On Your Mark: Catalyst (Andy Stanley)

A few weeks ago I went to Atlanta for the Catalyst 2009 conference. Catalyst is a huge conference for church leaders to go and hear from incredible speakers who are most definitely ordained by God. There are 10 sessions with about 8-9 different speakers, and each one leaves you scratching your head, humbled, and on fire for God. The theme for this year's Catalyst was "On Your Mark". Andy Stanley started us off with a really amazing talk.

"What man is a man who does not leave the world better?" This quote is taken from Kingdom of Heaven, but is so completely relevant to our lives that it's impossible to get away. Everyone wants to leave a mark. Andy even made the point that if we're leaders, we HAVE to want to leave a mark. That's what makes a leader. And the truth is, every single one of us leaves a mark. But which mark do we leave?

Things come up. That's just life. It would be so boring if every day things were exactly the same. A phone call, a conversation, a bank account statement... All of these things happen, and suddenly, we're all in the middle of a "crisis" point. We have decisions to make, things to say and do, and all of a sudden, we have a mark to make. And the most troubling part of it all, as a leader and as a follower, is that you never know where that mark is. Every single one of us is going to touch someone or hit someone in some way, and we're going to make our mark. The problem is that we don't know when that's going to happen. We won't see our greatest opportunity until after it's past us. Have you ever had someone come back to you later and said, "you know, you really stuck with me when you said that?" And you're completely floored. To you, it was just a casual comment or compliment. But to them, it was the world. It changed who they are and how they think, and a light bulb all of a sudden went off. And maybe if you'd known that ahead of time, you would have planned it out better, or maybe been too scared to say anything at all. So maybe that's a blessing. Either way, we don't know when our mark is being made, and a lot of the times, if we were going to pick where our mark was going to be made, we'd pick a different moment.

In the story of Joshua, Joshua gives his people three commands (Joshua 23-24). He tells them to cling to the Lord you're God. He tells them to love God. And then, as our kids could tell you, in Joshua 24:15, he says, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Joshua tells his people to follow the Lord, love the Lord, and build their house to SERVE the Lord. And to this day, people are reading Joshua's words and following what he said. That was a mark made. And the thing is, we all have a mark to leave. But we need to make THE mark, not A mark. YOUR mark, not a mark. We all have a specific mark to leave, and we all have a choice to make.

¹³ Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, "Are you for us or for our enemies?"

¹⁴ "Neither," he replied, "but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come." Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, "What message does my Lord have for his servant?"

¹⁵ The commander of the LORD's army replied, "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so.

-Joshua 5:13-15

The funny thing about this passage to me is the angel's answer. "Are you for us or our enemies?" Joshua asks. That seems like a pretty easy question, right? You've got two choices. 50% chance. But, you know, in pure God-fashion, the angel throws us for a loop and says "neither." What? You're not for me, or for my enemies? Suddenly, Joshua realizes something. God's not FOR us. We're FOR God. Now, I'm not saying that God's not for us and that He doesn't fight for us, because absolutely He does. But the point is, the angel didn't come down to earth to make Joshua's mark. Joshua was on the earth to make God's mark. God didn't come to play a role in my story. I was created to make a mark in HIS story.

And Joshua's response is just so perfect. He humbled himself, fell down, and asked, "what message does my Lord have for his servant?" He is out to serve the Lord. He hears what the Lord's messenger is saying, and he fires right back, "what message does my Lord have for me?" "What can I do?" His life is about serving God. How many of us can say that and mean it? I think we all want to mean it, but how many of us can actually say it and mean it and take it and make it our own?

