Dependence

This week I was studying Philippians chapter 2 and thought I would share this verse with all of you:

Philippians 2:13 – ‘For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.’ (NLT)

This is such an encouraging verse to me because there are times when I just don’t feel like following God – I don’t feel like doing what is right.  Deep down I am a selfish, greedy, sinful person…and yet God is at work in me giving me the desire and the power to please him.  God works on me and changes my desires, he gives me the desire to love him and serve him and to use my life for him!  It is a daily act for us to look to God and ask for the power and the desire to deny ourselves and follow him.

This verse encourages me to be dependent on God…to spend time with him in prayer and reading the Word.  The only way that I can please God…the only way that you can please God…the only way our students can please God is through God’s power.  I want to be a follower of Jesus who leads others out of a dependence on him.

Filter Out Philosophy: Guest Post by Eric Mendoza

It’s starting to heat up in Southern California once again, flowers are blooming and kids are emerging from the bedrooms and venturing outside. This time of the year my children pester me to get the pool ready. Complaining that they want to jump in it and that I am taking too long to set it up. I groan and complain because of the grueling process of getting the pool ready. There is so much that needs to be done and it seems to take up a lot of time. The first thing I have to focus on to start cleaning my pool is the filter it is covered in leaves, debris, and other things I can’t describe. It’s hard to describe how much debris is stuck in the filter. Our minds are just like my filter, absorbing knowledge and philosophy from all walks of life.

I just finished a course in Christian Education, it made me realize how our minds are just like this filter. There is tons of information we are fed each and every day, different philosophy and beliefs. We try to filter it accordingly, but somehow we are able to retain so much information. The dynamic of youth ministry is chaotic, we teach to kids who have two God fearing parents that love the Lord and their children. We also teach to students who have a terrible home life, living in broken homes and go home to a place that is unloving and worse then the world around them. As youth directors and pastors we have to help them filter all the information that is fed to them daily. Don’t get me wrong there is a lot of information that is necessary for them to absorb, at the same time a lot is fed to them that should be filtered out. It’s so critical for us as teachers and mentors to teach them the about God. How do we do that? Everyone will have their opinions on how to do this. I will communicate what God has to say on these matters.

Students will become like their teacher. God has given each one of us the privilege to share the word of God with young minds. Do we do and say what we teach? The biggest impact we can have on a student is our actions. When we share the word of God and teach students to walk according His word. We should be modeling this. If we don’t do what we teach, the student will never do as we teach. Around Christmas time we participate in operation Christmas Child, this past year I was planning not to attend the event, because of schedule conflicts. A number of students asked me why I wasn’t going, and to my amazement we only had a few students participating. I asked around to other students and one student who is very open and honest with me told me the reason. Some of the students saw that if it was not important to me, then they didn’t need to attend. I changed my plans and decided to participate in the event. An outpour of students followed and it turned out to be a huge success. I know we can’t do everything all the time, I am just trying to point out that the students look to us for guidance and instruction. We receive our instruction from the Lord and that should be filtered to the students.

Ministry is all about relationships. We should strive to have strong relationships with our students. This is so essential to the spiritual growth of the student. In order to share with students, they have to be able to trust us and be willing to open up. If you attempt to help students out without having a relationship with them, they will not filter the information correctly and our delivery may be off putting to some students. There was this girl that I knew was struggling with a few problems, without knowing her or understanding her, I attempted to help. That set me back a few months, I realized I had come on too strong and didn’t take the time to establish a relationship. Fast forward about six months, we now have a great relationship and now comes to me with questions and concerns. Because of this relationship I am now able to help her in her walk with Christ. I didn’t know that I had hindered this relationship at first until I gained her trust. Our ministry will be effective by the relationships we have. We gain the trust of our students which enables them to share that trust with their friends and help their friends come to know Christ.

These two simple points that I strived to bring to light will help us in getting closer with our students to help them decipher from the philosophies they are being taught in school and the truth that is in the Word. Students will become like their teachers and ministry is all about relationships. Just like cleaning out the pool filter, we must establish that relationship with our students so we can clean out that filter that is clogged full of philosophies of this world. As youth directors and pastors, our job is tough. Trying to help young minds understand the truth, in a world that is teaching that there is no truth. As I do daily, I will pray for all the youth ministry leaders out there as we face this battle head on.

