First World Problems

I've been challenged recently about how Christians in the West perceive their problems. When I told people I was going away in Easter, conversation often turned to travel arrangements. I soon realised that I was complaining that it would take me around 5 hours to get to Sheffield via coach. This is absurd, seeing as some people have to walk for hours just to find some clean water. A typical jerry can full of water weighs 40 lbs. Imagine carrying that on your back for an hour.

See more on Know Your Meme

Moaning about our first world problems is not Biblical. The book of Philippians gives us an example of what our attitude should be like:

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:11-13)

We definitely need to learn to be content when well fed and living in plenty. If we can't do that then how can we be content if we were to find ourselves hungry or in poverty? It also is crucially important we are content in plenty when there are people that are genuinely struggling. Not only is it unjust that we have plenty while others do not, but to complain in the face of it is selfish and cruel.

I'd just like to add that while someone may have material wealth, they may not have spiritual or emotional wealth, and therefore may be in true need as well. Mother Teresa once said, "The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted." There may be someone next door to you that appears to have everything except the feeling of acceptance. They, too, are in poverty.

As Christians, I feel that, not only should we not moan when we do have everything, we should seek to meet the poverty in the lives of other people. Micah 6:8 says, "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Whether this is the sharing of our material wealth, or being hospitable and loving, it is a way of showing what God is about. God actually tells us to stop with our religious assemblies and the noise of our songs if we can't get this right:

I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!  (Amos 5:21-24)

So, next time you roll up at a religious assembly and sing your songs, perhaps ask yourself, "Am I doing my bit to let justice roll on like a river and righteousness like a never-failing stream?"

Quick Questions

• What first world problems have you heard? (My favourite one from this website is “I don’t have enough chips for my dip, but if I open another packet of chips, I won’t have enough dip for my chips.”)
• Do you complain too much?
• What seemingly trivial situations really get you riled?
• What websites or resources do you know that could help us in being just, merciful and humble?

Links

• The Water Project: helping people out of poverty through access to clean water
• Kiva: Loans that change the world
• Oxfam Unwrapped: giving gifts that benefit others

Resource Wednesday

Recently I've been posting quite a few videos and they're all coming from one particular site.

It's the Verge Network site. It has really good resources on being a missional community, giving us the why, how and who of proclaiming God's glory on Earth.

There's some really challenging posts, especially in my role as a youth worker. How can I remind the teens that they're meant to be trying to give people the opportunity to know about Jesus? How do I try and x:cell from being a holy huddle? How does Exilio disciple the teens to be counter-cultural but whilst also engaging with those around them?

This site may not provide all the answers, but does definitely prod and poke and encourage reflection and prayer.

The RSS feed of the site appears in my "Elsewhere on the web" side bar (when it hasn't been updated recently, click the "show all"). So if you want to know the latest, then click there.

Quick Questions

1. What resources do you use?
2. What type of resources would you like me to hunt out for you?

Resource Wednesday

Sometimes, the most difficult things about being a youth worker is not the tears, the misbehaviour, the constant noise and mess. It's the questions. You get questions on the reliability of the Bible, eschatology, and how do we know Jesus was real. It's these moments as a youth worker that your heart really sinks. You feel the youth groups eyes on you, you co-leaders are waiting expectantly. You murmur some half-hashed answer and think why aren't there easily accessible resources for these types of questions.

It would be really helpful if there was a apologetics website that contained short, understandable articles, videos and soundbites. Perhaps it would contain articles about suffering, truth and culture, written by people such as Amy Orr-Ewing and Michael Ramsden? But, surely that is just a dream, a youth workers fantasy?

bethinking.org is UCCF's apologetics website. It's crammed full of articles, film reviews, videos of lectures, recordings of talks. It's good for youth workers, as it equips you with answers for those questions. But also, you can refer the teenagers to it and get them to start finding the answers to their questions.

As it's aimed at Christian students, some of the topics may go over the head of your teens. But probably not the ones who think enough to ask those type of questions. So, you can breathe a sigh of relief as you say, "Well, why don't you find the answer yourself. Go to bethinking.org and come back with what you find." Most likely they'll forget your advice and you'll never have to think about it again.

