Everyone is unique and forms relationships a little differently. We all relate to different people in different ways, too. I relate to my wife differently than I do to my father and I relate to my pastor differently than I do to an old seminary professor. However, there are some common elements that all relationships share. Relationships require time invested into another person, they often require putting the other person first, and of course a desire to WANT to have that relationship.

With this in mind, I often hear people say, “A good Christian needs to do X-Y-Z in their relationship with God in order for it to be successful.” Suggestions for X-Y-Z usually include a set amount of time spent reading scripture and praying on a daily basis. To me, though, this seems to assume that the given formula creates intimacy for anyone wanting to know God. I’ve tried the formula and for me personally it only seems to lead to a spiritual rut rather than a living vital relationship with my Savior.

To say that I need to read my Bible and pray for X amount of minutes every day seems to be like saying I need to meet with the same friend on the same bench at the same mall every day for the same amount of time. I listen to my friend talk and when He is finished, He listens to me talk. When I’m done talking, we leave our bench and wait to come back to it the next day. Any dating relationship based on this “formula” would get old pretty quickly.

For me, my relationship with God is much more fluid. I don’t hold myself to a strict schedule of something I do, rather it’s about something I am. My heart naturally draws me to spending time with Him in different ways. One day I may feel like playing my guitar and spending time in worship, other days all I do is pray. Sometimes I’ll read just a few verses, other days I’ll read a whole book and highlight everything that jumps out at me. Then next day I may only re-read those highlighted parts. Because I actually desire to spend time with God it’s something I naturally want to make time to do without making it a forced habit.

I know people say, “Well, I’m too busy so if I don’t schedule it, it won’t get done.” In that case, scheduling is a great way to get started as long as the focus remains on the relationship with God rather a task on the to-do list. Several years ago a college professor of mine said that no matter how busy people are, if they have to go to the bathroom they’ll make time, even if it’s the busiest part of their day. In other words, no matter how busy we are, we all have time to spend with God even if it’s only a couple minutes. Maybe it’s more an issue of prioritizing instead of time? (Man, spend time with God in the bathroom if that’s the only time you have!)

George McDonald said, “Nothing is so deadening to the divine as a habitual dealing with the outsides of holy things.” Attending church, praying and reading scripture are all good things, but perhaps we need to rethink why we do them. Maybe we need to examine our motivations to see if we’ve lost sight of the true goal of these activities.

What’s difficult for me to understand are teachers in churches today that know little of a relationship with God. For me, everything I do and teach in ministry comes from my personal time with Him. Otherwise my teaching comes from a curriculum book instead of my heart. I then find myself teaching facts and head-knowledge rather than a relationship when it’s ultimately the relationship that students need. My ministry therefore depends on my relationship with God. It’s hard for me to be genuinely passionate about something I don’t practice myself.

Back in Bible college a visiting missionary held a workshop called, Spiritual Dryness. I attended and it pretty much changed the direction of my struggling walk with the Lord. He released me from the X-Y-Z mentality and encouraged those in attendance to be creative with the time we spend with God. He told us that time spent with the Lord doesn’t have to look the same way for everyone. We’re all created uniquely with different approaches to relationships. Reading the Bible and prayer are both vital, but if one person chooses to write letters or poems to God instead of closing theirs eyes and bowing their heads, that’s completely legitimate.

He included a handout that I often review and now use with students called, Ten Questions to ask when your spiritual life is dull and dry. I’ve included that handout below for anyone who might be interested. The second document, Quiet Time: How it works, is a sheet I sometimes use with students who express a desire to spend time with God but don’t know where to start. It gives them a starting point as long as they remember that this is about developing a relationship, not going through a form every day.

I always encourage students to be creative and try new things in their relationship with God. When they take the challenge seriously I am almost always blown away with the ideas these kids come up with for spending time with the Lord. The best part, however, is that this usually causes them to take ownership of the relationship. It’s so very awesome to watch!

Ten questions to ask when your spiritual life is dull and dry
Quiet Time: How it works

LifeChurch.tv’s anonymous confession site, MySecret.tv, has made it around the Internet and sparked many intriguing discussions within Christian communities. Last Wednesday night for my Sr. High guys small groups I used the site to print off many real-life testimonies of the detrimental affects that sin can have in our lives. It’s one thing for me to sit there and tell them how a “harmless and fun” sin will later affect them, but its another to have my guys read to each other story after story of real people who are suffering from its affects right now.

Despite the controversy surrounding MySecret.tv, it’s a good resource of stories to share with teens about the impact of different sins.

