This is a great reminder from the student pastors at Newspring Church in Anderson, SC.
The Journey
Driving toward change to reach the next generation
Ministry Poker Face
Before I jump into my thoughts, let me just say this is not a post about advocating poker nights at youth ministry. (fundraiser idea?) Rather this is a serious talk about the things that we are all faced with in ministry…the need for a ministry poker face is something we have all had to deal with. (if you haven’t yet, you soon will.)
It is one of those things your faced with after a weekend service or a great small group conversation…and a student comes up to you and asks to talk. Now something else I’ve observed in all my years of working with students is that if they say they need to talk to you…it’s not usually going to start off good. Seriously, think back to the time you when you were in school how many conversations that started with…”we need to talk!” where good news. (maybe that was just me)
Many times these conversations are a students way of finding out if you really mean it when you say you are hear for them and you care about them. To me this is where the poker face comes in because in the next few minutes you might hear something that is intended to shake you or get a response.
SO WHAT DO YOU DO?
First, you listen…listen to what they have to say to you. DON’T REACT! You listen with a straight face and with an open heart and ears. Secondly, you pray…pray for wisdom. Pray that the Lord will reveal to you the words to speak to this student. Third, take a step back…step back and review in your mind the history of all the cumulative conversations that you have had with students over your time working with them whether a volunteer or paid staff. Your experience has taught you some lessons, WHAT WERE THOSE. Fourth, discern…discern if what they are telling you is something that is meant to get attention or if there is really a need that requires your help.
Not always but sometimes students just want someone to respond to them or they want to see what kind of reaction they can get out of an adult. So if we have our poker face on, we might defuse the situation before it goes anywhere.
If you feel the situation does need some attention, stay calm, reach out to your direct supervisor for some direction and support. Don’t go into these situations alone. Teenagers are amazing people who just don’t totally understand how to get proper attention from adults so they sometimes think any attention is better than none…but if we respond calmly they will begin to realize not all adults are scared by a teenagers world, and they will start to trust more of us.
FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT WORK WITH STUDENTS, THANK YOU!!!!
Through the Window: Readings Psalm 147
He Heals the Brokenhearted
1 Praise the Lord!
For it is good to sing praises to our God;
for it is pleasant,t and a song of praise is fitting.
2 The Lord builds up Jerusalem;
he gathers the outcasts of Israel.
3 He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
4 He determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names.
5 Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
his understanding is beyond measure.
6 The Lord lifts up the humble;t
he casts the wicked to the ground.
7 Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving;
make melody to our God on the lyre!
8 He covers the heavens with clouds;
he prepares rain for the earth;
he makes grass grow on the hills.
9 He gives to the beasts their food,
and to the young ravens that cry.
10 His delight is not in the strength of the horse,
nor his pleasure in the legs of a man,
11 but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him,
in those who hope in his steadfast love.
12 Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem!
Praise your God, O Zion!
13 For he strengthens the bars of your gates;
he blesses your children within you.
14 He makes peace in your borders;
he fills you with the finest of the wheat.
15 He sends out his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.
16 He gives snow like wool;
he scatters hoarfrost like ashes.
17 He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs;
who can stand before his cold?
18 He sends out his word, and melts them;
he makes his wind blow and the waters flow.
19 He declares his word to Jacob,
his statutes and rulest to Israel.
20 He has not dealt thus with any other nation;
they do not know his rules.t
Praise the Lord!
Through the Window: Reading Psalm 139
Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.t
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
19 Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
20 They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain!t
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!t
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!t
Through the window: Reading Psalm 130
My Soul Waits for the Lord
A Song of Ascents.
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
2 O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.
7 O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
8 And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.
Through the Window: Reading Psalm 90
Psalm 90
1 A prayer of Moses the man of God.
Lord, you have been our dwelling place
throughout all generations.
2 Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the whole world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
3 You turn people back to dust,
saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”
4 A thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
5 Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death—
they are like the new grass of the morning:
6 In the morning it springs up new,
but by evening it is dry and withered.
7 We are consumed by your anger
and terrified by your indignation.
8 You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your presence.
9 All our days pass away under your wrath;
we finish our years with a moan.
10 Our days may come to seventy years,
or eighty, if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
11 If only we knew the power of your anger!
Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.
12 Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
13 Relent, Lord! How long will it be?
Have compassion on your servants.
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
for as many years as we have seen trouble.
16 May your deeds be shown to your servants,
your splendor to their children.
17 May the favort of the Lord our God rest on us;
establish the work of our hands for us—
yes, establish the work of our hands.
Through the Window: Reading Psalm 50
Psalm 50
A psalm of Asaph.1 The Mighty One, God, the Lord,
speaks and summons the earth
from the rising of the sun to where it sets.