Quick Questions

1. What's your method of sweeping difficult questions under the rug?
2. If you say you'll get back to someone with the answer, do you?
3. What questions do you have? What do you want to know?

Resource Wednesday

The second of the Resource Wednesday series. I'm doing well so far (mainly because I wrote this on the same day as the last one and scheduled it for two weeks time).

This week we'll take a brief look at The Resurgence website. It's a resource bank provided by Mars Hill Church (Seattle) and the Acts 29 network. It has loads of helpful posts about numerous topics, such as mission, being a Godly wife and Dead Guys.

I just love the amount of resources it has and the fact it has new things daily. It's primarily aimed at leaders (the site's motto is "We serve leaders"), but their definition of leaders is quite broad. This can include youth-leaders, leaders within the home or church leaders.

My only criticism is very hard to qualify and happens in only a tiny number of the articles. The site is American, and if you find people like Mark Driscoll grating, you'll probably find some of the articles grate with you too. It's not so much what they are trying to say, but the presentation of it.

It's quite a big site, with a lot of resources but to give you a flavour I'll pick out a small selection:

• 10 Things Submission Is Not
• The Death of the Mushy Middle
• A Disciple Serves Christ and Others

But be warned. Some of the stuff on this site is pretty challenging.

Quick Questions

1. What sites do you use?
2. Did you find the video about the Death of the Mushy Middle encouraging?
3. Have you found any good pages on The Resurgence website?

Resource Wednesday

I tried to a few series in my previous blog. It always ended badly. So, I'm probably going to need a bit of participation from you guys. Therefore, if you know any good online resources please let me know. They could be Bible study tools, sites with good videos or articles about Christianity. Feel free to just point me in a certain direction or write a guest post for me to put up.

I thought I'd start with a bog-standard one: BibleGateway.com. It's always been a really helpful site and you'll often find me on it. I often use it to read commentaries on different passages, to see what the passage is in a different version or just when I can't be bother to reach for my Bible which is probably in my bag next to me. The key to youth-work is efficiency and BibleGateway is a really good way to quickly look up multiple passages, especially when they can be spread across the whole Bible.

BibleGateway, however, was a bit clunky and you sometimes had to go obscure routes to read the commentaries. This is no more, because, as of today, BibleGateway has gone Beta.

New look of BibleGateway.com

Apart from the fact that it just looks cooler, it's also much easier to use. You can set up parallel readings and view the resources for that passage (such as commentaries and dictionaries) along side it. I makes delving and investigating passages a lot simpler and makes it a lot more rewarding. I is an really accessible way to learn about the richness and complexity of the Bible.

But don't let me convince you, let Rachel Barach. Or give it a go yourself.

Quick Questions

1. What do you think of the new look BibleGateway?
2. What internet resources do you use?

The next one will be up in a fortnight.

Not Your Cause, but a King and a Kingdom

How to Kindle Spirit-Fired Christian Life

Good stuff from Mark Driscoll.

Extract from Storylines

I wrote a review of Storylines a couple of weeks ago. Read an extract here.

Youth ministry in the emerging realities

Youth ministry in the emerging realities is an article by Fuzz Kitto. I heard this in Seminar form at Soul Survivor.

ASBO Jesus

I just found this image on ASBO Jesus and I wanted to share it. Click to enlarge.

Jesus is a friend of mine

This week was quite uneventful. I did go on a roadtrip with my head Pastor and did drink a milkshake I was sure was off. However, we didn't have the roadtrip tunes like last time. Louisa abandoned me this week, so I did a lot of my work at home.

Anyway, I found this.

What more can you want from a music video? A man with flawless skin and perfect teeth, a puppet-like keyboardist and lyrics that include '[Jesus] is like a mountie, he always gets his man'. It's like Calvin meets, oh who am I kidding, I know nothing about modern music. But I did discover that Christian Ska has its own wikipedia page. The best bit of the video, though, has to be at 0:02 seconds. The presenter with the comb-over/toupee has such a scared look on his face. Not surprising.

Questions for you

1. What other Christian music makes you cringe? (Perhaps, this as a suggestion?)
2. What is your favourite worship band/singer (other than Sonseed, of course)?