Tim Weston

A quick FYI to readers of my blog.  Earlier today I disabled one of the WordPress plugins I’ve been using for a number of weeks: Alex King’s Twitter Tools.

While I love the plugin because it allows me to show my recent tweets in my blog’s sidebar, I had to disable the plugin because it was slowing down the WordPress administrative panel.  While I don’t know for certain, I’m guessing it wasn’t really the plugin, but instead some of Twitter’s service problems, as I think the plugin was trying to connect to my Twitter account.

I’m going to try re-activating the plugin every few days to see if the problem resolves itself.

Last week I attended Creation Festival with 100,000 of my closest friends. Well, maybe not my closest friends, but that’s how many people were in attendance during the four-day festival.

I went with five members of my church’s youth group, a friend of one of the members and another leader. We had a group site with a nearby church, which allowed us to be much closer to the main and fringe stages than we would have if we had gone by ourselves. We (the eight of us) left Tuesday afternoon at 2:00, arrived at the festival shortly before 4:00 and had our portion of the site set up not too long afterward.

The festival didn’t officially start until Wednesday evening, so we had almost a full day to hang out and have fun. I played frisbee for a while that first day and throughout the week, including my first ever game of ultimate frisbee with a group camping nearby. It’s an awesome game, but quite difficult when playing on a hill!

It would take quite some time to review the entire festival, so I’ll just touch on some of my favorites.

Wednesday:

• Justin Lookadoo
• Leeland
• Skillet
• Switchfoot

Thursday:

• Greg Stier
• Britt Nicole
• Jeremy Kingsley
• Ron Luce
• Family Force 5
• David Crowder Band
• Newsboys

Friday:

• Greg Stier
• Paul Baloche
• Bob Lenz
• Group 1 Crew
• Hawk Nelson
• Kutless
• Amy Grant (special guest!)
• Chris Tomlin

Saturday:

• Jeremy Kingsley
• Reggie Dabbs
• Bob Lenz
• Reggie Dabbs
• Barlow Girl
• Jeremy Camp
• tobyMac

And lastly… for those of you who’ve heard about how tarps are put down on the hill each morning, I found a video on YouTube of Saturday morning’s “tarp race.” It just so happens that Saturday wasthe only day where people had to go back and wait 30 minutes.

Last night, at the end of my young adult group’s Bible study, one of the members told everyone about an interesting video on GodTube.  The video is an excerpt of Louie Giglio’s message “How Great is Our God!” and it focuses on laminin, one of the proteins in the human body.

Here’s the video (8m 44s):

Colossians 1:17 says:

¹⁷He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

So, all things are held together in Christ. According to the Wikipedia article on laminin, it is a cell adhesion protein molecule that, in essence, glues the parts of our bodies together. Christ and laminin, then, perform the same function of holding things together.

If it stopped there, it would be cool enough, but there’s more. Check out the following scientific diagram of laminin:

Not only does laminin hold things together like Christ, it actually looks like the cross upon which Christ died for our sins. How awesome is that!?

I’ve always been a fan of podcasts, but recently I’ve become quite addicted to them for a few reasons:

• There are a number of TV shows I enjoy watching that I often miss due to working late or other TV conflicts (e.g. Countdown with Keith Olbermann).
• I’ve discovered some great radio talk shows on NPR (specifically, 88.5 WAMU) that I often miss during the day because of meetings and other work activities.
• It’s a great way to stay informed on topics I love, such as youth ministry, technology and Walt Disney World.

I currently subscribe to the following podcasts (links are to each podcast’s iTunes page):

• Countdown with Keith Olbermann (audio, video)
• Simply Youth Ministry (audio, video)
• WDW Today (audio)
• The Kojo Nnamdi Show (audio)
• The Diane Rehm Show (audio)

This is by no means the largest list of podcast subscriptions I’ve seen, but with over 28 hours of recordings a week, it’s a lot to keep up with.

If you’re a fan of podcasts, let me know which ones you watch/listen to in the comments section below!

For the past few days, temperatures in Central PA (and much of the East Coast) have been in the mid-to-upper 90s with a fair amount of humidity. While the heat and humidity are rather oppressive, it’s easy to escape this deadly duo by seeking relief in an air-conditioned environment.

The apartment I’ve lived in for the past five years has had functional central air conditioning for all but five or six days: it was out for two or three days a couple summers ago and, as luck would have it, from about noon on Saturday until early Monday. That’s right: during the warmest weather we’ve had in quite some time, I was without air conditioning.

At first, I thought the system was struggling to keep up with the warm weather, as the air coming out of the vents was cool, but by no means cold. An hour or two later, I checked the temperature and it was, if I recall correctly, about 76 degrees. Not horrible, but a bit too high considering my thermostat was set at 70.

