Video of the Week: Quit Outsourcing Your Kids to Youth Group

Another awesome conversation on youth ministry from the Gospel Coalition. The full article (found here) highlights the Rooted conference, which looks really cool. Check it out:

Quit Outsourcing Your Kids to Youth Group from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

Video of the Week: "Don't Rob the Youth" from the Gospel Coalition

I love this conversation about the role of youth ministry in the local church, especially the question of how to integrate students into the broader church. Well worth five minutes of your time:

Don't Rob the Youth from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

Video of the Week: Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell - The God Debate

Comedians Jamie Kilstein and John Fugelsang square off in a pop debate about the existence of God. This video could be a really good discussion starter on apologetics, the existence of God, or simply popular views about Jesus and Christianity. Check it out:

Video of the Week: "Though You Slay Me" (featuring John Piper)

Love, love this from Shane and Shane. And the message excerpt from John Piper just completes it. Great song on God and suffering:

Video of the Week: Sermon Series on the Apocalypse

Roy, our lead pastor, started a sermon series this past week on the Apocalypse. I really enjoyed the first week; check it out and follow along in the coming weeks:

"The Great Tribulation"_Aug. 11, 2013 from The Heights Community on Vimeo.

A Theology of Tragedy in Youth Ministry

There is something about a high-profile tragedy that brings to light the fact that our world is very, very broken. Yes, on some level, we understand that the victims of violence at the Boston Marathon yesterday represented but a fraction of number of victims of the violent crimes that occurred yesterday in our country and our world. But when the violence occurs on such a large stage, we cannot avoid the news and we are forced to grapple with the questions that inevitably enter our minds when we see such brokenness. At our church office, we paid special attention to the news, as Roy Gruber, our lead pastor was running in the marathon. After about twenty minutes of tension, we finally heard he was safe, having finished the race almost an hour before the explosions turned a scene of joy into a cloud of chaos.

When such events force us to pick up the rock of our humanity and see the dark underside, as youth workers we need to be prepared to help teenagers--and their families--navigate through their emotions and questions. This week, your regularly-scheduled-plan will likely be interrupted with questions about yesterday's tragedy or others like it, such as the Newtown shooting that occurred only months ago. Any youth worker worth his or her salt needs to have worked through a theology of tragedy. Otherwise, the words we offer may be empty, irrelevant, and not based in Truth. Here are some ways to help frame the conversations you may have with teenagers this week:


This world is broken because of sin. Yes, this one seems obvious, but it's an important piece of groundwork to lay in any conversation about tragedy. There is good, there is evil, and it's healthy to distinguish between the two. Even in the case of natural disasters, we can conclude that sin is what broke our world.

How Much Can You Disagree Theologically with Your Church and Still Work There?

Credit: Creative Commons (hang_in_there)

A topic that often comes up among youth workers is theological agreement (or disagreement) with the church that they serve at. Unfortunately, the topic usually comes up only after a youth pastor is already at a job at a church, either because the leadership of the church changes or because the youth pastor fails to ask some important questions regarding the views of the church he's about to serve at. In addition, I don't think it's all that uncommon for a young youth pastor to take a position at a church and only later discover that he holds some theological views that differ from the leadership of the church. Some of these differences are minor, and others might make you feel like you are being dishonest by remaining in your position at that church when you feel so strongly about an issue. So when a you find that some of your theological views are at odds with the stated views of your church, what should you do? Here are some good questions to ask:

Is it really a theological disagreement? Some disagreements that seem to be theological are really philosophy of ministry or strategy issues. Philosophy of ministry issues are also important, but it's unfair to disagree with your senior pastor's strategy and call it a theological issue. To give a small example, I once served under a senior pastor who was very against guns due to some of his experiences doing inner-city ministry. This affected some of our youth events, because laser tag, paint ball, and even water guns were something he was against. While I disagreed with him, it was only a philosophy of ministry issue, and a small one at that--we simply did not play any games with fake guns. Don't make a strategy issue into a theological issue.

Is it a primary theological issue? "Primary" theological issues are issues that are foundational to our faith in Jesus. Examples include the divinity of Jesus, the reality of his resurrection, and the inerrancy of the Bible. For example, whether or not the six days in Genesis 1 are literal 24-hour periods might be an important issue, but it is not a primary issue. Don't make the mistake of turning every single theological issue into matter of primary importance.

