It is time for some more madness…
March 10, 2010
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In Memory of Anne Couch
September 21, 2009
I should be going south of here to honor a friend’s passing but I am not going to be able to make it for a whole slew of reasons that aren’t a good enough reason to not be going. But I am not going to be able to make it. So I wanted to take a moment and share with you all what I would have shared to the family of Anne Couch had I been there.
I remember being a 23 year old kid and moving 4 hours south from my home to a small town to be a youth pastor at one of the local Methodist churches. I had never been “in charge” before in my life and I remember being scared, confused, lonely and trying to sort it all out. But in the midst of all that, God was gracious to me and gave me the friendship of Jack and Anne Couch.
Jack and Anne Couch were the bedrock of the youth ministry of the church I was serving. Basically from the time they had moved into town in the late seventies to the time I was there in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Jack and Anne had been shepherds of young people. It came natural to them and it was a deeply ingrained part of their character. Jack and Anne loved kids because they remembered what it was like to be kids and to be loved by caring adults. And it was that faith and call that made it so that when I came to their church and their town that they adopted me. The Couch family basically became my family there in Waycross, along with a few other “uncles” and “aunts.” I was loved for no good reason and I was loved deeper than I ever truly deserved.
I explained it recently to a friend this way- I would not be doing what I am doing today had I not had the friendship, love and encouragement of Jack and Anne at my first church. They let me make mistakes but not crash too low. They let me succeed but helped keep my ego in check. In short, they were what you wanted in true friends. I regret that I have let that friendship lapse and I regret it even more since hearing about the accident that took Anne’s life this past Saturday. The world is a worse place for it.
Here is what we will all miss about Anne Couch:
Her belief in prayer. I was a rookie youth director who thought much of my life and ministry was made and crafted out of my own doing. Anne was an example to remind me that the foundation of all ministry is seeking God and petitioning him. Every Monday night Anne and family invited me over for dinner and then a group of others would come and we would talk about life and pray. I took it for granted and I am disappointed to say that I have never had a group like that since. It did my heart good to know that the group was still meeting as soon as a year ago and I kept thinking I may get a wild urge to run down there and pray with them again. And it wasn’t just corporate prayer. Anne had a sheet of paper in her Bible always. And it was covered with her notes of things that she was praying for. She is the first person I ever saw who took prayer so seriously and I loved the way she always would help us connect the dots to the things we prayed for and the things we saw God do.
Her faith. She truly loved people. The guestbook on her obituary page is full of the tales of people whose lives were touched by Anne. Some were students in that youth ministry. Some were students she served by being a math teacher for 20+ years. Some were neighbors and people from the community. Anne Couch’s faith spoke loudly in just how she loved people. (And believe me, teaching for 20+ years, she knew and had some students that were hard to love! Regardless, it was amazing how many people her faith touched.
Her faithful service. I remember when I got this crazy notion to start a 6:30 AM Bible Study. Nearly everyone thought I was a loon. But Anne and Jack faithfully partnered with me in that study for a couple years, even going to pick up kids at some points. Anne always was willing to help out and do whatever it took. A lot of how I try to serve in other areas of the church is because I remember Anne’s spirit and her partnership in ministry.
Her love of her family. This one is the most important one, both then and now. I will never forget watching how she loved her family. She was proud of the men that Joshua, Jason and Justin had become. She loved to talk about her grandchildren; I remember her being deeply moved one night praying before the first one was born, asking for God to bless her even then. And she loved and loves Jack. I have never seen someone who loved her husband and was committed to him as Anne was to Jack. Their marriage and relationship is one of the things that make them the kind of people that people look up to. I’d do well if I ever marry to marry someone who will love me half as well as Anne loves Jack.
It is a sorrow filled time for those who called Anne “friend.” It hurts in feeling that she was robbed from us too soon, that there was more she had left to offer the world and that we would all be better for it. But I think about how she is in the place that she was made for, that all of our hearts long for. She is with Jesus, the one who gave her every gift she needed in her time here. And I have no doubt when my time has come, she will be there, cheering me on then just as much as she did when we were partners in ministry.
Rest in peace, Anne. You were loved well and you loved well, and I don’t think there is much better that we could say than that!
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Youth miniStarz
August 4, 2009
Shout out to all the people in my tribe. Best part: the awkward side hug. Classic. (ht to Serial Youth Pastor.)
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Youth Minister’s Tip: Creat some Ebenezer’s
July 26, 2009
This fall will mark the beginning of my unlucky number 13th year in full time ministry. Early on in my ministry, I was deeply blessed to have had a mentor who had been involved in youth ministry for 40 years. (My first gig was as a Young Life church partner in south Georgia.) One of the things that my mentor taught me was to save and mark the important moments in your career. He taught me about the idea of having some ebenezers, which comes from a passage in 1 Samuel 7, where Israel marks a spot and calls it Ebenezer, which means “Thus far has the LORD helped us.”