Andy Stanley said his father had one quote that hung on his wall in his office the entire time he was growing up. "God takes full responsibility for the life wholly devoted to him." It's not about who is for or against you, but it's about who you are for. Yes, there are consequences to following God. There are consequences to not following God too. We have responsibilities and consequences in this wonderful relationship we have with our Lord. God calls us to do these crazy things that are sometimes not fun. But our responsibility is to be obedient to God and to trust him with the consequences. The thrill of life that comes from knowing Jesus is so great and so wonderful, but it comes with great responsibility. The responsibility of being obedient to the King we know. And sometimes that obedience is blind and hard and just plain not fun. But we have to trust our God to take that obedience, and to take those consequences, and make them what is good and holy. Our responsibility is to obey and to trust. And that's how we can make our mark.

It all boils down to three things. 1) You don't know the biggest thing God will do for you. You don't know how He's going to use you or change you. You don't know the biggest blessing He will give you. You don't know where your mark is going to be. You don't know if it's going to be a little thing, or a big thing. But it's there. God didn't create an idle creation. He created an active, fast-paced creation that seeks to glorify Him and change the world and mix it up. 2) You don't want to miss it. Our relationship with Christ is so thrilling, and the plan he has for our lives is so, so big. That mark He has planned for us is so great and so big that we don't want to miss it. We don't want to miss our chance. 3) Living to make my mark is too small a thing to give my life to. God's mark is worth giving your life to.

All of this left me wondering... Am I doing everything I can do for God? Am I sold out to Jesus? Am I living my life wondering if God is FOR me, or am I living my life knowing that it's FOR Him? Am I expecting God to be a part of my story, or am I living it to be a part of His? Where is my mark, and am I ready to make it?

To Live is Christ (Paul): Week Four

"If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone. The new has come!" - 2 Corinthians 5:17

Studying Paul has been really good for the kids, and for me to be able to see how much these kids retain and how well they're learning and adapting our lessons to their lives. We start every lesson with a review of the previous lessons. It's been four weeks of lessons (over a six week time frame), and it still amazes me that the kids can tell me details of what we talked about the first time we talked. I ask them about how Paul grew up, and they tell me the bible verse, and then about the clothes he wore and what he had to do. And they seamlessly ease into the following stories. This week was interesting because it was the mark of the turn from Saul to Paul. When the kids were explaining, one of them said, "Well Saul was a bad guy and was trying to stone Stephen!" Another girl corrected him and said, "No, he wasn't a bad guy. He was just a guy that did a bad thing. He didn't know about Jesus yet!" It was really cool to see them thinking on that level and helping each other in that respect.

We started are lesson by breaking into three groups. The first group read in Genesis about when Abram and Sarai's names were changed to Abraham and Sarah's, and when Simon's name was changed to Peter. The other two groups read about the time where Saul's name becomes Paul. One group had the question of why, and the other group had the question of when. We went over those two as a big group, and then we talked about names in the Old Testament. We talked about how a long time ago, people named their children based on the meaning of the name, not on how pretty the names were. The first group presented what they found out about Abram, Sarai, and Simon, and then we talked as a group about the importance of names.

Here are what the kids came up with:

• You can't just say "hey you" and still be polite.
• It's how you can tell people apart.
• It helps you know who you are.
• When somebody knows your name you're better behaved

After all these, we talked about how every name has a meaning, and in this time period, people named their children after how they wanted their children to perceive themselves. For instance, how Jesus' name means "Salvation". I talked about my name, and how it means "God's gift", and how the reason I was named that was because my parents wanted me to know that I was "God's gift" to them. We talked about how God referred to Saul by Paul from then on because he wanted Saul to know that his identity was new, now that he was in Christ. We talked about how Saul and Paul are the same name (Saul is Hebrew, Paul is Roman), and how the changing of it also meant that Christ wasn't just for the Hebrews, but for everyone.

I'd done some research and looked up the meaning of all the kids' games, so we spent a lot of time playing Memory with their names. They were in teams and had to pick the matches. It was really fun, and the thing that kept the kids' attention was the wait to find out what their names meant. Then we cleaned up, and they all got a cookie if they could come up and tell me one thing they learned and what their name means.

We talked about what it means to be a new person in Christ, and the bible verse for the week, and that was that!