Does it affect the way you teach? Are you able to teach from the Bible according to your conscience without contradicting with your church's stated beliefs or the views of your church's leadership in a major way? If the answer is "yes," then in all likelihood the disagreement is fairly minor. If the answer is "no," then you need to talk about that with your church leadership. There will always be minor theological disagreements among church staff members. Don't make a mountain out of a molehill and leave your church over a minor theological disagreement. (Side note: if there is 100% agreement on everything in your church, then you might belong to a cult.)

Does your church leadership welcome the disagreement? The disagreement might be something that your church leadership is well aware of...and okay with. For instance, I would identify "Pre-Tribulation/Post-Tribulation" as an issue that doesn't require 100% agreement on a church staff. Of course, you might feel differently if it's an issue that you feel very strongly about, but the point is that there are some secondary issues that your staff may have already decided to "agree to disagree" on. It's not that they don't feel those issues are important; it's that they don't feel that disagreement on those issues should keep them to from serving together on a church leadership team. That's a different story than if the theological issue at hand is a part of your church's statement of faith.

Does the theological disagreement make me feel like I can't serve at this church? There may be instances when--in good conscience--you don't feel like you can remain at your church, given the theological disagreement. This is not a decision to be made lightly or without a lot of wise counsel. But if you feel like you need to move on, be 100% honest and transparent with your church leadership, and leave well. Don't go all Martin Luther on your church ("Here I stand; I can do no other") over a secondary issue, but rather pave a road for someone else to take your mantle of leadership. If it really is a secondary theological issue, there is no reason you can't leave well and pray that God would bless your church, even though you don't feel like you can serve there anymore.

Do you have any advice for someone who might discover they have significant theological differences with the church he or she serves at?

Free ebook: "Puff or Pass: Should Christians Smoke Pot or Not?"

Credit: Creative Commons (Daniel Veley)

A topic that I've noticed has come up more and more frequently in conversations with teenagers and in messages I teach on drugs and alcohol is the morality of smoking pot. (Honestly, if you're reaching the teenagers you should be reaching, at least a few of them smoke pot and have already asked you about this.) This issue will become more prevalent, I believe, as states continue to pass laws legalizing marijuana for recreational use, as Washington and Colorado recently have done.

Mark Driscoll has recently released a free ebook titled, Puff or Pass: Should Christians Smoke Pot or Not? I highly recommend it as a great resource for youth workers who want to thoughtfully and biblically work through this issue that is not going away anytime soon. Even if you don't end up agreeing with Driscoll's conclusion (I'll let you read the book for that), he provides a solid framework for thinking through all the options available to followers of Jesus on the topic. It's a great tool whether you're just hanging out with teenagers in a coffee shop or doing a series on addiction. You can download the free ebook here, but here's a quick excerpt from the Resurgence blog:

Today, my home state of Washington legalizes the recreational use of marijuana. This decision, of course, leads to a host of pastoral questions and issues.

Important Thoughts on Grace from Mike Yaconelli

I re-read Mike Yaconelli's Messy Spirituality this week, and these paragraphs just jumped out at me:

According to his critics, Jesus "did God" all wrong. He went to the wrong places, said the wrong things, and worst of all, let just anyone into the kingdom. Jesus scandalized an intimidating, elitist, country-club religion by opening membership in the spiritual life to those who had been denied it. What made people furious was Jesus' "irresponsible" habit of throwing open the doors of his love to the whosoevers, the just-any-ones, and the not-a-chancers like you and me.

Nothing makes people in the church more angry than grace. It's ironic: we stumble into a party we weren't invited to and find the uninvited standing at the door making sure no other uninviteds get in. Then a strange phenomenon occurs: as soon as we are included in the party because of Jesus' irresponsible love, we decide to make grace "more responsible" by becoming self-appointed Kingdom Monitors, guarding the kingdom of God, keeping the riffraff out, which, as I understand it, are who the kingdom of God is supposed to include).

-Messy Spirituality, p 47 (bold emphasis mine)

I worry that Christians have a habit of making grace "more responsible." I remember once when I served in a previous church, a teenager in our church brought her boyfriend to church on a Sunday morning. This young man may have never been to church, as far as I know, and I was glad he was there. Our church had two services, and we had a "fellowship hour" between services where we would all enjoy snacks together. While I was enjoying a snack that morning between services in the fellowship hall, a man (who was also on the church board) pulled me aside and sternly instructed me, "Tell that young man to take his hat off!" I was taken aback and explained that it was his first Sunday here, and that he was a guest. "I don't care," the board member huffed. "He needs to learn that you don't wear a hat inside the church."