So I have a couple things that serve as ebenezers for me.
The first one is a file of every encouraging letter or note I have ever gotten. It is an amazing thing to pull out and read when I have doubts about what I am doing and if God is using me. I have never made it all the way through the file without deeply tearing up. Included in it are two scrapbooks, one from each of my first two churches.
The second is what I call my Ebenezer wall. Recently I had to move offices and one of the first things I did was to set-up the Ebenezer wall. It is full of pictures from events, of people that have meant a lot of me and, again, it is hard to look at without reminding me of God’s grace and goodness. (And let me make an unashamed plug for 3M’s picture hanging strips, which are amazing and can be removed without damaging walls.)
And lastly is a new one. In making the office move, it allowed me to hang a couple things that are super special that my mom has made for me. If you do youth ministry for as long as I have, you have some youth shirts. Add in my pack rat nature from being a kid and that I have worked the speaker circuit and I have a LOT of t-shirts. My mom took some a few years ago and made me a sweet quilt of them. The last set, it just so worked out that mom was wrapping up around the time of the move and so I turned them into wall hangings. There are a ton of memories that hang there, again, being an ebenezer for me. (The picture at the top of the post is of that wall right now.)
So, if you want to last in ministry, you need some of those reminders of how good God has been. So be thinking about ways to mark your life with some ebenezers. (My last was painting some ceramic picture frames with this summer’s interns, which we can pick up and fill with a picture of us all this week.)
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What is up with me…
June 8, 2009
So, been awhile since I posted much of anything. So, here is a rough list of my life lately.
1. Just got back from a week long Summer Tour with our church’s youth choir and some other students. It was a good week and I definitely took away some lessons that I will learn for the future, near and long range. Highlight (?): After admonishing the students to drink water and not to dehydrate, I didn’t drink water and dehydrated. Major face plant when I passed out. It feels pretty foolish to be laying on the ground and having people wondering if you are dying, when the truth is you just didn’t drink enough water the day before. (The face wounds and damaged teeth are in the picture.)
2. Great summer interns. Excited about pouring into them. We taught from the parables all last week and it left me very pumped up. Excited about the weeks to come.
3. Thinking through some lessons. I am guest speaking at a River of Life event (Dallas, GA, July 8-12) and then in Minnesota with my awesome Pyro II friends in August. Both are awesome opportunities and God is slowly revealing to me some of the things that I am called to share. My prayer preparation has been focused and simple: God use me to show people what You want them to know. Going to be some challenging stuff I think. (And my new pastor seems to be encouraging to let me travel some more to speak and share with others.)
4. Transistion is going on at the church. Our current two pastors are down to 2 weeks left and then our new senior pastor arrives. It is challenging for sure. (In three years, I will have served with 5 pastors at this church). But I do feel like we are getting to a place where God is going to show Himself to us in some major ways. I am excited about the possibilities.
5. Heart broken for an acquiantance. The pain he is facing and the situation he is facing is unimagineably hard and, unfortunately, it happened in a very public way both locally and via the internet. I am committed to praying for him every day, at least twice.
6. Gearing up for an office move inside the church. Going to do a massive book purge I think to try and gain enough to buy a Kindle. I love me some books and learning but the space it is taking is way big. Shrinking to a small thing I can carry around makes way more sense. Plus going to pass on some of the books to the interns, past and present. Share the love that I have been blessed with.
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Going After the Last One on the List
April 28, 2009
In my ministry situation, each spring we have a confirmation class for middle school students, which means 95% of the kids involved in it are sixth graders. (Pros and cons abound on that situation and deserve a separate post later.) But in making the list, the children’s minister and I sit down and walk through the list of students in that age group and start working. It is a difficult task at times because we are contacting families who have moved away from the church, sometimes to the point of not even being Christmas and Easter attenders. Cold calls aren’t my favorite part of the gig at all. But you do it. And here is why.
The last kid on the target list this year was an afterthought. A “Oh yeah, I guess we should maybe try and touch base with them” kind of situation. Not been seen or heard from in a long time. But I sucked it up and reached out (The family hadn’t attended more than 3 times in my 3 years here at the church). And as these calls go, you never know. I left the conversation feeling like maybe I was getting the proverbial stiff arm and platitudes to keep me at bay. In short, when the class started I didn’t expect the kid to show. But he did. And he asked lots of questions, expressed some doubts and basically was as open and honest a seeker as I had seen in a long time. Two weeks in, we do a lesson on the Bible and, recognizing that nearly all the kids in Confirmation haven’t engaged in the Bible very much, we give them a copy of the One Minute Bible. (If I was an uber-popular blogger, I bet I could wrangle a coupon code. But I am not. Which is your fault for not telling your friends.) And we challenge them to jump in.
