This Christmas my mom asked that my brothers, sisters and me write a list of affirmations about my dad for her to compile together for him in a book. Since “words of affirmation” are his primary love language, she thought this would be the best way for the family to communicate our love and appreciation for all he’s done for the family. How fitting to begin my blog for 2007 by expressing my thanks and gratitude to him publicly.

Thanks, Dad, for everything and your influence that has helped shape me into the person I am today!

• You’ve modeled servanthood to me.
• You’ve shown me what it means to be the spiritual leader of a family.
• You’ve demonstrated that church and God should always be our #1 priority.
• You’ve instilled positive spiritual experiences within me.
• You listen to our tough decisions and respond with wisdom.
• You set an example for humility.
• You’re dedicated to your family.
• You’ve shown me that serving others is more important than serving myself.
• You’ve challenged me to take every situation to God in prayer.
• You showed us respect by listening to us while disciplining.
• Your love and support for me is very evident in all that I do.
• Thanks for teaching us family values and investing into me personally.
• Thanks for modeling diligence and faithfulness in spite of difficulties and opposition.
• You’ve challenged me to pray about every decision, big and small.
• Your love and support is always evident.
• You taught me that scripture is dependable and is the foundation of life.
• You’re a great model of the necessary balance between ministry, family, relaxation and staying fit.
• Thanks for caring so much about our upbringing that you invested countless hours into home schooling us.
• Your continued quest for knowledge and understanding inspires me to do the same.
• You willingness to try new and sometimes uncomfortable things challenges me to do the same.
• I pray that one day I will be able to pass on to my children the abundance of spiritual knowledge and insight that you’ve passed on to me.
• Thanks for modeling a life that is devoted to God.
• Your constant availability to your young children shows how much you care for us in being a stable presence in our lives.
• Thanks for immediately changing your ministry responsibilities when I asked you to attend my wrestling matches.
• You helped me choose friends wisely and encouraged me to be the one to influence them.
• You taught me that the heart and romance are immensely valuable and should always be addressed with prayerful consideration.
• You demonstrated that your wife always comes before children and ministry.
• I figure if you can find time to exercise and stay in shape, then there’s no excuse why I can’t either.
• Through your example I’ve learned to be wise with the financial resources God’s provided, as small or large as they might be.
• While growing up I was greatly influenced by watching you trust God with little details.
• You’ve shown me that gifts from the Lord are always meant to be shared with others.

“Let no one despise you for your youth…” (1 Tim. 4:12a).

I am a young pastor (26 years old) and have found that my peers in ministry often throw this verse around in order to justify themselves when any type of criticism comes their way. Rather than heeding advice from those older and wiser, they let wise input bounce right off with this verse in mind. They think, “The church elders are just looking down on me because I’m young, but scripture says I shouldn’t let them despise me, so I’m right, they’re wrong.” This attitude is so dangerous and feeds arrogance like nothing else. As a young pastor, the balance to this passage is knowing the difference between legitimate criticism and illegitimate criticism, heeding what’s said with wisdom and respectfully disregarding what’s not.

Throughout college and seminary I noticed I was a little different than most of my classmates. Most of them would vigorously take notes, copying down word for word whatever the professor taught. If he put some bullet-points on a screen, its guaranteed that everyone would promptly replicate it in their notebooks, except me. For some reason my note-taking often looks like random thoughts scribbled in random blocks across the paper. If I want to connect two thoughts, I circle them both and draw a line between the two.

Likewise, in seminary we were given clay to play with as an example of the kinesthetic learner. As soon as the object lesson was over, everyone put the clay away and immediately took up pen and paper to start writing notes in a neat linear fashion. I, however, was the only one who continued to play with the clay throughout the entire class period. (The prof actually pointed me out at the end of class as a positive example, too. Apparently most seminarians aren’t kinesthetic.)

A couple weeks ago I posted a review on Shane Hipp’s book, The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How media shapes faith, the gospel, and church. In it he makes an interesting observation about the influence of the Internet and, having grown up with the Internet, I think he’s accurate.

A book presents an extensive, in-depth monologue or a thorough argument carefully crafted in linear, successive paragraphs and pages (left brain). In contrast the Internet presents a nonlinear web of interconnected pages and a vast mosaic of hyper links with absolutely no beginning, middle, or end (right brain). (page 132)

I’ve been playing on the Internet for most of my life. Maybe this non-linear influence is part of why I prefer magazines and blogs over books. It’s also why my notes are randomly spread out over a sheet of paper “linked” with lines. Looks like my thought-formulating process has been significantly impacted by the web. Kinda scary how technology unintentionally influences us.