Eric Mendoza is the High School Ministry Director at Wayside Chapel in Rosamond, CA

 

Winter Camp Video 2

Winter Camp Highlight Video

 

7 Reasons to Pray: guest blog by Brandon Hilstad

Few Christians practice the spiritual discipline of spending quality time in prayer on a daily basis. Although it is the common virtue in all the Bible’s men of God (i.e. Moses, Elijah, Paul, and especially Jesus), Christians fail to acknowledge the importance of prayer and fail to make it a priority in their schedules.  Here are seven reasons to pray.  Not just the quick prayers throughout the day, but also deliberately setting aside time at the beginning of the day to find some lonely place, like Daniel’s prayer chamber, where you can be alone with your God and give him your uncontested attention.

1. Prayer is sin repellant.

The more you pray the less you sin, it’s that simple.  Conversely, I would say the opposite is true as well.  The less you pray the more you sin, and the more you sin the less you pray.  This is a handcuffing cycle that I’m convinced Satan enjoys.  Ironically, sin that hasn’t been dealt with is often what keeps you from praying. We often shy from the remedy because we are ashamed of the disease.  You and I must remember 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  Fight sin with prayer.

2.Prayer open’s our eyes to God’s providence.

Jesus taught us to ask the Father to provide our physical needs each day with, “Give us this day our daily bread.”  We all know you aren’t going to miss a meal or immediately become homeless if you fail to pray this prayer.  God provides for his children based on his faithfulness, not our own.  However, if we do not supplicate him we are bound to experience two setbacks in our lives.  First, there may be provision that he chooses to withhold simply because we did not ask.  Second, we will inevitably become ungrateful because we will fail to see his involvement in meeting our needs.  When we ask and receive, we see his hand at work.  When we receive without asking, we are unlikely to acknowledge him.  God wants you to see that he provides for you like a loving parent with his child.  Prayer opens your eyes to his provision.

3.Prayer perpetuates faith, relationship, and dependance.

All toddlers must be taught to ask.  We’ve all seen a toddler pointing at, staring at, or reaching for something they want, and then we’ve seen their parent come alongside that child and ask, “What do you want?” We all know that parent knows exactly what their child wants; not only can they see the child straining for the object, but they know their child very well.  The toddler learns three things through the act of vocalizing his desire: he depends on his parent for everything, he can trust his parent in the future, and he has a relationship with a parent who wants to have a relationship with him.

God is that parent and we are that toddler.  We reach, grunt, and strain for what we need, while the Father bends down and lovingly says to his daughter, “What do you need, sweetheart?”  Or to his son, “How can I help you out, buddy?”  He knows what you and I need.  He simply wants us to realize how much we depend on him, trust him more and more, and he wants our relationship to grow healthier and more intimate.  As we ask him to provide for us, and then we see him provide, we learn to trust him, depend on him, and have a relationship with him.

4.Prayer moves spiritual mountains.

James 5:16 in the KJV says, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”  This is a powerful way of saying, “When men and women of God pray, awesome things happen.”  Many of us don’t believe this because we do not see the evidence.  Ephesians 6:12 explains that the real battle isn’t against anything in the natural realm, but it’s against “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”  If our eyes were opened to this fact, as was the case with the servant of Elisha (cf. 2 Kings 6:17), we’d certainly become more fervent and wholehearted in our prayer life.  When you feel lackadaisical in your prayer life, remember that battles are being fought and won in the heavens, chains of darkness are being broken and removed from the imprisoned, lives are being saved, the lost are being found, and spiritual mountains are being moved.

5.Prayer changes our heart toward others.

It is hard to carry a grudge against someone you are praying for.  The Holy Spirit has a way of changing the way we look at others when we pray for them.  Ask God to help you forgive someone and he will begin to cultivate forgiveness in you.  If a person repulses you, ask God to help you love that person and you’ll begin to see them differently.  God likes to use difficult people in your life to help you learn how to love more unconditionally.  It is often through prayer, as we hear the words coming out of our mouths, that God causes us to realize our own contribution to the relationship.  We begin to say, “God, change them.”  However, we find ourselves saying, “God, change me.”  Through prayer, by allowing you to see the person you are praying for through his eyes, God will change your heart toward that person.

6.Prayer changes our heart toward our circumstances.