So the last kid on the list, he does. Jumps in with all his heart. He doesn’t miss a day. Just one day shows up at youth group, which is different day from Confirmation. And hasn’t missed a day of youth since. So flash forward to youth last Wednesday night and we are teaching a series called “Big Time Basics” and the lesson is on the Bible. We do some fun mixers and get kids to Agree or Disagree with some statements about the Bible. We do some dialogue about what it means and suddenly the last kid gives a 5 minute deal on what the challenge of reading the Bible every day has meant to him and how much he has grown and how other people should take that challenge. It is strong stuff, full of real truth and emotion. We wrap up youth.
And the normal line of people that want to talk is way longer than normal. (The usual stuff is turning in forms, reminding me of a game or the occasional deeper talk.) A high schooler at the front of the line asks if we have more of those Bible and turns out, most the line is there for that. So we give them away, all we had.
The last kid. The one I almost didn’t call. The one that I was okay with being a lost sheep, suddenly, he is the one being a shepherd and leading the flock. You never know. So that is why you make those calls. Because the last kid, they matter to God and sometimes He has to remind you of that. And I am so thankful that He does.
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What’s Going On?
April 24, 2009
So, been quiet on here for a good bit. Some updates:
1. The church I serve in is undergoing another full pastoral swap this June. For those keeping score at home, this means I will be working with my fifth ordained elder in under 3 years. The change is happening in part because of a change in staffing, as we are moving from two pastors to one pastor. The higher ups thinking seems to be it is easier to move both the current pastors and send in someone new. So, that all is going down right now and has spawned some serious thinking about the flaws of the current United Methodist Church “sent” pastors model and how I would change it. Watch for a post about that soon.
2. I’d be honest is I didn’t say I was starting to question my long term loyalty to the United Methodist Church. After witnessing what I have seen in my last two churches, along with some experiences that my friends are going through, being a faithful part of the “system” is much harder. All along I have generally defined myself in these theological terms in order: Follower of Jesus, evangelical, Wesleyan and then United Methodist. With some of the brokenness in the Methodist church, it is harder and harder not to discount what is happening in determining where I serve.
3. Learning more and more about myself and how I relate to folks. This week marked some serious tension in a staff situation at the church. It frustrated the crud out of me because in some part, I think I am being seen as the bad guy for intitating a conversation that several other people agree with me on. And the default mode at the church is to not talk about and work through major issues, but instead to ignore it and hope it goes away; or maybe even more accurately, ignore it until they go away. That kind of long term dysfunction makes me deeply sad, as it hurts hearts and lives way worse than being honest, open and dealing with it directly. You may not want to pull the band-aid off but sometimes you have to clean the wound.
I guess those are some of my thoughts this week. We are heading into the 30 Hour Famine this weekend; our crowd is way down but I am still very excited about it. We are also playing host to some folks from Georgia too, so that is going to be a cool added element. I do know, I am ready for summer and the two very capable interns we hired to come partner alongside me. Lots of work to do heading into the summer and preparing for next year.
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One day I want to be on a staff cool enough to do this:
April 23, 2009
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The Ebenezer Moments
March 19, 2009
For me, my career in youth ministry is marked by moments.
What I mean by that is while I truly believe the day-to-day, life-on-life stuff matters deeply in youth ministry, the key cornerstone moments where you see God move are the ones that you remember and keep you in the game. Last night was one of those special moments.
This week, a young man from a local school ended his own life. Some of the students in our youth group knew him and his younger siblings. There was a part of me that wanted to talk about it and minister directly about it. But I am also one that is very cautious about not wanting to prey on people’s emotions just to get a reaction. (Too many times of summer camp where success = crying middle school girls.)
In the end, I decided to talk about directly with kids, to affirm that whatever they were feeling was okay and that if they ever needed someone to talk to, the adults on the youth ministry team would always be there to support them. Some of the other adults chimed in and expressed the same. Then, we watched the Nooma video entitled “Matthew.” If you have seen it, it is pretty powerful under normal circumstances. Under the current situation, it was particularly poignant and moving. I wrestled with using it or not because I knew that it could produce some powerful emotionally driven time. But in the end, the message of it was too powerful to not use it. The video definitely was used by God and some hearts were deeply touched as they wrestled with the emotions that they had over this situation and others where there was grief people had been carrying.
We closed with a time of sitting together in silence and later worship with the Matt Redman song “Blessed Be Your Name.” It was as powerful a point of worship and ministry as we have had since starting my time at this church. I was so thankful that God took over and made Himself known and the way the adults of our group are truly trying to be God’s arms of love to kids. It was deeply moving.
In closing, my prayer has been “Not one more, God.” May God so move the hearts of his people so that all kids are loved, cared for and have a place to turn when the darkness of depression begins to overwhelm them. My heart breaks for this family and the hurt that they will carry with them. May no one else ever have to feel it again. May it be so, Lord, may it be so.
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