Heaven, Hell, and Teenagers

As far as I know, there is only one sermon I have ever preached in which someone walked out of the service because of the content of my sermon. It happened to be a topical sermon in the doctrine of hell.

I wasn't offended in the least by these folks' departure from our sanctuary. In fact, I very much understand where they were coming from. For years after becoming a Christian, I searched the Bible for a way around hell (and around other biblical doctrines I wasn't so wild about, too). Even when my searching and researching led me to conclude that to trust the Bible is to trust God that hell exists, I still find myself occasionally avoiding the topic where I can. In my most honest moments with teenagers, I share that one of the hardest parts of the Bible for me to come to grips with is the existence of hell. According to the Bible, hell is awful, hell is eternal, and hell is not empty. And I cannot read C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce enough times to assuage my sadness that hell is not empty.

Three Signs You Aren't Preaching the Word in Youth Ministry

James McDonald has a great post over at The Resurgence on "5 Things We Do Today Instead of Preach the Word." As I read the list, it struck me that "preaching the Word" isn't exactly something that youth ministry is known for. In fact, I've been guilty of every one of McDonald's five points (Entertain, Share, Woo, Intellectualize, and Abbreviate) when speaking to the teenagers I serve.

So, what does it mean to "preach the Word" as youth workers?

Does it mean we can't be funny? I don't think so; some of the best Bible-centric youth ministry speakers I've known have also been very, very funny. One mistake we can make as youth workers is to assume that hilarious stories, impactful movie clips used as illustrations, or even great drama means that we aren't preaching out of the Bible. The problem is that we can allow these elements to replace the Bible in our "talks" or sermons. But where's the line? What's the difference between using a great illustration and allowing it to replace the Bible when we speak to teenagers? Using McDonald's list as inspiration, here are three signs that the Bible--and therefore Jesus--isn't front-and-center in your teaching:

1) Your sermon is more inspired by a movie clip (or other illustration) than a passage in the Bible. Let me confess that I have done this before, and am embarrassed by it. I've watched a movie that included a really meaningful scene and built a whole youth group around it. Hopefully, I tied it back to Jesus and the Bible, but I wasn't teaching out of the Bible. There's nothing wrong with a great clip as an illustration, but a good preacher preaches out of conviction from his or her own study of the Word, not because there's a great movie clip that "the kids will love."

Where is the Grace?

Credit: Creative Commons (asenat29)

The word grace (Greek: χάρις) is used so often in the New Testament (over 170 times, by most counts) that we ought to realize it's a really, really important concept that deserves our attention. In addition, it's used in such a variety of contexts by various authors that an exact, succinct definition is difficult to nail down. Some define it as unmerited favor, while others stress that undeserved mercy is at the heart of the word--as though mercy could ever be deserved. But what is certain about the word grace is that as it is overwhelmingly used in the New Testament, it indicates that God is giving us something that is really really amazing that we really, really don't deserve. If I had to be pinned down to one definition, I would say that grace is undeserved goodness and mercy from God.

I have spent most of the last ten years with lots of lots of church people, and I am continually amazed that some people who have read the Bible and heard about Jesus their entire lives seem to have forgotten about grace. And it's happened to me, too in the relatively short time I've been following Jesus. I am alarmed that there have been times when I exhibited a lack of regard for grace, as though I was entitled to God's favor and the blessing of serving as a pastor in his Church. You might be a squeaky clean Christian who knows little of rebellion, but I can assure that is not my story. When I think of the total disregard I have had in my life for others' lives, hearts, and well-being, not to mention the number of times I have shaken my fist in God's face, I find it incredible that I have even been left alive long enough to write this post, let alone redeemed, reconciled to God, and called to be a pastor, a shepherd entrusted with the care of God's sheep.

Video of the Week: Matt Chandler on the Gospel Project

This video's not necessarily an endorsement of The Gospel Project curriculum from LifeWay. It's not that I don't like the curriculum--I think it's a good idea, and I need to look into the project a bit more. The point of posting this video is that Matt Chandler really expresses one of the mistakes we make in treating the Bible primarily as a road map or instruction manual. Check it out:

Video of the Week: "Blessings" by Laura Story and the Story Behind the Song

In my opinion, one of the hardest truths of Christianity is the fact that God is sovereign, all-powerful, all-benign, yet we as followers of Jesus experience suffering. Too many times, when we or someone we know is experiencing a difficult and trying time, we just say something stupid and trite, or we throw up our hands and pull the "you gotta have faith God will bring you through" card. Instead, we ought to search Scripture--especially the life of Jesus--for answers. And while we certainly won't get all of the answers we'd like, but God does provide sufficient comfort and knowledge of himself for us to cling to Jesus through difficult, desperate times.