It’s not all the meetings, reports, event planning, vision casting, or trainings. It’s not even working with upset parents, disappointed church leaders or feeling unappreciated and often misunderstood.

The hardest part of youth ministry is the emotional toll it takes to be involved with students’ lives and see them giving in to the deceit of sin despite what they know is right. It breaks my heart. But it reminds me how often I do the same. Now I understand a little of how God must feel about me.

Probably the most life-changing experience I’ve ever had was one night I spent lost in Philadelphia late at night all by myself. God really grabbed my attention that night and made it clear that I have absolutely no control over my life, my future or even my own safety. It was a very traumatizing way to learn that God is real, that He listens to prayer and that He’s always there for me, no matter what. Up until this event my faith was kinda something I did at church on Sundays and learned about as head-knowledge during the week, but by the end of this night in Philly, my faith had shifted from being my parent’s faith to one that became personal and real to me. The affect of this night impacted my faith forever.

I recently came across the narrative of this story I wrote for an only Bible study and thought I’d post it here for anyone who wants a peek into the near-instant life-change that God did in my life. Believe me, these are lessons I will never forget.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE

Ever since Greg Stier spoke at the National Youth Workers Convention, I’ve been thinking about something he said. He read the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 19), about how the prophets of Baal prayed and begged their god for hours and hours for a single spark of fire on their alter. When none came, they prayed even more earnestly, even mutilating their own bodies in desperation, but still there was no answer from Baal. Finally at the end of the day it was Elijah’s turn. He calmly prepared the sacrifice, drenched everything with water and simply prayed,

“O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so these people will know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.” (1 Kings 18:36-37)

The idea in scripture is that God IMMEDIATELY answered his prayer by sending down fire from heaven that not only burned the sacrificed bull, but also consumed the entire alter, stones, water and everything! WOW!!

Man, I pray like a wuss!

• When I pray I like to remain somewhat reserved and not pray for things that are too radical so I don’t unnecessarily get my hopes up.

• I like to pray for things I feel like I can still keep some kind of control over in case I need to help God out.

• I like to pray with 50/50 faith: “Maybe God will answer, maybe He won’t. Who knows? Let’s see what happens.”

In comparison, I observe a couple things about Elijah.

• He risked his life to be in public. He was a wanted man for being a prophet of God (1 Kings 18:9-14). There was a death wish on his head, so for him to come out from hiding was a very bold and risky action.

• He obeyed God with such confidence that he was willing to put his neck and God’s reputation on the line.

• Because of his obedience, he could boldly pray according to the will of God.

• He had no control over the outcome of his prayer or his obedience to God. For all he knew, God would use this situation to prove something else or nothing at all. He had great faith to proceed.

Here’s the number one thing I learn from Elijah’s example: Maybe I don’t always experience the power of God in my life because I rarely give Him the opportunity to do so.

I go to James 5:16 in the New Testament, a verse I memorized for the community aspect of praying for each other. However, I often overlook the second half that says, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” If I want to have a prayer life that is “powerful and effective,” apparently the key ingredient to the recipe is righteousness. The obvious question I then ask myself is, “What is righteousness?” and “Do I have it?”

The Message puts it this way: “The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.”

That’s what I want, to be like Elijah and live right with God. I want my prayer life to be something that’s powerful to be reckoned with. I want to live a life for Him that’s bold, risky, confident, obedient and is right smack in the middle of His will.

Whew! Easier said than done.

Last week I had an extended conversation with a friend who’s graduating from Bible college this semester. She came to me saying, “I’m wrestling with some issues concerning our theology of salvation. I tried talking with our college Chaplian about it, but he was no help because apparently he swallows everything he’s taught.” So we talked at length about her questions, which were very legitimate and well articulated. When we finished she said, “Thanks for being willing to wrestle out loud with me on it. Most people won’t.”

Marko had a good blog post today about this very subject. He says (and I agree) that it’s important for teens to question their faith and ask the hard questions. My question is why the church at large generally frowns upon those who ask tough questions and challenge the status quo. If our faith isn’t strong enough to hold up against these questions then maybe it really isn’t worth believing in the first place.

I consider myself to be someone with many questions who is also somewhat intimidated by the Christian public. I think that’s partly why I’m attracted to the blogging community, because here I find others who are also asking questions and are willing to give input into each other’s thoughts.

