2 steps forward, a nasty shove backward.

In general, I am the type of person who has a pretty optimistic personality. I root for the underdog, shoot for the stars, believe anything is possible. Nothing really gets me down, or so I thought. today I was milling around on one of my favorite Youth Ministry websites when I came across an arcticle about the 2009 MTV Movie awards. Now, this is where my natural tendency toward optimism turned into defeat and frustration. Give this a read.

"MTV is bringing out the big guns this year. Andy Samberg, one of Gen Y's favorite personas from Saturday Night Live, will be hosting the event. Samberg is the guy who brought us those wonderful toe-tappin' tunes like "D--k in a Box" and "J--z in My Pants," (which was one of the top music videos on iTunes when it was released), and the most recent digital short featuring Justin Timberlake which has the chorus, "We should f*** each other's mother".........
What's in store for this year? Who knows? The only prediction I am willing to make is that the show will draw in several million teenage viewers. So, if you want to know what teenagers are watching these days and who they're listening to, say a prayer, and turn on MTV this Sunday night. "

Did you hear yourself read that last paragraph? It said that millions of teens are going to watch. My deepest fear and what I believe to be reality is that what our teens are watching is a visual, verbal, and physical message of what adults in today's society expect of our teens as they enter into adulthood. It's the "gospel" of the today's world, the standard by which to live. This stuff kills me. It makes me feel as though my efforts to reach a generation in the name of Jesus are simply specks of nothingness compared the powerful message of the MTV promoting, foul language engaging, sexually explicit showing bunch of adults who do not realize what they are teaching the youth of today, and the adults of tomorrow. I mean, one of the categories for the MTV Movie Awards is "best WTF Moment", (WTF standing for What the F***). Give me a break.

Many people would read my article and say to me, "Neal, this stuff isn't any different than they are hearing on the playground at school or in the locker room". To that, I would have to agree. But last time I checked MTV is run by adults, not kids in a locker room. But that too would be incorrect, for it looks as though adults will simply bend today's moral standard to mirror the 'locker room' conversations of today's youth. What an unfortunate situation we are in.

So as I take steps to teach today's youth about love and purity, honesty and integrity, self control and morality, it looks like there are others who choose to teach otherwise. What a shove backward. Let's hope that each teen watching on Sunday also has someone in their life taking steps to teach them about living for Jesus.

A long time coming

I can't believe the month of May has slipped by me without the chance to update you on what's going on in my life and ministry. In May we had 2 major events happen that soaked up a bunch of our time and energy. On May 2nd we had our 15 annual Mexico Missions Trip Auction that raised over $14,000 for our Summer trip to Mexico. Each year I take a group of Youth to Mexico through Amor Ministries to build homes for underprivileged families. This year we will be building a double house for a family in Rosarito, Mexico.

On May 6th Emily and I took off for a much needed vacation to the East Coast. Doug Fields, a veteran Youth Pastor once said that in ministry, the only vacation worth taking is a long one. In his experiences of taking short vacations he said he spent the first few days recouping and worrying about everything he left behind, then a few days of relaxation, and then the last few days worrying about what you were going back to. I like his vacationalogy.
For this very reason, Emily and I decided to take a 10 day vacation. We started our trip with 5 days in Washington DC. We were able to visit many awesome sites and really enjoyed the city. We stayed with some family who lived in the suburbs surrounding DC. We then took a 4.5 hour bus ride north to the great New York City. We stayed in a hotel in the heart of Times Square and were even able to see a few shows on Broadway. (Phantom and The Lion King). Above is a picture of Emily and I on the Empire State building. What a view.

After this trip, I realized that breaks from life are really important. We go and we go and we go, and sometimes we don't realize how warn out we are until we remove ourselves from the grind of life. It's no reason why so many of us leave for vacation tired and weary.

Now that we are back, my mind moves toward the activities of the summer time. Summer in Youth Ministry has it's perks, but also has its drawbacks. The perks..? Warm weather, Fun activities, summer camps, rest. The drawbacks...? Sticky and sweaty, have to plan activities, a week in a bunk with a middle schooler...(the list shall stop there). But really, I enjoy summer very much. It brings new life to all things. Relationships, maturity, personal strength, outlook on life. Summer is coming and I am ready.

Swine Flu... Hogwash.

If it wasn't the scare of violoence, behold another hindrance on our path to the promise land.

The closer we get to June 13th, the more seriously I consider our options as a Youth Missions team planning on heading to Mexico. Just this week I became someone who at first said "What's Swine Flu?" to saying "I hate Swine Flu". After all that's transpired in Mexico, you can't help but imagine and believe that something is trying to keep our small group of Christian servants out of Mexico. Out of the place we planned to go. Away from the people we planned to help. Planned to build for. Planned to love.

If you are reading this, I hope you might just do one thing. Pray with me. That's it. Pray. I'm gonna go pray now, since it is 2:13am and God's got me awake for some reason.