Laura Story wrote an amazing song, "Blessings" that addresses suffering in the life of a follower of Jesus. This week's video is her story behind the song. She admits that she and her husband, Martin (who was diagnosed with a brain tumor about five years ago) "still have more questions than answers." The best quote from Laura's explanation of the song is, "Could God possible be blessing us through not giving us the things we're praying for?" I highly recommend you take the time to watch the whole thing:



And if you've never heard the song, here's a rendition of "Blessings" Laura did on KLOVE:

Church Signs, Eternity, and Evangelism

I thought we'd start off this week with a good discussion. I came across a church sign (see below), and I think it will make for some good conversation. The photo may or may not elicit a strong reaction, so a few ground rules:

1) No cheap shots. Stick to discussing the sign and the questions, not passing judgment on others.

2) If #1 is unclear, please take a moment to read Matthew 7:1-5.

Without further ado, here's your sign (sorry, couldn't resist):

Video of the Week: Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus

Great artistic representation of the difference between religion and the Gospel of Grace. If you haven't yet seen it, give it a look. If you've already seen it, watch it again:

Top Posts of 2011, Part 2

Credit: Creative Commons (iUnique Fx)

This week, it's "avoid creating new content week" as we look back on the past year and the most-read posts of 2011 at Discipleship, Family, Ministry. Of course, posts written early in the year will have an advantage because they've been around longer, but you know what, November and December? Life just isn't fair.

Yesterday I posted numbers six through ten of the top ten list. Today we'll look at one through five, and tomorrow I'll share the five most popular videos.

Top Ten "Discipleship, Family, Ministry" posts of 2011: numbers 1-5
5) Theology and Youth Ministry - Beginning the Discussion (January 11th)

4) Theology and Youth Ministry - Paul Martin (January 13th)

3) Theology and Youth Ministry - What's a Youth Pastor? (February 16th)

2) Theology and Youth Ministry - Brian Kirk (January 12th)

1) What If You Were the First Youth Pastor Ever? (August 9th)

Update: You can see the most popular videos of 2011 here.

Isn't There Anyone Who Can Tell Me What Christmas Is All About?

A great reminder from Linus of how to celebrate this weekend what Christmas is all about from A Charlie Brown Christmas:



Merry Christmas from the McVeigh family!

Tony Jones: "How Youth Ministry Made Me Emergent"

This month, I contributed an online article for Immerse Journal in response to Tony Jones' print article, "How Youth Ministry Made Me Emergent." Though Tony and I certainly don't see eye to eye on a number of issues, I really respect him as a solid thinker in the "emerging church movement" who is leading the way in really thinking through and writing about the convictions and direction of the emerging church. He's really a sharp guy.

If you've never checked out Immerse, I definitely recommend that you do so. As you can guess from my response to Tony's print article, there are a wide range of views represented such that you'll find things that you resonate with and things you disagree with. One thing's for sure: the content in Immerse raises the bar when it comes to thinking theologically about youth ministry.

Here's an excerpt from my response to Tony Jones. I'd appreciate it if you would head over to to the Immerse website to read the whole thing and add to the discussion:

On Idols and Methods

Allow me to provide a working definition of the word idol: "Anything we trust more than God."

Sure, we know that we're not to worship anything besides God. But I believe we have a very narrow definition of "worship."

This year I've been reading through the Old Testament, and I've noticed something: generally, when Israel worshipped idols, they were putting their trust in those idols. When we speak of idols in our churches, typically we point to things that we really, really love that takes away from our love of God. But for Israel, more was at stake. They understood (more fully than we do) that they had very little control over most of their circumstances. They got crops when it rained. People lived longer when there was a spell with few outbreaks of diseases.

But when things didn't go well, they suffered. And sometimes, they would look around and notice that nearby populations outside Israel were enjoying better circumstances. Some saw that they followed other gods, so they followed suit. Israel didn't just love their false gods; they trusted in them instead of Yahweh.