The world is a violent sea that will occasionally toss and thrash the little ship that is your life.  Through prayer, God changes how you view the storm. Through prayer your desires morph from, “God, please make it stop” into, “God, make me strong enough to make it through this.”  Weathering the storm perfects your character. God uses storms to shape you.  This is a huge part of sanctification; our being conformed into the image of his Son.  Trials and temptations are an opportunity to worship God and become more like Jesus.  Prayer aligns your heart with what God is trying to get out of you through the hard time.  Prayer enables you to, “Count it all joy…” Read James 1:2-3, for the rest.

7.Prayer gives us the mind of Christ.

Through prayer God imparts to us the mind of Christ.  When we pray God shapes our thoughts, desires, hearts, vision, and most importantly our will, to his.  Prayer is about us allowing God to sync our hearts up with his own, not the opposite.  In fact, we are so different from God that we can’t even pray right without his help.  “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.  And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (Romans 8:26-27)  John Calvin [1] said it this way, “Therefore, to assist us in this imbecility, God gives us the Spirit, to be the director of our prayers, to suggest what is right, and regulate our affections.”  Thus, when you pray, the Spirit leads, guides, and shapes you, all the while he is interceding for you (No wonder Jesus referred to him as our Helper).  BUT, the less you pray, the less mindful you will be of the things of God.  This lead Peter to receiving the stern rebuke from Jesus, “Get thee behind me Satan, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but of the things of man.” (Mark 8:33) A prayerless person will never learn God’s truth, but when you pray, God will give you the mind of Christ.

Real prayer isn’t heartlessly reciting prayer out of obligation or mindlessly tossing out prayer in passing.  Real prayer is facing God honestly with those deep things our heart and soul are wrestling with.  Prayer should be both inspired and guided by both Scripture and the Holy Spirit.  Prayer doesn’t just happen, you have to make it happen.  Satan doesn’t care how much you read about prayer, as long as he can keep you from praying.  God on the other hand, wants you to be more than a person who prays, he wants you to be a man of prayer.  Are you? Set time aside every morning to pray because this is what the short prayers throughout the day draw their power from.  Prayer is the most important thing you can do.  Pray.

“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” (John 15:7-8)

[1] John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book III, Ch. XX, Par. V

Brandon Hilstad is the pastor at Canyon Community Church in Chula Vista, CA

Effective Teaching: Guest Post by Daniel Tai

The true sermon is a thing of life.  The sermon grows because the man grows.  The sermon is forceful because the man is forceful.  The sermon is holy because the man is holy.  The sermon is full of the divine unction because the man is full of the divine unction.”[1] – E.M. Bounds

Did they understand what I just talked about?  Was she texting or taking notes on her phone?  Was he reading the Bible or resting his head?  Was all the time I spent preparing for this message worth it?  Those are questions I ask myself every time I finish talking to our group.  I’ve spent hours crafting how I could effectively deliver God’s message to them.  I knew where the punch lines were and how the passage relates and applies to their daily lives yet I still walk away wondering how effective the message was.

I then wondered, what makes other great speakers and pastors so effective that people keep talking about their message after they’re done.  One of the most effective pastors in communicating God’s word that I have come to highly respect is Francis Chan.  I heard his talk about the pastorate once on an audio and he shared that if pastors truly believed in the power of prayer, there wouldn’t be anything else we would want to do.  When we look at the giants of our faith, they all spent an average of 2-4 hours with God every day!  Luther, Wesley, Spurgeon, Tozer, Francis Chan, Sam Boone…  There was nothing else better that they wanted to do than to just pray and spend time with God.  Our effectiveness equals the time we spend with God.

We’re taught in Bible school and seminary to guard our ministries and our lives and it was assumed that we would guard our prayer lives.  We’ve set boundaries to make sure we don’t fall into sin that would disqualify us from ministry but what about our boundaries to our devotional lives?  When was the last time we even heard about a pastor who was relieved due to his lack of prayer?  Yet it is ironic that the first sign of an unhealthy pastor is a lack of intimacy with God.[2]  Ineffectiveness equals the time we don’t spend with God.

Spending quality time with God cannot be a luxury but a necessity in our lives.  You might be wondering as I am, ‘if we were to spend 2-4 hours a day with God, how would we get anything done?’  We need to setup the next fundraiser, make sure the curriculum is out, have emails responded to, squeeze time in to study for a message, etc…  Yet we’re reminded in the same word we’ve shared with our students “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”[3]  Rather than wondering how we’re going to finish all our work, we need to wonder how we could even finish God’s work without spending time with God.