2 From Zion, perfect in beauty,
God shines forth.
3 Our God comes
and will not be silent;
a fire devours before him,
and around him a tempest rages.
4 He summons the heavens above,
and the earth, that he may judge his people:
5 ”Gather to me this consecrated people,
who made a covenant with me by sacrifice.”
6 And the heavens proclaim his righteousness,
for he is a God of justice.t t
7 ”Listen, my people, and I will speak;
I will testify against you, Israel:
I am God, your God.
8 I bring no charges against you concerning your sacrifices
or concerning your burnt offerings, which are ever before me.
9 I have no need of a bull from your stall
or of goats from your pens,
10 for every animal of the forest is mine,
and the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know every bird in the mountains,
and the insects in the fields are mine.
12 If I were hungry I would not tell you,
for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?
14 ”Sacrifice thank offerings to God,
fulfill your vows to the Most High,
15 and call on me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you will honor me.”
16 But to the wicked person, God says:
“What right have you to recite my laws
or take my covenant on your lips?
17 You hate my instruction
and cast my words behind you.
18 When you see a thief, you join with him;
you throw in your lot with adulterers.
19 You use your mouth for evil
and harness your tongue to deceit.
20 You sit and testify against your brother
and slander your own mother’s son.
21 When you did these things and I kept silent,
you thought I was exactlyt like you.
But I now arraign you
and set my accusations before you.
22 ”Consider this, you who forget God,
or I will tear you to pieces, with no one to rescue you:
23 Those who sacrifice thank offerings honor me,
and to the blamelesst I will show my salvation.”
Through the Window: Readings PSalm 43
Psalm 43
1 Vindicate me, my God,
and plead my cause
against an unfaithful nation.
Rescue me from those who are
deceitful and wicked.
2 You are God my stronghold.
Why have you rejected me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?
3 Send me your light and your faithful care,
let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy mountain,
to the place where you dwell.
4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God, my joy and my delight.
I will praise you with the lyre,
O God, my God.
5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
Through the Window Series: REFLECTIONS
The Psalms represent a facet of worship that connects us to community and gives us a lens through which to understand our own feelings as well as the feelings of other God-followers—both past and present.
Sometimes when we read the Psalms, we don’t feel like we can relate to what we are reading. Other times, we can pick up the Bible, open up to the Psalms and feel like we can say with the Psalmist, “Here my prayer, Oh Lord!” In this exercise, you are invited to respond to the Psalms in a very personal way. Over the course of the next two weeks, you are going to respond to six different Psalms, but not in a research paper, school-answer sort of way. As you read each Psalm, you are going to respond by writing a reflection about how that Psalm made you feel and whether or not you can identify with what the Psalmist is writing. As well, you have an opportunity to get creative and write your own Psalm—a creative piece to try to put yourself in the shoes of the Psalmist. You can write a poem, a song, an acrostic—any form of writing to try to capture what the Psalmist is saying and put those feelings into your own words and your own life experience. How are you frustrated? How are you celebrating? How are you crying out? If you don’t want to write a creative piece, you can just respond to the Psalms by writing a brief statement about your reaction to each Psalm. As you write, remember that others are going to read what you write as well, so be thoughtful and have fun reading other student’s writing and experiencing the community of the Psalms.
Orange Tour Insights pt. 2
What is the target that you are aiming at???? When i was working in the “secular” world, the company I was with had a saying, it was READY, FIRE, AIM. Now let me be clear this was not how they did business, this was a statement of failing to plan. You would often hear it if the project someone was working on hit a snag.
Ok, so why do I bring this up? Well because as I was sitting in the meeting at the Orange Tour…it dawned on me that sometimes we fire before we aim when it comes to things in church. Meaning that sometimes we allow things to creep in that are not necessarily bad, but they aren’t part of the core vision for our church or specific ministry.
Andy Stanley, in his book Making Vision Stick makes the point (that i fully agree with) that those of us in leadership have been touting a erroneous paradigm, and that is when people come to us and state their idea of something that should be happening in the church, historically the response we’ve been conditioned to give is “that’s a great idea why don’t you run with it.” WRONG ANSWER…. I know what you’re thinking, how can that be wrong it is empowering people to get involved in ministry.
While on the surface that might be true, what it is really doing is diluting the vision God has given us for our churches or ministry. Our job is to equip believers for the work of service. I believe that is not just with tasks to do, but rather to equip them with a vision so compelling, so big, so GOD SIZED that they can’t help but want to get involved.
To do this with focus, might mean that there are things in our churches or ministries that need to change….or be laid to rest. Usually these things started as great ideas and were at one time valuable if not even vital to the mission… but things can’t stay the same forever.