Off the top of my head, I dream three things for youth ministry:

1. Students who are growing in depth and insight of God’s Word.
2. Students who genuinely worship God both publicly and privately.
3. Students who have a burden for lost souls around them.

I look at that list and think, “Hmmm, do I even measure up to that list personally?”

This is a big question rolling around in my mind. I’ve had many experiences with homeless people that have shaped my perspective on them.

While growing up there were several occasions of homeless people knocking on our door asking for lunch money. Rather than giving what they, sought my mom would often make a sandwich instead (especially since we didn’t grow up with a huge cash flow either), but 9 times out of 10 we would return to the back door with their lunch only to find no one there. Apparently they didn’t really want a meal. If they were hungry enough they would’ve stuck around for it.

My parents were always generous in helping people in need. Over the course of my life they had many people live with us in our little house, including two teenage girls and a guy transitioning from prison back into real life. We also found housing for a homeless guy who appeared to be serious about finding a job and turning his life around, but unfortunately he sucked up the hospitality for all he could get from it and then went back to the street.

Last year I still followed my parent’s example and took in a guy for almost a week. I blogged about it HERE. Even two months ago Dana and I were at the mall in Texarkana when a guy asked me for gas money so he could continue his trip to something important in Dallas. I told him I don’t just hand out cash, but that I’d be willing to go up the the gas station with him. He agreed to meet me in a couple minutes when Dana and I finished what we were doing, but he never showed up.

Along with taking my youth group to feed the homeless in Dallas and regularly visiting a soup kitchen in Philly growing up, these experiences have caused me to be a little skeptical about the honesty of this demographic.

A couple years ago a friend of mine in seminary was talking about the panhandling issue in the Dallas area and said something that altered my perspective. He said,

“These homeless people may take my money and go spend it on drugs and alcohol, but that’s not an excuse I can use to justify whether or not I should be generous. God commands us to give and help those in need. What they decide to do with my generosity is between them and God, not me. I’m responsible to God, not to what I think they’ll do with the money.”

This was pretty much my outlook until a recent post by The Homeless Guy, a blog I only recently started reading. Read this homeless man’s entire entry. Here’s clips of it:

1) Not all panhandlers are homeless.
2) Most homeless people do not panhandle.
3) Nearly all money given to panhandlers is used to buy drugs and alcohol.

Feeding addictions is the sole goal of nearly all panhandlers. Sure, they may use some of the money to buy food; even drugs addicts get hungry, but if a person were to give food instead of money to a panhandler, that panhandler will be able to save more of his money for drugs….

My recommendation has always been, and still is, to not give money to panhandlers….

In being good stewards, it would only be right to get to know the people you intend to assist with money and other things, before actually giving them.

So now, instead of helping these people without assuming responsibility for any addictions, here’s an actual homeless man telling me to do otherwise. The Homeless Guy goes on to say that he does encourage giving food to homeless people since it’s harder to obtain meals now, so should that be the extent of my on-the-spot giving? Getting to know a homeless person I intend to assist isn’t really that practical most of the time, so what do I do? Do I continue to give of my resources regardless of how they decide to use it? Or, do I keep God’s blessings to myself in the name of “helping them overcome problems?”

Dear Pastor Rol,

Dana and I will always remember you and the influence you’ve had on our lives, both individually and together as a couple. Thank you for not giving up on us when we had given up on each other, for your continued wisdom and insight and gentle but firm correction. If it wasn’t for you, Dana and I might have separated forever and definitely would not be happily married right now. It’s obvious the Lord brought us together for many reasons, reasons that will have an eternal impact on many people’s lives. The fingerprint you left on us will be passed on to our children and others we reach in ministry.

Personally, I’m indebted to you for everything you’ve taught me about ministry, working with people, values, communication and leadership. The person I was back when I first came to Redeemer and the person I am now are two very different people. I’ve grown and matured a lot from our partnership. The good times we’ve gone through as well as the tough times have all taught me to respect you, trust you, and admire the dependence on God displayed through your leadership, something I hope to model for others as I have learned from you. Thank you for empowering me to be successful at Redeemer, for always sticking by my side and for your continued guidance through all situations.

Both you and Joyce mean a lot to me and Dana. We will always love you, cherish you, and support you as you’ve taught me and Dana to do for each other. We’re very grateful to the Lord for the time He put you on loan to us and, although it’s hard to see you go, we’re excited that the Lord will continue to use you to impact many others in Minnesota.

May the Lord bless you as richly as He’s blessed us through you. We love you, Pastor Rol!

With all our love and prayers,
Tim and Dana Schmoyer