In Luke 9:57-62 Jesus shares the cost of following him.  There are 3 men with three distinct excuses.  He concludes the teaching by saying “No one who puts his hands to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”  When God reveals to you or me an opportunity to serve what is our knee jerk reaction?  Is it “Here am I Lord, send me!” or “yeah but I have to do _________.”  If we are going to walk out compassion in our lives we must build margin in our calendars.

If you are pegged to the red (even with good things) on your agenda with no room for Holy Interruptions then you are unfit for the service in the kingdom of God.  Busy does not equal productive.  Before you pan me for preaching, I am talking to myself in this blog and I am working to correct this sin.  I schedule everything, including my margin…so that I know where my time goes every day.  This blog is able to be written because I allotted time for margin.

Hear my balance, I deplore lazy ministers who spend ALL their time seeking and planning without DOING anything.  Our salaries are paid by the tithes of our faithful members and I take nothing more seriously.  However, we need to work more efficiently and we need to schedule margin in our day.  That margin can be for Holy interruptions and if one doesn’t arise (even though they always do) you can always fill it with planning for you next series, researching to make you message better or even a time to spend in prayer.

It is a cliche but you have to control your calendar or your calendar will control you.

I pray that you develop the compassionate calendar.

I am looking for a Youth Ministry Intern who is preferably a college student and interested in entering Youth Ministry.  This position has flexible hours except Wednesdays and weekends.  It is paid but it is intern money not staff money.  The intern needs to have a love for Jesus, a hunger to see teens come to Jesus and a desire to learn.  Funny is a plus too, it goes a long way with me.  As a youth ministry veteran of 17 years I wish I would have begun serving as an intern in a large ministry as opposed to having my “own” group in a smaller setting.  If you are interested contact me with a resume.  I look forward to hearing from you.

There are times to act and there are times to pray and there are times to fast.  These are the rare times where it is incumbent upon us to do all three.  2010 presents many challenges for our Church, Community and our Country.  This is not a year that we can simply sit back and coast as a body of believers.  We need to act but like so many times before the church has acted based upon emotion rather than the move of God so we must also pray.  However, scripture shows that there are times too important for prayer alone and for that you must fast and pray.  I began to feel this urging in my spirit several weeks ago and then last week I came across this campaign (more of a collection of like-minded churches) to call us to 21 days of fasting called “The Awakening”.  I will be going on a Juice Fast from January 10 – 30.  I am not asking all of you to equal that sacrifice.  Maybe for you it is a Daniel Fast, maybe a media fast or a coffee fast…whatever it is raise your level of sacrifice as we enter into this new season of ministry and impact.  I love you and want to see Jesus name Glorified.

I will be posting on this site urgings in my spirit that will assist you in what to pray for.  For more info on The Awakening and resources about the details of fasting go to www.awake21.org.

Also Tuesday night of Prayer returns this Tuesday and this is a great opportunity to take your prayer life to the next level.  This Monday night I will relaunch my small group and we will concentrate on Prayer and going through some of the new book Primal, by Mark Batterson.

Matthew 18:8-9

If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.

Jesus didn’t intend for all of us to wander the earth blind and crippled.  He uses the hyperbole here to instruct just how important lifestyle management can be.  This past week I did a sermon entitled The Spirit that Rescues and in it I laid out that we are not to carry the burden of our sin struggle on our own.  That it is a burden that is spiritual thus should be left to the Holy Spirit to battle.  However, as it says in Romans 8, we will still have the limitations of sin.  That takes me to this blog today.  What are you doing proactively to live a life that honors Christ.

1) EVALUATE – We need to evaluate ourselves regularly.  We need to be checking ourselves against the fruit of the Spirit found in Gal 5:22.  How is your walk with God?  How is your relationship with others?

2) ESTABLISH – What in your life needs adjusting/cut away.  Are you watching too much TV?  Are you surrounding yourself with those who gossip?  Are you eating the WHOLE bag of chips?

3) EXCISE – Have the courage to cut it out.  Get rid of it.

4) ENGAGE – Now with the new time/energy/resources you have engage God with more of your time/energy /resources.

I heard a story one time of a runner who was running a big race and in this race you had to run 4 laps around the track.  One runner in particular got out to  huge lead and lunged toward the finish line with a strong sense of accomplishment only to realize as he stopped…the other runners kept racing by.  He still had a lap to go!

I have learned lately that be careful to look around and think you have your race won only to realize that you have more to do before you can declare it a win.

This past month has been tough for me in Youth Ministry.  I have had some beats lately.  A student who was feeling called into the ministry got another student pregnant, several students struggling with homosexuality, we had to expel 3 students from the campus for drugs.  I don’t care if you are Doug Fields, Jeanne Mayo or the volunteer youth guy at First Baptist Small Town, that is a tough week!

The thing is many people kept encouraging me by letting me know it was just the Devil attacking…stay strong.  I believe that is wrong.

Sometimes we give the Devil too much credit and not near enough credit to God.

I don’t thing it was an attack…I think it was a wake up call.  I think it was God revealing to me that I was too confident in feeling I had this race (youth ministry) won when in fact I was aiming for the WRONG FINISH LINE!

These are some success indicators we have kept an eye on lately. (see if they look familiar to you)

1. How many students were at our BIG meeting
2. How many new students were at our BIG meeting
3. How many students raised their hands when the speaker prayed for salvation
4. How many students were in small groups
5. How behaved the student were
6. How active we were on campus

Those were our success indicators.  They are not bad and all those things are important.  But they cannot be the sole indicators if your purpose is to move students closer to Jesus.  I know this because we have done WELL in all these areas and we are FAILING. We are running over 300 students every week, we have 10-12 new students every week, kids raise their hands for salvation every week, we baptize students regularly, we have 30% of students in small groups and we are active on every campus in the area.  If I were not in a non-denominational church in the middle of no where I’d be teaching conferences on youth ministry…yet in fact we are unhealthy.  We have grown too much in one area and not enough in others.

It is not that the program is designed wrongly, we are not a fun only ministry.  We preach the Word…hard.  We create an environment of worship.  We have leaders who genuinly care for the students well-being, however…

I believe we have to add a few indicators…

1. How is (insert name here) doing?
2. Are our students engaged in spiritual disciplines (prayer, Bible Study, Community Impact)
3. Are students who accept Christ growing?
4. Are mature believers in the ministry serving?
5. Are we developing Parents to be the primary discipler of teenagers?

This list is not exhaustive but it is a beginning of a new process of evaluation.  I will in the coming months hone it down to 5-10 no compromise indicators.  We need to make sure that when student graduate they FINISH STRONG.  Big is not bad it just is.  Small is not good it just is.  I thank God for revelation.  I thank God for patience.  I thank God for the unending drive of 2 forces.  1) We need to grow closer to Jesus and 2) Better is always better.