I decided to call my landlord and, again with my great luck, he was in New York City for the day. He said that one of his tenants in another town had a similar problem but reported it too late and it ended up killing the motor, requiring him to replace the entire unit. So, he suggested that I turn the AC off (!) until he could stop by on Sunday. It didn’t sound like I had any options, so I obliged.

On Sunday, he stopped by and checked the unit and saw that the wiring inside of it didn’t look right, but he couldn’t fix it himself; he’d have to check with his repairman who didn’t work on weekends (!). That meant another day and night of no AC. Fortunately, I was out of the house for most of the day because of church and a youth group event (tubing on the river and a picnic), but by the time I went to bed at 11:00 p.m. the temperature in the house was pushing 90.

Finally, Monday morning the repairman stopped by and took care of the problem. Fortunately it was just a problem with the wires, so, thankfully, the motor and compressor didn’t have to be replaced. I checked the apartment at 9:00 and the temperature was 80 with the thermostat at 68; I checked three hours later and the temperature was down another four or five degrees. By the time I got home from work at about 5:00 p.m., the temperature was a wonderfully cool 70.

Needless to say, I was quite thankful that the air conditioning was working again. However, during the almost 72 hours without it, I wondered what it must be like for people in the United States and other, poorer countries, who don’t have such amenities. I can’t imagine going to sleep each night during the summer with temperatures pushing 80. Though I didn’t like it at the time, I’m very thankful for all of the wonderful things with which God has blessed me!

After I finally finished reading a book I’d been working on for a few months, I went through the books in my “To Read” pile and chose Doug Fields’ What Matters Most: When NO Is Better Than YES.

I’d heard about this book quite some time ago on the Simply Youth Ministry Podcast and it had been in my “To Purchase” queue for quite awhile. While at a recent youth ministry event I noticed that the book was available and on sale, so I picked it up along with a couple others.

Fields’ book was a quick read (I started it during my lunch hour last Wednesday and finished it later that evening) yet it was chock-full of practical advice. Following are some of the things I took away from the book:

• Busyness makes us look important but cripples our relationships. Busyness feeds our egos but ultimately starves our souls. Busyness fills our calendars but fractures our families. And busyness props up our images but shrinks our hearts. ⁽²¹⁾
• You need to learn to say no to many good things and wonderful people so you’ll have space to say yes to God, yes to the important people in your life, yes to priorities–yes to what matters most. ⁽²¹⁾
• Some warning signs to watch out for include constant clutter, addiction to speed (a fast-paced lifestyle, not the drug!), multitasking, superficiality, relationship fatigue, apathy and spiritual emptiness. ^(53-60)

I definitely recommend this book to those involved in ministry so they can learn how to say no before saying yes becomes damaging. This book is equally helpful, though, to those who are already over their heads in the sea of yeses and are looking for a life-saving device.

Earlier this week, I finally finished Praise Habit: Finding God in Sunsets and Sushi by David Crowder of David Crowder*Band fame. It took me much longer to read than I’d hoped/anticipated, but it was worth the wait.

The book focuses on redefining how we think about praising God; instead of being an event, Crowder suggests that it should be a lifestyle. He spends much of the book using various Psalms as examples of how to develop a habit of praise in everyday life.

There was one paragraph in the book that really stood out to me as an example of how most people praise God:

Much of our energy as Christians-attempting-to-live-devoted-lives centers on the development of patterns or activities to strengthen or deepen our “spiritual” selves, things previously mentioned, such as corporate worship, or scholastic theological study, or quite times, or praying before meals. And we thank that if we pray before a meal, it will set this moment apart and other unbelieving peoples might observe our devoutness and we will make a statement that will surely cause them to stop in their tracks. Then leaving that brief holy event well behind, feeling our obligation to “otherness” consummated, we engross ourselves in the devouring of hamburgers and French fries. But it is in the moments that follow our prayers that we are able to follow the trail of our true affections, our hidden motivations. It is in the gluttonous idolatry or tearful gratefulness that we consume the burger. It is in our conversations over the meal–the valuing or devaluing of the ones with whom we find ourselves exchanging conversation It is found in the gratuity at the end of the meal. While somebody else is talking, I usually find myself busily plotting ways to divert the subject matter back to myself rather than lending heart and ear and thought to their discourse. ^{(p. 41)}

It’s a lengthy paragraph, but Crowder is spot on. How many times have I prayed before a meal because I thought I had to, and, thus, rushed through it so I could “check it off my list”? The fact that I repeat the same rote prayer and then dive into my meal shows that I, to use Crowder’s words, consume the burger in gluttonous idolatry. Shouldn’t I be eating it in tearful gratefulness? Sure, the tears sound a bit over the top, but isn’t that the more appropriate way to praise God for the good fortune of having something to eat?