I’ve been hearing a lot about SpiralFrog.com and its pending release in December. The company plans to offer legal audio and music video downloads in exchange for watching 45-90 second video ads per song or video. Surprisingly, SpiralFrog’s music database will not just be a lot of obscure artists no one’s ever heard of — they have agreements with EMI and Universal Music Group to make their entire music catelogs available as free downloads! Personally, watching up to 15 minutes of advertizing every month to download and keep just 10 songs that otherwise expires every 30 days due to Microsoft’s copyright protection (DRM encryption) probably isn’t worth my time. I think I’ll stick with my subscription to Rhapsody just because it’s so easy and convenient to use.

Derek Webb, on the other hand, is making his new album, “Mockingbird,” available for download from his site completely free — no strings attached. As a former member of one of my all-time favorite bands, Caedmon’s Call, Derek seeks to use his music to spark discussions among people by using the power of the Internet. He says this:

one of the things that excites me most about the future of our business is how easy it is becoming to deliver music to people who want to hear it. i heard a story once about keith green caring so much that people were able to hear and engage with his music that he gave it away for free, which was a very difficult and expensive thing to do at that time. it’s actually never been as simple as it is today to connect music with music fans. and i want people to have a chance to listen to mockingbird and engage in the conversation.

so this is why, on september 1st, we’re launching freederekwebb.com, a place where anyone can go online and not just hear but actually download, keep, and share ‘mockingbird’ completely for free. In addition, freederekwebb.com will give you an opportunity to invite your friends to download ‘mockingbird’ in order to get them in on the conversation as well.

I’m curious to follow Derek’s plan for communicating his message through music made freely available online. One thing is sure: he must absolutely believe in what he’s doing to go through all the time and expense of recording an album and then to give it away for free. I’m impressed that he would forfeit all monetary profit on something like this for the sake of promoting conversations.

If you haven’t heard of eBible.com it’s definitely work checking out. I’ve always used BibleGateway.com for any online Bible study and research because its extensive and easy to use, but eBible is different in a very attractive way. Although eBible will have many of the same resources available as BibleGateway, eBible takes a Web 2.0 approach by making scripture interactive in an online community filled with user-generated content. As a comparison, eBible uses scripture the way YouTube uses videos. Users have the ability to tag passages for others to find in searches, which helped me quickly find many verses related to some obscure topics. Users can also bookmark verses with personal notes for both private use and to share with other eBible friends, a great way to form online Bible discussion groups, for example.

The site currently has six English Bible translations (including The Message) and many dictionaries, encyclopedias and commentaries, though only half of the resources are currently free. The others are made available to your account at reasonable prices.

Unfortunately, eBible is still in beta and not open to public registration at this time. However, current users may invite three friends to join the eBible network and, thanks to Mike Jones, I got one! So now I’m passing along my three invitations to the first three who comment here requesting one. Also be sure to check Mike’s pbwiki eBible page for additional invites. Either way, visit eBible.com and look for it to go public in a couple weeks.

Does anyone else find themselves singing popular worship songs (both hymns and modern) and thinking, “What in the world does this mean?” I like to think I have somewhat of a handle on theological concepts and jargon, but sometimes I still lean over to Dana during worship and ask, “What does that lyric mean?” to which she smiles at my critical evaluation and shrugs.

Sometimes it seems that we sacrifice solid theological truth in worship songs for the sake of something that just sounds good or rhymes well. It makes me think how many Christians across the nation are singing these words without even thinking about what they’re actually saying. Fortunately worship takes place in our heart’s attitude toward God and not solely in the words we say.

As CPYU always recommends, I watched some of MTV’s Video Music Awards to get a feel for the current trends and status of culture. Dana and I had some other things to attend to, so we weren’t able to watch the whole thing last night, but I recorded it so I can catch up on the rest sometime later.

The part I did see, however, was kinda disturbing, but unfortunately expected. It seems like the world is continuing to follow a downward sexual spiral. It was hard to make it through 60 seconds of the VMAs without seeing women dressed immodestly and sensual dances. Everything from Evanescence’s little talk on having sex with yourself versus group sex to Victoria’s Secret commercials that sold a lot more than just an underwear product. Other prevalent themes I saw were drunkenness, partying and pressure on girls to be physically thin.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, though, since I can’t expect lost people to act like anything other than what they are.

Still, my heart goes out to the teenagers who watch TV programming like this and unconsciously adopt the hidden worldview being communicated as if it is liberating and carefree. Little do they know the damaging affect it will ultimately have on their lives. As a youth pastor, the need to instill Godly values in the lives of teenagers and develop them to be leaders seems to be more important now than ever before.