Each year we go on a “Senior Sneak” where we break the bottle of perfume and show extravagant love to those graduating seniors who were an active part of our group. Over the years, we have found this impracticality to be an appropriate demonstration of our love for them. Every year there is some form of deception (Rahab-esque deception, not Ananaias & Saphira type, you see?). One year, I created a false itinerary, another year I created a packing list with items they wouldn’t need, and one year, we just hid the info from them (they weren’t that bright of a class ;)

This year, we told them the Sneak was cancelled by the trustees because of budgetary concerns, then because we felt “so bad”, we “scheduled” a much lamer lunch after church. But of course, the Sneak was never really cancelled. With the help of their parents, we took them to Boston to see Owl City and enjoy the town.

Every year there is some type of theme. This year’s was “Say Good-bye to High School”. Which explains Owl City. Most of our students loved Fireflies … in 10th grade. But Owl City works well for us. Adam Young professes to be a believer, he creates fun music and he’s not trapped in the Christian sub-culture. The new album was just released last week and I’ve always wanted to take the group to Boston.

I won’t bore you with how the theme worked in and out of our time but we did the typical Boston thing: We spit at Fenway, walked around late at night, did the Freedom Walk Tour, saw the Harbor, ate at Quincy Market and finished our time at the Boston Commons. It was our last stop that was by far the most special. We sat in a circle each person had something said about them by everyone in the group. I allotted an hour and half for this – between the tears, the hugs, and the heartfelt words, it took us a little over 3 hours. It was needed closure. Not only did some things need to be said, it was probably the last time we’d have this opportunity together. It was beautiful and I’ll never forget it.

The best Sneaks are with classes that not only never gave up on our youth group community but sincerely tried to follow Jesus together. And the class of 2011 is special. I told them during the graduation portion of the worship service that in my 11 years of ministry, they were in my Top 10. But the truth is, they are a unique class. They were a big class filled with strong personality types, many very gifted in the arts and they really had bought into what we were trying to do as a ministry (it wasn’t always easy but they hung in there).

I also feel that God used this class to bring out the best from us as youth leaders. They were sharp, servant-hearted (though extremely busy) and always wanting to dive deeper. They read Don Miller, Scot McKnight and a good few had read Gabe Lyon’s Next Christians (a gift from this year’s Winter Retreat). How cool was it that on the Monday of the sneak, USA Today had a feature entitled “Can Cause of Social Justice Tame Our Culture Wars?”. (Not sure if we thought that was God providentially winking at us or maybe USA Today always runs stuff like that).

They are also special to me because of where they fit in my own life. Many of them were in the room when I announced publicly for the first time that we adopted Nathan. They were among the first to hear that Susan was pregnant with Dylan. And then again, that we are having a baby girl this September. In lesser of life importance but still very cool moments, we watched the Giants win the Super Bowl together and we cancelled Sr. High Youth group to watch the Yankees beat the Phillies in ’09 (we just knew it would happen in Game 6). We served on mission trips to New Orleans, an AIDS Camp in the Bahamas and picked up trash together and various other things. Looking back on it, I’m moved by how much we did together over the years.

I told them that I don’t know who I am going to argue with now. The Class of 2012 is much smarter, much more polite, and they already agree with me ;). But truly was an honor to be their youth pastor during their high school years. While we will always be brothers and sisters in God’s family, things will be different from this point on but these are the days I am extremely grateful for Facebook (because you don’t really have to say good-bye, just “See you around”) and these are the days I feel blessed to be a youth pastor.

God’s grace to the Class of 2011 and don’t forget Mark 12:29-31!

Over the weekend, I heard about this woman named Cindy Jackson who has had over 60 cosmetic surgery procedures and has spent over $100,000 on the work spanning the last 25 years. Oddly, she doesn’t look terrible at all. In fact, if I saw her at Shop Rite, I’d think she was another 50 year old woman. But she is not ordinary, she actually holds the Guinness Book of World Records for most cosmetic surgeries. She is even now a cosmetic surgeon consultant (which has to be a real easy job :) and she’s dating a 29 year old dude. Perhaps in her world she has it all. Obviously she has money, the attention of men, she probably has a loyal following of women who are cheering her on as she fights the war on the aging process.

If she was a comic book character, she’d be armed with a scalpel and sleep in a botox chamber and fighting against an ugly character named Dr. Hideous. (I should totally pitch this to Comedy Central later today. Oh wait, I’m hanging out with students later  – Oh well).

Now I am not against plastic surgery procedures, I think in some cases, it’s a worthy consideration. But I do start getting nervous when we talk about teen-agers and plastic surgery. By now you may have heard stories of 15 year olds going under the knife to fix certain birth defects. In some cases, they may be a good idea in the same way that braces are. In other cases, it seems likely that such procedures will have a negative impact on students and society.