Wired for Worship: Week Two

Last Sunday we picked up on our worship lessons with some talking about who God is and what he does and why we were made to worship Him. The kids started out by creating things out of play dough, and then we talked about how God created every little thing in this world, and how He created the whole world. We talked about some things we know God to be, and then we talked about what worship is.

We've been defining worship as "our response to God's greatness". It's more than that, for sure, but on an elementary level, it gets the point across. The kids pay a lot more attention to us adults than I thought they did! We talked about how we see people worshiping upstairs, and why they might worship different ways. The most common answers were that people close their eyes and put their hands up in the air. One little girl noticed that the music team likes to clap and "jump around". We talked about why they do the things they do... How sometimes they try to reach God, or want to focus on him, and how the bible says we should be UNDIGNIFIED for Christ. We read the passage in Matthew that says even if we don't praise him, the rocks will cry out. And talked about how our God deserves a lot of praise! And then we played a song, and let the kids worship however they wanted to. Some danced. Some prayed. Some waved their hands in the air with their eyes closed. One little girl swayed. It was adorable, and really cool to see the kids praising God in their own way.

I think the coolest part of working with kids is that moment where you see what they've been learning hit what they're doing. Teaching the kids about worship has been really amazing--they've really soaked up who God is and why we should praise him, and I've seen a difference in how they're responding in church and in the lesson. They seem to be building a real reverence for the Lord, and it's really cool to watch. Looking around and seeing the kids with their hands raised and their eyes closed singing songs to God was really amazing, and I hope they'll never lose that, and that our church can be one that continues to foster that in our children.

Wired for Worship: Week One

The idea of "worship" has come up a lot in my own life lately, and it's threaded into Holy Cross and the kids there, and I think it's really cool. One of my favorite parts about being in Kids ministry is how much God grows me and changes me while He teaches the kids through me. I'm both taught and teaching, and it's what makes my "job" (really? that old Mark Twain quote floats through my head) so enjoyable. Life with Christ isn't easy, but it's certainly exhilarating! So, lately the threads have all been weaved to worship. It's so rarely studied in our culture and the question is hardly ever asked, but what is worship? I don't even think I've begun to uncover the answer to that question.

The kids have started wanting to stay upstairs for the music (and even the sermon sometimes... tell me that's not cool!) on Sunday mornings. We're all for letting the kids worship upstairs and engage in the music and the prayers, but kids are kids and sometimes the fidget fairy comes and takes over. So the question was, how do we ingrain in our children the idea of what worship is, why we do it? How do we teach them to worship the God of the universe? I'll confess that at first my thought process was, "I have to teach on worship? Uhhh." Not anymore.

I went off to Catalyst last week, and Louie Giglio was talking about the magnificence of God, and the heart that worships Him. He posed a question along the lines of, "what would you like to see happen in your church, that if it happened, would completely change the face of your ministry?" I thought about the question long and hard, and the answer was simple. I want to see our kids actively worshiping God. I don't want them to just be bystanders and students of the Word, I want them to be living, breathing worshipers of who God is and what He can do in their lives. But how do we get there? How do we foster that in our children?

I picked up this book called "Wired for Worship" by Louie Giglio. He's got little devotionals that go with it, where he takes a Psalm and you have to circle the characteristics of God. I started doing that, and it hit me. Of COURSE, in order to worship we have to KNOW the God we're worshiping. People worship all sorts of things. If you want to find out what you value most and what you worship most, look at how you spend your time. You worship the place you spend your time. With that in mind, we realize that none of us really KNOW the God we worship, or at least not the way we should. So, before we can teach the kids to worship God, we have to teach them who God is and why we should worship Him.

