sit, breathe and be silent. See if it makes a difference in your life to stop and just be silent. Happy Youthing.

There is a hard line to walk in the church and especially in Youth Ministry. You want people to notice you, you want people to come to your church for them to see that God isn’t just about rules and ‘things you can and cant do. Its not about a God sitting in heaven laughing at how stupid we are and smiting people at every whim. So you want to be appealing, you want to be exciting, you want to be relevant. The other side of that line is making sure that the truth of the Lord is not watered down, we need to make sure that we are fearful of the Lord, that we are in awe of God and we don’t take His power, His fury, and His love for granted. We need to make sure we are reverent.

Now sometimes this may be hard, especially in Youth ministry, are we being reverent using the baptismal for a pool party? Probably not (I haven’t done this don’t worry), are we being reverent when we show up to church in a collar with nice shoes on and our hair combed? Yes… yes we are. The difference is easy to see. But the issue comes into play when we want to be relevant and reverent at the same time. I want people to appreciate my ministry and have fun while they are a part of it, that doesn’t mean I am going to let students do whatever they want. But I am also not going to show up in a suit and tie to youth group and make students sit in a pew for an hour and a half, their parents can barely do it, how could I expect them to?

But what of the Chuck Taylored, untucked, unkempt, cool Pastor? He is so nice looking, so approachable; he is a regular guy, a guy I want to have coffee with. He talks about love and has a beard just like Jesus, he must have all of his facts straight, he knows what he is doing, he is relevant. Sure, but does he revere the Lord? Maybe, and maybe I need to get past the idea that Jesus needs to see us dressed nicely on Sundays, I mean he sees us every other day so why should our attire be different on Sunday morning?

It brings me back to a conversation I had with my Grandma before she passed away when she told me through tears, “I dress nice on Sunday because I want to look my best when I am in the house of the Lord, he sacrificed himself for me, the least I could do is shower for Him.” Granted, my Grandma was no biblical scholar, a long way from it, but I think she speaks to the truth of the matter when she implies that so many people no longer care enough to even run a brush through their hair on Sunday Morning. I’m not saying we should come in our Prom attire, but I am saying that tucking your shirt in and wearing closed to shoes on a Sunday (and trust me, I love sandals) shows that you respect the house of the Lord, and more importantly, respect the Lord.

So how do we get a balance between not running off people who are seeking the Lord by our Christianese and our Father’s day neck ties and making sure that we don’t get so relaxed with God that we wear our swimsuit to church so we don’t have to go home and change before our Sunday afternoon barbecue at the Wallace’s? I wish I had that answer for you but unfortunately I don’t. Truth is, far too many churches are divided because of issues just like this one. But until I figure it out, I will respect those who came before me by wearing a collared shirt and dress shoes on Sunday and I will run around and throw shaving cream at students at Youth. It’s a fine line to walk between relevance and reverence, but it’s a line worth walking, because too far in either direction and you are alienating a very important people group.