I highly recommend this book to those who yearn to get out of the rut of praising God the same way every day of their lives.

Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to attend Youth Specialties‘ The Core 2008: Generation Change with my pastor and two of my fellow youth volunteers at Camp Hill UMC.

Overall, the event was pretty decent, though I didn’t think it was as good as the previous week’s conference at Messiah College or a training held by Group a few years ago. My main gripe was that the training was more theoretical than practical, so instead of going home with lots of examples and ideas to try, I came home with lots of conversation starters for me and the other youth leaders. Conversation starters would be great if I had lots of time to invest in youth ministry, but I’m neither a full- nor part-time youth leader, so any time I do have comes after my 40+ hour a week job.

Would I recommend the conference to other youth leaders? Most definitely, as long as they understand going in that they’re not going to be talking with their staff on the ride home about all the great ideas they can put in place.

Last Sunday was Christ UMC’s annual Youth Sunday, the one Sunday of the year where the youth have complete (or at least almost complete) control over our worship services.

This year, the youth and leaders decided on a theme of “Jesus is our hope.” The idea primarily came from a popular YouTube video that shows a young woman who was very close with Christ but was torn away and distracted by her boyfriend, greed, drugs and alcohol, etc. Eventually, the young woman realizes that her only hope is in Jesus and, as a result, he breaks through all of the tempters to save the girl.

The teens used the skit (which they performed!) as the service’s sermon. The youth also chose three scripture readings for the morning:

The Parable of The Wise and Foolish Builders

²⁴“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. ²⁶But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. ²⁷The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

The Parable of the Sower

³“Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. ⁴As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. ⁶But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. ⁷Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. ⁸Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times.”

⁹Then Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

¹⁰When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. ¹¹He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables ¹²so that,
” ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,
and ever hearing but never understanding;
otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’”

¹³Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? ¹⁴The farmer sows the word. ¹⁵Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. ¹⁶Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. ¹⁷But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. ¹⁸Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; ¹⁹but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. ²⁰Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.”

Comfort for God’s People

²⁷ Why do you say, O Jacob,
and complain, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the LORD;
my cause is disregarded by my God”?

²⁸ Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

²⁹ He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.

³⁰ Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;

³¹ but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

The services were extremely moving and the youth received wonderful compliments from the congregation; all of the credit, though, must go to God, as during our last couple practices, I had no idea how we were going to get through the services because we just weren’t prepared.

The skit was filmed during the early service, so if I’m able to get a copy of it, I’ll post it here for all to see.

I’ve finally had an opportunity to compile my notes from last week’s 3rd Annual Messiah College Youth Workers Conference, so I’m ready to post a wrap-up of the event.

The highlight of my day was most definitely the keynote speech (broken up into two parts) by Kenda Creasy Dean, a professor and the director of the School of Christian Education at Princeton Theological Seminary.

The focus of the speech was that today’s teens don’t have a Christ-centered faith. Instead, they follow a faith system called moralistic therapeutic deism which has the following creed:

1. A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

The problem, Dean said, is not that they’ve learned this faith from television, movies or music; instead, youth practice this type of faith because that is what the church has been teaching them.

Dean continued by saying that teens need a consequential faith, a faith that is the foundation for everything that matters in a person’s life. To get there, we need to let teens know that there are four key toeholds to consequential faith: a creed to believe (is God worthy of my devotion?), a community to belong to, a call to live out (vocation) and a hope to hold on to. In particular, the hope teens are looking for is that the world is going in a good direction and that they have a role in getting it there.

One of the best parts of the keynote was that I was seated next to a youth leader from a town not too far away from Selinsgrove. It was great to be able to talk with someone from the area who I can interact with after the conference, instead of someone from hours away whom I will likely never see again.

In addition to the keynote speech, the conference also had two other sessions in which participants could choose from a number of topics/discussions. I chose “Writing God’s Story on the Heart of Teens” by Mike Harder and “The Jesus Contradiction: Why People Like Him but Dislike Christians” by Rob Tucker.

In those sessions, I learned how to share the Gospel with students in new and creative ways and be more effective as an evangelist for Christ.  Both sessions were decent, but they seemed rushed, which is typically the case at day-long conferences.

Looking back, the conference was a great opportunity to be refreshed and revitalized for youth ministry.  Each time I attend a conference or training like this, I return home more excited than ever before about serving God by reaching out to teenagers.  If you’re involved in youth ministry and have the opportunity to attend a conference such as this, I highly recommend it!