That’s why the church is dying. That’s why we’re losing ground. That’s why our relevance as a whole is threatened. Because it’s a people problem.
The basis is pretty standard. Adam, Eve, Apple and a snake. Whamo blamo, we’ve got The Fall. From there on out it’s a story of woe, gnashing of teeth , tearing of sackcloth and the never ending roller coaster ride in which we come closer and closer to God until something shiny distracts us or a squirrel runs across our path. Then we’re screaming down the twists and turns until we decide it’s time to Get God again and once more we’re at the top, ready to fall again. And again. And again. Repeat, rinse and repeat again. Read the rest of this entry →
It’s been a year since I started this grand experiment. Well, restarted it. I’m not the original fakekidmin. Last January I watched as he/she/it vanished. I decided someone needed to fill the void and take up the mantle.
And so, nearly 365 days later I’m sitting at my desk contemplating if I want to continue this grand journey forward. If it’s really worth it to keep on twittering, blogging and generally causing a ruckus around #kidmin. I came close to closing the books on my little experiment but in the end I realized I’d start to get the itch and be back here again. Read the rest of this entry →
I love that word. The definition uses many words to define it but the one I want to focus on is “grim”.
Back in the day I was an intern at a large church and just learning my way. I’d come from a mixed background. My parents weren’t believers in the real sense and I found my own way through various denominations. I came to realize Christ and decided I would make it my life’s work to reach out to the kids of the world to help them find Christ in their own way. I had my own unique path to Him as I’m sure each of you have. Our relationship with Christ is fantastic in many ways and this is one I love. The way we come to know Him is one but the other is the journey we make with him throughout life.
I used to believe that the world could never destroy my faith. I went through rough times in high school and college that chipped away at my belief in Christ and the faith in his people. I came out battered but still alive. I’ve come to have a chip on my shoulder when it comes to The Church World and it’s because of my experiences from the outside and within.
My shoulder has another chip on it. It’s The World.
That’s what I’ve been telling myself since I started this rebirth project. I had hopes. I had dreams. I figured I could make some waves, move some cheese and blow up some golden calves. I knew it was going to take some time and that it wouldn’t be easy.
It’s something else feeling the rage I have boiling in my soul from what we dealt with tonight. I’m not sure how else to put it other than to say that working in a church exposes all the things about it that we secretly hate and wish would change. It’s something to watch an idea so pure be sullied, beaten and twisted around into something that is not what Jesus intended. Sometimes it happens in glaring ways and entire churches are wiped from existence.
Other times you see it in small things that indicate symptoms of a larger problem that will lead to those glaring problems I wrote a sentence previous. Tonight was one of those nights.
You ever have a volunteer that you look at and think, “Oh this one will be completely normal and not crazy,” and then have said recruit go bat crap insane? Sometimes it’s a bad kinda loony toon and other times it’s the greatest gift God can give a Children’s Pastor.
Then there’s those times where you feel like you should probably check out the padded rooms with the three square meals a day because there are moments where things couldn’t get any crazy-ier. Today I’ll highlight something that happened a few years back as I was just getting started. I was freshly minted and still earning my stripes in the hallowed halls of The Church. I was introduced to a “taking a break from college” volunteer who had been doing work in Student Ministries for a spell and had decided he’d had enough of the drama to last a life time. He needed some time to recoup. I figured taking a step down in age would help.
For all the sarcasm and half-wit that I lay down on Twitter and here in this bloggity-blog there’s still something about Kidmin that I love with all my heart and soul. We do many things right. We kick Satan’s butt on a regular basis while chewing bubble-gum. We reach out to kids who are searching for answers and have an effect on their hearts, minds and souls with about ninety minutes in our tanks.
There a few things that bother me. Well, I should qualify that. There are many things that bother me. Some I chose to simply ignore because there’s nothing I can do (aside from some carefully placed C-4) to change it and others I quietly work to change.
Then there’s those things that send me into a fit of dry heaves. One is the unreal amount our church is spending on renovating our mega-church sanctuary. Three million dollars or so. Apparently we’re halfway to the goal. HD Projectors are part of the order. And of course they require HD projector screens. And don’t even get me started on the chair upholstery piece.
Let’s all say the obvious that we’ve all been twittering about since this whole thing got started.
Told you so.
It’s become glaringly obvious that once again someone tried to predict the unpredictable. They swindled people out of money, time and their Faith. Game over, man…game over.
The worrisome thing is that this idea brought in millions of dollars of donations and years of peoples lives. People spent their life savings, gave up on college funds for their kids and followed this idea that they knew when the world was going to end. They even claimed to know who would and who wouldn’t get beyond the pearly without certification from The Most High.
It’s not our job to know the when, the where and the how.
It’s our job to leave this world better than we found it. Christ’s command, His Urging, His pleading with us is to reach out and serve the world. To bring the message of Life in Christ to all that have not heard it. To show the masses from just born to near death that there is a better way to live life and that is through Christ.
In our lives we serve Our Father. We work on this World through Him. We make a difference. We focus on the people and making them better. We focus on ourselves and making us better. All of this in the Name of Christ by the Power of Our Creator. It’s not a game of who’s going to make it. It’s a game of how many lives can we bring to Him in hopes they’ll turn to Their Father.
Counting down, waiting around for the end and believing we know it all is the first step to failure in Christ. We know Our Savior. We know His Power. We know His Mission.
The rest is in His hands. It ain’t our game to play.
Apparently I’ve just not been entertaining enough. Or I’ve not quite mastered the “chip” on my shoulder towards #kidmin. Or perhaps The Master was tired of seeing The Student continue to fail. For whatever reason the “original” @fakekidmin returned today on twitter and started chatting a few people up, followed around 100 of us and even gave me a warning shot across my bow that indeed he/she had returned.
I’m not sure why the original has returned. I’ve asked and have yet to get a reply. I do know that they’re using Twitter for IPAD which limits the suspects to, well, everybody. I’m also sure this is not a good thing for #kidmin as having two fakekidmin twitter handles on the scene is going to cause more confusion that it is indeed worth.