I’m not sharing as someone who has figured this out but as someone who knows what I need to do and to just do it.  I say I want to see God change lives.  I say I want to see the lost commit their lives to Christ.  I can say a lot of things but what matters most is not what I say but how much I pray.

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            [1] E.M. Bounds. Power through prayer. (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2006). 104-105.

            [2] “Lack of intimacy is the biggest factor for ministry burnout and failure.” Michael Todd Wilson and Brad Hoffmann. Preventing Ministry Failure.. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2007). 10.

            [3] Matthew 6:33 ESV.

 

Daniel Tai is the English Pastor at Livingstone Alliance Church in Hacienda Heights, CA

Honest Evaluation

One of the most difficult things for me to do is to HONESTLY evaluate myself.  It is easy to focus on the good things I have done and ignore or hide the things that weren’t so good.  Honest evaluation is a difficult and sometimes painful process, but if we truly desire to grow (and not continue to make the same mistakes) then it is a process that we must put ourselves through.  Here are a 5 ideas of how we can evaluate ourselves in ministry:

1.  Find some trusted people who can speak truth into your life

When I find someone to help me evaluate events I have put on, messages I have delivered, or even my personal life it is very important that I find people who I trust and respect.  If I am going to listen to these people then I must be selective in who I choose.  For me these people have been close friends, mentors, my wife, co-workers who know me well, or other people who I know care about me.

2.  Give these trusted people freedom to speak truth into your life

If I am going to have someone evaluate me, and I want an honest opinion, sometimes I need to give them permission to speak frankly.  For some friends they know that they have that place in my life…for other people I need to verbally give them permission.  I need to tell them what I am looking for; usually it is honesty – I want to know what was good that I need to keep on doing and what I did poorly that I need to change.

3.  Be humble…not defensive

One of the most difficult things for me to hear is that I didn’t do something well.  Even if I knew I gave a really bad sermon, it hurts to hear someone else verbalize that.  If I am going to ask someone else to evaluate me then I must be willing to receive their criticism.  I don’t need to explain why I didn’t do a good job or make excuses…I just need to receive the good with the bad.  If you are defensive when people share with you, chances are that they won’t share honestly with you anymore.

4.  Find specific things that were done well and specific things that need work

When evaluating (whether by yourself or with others) it is important to be specific.  Vague generalities don’t really help you or others out very much.  For example:

“your message was really great…that illustration about ______ really helped understand God’s love for me”

“It seemed like you weren’t quite prepared…you kept looking through your notes trying to find something”

The more specific you can be the better.

5.  How do I go forward and do this better next time?

It is not enough to just ‘say’ what you did well or what you need to work on, but you need to create an action plan.  It is important to identify what I will do differently next time: again, be specific.

- next time I plan an event I need to recruit a team of 3 people to help set up so I don’t have to do everything by myself

- I need to practice not moving around so much when I am teaching…it is distracting

- I need to plan my lessons out 1 month in advance so that I have time to think about them so I can be more creative in my planning and preparation.

Are there other evaluation ideas that have worked well in your life?

Youth Pastor Retreat: 2012

SAVE THE DATE 

September 24 – 26, 2012

At Rancho Las Palmas Resort

 

September 24-26, 2012       No Cost

Rancho Las Palmas Resort and Spa/   41000 Bob Hope Drive /  Rancho Mirage, CA 92270

This 3 day retreat is an opportunity for our district youth pastors/leaders
to be refreshed and encouraged.  We know you put so much time and energy into ministering to your students and we want to provide an environment where you can be ministered to.

Due to space limitations we are allowing each church to send ONLY ONE lead youth worker or pastor [and his or her spouse  (this is not a marriage retreat - you don't need to be married, but spouses are very welcome)].

Includes: 2 nights at Rancho Las Palmas Resort and four meals (3 Tuesday and breakfast on Wednesday).  You will be responsible for dinner on Monday.  The SPD is covering the cost because we truly want to invest in our youth pastors.

Registration will open soon!

Personal Prayer Retreat

A few years ago (after hearing a pastor talk about getting away to be with God) I started getting away a couple times a year just to pray, refocus, and seek God’s direction for my life and for my ministry.  I usually take a couple days to go away and just be with God…typically, I go camping at the beach.  I don’t take students, I don’t take my family, I don’t take work to do…I leave everything for the sake of seeking God.  These are some of the most refreshing and productive times that I have each year…not only that, but it is time that I am getting clear direction from God.

