So when I was in junior high I whent to a youth camp. There was this guy there named Sammy Knuckles. He spoke in a new way I had never heard before. I actauly was able to stay awake for 90 percent of his messages, which was quite an accomplishment for me at that time in my life. I remember I got a chance to spend a weekend with him later on that year at a D-Now event. (for all the baptists out there you know what I'm saying, all the fun of summer camp with twice the preaching all jammed into a weekend.) Again I was able to stay awake (this time for all of his messages).
I remember saying to him that I was amazed that he could do what he did. I had never before seen someone who could relate that well. I told him I wished I could do what he did. He looked at me and he pulled out his bible. He pulled a picture of us from the summer camp out and told me that he kept it there so he would remember to pray for me every day. He told me that someday I would do what he does and he'd look me up and come watch me speak to hundreds of youth about Jesus.
Needless to say. I thought he was a little insane. And I don't have the hundreds yet. But I do have speaking in my near future, both to youth and fellow adults alike. God's grace is really something eh.
I say all this because I have found that It can be quite hard to do what Sammy did, and that is to be relevant. Every pastor in the world today is talking about relevance, but it is something I've only seen mastered by a few.
I think that in most cases relevance can be boiled down to "remembering" . I want to tell a story that I think describes what I mean.
When I was in 5th grade I had a best friend named Ethan. We were best friends. I guess I should say he was "my" best friend. He had some other friends that may of been closer. But being the homeschooled sheltered child I was I didn't have any other friends. Ethan and I would hang out for hours. We would spend the night at each others houses routinely, staying up all night to talk about every facet of life: girls, football, video games, and star wars.
There was one thing however. Ethan was in sixth grade and in our world once you made the leap into the junior high youthgroup, you never looked back to remember the plight of gradeschoolers. I can still remember hanging out in his basement at three in the morning getting him to sign a friendship contract stating that he would not forget about me after passing into the teenage world.
Sometimes I feel as if we as christians can get caught in these same kind of sittuations. I feel as though when we grow, sometimes we can forget where we were. We can become calussed to the ways of our christian youth. We forget that we too, were once young in our faith, merely holding on to the bumper of it all by god's grace. I think that sometimes we either want to be held back a grade (keeping ourselves from growth and change), or we want to forget about what it was like to be young (ignoring that we were once there.)
My friend Mike once told me that to be able to help people with their problems you must be able to tap into the memory that you were once there. You have to keep those emotions on file. So that you can truly be relevant and effective in your help. Not that you should keep your problems around, but do not to quickly forget.
You were once there.
LIVE
LOVE
YHWH
~cortland
I remember saying to him that I was amazed that he could do what he did. I had never before seen someone who could relate that well. I told him I wished I could do what he did. He looked at me and he pulled out his bible. He pulled a picture of us from the summer camp out and told me that he kept it there so he would remember to pray for me every day. He told me that someday I would do what he does and he'd look me up and come watch me speak to hundreds of youth about Jesus.
Needless to say. I thought he was a little insane. And I don't have the hundreds yet. But I do have speaking in my near future, both to youth and fellow adults alike. God's grace is really something eh.
I say all this because I have found that It can be quite hard to do what Sammy did, and that is to be relevant. Every pastor in the world today is talking about relevance, but it is something I've only seen mastered by a few.
I think that in most cases relevance can be boiled down to "remembering" . I want to tell a story that I think describes what I mean.
When I was in 5th grade I had a best friend named Ethan. We were best friends. I guess I should say he was "my" best friend. He had some other friends that may of been closer. But being the homeschooled sheltered child I was I didn't have any other friends. Ethan and I would hang out for hours. We would spend the night at each others houses routinely, staying up all night to talk about every facet of life: girls, football, video games, and star wars.
There was one thing however. Ethan was in sixth grade and in our world once you made the leap into the junior high youthgroup, you never looked back to remember the plight of gradeschoolers. I can still remember hanging out in his basement at three in the morning getting him to sign a friendship contract stating that he would not forget about me after passing into the teenage world.
Sometimes I feel as if we as christians can get caught in these same kind of sittuations. I feel as though when we grow, sometimes we can forget where we were. We can become calussed to the ways of our christian youth. We forget that we too, were once young in our faith, merely holding on to the bumper of it all by god's grace. I think that sometimes we either want to be held back a grade (keeping ourselves from growth and change), or we want to forget about what it was like to be young (ignoring that we were once there.)
My friend Mike once told me that to be able to help people with their problems you must be able to tap into the memory that you were once there. You have to keep those emotions on file. So that you can truly be relevant and effective in your help. Not that you should keep your problems around, but do not to quickly forget.
You were once there.
LIVE
LOVE
YHWH
~cortland
one word
WOW
it's so true...how easily we forget the things of our past.
blog much?