Yesterday, we worked on finding out who God is. I started out by asking, "Who is God?" The kids had a hard time answering that question (wouldn't you?). Then we played two songs. The first was Wonderful Maker and the second was You Are Holy. We looked at each of the characteristics of God in the song (father, counselor, Emmanuel, friend, savior, Messiah, Living God, Maker) and looked up bible verses that went with each of them. By the end, the kids were so impressed by who God is that they could hardly contain their excitement. Then, we defined worship as being our response to God's greatness. The last line of You Are Holy is, "and I will live my life for you." We talked about how THAT is true worship.

I'm excited about where this season is going and how the kids (and myself) are going to learn to worship God in a new, powerful, more genuine way. Louie talked about how we have to show the face of Christ on our faces. Show people what heaven looks like through our faces. He used the example of Extreme Home Makeover. After everybody yells, "MOVE THAT BUS!" what do you see first? You don't see the house. You see the people's faces. You see the house pictured on the faces of the family. And that's how we should be. If the magnificence of Jesus Christ and the magnificence of heaven were on the faces of our kids, that would change the face of our ministry.

To Live is Christ (Paul): Week Three

"He has called us out of darkness and into His marvelous light." -1 Peter 2:9

Every Wednesday night when I leave church, I have an overwhelming sense of peace and excitement. These kids are incredible, and I love their passion for the Lord and how they are striving to know more and be better. Sometimes I feel like if I just stood in front of the group and told them what verses to read, they would go into it with lots of excitement. I could give the most monotone lesson, and these kids would still be on fire for Jesus. It's so cool watching the Holy Spirit radiate within each of them, and seeing the growth! They come back to church every Wednesday night ready to recite bible verses from weeks ago (and without any reward, other than an awesome high five). They are just the coolest kids I know and are really doing things for the Kingdom. I'm so proud of them.

We start off each week with a simple review of the week before (and what is important up to there). I am constantly surprised how much the kids take in and retain each week--they are walking SpongeKids and should be a show on Nickelodeon. Regardless, we went over the first week (Saul's upbringing), and talked about how Saul had to wear rabbi gear and how he was raised to say his prayers, and do all sorts of religious things. Then we talked about the Stoning of Stephen, and how Saul was there, giving approval on and URGING for Stephen's death. The kids were a little shaky about WHY Stephen was stoned (apart from just being a christian... why that was a bad thing), so before we started the lesson, we went over how important it was in a Jewish culture not to blaspheme God, and how the Jewish followers thought it was blasphemy for Jesus to say He was the son of God (even though we all know it to be true). And on to our lesson, we go.

Lesson: We read Acts 9:1-9, but in short little doses. First, we read Acts 9:1-2. For some reason, the verses tripped me up when I was reading them at home, so I made the kids read them a few times to get the message. We talked about what Saul asked the high priest to do (and who the high priest was), and why Saul would ask such a thing. The kids had great answers. We summarized up the verses by saying that Saul asked the really important guy for letters to arrest people of "The Way". The kids were funny because they knew who we were talking about, but when I asked them who "The Way" is, they didn't know how to explain it! So we did a little call back to John 14:6, and talked about how Jesus is "the way, the truth, and the life". It was funny watching their faces. One little girl was really impressed! She thought it was clever of them to call themselves that.

Activity #1: I had the kids pretend to be the high priest and write letters to the churches. This was one of those activities that I didn't really have a reason for doing, it just felt like it should be done, and it gave some time for intrapersonal/linguistic learning styles to shine. So, we wrote letters... One of them says, "Dear churches, please help Saul arrest and kill any followers of "The Way" because they are lying about our God!" (We had to go over the idea that the Jewish people believe in the same God, they just don't believe in Jesus. Thankfully, our Sunday lesson was on The Trinity, so the kids got it). I had all of the kids sign their names and seal their letters, and hand them to our makeshift Saul for the day.