Recently I was able to listen to Paul Becker at one of the Southwest Church Planting Forums (which are really good if you haven’t been to one before).  Anyway, at the forum Paul Becker was sharing about how to take a personal prayer retreat.  His message was very practical and very good…and he had a booklet on how to take a prayer retreat (I put a link to his booklet below)!  If you have never taken a prayer retreat before I would strongly encourage you to set aside some time for one.

Here is the link to having a personal prayer retreat: personal prayer retreat

TROUGH: Guest Blog by Chris Robbins

TROUGH

“I’m telling you brother, when I saw the flyers, I told everyone that you guys were coming! You guys get it. I mean it. You help and do so much, it’s awesome.”

This was the fourth time that Steve had approached me that afternoon in his excitement over our helping with the homeless and poor at the park. Steve, already a stalwart supporter of our little group, is one of our new brothers that we have come to love and appreciate in our ministry to the poor and oppressed in Victorville.

They live in a dry river bed.

Some are addicts and alcoholics.

Some are veterans, down on their luck and forgotten.

Some are mentally ill with no family and no help, lost in a hard world.

All very small people in a Large world within a huge problem. As complex as war and famine and as simple as selfishness and eating from a tree in a perfect garden because we “can.”

Individually small. Together impossibly huge.

It’s overwhelming.

My little group and I have experienced great frustration over the last year in this huge issue, with these small people, in this little park by the dry river.

We had the compassion, we saw the need, and had the desire.

But it’s so huge, and we’re so small.

This is when I thought of Matthew 14.

Jesus not only sees the multitudes, but they are hungry.

Individually small. Together impossibly huge.

The disciples as well see this but practically respond as most of us would, ” Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”

Practical, logical, and normal.

Yet when does Jesus ever respond to the needs of His people with, “Practical, logical, and normal.”

He then says something in Matthew 14 which I love:

¹⁶ Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

Individually small. Together impossibly huge.

I don’t know how the disciples responded but if I had a guess it would be that of spontaneous and nervous laughter. If it were today the disciples probably would have responded with, “LOL Jesus!”

Practically speaking there’s over 25,000 men, women, and children there! Philip in John 6 says this in the weight of the burden that Jesus is seeming to hand them, ”  ⁷“It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”

“LOL Jesus! You can’t be serious.”

We looked at the 50 or so homeless and poor living in the dry river bed, and the 100 or so others living around the corner and felt the same burden.

The addiction, the oppression, the anger, the lost-ness, , the loneliness, the smell, the pain, the hurt, and the hunger.

Yet Jesus does something amazing. He takes a kids lunch, five loaves of bread and two fish.

Stale bread. Stinky fish.

Sometimes stale small faith. Sometimes stinky followers.

Jesus takes the little lunch, blesses it, and makes a feast.

“Chortazo” is the word used for the effects of the feast. The word was used for an animal who is into the feed trough head submerged, or a horse in the feed bucket. It means foddered up; they ate as much as they wanted and were all stuffed.

Our stale small faith had been multiplied into a feeding “trough” and it showed.

Fellow Christian workers from other churches I didn’t even know existed. Brothers and sisters in the body of Christ all wanting to give their bread and fish away to the multitudes.

A brother received free bread by the truck load and wanted to give.

Some sisters had clothes and a store front they wanted to help us with.

Another brother had hundreds of 5 gallon buckets to give to our permanent campers who needed to keep their food and clothes in and away from the varmints and moisture.

A group of older sister are knitting and working on warm hats and gloves.

One brother bought diabetes test strips for a diabetic women who was struggling.

A bus ticket was bought to send a brother home to his family in Montana by a group of teenagers.

Jesus saw the crowds and had compassion on them.

You feed them, He tells us.

“OK, Jesus, but this is all we have.”

He blesses it, and we feast with the multitudes.

This is the miracle of “Chortazo.”

God’s trough that is impossibly huge on our own but when He blesses it meets the world one person at a time.

Individually small. Together impossibly huge.

 

By Pastor Chris Robbins

Chris has worked in Youth Ministry for over 15 years and loves it. He is the Student Pastor at HCC in Wrightwood CA. He is passionate about kids and Jesus as well as connecting them to their mission that the Father has for them here in the world that He cared enough to sacrifice His one and only Son for. He enjoys writing and teaching and playing video games with his kids. He has been married for 12 awesome years with his wife Kim and has 4 amazing kids.