What does it say about us as a society when we admit to treating you better if you looked a certain way? We might be inclined to react and say, “Hey that’s how society is!” Believe me, I know. I was the sole minority in my school until 10th grade and the only kid with a middle-eastern shnoz in the county – I remember. But I remember also thinking that my identity can’t solely come from my appearance and like all adolescents, the search of “Who am I?” began. But what does it say about the society?

I’ll be the first to say that things are different today than they were in the late 80’s-early 90’s and it would be foolish to only compare the way things were to the way things are. As a youth pastor, my heart goes out to the teens of today for the many different types of pressures they endure. And while I would like to remind them that there are incredible blessings about being a young person today, I get that it’s hard too. I remember one of our female students explaining the number of girls in her school who have undergone procedures to help them look great in a bathing suit. And I’ll never forget the line, “It’s not just the people at the beach who see you, because of Facebook everyone sees you!” Indeed things are different today.

I don’t want to cite examples of what I deem as legitimate and what is not, it’s too judgmental (I think we can all agree that lypo-suction is not a moral issue right?). And I will be the first to say that this a gray area and that’s ok too because I like gray areas. But I will say that it seems wise to say that cosmetic surgery to fix things like birth defects is quite different than cosmetic surgery to attempt at looking “perfect”. Cindy spending $100,000 and sixty procedures articulates that quite well. I submit that deep down inside she would prefer the unconditional love of a man that truly loves and accepts her faults and all than to be with a 29 year old guy who may not be around when the money and botox run low.   And even more importantly, I hope she genuinely “accepts herself”.

This is among the many aspects that I love about the Christian ethic. It demands that we treat people the way we would want to be treated. It reminds us that we are all flawed and in need of redemption and it offers us identity in our most original design by the Creator Himself. That cannot be found in 6 weeks of recovery after the initial consultation. Which brings us to another question, “What does it say about a society that accepts and loves people for who they are?” I know some may scoff at the idealism here. And it’s true and with the risk of more scoffing, I’d like to add that this “heavenly society” offers that we live the good life forever with our Maker and Redeemer. This is where identity is found and nurtured. And it’s my hope that those searching can find it.

Primary Audience – Fellow Youth Pastors/youth workers
Secondary Audience – Anyone Who Wants to Eavesdrop

You may have heard by now that Harold Camping has updated his doomsday to October 21st. There are a few things that this Camping hype was good for. One is the needed conversation about the return of Jesus. There is a lot of fear and bad theology out there and it was good to identify and hopefully offer something in the midst of the hoopla. So while there are numerous annoying aspects to these doomsday predictions, there are some excellent opportunities for conversations as well. The second benefit is all the great jokes we got to laugh at.

But that’s not the point of the post. As youth pastors, we all have the potential to take ourselves too seriously. We could spend another post just on that line. There are many reasons ranging why  from responding to the perceived disrespect to lack of self-awareness to our anticipated entitlement to the sincere attempt at addressing problems in the Church. Certainly these things are not limited to our profession but I have found that anytime one is competing for attention and attendance, these demons creep up.

Enter what we can learn from Harold Camping. Clearly, he took himself too seriously and obviously this is not a recent development for him. In a previous post I asked if he was delusional or deceitful (and I still think it’s a bit of both), but I think he is motivated by wanting to be remembered as a significant figure in the Church. He wants fame like Billy Graham (I mean the name of his ministry is a rip-off of Dobson right?) and I speculate some of this outlandish behavior is a cry for that. Clearly he is not self-aware and has no one in his life that can help with constructive criticism here.

Now, I don’t really know any youth workers who can compete with the scale of Camping’s hysteria but I have seen damage caused my unchecked egos, a lack of self-awareness and the hurt caused by desperate acts. Even at our seemingly most sincere moments, the desire to want to be remembered and regarded as important voices in the lives of our students can turn against ourselves and those we hope to serve if we are not Spirit-led.

Here are a few thoughts on what we can learn from Harold Camping.

1. We carry all of our unresolved issues throughout our lives. But worse, they mutate to uglier disorders that will cause more hurt as we age.
We must pray for strength to confront the issues in our lives, surround ourselves with godly people and be diligent in spiritual formation.

2. There is a tendency to misuse the Bible to forward our own agendas thereby polluting its message of salvation, redemption and hope.
We must read the Scriptures intelligently, faithfully, and humbly.

3. Even with sincere attitudes of wanting to see change, increase numbers and impact, all leaders/speakers have the potential of objectifying their audiences/listeners. When this happens, we have betrayed our calling and betrayed those we claim to be serving.        
We must remember the possible consequences to our words and actions and must be sure that our intentions are Christ-like and void of personal agenda.

4. It’s one thing to predict who your favorite sports team winning a championship and it’s another thing to guess the gender of a unborn baby but never publicly predict anything apocalyptic. Never. And should you be stupid enough to do it once, don’t do it again and again and again and …

5. Anyone got anything for number 5?