Lesson: We then read Acts 9:3-7. Saul acted out each part as we read, and it was pretty funny. We took it verse by verse. I explained that the light was really bright, and we talked about times when it's been way too bright outside. One child even said that sometimes, when it's so bright outside, she goes blind for a minute. Inside, I'm thinking "oh you just wait!". Then we talked about how God called out to Saul, saying "Saul! Saul!" and how he knew Saul's name. I asked the kids how they would feel when they heard God calling them after what they had done last week. Some said surprised, some said awful, but one little girl (who is 5!) said, "I would feel really scared because I hurt God and God is really powerful and what if he was mad at me?" I thought it was incredible insight! I asked the question, "How did Saul persecute God?" And the kids gave me a few answers --> killing his people, speaking bad about his people, not believing in Him. We talked about how the Bible says that ANYTHING you do to the people around you, you do to God. So if you love the people around you, you love God. To which one of the boys replied, very solemnly, "so if you stone the people around you, you stone God." Ouch and Bingo. These kids are really thinking about this God stuff!! I had the kids scream really loud for the sound the other people heard, and then we talked about how those people hadn't seen what Saul did, and how hard it might be for Saul to explain it to others.

Activity #2: Charades. We sent three kids out of the room, and as a group, came up with a charade. The first child got up, and performed the charade (an elephant swinging from a rope and picking vegetables) for the second child, who in turn, performed it for the third, and down to the last one. We talked about how hard it was for the last child to describe what she saw--especially when it seemed so strange! And there was that point!

Lesson: We read Acts 9:8-9. We talked about a few things here, best summarized:

• One of the reasons Saul might have been the only one to see/hear God is that the people with Saul had letters to arrest any Christians they came across. If they didn't turn and believe in God just like Saul did, they could have arrested Saul. So in a way, God was protecting him.
• God used light because God IS light. People who don't know Jesus are living in darkness, but God called out to Saul, and used his light, to make Saul see how great he is.
• God used light to blind Saul so Saul would have to rely on God, and other people (how hard when you're traveling!)

Activity #3: Before we started the activity, I told the kids the bible verse for the day, which is the last half of 1 Peter 2:9. Then, we cranked up some "Marvelous Light" by Charlie Hall, and I taught the kids the motions. They LOVED this song, especially because of all of the really active motions you can do with it. And it helped them remember the word Marvelous Light, so I was happy with it!

Activity #4: Our trusty-dusty timeline! We did it as a group this time. We made six squares on the piece of paper, and on the back, listed the five parts of the story we thought were most important. Each child drew in one of the squares, and then another child dictated the words to go with it. We had 1) Saul writes letters asking for help to hurt Christians. 2) Saul goes on a journey. 3) Saul gets spoken to by God and asked why he's hurting Him 4) Saul is blinded 5) Saul needs God and other people. Then in the sixth, we wrote the verse for the week. Taped it up to the timeline, and we're good to go.

Bible Verse: Then we worked on learning our bible verse. We did it in a before and after kind of way, where the kids shouted back and forth. One group would shout "HE CALLED US OUT OF DARKNESS" and the other group would shout "AND INTO HIS MARVELOUS LIGHT!" Then they all recited it together. We played a game where we threw the shoe around... We had a child sit in the mushpot, and whenever the shoe was thrown to someone on the outside of the circle, they had to recite the verse. If they recited it correctly, mushpot person would finish it by saying "1 Peter 2:9". If they recited it incorrectly, mushpot person had to say the verse to get out of the mushpot, and they would switch places. It lasted for a bit, but eventually everyone outside of the mushpot knew the verse, and by that time, I've done my job and the game is shot. I had all of the kids line up and individually tell me the bible verse for the week. Flying colors!

This lesson couldn't have been better timed, and I know that was God and not me. The parents all came down just as I was wrapping up (we played Freeze Dance to Marvelous Light and the kids loved it) and their kids were excited, excited!! I was really glad I did the first activity (writing letters) because it helped enforce the God protecting us point at the end of the lesson (which God revealed to me as I was speaking. SO COOL). All in all, great Wednesday night, and the kids LOVED it. Next week we're off for Catalyst, but the following week, we're going to see Ananais.